The $5,000,000 ID Research Challenge

I apologize for my rudeness. I had thought you were educated and giving me a hard time.

Geez, thanks. Now please respond to my points.

Try the Discovery Institute ...
Discovery Institute - WikipediaEnjoy

OK. Maybe we are getting somewhere.So what is an "I.D. Hub"?

How about an impartial non-profit that issues grants to students to study actual science, funded by (religious) donations, for students that want to investigate ID?I think a lot of religious people would donate to such a program.Enjoy

• impartial non-profit
• funded by (religious) donations
• study actual science
• investigate ID

Sounds oxymoronic all around. But lets give some leeway.Are there some research proposals that would match the "actual science" and "investigate ID" criteria? I keep getting visions of Behe's irreducible complexity or Fairchild's prayer healing where the "actual science" is hostage to predetermined conclusions like all other "religious" research ever devised.I would like to see some grant proposals.However, there is the strong possibility that if there are grants to do real actual science research into ID the results will disappointingly show it is all bullshit. I guess that's just a chance we will have to take. Not that the proponents will believe the results just like they don't believe the ... real science results ... already done. But, hey, maybe some kids will learn to do some real science in the process. That's a win-win ... ehh ... lets just say it's a win situation.

Isn't there that strong possibility for a number of grant proposals? A lot of this depends on your perception, too. For some of you, there's not a trace of a clue that biological life was engineered, while for others there are such clues.But I really don't think we need $5,000,000 to test specific ID hypotheses. Some of the hypotheses I outlined a few pages back could be neatly tested using standard bioinformatic techniques. If ID is to make any headway in academia, it will be through the medium of the scientific literature. By proposing novel hypotheses to current biological problems (e.g., the problem of the origin of life), the ID position could be tested.

A while back the Templeton Foundation solicited grant proposals to research "Intelligent Design," and funded quite a few of them. The results were very disappointing, leading to the following decision: So, what you are asking for was tried and abandoned nearly a decade ago.Face it: "intelligent" design is religion with the serial numbers filed off in a dishonest hope of fooling someone. (That hasn't and will not work.)

That probably wasn't research on intelligent design as a biological hypothesis, was it? Although the exact details appear to be elusive, I strongly suspect that what the Templeton Foundation actually funded was research by ID proponents on subjects like the limits of protein evolution. Understanding the limits of protein evolution is of interest to ID researchers, but that in itself does not test the notion that biological life was engineered. But I'm not asking for that. I suggest testing specific ID hypotheses (instead of focusing only on the limits to Darwinian evolution). Sure, there's the risk that "if there are grants to do real actual science research into ID the results" will demonstrate that ID is a futile area of research. But then again, there's the chance that the ID hypotheses will be experimentally validated, and this would lead to a whole new area of research. The proposition that biological life on Earth was engineered is religion? Please elaborate on how the above idea is religious in nature.Now, the Intelligent Design Movement certainly has a religious and political agenda, but let's not confuse the movement with the idea.Edited by Genomicus, : No reason given.

Actually I have been half-heartedly thinking of creating such a grant awarding body to encourage kids to get into science. I would expect failure to be part of the education.Wanna help?Enjoy.

What legitimate science does is explore potentials. What I'm not getting from you is any specifics about how your suggestions will point in the direction of "God".You'e basically just saying, "Go out and look for stuff." What we want in this thread is something more specific.Columbus wouldn't have gotten any funding if he had proposed just sailing around until he found something interesting. He had to specify what he was looking for, where he expected to find it and how he planned to go about getting there.That is what we want from you. Not just, "Look around and you'll find God," but, "I think God is at location X. I propose to go there by following route Y which will cost Z dollars."Tell us what route Y is.

Then why can't we study life? False. I am asking if life has been altered by an intelligence in the past. Why would we need too? When we want to determine if a rock was used as a tool by a primitive intelligence on Earth we don't have to travel back in time to interview that intelligence. Rather, we look at the marks left on the tool. We look for striations from wear and patterns of knapping, as two examples. We can also trace the flint used in the arrowheads to the source rocks and determine where arrowheads are made. All of this is done without needing to grill or detect the intelligence themselves. So why can't we do the same with life? That is what I am asking for, experiments in the field of biology that will grow our knowledge of technology with respect to intelligent design just as it is done in all other fields of science. Is that where they started for determining what makes up the atom? No. Is that where they started out when they tried to figure out how arrowheads were made thousands of years ago? No. What you are discussing is not scientific research. So how will this be used to test the hypothesis that life was designed by an inteligence in the past?

So what experiments can I run in the field of biology to obtain this evidence? So what experiments can I run in the field of biology so I can know if an intelligence changed life in the past? That's not science.

The English you wish clarified is simply stated and clear. Please restate any confusions of how I define words that are not used in the same manner or definitions by individuals with similar teachings of how to use ambiguous words... and I will attempt to explain the definitions so that you understand the idea I am attempting to relay.

If that write up is accurate the discovery institute is unacceptable.Teaching 'anti-evolution' does not fit the goals of science, which in my opinion, will not throw away science when offering alternate theories or possibilities.Evolution does not teach that God is not, or that I.D. is not a possibility: if it is being taught that way, then the teachers are being just as indoctrinating and foolish as those who teach two of every animal will fit on a boat.