Intelligent design's predictions

[dahduh]

I've just finished listening to Point of Inquiry's intelligent design interview with Michael Behe, one of the founding father's of that ironically named movement. As usual, the phrase "Intelligent design makes no predictions" cropped up, together with the idea that god must be the designer.

Does everyone go along with these positions??

This is what bugs me. Firstly, the hypothesis that some or all aspect of our biology were designed by some intelligent agent is not, on the face of it, unreasonable. And subject to reasonable assumptions, this hypothesis certainly does make some predictions. Well designed artifacts are designed for a specific purpose: so we should expect to be able to divine purpose from design. Designs are usually 'cleaned up', so for example while an engineering drawing might need a whole lot of construction lines to aid in drawing it, those construction lines are removed in the final blueprint. If designs do evolve, designers usually re-factor, so for example if a programmer extends a piece of software and finds the original architecture was inadequate, he will (if he is a good programmer) re-design and strip out any old code that is no longer needed. Designs often require configuration management and attribution, so you might expect to find something like version numbers or signatures or copyright notices on them. Designs often evolve in quantum leaps, in which some change or improvement is accompanied by a radical departure from a previous architecture. Designs are usually modular and attempt to create minimal interfaces between components in order to manage complexity. And so on and so on.

These are all things we might reasonably expect to find in designed artifacts, and are things I would expect to follow from the intelligent design hypothesis. While not strictly speaking 'predictions' in a rigorous sense, identification of any one of these features would be taken as support for the intelligent design hypothesis. The absence of any one of these features can of course be explained away in any variety of ways, usually by special pleading, so absence does not absolutely disprove intelligent design. But absence certainly makes the ID hypothesis less tenable.

With the exception of quantum leaps in architecture for which Behe coined the term "Irreducible complexity", the ID'ers seem to have entirely ignored these other expected features of intelligently designed artifacts. Needless to say, this is because there is a total absence of such features to be found anywhere in biology, and irreducible complexity currently amounts to little more than argument from ignorance or personal incredulity. But why is the ID hypothesis simply being dismissed as 'unscientific'? It's a reasonable hypothesis, it does make predictions of a sort, so why aren't the bastards being called out and made to explain why their designer designs with all the smarts of a drunken coot?

Then the second point: the presumption that the designer must be god. No, this doesn't follow, maybe the Raelians are right and some space-alien did it. We know of at least one (semi) intelligent natural agent in this universe, and the most reasonable assumption is that if there has been intelligent designing going on, then it was done by some other intelligent natural agent; which may, for all we know, have evolved naturally. But again, god gets introduced and makes himself at home every time ID is discussed, whereas god is a complete non-sequitur. Why are the ID'ers allowed to run away over the hill with god every time?

I realise this has turned into a rant; but don't you think that ID'ers should rather be challenged on the absense of evidence for reasonably predictions made by ID, rather than just dismissing ID with the claim that it makes no predictions?

[Charlie Monoxide]

Dang, that sounds interesting. I'm downloading the podcast as I write this.

Perhaps this should be posted in the podcast forum? http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=79

Charlie (TGIF POI and Radiolab) Monoxide

[cyborg]

Quote:

Designs are usually 'cleaned up'

So those that have not been are 'evolved'?

[CaptainManacles]

Intelligent design, in the form that they present it, makes no predictions. Yeah, eraser lines are fine and dandy for architecture drawings, but GOD doesn't need such limitations, man. If you want to specify a designer and his motivations and limitations and such, then yeah, you have a theory going on, and you could even find evidence for such a thing in like, a blueprint for the human that existed before the earth was created. Irreduceable complexity doesn't even imply design, it only excludes evolution. The possibility of spontanous emergence of complexity or degredation from a more complex source still exist.

[Charlie Monoxide]

OK, I listened to the podcast. Behe sounded very nervous and seemed to be waiting for BJ (interviewer IIRC) to be the attack dog. BJ wasn't and tried to be respectful of Behe, but still pushed Behe's catholic belief.

Behe just presented the tired old arguments that ID seems to think that proves their cause. (ie since evolution doesn't explain and provide proof for everything it should be tossed out for this wonderful theory that needs a supernatural being). Ho hum ....

