The Power of the New Intelligent Design...

Nobody can understand your links because they're gibberish! Far worse gibberish than what you've been posting on this forum.Besides not wanting to waste our time and effort to try to make sense out of nonsense, it is the policy here to write the point that you're trying to make in the message rather then send us off on a wild goose chase.Of course, if even you do not understand your gibberish enough to be able to write a concise and comprehensible summary of it, then that pretty much settles that. Copy-and-pasted gibberish will still be gibberish. Like warmed-over moose-turd pie.

He's projecting. Because he only writes in gibberish, he thinks that everybody else only write in gibberish.Either that or his reading comprehension is really that bad. It never ceases to amaze me how creationists keep demanding answers but will never ever even consider going to the actual experts who would have those answers. So many times we see creationists demand highly technical answers from "experts" like park rangers (eg, for complete detailed explanations of Grand Canyon geology), museum docents (eg, for complete detailed explanations of transitions in the fossil record), or air conditioning salesmen at a trade show (eg, for a complete detailed explanation of the atmospheric dynamics that would get refrigerants up high enough in atmosphere to endanger the ozone layer -- this actually happened!).I think that trend of avoiding the actual experts started in the early 70's when Drs. H. Morris and Duane Gish gave a creationism presentation to scientists at the US Geologic Survey. The scientists' responses were mostly helpful attempts to correct the creationists' misunderstanding of thermodynamics and to explain to them what it really is. This disproved our attitude that creationists are incapable of learning: they learned to not talk with scientists and that has become a central principle in creationism.If MrID really wants to know how to tell whether something is an artifact, then he needs to talk to the actual experts who do that all the time: archeologists!But he will never ever talk with an archaeologist, because he doesn't really want an answer to his question. He just wants to continue making the false claim that scientists cannot answer his question.Creationism is as creationism does.

My understanding of Dumbski's "specified complexity" is that it is nothing but a BS term that has no actual meaning. Of course, he also throws in a lot of technical jargon and math expressions in order to really confuse and intimidate the rubes -- one thing you can say about those "ID proponents" is that their bullshit is a lot better quality than the YECs' BS, but BS nonetheless.The mere presence of complexity in natural objects (eg, organisms) does not classify them as "manufactured." Evolutionary processes generate large amounts of complexity and one of the most common properties of products of evolution is complexity, even irreducible complexity, such that if something displays high levels of complexity then that is a very strong indication that it had evolved (or at least had come about through evolutionary processes whether naturally or artificially).That last informs us that complexity alone, regardless of how high a level of complexity, does not serve to distinguish between natural objects and artifacts. In experiments, we have used evolutionary processes to create extremely complex designs (irreducibly even) -- eg, a functional amplifier built on an FPGA far exceeding any human's ability to have designed (eg, it made us of electrical properties within individual components in the FPGA) which was irreducible since any single change a researcher made would break it completely, TIERRA a-life organisms evolving reproductive code far shorter than any human researcher could have imagined, etc.Another far more common example would be most software projects of any appreciable scope. Being a retired software engineer, I had for decades observed many software projects which we developed using methods strongly suggestive of various aspects of evolutionary processes. You want to design a new product that does some things similar to another product, so you copy that other project's source code and start modifying it. Within your product you are tasked with adding a new feature which your boss wants yesterday, so you copy a similar section of the code into a new module and then modify it. And so on. What results are hundreds of source code files that interact with each other with such complexity that the programmers can no longer keep track of what's actually happening. We try to devise and implement design methodologies and protocols to keep the design process under control, but very often it's a losing battle. There are times when every agrees that the best thing would be to just start all over from scratch, but we don't have the time nor resources to do that so we just keep modifying what we already have. In effect, software evolves into every increasing levels of complexity.Those products of evolution were manufactured, albeit in fashions that the humans involved could not fully understand. In terms of complexity, they are indistinguishable from naturally occurring products of evolution, except perhaps that naturally occurring products of evolution are far more complex.That is why the mere presence of complexity is insufficient to identify something as being manufactured. Instead, we need other criteria which is why MrID needs to talk with the actual experts of such work, archaeologists.We should note that in actual intelligent design the goal is to minimize complexity, especially unnecessary complexity (which occurs in great abundance in the natural world). Parsimony is far more important in intelligent design than is a penchant for Rube Goldberg travesties. Maintenance and repair on an overly complex device become virtually impossible, not to mention alignment procedures, so a clean design is the goal rather than complexity. That IDiots keep harping on complexity being an indication of "intelligent design" only proves that none of them are themselves intelligent designers, AKA engineers -- OK, maybe some of them had remained in academia but had never worked in the real world (like one of the worst EE professors I ever had).Another feature of intelligent design is modularity, which can include (or at least allow) pin-for-pin substitutions. You want to improve part of your design? Remove that component and replace it with a new component that appears to function the same within the device but internally it is completely different. That is part of the goal in object-oriented programming (OOP) in which an object's interface to the program remains the same while how it operates internally can be changed drastically, including with all new technology. Our Plymouth minivan was just like the others of its model, except the American engine had been replaced with a Mitsubishi engine; that is something intelligent design can do, but evolution cannot.Consider the ubiquitous windshield wiper delay mechanism. Extremely simple to implement with a simple electronic circuit, yet hardly any cars except for the most fancy and expensive ones had that feature. That is because it was at first designed evolutionarily and not intelligently. Car designers made use of the engine's vacuum line to control certain functions of the engine, so they extended use of the vacuum line to control other functions, such as controlling pop-up headlights on sports cars and intermittent windshield wipers. That was the evolutionary approach; thankfully, they then used the intelligent design approach and just completely replaced those functions with entirely different technology (ie, electronics).So the main problem that IDiots have is that they do not understand complexity and they do not understand design. In addition to talking with archaeologists, they should talk to some practicing engineers too.

