Texas Op-Ed: Ain't no religion here

Where do these people think all the oil came from? This question has always bugged me. Where does Sarah Palin think that all the oil in Alaska came from? Now there's a question I wish they'd asked during the VP debates!

No, wait, maybe these people have the answer to all our problems here! If all the oil on Earth somehow formed in just a few hundred years, then obviously our entire approach to energy policy needs a radical overhaul. These people shouldn't be wasting their time trying to change a few local school curricula--they should be petitioning our government for a major change in our energy policy! Since oil clearly doesn't take hundreds of millions of years to form, then instead of trying to develop green technology and alternative energy, maybe we can figure out how to make oil ourselves. Or maybe we should all just be praying for the creation of more oil!

They're brilliant! :)

The Law of Biogenesis?

Yeah, well the "Law of Biogenesis" is yet another term where the context has been - and this will really, really surprise you - completely butchered by creationists.

The origin of life in respect of how it may have started on the planet billions of years ago has little (if any) relation to what Pasteur, Redi, etc "proved" in respect of "life arising from life" and which gave rise to said "Law".

On the "Law of Biogenesis," which is simply the demonstration that spontaneous generation of complex life forms doesn't occur, John Wilkins has a comprehensive article on what was actually demonstrated at Talk Origins. Here's the Google cache of that pending the fix on the Archive:

http://64.233.169.132/search?q=cache:A24zgXBEHUsJ:www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/spontaneous-generation.html+wilkins+pasteur&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=au

Young Earth Evidences This striking presentation shows that there is far more scientific evidence for a relatively young Earth than for an exceedingly old one.

Where does Sarah Palin think that all the oil in Alaska came from?

— Matt

Since oil clearly doesn’t take hundreds of millions of years to form, then instead of trying to develop green technology and alternative energy, maybe we can figure out how to make oil ourselves.

After ingesting that article it was refreshing to wash out its residual bad taste by reading the six response letters to the editor...all, in their own way, holding up the article to well deserved ridicule.

--
Martin

wolfwalker wrote:

"In the original post, Richard quoted the SABBSA website regarding “two fossils, the Willet and Alvis-Dalk footprints” which “prove that man and dinosaurs coexisted in the not so distant past.” I’ve never heard of these two alleged fossils, and a web search found nothing about them. What are they and what’s their history?"

I'm sure that they published something in the peer reviewed literature first before taking the fossils out on public display. I'm sure they didn't just make some plaster casts in their basement and try to fool everybody. I'm sure they realize that even their dimwitted audience would see right through that since they are taught to critically analize everything. I'm sure a good database search will turn up the publication. Yea right.

These guys have a simple case of science envy. Their faith apparently just isn't good enough for them. For some reason they feel compelled to make up "scientific evidence" for things that haven't been controversial for hundreds of years. They will get exactly what they deserve. What's next, letting snakes bite them?

wolfwalker said: In the original post, Richard quoted the SABBSA website regarding "two fossils, the Willet and Alvis-Dalk footprints" which "prove that man and dinosaurs coexisted in the not so distant past." I've never heard of these two alleged fossils, and a web search found nothing about them. What are they and what's their history?

For a good review of this fakeprint:

http://paleo.cc/paluxy/delk.htm

Frank J said:

Where does Sarah Palin think that all the oil in Alaska came from?

— Matt

Unfortunately I lost the link, but I read somewhere that she might have been at least partly straightened out since she made those "man walking with Dinosaurs" comments years ago. The question remains whether she converted to OEC, theistic evolution or found the strategic value of "don't ask, don't tell" ID.

These ignoramuses are almost too good to be true - are we sure they're not a parody?

In any case, they are doing a wonderful job of proving the link between good old-fashioned Genesis creationism and the bogus claims that intelligent design has nothing to do with creationism or religion. For that, more power to them.

Hi all,

I wish to bring to your attention this rather absurd, quite inane, misrepresentation of the theory of punctuated equilibrium as noted in the newspaper Op-Ed piece:

"However, there is a large body of evolutionary scientists which do not subscribe to the traditional gradualist's theory of mutation and want to shift evolutionary research and theory to the hybrid theory of punctuated equilibrium (the theory that evolution happens in huge jumps of mass mutations which would explain why we find so few transitions in the fossil record)."

Initially American Museum of Natural History invertebrate paleobiologist Niles Eldredge developed the theory of punctuated equilibrium (which his friend Stephen Jay Gould coined as "punctuated equilibrium", so noted in their classic 1972 paper) as a means of applying Ernst Mayr's theory of allopatric speciation to the marine invertebrate fossil record. It was only later in subsequent papers that Eldredge and Gould expressed the hope that their recognition of long-term morphological stasis might suggest that contemporary evolutionary theory was incomplete in addressing this and other relevant issues as seen from the fossil record. To say that punctuated equilibrium is somehow "...the theory that evolution happens in huge jumps of mass mutations" is a gross distortion and substantially ignorant misinterpretation as to what Eldredge and Gould have said about it (Indeed this characterization is far more consistent with Goldschmidt's "hopeful monster" hypothesis - which has been rejected - than with any of the concepts associated with punctuated equilibrium.).

Regards,

John

a complete summary of Dr. Baugh’s talk and these two pieces of very special creation evidence

[...] The Creation Science Foundation (CSF) has had many calls from people who have seen the shows and suspect that some things are not quite right about Baugh's teaching. It is with heavy heart that we criticise others who are presenting themselves as spokesman for creationism, but who are doing damage to the cause of Christ through ill-founded claims. [...]

A copy of Baugh's CAE "diploma" (furnished by Baugh) indicates that CAE is the "Graduate Division" of International Baptist College (IBC).[21] IBC is incorporated in Missouri (where Baugh lived before coming to Texas); however, the school is not accredited, nor certified to grant degrees in any subject.[22] In fact, IBC appears to be as lacking in science facilities and courses as CAE. When I called IBC in 1986, the man answering the phone stated that IBC is a correspondence school for Bible studies based on cassette tapes by Jerry Falwell.[23] Further, the letterhead of IBC listed Baugh himself as "President."[24] Thus, it appears that Baugh essentially granted himself a science degree from a branch of his own unaccredited Bible school. Perhaps not surprisingly, Baugh's doctoral "dissertation" is largely a compilation of anti-evolutionary arguments on the origin of man, and includes an extensive section on missions that consists of literature by others which was photocopied and inserted.[25] [Emphasis added.]

After ingesting that article it was refreshing to wash out its residual bad taste by reading the six response letters to the editor…all, in their own way, holding up the article to well deserved ridicule.

the Law of Biogenesis

Lee Bowman said: That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified, OR that it need involve supernaturality.

Torbjörn Larsson, OM said:

Lee Bowman said: That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified, OR that it need involve supernaturality.

It easily follows from your own description that ID isn't, and never intends to be, a hypothesis or even less a theory, since it isn't falsifiable. To be testable you need to specify the terms "intervention" and "supernaturality" and exactly what these mechanisms do in nature. But describing and investigating creationism is something the IDiots of the inappropriately named "Discovery" Institute famously been entirely, willingly, and obediently incompetent at during the 20 years or so it took for the ID political movement to evolve from advocating "intelligent design" to "strength and weaknesses of basic biology, and biology alone" under the selection pressure provided by the US constitution and law. (Which is one reason we call them IDiots.)

65

If I take that literally, then it means that she’s become a supporter of theistic evolution.

— John Kwok

There are now seven responses, mine just provided. As an ID advocate, the ‘directed’ premise is neither ‘faith based’, nor even accepted without question, nor does it specify the degree of intervention.

— Lee Bowman

There’s a whole lot of Dover Traps out there waiting to be sprung.

Lee Bowman said:

After ingesting that article it was refreshing to wash out its residual bad taste by reading the six response letters to the editor…all, in their own way, holding up the article to well deserved ridicule.

There are now seven responses, mine just provided. As an ID advocate, the 'directed' premise is neither 'faith based', nor even accepted without question, nor does it specify the degree of intervention. While not positing a means of intervention, it would follow as a second hypothesis that it would be coding alterations to the genome. If ID is accepted as valid science, and not religion, it must remain objective and open. I am open to all of the tentative causative mechanisms that have been posited, and open to more as scientific evidence may provide. It would logically follow, that as a modification to current evolutionary theory, that both are competing hypotheses. That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified, OR that it need involve supernaturality. That is a 'supposition', based on a concept that has been passed on based on the religious presupposition that God, god or gods are supernatural (outside the natural universe). Design as a concept does not depend on that premise, nor does it presume an overseeing entity (God) as the designer(s).

The problem with Lee's argument is that we should consider 'design' as plausible, and yet, 'design' will always remain plausible even when it can be fully explained in scientific terms. But the plausibility of 'design' does not necessarily make it a scientifically relevant concept.

Simple really

Mike said:

There’s a whole lot of Dover Traps out there waiting to be sprung.

How? Just as a practical matter, how? There is a whole lot of the crap out there, more than most participants on this blog seem to realize, or wish to believe, but I'm skeptical that hauling them all into court is the solution. Where's the money for this going to come from? Just what family in Texas is going to sacrifice themselves to their hostile community in order to bring Mr. Everyone Loves Him Science Teacher into court?

That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified, OR that it need involve supernaturality.

* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies. * To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Go right ahead. No one is stopping you. Feel free to do the research necessary to validate it as a fruitful and verifiable hypothesis. No one’s stopping you. Strange, though, that the main ID proponents – people like Dembski and Behe – seem to spend their time on polemics rather than constructive research.

Lee Bowman said: If ID is accepted as valid science, and not religion, it must remain objective and open.

Hi Paul. I posted my response 25 min ago at SA but it didn't post, so here 'tis, in case it was grabbed by a spam filter, or failed moderation.

My take on the Wedge document is that is was, in fact, somewhat telling. But as a ten year old internal document, I feel that it lacks relevance today. One position was that it provided evidence of a conspiracy to invoke religious orthodoxy within the halls of science. That may well have been a dream of Phillip Johnson, but I would rather posit that it was more the depicting of an ideological hope that the institute, through their work, could work to reduce that overreaching materialist bent (at least in his/their view) that pervaded science, and to encourage more temperate position.

The tone and tenor of it was more to diminish the position of materialism as being dominant, than to impose theocracy as a requirement. And if you think about it, the latter would be an abject impossibility. Their rebuttal could be debated, but I feel it has some merit.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=349

I cannot speak for them, but I would say that their position today, at least regarding ID, is more balanced and secular, as they themselves have stated.

What is there to show? Not much in the way of funded, published studies, but is that so strange, since it is the stated policy of NSF, AAAS, NAAS, NIH, et al is to disallow ID. Moreover, even if valid, most within science regard ID as additional unneeded baggage, and as a means for religious doctrine to wheedle it way in.

