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Cubist



Posts: 558
Joined: Oct. 2007

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,04:21   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Feb. 28 2015,19:56)
   
Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
     
Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Feb. 28 2015,17:22)
I'm new here, just an interested layman, and I would just like to let my stance on the issues be known.  I accept that evolution works but I also think that ID researchers like Dembski are on to something.

What is it, exactly, that those guys are "on to"? As far as real science is concerned, they ain't got jack. Contrary to what you may have heard or gleaned or concuded from pro-ID propaganda, real science has a methodology to detect design, and this methodology is widely used in those branches of real science (forensics and archæology being my 'go to' examples of such) which are explicitly, directly about investigating intelligent design. That methodology can be summarized as "form a hypothesis of how whatever-it-is was manufactured, and make observations & do experiments which can test your hypothesis-of-manufacture".

ID-pushers never address the question of Manufacture. Which is kind of peculiar, really; if you only Design a thing without Manufacturing it, well, there's nothing to detect the Design of, now is there? But ID-pushers explicitly reject the notion of forming a hypothesis of Manufacture, generally on grounds somewhere in the neighborhood of but gee, we wouldn't want to make any unjustified assumptions on the nature/motives/methods/whatever of the Designer, now would we. So, okay, ID-pushers claim to have this rilly kewl methodology for detecting Design, and they claim that their methodology doesn't require making any assumptions whatsoever about the Designer.

Now, if that actually were true—if ID-pushers really did have a Design-detecting methodology that doesn't require making any assumptions whatsoever about the Designer—that would be way the hell nifty.

But they don't.

     
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They are facing a lot of criticisms but so did Darwin when he first proposed his theory.

That's right—in real science, every new idea gets put through the wringer of intense criticism, which means that the reception ID gets is nothing unusual at all, contrary to the help help we're being suppressed by a brutal, dogmatic Establishment!!1! narrative that so damn many ID-pushers try to sell. Good on you for not accepting that narrative, arborealdescendant.

       
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If the formalized ID theories being put forth now…

Hold it.

What "formalized ID theories"?

Over at the Discovery Institute's website, they've got an Intelligent Design FAQ, whose very first question is:
       
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1. What is the theory of intelligent design?
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.

Note well that the assertion that such-and-such is best explained by an intelligent cause is not, in fact, an EXPLANATION for such-and-such. Rather, such-and-such is best explained by an intelligent cause is a bald, unsupported assertion that whatever the explanation for such-and-such may be, an intelligent cause will be part of that explanation.

Note well: There isn't any shadow of a hint about what that 'intelligent cause' is supposed to have done, or how that 'intelligent cause' did whatever it's supposed to have done, or why that 'intelligent cause' did whatever it's supposed to have done, or, well, anything at all about the 'intelligent cause' they insist is part of the 'best explanation' for…

Hmmm. "certain features of the universe and of living things". So, not only does ID not have anything to say about the Designer, ID is also uselessly vague about what, exactly, the Designer is supposed to have Designed.

Interesting, that.

So… um… according to what the biggest, most prominent ID-pushing organization around says the theory of ID is about… the theory of intelligent design can be summarized as somehow, somewhere, somewhen, somebody intelligent did something.

       
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[if ID-pushing notions] had nothing going for them, they wouldn't be creating all the fuss that they are.

I agree, but I suspect you've misidentified the thing which ID-pushing notions have going for them. Judging by what you've written here, you seem to believe that ID-pushing notions have real, true, honest-to-Francis-Bacon scientific validity going for them… and they just don't. What they do have is the support of religious zealots and wannabe theocrats, some of whom (Howard Ahmanson leaps to mind) have supported flat-out Creationism in times past.

       
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All Dembski and ID colleagues are saying is that their are scientific methods to detect intelligent design in nature despite how it got there…

And they're right—as I noted above, there are scientific methods to detect intelligent design, and there's no reason at all those methods couldn't detect design in nature. The thing is, ID-pushers like Dembski et al are not using any of those scientific methods. Rather, they've come up with bogus non-methods that wow the ignorant and those who are predisposed to believe in God.

     
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The fact that a Creator could have designed through evolution gets lost in the fray from the public's perspective…

The position God did it, and He used evolution is what's called Theistic Evolution. And if that 'fact' is indeed "lost in the fray from the public's perspective", don't you think people like Ken Ham, who explicitly reject Theistic Evolution in favor of Young-Earth Creationism and say that YEC is the only valid position a Christian can take, have just a tiny bit more to do with that 'fact' than anything real scientists might have said or not said?

     
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…and the evolutionist side is going to look idiotic when someone like Dembski does nail down a solid method for detecting design scientifically.

"when someone like Dembski does nail down a solid method for detecting design scientifically"? So… you acknowledge that Dembski & Co. have not, in fact, "nail[ed] down a solid method for detecting design scientifically" yet. Cool.

     
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I have a hunch it is only a matter of time and if like Miller says, we don't "rescue the argument from design" for science, Dembski and colleagues are going to use scientific proof of an ultimate designer as segway to revert the public to a stronger, young earth creationist view of the universe, like 100 years ago.

So… you acknowledge that ID's leading lights are, in fact, using ID as a stalking horse to push that good old-time Creationism. Cool.

     
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I heard Dembski at another debate, at Princeston with Lee Silver, briefly mention that if a designer can be detected, then it would throw even the "other" aspects of natural selection into question....to my mind he was speaking even of microevolution.

Right, right. You acknowledge that ID is an attack aimed at discrediting evolution. Cool.

     
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So the evolutionist side needs to seriously consider that a "designer" of some sort might be a  verifiable scientific possibility…

Dude. Real scientists have "consider[ed] that a 'designer' of some sort might be a verifiable scientific possibility". Real scientists in fields like forensics and archæology are all about 'designers'. What real scientists haven't done, and should continue not to do, is treat the overarchingly vague non-hypothesis somehow, somewhere, somewhen, somebody intelligent did something as if it was an honest-to-Francis-Bacon scientific theory.

     
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and co-opt it, as Miller puts it, for the service of science.  I believe that this can be done by taking the stance that a designer programed life to come about through the physical laws like Miller seems to believe.

If Miller wants to think that, bully for him. It's not a scientific stance, and Miller knows it's not a scientific stance, but he's welcome to think that if he wants to.

     
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I could be wrong but if evolutionists don't try to bang this point home in the minds of the public, when the ID side comes up with a convincing scientific method to detect design they'll use new found credibility with the public to take them even further back towards creationism.

What, exactly, do you think real scientists ought to do to combat this threat? Be as specific as you can, please.

There is a lot here to respond to so I'll try.  I think we are underestimating the prospects of being able to scientifically detect real design in biology.

Exactly which "prospects" do you think real scientists are "underestimating"? If you think real scientists are "underestimating" the "prospects" of eventually, at some indefinite time in the future, "being able to scientifically detect real design in biology", I disagree; I don't know of any real scientist who would categorically deny the mere philosophical possibility of "being able to scientifically detect real design in biology". Now, there are a lot of real scientists who, having looked at the evidence of actual living entities, have reached the tentative conclusion that there ain't no Design in biology… but if any of those real scientists are dogmatically committed to the proposition that there ain't no Design in biology, I am unaware of them. As best I can tell, any of those tentatively-denying-Design-in-biology real scientists would change their minds if they were presented with any actual evidence to support the proposition of Design in biology. If you think there are any real scientists who are, in fact, dogmatically committed to denying Design-in-biology no matter what, perhaps you might want to, you know, identify any of those dogmatic Design-in-biology deniers.

Exactly whose fault is it that nobody who pushes Design-in-biology has yet managed to pony up any friggin' evidence in support of their position, arborealdescendant?

 
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Evolution is a fact in my mind, but just because it is doesn't mean that an intelligence couldn't have created through evolution.  So either way there is intelligence behind it.

Hold it. "doesn't mean that an intelligence couldn't have created through evolution"  is not an established fact; it is, rather, an acknowledgement of a possible hypothetical scenario. So there's no "either way" about it! There are, in fact, (at least) three "way"s, which is one more "way" than you acknowledge. Specifically, you're tryna make it seem like the only two "way"s are Designer-who-used-evolution, and Designer-who-didn't-use-evolution, and you are eliding the third "way" of evolution-without-any-Designer-at-all.

 
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It doesn't matter how the intelligence created the designs in nature and Dembski has repeatedly stated this in his debates I've watched.