You keep saying that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.In fact, I do know what it means! And all your babbling has convinced me that you have absolutely no clue what it is.You are so strongly driven to oppose evolution, even unto the point of eliminating it. How could you possibly ever do that if you have absolutely no clue what it is that you are fighting?It is far worse than that if you have devoted yourself to the typical creationist fallacious "logic" that your religious faith is based on the false dichotomy that it's either evolution or your creationism such that if evolution is true then your religion is false. Your recent silly "challenges" strongly indicate that that is indeed the case; eg: Since you have no clue what evolution is, all your attempts to defeat it are doomed to failure. Which means that your creationism will fail and be proven wrong. In which case your "logic" will demand that you forsake your religion.What an idiot! The only endeavor that has ever succeeded in disproving God is creationism! The only reason why creationism succeeds in disproving God is because that is what its lies demand and you are too stupid to realize how fallacious its lies are.Please do yourself a really big favor: Learn something!

My experience with the Jesus Freak Movement was around 1970, a couple years after it was just getting started, and most things are still the same half a century later. While some things have changed (eg, they are no longer so hard-core into hyper-aggressive proselytizing, demonology, and End-Time prophecies having evolved into less virulent forms by having gotten a life with families, careers, and home mortgages), many things remain the same even half a century later, including beliefs that the Bible contains no error and that finding even one single error in the Bible would require that you reject it and become a hedonistic atheist (I used to correspond with a Canadian YEC who insisted on that most vehemently).That initial Jesus Freak experience with fundamentalist beliefs helped to inform me in my experiences with creationists since 1981. Repeatedly, creationists would insist that if their claims were found to be wrong, if evolution were found to be true, then that would disprove Scripture which in turn would either disprove God or reveal God to be unworthy of worship (being such a liar). IOW, they were making their faith dependent on creationism and their creationist claims such that the only alternative would be atheism -- we see this in MrID's "challenges"; eg, in Message 52, Message 55, Message 56, Message 59.Here are some creationist quotes that I have collected to illustrate how they insist that Scripture must take precedence over reality and also that being faced with reality poses a danger to their faith:

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"No geological difficulties, real or imagined, can be allowed to take precedence over the clear statements and necessary inferences of Scripture."
(Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research, Biblical Cosmology, page 33)

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"The data of geology, in our view, should be interpreted in light of Scripture, rather than distorting Scripture to accommodate current geological philosophy."
(Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research, Science, Scripture, and the Young Earth, page 6)

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"There seems to be no possible way to avoid the conclusion that if the Bible and Christianity are true at all, the geologic ages must be rejected altogether."
(Henry Morris, Scientific Creationism, 1974 [1985 2nd ed.], p. 255)

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"If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning."
(John Morris as reported in "The 1986 International Conference on Creationism" by Robert Schadewald, Creation/Evolution Newsletter, Volume 6, Number 5, September/October 1986, NCSE, pp 8-14.)

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"If evolution is true, then the Bible is not true."
(John L. Groenlund, What is the Purpose of Creation Ministry, in Institute for Creation Research Back to Genesis Report No. 78, June 1995)

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"[Glenn R. Morton, practicing petroleum geologist and staunch creationist, asked John Morris of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR)], 'How old is the earth?' 'If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning.' Morton then said that he had hired several graduates of Christian Heritage College [which formerly housed the ICR], and that all of them suffered severe crises of faith. They were utterly unprepared to face the geological facts every petroleum geologist deals with on a daily basis."
("The 1986 International Conference on Creationism" by Robert Schadewald, Creation/Evolution Newsletter, Volume 6, Number 5, September/October 1986, NCSE, pp 8-14.)

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And by Conrad Hyers, PhD in Theology and Philosophy of Religion, Professor of Religion, ordained Presbyterian minister, and author of many books on religion:

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"It may be true that scientism and evolutionism (not science and evolution) are among the causes of atheism and materialism. It is at least equally true that biblical literalism, from its earlier flat-earth and geocentric forms to its recent young-earth and flood-geology forms, is one of the major causes of atheism and materialism. Many scientists and intellectuals have simply taken the literalists at their word and rejected biblical materials as being superseded or contradicted by modern science. Without having in hand a clear and persuasive alternative, they have concluded that it is nobler to be damned by the literalists than to dismiss the best testimony of research and reason. Intellectual honesty and integrity demand it."
(Conrad Hyers, The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science, John Knox Press, Atlanta, Georgia, 1984, page 26

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Creationists appear to be convinced that science disproves God or at least is trying to. But since it is humanly impossible to work objectively with the supernatural, it is clearly impossible to either or disprove God. Science could never disprove God, nor would it ever have any reason to attempt to do that. Even the most rabidly anti-God anti-theist could never disprove God. Nor is it possible to prove God.However, creationism succeeds in disproving God, something that nothing else has been able to do. But it can succeed only if you accept its premises and apply them to the following syllogism: That condition X can take many forms; eg:

• The earth is old.
• Evolution is true.
• There are errors in the Bible.
• Creationist claims are wrong.
• The world is indeed as we find it to be.

Of course, Premise A in the creationist's syllogism is false. In formal logic, a valid syllogism proves its conclusion to be true if and only if all its premises are true. Since Premise A is false, that does not prove Conclusion C to be true (nor does it prove the conclusion to be false, but rather merely that we cannot conclude anything about the truth of the conclusion -- so nobody try to seize upon this to prove God).It is only by accepting the false Premise A as being true, as creationists do immediately and without giving it a thought, does Premise B, which is true, lead to the faulty conclusion that God is disproven. Creationists have bought into this exercise in sophistry to the point that the only way that they can keep God from being disproven is to deny the truth of Premise B. They must deny reality at all costs as if their faith depends on it, because it does. Rather they should instead abandon that false Premise A by realizing that reality actually does not disprove God (rather it's just your own false and foolish ideas about God that are being disproven by reality).