There is evidence of design in nature, but due to biases, fears, and cultural inertia, it is widely opposed. Lately, to try to take some of the heat off, there is a movement to get church leaders to agree to evolution as stated, and to some extent, it's working. The ones who agree to it, mostly liberal churches, tacitly fall back on a kind of 'theistic evolution' to ease the pain of agreement.

I've written extensively regarding Judge Jones' two-part decision, agreeing on the first, and rejecting the second. It's also been questioned by legal groups, the Montana Law Review being one:

http://www.umt.edu/mlr/Discovery%20Institute%20Article.pdf

Finally, it's OK for you to use the term 'Intelligent Design Creationism' if you choose, but there is no validity in that conflation. Barbara Forrest (NCSE) and her co-author Paul R. Gross coined the term, and while some employ it, it hasn't really taken off. Not only the school board members borrowing the term, and with the Thomas Moore Law Center's endorsement dishonest, I'd even go so far as to call them 'squirreling dervishes', albeit unsuccesful ones at that!

As a summary statement of the two being one, it may have been *somewhat* true at one time, Creationists coopting the ID designation, it was never, nor is it now, a true liaison. ID is a scientific hypothesis.

Lee Bowman said: Hi Paul. I posted my response 25 min ago at SA but it didn't post, so here 'tis, in case it was grabbed by a spam filter, or failed moderation. My take on the Wedge document is that is was, in fact, somewhat telling. But as a ten year old internal document, I feel that it lacks relevance today.

One position was that it provided evidence of a conspiracy to invoke religious orthodoxy within the halls of science. That may well have been a dream of Phillip Johnson, but I would rather posit that it was more the depicting of an ideological hope that the institute, through their work, could work to reduce that overreaching materialist bent (at least in his/their view) that pervaded science, and to encourage more temperate position.

Their rebuttal could be debated, but I feel it has some merit. http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=349

I cannot speak for them, but I would say that their position today, at least regarding ID, is more balanced and secular, as they themselves have stated.

What is there to show? Not much in the way of funded, published studies, but is that so strange, since it is the stated policy of NSF, AAAS, NAAS, NIH, et al is to disallow ID. Moreover, even if valid, most within science regard ID as additional unneeded baggage, and as a means for religious doctrine to wheedle it way in.

There is evidence of design in nature, but due to biases, fears, and cultural inertia, it is widely opposed.

I've written extensively regarding Judge Jones' two-part decision, agreeing on the first, and rejecting the second. It's also been questioned by legal groups, the Montana Law Review being one: http://www.umt.edu/mlr/Discovery%20Institute%20Article.pdf

ID is a scientific hypothesis.

That was quick. Do you have a 'hot key' for 'blockquote'?

Lee Bowman said: That was quick. Do you have a 'hot key' for 'blockquote'?

Go right ahead. No one is stopping you. Feel free to do the research necessary to validate it as a fruitful and verifiable hypothesis. No one’s stopping you. Strange, though, that the main ID proponents – people like Dembski and Behe – seem to spend their time on polemics rather than constructive research.

— RBH

As an ID advocate, the ‘directed’ premise is neither ‘faith based’, nor even accepted without question, nor does it specify the degree of intervention. While not positing a means of intervention, it would follow as a second hypothesis that it would be coding alterations to the genome.

We are taking an intuition most people have (the belief in God) and making it a scientific and academic enterprise. We are removing the most important cultural roadblock to accepting the role of God as creator.

To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

If ID is accepted as valid science, and not religion, it must remain objective and open. I am open to all of the tentative causative mechanisms that have been posited, and open to more as scientific evidence may provide. It would logically follow, that as a modification to current evolutionary theory, that both are competing hypotheses.

That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified, OR that it need involve supernaturality. That is a ‘supposition’, based on a concept that has been passed on based on the religious presupposition that God, god or gods are supernatural (outside the natural universe). Design as a concept does not depend on that premise, nor does it presume an overseeing entity (God) as the designer(s).

Lee Bowman wrote: There is evidence of design in nature, but due to biases, fears, and cultural inertia, it is widely opposed.

Amazingly, after almost 2 years, not one person has submitted a proposal.

I’ve got 10 spots of paint on my garage floor. Nine of those spots came from a can of paint that developed a leak from rust. One spot I deliberately made. I designed it. I did it on purpose. I caused the one spot to be there on the floor. So, tell me Mr. Intelligent Design, what is design? What distinguishes my spot from the nine natural ones? What is the metric of design?

I’ve written extensively regarding Judge Jones’ two-part decision, agreeing on the first, and rejecting the second.

— Lee Bowman

Finally, it’s OK for you to use the term ‘Intelligent Design Creationism’ if you choose, but there is no validity in that conflation.

My dear "pal" Lee:

How can you hold these inane remarks of yours to be worthy of scientific veracity, when ID has not generated testable scientific hypotheses, been presented at peer-reviewed scientific meetings like the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) or published in peer-reviewed scientific journals like Evolution, Nature, Science, Cladistics or Paleobiology:

"If ID is accepted as valid science, and not religion, it must remain objective and open. I am open to all of the tentative causative mechanisms that have been posited, and open to more as scientific evidence may provide. It would logically follow, that as a modification to current evolutionary theory, that both are competing hypotheses."

"That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified, OR that it need involve supernaturality. That is a ‘supposition’, based on a concept that has been passed on based on the religious presupposition that God, god or gods are supernatural (outside the natural universe). Design as a concept does not depend on that premise, nor does it presume an overseeing entity (God) as the designer(s)."

Since your desire that Intelligent Design be treated as valid science is one based solely upon faith, then may I suggest investigating the possibility of Klingon Cosmology as a rational, quite logical, alternative to ID, and one that is more consistent with mainstream science than ID will ever be.

Of course I doubt you'll listen to any of us who do possess legitimate scientific credentials here at Panda's Thumb, since you are quite delusional, so I wish you well....

Live Long and Prosper (as a Dishonesty Institute IDiot Borg drone),

John Kwok

Writing about something you have not learned anything about is risky. Check out the website of the National Center for Science Education and download the transcripts of the trial. Also look at the interview with Judge Jones.

Dear Torbjörn,

The so-called "Biogenetic Law", best known as "Ontogeny recapitulates Phylogeny" was developed by the likes of von Baer and Haeckel back in the early to mid 19th Century. While it is now recognized as scientifically untrue (For an excellent discussion, I must refer you of course to
Stephen Jay Gould's magnificient "Ontogeny and Phylogeny"), there are many creos who contend inanely that it is an established part of accepted science, especially with respect to evolution.

Regards,

John

Lee Bowman said:

Writing about something you have not learned anything about is risky. Check out the website of the National Center for Science Education and download the transcripts of the trial. Also look at the interview with Judge Jones.

You're a little late in your request. I followed the trial on a daily basis, and have read the transcripts, including testimony, briefs, and opinion. I've heard/read most of the interviews as well, including the latest one. Interesting that in that one, Jones admits that the defendents were used by Thomas Moore Law Center, who had an agenda, and that they were largely uninformed. I commented on that intervew here, but have retracted the 'putz' remark. Jones was actually quite wise in his actions. http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/12/interview_with_judge_jones.php

Lee Bowman said:

I’ve got 10 spots of paint on my garage floor. Nine of those spots came from a can of paint that developed a leak from rust. One spot I deliberately made. I designed it. I did it on purpose. I caused the one spot to be there on the floor. So, tell me Mr. Intelligent Design, what is design? What distinguishes my spot from the nine natural ones? What is the metric of design?

I like your analogy. So let's see, 9 accidental spots of paint, and 9 favorable mutations ... or did I miss your point?

Hi John,

Long time no converse. I accept your conclusions, but you left out the word 'vacuous'. As you must know by now, I don't fit what you and many consider the religiously biased ID perspective, nor to many others who are taking a more objective view of ID.

Judging from a noted change in online comments, including many by credentialed observers and scientists, there is a paradigm shift in the works. There is a substantial growing criticism of 'gradualism', to use a very general (and non-scientific) term, but one that nonetheless well characterizes in general terms natural selection. New gene functions are coming to light, and also new predictions with regard to evolutionary processes.

Regarding Klingon Cosmology , I considered, then rejected it long ago, but may consider it again, if its proponents can offer up any new, viable, and testable hypotheses, and cite current work being done in the field.

Cheers

Lee Bowman said:

I’ve got 10 spots of paint on my garage floor. Nine of those spots came from a can of paint that developed a leak from rust. One spot I deliberately made. I designed it. I did it on purpose. I caused the one spot to be there on the floor. So, tell me Mr. Intelligent Design, what is design? What distinguishes my spot from the nine natural ones? What is the metric of design?

I like your analogy. So let's see, 9 accidental spots of paint, and 9 favorable mutations ... or did I miss your point?

Lee Bowman said: My take on the Wedge document is that is was, in fact, somewhat telling. But as a ten year old internal document, I feel that it lacks relevance today.

No, Lee, you didn't miss my point, you ducked my point.

Like a weasel evading a swooping hawk.

Let me lay out my point in English.

ID proponents lack a metric for design. Can't measure it objectively, like distance, time or temperature.

Therefore, it's impossible for you to determine which spot was designed and which spot was created naturally.

Ergo, you have no data, you have no hypothesis and you have no theory of "intelligent design."

All you have is I and D with a vacuous middle. (hat tip to John Kwok for reminding me to use your favorite word.)

Lee wrote:

"A proposal might be in order, but as I mentioned, would likely be rejected. It raises the question, however, of who would make the proposal. That might still be a way off."

Now why would the DI reject a proposal from one of their own fellows? I don't think that the Templeton Foundation would have rejected a real proposal, at least not initially. Of course you can only claim discrimination by NIH and NSF if you actually submit a proposal.

Submitting proposals is only the first step of course. You must also get results and publish them. If you refuse to even take the first step, then scientific acceptance of ID might indeed still be a very long way off. You might want to come up with a scientific hypothesis that you can test even before submitting proposals.

Science is as science does. Even Forrest Gump knows that.

Lee

I totally agree with your approach:

"Regarding Klingon Cosmology , I considered, then rejected it long ago, but may consider it again, if its proponents can offer up any new, viable, and testable hypotheses, and cite current work being done in the field."

Regarding ID Cosmology , I considered, then rejected it long ago, but may consider it again, if its proponents can offer up any new, viable, and testable hypotheses, and cite current work being done in the field.

Can you supply something to help in my reconsiderations? If you can you will have made a major step forward which will be welcomed.

Alan

ID proponents lack a metric for design. Can’t measure it objectively, like distance, time or temperature.