If all you mean to say here is that Dembski claims to have a Design-detection methodology which does not require forming a hypothesis of Manufacture, then sure—I fully agree that Dembski has, indeed, claimed to have a Design-detection methodology which does not require forming a hypothesis of Manufacture. If, on the other hand, you mean to say that Dembski really and truly has a Design-detection methodology which does not require forming a hypothesis of Manufacture, then I cordially invite you to get stuffed. Because he just doesn't.

Do you really think it would be a good idea for real scientists to give a pass to bullshit non-theories, on the grounds that said non-theories might, at some indefinite future date, turn out to not be bullshit after all? If so, I'm curious to know what other bullshit non-theories, besides ID, you think real scientists should give a pass to on the grounds of their potential validity in the indefinite future.

 
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What simply matters is that you can statistically point to the fact that an organism is "really" designed period.

I call bullshit. No, you cannot "statistically point to the fact that an organism is 'really' designed period". Or if such a feat is indeed possible, no ID-pusher has yet managed to present anything within bazooka range of a valid statistical methodology for doing so.

 
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You ask for formalized ID theories? Dembski's CSI method is "formalized," albeit wrong at this point.  However, that doesn't mean it will stay that way.

That's nice. Since you apparently agree that Dembski's CSI thingie is not currently valid, it is unclear to me why you point to an as-yet-hypothetical future time when Dembski's CSI thingie might conceivably acquire the validity which it does not currently possess. What's your game here, arborealdescendant? Do you think real scientists should give Dembski's CSI thingie a pass on the basis of its potential future validity, rather than treat it in accordance with its present lack of validity?

 
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On your point about YECs like Ham....yes they have something to do with the misconceptions about the public not viewing evolution as a creative designer force, but the ID movement is different than them and more sophisticated and can have more impact.

"the ID movement is different"? I call bullshit. The ID movement is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the greater Creationist movement, and the only "difference" between ID-pushers and Creationism-pushers is that ID-pushers, as a group, are somewhat less likely to make with the God-talk when they're addressing non-religious audiences.

 
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You ask me to be specific about what scientists can do to combat ID.  Do exactly, what Miller proposes.  Biology needs to acknowledge that there is "real" design in nature for those folks that are religiously inclined and push the possibility that the designer used evolution to create.

That's an… interesting… tactic you propose, arborealdescendant. Exactly where does the notion of supportive evidence come into play, in said tactic? Should real scientists ignore and/or downplay the fact that ID does not, at present, have any supportive evidence? Should real scientists ignore and/or downplay the fact that the entire friggin' ID movement, as currently constituted, just plain is an exceptionally deceitful 'morph' of good old Creationism?

  
OgreMkV



Posts: 3668
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,10:19   

If this goes live, we can say goodbye to creationist websites.

http://www.newscientist.com/article....cvnl4gj

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Ignored by those who can't provide evidence for their claims.

http://skepticink.com/smilodo....retreat

   
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,10:23   

[quote=Cubist,Mar. 01 2015,04:21][/quote]
Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
if any of those real scientists are dogmatically committed to the proposition that there ain't no Design in biology, I am unaware of them.


I can’t presume to say whether a scientist/antiID proponent is “dogmatically committed to denying [real] Design-in-biology no matter what.”  I can only speak to how I see the evolution/ID debate being framed in the eyes of the public, which is my concern here.

I live in the south, so I know a lot of the misconceptions people down here have about evolution.  I believe part of the strategy of the ID movement is to misrepresent the evolutionist side as being almost mutually exclusive with belief in a designer….as almost atheistic….case in point the popular movie “God is Not Dead.”  They may gloss over a phrase in a debate that says this is not true, but it’s just hand waving.  

So the public at large, at least from my experience here in the south, equates evolution with atheism.  The IDers push this when they debate atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Lewis Wolpert, which Dembski made big publicity out of.  I can’t mention how many times in Dembski debates I’ve watched, in which he pounds home names like Richard Dawkins to the audience and falsely equates his stance with “neo-Darwinism.”  Dawkins and Wolpert may indeed be ‘dogmatically’ committed to atheism….I can’t say for sure.  These people, as Miller puts it are “fooling themselves” by emphatically mindless running out and debating ID’s from a stance that seems to be against possible “real” design in nature; they are playing right into the ID people’s hands.  How many times have scientists left the impression (in statements, books, debates etc.) that the prospects of detecting an “intelligent designer” in nature, or that one exists at all, is not a scientific question?  It’s not falsifiable….testable….all that.  This says to the public that science is opposed to such a prospect.

These are the images that I would like to see changed.  After all, like I said, 99% of the population believes in creator(s), and if the debate is not reframed, evolutionists are NEVER, NEVER, going to convince people down here in the south, for example, that evolution is true.  

It has to be made absolutely CLEAR in public debates and books that evolutionist put out, that belief in a God(s)/Creator(s) is perfectly compatible with evolution and furthermore that it is possible that science may be able to detect a creator through the handiwork of evolution in the future.  In the meantime, science is appropriately taking a neutral stance on a Creator.  This is not made clear to the public in the debates I’ve seen.  It is not CLEAR to the public that, as you say, “[many scientists] have reached the tentative conclusion that there ain't no Design in biology….”

Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
Exactly whose fault is it that nobody who pushes Design-in-biology has yet managed to pony up any friggin' evidence in support of their position, arborealdescendant?


My point is that, to my knowledge, the IDers are at least trying to scientifically verify “real design” in nature and the evolutionist side isn’t to my knowledge.  Elsbery was kind enough to refer me to his paper, which I am going to try and understand (seems over my head); but this may be an attempt to do this I’m not sure.  Scientists not making attempts to this end and then publicizing it, is a mistake if you ask me and precisely what I mean by saying science is not taking seriously the prospect of scientifically detecting “real design” in biological systems.  Evolutionist don’t need to leave this endeavor in the hands of IDers, who will then turn around and further validate the misconceptions they have planted in the minds of the public, that evolutionists were opposed to the view and/or methods that has now been vindicated.
Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
and you are eliding the third "way" of evolution-without-any-Designer-at-all.


I acknowledge that “design” in nature may not be the result of a designer…it may just be appearance or whatever.  It could be true….atheism might be true.  I strongly believe there is a designer on religious grounds, and further that science might be able to prove it, as Dembski is trying to do, but I could be wrong.

Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
If all you mean to say here is that Dembski claims to have a Design-detection methodology which does not require forming a hypothesis of Manufacture, then sure—I fully agree that Dembski has, indeed, claimed to have a Design-detection methodology which does not require forming a hypothesis of Manufacture.
 

This is what I mean.

Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
Do you really think it would be a good idea for real scientists to give a pass to bullshit non-theories, on the grounds that said non-theories might, at some indefinite future date, turn out to not be bullshit after all?

No they should not give the Dembski BS a pass.  They should do like Elsberyis and critique them.  But then we should also do like Miller is saying and “co-opt” the design argument “for the service of science.”  This includes maybe trying to coming up with real scientific ways to detect design in nature, changing the debate framework etc., like I’ve mentioned. That is the best way to neutralize the ID movement in my opinion.
Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
I call bullshit. No, you cannot "statistically point to the fact that an organism is 'really' designed period". Or if such a feat is indeed possible, no ID-pusher has yet managed to present anything within bazooka range of a valid statistical methodology for doing so.
 
You see here is my point.  If evolution is true, which I agree it is, how else could we potentially detect a designer if not statistically?  Unless the designer actually revealed him/herself to us directly.  I agree the IDers don’t have anything yet, but they are trying.  By making such a statement it is feeding into the IDers false narrative that science is opposed to such a prospect.  You did mention however, “if such a feat is indeed possible.”  It is the language and impressions I’m partly concerned about here.

Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
What's your game here, arborealdescendant?


I hope I’ve made my “game” clear.  Not let the IDer’s misrepresent the debate and take the lead on what “might” be a real scientific possibility, namely detecting “real” design in nature.


Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
“the ID movement is different”? I call bullshit.


If the ID movement is different why are the gaining the platforms that they are?  Debates at the American Museum of Natural History, Princeston, University of Chicago.  Dawkins in his book, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” which I am currently reading, states that the ID movement is more formidable that ever.  They are honing their image, skills, argument and the fact that they are Creationist reincarnated will be lost of the public and appear as real science.  We should not underestimate them.

Quote (Cubist @ Feb. 28 2015,19:22)
Exactly where does the notion of supportive evidence come into play, in said tactic? Should real scientists ignore and/or downplay the fact that ID does not, at present, have any supportive evidence?