Charlie (enjoy the dialogue, know the BS artists) mOnOxide

[ChristineR]

As was said, ID in its current form is unconcerned with anything except complexity. There are a ridiculous number of features that are not consistent with design as we know it, but as there is nothing to stop a designer from designing us to work exactly as if we evolved through random mutation and natural selection, there is no place to go with that.

As for the identity of the designer, that gets interesting. ID is actually only taken seriously by a small number of Christian scientists who will go out of their way to tell you it doesn't preclude Rael and company from being the designer. But the overwhelming majority of ID advocates are actually creationists, who are only bothering with ID at all because they don't understand the math and think they can get it taught in science classes.

I also heard the Behe interview, and he out and out said that the people who say the world is six thousand years old are wrong. But really, even if Behe did prove that the world has design elements, that wouldn't resolve creationism vs. evolution. It's likely that a young, created universe would show elements of design, although it is not absolutely required. The overwhelming majority of Behe's friends think he's another deluded heathen, which must be a pretty depressing position for him.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The IDers need a new tack. This "gosh, that's pretty durn complicated to have evolved by random mutations" shtick is getting tired. I suggest they pick one designed biological mechanism and point out the part where god poked the genome to hack the mechanism into existence.

~~Paul

[Unalienable]

From the podcast:

"Intelligent Design is the contention that some things in Nature are better explained as the result of an intelligent agent than by laws, chance, and so on." -- Behe

If that's really all that ID is, then I agree with ID; I think we all do. The real debate comes later, when we ask ourselves, which things fit into which category?

ID most definitely makes predictions. If I show Michael Behe a stone in the approximate shape of an arrowhead, I would hope he could make a prediction as to whether it was the result of an intelligent agent shaping it, or just a chance formation. Of course he could never be 100% certain--this is, after all, a probabilistic exercise--but I would hope that he could make a prediction. If he can't, then ID theory is worthless.

[Wowbagger]

ID makes no testable predictions, because we can not seem to be able to test for the existence, none-the-less attributes, of the Designer.

ID makes no predictions that can advance science, because claiming something has "characteristics of design" does not really explain how that design came about. It merely tries to end the inquiry. Whereas evolution has a knack for advancing science, by actually finding explanations for things.

So, although ID can, in layman's terms, "make predictions", it does not do so in a scientific sense.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

The IDers need a new tack. This "gosh, that's pretty durn complicated to have evolved by random mutations" shtick is getting tired. I suggest they pick one designed biological mechanism and point out the part where god poked the genome to hack the mechanism into existence.

Better to prove stuff using simulations.

[Wowbagger]

Originally Posted by T'ai Chi 's Sig

Evolution is a stochastic process. Stochastic means random. That's not any type of 'misleading', that's a scientific fact.

Actually, stochastic more accurately means "non-deterministic". There is a subtle difference: "Random", in the everyday sense, is similar to "unpredicatable". Where as something "non-deterministic" could be predicted, if we could take all the variables into consideration, but realistically, we can not. Chaos theory, and all that.

At any rate, evolution is not really "random", in the everyday sense. That is scientific fact. To say otherwise is to be misleading.

[cyborg]

UGH. It's a continuum people - not a strict random/non-random divide. You describe each system using the other - they completely overlap.

[mijopaalmc]

Originally Posted by cyborg

UGH. It's a continuum people - not a strict random/non-random divide. You describe each system using the other - they completely overlap.

Actually, there is no continuum when discussing the mathematical formalism of randomness in probability theory. If a function is defined on a probability measure, it is a random variable and its value can be said to be random. If a function is not defined on a probability measure, it is not a random variable and its value can be said to be non-random. Chaotic systems are not defined on probability measures and are therefore not random. However, they do display apparently random behavior because they are sensitively dependent on initial conditions.

[cyborg]

If X is indistinguishable from Y saying X was caused by P and Y was caused by Q and P is not Q doesn't really mean a hell of a lot from where I'm sitting.