----- does anyone have a metric for design??

What is the metric for 'evolution'??

I wish I did, but your argument is nothing new and lacks as usual in specifics beyond a claim that ‘ID is scientific’ So let’s explore this What is ID? How do you define Design How do you define 'Intelligent'?

How does ID infer ‘Design’?

What predictions does ID make?

How does ID propose to move from ‘design’ to ‘agency’?

How does ID constrain the ‘Designer’?

Lee Bowman said:"Don’t forget, I am not actively engaged in research, so am not in a position to answer questions like these definitively."

Lee Bowman said: A proposal might be in order, but as I mentioned, would likely be rejected. It raises the question, however, of who would make the proposal. That might still be a way off.

You make some good points on that linked piece from your posting on talk.origins, and yes, it is time for ID to be a little more aggressive. But as I stated, not to debunk evolution, but to modify it.

I see where the Explanatory Filter is being rethought, and revised. I haven't read the thread yet, and only touched on some prior ones, but you might want to peruse it, and yes, to comment as well.

Lee Bowman wrote...

Finally, it’s OK for you to use the term ‘Intelligent Design Creationism’ if you choose, but there is no validity in that conflation. Barbara Forrest (NCSE) and her co-author Paul R. Gross coined the term, and while some employ it, it hasn’t really taken off. Not only the school board members borrowing the term, and with the Thomas Moore Law Center’s endorsement dishonest, I’d even go so far as to call them ‘squirreling dervishes’, albeit unsuccesful ones at that!

As a summary statement of the two being one, it may have been *somewhat* true at one time, Creationists coopting the ID designation, it was never, nor is it now, a true liaison. ID is a scientific hypothesis.

Lee Bowman wrote...

I like your analogy. So let’s see, 9 accidental spots of paint, and 9 favorable mutations … or did I miss your point?

Lee Bowman wrote...

Lately, to try to take some of the heat off, there is a movement to get church leaders to agree to evolution as stated, and to some extent, it’s working. The ones who agree to it, mostly liberal churches, tacitly fall back on a kind of ‘theistic evolution’ to ease the pain of agreement.

Lee Bowman wrote...

That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified,

Lee Bowman said:

Writing about something you have not learned anything about is risky. Check out the website of the National Center for Science Education and download the transcripts of the trial. Also look at the interview with Judge Jones.

You're a little late in your request. I followed the trial on a daily basis, and have read the transcripts, including testimony, briefs, and opinion. I've heard/read most of the interviews as well, including the latest one. Interesting that in that one, Jones admits that the defendents were used by Thomas Moore Law Center, who had an agenda, and that they were largely uninformed. I commented on that intervew here, but have retracted the 'putz' remark. Jones was actually quite wise in his actions. http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2008/12/interview_with_judge_jones.php

Lee Bowman said: What is there to show? Not much in the way of funded, published studies, but is that so strange, since it is the stated policy of NSF, AAAS, NAAS, NIH, et al is to disallow ID.

Lee Bowman said: Judging from a noted change in online comments, including many by credentialed observers and scientists, there is a paradigm shift in the works. There is a substantial growing criticism of 'gradualism', to use a very general (and non-scientific) term, but one that nonetheless well characterizes in general terms natural selection. New gene functions are coming to light, and also new predictions with regard to evolutionary processes.

Lee Bowman said: Intelligent does not connote omnipotent, or even wise. Just an agency capable of making a decision and acting upon it.

The central one is that further evidence of design will turn up. Regarding analyzing the existing data, postdictions could be made in some cases to explain the cause(s)

Design inferences, when properly analyzed, reflect upon 'agency'. For instance, predator v. prey (similar to Dover v. Buckingham), could infer competing intelligences, seeing who wins a bet. The natural world has aspects similar to an ongoing sporting event. That's one example, and intended to be speculative, rather than authoritive.

Don't forget, I am not actively engaged in research, so am not in a position to answer questions like these definitively.

No, Lee, you didn't miss my point, you ducked my point. Like a weasel evading a swooping hawk.

ID proponents lack a metric for design. Can't measure it objectively, like distance, time or temperature. Therefore, it's impossible for you to determine which spot was designed and which spot was created naturally.

Ergo, you have no data, you have no hypothesis and you have no theory of "intelligent design."

tyt said: What is the metric for 'evolution'??

Lee Bowman said: Not in the case of spots, but in complex structures yes, there are inferences both for design and chance. Design might show built in redundancy, unneeded structures (again, for backup support or redundancy), and perhaps repair structures, separate from the actual construct being analyzed. These point to design, and a look-ahead function of resiliency, that an accidental process would not come up with. Thanks, Doc Bill, for giving me some ideas for a new design inference!

Ergo, you have no data, you have no hypothesis and you have no theory of "intelligent design."

It's a work in progress, and will post-date both of us. Let me ask you a question. If design in biosystems were true, would it bother you personally?

Your statements once again lack specifics and in fact, I deny that there are relevant statements to the issue here. Even if scientists were to work on a paradigm shift, nothing of this has relevance to ID. Until you can present a more coherent argument supported by factual references, I have to, as usual, reject your vacuous claims.

Seems to me that Lee's 'argument' is that since design (whatever the term may mean) has not been disproven and thus remains a logical plausibility but that does not make the concept of design scientific or have scientific content. In fact, claiming that degeneracy or error correction is evidence of design lacks a foundation of 'design' that predicts what and how. Mythical mechanisms by mythical entities hardly qualify as science.

As to error correction and redundancy, evolution can show how such can arise. Now the question is, given the mechanisms of evolution what else can we find to support or disprove such hypotheses.
For instance the genetic code provides a good example as to how science goes about formulating hypotheses and testing for them.

What has ID done in this area? Wait... don't tell... let me guess... Nothing... But just wait... Any time now... Perhaps... Well I am not really in any position to make such predictions... Oh well, design is obvious to those of sufficient faith.

Don’t forget, I am not actively engaged in research, so am not in a position to answer questions like these definitively.

— Lee Bowman

Lee Bowman said:

Your statements once again lack specifics and in fact, I deny that there are relevant statements to the issue here. Even if scientists were to work on a paradigm shift, nothing of this has relevance to ID. Until you can present a more coherent argument supported by factual references, I have to, as usual, reject your vacuous claims.

No, I think you misunderstand me here. This comment is not meant to be a 'claim', but a 'prediction'.

And worse, the prediction (sic) has no relevance to ID.

(1) "Ask yourself this simple question: How does ID explain the bacterial flagella? (2) "It doesn't, it merely calls it 'designed' which is a placeholder for our ignorance as to how to explain the flagella."

(1) Answer: It's a machine with functional components. The design and construct process is largely unknown, but researchable.

— Lee Bowman

(2) The 'designed' designation IS in fact a placeholder, but for further study. This brings up a common complaint that ID offers no testable hypotheses. I submit that a hypothesis comes first; the testing later. Since there's no funding, and there is stigma attached, there has been little confirming research done as yet. I predict that that will change with the new crop of scientists, a few of whom may see its relevance, and pursue it. A word to any out there who may fit that category. That word is 'Nobel.'

— Lee Bowman

Lee Bowman said:

There are now seven responses, mine just provided. As an ID advocate, the 'directed' premise is neither 'faith based', nor even accepted without question, nor does it specify the degree of intervention.

First, if you wish to be taken seriously, don't assert something most of us already know from experience to be FLAT OUT NONSENSE!

While not positing a means of intervention, it would follow as a second hypothesis that it would be coding alterations to the genome.

That's what natural selection does. Intelligent Design involves making up whole genomes from scratch.

If ID is accepted as valid science, and not religion, it must remain objective and open.

Exactly! And we don't accept it as valid science because it is not and to say that it is is to be either lying or delusional. Next!

I am open to all of the tentative causative mechanisms that have been posited, and open to more as scientific evidence may provide. It would logically follow, that as a modification to current evolutionary theory, that both are competing hypotheses.

For ID to compete with evolution, it must explain the data as well as evolution does. Saying some Intelligent Designer in the past did something to create life explains nothing, because it leaves a big gap in our knowledge, "Where is the Designer?", which only religion can answer. Evolution allows for atheism by leaving no such gap, but it also does not require atheism. But you can't be an ID advocate without ASSUMING a Designer that science cannot access. NEXT!

That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified, OR that it need involve supernaturality. That is a 'supposition', based on a concept that has been passed on based on the religious presupposition that God, god or gods are supernatural (outside the natural universe). Design as a concept does not depend on that premise, nor does it presume an overseeing entity (God) as the designer(s).

If you beleive the lies that the ID promoters tell to get around the limitations imposed by the Constitution, then your lack of critical thinking worries us.

Lee Bowman said: Hi John, Long time no converse. I accept your conclusions, but you left out the word 'vacuous'. As you must know by now, I don't fit what you and many consider the religiously biased ID perspective, nor to many others who are taking a more objective view of ID. Judging from a noted change in online comments, including many by credentialed observers and scientists, there is a paradigm shift in the works. There is a substantial growing criticism of 'gradualism', to use a very general (and non-scientific) term, but one that nonetheless well characterizes in general terms natural selection. New gene functions are coming to light, and also new predictions with regard to evolutionary processes. Regarding Klingon Cosmology , I considered, then rejected it long ago, but may consider it again, if its proponents can offer up any new, viable, and testable hypotheses, and cite current work being done in the field. Cheers

John Kwok said: If there is a "paradigm shift" occurring in evolutionary biology, then it is due to those working actively on pursuing testable hypotheses, confirming them via experiments and observational data, and then having them presented at peer-reviewed scientific meetings and finally, published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. There's no "moaning" and "whining" of the kind we've seen from you, Luskin, Dembski, Wells, Behe, Nelson, and your fellow compadres and other acolytes associated with the Dishonesty Institute. Dembski and Behe have had nearly twenty years to present credible scientific evidence in support of Intelligent Design BUT THEY HAVEN"T DONE SO. Must we wait another twenty years for them to publish such evidence - if it really does exist?

Lee Bowman wrote: Intelligent does not connote omnipotent, or even wise. Just an agency capable of making a decision and acting upon it.

So how come Mr Bowman is so hesitant to demonstrate how one can use Intelligent Design Theory scientifically, or even to demonstrate how Intelligent Design is scientific?

Oh, wait, its current proponents in the Discovery Institute never intended it to be scientific in the first place.

Lee wrote:

"Let me ask you a question. If design in biosystems were true, would it bother you personally?"

Wouldn't bother me one bit. What would bother any thinking person would be claiming that it is true without any evidence.

Of course it might bother someone that the design was so inept that it was not any better than what would be expected by random mutation natural selection. It might bother some people if it pointed to a limited intelligence and many design constraints and flaws. Some people really do want to believe in design so they can have an excuse to believe in God. I wonder why they just can't decide to believe and leave everybody else alone?