I initially said, “Biology needs to acknowledge that there is "real" design in nature.”  I misstated my meaning here.  I should have said that scientists need to MAKE CLEAR to the public that there could be “real” design in nature and we just haven’t come up with scientific methods to verify this as of yet.  Furthermore, science should proactively make attempts, like Dembski’s doing, to explore this possibility…in effect pre-empt the ID side.  Meanwhile, pointing out the fact that the ID movement is really creationist repackaged is a good thing and Miller did this very well at Chautauqua.  Finally, don’t let them mis-frame the debate like they are doing now.  
My whole approach stems from trying to reconcile my acceptance of evolution and a “belief” in a designer.  Furthermore, my POV that if science is the search for truth, then it may be “possible” to scientifically verify the existence of an ultimate designer, one that is compatible with what we know about evolution.  I don’t want to let the ID side slip this possibility out from under “true science” because they will use it for dishonest reasons if they can claim credit.  Like Miller said reframe the argument of “design’ for the service of science.

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,10:44   

Look, a great deal of the core problem here is that 'design' is an incredibly equivocal term.
Provide an operational definition for it.  Then science can go looking for it.

Also note that 'design' seems alway, ALWAYS, to be used as a cheat -- what is really wanted, what is really being asserted, is not 'design' but manufacture.

Snowflakes are designed by, and created by, the laws of physics and chemistry.

Many things that humans design are never produced.
Many things that humans produce are not designed in any rigorous fashion, or in any way that says 'start with the design, proceed directly to the production, and the end product will be according to the pre-set design'.  In fact, that almost never happens.

Secondarily to the above, we have the question of why do we design.  We design because we face limits, limits imposed on us by circumstances ranging from our own current ignorance to things we know that just ain't so, to the refractory nature of materials and of physics and chemistry.  An omnipotent being, by definition, would not design because there would be no need.  The design phase of the production of an object is irrelevant to a being who faces no limits -- it is all production, with no design.  Oh, then 'design' is about the making of choices.  No ID or other creationist has ever done more than assert that the natural world, as opposed (falsely) to the world of human action, features choices in its nature and operation.
And that  insight helps expose the equivocal nature of the term 'design'.  ID creationists will, without exception equivocate on design when confronted with these issues.  They require 'design' to be a loose and sloppy term, with no operational definition.
Does 'design' mean 'pattern'?  When it needs to.
Does 'design' mean 'production'?  When it needs to.
Does 'design' mean purposeful pre-planning to achieve a more or less clearly understood goal taking into account the spectrum of affordabilities and limitations that confront the designer with a more or less clearly understood goal?  Rarely, and only when it needs to, almost always in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the sheep.

What do you mean by 'design', and how closely can you stick to that specific definition?
Regardless of what it is, it will be at most one of a set of varying and often at least partially contradictory 'definitions' used by ID, and other, creationists.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,10:55   

I once got into a fruitless round with gpuccio over "design" as a verb vs design as a noun.

One can detect "design" without saying anything about the history of an object.

That's really the whole problem with Dembski. He can detect design, but cannot say anything about the history of the object. He cannot rule out an evolutionary history.

Behe is not quite so stupid. He does try to argue a few cases where he asserts there is no evolutionary path. He's wrong, but his argument is at least testable.

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,11:12   

Quote
My point is that, to my knowledge, the IDers are at least trying to scientifically verify “real design” in nature and the evolutionist side isn’t to my knowledge.

But science works with the best available explanation (determined by available evidence), and with attempting to disprove that and find even better explanations.  The evolutionist side is not responsible for trying to scientifically verify real design.  They've investigated it in depth (see responses to Paley back in Darwin's time and earlier: Hume and Darwin basically pounded the nails into the coffin of Paley's design proposal) and found it lacking as an explanation.  See Dawkins (Blind Watchmaker) for more details. Biology has an appearance of design, sure.  It has "design" and is "guided", if you want to include in design inanimate processes leading to improvements in degrees of adaptation to current situations and a good fit between form and function, and if you find sense in saying that the environment "guides" evolution. (That is Kenneth Miller's position, as described at http://www.sciencedaily.com/release....838.htm )  However, given that "guidance" and "design" are immediately taken by most people to refer to divine guidance and supernatural design (note your take on Miller's video), biologists have on the whole decided it is less confusing to talk about adaptation and natural selection.  

From Miller:    
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"There is, indeed, a design to life -- an evolutionary design.  The structures in our bodies have changed over time, as have its functions. Scientists should embrace this concept of 'design,' and in so doing, claim for science the sense of orderly rationality in nature to which the anti-evolution movement has long appealed."


However, creationists have resurrected Paleyian design arguments buried in a cloud of squid-ink mathematics (see Wesley's dissection of Dembski's math) to hide their religiosity.  Yes, the average citizen likes the idea of God designing man.  However, the original arguments have been refuted, and the recent IDists HAVE NOT ADDED ANYTHING NEW, other than layers of obfuscation. If they actually had some new ideas or a tool that actually worked to identify design, they would deserve consideration, but people have looked into their ideas and they've been found wanting.  Why shouldn't ID join phlogistons and N-rays on the shelf of discarded ideas?

Whenever they've thought to do so, IDists have been quick to add that their designer might have been a god but could have been a space alien. All that we know of design indicates that advanced designed features tend to come with identifiers such as "Inspected by #106", "Made in XXXX", "copyright 2015", and the like.  People are inspecting genomes regularly.  If they found a section of noncoding DNA that said something equivalent to "Model No SIII-B, copyright 49532 God Inc., Made in Betelgeuse IX, inspected by #1301, patent #23415141-1241", biologists would all of a sudden happily switch to scientific investigation of design-based hypotheses.  But we don't have ANYTHING like that at all.  What we have after lots and lots of studies that could have refuted evolutionary theory and/or demonstrated design is a conclusion that evolutionary processes are the best available explanation for the fit of organisms to their lifestyles and environments.

We've done the work that disproves ID while IDists have not done any work that supports it, yet you want to take the position "I don't follow all the science, but let's pretend that the scientists haven't done anything useful while the creationists have, and so we should give their ideas the benefit of the doubt, because, who knows, their ideas could eventually be found legitimate."  Pigs might eventually grow wings, but should all ornithology courses devote a few weeks to flying pigs, in case they ever develop wings?

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,11:26   



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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,11:27   

As noted, 'design' is both noun and  verb.  And it is incredibly equivocal in both cases.
It is the "what color is this dress?" of biological science.  And based on all the available evidence, it is indeed blue and black, perceptions to the contrary notwithstanding.  The 'design "theorists"' haven't even put the discussion in such semi-concrete terms.

  
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,11:27   

[quote=The whole truth,Mar. 01 2015,01:44][/quote]
Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)
because of the beliefs and agendas of religious people, and especially religious zealots, pretty much any concession by evolutionary scientists that nature (including life, life's diversity, etc.) was/is designed-created by an 'intelligent agent' would be used by religious people, or at least by religious zealots, as a 'science-approved' springboard to take people toward their religious view and in some religious zealots' cases that would be the same as Ham's view.

Maybe…..but consider what would happen if true science continues to dismiss the possibility that “real” design might be scientifically detectable in nature and the IDers come up with a scientific method first.  What then?  IDers will be able to then discredit evolution even more powerfully in the eyes of the public and do even more damage.   It seems to me that if biology makes serious attempts to do something like what Dembski is doing, even if they don’t turn out to be fruitful , and make a point to emphasize this in various venues, it could more easily make a case that “real” design in nature is compatible with a stance of theistic evolution, not creationism.   If IDers are allowed to vindicate their POV, by coming up with a method first and controlling the terms of the debate like they are currently doing, a scenario like you outline is more probable.  

Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)
The terms 'ID' and 'intelligent design' are so tainted with theocratic beliefs and agendas that it would be virtually impossible to get non-IDers to accept that 'ID/intelligent design' is a legitimate scientific pursuit.
 Not if ‘true’ science takes up the cause and labels it “Theistic Evolution” instead.  

Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)
Even IDers and so-called 'theistic evolutionists' are at odds with each other.
True.  I’m a theistic evolutionist and don’t like the IDers because of what they really want to do.
Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)
That they are at odds with each other, along with the fact that IDers constantly attack evolutionary research, evidence, and explanations, tells me that IDers don't accept that evolution, as described by evolutionary theory, has ever occurred.
 
I agree….

Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)
I and others have often asked IDers to explain the difference that an 'ID inference' would make when it comes to studying and explaining nature. They claim that it would open new 'avenues of research' but they never point out any avenues of research that would be new.
 