What the hell are you talking about? You present us with that as a "reply" to my message Message 77, but nothing in your "reply" has anything whatsoever to do with what I had written in that Message 77. What I had written was a description of how (and partially why) creationists go out of their way to avoid actual experts and then I suggested that you talk with the actual experts in distinguishing between natural objects and artifacts: archaeologists. Nothing in your "reply" addresses what I had actually written.Also, your "reply" makes no sense at all and borders on gibberish. What the hell are you talking about?That makes absolutely no sense unless I assume that that was a typo and you instead meant to say "URL" (Uniform Resource Locator).I already followed your link. I read the abstract and it was pure gibberish. Level of intelligence: ZERO! And then you expect us to slog through 38 pages of what promises to be even worse gibberish, wasting all that time and effort on that crap? Oh f*ck no!And our complaint about your abysmal failure to write is not just because we disagree with your position (if you can ever get around to presenting it), but rather because your writing really is that bad. In Message 89, WookideB, a fellow IDist who should be on your side, also found that your writing is gibberish: You really are that bad. It is a forgone conclusion that Nature will reject your "article", but not because of prejudice but rather because your writing is so horrible. You need to learn how to write!Team up with friends and associates and use them to proofread your stuff. And listen to them! If they cannot understand what you're trying to say, then they will tell you that and they will tell you why. Using that feedback, you might be able to learn how to write. Continue on your current path and you will remain incomprehensible.Of course, that assumes that you do actually want to get your message across and to convince others of it. Instead, you might be engaging in typical creationist BS practices of posting harangues and empty posturing and trying to generate as much confusion as possible (verily, confusion is the creationist's best friend while clarity is one of his worst enemies (truthfulness and honesty and the truth being a few other of his worst enemies)).So what are you here for? To inform, teach, and convince? Or to try to bullshit us?Edited by dwise1, : Clarification of the last sentence in penultimate paragraph

We all know what he's doing with his submission to Nature. He wants them to reject it so that he can then wail, moan, and gnash his teeth over how prejudiced scientists are and how they are persecuting him, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

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Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon; it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.

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Yes, comparing MrID to a pigeon is very insulting ... to the pigeon.In reality, his paper will get rejected first because it is incomprehensible gibberish that a third-grader would be ashamed to acknowledge as his and second because his ideas in that paper are pure crap and third he gets all the science wrong (including, I'm sure, by misrepresenting what evolution, the very thing he is trying to "disprove", is).I wish to propose an experiment. MrID should also submit his "paper" to a number of leading creationist organizations to publish it -- eg, AiG, Discovery Institute, ICR -- and see what happens. I predict that they would also reject it as unreadable, even though they would agree with its conclusions. In the unlikely case that they do decide to publish it, they would require a complete rewrite (assuming that they have some shred of editorial responsibility, which may be assuming too much).

Geez! And here we thought that Kent Hovind's non-dissertation for his fake PhD was bad! (The Dissertation Kent Hovind Doesn't Want You to Read)

MrID, AKA Edgar Postrado, has published a Kindle version ($0.00) on amazon.com, The New Intelligent Design, Turning The Scientific World Upside Down. Reading his own forward and the reviews of his work are very telling.First, in his Message 89 WookieeB pondered whether English is not MrID's native language. MrID is from the Philippines and one reviewer says that English is his third language. However, years of experience on a programming forum visited by many non-native speakers has taught me that non-native speakers' English is far superior to native speakers' with the only problems being the occasional slightly odd word order and word choice (eg, in asking about how to use semaphores, a Portuguese programmer's dictionary wrote "lights" (as in traffic lights) because that's what his dictionary told him. Rather, MrID's immersion-blended English is not due to problems with English, but rather to his state of profound mental confusion.The first paragraph from MrID's "editorial review" reads:

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I do not have time right now to make additional info for this science book. For your convenience, I should be writing a SECOND EDITION for this science book about "intelligence" and about "Intelligent Design". WHY should I need to make a revised SECOND EDITION of this science book? Just to help you understand the new science from my new discoveries and to lower my intellectual understanding of reality in accordance with your level. I hope I could so that when someone asked you about the topic of "intelligence", you will not become a stupid person who will be giving that person the wrong answer. The right answer MUST always come from this science book..or you cannot answer that topic.