[Wowbagger]

Originally Posted by cyborg

UGH. It's a continuum people - not a strict random/non-random divide. You describe each system using the other - they completely overlap.

Evolution is continuous, but it is not some purely random continuous process. It is a difficult-to-predict continuous process, but only because the astronomical number of variables involved. Ramdomness (in the everyday sense) and chance have nothing to do with it.

Originally Posted by mijopaalmc

If a function is defined on a probability measure, it is a random variable and its value can be said to be random. If a function is not defined on a probability measure, it is not a random variable and its value can be said to be non-random. Chaotic systems are not defined on probability measures and are therefore not random. However, they do display apparently random behavior because they are sensitively dependent on initial conditions.

That is another way of saying it. (Although, I doubt the average Joe would understand it.)

[cyborg]

[quote=Wowbagger;3142938]

Quote:

It is a difficult-to-predict continuous process, but only because the astronomical number of variables involved. Ramdomness (in the everyday sense) and chance have nothing to do with it.

That is, I feel, rather presuming there is a meaningful distinction to make using "randomness" in this way.

It is, after all, a purely abstract concept.

And if one purely abstract concept is indistinguishable in expression from another purely abstract concept we say that these abstract concepts are the same.

The point I am trying to get across here that it doesn't really give any insight into a thing to say it is, "random" or it is "not random" since the sets of behaviours that this encompasses is infinite (and overlapping). It's just not meaningfully summarizable in that way.

[Wowbagger]

Originally Posted by cyborg

That is, I feel, rather presuming there is a meaningful distinction to make using "randomness" in this way.

It is, after all, a purely abstract concept.

And if one purely abstract concept is indistinguishable in expression from another purely abstract concept we say that these abstract concepts are the same.

The point I am trying to get across here that it doesn't really give any insight into a thing to say it is, "random" or it is "not random" since the sets of behaviours that this encompasses is infinite (and overlapping). It's just not meaningfully summarizable in that way.

It's the application that matters.
I brought this up because some people think evolution is "impossible", simply because the chances of a "random" process coming up with life forms are astronomical. Just like, say, a tornado hitting a junk yard, making a perfectly flyable 747 out of the pieces of rubbish.

My point is that such "randomness" has nothing really to do with evolution. The 747 example is a fallacy. A persistent one, perhaps, but silly when one understands the actual process.

[cyborg]

Yes Wowbagger, I am quite familiar with this.

The fact that people don't think through the implications of the alternative scenario (namely the fact that the building of the 747 has taken several thousand years of civilisation to achieve with numerous developments in a wide range of scientific fields to make it possible - uh, hardly the 'goddidit' alternative to 'randomness') means that simply stating "it's not random," isn't really much more meaningful either.

If it's not "random" then how is it not so is the more important point - i.e. if we're going to distinguish the process of evolution from the process of frying an egg we'd better be a little more specific than simply saying the processes are "not random."

[mijopaalmc]

Originally Posted by Wowbagger

My point is that such "randomness" has nothing really to do with evolution. The 747 example is a fallacy. A persistent one, perhaps, but silly when one understands the actual process.

Actually, that's where you're wrong. Each phenotype confers a probability of survival upon its possessor and that makes natural selection random by definition. However, this does not mean that evolution by natural selection impossible or even improbable, because random process tend to converge on their expected values if the selection criteria remain constant, which they more or less do for long periods of time in evolution by natural selection. In other words, T'ai Chi is not wrong when he say the evolution is random because it is a stochastic process; he is wrong when he says that evolution by natural selection cannot happen because it is random.

[articulett]

Yes... all ID is about the silly notion that scientists think this all came about randomly... because if people focus on random, maybe they won't understand the power of natural selection over time. Darwins theory was all about natural selection--not randomness... randomness is easy to understand. How natural selection works is a little more difficult to intuit, but it allows us to readily see how complex systems evolve over time based on replication of "information that is good at getting itself copied". A designer isn't needed... just information that is good at getting itself copied into the future, an environment that selects, and time.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/tooby.html

Heads up to wowbagger, mijo is a creationist... he's really NOT saying anything just like it sounds like... just like Behe... he cannot convey a comprehensive understanding of natural selection so he aims to obfuscate and pretend you can't understand him do to your own lack of knowledge on the subject. The more he says, the less you'll understand him.