Yes I’ve heard some of their answers, and their ultimate goal make social and cultural changes not improve science.

Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)
'ID' is taken seriously by many non-IDers but not as a legitimate scientific pursuit.

This is where I think true science could be making a mistake.  It might be a legitimate scientific pursuit and if so, it can be employed to support a theistic evolutionary POV.  This is safer than the world-view IDers want to spread.

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,11:52   

Quote
Maybe…..but consider what would happen if true science continues to dismiss the possibility that “real” design might be scientifically detectable in nature and the IDers come up with a scientific method first.  What then?  IDers will be able to then discredit evolution even more powerfully in the eyes of the public and do even more damage.   It seems to me that if biology makes serious attempts to do something like what Dembski is doing, even if they don’t turn out to be fruitful , and make a point to emphasize this in various venues, it could more easily make a case that “real” design in nature is compatible with a stance of theistic evolution, not creationism.   If IDers are allowed to vindicate their POV, by coming up with a method first and controlling the terms of the debate like they are currently doing, a scenario like you outline is more probable.  
 But science is not dismissing the idea that design might be detectable in nature (after all, archaeologists and forensic scientists and people who look for mislabelling of genetically modified foods do this all the time).  Instead, science has concluded that design has not been detected in relation to the origins of species.  If IDists come up with a better idea, they'll have a legitimate win, and the rest of us would all have to go back to the drawing boards and give up or start over.  That's the way science is supposed to work - disproved ideas get discarded.

You want us to work on building a phlogiston detector, just in case we were wrong about discarding phlogistons.

Midwifetoad: it's all in the eye of the beholder
https://ardfilmjournal.files.wordpress.com/2008.......ing.jpg

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,11:56   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Mar. 01 2015,12:27)
   
Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)

     
Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)
because of the beliefs and agendas of religious people, and especially religious zealots, pretty much any concession by evolutionary scientists that nature (including life, life's diversity, etc.) was/is designed-created by an 'intelligent agent' would be used by religious people, or at least by religious zealots, as a 'science-approved' springboard to take people toward their religious view and in some religious zealots' cases that would be the same as Ham's view.

Maybe…..but consider what would happen if true science continues to dismiss the possibility that “real” design might be scientifically detectable in nature and the IDers come up with a scientific method first.

To date scientists have not and are not 'dismissing' the possibility of there being actual design in nature.  Of course, those who argue for the possibility need to clean up their act(s) with regard to just what 'design' actually is.  Dembski's rarified notion is so wildly out of congruence with everyday notions as to render it dishonest on the face of things.
   
Quote
 What then?  IDers will be able to then discredit evolution even more powerfully in the eyes of the public and do even more damage.
 
Yes, and ?  Science progresses by current theories being shown to be wrong, inadequate or insufficient.  There was a rather enormous battle in astronomy over much of the previous century between the 'big bang' theorists and the 'steady state' theorists.
Science will not be damaged in the slightest if some yet to be found 'ID' person manages to demonstrate the existence of specifically defined 'design' in Nature.
Note well that the progress of Science is not by rejecting known facts, but by incorporating them in broader, deeper, "better" theories.  At this stage, it is incredibly difficult to see where any "design" theory could slip in and improve our understanding of or ability to explain any fact about the natural world whatsoever.
   
Quote
It seems to me that if biology makes serious attempts to do something like what Dembski is doing, even if they don’t turn out to be fruitful , and make a point to emphasize this in various venues, it could more easily make a case that “real” design in nature is compatible with a stance of theistic evolution, not creationism.

That's Dembski, et al,'s job, not Science's.  Science has already done the work, Dembski has been shown to have nothing whatsoever to offer to it.
   
Quote
  If IDers are allowed to vindicate their POV,

Who's stopping them?  Are they being stopped?  No, they are lying about what they are up to, what they have accomplished, and their reception by the community of scientists.  And that is, quite literally, the sum total of  what they have done.  So who is stopping them?  How?
   
Quote
by coming up with a method first and controlling the terms of the debate like they are currently doing, a scenario like you outline is more probable.  

And you are suggesting this is not happening?
Look at the ID sites, what  few of them are left.  They are festering cesspits of dishonesty and the imposition of strict control of the existence, quantity, and content of both posts and comments.
Strikingly different from the science sites, especially the professional sites, but even including the 'interested onlooker' sites.
...
     
Quote (The whole truth @ Mar. 01 2015,01:44)
'ID' is taken seriously by many non-IDers but not as a legitimate scientific pursuit.

 
Quote
This is where I think true science could be making a mistake.

And you would be wrong.  As wrong as it is possible to be, as wrong as if you asserted that a platypus was a type of berry.
It is not  science's job to accommodate agenda-driven nut cases and their delusions.  It is the job of those who propose 'new' ideas to support them, provide evidence for them, openly engage in discussion about them, defend them, and ultimately prevail or fail on the merits.  For many many years, "true science" [there's only science and its imitators, liars one and all] has prevailed on the merits..  When ID steps up to the plate and openly engages, well, we've seen how that goes.
   
Quote
 It might be a legitimate scientific pursuit and if so, it can be employed to support a theistic evolutionary POV.  This is safer than the world-view IDers want to spread.

But it remains the responsibility of those who bring up the 'new' ideas, or who find merit in them, to establish that they warrant being taken seriously.

No one can argue that Dembski has  simply been dismissed without attention; the evidence is decisively against that myth.  Likewise for Behe's effluent.  And likewise for every single solitary 'serious' work of "design based" creationist work.
The evidence is stark and overpowering that this is the case.

So what's your beef?  That the proponents, having failed, deserve to be taken seriously and treated as if they had succeeded because maybe someday, under some as yet unknown "theoretical" umbrella something more or less sorta-kinda like current ID 'work' will actually make progress within biological science?

And you think it's a problem if that doesn't happen?
If that's true, you genuinely do not know how science works, what the facts of the matter are wrt ID, or how genuinely open science is to new ideas that work better than the current ones.

There is literally zero evidence that ID will ever amount to anything other than a close-minded theistic shill for antiquated ideas that have been dead and rotted for ages.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,13:03   

Dembski's work means absolutely nothing until you prove that things did not evolve. It can't be used to prove that things did not evolve.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,13:29   

Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,10:44)

Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,10:44)

What do you mean by 'design', and how closely can you stick to that specific definition?

Good question.  I’m referring to design in the noun sense because it’s pretty clear to me that the process by which life was designed, the verb sense, is evolution….micro, macro, cosmic, abiogenesis etc.   Science has uncovered the method, as it were.   midwifetoad said:
Quote (midwifetoad @ Mar. 01 2015,10:55)

One can detect "design" without saying anything about the history of an object.

I agree with this assessment.
Relating to design, N.Wells said this
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:12)

Biology has an appearance of design, sure.  It has "design" and is "guided", if you want to include in design inanimate processes leading to improvements in degrees of adaptation to current situations and a good fit between form and function, and if you find sense in saying that the environment "guides" evolution. (That is Kenneth Miller's position, as described at http://www.sciencedaily.com/release....838.htm )  However, given that "guidance" and "design" are immediately taken by most people to refer to divine guidance and supernatural design (note your take on Miller's video), biologists have on the whole decided it is less confusing to talk about adaptation and natural selection.  
 
And then quotes Miller, “"There is, indeed, a design to life -- an evolutionary design.  The structures in our bodies have changed over time, as have its functions.”   However, Miller also points out that the form and function of living organisms are not “random and accidental mistakes.”  So what I mean when I say design is that the process of evolution itself could has been designed….. designed  and stipulated to occur via the inherent physical and chemical laws in the universe.  Miller says at Chautauqua, where he also mentions that he is a theistic evolutionist, that “the capacity for life is built into the physics of chemistry of matter itself.  Evolution therefore is an inherent and predictable property of nature….it’s not a mistake….it is something that matter itself allows.”  
Key word there, “built.”  Why is it such a stretch to take from this that an intelligent agent “built” (i.e. created) the laws of the universe so that they would inevitably be conducive to the evolutionary process…evolution was the intended purpose in order to indirectly create life.  This is not unlike a human intelligence coding the laws of an evolutionary algorithm that simulates natural evolution and creates a product (e.g. biomorphs, automata) in the computer accordingly.  Either way, the product exhibits the “noun” design when brought to fruition and this should be detectable.  The simulated evolutionary algorithm itself is an intelligent product, exhibiting both the “noun and verb” forms of design is it not?  Evolution could have been algorithmically designed and coded into the physical and chemical laws of nature by an intelligent agent.  In this case the evolutionary process become synonymous with intelligent design and hence evolutionary products exhibit intelligent “noun” design ….the process becomes irrelevant.  Evolution and intelligent design are the same….form/function “appearance” natural design  and “real” design are the same.  
I think the way to detect this “real” design is statistically like Dembski and others may be doing.  Drawing analogies to Paley’s argument become useful again, because like Paul Davis said living things exhibit specified complexity, like a watch, whereas a rock doesn’t.  If something exhibits CSI then it must be intelligently designed.  If CSI proves not to work then maybe other statistical methods can work, like Elsberry’s specified anti-information, a variant of the Kolmogorov methods…..things I don’t know that much about.  Analyzing things statistically to prove specificity and complexity is the way to go.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,13:43   

Quote
If something exhibits CSI then it must be intelligently designed.  