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And his "From the author" has him comparing himself to Albert Einstein. 'Nuff said, but you can read it yourself if you're feeling masochistic.Here are the six reviews, 5 of them one-star (the lowest rating possible) that say a lot and one a 5-star that says almost nothing.First the 5-star review, the first one posted so it smells like a shill to me:

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5.0 out of 5 stars God's Fringerprints
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2015

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Great book with undeniable science. Easy to read even for laymen!

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Now the one-stars:

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1.0 out of 5 stars Almost incomprehensible, written by a semi-literate buffoon
Reviewed in the United States on May 8, 2015

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Although the author tortures the English language, he unfortunately does not force it to reveal anything.

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"Have you think about these before opening the book?"
Such was one of the sentences in the very first paragraph of this book, and it's a fairly accurate indicator of what's to come.
Postrado continues that proud creationist tradition of putting forth his arguments, completely ignoring the highly critical responses and refutations and then declaring his arguments unbeaten.
The grammar in this book is terrible, with syntax so distorted that it would make anybody with a decent grip on the language cringe, such as labelling Michael J Behe "one proponents of Intelligent Design".
The arguments are even worse, such as "if intelligence is dead, it will force us to predict that since human could produce PC, a stone could produce a PC too, since the two will just be using the same "natural processes", as the obvious pattern in/of nature." Just a few pages in and I have already run out of fingers with which to count the grammatical errors.
"for four years span, I did not stop thinking about the topic of 'intelligence' for almost every day"
"This was the story of my quest of the discovery of intelligence that will surely turn the scientific world upside down."
Postrado refers to information found online as "in the internet".
He also spends pages and pages devoted to different definitions of 'intelligence' that he copied from the dictionary or various textbooks, presumably to pad it out a bit more. How many definitions he uses I can't rightly tell you, as I gave up counting after 67.

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The grammar and logic presented in this book wouldn't be acceptable in primary school, and at some points it gets so that you can barely comprehend what he is saying, so how he expects to 'turn the scientific world upside down' is simply beyond me. To be fair, English is Postrado's third language, but the fact that he didn't hire an editor/proof-reader (or couldn't find one) is very telling.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Nonsensical
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2020

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Incoherent, unintelligible, inarticulate, incomprehensible, disjointed, muddled nonsense from a confused, foolish, egotistical, pretentious mind.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Edgar Postrado is Not Even Wrong
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2017

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Edgar cannot even understand that position he's attempting to oppose. He reliably strawmans the work of Charles Darwin, modern understandings of the Theory of Evolution, and even the position of the Intelligent Design proponents.

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He has no concept of how to perform a scientific experiment, formulate a hypothesis, or analyze the results. Full stop.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Makes the old ID sound sciency
Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2022

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Inconceivably incoherent, and has nothing to do with science...just dressed up bad philosophy with the word 'science' like someone is name dropping. Certainly he's no C.S. Lewis...

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1.0 out of 5 stars ... care to call it that) will leave you less intelligent than when you started
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2015

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Reading this "book"(if you care to call it that) will leave you less intelligent than when you started. This should be sold along side toilet paper, since they serve the same purpose.

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Actually, it cannot even serve the same purpose as toilet paper since it's a Kindle file. Hence even more useless.

Of course you do not care, because you hate and must avoid reality at all costs.What those reviews reveal is that everybody who actually tries to read your crap arrives at the same evaluation of it: that it is nothing but crap, bullshit, bovine excrement, bat guano, nonsense. So it's not just your reception in this forum, but rather your reception everywhere.It does not matter one whit that you think it is perfect if everybody else recognizes it as nonsense. As our Lindy Hop teacher once advised us about rotating partners in group class:

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"As you rotate you will have problems with some partners and not with others, so be patient with a bad partner knowing that you will soon rotate to a good partner. However, if you have problems with everybody, then you are the problem!"