Of course it might bother someone that the design was so inept that it was not any better than what would be expected by random mutation natural selection. It might bother some people if it pointed to a limited intelligence and many design constraints and flaws.

Lee Bowman said: DS

Of course it might bother someone that the design was so inept that it was not any better than what would be expected by random mutation natural selection. It might bother some people if it pointed to a limited intelligence and many design constraints and flaws.

1 - Do you feel that the so called 'verted mammalian retina' is poor design, and thus not the result of an intelligence? 2 - Give any other examples of inept design you'd care to add.

1 - Do you feel that the so called ‘verted mammalian retina’ is poor design, and thus not the result of an intelligence?

— Lee Bowman

Remind us again Lee, how does ID explain the 'verted mammalian retina'?

For ID to compete with evolution, it must explain the data as well as evolution does.

Evolution allows for atheism by leaving no such gap, but it also does not require atheism.

But you can’t be an ID advocate without ASSUMING a Designer that science cannot access. NEXT!

First, let me say I appreciate Lee for hanging around and taking this pummeling here at PT. Unlike Behe who was taken to the mat and forced into a retraction by graduate student Abbie Smith, or Dembski who was demolished by Art Students at OU last year, good old Lee has done his best with the hand the DI dealt him.

Even Paul Nelson who John Kwok refers to as a "mendacious peddler of intellectual pornography", or along those lines, refuses to engage in any meaningful discussion.

So, Lee, regarding the vaunted vertebrate eye. Who gives a rat's ass?

I want to know about fingerprints. Designed or natural? They're very complex, you know. Maybe even irreducibly! My question is this: does the Designer design every fingerprint? How would you determine that the fingerprint is designed at all?

Finally, regarding Lee's question as to what I'd think about designed life, well, give me Monsanto and Roundup Ready Corn. Designed enough for you? I'm all for it.

As for an "intelligent designer," I think that there are better chances of Jennifer Anniston showing up at my Christmas party wearing her GQ tie. Here's hoping.

Lee Bowman said: Dale,

For ID to compete with evolution, it must explain the data as well as evolution does.

so far, eye evolution studies, including Erik Nilsson's work, has explained little. It proposes an evolutionary sequence, based on the existence of simpler forms, and has proposed a deepening light sensitive cup, with other features added over time. Other studies regarding the phospolipase C signal transduction cascade are progressing, but without proposed evolutionary mechanisms. Due to the eye's complexity, along with its complex cortex processing, it doesn't fit the proposed evolutionary process. Not just statistically implausibe in the time allowed, but increase the odds significantly due do eyes of similar structure and complexity 'evolving' in separate phyla. This is evidence of a common designer, or separate designers with acces to the same design algorithms.

Evolution allows for atheism by leaving no such gap, but it also does not require atheism.

Similarly, ID allows for theism, but it does not require a theistic belief.

But you can’t be an ID advocate without ASSUMING a Designer that science cannot access. NEXT!

Design verification or falsification stops there.

Lee Bowman wrote...

Not in the case of spots, but in complex structures yes, there are inferences both for design and chance. Design might show built in redundancy, unneeded structures (again, for backup support or redundancy), and perhaps repair structures, separate from the actual construct being analyzed. These point to design, and a look-ahead function of resiliency, that an accidental process would not come up with. Thanks, Doc Bill, for giving me some ideas for a new design inference!

Darwin also notes that the process of natural selection will lead to the particular pattern of numerous gradations from simple to complex eyes. Such a hypothesis predicts that—in general—species with complex eyes are descended from species with simpler and simpler eyes, the farther back in time the ancestry is traced.

With the advantage of over 100 additional years of accumulated knowledge on eye morphology, Salvini-Plawen and Mayr (1977) added exquisite detail to Darwin’s approach by extensive review of eye and photoreceptor cell morphology in all animals. In particular, they illustrated specific, single-lineage evolutionary transitions from simple to complex eyes. The authors constructed “morphological sequences of differentiation,” which consist of collections of eyes of differing and graduated complexity from closely related living taxa. Unlike Darwin, who collected examples from more distantly related animals, Salvini-Plawen and Mayr provided examples from closely related groups, such as within gastropods, and within bivalves.

In addition to these comparative studies of actual eyes, Nilsson and Pelger (1994) supported another prerequisite of the gradualist model: there has been enough time to evolve complex eyes. They began with a conceptual model based on actual eyes from nature. This model involves gradually increasing complexity, evolving in a linear series from simple to complex eyes. Their great contribution was to quantify each grade of this conceptual model as a percent change in morphological shape. By making conservative assumptions about the rate of morphological change and population sizes, they concluded that eyes can evolve from simple photoreceptive spots to complex lens-eyes in only about 400 thousand generations. Although their model could have suggested billions of years were required for this transition, thereby casting doubt on a gradual model of eye evolution, this did not happen. In fact, just the opposite was true—they found that eyes could evolve rapidly in geologic time scales. Nilsson and Pelger’s work therefore represents one of the few scientific tests of the gradualist model of eye evolution. Nevertheless, there exists an important criticism of the work. Hansen (2003) argued that Nilsson and Pelger neglected pleiotropy (multiple functions of a single gene) in their calculations by assuming that any change in morphology of one feature is free from effects on other features. Hansen (2003) suggested gene duplication as a way of reducing constraints imposed by pleiotropic interactions. As we shall see in a later section, duplication of genes has indeed played an important role in eye evolution.

At the same time, the approaches and results outlined here will almost certainly apply to as yet unstudied aspects of evolution. Natural mechanisms of duplication, co-option, and divergence of components, when coupled with natural selection, are amazingly creative and powerful. There is no reason to resort to outmoded ways of dealing with these unknowns. The tendency to invoke the supernatural to explain things we do not yet understand is as old as humankind itself. However, history has taught us over and over that science can address many unknowns; it can open many “black boxes.” Therefore, there is no reason and no value to invoking supernatural explanations for topics that science has not yet addressed or elucidated. The aim of this article is to provide an entrée into some of the details and nuances of eye evolution because it is time that everybody understands: we have come a long, long way since 1859.

Of course, inept design hardly is evidence against a designer, after all, all it may show is that the designer is just mediocre at best. So I am not sure why Lee is interested in inept ‘design’

Perhaps he should first define the meaning of the word design, but I predict that will take as long as ID presenting scientifically relevant content.

Due to the eye’s complexity, along with its complex cortex processing, it doesn’t fit the proposed evolutionary process. Not just statistically implausibe in the time allowed, but increase the odds significantly due do eyes of similar structure and complexity ‘evolving’ in separate phyla.

Lee wrote:

"Design might show built in redundancy, unneeded structures (again, for backup support or redundancy), and perhaps repair structures, separate from the actual construct being analyzed. These point to design, and a look-ahead function of resiliency, that an accidental process would not come up with."

So then, SINE insertions, pseudogenes, tandem repeats in coding regions, nonfunctional promoters, broken gopies of thousands of genes, etc. etc. etc. are examples of complete lack of design, or maybe really incompetent design. The fact that 90% of all species that have ever lived have gone extinct is evidence of a distinct lack of planning and looking ahead. This is exactly what one would expect from random mutation and natural selection.

You can't have it both ways Lee. Either you don't know who the designer is and therefore cannot draw any conclusions whatsoever based on examining the supposed designs, or you have to admit that the designer is an incompetent boob who can't get anything right. Neither approach gets you anywhere.

Lee Bowman said:

Of course, inept design hardly is evidence against a designer, after all, all it may show is that the designer is just mediocre at best. So I am not sure why Lee is interested in inept ‘design’

I'm not; those were DS' words. I would refer to them as 'optimal' and 'workable' designs. The spinal column, while widely criticized by whiners, is an incredibly good design. Some say not suited for bipeds. I say well suited. By the way, I severely injured mine awhile back, and with some traction (my own design), and time, completely restored.

Do your tires wear out? How about your engine, if you drive it long enough. The mammalian body is an incredibly designed and functional construct, that functions well. Diabetes, and early coronary problems are largely due to self-abuse. Cancer in some cases, but in others, possible shortcomings in design, or accumulated genomic degeneration over time. These are logical consequences of anything designed, and do not negate ID as causative.

Perhaps he should first define the meaning of the word design, but I predict that will take as long as ID presenting scientifically relevant content.

Design is just a word that somebody else thought up. I refer to the process as coding alterations of the genome, and embryogenesis as the creative mechanism. No 'poof' scenario needed in the gradual ascention (or decent) of the phyletic tree.

Lee Bowman said: I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis,

“Design might show built in redundancy, unneeded structures (again, for backup support or redundancy), and perhaps repair structures, separate from the actual construct being analyzed. These point to design, and a look-ahead function of resiliency, that an accidental process would not come up with.”

Lee Bowman wrote...

Do your tires wear out? How about your engine, if you drive it long enough. The mammalian body is an incredibly designed and functional construct, that functions well. Diabetes, and early coronary problems are largely due to self-abuse. Cancer in some cases, but in others, possible shortcomings in design, or accumulated genomic degeneration over time. These are logical consequences of anything designed, and do not negate ID as causative.

Lee,

Actually those weren't my words. Somebody named Plantar or something wrote that.

Anyway, the fact is that all organisms have many features that only make sense as the vestiges of ancestry and don't make any sense at all as the product of any sort of design, intelligent or not. Comparative genomics is teaching us just how contingent genomes are on ancestral constraints.

If you interpret any feature whatsoever, no matter how poor or suboptimal as evidence of design, then that will inevitably be your conclusion. However, it won't really tell you anthing except what you predetermined conclusion was.

Chiefley said: This one is puzzling, Lee. I have had automobile tires that have outlasted the lifetime of a number of people during their existence. My tires can survive being outside in subzero temperatures with no special accomodation for days on end. Four of my tires together can support a vehicle weighing a ton or so. If performance ability is any measure, than by those measures I will have to conclude that compared to the human body, tires must clearly be designed. By God, you are on to something, Lee.

DS said: If you interpret any feature whatsoever, no matter how poor or suboptimal as evidence of design, then that will inevitably be your conclusion. However, it won't really tell you anthing except what you predetermined conclusion was.

Lee,

Here is a good example for you. Genetically, chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to humans. Chimps have one more chromosome than found in the human genome because humans have one chromosome that is formed by the fusion of two chromosomes that are separate in the chimp lineage. The fusion junction has telomeric sequences in the human genome, that is a vestige of the common ancestry of chimps and humans. The telomeric sequences are not designed, they serve no function, they are not redundant, they are not becoming anything functional, they are simply a vesitge of ancestry. They are there because of something random that happened in the lineage leading to modern humans. If you claim that they will eventually become something else, then you have to explain why that something else was not designed and stuck in there instead.