You need to go back and read Dembski. A thing cannot be said to have CSI until you already know it is artificially designed. That's part of Dembski's definition.

Not a part he emphasizes, but it's right in the definition. Before one calculates CSI, one has to rule out any possible  natural history.

Edited by midwifetoad on Mar. 01 2015,13:44

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,13:56   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Mar. 01 2015,14:29)
...
Key word there, “built.”  Why is it such a stretch to take from this that an intelligent agent “built” (i.e. created) the laws of the universe so that they would inevitably be conducive to the evolutionary process…evolution was the intended purpose in order to indirectly create life.

Because the assertion is cognitively empty.  It adds quite literally nothing at all to our understanding nor does it have any explanatory power.
Worse, although those are fatal flaws in and of themselves, making the leap to "the universe was created such that the natural laws would inevitably lead to life" requires making a host of additional assumptions, none of which are warranted.
To wit, what is there about the universe such that it required a design?  Go back and review my explanation of *why* design occurs, why it is necessary for humans.
There is zero evidence to suggest that the universe could, in any plausible sense of the term, be different than what it is in terms of natural law.  Nor is there any reason to suppose that an entity capable of creation ex nihilo, itself a massively problematic notion that does violence to *all* other conceptions of cause, would require a design or would need to or could choose from amongst alternatives.
This is 'speculative metaphysics' at its worst, and at its least compelling.
And it is entirely unwarranted.
 
Quote
 This is not unlike a human intelligence coding the laws of an evolutionary algorithm that simulates natural evolution and creates a product (e.g. biomorphs, automata) in the computer accordingly.

Except that it is entirely unlike such a process of coding or design.  And the analogy fails at precisely the points where it is supposed to be most compelling.
 
Quote
Either way, the product exhibits the “noun” design when brought to fruition and this should be detectable.

Why?  How?  We only know design within constraints and within the scope and limits of natural law.  It is invalid to generalize from that to anything whatsoever outside that scope, for we quite literally know nothing at all about what it is, whether it is an 'it' at all, how it might function, what  'cause' means outside the scope of natural law, etc.
And we have nothing to distinguish nature as such from any aspect of it that we deign to consider 'designed'.  It's all or nothing.  Paley "gets away with" his absurd 'argument' precisely because the watch is contrasted with 'everything else'.  In this case, we have only the 'everything' and nothing whatsoever to compare it against.  We have no grounds for speculating on what is not in and part of the natural universe.
 
Quote
The simulated evolutionary algorithm itself is an intelligent product, exhibiting both the “noun and verb” forms of design is it not?
 
Yes.  And precisely because it is distinguishable from the "background" of everything else which specifically *lacks* this characteristic.  Else what distinction are we drawing?  What makes it meaningful?
None, and nothing.
 
Quote
Evolution could have been algorithmically designed and coded into the physical and chemical laws of nature by an intelligent agent.

How?  That violates everything we know about, and the justification for everything we know about, how design and implementation work, what warrants inference to or deduction of their presence, it is viciously self-vitiating -- it attempts to stand on the feet it has just cut off.
Quote
 In this case the evolutionary process become synonymous with intelligent design and hence evolutionary products exhibit intelligent “noun” design ….the process becomes irrelevant.

So do both 'design' and 'intelligent'.  The terms are rendered meaningless by the attempted form of the "argument".
 
Quote
 Evolution and intelligent design are the same….form/function “appearance” natural design  and “real” design are the same.  
I think the way to detect this “real” design is statistically like Dembski and others may be doing.  Drawing analogies to Paley’s argument become useful again, because like Paul Davis said living things exhibit specified complexity, like a watch, whereas a rock doesn’t.  If something exhibits CSI then it must be intelligently designed.  If CSI proves not to work then maybe other statistical methods can work, like Elsberry’s specified anti-information, a variant of the Kolmogorov methods…..things I don’t know that much about.  Analyzing things statistically to prove specificity and complexity is the way to go.

Statistically?  With what data set?  You are fundamentally talking about *everything*, there is no subset to be evaluated.  There is nothing for statistics to get a grasp on.
Neither "complexity" nor, especially, "specified complexity" are adequately defined.  The latter appears to be strictly undefinable.  It is a meaningful-sounding noise that never reduces to anything specific.  Ironic, no?
No one on earth has ever calculated "specified complexity" and shown their work.  The challenges for someone to do so are growing old, the challenges are still entirely unmet.
No two individuals mean the same thing by the term.  A large (-ish) number of alternative and/or competing terms get tossed about.  They are all mere bafflegab, for no one can reduce them to practice, no one has ever used them to derive a specific value and been able to show how that value would be arrived at by anyone else using the same definition.  Worse, what attempts have been made have fallen to absurd consequences almost immediately.
The notion, insofar as it can be squeezed temporarily into a meaning, slips away again, nonsensical on purpose, unusable by design, and specifically vacuous.
There are nothing but good arguments for rejecting the notion as meaningless, aside from failed attempts to pretend it must have some sort of meaning.
It has no operational definition.  It is functionally non-functional.
It is not even a zombie, for it doesn't want brains.  It rejects brains, at least until they have been picked or otherwise rendered static and relatively unchanging.  Brains without minds are the only proper habitat of such "notions".

  
ArborealDescendent



Posts: 29
Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,14:13   

Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,13:56)

Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:52)
But science is not dismissing the idea that design might be detectable in nature (after all, archaeologists and forensic scientists and people who look for mislabelling of genetically modified foods do this all the time).

Those are special science field were searching for ‘real’ design is a given
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:52)
Instead, science has concluded that design has not been detected in relation to the origins of species.
 
That’s because biologists don’t realize that evolutionary design and intelligent design might be one and the same….like the evolutionary algorithm analogy I mentioned.  All we observe is the process of evolution and conclude that because it involves randomness and chance over eons, there is no intelligent designer and we deem the form/function design we see as mere appearance.  However, if an intelligence agencies created the physical and chemical laws that govern evolution, then this “appearance design” becomes “real” design and we can further verify this by information theory….CSI, SAI, Kolmogorov like statistics etc.
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:52)
 If IDists come up with a better idea, they'll have a legitimate win

Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:56)
Science will not be damaged in the slightest if some yet to be found 'ID' person manages to demonstrate the existence of specifically defined 'design' in Nature.

Why risk it?  Why give IDers the opportunity.  They shouldn’t be allowed to set any terms in my opinion.  Furthermore, real design may not be a phlogiston….. phlogiston is hindsight.
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:56)
At this stage, it is incredibly difficult to see where any "design" theory could slip in and improve our understanding of or ability to explain any fact about the natural world whatsoever.

Proof of intelligent design in nature may not add anything practical to science.  It is the social and cultural implications I’m worried about.  I don’t want to go where the IDers would take such a discovery if they got the credit for it.  But a theistic evolutionary narrative, that would be fine.  And the way science is being portrayed as being against an intelligent agencies being involved at some point….anywhere….would make it easy for IDers to seemingly discredit further what we know for a fact about evolution in the eyes of the public.  You ask me what my “beef” is?  This is it.  I can live with theistic evolution being a belief system.  I don’t want to risk the scientific facts about evolution that we do have and it seems to me that IDers making a breakthrough in scientifically validating an intelligent agency, which I have no problems religiously believing in, would discredit evolution in the eyes of the public that are not warranted.  Dembski himself, said at a debate with Lee Silver, that if they could prove what they are trying to do, it would call the rest of evolution into question..... I take this to mean in the eyes of the public mainly.  
So all I’m saying is that scientists need to take a more, not so dismissive, stance about the prospects of detecting an intelligent designer in biology.  And then if it does happen we can expound the narrative of theistic evolution.