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MrID, you have a problem with everybody who has ever attempted to read your ... crap. Let's face it, you are the problem, not the rest of the world. Please do something about it. 
Why are you here? What is your objective? What are you trying to accomplish? What are you doing that supports your objective? How is that working for you (ie, are you succeeding or failing and why?)?If your objective is to be a stupid troll and to thoroughly discredit both yourself and the ideas which you appear to state that you promote (ie, "intelligent design"), then you have been very successful in trolling and discrediting ID.If instead your objective is to convince us of your "new ID", then you are failing miserably, abysmally even.In order to succeed in convincing us of your "new ID" (or at the very least to understand it), you need to present your description of it and case for it clearly and intelligibly (meaning that we must be able to make sense of what you write). In other words, YOU MUST BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE! It does not matter one whit how absolutely brilliant you believe yourself to be; if you cannot communicate your "brilliant knowledge" to us then that makes you nothing more than a gibbering idiot. Which is exactly what everybody who encounters you thinks you to be, because that is all you have demonstrated yourself to be. Stop it already!Then by saying that, the second stupidest thing you have ever said, you prove yourself to be a much bigger idiot than we thought you to be. Your critics are telling you what you are doing wrong, so by ignoring them that means that you can never learn anything.When you were learning arithmetic, whenever you performed a calculation incorrectly your teacher told you that you had gotten the problem wrong. That was the only way you had to know that you had gotten the wrong answer and that you needed to make corrections in order to learn how to get it right. If you had ignored your teacher every time he corrected your arithmetic mistakes, then you would have never learned arithmetic. Instead you would strut about (like a gallo cantando) full of absolutely empty pride over being infinitely superior to everybody else in arithmetic while at the same time being completely incapable of performing any arithmetic calculation. That is your current condition with regard to science ... and reality ... and everything else. 
You need to learn how to write. One good approach would be for you to employ some proofreaders (which was suggested by one of the reviews, which is further evidence of what a total f*cking idiot you are for ignoring him). Present your "article" to your proofreaders and listen to their critiques of it. I've told you this before in Message 99: So if you want to learn how to educate or convince someone, then team up with someone who will then tell you whether it worked (and far more importantly why it failed). That is why you need to work with proofreaders.Of course, we already know that you are far too much of a f*cking idiot to do what you need to. But you could always give us a pleasant surprise.  As the great American philosopher, Gomer Pyle (USMC), often said:

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Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!

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Give up with your stupid links. We fell for that once and you have taught us far too well.Edited by dwise1, : Added qs at the beginning

In military humor there was a list of quotes from British naval officer fitness reports (fitreps, the officer version of enlisted evals). One memorable one that repeatedly comes to mind in my encounters with creationists:

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Since my last report he has reached rock bottom, and has started to dig.

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Just for fun, a few more from that list:

• His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.
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• This Officer is really not so much of a has-been, but more of a definitely won't-be.
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• When she opens her mouth, it seems that this is only to change whichever foot was previously in there.
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• He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction.
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• He would be out of his depth in a car park puddle.
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• This Officer reminds me very much of a gyroscope - always spinning around at a frantic pace, but not really going anywhere.
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• This young lady has delusions of adequacy.
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• When he joined my ship, this Officer was something of a granny; since then he has aged considerably.
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• She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
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• This Officer should go far - and the sooner he starts, the better.
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• This man is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.

Carry out the Plan of the Day! Dismissed! 