This is just one example of thousands that modern genetics has shown us. The results are exactly what one would expect given common ancestry, random mutation and natural selection. There is no hint of planning, no foresight, no design apparent anywhere. If you interpret this as design, so be it. Thanks for at least being polite in this discussion.

Lee Bowman said: That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis...

Chiefley said: This one is puzzling, Lee. I have had automobile tires that have outlasted the lifetime of a number of people during their existence. My tires can survive being outside in subzero temperatures with no special accomodation for days on end. Four of my tires together can support a vehicle weighing a ton or so. If performance ability is any measure, than by those measures I will have to conclude that compared to the human body, tires must clearly be designed. By God, you are on to something, Lee.

Lee Bowman said: Do your tires wear out? How about your engine, if you drive it long enough. The mammalian body is an incredibly designed and functional construct, that functions well. Diabetes, and early coronary problems are largely due to self-abuse. Cancer in some cases, but in others, possible shortcomings in design, or accumulated genomic degeneration over time. These are logical consequences of anything designed, and do not negate ID as causative.

Speaking of bad design, don't forget the recurrent laryngeal nerve. What kind of design is that?
As for the identity of the designer, of course it's God. Anything else leads to an infinite regress of designers.

PvM said: And to call evolution an 'accidental process' shows a level of disregard for scientific knowledge or at least an unfamiliarity with evolutionary science and theory.

Lee Bowman said: DS

Of course it might bother someone that the design was so inept that it was not any better than what would be expected by random mutation natural selection. It might bother some people if it pointed to a limited intelligence and many design constraints and flaws.

1 - Do you feel that the so called 'verted mammalian retina' is poor design, and thus not the result of an intelligence? 2 - Give any other examples of inept design you'd care to add.

Lee Bowman wrote: Design is just a word that somebody else thought up. I refer to the process as coding alterations of the genome, and embryogenesis as the creative mechanism. No ‘poof’ scenario needed in the gradual ascention (or decent) of the phyletic tree.

Lee Bowman said: ... What is there to show? Not much in the way of funded, published studies, but is that so strange, since it is the stated policy of NSF, AAAS, NAAS, NIH, et al is to disallow ID. ...

Could you provide links to these statements?

... Moreover, even if valid, most within science regard ID as additional unneeded baggage, and as a means for religious doctrine to wheedle it way in.

Probably true. With its history, ID is going to have a hard time getting respect, even if there was anything to the idea. But there is no reason mainstream research could not discover basic facts or empirical laws that would be evidence for ID -- assuming that such facts or laws exist.

So, here we are at the end of December, 2008 and ID, yet again, explains exactly, positively, demonstratively NOTHING.

Thanks for participating in our discussion, Lee. Your valiant effort was for naught because you brought naught to the table.

Fingerprints, Lee.

You and your ID advocates must explain them. And, cat hair. PLEASE explain that!

And everything else. Take your time.

Lee Bowman said: Dale,

For ID to compete with evolution, it must explain the data as well as evolution does.

so far, eye evolution studies, including Erik Nilsson's work, has explained little. It proposes an evolutionary sequence, based on the existence of simpler forms, and has proposed a deepening light sensitive cup, with other features added over time. Other studies regarding the phospolipase C signal transduction cascade are progressing, but without proposed evolutionary mechanisms. Due to the eye's complexity, along with its complex cortex processing, it doesn't fit the proposed evolutionary process. Not just statistically implausibe in the time allowed, but increase the odds significantly due do eyes of similar structure and complexity 'evolving' in separate phyla. This is evidence of a common designer, or separate designers with acces to the same design algorithms.

Evolution allows for atheism by leaving no such gap, but it also does not require atheism.

Similarly, ID allows for theism, but it does not require a theistic belief.

But you can’t be an ID advocate without ASSUMING a Designer that science cannot access. NEXT!

Design verification or falsification stops there.

Andrew Wade said:

Lee Bowman said: ... What is there to show? Not much in the way of funded, published studies, but is that so strange, since it is the stated policy of NSF, AAAS, NAAS, NIH, et al is to disallow ID. ...

Could you provide links to these statements?

... Moreover, even if valid, most within science regard ID as additional unneeded baggage, and as a means for religious doctrine to wheedle it way in.

Probably true. With its history, ID is going to have a hard time getting respect, even if there was anything to the idea. But there is no reason mainstream research could not discover basic facts or empirical laws that would be evidence for ID -- assuming that such facts or laws exist.

Design inferences, when properly analyzed, reflect upon ‘agency’. For instance, predator v. prey (similar to Dover v. Buckingham), could infer competing intelligences, seeing who wins a bet. The natural world has aspects similar to an ongoing sporting event. That’s one example, and intended to be speculative, rather than authoritive.

2 - Give any other examples of inept design you’d care to add.

Chiefley said:

Andrew Wade said: ...

Probably true. With its history, ID is going to have a hard time getting respect, even if there was anything to the idea. But there is no reason mainstream research could not discover basic facts or empirical laws that would be evidence for ID -- assuming that such facts or laws exist.

Wade, This is another attempt to frame ID's problem as being the victim of the conspiracy of dogma in the scientiic community. It works pretty well because the American public is more apt to believe in a the conspiracy of an institution than they are to understand how science works.

I should have said there is no reason mainstream research would not discover basic facts or empirical laws that would be evidence for ID, bias or not. Anomalies are liable to gain attention; not be ignored. One of the things that separates evolutionary biology from the ID movement is that the proponents of the latter do ignore what doesn't fit their theories.

If the Discovery Institute suspected a bias, all they would have to do is to use their considerable funding to actually prove something fundamental about DI, such as actually proving some part of an orgamism could not have evolved. I maintain that anyone who could do that would be in line for a Nobel Prize.

I'm not sure how it would be possible to prove something like that. But the DI can't even perform the much more modest task of developing ID into a scientifically fruitful line of inquiry.

Lee Bowman said: My take on the Wedge document is that is was, in fact, somewhat telling. But as a ten year old internal document, I feel that it lacks relevance today.

One position was that it provided evidence of a conspiracy to invoke religious orthodoxy within the halls of science. That may well have been a dream of Phillip Johnson, but I would rather posit that it was more the depicting of an ideological hope that the institute, through their work, could work to reduce that overreaching materialist bent (at least in his/their view) that pervaded science, and to encourage more temperate position.

I cannot speak for them, but I would say that their position today, at least regarding ID, is more balanced and secular, as they themselves have stated.

...it is the stated policy of NSF, AAAS, NAAS, NIH, et al is to disallow ID.

I've written extensively regarding Judge Jones' two-part decision, agreeing on the first, and rejecting the second. It's also been questioned by legal groups, the Montana Law Review being one...

Dale Husband said: 3. Yes, ID DOES require theistic belief. Even if you propose that something other than a supernatural God made life on Earth (why would you?), you must then explain where the non-supernatural Designer came from. Who designed that? If you can't answer that question, what's the point of even looking for design in the first place?

The point would be to explain and predict features of life on Earth. In the hypothetical case that aliens have been mucking around with our genes, we would not have to account for the origins of the aliens before inquiring into what they have been up to.

That being said, I agree that the hypothesis of a non-supernatural designer is not offered in good faith. ID is not about explaining the origin of life, flagella, or anything like that. For all its secular camouflage, ID is about providing intellectual cover to the idea that h. sapiens was created by God, and is not an ape species.

Andrew Wade said:

The point would be to explain and predict features of life on Earth. In the hypothetical case that aliens have been mucking around with our genes, we would not have to account for the origins of the aliens before inquiring into what they have been up to.

Chiefley said: The IDC term is used by many because Intelligent Design seems to be an argument against biogenesis and for special creation, since merely designing something doesn't bring it into existence. Without biogenesis, something that is designed, must be created in order to exist.

Lee Bowman said: Give any other examples of inept design you'd care to add.

Wheels said: Mountains are remarkable engines of climatic variation and are expertly designed to support varying habitats. They are literally machines, providing mechanical advantage as a wedge. Mountains are so complex that no two are exactly alike. They feature a lot of redundancy, a lot of their facets and cliffs are practically interchangeable in many ways and serve the same function in several places. If you removed a mountain from the habitat, the habitat would collapse, so the presence of the mountain is required for these habitats to function. If you change one aspect of the mountain such as grade or elevation, the whole system that was in place no longer works correctly, as in mountaintop removal mining. A mountain wears down over time as well. Some of them collapse, or even explode, as a result of degeneration of their geological stability. Are we to believe that these incredible engines, these literal machines, arose purely by the random collision of loose atoms? I therefore conclude that mountains are Intelligently Designed.

Paul Burnett said: One of my favorites is the recurrent pharyngeal nerve

I'm still waiting for the paint example to be explained, Lee. What is the method of detecting design, what are the safeguards against false positives, and what things have been looked at that were determined to have been designed, and what has been determined to not be designed. Um, and what about the evidence supporting those arguments. Links to scientific papers would be best, although you seem to admit that there are none, so how about anything in the realm of semi-scientific.

And no, we do not consider "astrology" a science, nor do we consider the bible, in whichever translation you use, to be a science book.

Wheels said:

Andrew Wade said:

The point would be to explain and predict features of life on Earth. In the hypothetical case that aliens have been mucking around with our genes, we would not have to account for the origins of the aliens before inquiring into what they have been up to.

So we're supposed to seriously accept that the complex life forms which mucked with our DNA are not themselves marvelously complex and impossible to explain via natural processes?

No, we're supposed to conclude goddidit, and stop asking inconvenient questions. My point is that we don't have to. Just because the DI aren't interested in anything beyond goddidit doesn't mean we are similarly constrained in the unlikely event that there is anything to ID (aside from artificial selection by humans.)

If people want challenges for ID, I believe I have the perfect one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Garden_of_Eden_pattern.png

The above is a Garden of Eden pattern in the Game of Life cellular automaton; most people should be familiar with it, but if not, a CA is a grid with simple rules upon which clusters of blobs form.

A Garden of Eden is a pattern which cannot form in a CA under the natural rules. It can only be placed in by a designer at step 0.

Therefore, Gardens of Eden should reek of design. They pass the Explanatory Filter with flying colours and they should be chock-full of CSI. All an IDist has to do is put it into the magic formula which we evil evolutionists are censoring; it's a mathematical pattern so this should be easy. Then they can tell us how designed it is.

There is no reason why, if IDists can do what they say, that this challenge should not be answered. The game of life has, what, three rules, all of which are known? And Dembski seems to be saying you don't even have to know the rules if it has CSI.