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,14:55   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Mar. 01 2015,15:13)
     
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,13:56)

       
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:52)
But science is not dismissing the idea that design might be detectable in nature (after all, archaeologists and forensic scientists and people who look for mislabelling of genetically modified foods do this all the time).

Those are special science field were searching for ‘real’ design is a given

You are mistaken.  Where design can be detected, it will not be ruled out.  That cannot be emphasized enough.  This is not a presupposition, it is a conclusion, and as such susceptible to change whenever anyone brings actual evidence to bear.  It is not science's job to care about all the many claims that lack all evidence and all operational definitions, least of all ones that are internally contradictory.
       
Quote
       
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:52)
Instead, science has concluded that design has not been detected in relation to the origins of species.
 
That’s because biologists don’t realize that evolutionary design and intelligent design might be one and the same….like the evolutionary algorithm analogy I mentioned.

Blatant unsupported, and unsupportable  assertion.  Support it or retract it.  It is a product of your imagination and it is not supported by the facts nor by the history of science.
       
Quote
 All we observe is the process of evolution and conclude that because it involves randomness and chance over eons, there is no intelligent designer and we deem the form/function design we see as mere appearance.  

The conclusion is that nothing more is needed.  Nothing but superstition and prejudice believes otherwise.
       
Quote
 However, if an intelligence agencies created the physical and chemical laws that govern evolution, then this “appearance design” becomes “real” design and we can further verify this by information theory….CSI, SAI, Kolmogorov like statistics etc.

Again, blatant unsupported and unsupportable assertion, without evidence, and, in fact, incapable, by its own definition, of providing evidence.  And thus, on the merits, without value.  You have imagined a monster hiding under the bed and are  now insisting that just in case its real, we need to burn the house down.
     
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:52)
 If IDists come up with a better idea, they'll have a legitimate win

       
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:56)
Science will not be damaged in the slightest if some yet to be found 'ID' person manages to demonstrate the existence of specifically defined 'design' in Nature.

   
Quote
Why risk it?  Why give IDers the opportunity.  

Because that's how science works.  Because the risk of adopting a strategy based on anything other than evidence, reason, and peer review, explanatory power, etc., is the risk of directly abandoning science.  That was tried once, it's called 'The Dark Ages'.
Science is self-correcting and can withstand whatever turns up.
 
Quote
They shouldn’t be allowed to set any terms in my opinion.  Furthermore, real design may not be a phlogiston….. phlogiston is hindsight.
       
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:56)
At this stage, it is incredibly difficult to see where any "design" theory could slip in and improve our understanding of or ability to explain any fact about the natural world whatsoever.

Um, no, that was me.  Irrelevant, though.
       
Quote

Proof of intelligent design in nature may not add anything practical to science.

You mistake my meaning.  It will not, because it cannot, add anything to science.  Practicality is not one of the measures.  Pure science is famous, or infamous, for having 'no practical value'.  The value is science itself, ID wants a free pass to protect it from having to do science as science is done, and yet to be taken seriously and credibly as science.
That is the danger, not that someday, somehow, maybe, just maybe, something sorta-kinda like ID might wind up with some evidence and some place in science.  We risk nothing by both waiting for that to happen and insisting that until it does happen, ID has nothing to offer to science.
       
Quote
 It is the social and cultural implications I’m worried about.  I don’t want to go where the IDers would take such a discovery if they got the credit for it.

So you are suggesting a pre-emptive sectarian move to prevent them from getting the credit they would deserve if they were to achieve such a discovery?  Thats disgusting, and is precisely the death of science I've been going on about above.  You don't care about science, you care about imposing your own preferred sectarian views in place of others that actually have evidence and logical support.        
Quote
 But a theistic evolutionary narrative, that would be fine.  And the way science is being portrayed as being against an intelligent agencies being involved at some point….anywhere….would make it easy for IDers to seemingly discredit further what we know for a fact about evolution in the eyes of the public.

That's an education and culture problem, not science's problem.  Nor is it a problem that pogroms and re-education camps are acceptable cures for.  And really, what else are you suggesting?  You've already suggested pre-empting ID's getting credit for discoveries you fantasize that it might make, for entirely sectarian and personal preference.  That is far more  corrosive to the body politic than any perception that 'the public' doesn't buy evolution.
Quote
 You ask me what my “beef” is?  This is it.  I can live with theistic evolution being a belief system.  I don’t want to risk the scientific facts about evolution that we do have and it seems to me that IDers making a breakthrough in scientifically validating an intelligent agency, which I have no problems religiously believing in, would discredit evolution in the eyes of the public that are not warranted.

How?  You contradict yourself.  If the scientific facts are wrong, they deserve to be replaced.  If they are not, they won't be.  If ID can make its case in the arena of science, let it, and science can only be the better for it; no need to intervene.  If it cannot, no need to intervene. Or at least  there won't be until some "well meaning" soul decides to pre-empt the process, for some illusory 'greater good'.  The notion is contemptible, would be the death of science and society, and you have the gall to present it as a solution?  To your personal prejudices not being shared?  Not being the arbiter of what and how science is to be permitted to work?  For that is *exactly* what you are proposing.
     
Quote
 Dembski himself, said at a debate with Lee Silver, that if they could prove what they are trying to do, it would call the rest of evolution into question..... I take this to mean in the eyes of the public mainly.  

And if they could, so it should.  Where's the problem with this?  You argue out of one side of your mouth that they can't and out of the other that must be prevented from.  If they can't, and I believe they cannot, then there is no issue.  If they can, and they turn out to be right, then science is wrong and needs to change to accommodate the new knowledge and insight and evidence.  But again, remember that the new 'world view' still has to accommodate what we already know to be the  case but offer a better explanation.
     
Quote
So all I’m saying is that scientists need to take a more, not so dismissive, stance about the prospects of detecting an intelligent designer in biology.  And then if it does happen we can expound the narrative of theistic evolution.

And you are wrong.
Worse, you are suggesting considerably more, and worse, than what you claim.  You are insisting that science must abandon its own principles, its own strengths, because you feel it would be better if it did.
Contemptible, wrong headed, and useless.
You are far more danger than Dembski and his ilk, regardless of your intentions.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,15:07   

Since Dembski et al pose no danger at all, multiples of that danger are still zero.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,15:21   

Quote
That’s because biologists don’t realize that evolutionary design and intelligent design might be one and the same….like the evolutionary algorithm analogy I mentioned.
 To the contrary, biologists are well aware of that option: that's basically the whole schtick for theistic evolutionary biologists.  In 1760, all the people interested in geology and biology were creationists & flood geologists.  Over the next 100 years, both viewpoints became untenable positions, but some intervening people explored "semi-biblical" concepts such as successive creations, mutliple floods, and guided evolution.  "Semi-biblical geology" didn't last very long: the evidence is against it, the biblical  history contradicted by geology is not essential to most people's religious beliefs, and the story of Noah can be viewed as older myths incorporated in the bible, or poetic metaphor.  The evolution of humans is a harder medicine to swallow, however, so we still have lots of "theistic evolutionists".  Also, they've retreated to an unassailable position: it is impossible to disprove that evolution was set up by one god or another, or that gods have guided evolution at key moments, or whatever.  However, at this point NoName's point kicks in: those people have an explanation that is absolutely useless.  Scientifically, you can't do anything with it, because divine guidance is completely inseparable from a total lack of divine guidance.  What distinguishes it?  How do you measure it?  What are its processes?  In short, you just end up studying the same old evolution, along with mumbling a few meaningless platitudes about the god of your choice.  

       
Quote
All we observe is the process of evolution and conclude that because it involves randomness and chance over eons, there is no intelligent designer and we deem the form/function design we see as mere appearance.
Exactly so.

       
Quote
       
Quote
(N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:56)
Science will not be damaged in the slightest if some yet to be found 'ID' person manages to demonstrate the existence of specifically defined 'design' in Nature.


Why risk it?  Why give IDers the opportunity.  They shouldn’t be allowed to set any terms in my opinion.  Furthermore, real design may not be a phlogiston….. phlogiston is hindsight.
       
Quote
(N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,11:56)
At this stage, it is incredibly difficult to see where any "design" theory could slip in and improve our understanding of or ability to explain any fact about the natural world whatsoever.


Proof of intelligent design in nature may not add anything practical to science.  It is the social and cultural implications I’m worried about.  I don’t want to go where the IDers would take such a discovery if they got the credit for it.

Those were all quotes from NoName, and the first is in disagreement with what I said.  The end point is that if the IDists were to turn out to be right, they would deserved credit for being right and science would deserve blame for being wrong.  There's no virtue or worth in taking a position so vague that you can claim to be partly right no matter what the outcome.  