Casting more pearls before swine (meaning you, but since you're obviously a Christian I have no doubt that you cannot recognize that reference since you will not have actually read the Bible), but lurkers may benefit from these pearls even though you never will. Since you have displayed no understanding of science, plus learn something and realize that the purpose and goal of science is to study the physical universe (AKA "reality") and to discover how it works. That means that when a scientist observes something, his first question will be "How does that work?"In contrast, "Intelligent Design" (ID) doesn't care how reality works (nor even what reality is), but rather seeks to subvert reality to be subordinate to their religious misconceptions. We see that in their basic argument of [voice=dull_IDiot]"Duh, this is really complex; I can't figure how it happened so God must'a dun it!"[/voice] The problem for ID is that "god-did-it" answers nothing and even serves to stop science from seeking answers (refer to the topic here, So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY)).Amateur geologist J. Richard Wakefield expressed it very well in two articles in which he examined Robert Gentry's bogus polonium-halo claims. He went to the sites where Gentry had obtained his samples and found that Gentry had grossly misrepresented those formations. At first Gentry agreed to work with him, but then quickly backed out as the truth started to come out.Wakefield concluded one article ("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32) with:

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Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.

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In another article which I must quote from memory, Wakefield's conclusion included:

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When a scientist encounters a mystery, he must do everything he can to solve that mystery. When a creationist encounters a mystery, he equates it with God and so must do everything he can to keep it a mystery.

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That describes ID completely. 
For example, what about the question of how biology works?A basic definition of evolution that I've adopted is that it's the cumulative consequences of what happens when life does what life naturally does, especially what happens to generations of populations of individuals as they survive, reproduce offspring who are very similar to them yet different, then those offspring mature and survive (or don't), etc, etc, etc. That in its most basic minimalist form is what evolution works with.ID's basis is "God did it". Doesn't deal with how life actually works, nor with reality itself. Just "goddidit". The Theory of Evolution is the best explanation that we have of everything that we see in biology. In contrast, ID explains nothing about biology.So which is the better explanation? Something that actually offers an explanation or something that can never explain anything?Now, why should an explanation of biology have any importance? Basically, it's in the difference between knowledge and understanding. Knowledge is nothing but a dry list of facts that you must memorize but which tells you nothing about those facts. Understanding is realizing what all those dry facts have to do with each other and with so much else.Our first stop in that question is the very famous quote from an article by Theodosius Dobzhansky, Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution (American Biology Teacher 35:125-129 (March 1973), p. 129) -- (quoted here a bit more fully than usual):

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Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light, it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious, but making no meaningful picture as a whole. . . . Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. As pointed out above, the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness."

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In the family I had built, our love of science was based in understanding it and how it worked, a love that we passed on to my sons who also grew up loving science. In contrast, my nephew's experience with science was solely memorizing disassociated facts that made no sense, so he grew up hating science. Many people have similar love-vs-hate relationships with history depending on whether they learned history with the motivations involved or solely as a list of dry and very dusty names and dates.Decades ago, I attended a talk by Dr. Eugenie Scott, then-Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). In her talk, she told a story from her personal experience as a Physical Anthropology professor (entirely from memory and placing her in the third person):

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Surprisingly, many biology departments do not teach evolution to their undergraduates -- maybe they're saving that for grad school. So her physical anthropology class would include biology seniors who needed one more science class to meet their general ed requirements and they figured her class would be an "easy A". Poor fools! For one thing, she most definitely taught evolution in her class.

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That meant that these biology majors were learning about evolution for the first time. As the semester progressed, she would watch these bio majors for that "aha!" look to show up on their faces as they would suddenly realize, "So that's why ... ". Up to that point, they had had to memorize biological facts with no idea why it was that way. Now they understood why.

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Dr. Scott had presented that story to illustrate the truth of Theodosius Dobzhansky's statement that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.

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Now to really blow MrID's mind: ToE is not reality, but rather it explains reality. That is what a theory does: it explains something.ID explains nothing. If you have any evidence or actual arguments to refute that, then do please present it. Any of it.

Not for your benefit, for you are terminally and willfully stupid. Pearls cast before swine, but then, as a typical Christian, you know nothing of what the Bible says, do you?Rather, we also post for the lurkers. Or "visitors". At the moment that I am writing this, 5 members are present in this forum, while 39 visitors are also present. They can see what I post as well as what you post. They can see your nonsense as well as my own reasonable postings.