Heck, give me the formula for CSI and I'll do it myself. You have that don't you, Lee? The one we're all covering up and... preventing IDists like Dembski from publishing on his blog? I reckon you should post it here and shut up all those people who say it doesn't exist.

Lee Bowman said: Not in the case of spots, but in complex structures yes, there are inferences both for design and chance....

• Detecting a radio signal from deep space that had lots of seemingly random fine structure to it.
• Detecting a radio signal from deep space that had lots of seemingly non-random fine structure to it?
• Detecting a radio signal from deep space that pulsated regularly with a period of a few seconds.
• Detecting a radio signal from deep space that was single monochromatic carrier containing no information at all.

You make some good points on that linked piece from your posting on talk.origins, and yes, it is time for ID to be a little more aggressive. But as I stated, not to debunk evolution, but to modify it.

— Lee Bowman

Lee Bowman said:

Amazingly, after almost 2 years, not one person has submitted a proposal.

A proposal might be in order, but as I mentioned, would likely be rejected. It raises the question, however, of who would make the proposal. That might still be a way off. You make some good points on that linked piece from your posting on talk.origins, and yes, it is time for ID to be a little more aggressive. But as I stated, not to debunk evolution, but to modify it.

I see where the Explanatory Filter is being rethought, and revised.

And this brings us to the problem of false positives. Even though the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion for eliminating design, it is, I argue, a reliable criterion for detecting design. The Explanatory Filter is a net. Things that are designed will occasionally slip past the net. We would prefer that the net catch more than it does, omitting nothing due to design. But given the ability of design to mimic unintelligent causes and the possibility of our own ignorance passing over things that are designed, this problem cannot be fixed. Nevertheless, we want to be very sure that whatever the net does catch includes only what we intend it to catch, to wit, things that are designed. I argue that the explantory filter is a reliable criterion for detecting design. Alternatively, I argue that the Explanatory Filter successfully avoids false positives. Thus whenever the Explanatory Filter attributes design, it does so correctly.

So there exists a reliable criterion for detecting design strictly from observational features of the world. This criterion belongs to probability and complexity theory, not to metaphysics and theology. And although it cannot achieve logical demonstration, it does achieve a statistical justification so compelling as to demand assent. This criterion is relevant to biology. When applied to the complex, information-rich structures of biology, it detects design. In particular, we can say with the weight of science behind us that the complexity-specification criterion shows Michael Behe’s irreducibly complex biochemical systems to be designed. What are we to make of these developments? Many scientists remain unconvinced. Even if we have a reliable criterion for detecting design, and even if that criterion tells us that biological systems are designed, it seems that determining a biological system to be designed is akin to shrugging our shoulders and saying God did it. The fear is that admitting design as an explanation will stifle scientific inquiry, that scientists will stop investigating difficult problems because they have a sufficient explanation already.

Lee Bowman said: Intelligent does not connote omnipotent, or even wise. Just an agency capable of making a decision and acting upon it.

Lee Bowman said: If ID is accepted as valid science, and not religion, it must remain objective and open. I am open to all of the tentative causative mechanisms that have been posited, and open to more as scientific evidence may provide. It would logically follow, that as a modification to current evolutionary theory, that both are competing hypotheses.

"We further testify that Genesis is not allegorical."

Interesting choice of words. "Testify" usually brings to mind a trial, but more that likely they're thinking something altogether different. I've never been to a scientific conference, lecture or thesis defense in which the presenter "testified" to his or her work.

John Kwok said: If there is a "paradigm shift" occurring in evolutionary biology, then it is due to those working actively on pursuing testable hypotheses, confirming them via experiments and observational data, and then having them presented at peer-reviewed scientific meetings and finally, published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. There's no "moaning" and "whining" of the kind we've seen from you, Luskin, Dembski, Wells, Behe, Nelson, and your fellow compadres and other acolytes associated with the Dishonesty Institute. Dembski and Behe have had nearly twenty years to present credible scientific evidence in support of Intelligent Design BUT THEY HAVEN"T DONE SO. Must we wait another twenty years for them to publish such evidence - if it really does exist?

DS said: Anyway, the fact is that all organisms have many features that only make sense as the vestiges of ancestry and don't make any sense at all as the product of any sort of design, intelligent or not. Comparative genomics is teaching us just how contingent genomes are on ancestral constraints.

Matt G said: "We further testify that Genesis is not allegorical." Interesting choice of words. "Testify" usually brings to mind a trial, but more that likely they're thinking something altogether different. I've never been to a scientific conference, lecture or thesis defense in which the presenter "testified" to his or her work.

2 - Give any other examples of inept design you'd care to add.

I submit that a hypothesis comes first; the testing later. Since there's no funding, and there is stigma attached, there has been little confirming research done as yet. I predict that that will change with the new crop of scientists, a few of whom may see its relevance, and pursue it.

— Lee Bowman

Lee Bowman said: Dale,

For ID to compete with evolution, it must explain the data as well as evolution does.

so far, eye evolution studies, including Erik Nilsson's work, has explained little. It proposes an evolutionary sequence, based on the existence of simpler forms, and has proposed a deepening light sensitive cup, with other features added over time. Other studies regarding the phospolipase C signal transduction cascade are progressing, but without proposed evolutionary mechanisms. Due to the eye's complexity, along with its complex cortex processing, it doesn't fit the proposed evolutionary process. Not just statistically implausibe in the time allowed, but increase the odds significantly due do eyes of similar structure and complexity 'evolving' in separate phyla. This is evidence of a common designer, or separate designers with acces to the same design algorithms.

Evolution allows for atheism by leaving no such gap, but it also does not require atheism.

Similarly, ID allows for theism, but it does not require a theistic belief.

But you can’t be an ID advocate without ASSUMING a Designer that science cannot access. NEXT!

Design verification or falsification stops there.

I am open to all of the tentative causative mechanisms that have been posited, and open to more as scientific evidence may provide.

Okay...what "causative mechanisms" have any ID advocates proposed?

That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified...

Intervention is not falsified for one simple reason: those who want us to believe in it have offered no falsifiable claims that have not been proven false already. Which is precisely why ID can NOT be "allowed as an investigative hypothesis."

...OR that it need involve supernaturality.

Oh please...you SAY your "designer" doesn't have to be supernatural, but the minute you allow for a non-supernatural "designer," you're immediately forced to answer (or avoid) the question "Who designed the designer?" So yes, sooner or later, you have to "involve supernaturality;" and most ID advocates clearly have a supernatural "designer" in mind.

Bowman, your pretense is as tiresome as it is transparently false.

Not much in the way of funded, published studies, but is that so strange, since it is the stated policy of NSF, AAAS, NAAS, NIH, et al is to disallow ID.

Mark Duigon said:

Not much in the way of funded, published studies, but is that so strange, since it is the stated policy of NSF, AAAS, NAAS, NIH, et al is to disallow ID.

I rather suspect that an ID article really could be published in Science if it contained bona fide original scientific research.

Oh please…you SAY your “designer” doesn’t have to be supernatural, but the minute you allow for a non-supernatural “designer,” you’re immediately forced to answer (or avoid) the question “Who designed the designer?”

The ID response to the 'who designed the designer' question is that it's not within the scope of ID theory, in the same way that scientists don't need to know what caused the universe to theorise about expansion and so forth.

This is quite reasonable to me. Their utter lack of anything resembling science after that is the problem.

So I don't feel the 'who designed the designer' question is very productive. If real scientists were doing ID without all the lying and pretending, and could actually detect design like IDists pretend, would you expect them to have to answer the question of where the designs came from?

eric said:

I submit that a hypothesis comes first; the testing later. Since there's no funding, and there is stigma attached, there has been little confirming research done as yet. I predict that that will change with the new crop of scientists, a few of whom may see its relevance, and pursue it.

— Lee Bowman

This is a standard canard of all pseudoscientists -"oh, if only we had research money, we'd show you!"

Venus Mousetrap said: The ID response to the 'who designed the designer' question is that it's not within the scope of ID theory, in the same way that scientists don't need to know what caused the universe to theorise about expansion and so forth. This is quite reasonable to me. Their utter lack of anything resembling science after that is the problem. So I don't feel the 'who designed the designer' question is very productive. If real scientists were doing ID without all the lying and pretending, and could actually detect design like IDists pretend, would you expect them to have to answer the question of where the designs came from?

Hi Mr Kwok:

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The designer is clearly Lolth, spider goddess of the dark elves.

I used the Explanatory Filter* to be sure, but I won't show you how I did it, and if you won't accept it as science, then I'll moan that you're censoring me.

* Actually I've stopped using the Explanatory Filter** because it doesn't work.

** Newsflash! I'm using it again. Because, despite me saying it doesn't work, it, er, is the best invention ever?

If real scientists were doing ID without all the lying and pretending, and could actually detect design like IDists pretend, would you expect them to have to answer the question of where the designs came from?

Venus Mousetrap said: Hi Mr Kwok: I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The designer is clearly Lolth, spider goddess of the dark elves. I used the Explanatory Filter* to be sure, but I won't show you how I did it, and if you won't accept it as science, then I'll moan that you're censoring me. * Actually I've stopped using the Explanatory Filter** because it doesn't work. ** Newsflash! I'm using it again. Because, despite me saying it doesn't work, it, er, is the best invention ever?

As I understand it, archaeologists are pretty good at identifying designed objects -- for example, which rock-like objects are axes and knives and arrowheads, and which are, well, rocks. I have a strong suspicion an archaeologist's response to identifying a new designed object is to ask

(1) "Who designed this?"

(2) "How was the object constructed?"

(3) "Why was the object designed and constructed?"

(4) "What does this tell me about the designer and the designer's culture?"

Again, as I understand it, forensic scientists are pretty good at determining when deaths are the result of chance as opposed to being designed events. Of course, the follow-up questions are:

(1) "Who did this?"

(2) "How was it done?"

(3) "What does this tell me about the perpetrator?"

and sometimes (4) "Why was this done?"

On the other hand ... as I understand it, when a cdesign proponentsist asserts that a particular biological structure or function is designed, the follow-up questions are ... missing because they assert that we can't discuss who the designer is, how the designer operates, the designer's motives, or the nature of the designer.

As the Sesame Street song goes, "One of these things is not like the others ..."

Interesting.

I have to admit, these arguments are pretty bad.