In partial contradiction to NoName, I would view this as being initially and rightly very damaging to science, and supportive of religion.  

However, until ID gets meaningful support, there is no evidence whatsoever that the methods of science are failing us, so we don't have to rush out and figure out how to build a phlogiston detector.  

       
Quote
 However, if an intelligence agencies created the physical and chemical laws that govern evolution, then this “appearance design” becomes “real” design and we can further verify this by information theory….CSI, SAI, Kolmogorov like statistics etc.
 Yes, let's suppose that ID turns out to be correct - what happens next?  What procedure do you use for advancing knowledge after you have discovered that a god was responsible?  Religion has proven itself an absolutely useless system for getting at knowledge, either "truth" or merely workable approximations of reality.  Very quickly everyone would end up doing science again, because those are the procedures that improve our understanding of reality.  As the risk of misrepresenting NoName, I think that that's his point about science not being damaged - he's just jumping over a period where I think science is damaged severely and has to recover and improve its methodology.  

Let's do a thought experiment.  When they remember to do so, the IDists like to say that the designer could have been a god, but could also have been a space alien.  Let's go with the latter: after all, just as sufficiently advanced future technology gets comprehended as magic, a sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial might as well be a god.  So imagine that we discover indisputably that the origin of life on earth was an experiment or a hobby or a good-works project set up by a Super Extraterrestrial Space Alien, and that all our religions are essentially true, albeit severely time-mangled records of everything being set up by the SESA, replete with distortions, exaggerations, creative additions, and centuries of mistransliterations, all based on a far-less-than-full original comprehension by our stone-age ancestors.  (Thus over millennia of retellings, a myriad of flying servitor robot drones became a host of angels.)  And what would we do with that knowledge?  Partly, exactly what we would do without it: we'd still be studying Galapagos finches to see what they tell us about the workings of nature.  Partly, we'd be asking lots of questions about the nature of the alien and the methods he/she/it/they employed.  Basically, god would get stripped of supernaturalism, the province of religion would fall more wholly within the province of science, and the practices and mysticism of religion would start to look like a truly ludicrous version of cargo cult science.  Substitute an actual god, and you get much the same result.

  
ArborealDescendent



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,17:43   

Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,13:56)

NoName you ask:
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,13:56)
what is there about the universe such that it required a design?
  Because there is localized order in the universe…. complexity, specificity information, focused energy accomplishing tasks that are meaningful to it’s (i.e. the universes) inhabitants; this amidst huge quantities of chaos, entrophy, and disorder.  This points to teleology.   Furthermore, I don’t follow how an omnipotent Creator(s) precludes design.  Firstly, I don’t know it/they are omnipotent , but even so there may be some reason to implement design into the process even though they face no inherent limitations to do so.  
You say:
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,13:56)
No ID or other creationist has ever done more than assert that the natural world, as opposed (falsely) to the world of human action, features choices in its nature and operation.
 The key word there is “choice.”  Maybe granting nature independent “choice” is in fact the very reason for creating a self-design process (e.g. evolution) .  When I say “choice” here I’m not talking only in the cognitive sense, as IDers and creationist probably categorically mean by an intervening creator, but just allowing nature to do it’s own thing according to a combination of random and non-random operations…granting life itself free-will at the molecular level.  Makes sense that an evolutionary process would be appropriate in this case.   So maybe this is why the universe would need a design?  It’s the same reason evolutionary computer programmers tinker with their algorithms.  Sometimes they are just curious to see what happens, sometimes brute computational trial-and-error can arrive at solutions previously unforeseen, sometimes they want to create artificial life that make it’s own choices.   The reasons are not as important as is something designed or not.
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,13:56)
There is zero evidence to suggest that the universe could, in any plausible sense of the term, be different than what it is in terms of natural law.
 From a reductionist scientific POV, correct so far.  But the term “natural” is a human invention, defendant on the seeming limits of current knowledge.   A beaver builds a dam, we call it natural.  A human builds a dam we call it artificial.  However, both species evolved by the same evolutionary processes, so they are either both natural or both artificial.  Likewise, we observe a force in the universe that operates seemingly without “artificial” (i.e. supernatural, divine etc.) intervention and call it natural when there could be no distinction.  Maybe, the creator is a deist that just set the force rolling and has nothing more to do with it, so we have no direct evidence of it as anything else but “natural.”  Just because we have limited knowledge does not mean we should be close minded to other possibilities….especially in science.  
You say that evolution:
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,13:56)
is entirely unlike such a process of coding or design.  And the analogy fails at precisely the points where it is supposed to be most compelling.
 I see analogies.  DNA can for all intents and purposes be considered a code.  There are many reputable scientists that take this position.  Random mutation and non-random selective forces can be seen as the design aspect.  I fail to see how this is not somewhat compelling, even if just on a rudimentary level.
When I said, “The simulated evolutionary algorithm itself is an intelligent product, exhibiting both the “noun and verb” forms of design is it not?”  NoName, you said:  
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,13:56)
Yes.  And precisely because it is distinguishable from the "background" of everything else which specifically *lacks* this characteristic.  Else what distinction are we drawing?  What makes it meaningful?
None, and nothing.
 So you made a design inference about the evolutionary algorithmn by comparing to “everything” else….the background as you put it, that I presume doesn’t exhibit things like order, complexity, focused energy and information usage, specificity etc.  Paley’s watch is distinguishable from the background in this regard.  Things within the universe itself are distinguishable in this regard.  This is how you detect design intuitively.  There must be a way to prove it scientifically.  We know the evolutionary algorithm was created by an intelligent agent….humans.  Why is it such a leap to consider things in the universe which are equally as distinguishable from their backgrounds as the evolutionary algorithm is to it’s background, and infer that they are designed?  The algorithm exhibits order, specificity, complexity, etc., just like some things in the universe, say a tree juxtaposed to say a “rock.”  Deductively, the tree must have some intelligent causal agent ultimately, despite its’ design process.  Hence this intelligent agent can also exist and be distinguishable from the background of natural universal laws.    
It something is designed it does imply meaning and purpose, maybe not is a strictly pragmatic scientific sense, but on a metaphysical or philosophical basis.

  
NoName



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,18:13   

The entire universe is ordered in various ways.  Even chaos is organized, it follows rules and exhibits regularities.
There's no reason to suppose it could be otherwise, not least because it is ordered in all the relevant senses at all scales.

But I notice you have completely ignored my remarks against your proposal to 'cheat' ID out of the game rather than letting them fail on the merits.
That is far more important than yor prejudicial and presuppostional adoption of an antique bronze-age superstition and the cultural spin-offs that have been generated by it.  Your argument to design is neither new or particularly interesting.
Your take on saving science by corrupting it is at least moderately new and, repellant as it is, moderately interesting.

  
ArborealDescendent



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Joined: Feb. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,19:31   

Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,18:13)

Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,15:21)
those people [i.e. theistic evolutionists] have an explanation that is absolutely useless.  Scientifically, you can't do anything with it, because divine guidance is completely inseparable from a total lack of divine guidance.  What distinguishes it?  How do you measure it?  What are its processes?  In short, you just end up studying the same old evolution, along with mumbling a few meaningless platitudes about the god of your choice.

Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,15:21)
 Yes, let's suppose that ID turns out to be correct - what happens next?.........Very quickly everyone would end up doing science again, because those are the procedures that improve our understanding of reality.  As the risk of misrepresenting NoName, I think that that's his point about science not being damaged - he's just jumping over a period where I think science is damaged severely and has to recover and improve its methodology.


I agree that scientific inquiry would go on as normal and this is fine.  But it is the social implications that would change.  This to me is not a small deal.

Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,15:21)

The end point is that if the IDists were to turn out to be right, they would deserved credit for being right and science would deserve blame for being wrong


Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,18:13)
So you are suggesting a pre-emptive sectarian move to prevent them from getting the credit they would deserve if they were to achieve such a discovery?  Thats disgusting, and is precisely the death of science I've been going on about above.  You don't care about science, you care about imposing your own preferred sectarian views in place of others that actually have evidence and logical support.