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For the ones who appreciate pearls of wisdom, rather than the typical swinage:

Long long ago in a cyberspace far far away, there was a TV screenwriter, J. Michael Straczynski (best known as JMS). Over all the then-known realms of cyberspace (eg, CompuServe, Genie, etc -- this was before the Internet, mind you (Oh! You (MrID) didn't know about that either? Dang!!!)) JMS was spreading the word about this really great idea he had for a TV show. That eventually became Babylon 5.

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As he pitched his show to his future audience, we split into two different groups: the ones who responded and the vastly larger group, the lurkers, those who sit back silently and observe what's really going on. JMS went out of his way to recognize his lurkers by choosing to use that term for the homeless living in the lower levels of that space station (hey! We can't all be antiseptic Star Trek types). On-line, the repository for things relating to Babylon 5 is The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5.

Share and enjoy!

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What transpires between you and me doesn't mean anything to either of us (unless either of us were to say something that the other would recognize as making sense, which you could never ever be able to consider, hence the subjunctive mood).You want to convince Everything you write is gibberish. Nobody ever reads it. Everything you write is gibberish. Nobody ever reads it (at least past the first attempt).Nobody ever chooses to try to read gibberish.
Nobody has ever attempted to read the gibberish trash that you had "published".Except for the few who now complain of brain damage.

First, I have tried to read your nonsense! It's nothing but gibberish. It says nothing! Trying to read it is almost literally slogging through waist-deep steaming manure trying to find a single item of any value but there's none to be found. So when you insist that we slog through a new pile of manure, the proper response to you is "Fuck you, asshole!"That is why you must respond here in the forum. Which you refuse to do, instead directing us to your pools of steaming manure. Of course, you cannot afford to make any sense since the deception you are practicing (ie, creationism) depends on confusion and falls apart when examined directly.There's also the point that you are not even wrong! In order to be right or wrong about something, you have to have addressed that thing. If you do not even bother to address the subject, then you are not even wrong!Let's take evolution as an example. You can claim all you want that you are refuting evolution, but if you never address evolution then you aren't even wrong about evolution. Because you're not even talking about evolution!Remember what that one reviewer wrote?

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1.0 out of 5 stars Edgar Postrado is Not Even Wrong
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2017

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Edgar cannot even understand that position he's attempting to oppose. He reliably strawmans the work of Charles Darwin, modern understandings of the Theory of Evolution, and even the position of the Intelligent Design proponents.

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He has no concept of how to perform a scientific experiment, formulate a hypothesis, or analyze the results. Full stop.

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You are not even wrong in your pathetic attempts to refute evolution, because you aren't talking about evolution.It is impossible to refute nonsensical gibberish, so your gloating over nobody being able to refute your nonsense is nothing but your own admission that you write nothing but nonsense. That is not something to be proud of.Read this total refutation of "Intelligent Design":

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I letting my review of memory best. Describing at times comments distinctly different. I posted creationists argue against wrong about evolution. There are so many things wrong with that one, but remember "The Ladder of Life", a new biological term.

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Now refute it. If you cannot refute it, then explain why you cannot.BTW, I meant for that to be gibberish, but it is very difficult for a functional brain to generate the level of nonsense that comes so naturally to your own non-functional brain.

We all know that you are just trying to play the old dishonest creationist game of crying like a spoiled baby that "they won't publish us because they're prejudiced against us! Waaaaaah!!!"The two reasons why they won't publish your "article" are 1) because it's anti-science nonsense and 2) your writing is unreadable gibberish.The real test would be for you to submit the same tripe to a leading creationist publication. How likely is it for them to publish it without completely rewriting it? But of course you would never do that because it would expose your deception for what it is. Fail? You cannot even get it started! In order to falsify evolution, you must address evolution! But you never do that! Instead, you make up some bullshit strawman to attack without getting anywhere close to evolution (not even in the same city, let alone the same neighborhood).Before you can even consider refuting evolution, you must first learn something about evolution! But you refuse to learn, so you will never succeed. You're not even wrong!