I've been getting tired of ID. For this reason I recently wrote a critique of the movement:
http://sciencedefeated.wordpress.com/2008/12/11/the-troubled-waters-of-intelligent-design/

NS

Matt said: Where do these people think all the oil came from? This question has always bugged me. Where does Sarah Palin think that all the oil in Alaska came from? Now there's a question I wish they'd asked during the VP debates! No, wait, maybe these people have the answer to all our problems here! If all the oil on Earth somehow formed in just a few hundred years, then obviously our entire approach to energy policy needs a radical overhaul. These people shouldn't be wasting their time trying to change a few local school curricula--they should be petitioning our government for a major change in our energy policy! Since oil clearly doesn't take hundreds of millions of years to form, then instead of trying to develop green technology and alternative energy, maybe we can figure out how to make oil ourselves. Or maybe we should all just be praying for the creation of more oil! They're brilliant! :)

Lee Bowman said: After ingesting that article it was refreshing to wash out its residual bad taste by reading the six response letters to the editor…all, in their own way, holding up the article to well deserved ridicule. There are now seven responses, mine just provided.

As an ID advocate, the 'directed' premise is neither 'faith based', nor even accepted without question, nor does it specify the degree of intervention.

While not positing a means of intervention, it would follow as a second hypothesis that it would be coding alterations to the genome.

If ID is accepted as valid science, and not religion, it must remain objective and open. I am open to all of the tentative causative mechanisms that have been posited, and open to more as scientific evidence may provide. It would logically follow, that as a modification to current evolutionary theory, that both are competing hypotheses.

That said, I firmly hold that ID be allowed as an investigative hypothesis, since it cannot be shown at this time that intervention is falsified, OR that it need involve supernaturality. That is a 'supposition', based on a concept that has been passed on based on the religious presupposition that God, god or gods are supernatural (outside the natural universe). Design as a concept does not depend on that premise, nor does it presume an overseeing entity (God) as the designer(s).

Most people of faith agree with what is commonly referred to as “micro” evolution,” small changes that are clearly visible. ... The controversial “macro” evolution was commonly understood as those major changes that could occur if one species jumped to another.

Any word about the weaknesses of creationism or ID yet? People of faith agree that the controversy should be taught, right? Maybe the dinosaur and human tracks they keep pushing? Maybe the complete lack of any hypothesis, research, publications, etc. Maybe the imaginary distinction between micro and macroevolution they keep butchering.

Seriously, if this guy thinks that there should be dog/cats, why does he claim that "one species jumped to another"? It's not even logically consistent jibberish.

Ironically, a dog giving birth to a cat or a dog-cat or a croca-duck would be an example of creationism, not evolution.

It's not so much gibberish as abject ignorance compounded by incredible stupidity.

Lee Bowman said:

No, Lee, you didn't miss my point, you ducked my point. Like a weasel evading a swooping hawk.

That's why I'm still around.

ID proponents lack a metric for design. Can't measure it objectively, like distance, time or temperature. Therefore, it's impossible for you to determine which spot was designed and which spot was created naturally.

Not in the case of spots, but in complex structures yes, there are inferences both for design and chance. Design might show built in redundancy, unneeded structures (again, for backup support or redundancy), and perhaps repair structures, separate from the actual construct being analyzed. These point to design, and a look-ahead function of resiliency, that an accidental process would not come up with. Thanks, Doc Bill, for giving me some ideas for a new design inference!

Ergo, you have no data, you have no hypothesis and you have no theory of "intelligent design."

It's a work in progress, and will post-date both of us. Let me ask you a question. If design in biosystems were true, would it bother you personally?

I am having trouble imagining what ID research would look like. If someone was engaged in scientifically valid ID research, what exactly, would he be doing? I have a pretty good idea what the scientists on the Godless evolution side do, but for the IDers all I can imagine is someone looking at some feature, scratching their heads, and concluding "well I can't see how it evolved naturally, so it musta been God". Forget about funding and grant proposals and respectability for a second, has anyone simply designed (heh) a single scientifically valid ID experiment? What about useful predictions, and postdictions, about the fossil record? Genetics? Developmental Biology? Anything? If, hypothetically, a scientist had conducted some legitimate ID research that bore fruit, what would the abstract from the paper reporting that result look like?

Venus Mousetrap said: The ID response to the 'who designed the designer' question is that it's not within the scope of ID theory, in the same way that scientists don't need to know what caused the universe to theorise about expansion and so forth. This is quite reasonable to me. Their utter lack of anything resembling science after that is the problem. So I don't feel the 'who designed the designer' question is very productive. If real scientists were doing ID without all the lying and pretending, and could actually detect design like IDists pretend, would you expect them to have to answer the question of where the designs came from?

Well, Behe testified in court that Design is manifestly self-evident, and one uses the scientific propensity for observation to just open your eyes and LOOK, there it is! He also made a prediction: that those who don't believe design is there a priori have no way to reach that conclusion other than just SEEING that, by golly, life has aspects of design from stem to stern.

I suppose you could regard it as an aspect of the science of psychology that what the "ID scientists" are doing is preaching, mostly in churches and/or to predisposed audiences. Since design exists solely by fiat, the experiment being performed is to see if enough people can be persuaded to see design to constitute a voting majority who can use the civil authority of the State to REQUIRE people to see design, or else.

Perhaps those who believe in design also empirically have a higher probabilty of having their souls saved, according to measurements operationalized as witnessing, testifying, and asserting -- the standard means by which all religious doctrine becomes True.

SWT said: As I understand it, archaeologists are pretty good at identifying designed objects -- for example, which rock-like objects are axes and knives and arrowheads, and which are, well, rocks. I have a strong suspicion an archaeologist's response to identifying a new designed object is to ask (1) "Who designed this?" (2) "How was the object constructed?" (3) "Why was the object designed and constructed?" (4) "What does this tell me about the designer and the designer's culture?" Again, as I understand it, forensic scientists are pretty good at determining when deaths are the result of chance as opposed to being designed events. Of course, the follow-up questions are: (1) "Who did this?" (2) "How was it done?" (3) "What does this tell me about the perpetrator?" and sometimes (4) "Why was this done?" On the other hand ... as I understand it, when a cdesign proponentsist asserts that a particular biological structure or function is designed, the follow-up questions are ... missing because they assert that we can't discuss who the designer is, how the designer operates, the designer's motives, or the nature of the designer. As the Sesame Street song goes, "One of these things is not like the others ..."

Due to the eye's complexity, along with its complex cortex processing, it doesn't fit the proposed evolutionary process. Not just statistically implausibe in the time allowed, but increase the odds significantly due do eyes of similar structure and complexity 'evolving' in separate phyla.

This is nothing less than the Chewbacca Defense, and deserves the same level of attention.

The archaeology analogy for an explanatory filter is rather good.

Back at the end of the nineteenth and start of the twentieth centuries, there was a controversy over what were called eoliths. These were apparently designed but crude stone tools found in Pliocene deposits, mostly in south-eastern England (Kent, Sussex and East Anglia). They were generally not associated with any other archaeological material, including human remains. The archaeological community was split: supporters of eoliths (who were mostly English) believed that they were artefacts and evidence for humans in Britain during the Pliocene, while others (many English archaeologists and just about any non-English archaeologist) denied that they were even manufactured and were simply the product of rolling in water.

Somebody (I can't recall who immediately) devised an experiment to test the artefactual status of eoliths. He reasoned that if he could reproduce the apparent design visible in typical eoliths without human intervention in the process, then the eolith hypothesis would be falsified. So he put a collection of flint nodules and water in a drum, which he set about rotating. After a few hours, he stopped it and took out the collection of flints. Many of them were now recognisable as eoliths. In this way, he reasoned, natural, undesigned flint nodules had taken on the appearance of design, but it was no more than that: appearance of design.

After that, the house of cards built on eoliths came crashing down. It's worth noting that the 'discoverer' of Piltdown Man, Charles Dawson, was an enthusiastic believer in eoliths and that one of his motives for forging the remains was to lend weight and credibility to the eolith hypothesis (the site of Piltdown I was liberally provided with eoliths).

As a result of this failed hypothesis, we now recognise which features of apparent design in flint tools are evidence for anthropogenesis: bulbs of percussion, flake scars, striking platforms and so on. While one feature may occur by chance (or naturally occurring features may resemble anthropogenic features), the chances of two occurring on the same artefact by chance are reduced, of three, more so and so on. That's the explanatory filter used in the archaeology of flint tools. Seems to me to have a bit more substance to it than ID's, but I'm no biologist, wo what do I know?

Keith Fitzpatrick-Matthews said: The archaeology analogy for an explanatory filter is rather good. After that, the house of cards built on eoliths came crashing down. It's worth noting that the 'discoverer' of Piltdown Man, Charles Dawson, was an enthusiastic believer in eoliths and that one of his motives for forging the remains was to lend weight and credibility to the eolith hypothesis (the site of Piltdown I was liberally provided with eoliths). As a result of this failed hypothesis, we now recognise which features of apparent design in flint tools are evidence for anthropogenesis: bulbs of percussion, flake scars, striking platforms and so on. While one feature may occur by chance (or naturally occurring features may resemble anthropogenic features), the chances of two occurring on the same artefact by chance are reduced, of three, more so and so on. That's the explanatory filter used in the archaeology of flint tools. Seems to me to have a bit more substance to it than ID's, but I'm no biologist, wo what do I know?

Again, as I understand it, forensic scientists are pretty good at determining when deaths are the result of chance as opposed to being designed events. Of course, the follow-up questions are: (1) “Who did this?” (2) “How was it done?” (3) “What does this tell me about the perpetrator?” and sometimes (4) “Why was this done?”

— SWT

Stuart Weinstein said: I'd like to ask the retard why my retina is upside down. Given thats the case with all vertebrates, I would like to know that given 500 million years, why the retard failed to correct it. Your designer, if he exists, is a retard.

Please don't feed the troll!!! The lurkers can see for themselves that those comments have been answered countless times, and that refusing to answer them here and now does not mean that any nerves were hit.

Have the intelligent design creationists ever come right out and said (or denied) that their designer and their creator are one and the same?

— Paul Burnett

Frank J wrote:

"Don’t forget “When was it done?”"

That's my favorite. Why design a flawed vertebrate eye after you already designed a better cephalopod eye? Why wait hundreds of millions of years to design a vertebrate eye? Why not design the vertebrate eye much sooner and much better?

Was this a government project with multiple agencies all ignorant of each other? Was this a graduate thesis by an incompent and inexperienced grad student? If so, did she graduate? Was this all just an elaborate hoax to try to convince humans that evolution was true and there was no design? If so, hadn't we better play along?

Paul Burnett said: Have the intelligent design creationists ever come right out and said (or denied) that their designer and their creator are one and the same?