First of all, let me make clear that of course I would give IDers due credit for discovering a scientifically valid method to detect real design in nature.  However, I don’t see how trying to pre-empt them is “disgusting” as NoName puts it.  Scientist try to pre-empt each other all the time in making discoveries...sometimes least of all for their own egos.   For example, Watson and Crick vs Franklin and Pauling.  Some pretty shady things were done to Franklin by Watson and Crick in my opinion.  We know that creationists/ID can be dishonest right?  They’ve been caught being dishonest in court (e.g. Dover)…some actually committed perjury and pleaded with the judge that they misspoke.  
We know that if they discovered a “design” detector they would use it as a platform to espouse creationism and call the rest of evolution into question (e.g.  Dembski vs Silver @ Princeston) so as to attempt to impose their religious views.  And never did I say anywhere that I would advocate doing bad science, or fudging data, to make a false point, which creationists/IDers have shown they are not above.  Yes I do care about science.  I’m simply saying that intelligent design “detection” is a worthwhile hypothesis to explore that real scientists should consider exploring…if for anything the social implications it would have.  This would help science not hurt it.   I disagree NoName that this would be:  
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,18:13)
corrosive to the body politic than any perception that 'the public' doesn't buy evolution.

I said that IDers would use their discovery to further discredit evolution.  This I suspect is their goal.  Is that right?  Using some facts about science to sew doubt in the minds of the public about other well established facts….they do this across the board….science deniers do it with climate change and more.  I’m not talking about facts being wrong as you say NoName
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,18:13)
If the scientific facts are wrong, they deserve to be replaced.
 I agree with your statement there.  I’m talking about IDers trying to convince the public that what are actual scientific facts are wrong.  Trying to pre-empt a movement with this  goal is not a contemptible endeavor.  At least scientists can try to do something like what the IDers are doing and if it doesn’t get anywhere then fine.  We can at least say we are exploring the hypothesis.  You say let the facts lead where they may, fine.  But there is nothing wrong with being curious about a hypothesis and testing it as long as data is not falsified and the scientific method is honored.  I fail to see how this
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,18:13)
insisting that science must abandon its own principles, its own strengths, because you feel it would be better if it did.
  I am not trying to
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,18:13)
'cheat' ID out of the game rather than letting them fail on the merits.
 I am proposing a little competition with them maybe, which is common in science.  Furthermore, being a theistic evolutionist, I do see some scientific validity in what they are trying to do….you and others may disagree with that and I admit I could be wrong.  I just don’t like the prospects that IDers would likely use such a discovery to do more dishonest things.

  
ArborealDescendent



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,20:07   

Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,18:13)
That is far more important than yor prejudicial and presuppostional adoption of an antique bronze-age superstition and the cultural spin-offs that have been generated by it.

These people want to mislead school children and you are calling my motives into question?  I don't see it that way.

  
N.Wells



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,20:49   

Anyone can research anything they like, so if you want to research identification of design in biology, by all means go for it.  However, despite a couple of hundred years of looking, there doesn't seem to be any, and the IDists certainly haven't come up with anything new that justifies their beliefs.  Moreover, the theistic evolutionists have never come up with any good evidence either, and are basically relying on platitudes to justify their religious beliefs.  I get that people in general would like to have science provide comfort for their religious beliefs, but it is wrong to twist science to do that.  If science is wrong, it needs to be improved or replaced.  If you think you have a replacement or a better form of science, go for it.  However, I don't see any value in giving up on a century or so of science just to win a popularity contest.

  
ArborealDescendent



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,21:03   

Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,20:49)

Quote
I get that people in general would like to have science provide comfort for their religious beliefs, but it is wrong to twist science to do that.
 Agreed...I'm not proposing that at all.

Quote
However, I don't see any value in giving up on a century or so of science just to win a popularity contest.
 Agreed......no advocating this either

I proposing that real scientists formulate and test a competing ID hypothesis.  This is not giving up on a "century of science."  If I had the mathematical and statistical knowledge I'd do it.

  
N.Wells



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,21:15   

Quote
I proposing that real scientists formulate and test a competing ID hypothesis.
But that seems about as useful and necessary as making a phlogiston detector, trying to generate an improved flat earth hypothesis, investigating whether the order of fossils could be generated by sorting in really big floods, or working on an improved version of Lysenkoism or Lamarckianism.

  
midwifetoad



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 01 2015,21:43   

Theistic evolutionists have formulated any number of private ID hypotheses. All of them are indistinguishable from mainstream evolution.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,09:28   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Mar. 01 2015,21:07)
 
Quote (NoName @ Mar. 01 2015,18:13)
That is far more important than yor prejudicial and presuppostional adoption of an antique bronze-age superstition and the cultural spin-offs that have been generated by it.

These people want to mislead school children and you are calling my motives into question?  I don't see it that way.

You want to mislead them as well, just down a slightly different path.
And the rejoinder is astonishingly weak --  that there are worse problems does not mean a bad problem should not be attacked.

I  reject your assertion that you are not proposing taking credit away from ID if they discover something that demonstrates some degree of correctness to their position.
I don't see any other way to read your proposal as stated.
It is not surprising you are trying to walk it back -- control freaks always do when confronted with their authoritarian instincts in plain view.

What you are proposing, whether it is preventing ID from getting credit for having done real science if they ever manage to do so, or insisting that social impacts that are not science's problem should be made to be science's problem for no other or better reason than you'd be happier if that's how the world were to be, is outrageous.
You either don't get it that you are proposing fundamental, and entirely destructive, changes to how science works, and you don't care, or you do get it and you don't care.
Either of those alternatives makes you every bit as dangerous as Dembski and his ilk, and with the potential to do far greater harm.
Given that, and given your own stated rationale for your 'program' and the various ever-varying strategies you are proposing, all of which require some people forcing other people to behave differently than they would otherwise, why should I not do whatever I can to shut you down?
You think ID is 'socially dangerous'.
I think you are.
And I think I have warrant and you don't.  

BTW, I do think ID is socially dangerous.  But I think they are inept, vanishingly unlikely to ever amount to anything, and at this point in time, a complete non-issue to science.
You feel otherwise, but I argue there is no warrant for thinking ID, treated as science, can do any damage to science.
You have failed to justify, with warranted facts and evidence, any grounds for taking you seriously.
You appear to have a case of fulminating concern trolling.
You're worried, about a phantom no less, and so everyone else should be too, and you  have a 'cure' to propose and everyone should hasten to implement it, regardless of the all-too-plausible (in contrast to your phantom) consequences of such an implementation.
You keep trying to weasel around that, but it's inherent in your approach.

  
NoName



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,09:38   

Quote (ArborealDescendent @ Mar. 01 2015,22:03)
Quote (N.Wells @ Mar. 01 2015,20:49)

 
Quote
I get that people in general would like to have science provide comfort for their religious beliefs, but it is wrong to twist science to do that.
 Agreed...I'm not proposing that at all.

 
Quote
However, I don't see any value in giving up on a century or so of science just to win a popularity contest.
 Agreed......no advocating this either

I proposing that real scientists formulate and test a competing ID hypothesis.  This is not giving up on a "century of science."  If I had the mathematical and statistical knowledge I'd do it.

But your final paragraph is a direct contradiction to your penultimate 'agreement'.  What you are proposing is precisely giving up on a century or so of science.

Hundreds of years have been invested in that chimera and the results are hard vacuum.  Genuine nothingness, in fact.

There is no there, there.  There's nothing for science to do other than what it is currently doing.  Until and unless somebody manages to make a case that doesn't fall to (considerably) more than a century of science, and more than a millennia of philosophy and theology, that will remain the case.
The odds of someone doing that, at this point, are a great deal less than 'vanishingly small'.

As I said before, and will continue to point out, and, doubtlessly, you will continue to evade, what you are proposing is speculative metaphysics at its worst, and its least compelling.  It is an agenda driven quest to draft others to battle a chimera of your own fantasizing, regardless of the harm your proposed solution might do.

And you might note that you're not gaining any support.  Countless issues raised against your program, and you continue to reply with variations of "but I feel...", while never actually engaging with the substantive objections raised in any other fashion.
Wah, wah, wah.  
You do not appear to be able to make anyone take what you are proposing seriously.  Worse, you appear to be willing to expect and require others to do what you insist must be done rather than step up and attempt to do it yourself.  You don't have the tools, the expertise, to do so, you say?  And why ought anyone to care?  Just whose problem is that, anyway?  Particularly when you are failing so spectacularly to convince anyone other than yourself that there's an issue that needs to be addressed, let alone addressed by science/scientists.

  
midwifetoad



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(Permalink) Posted: Mar. 02 2015,09:53   

Axe and Gauger have the credentials and the funding. Why do they waste this opportunity? Why not demonstrate that design is possible without all that mucking about with trial and error?

The drug companies would welcome any design process that didn't require making and testing zillions of variant molecules.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
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