That's the explanatory filter used in the archaeology of flint tools. Seems to me to have a bit more substance to it than ID's, but I'm no biologist, wo what do I know?

tresmal said: I am having trouble imagining what ID research would look like. If someone was engaged in scientifically valid ID research, what exactly, would he be doing? I have a pretty good idea what the scientists on the Godless evolution side do, but for the IDers all I can imagine is someone looking at some feature, scratching their heads, and concluding "well I can't see how it evolved naturally, so it musta been God". Forget about funding and grant proposals and respectability for a second, has anyone simply designed (heh) a single scientifically valid ID experiment? What about useful predictions, and postdictions, about the fossil record? Genetics? Developmental Biology? Anything? If, hypothetically, a scientist had conducted some legitimate ID research that bore fruit, what would the abstract from the paper reporting that result look like?

Why design a flawed vertebrate eye after you already designed a better cephalopod eye?

— DS

Dear Matt,

Thanks for mentioning your book. Though I am slowly reading it, I am recognizing it instantly as one of the best published rebukes of ID creationism I've stumbled upon, ranking alongside the likes of Pennock's and Petto et al.'s for examples.

Regards,

John

John Kwok said: There are devout, highly respected, Roman Catholic Christian scientists like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins and Ken Miller who see no conflict between their devoutly held religious beliefs and their interest in scientific excellence.

Frank J said:

Have the intelligent design creationists ever come right out and said (or denied) that their designer and their creator are one and the same?

— Paul Burnett

I have never heard that, and would doubt that any major IDer would admit that. Especially after Behe testified at Dover that, for all we know, the designer might be deceased. Thus those YEC and OEC followers of ID can always convince themselves that the ultimate creator/designer just appointed a delegate, and have him/her/it free will to tinker with the proximate causes, and make the design optimum, suboptimum, "look like evolution", whatever. Compared to the old Biblical literalists, those postmodern YECs and OECs (and IDers of course) can be quite imaginative.

RBH said:

John Kwok said: There are devout, highly respected, Roman Catholic Christian scientists like Francisco J. Ayala, Francis Collins and Ken Miller who see no conflict between their devoutly held religious beliefs and their interest in scientific excellence.

A brief correction: Collins is an Evangelical Protestant.

... and Francis Collins IGNORES the obvious conflicts he does see between his religion and and science with his "moral law" arguments.

you really need to read these people a bit more closely.

Ichthyic said: ... and Francis Collins IGNORES the obvious conflicts he does see between his religion and and science with his "moral law" arguments. you really need to read these people a bit more closely.

Thanks for mentioning your book. Though I am slowly reading it, I am recognizing it instantly as one of the best published rebukes of ID creationism I've stumbled upon, ranking alongside the likes of Pennock's and Petto et al.'s for examples.

... and Francis Collins IGNORES the obvious conflicts he does see between his religion and and science with his "moral law" arguments.

Matt Young said:

... and Francis Collins IGNORES the obvious conflicts he does see between his religion and and science with his "moral law" arguments.

I would not say that Collins ignores the conflicts. Rather, he ignores a growing body of research concerning the possible biological origins of morality. I was very surprised, even dismayed, at the resulting weakness of his moral law argument.

If he sees them how can he ignore them?

you're kidding, right?

it's like you've never heard the word "denial" before.

why don't you ask FL how he ignores all the obvious conflicts in his own regular song and dance here at PT?

Rather, he ignores a growing body of research concerning the possible biological origins of morality

the difference being?

and if it were shown that human morality could be accounted for naturalistically it wouldn't shake his faith.

IOW, his entire Moral Law argument is based on nothing but fictional hyperbole.

Gert had his number years ago, in his brief but accurate review of Collin's book.

Ichthyic said: If he sees them how can he ignore them? you're kidding, right? it's like you've never heard the word "denial" before. why don't you ask FL how he ignores all the obvious conflicts in his own regular song and dance here at PT? Rather, he ignores a growing body of research concerning the possible biological origins of morality the difference being?

Ichthyic said: and if it were shown that human morality could be accounted for naturalistically it wouldn't shake his faith. IOW, his entire Moral Law argument is based on nothing but fictional hyperbole. Gert had his number years ago, in his brief but accurate review of Collin's book.

Why do I see some hyperbole here and it may not be from Collins?

Pim, why don't YOU try and defend Collins' Moral Law argument, scientifically, or just admit you haven't the slightest clue what's really wrong with it?

He is not familiar with the recent work on morality and biology

grossly ignorant, and it was pointed out to him long before this.

why you continue to defend him on this is beyond my comprehension.

to comment on what I just said:

grossly ignorant, and it was pointed out to him long before this.

...which, btw, is exactly why I stated he doesn't see the conflicts.

being ignorant of the science he intended to critique IS the problem here.

You aren't ignorant of the entire body of psychological and behavior literature though, right?

so why bother to defend him on it?

it's not rational, Pim.

When I questioned him about that a year ago, his response (roughly paraphrased) was to first skate away to the Big Bang, and then suggest that his invocation of "Moral Law" (his caps) as evidence for God was an indication only, a "pointer," not necessarily strong evidence, and if it were shown that human morality could be accounted for naturalistically it wouldn't shake his faith. That's in the Q&A here.

First, he did not do his homework and read any of the literature on the possible naturalistic development of ethics or morality. At least as important, however, is that he will - by his own admission - not be influenced if the argument fails. Thus, his appeal to the moral law (a phrase which does not Deserve Capitalization) is the intellectual equivalent of data dredging

exactly so.

At the risk being accused of hyperbole, I found that portion of his book to be almost on the level of a Gerald Schroeder or a Hugh Ross, and certainly unbecoming of a scientist of Collins's stature.

that you might even remotely be accused of hyperbole for stating such is one of the reasons I no longer spend much time around PT any more.

yours said: They have a worse problem, because archaeologists and forensic pathologists (and the like) know somethings about the beings that make the artifacts. We know what kind of tools that paleolithic man made, so we can tell a rock from a tool by certain marks, etc. We know what human crimes are like, so the pathologist can look for the evidence of murder, we know how humans can commit crimes, so investigators know what to look for. There was a great takedown of the archaeology/SETI crap that Dembski (IIRC) likes to spew forth, but I can’t think of where at the present time (too many blogs and magazines). The ID crowd wants us to believe that they can detect design without any knowledge whatsoever of the designer, or indeed what the “tool marks” would look like? -------- do you think humans will ever be able to design life?

-------- do you think humans will ever be able to design life?

Still not detailed enough. Expected? Or observed? What, objectively, is meant by "large change" and "species" here?

yours said: They have a worse problem, because archaeologists and forensic pathologists (and the like) know somethings about the beings that make the artifacts. We know what kind of tools that paleolithic man made, so we can tell a rock from a tool by certain marks, etc. We know what human crimes are like, so the pathologist can look for the evidence of murder, we know how humans can commit crimes, so investigators know what to look for. There was a great takedown of the archaeology/SETI crap that Dembski (IIRC) likes to spew forth, but I can’t think of where at the present time (too many blogs and magazines). The ID crowd wants us to believe that they can detect design without any knowledge whatsoever of the designer, or indeed what the “tool marks” would look like? -------- do you think humans will ever be able to design life?

yours said:

Science Avenger said:

-------- do you think humans will ever be able to design life?

The question reveals a big part of the problem with ID: what exactly do they mean by "design". Sometimes they mean "construct", others they mean "conceptualize". Either way the next obvious question is "to what degree?". I can draw a diagram of life right now, sloppily, on a piece of paper. Am I now a designer? If I take a sperm and an egg and put them together, resulting in a child, am I a designer? What if I take something that was alive, but is now dead (say, a cell chopped in two), and reconstruct it so it is alive again? Now? If I took all the component parts of a cell and assembled them into a working one, do I get the Big D now? Or do I have to create the parts from the molecules up? In science, the devil is in the details, and ID doesn't have any.

Design Life: Chemically alter the DNA so that an organism has a large change in body structure. Something more that is expected within the species.

Quite the opposite, I'm making sure you don't move them by requiring you to specifically tell me where they are before I attempt to answer your question. If you can't be more specific, I have no idea whether creating a great dane from a chihuahua qualifies or not, which means trying to answer is pointless.

You haven't defined "species" yet, so your insults only reveal, as expected, that you have no substance. Thanks for playing "ID is Vacuous".

yours said: -------- do you think humans will ever be able to design life?

yours said: As for the “Intelligent Designer” you don’t have to worry about his identity. It was a Klingon. Peace and Long Life (as a DI IDiot Borg drone), --------- what an adolescent response!

67

ignore it

Design life?

How about RoundUp ready corn?

Genetically modified corn plants that are RoundUp resistant. Brilliant! Spray the field with RoundUp and kill all the plants except the corn.

What's wrong with that?

Life is chemistry. Understanding the chemistry will enable us to understand life.

Ichthyic said: Why do I see some hyperbole here and it may not be from Collins? Pim, why don't YOU try and defend Collins' Moral Law argument, scientifically, or just admit you haven't the slightest clue what's really wrong with it?

He is not familiar with the recent work on morality and biology grossly ignorant, and it was pointed out to him long before this. why you continue to defend him on this is beyond my comprehension.

and Francis Collins IGNORES the obvious conflicts he does see between his religion and and science with his “moral law” arguments.

Ichthyic said: to comment on what I just said: grossly ignorant, and it was pointed out to him long before this. ...which, btw, is exactly why I stated he doesn't see the conflicts. being ignorant of the science he intended to critique IS the problem here. You aren't ignorant of the entire body of psychological and behavior literature though, right? so why bother to defend him on it? it's not rational, Pim.

Ichthyic said: that you might even remotely be accused of hyperbole for stating such is one of the reasons I no longer spend much time around PT any more.

Perhaps you can present us with some supporting evidence as I fail to see much of any content in your claims. Hence the 'hyperbole'.

I already did, Pim, many times before this, in several different threads.

you must have a very short memory, but you could always go back to reading Gert's review on talk for a refresher if you so choose:

http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/korthof83.htm

he hit the nail pretty much on the head there.

you remember Gert, right? you seemed to like his review of Behe, which you might want to refresh yourself with as well:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2007/07/gert-korthof-re.html

besides which, burden shifting does not become you.

Pim, I've seen you go from discussing the actual science of evolution to instead becoming a religious apologist over the last 3 years, and it's not been pretty.

Funny, some can use the word to describe others but not really accept it when it seems to apply to themselves.

you obviously don't even know what the word means, Pim.

Funny, some can use the word to describe others but not really accept it when it seems to apply to themselves.

btw, goof, he was referring to YOU ridiculously accusing him of hyperbole, just like you accused me.

the "i'm rubber you're glue" argument tactic you appear to be trying to employ was, IIRC, typically dismissed as ineffective sometime around the 3rd grade for most of us.

Remember what you claimed and now your deflection

there is no deflection, no hyperbole, no contradictions.

you're entirely projecting, Pim.

it's rather pathetic.

OK, this thread is degenerating past what I want to clean up. Thanks for playing, folks.