[mijopaalmc]

Originally Posted by articulett

Heads up to wowbagger, mijo is a creationist

Heads up Wowbagger, articulett is lying.

Believeing that evolution is a stochastic process does not make me a creationist.

Believing that evolution cannot occur because it is a stochastic process would make me a creationist or at least and evolution denier.

I do the former and not the later.

[articulett]

To reiterate Dawkins review of Behe's book:

First Dawkins quotes a passage of the tome:

The crucial passage in “The Edge of Evolution” is this: “By far the most critical aspect of Darwin’s multifaceted theory is the role of random mutation. Almost all of what is novel and important in Darwinian thought is concentrated in this third concept.”

And then he goes in for the kill.

What a bizarre thing to say! Leave aside the history: unacquainted with genetics, Darwin set no store by randomness. New variants might arise at random, or they might be acquired characteristics induced by food, for all Darwin knew. Far more important for Darwin was the nonrandom process whereby some survived but others perished. Natural selection is arguably the most momentous idea ever to occur to a human mind, because it — alone as far as we know — explains the elegant illusion of design that pervades the living kingdoms and explains, in passing, us. Whatever else it is, natural selection is not a “modest” idea, nor is descent with modification.

Dawkins is someone whom many conveys understanding of evolution to many.... Behe is one who confuses understanding of evolution for many.

When you see someone trying to equate evolution with randomness-- you've got someone who does not understand nor can they convey natural selection to anyone. You've got Behe, T'ai, and Mijo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/bo...Dawkins-t.html
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/dawkins.html
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/self...xx.html#ridley

Here is Behe's amazon blog for those interested in how the creationist mind spins reality: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/A3DGRQ0IO7KYQ2

[cyborg]

Look mijo you bring this **** up every time and you have been shown every time that your view is basically pointless. Why are you attached to labels so?

[articulett]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

The IDers need a new tack. This "gosh, that's pretty durn complicated to have evolved by random mutations" shtick is getting tired. I suggest they pick one designed biological mechanism and point out the part where god poked the genome to hack the mechanism into existence.

~~Paul

Well, doesn't his new book suggest that god made malaria or something?

For a divine entity, he sure is a slow, bumbling, wasteful, cruel, inefficient and unnecessary tinkerer.

[Wowbagger]

Originally Posted by cyborg

If it's not "random" then how is it not so is the more important point - i.e. if we're going to distinguish the process of evolution from the process of frying an egg we'd better be a little more specific than simply saying the processes are "not random."

Okay, good enough point!

Evolution is a process by which cumulative adaptations take place, that are driven by the fitness landscape. Each "step" of the adaptation could yield several varieties of small mutations that lead to the next "step" in the adaption. Each possible mutation has a very likely probability of occurring. Which one actually gets selected is driven by the environment (or "fitness landscape") the life form happens to be in.

The end result could look like a complex, improbable structure, to the layman. But, only until that person investigates the history of the environment and the life form's genome, to uncover the cumulative steps that lead to it.

I could go on, if anyone needs it. Any further questions?

Originally Posted by mijopaalmc

Actually, that's where you're wrong. Each phenotype confers a probability of survival upon its possessor and that makes natural selection random by definition.

Depends on your definition of random. It's the multiple meanings of that word that make be abhor it, when discussing evolution.

By using the word in a different context, I could legitimately say that natural selection is NOT random, by definition, because each gene's survival is dependent on the how the fitness landscape treats the collective phenotypic effects of all the genes in the life form. (generally speaking)

Originally Posted by mijopaalmc

T'ai Chi is not wrong when he say the evolution is random because it is a stochastic process; he is wrong when he says that evolution by natural selection cannot happen because it is random.

Again, it depends on the definition of "random". But, in the context of T'ai Chi's signature, he seems to think evolution is worthy of contempt, because it is "random".

T'ai Chi can correct me if I am wrong about the contemptuous nature of his sig, though.

Originally Posted by articulett

Heads up to wowbagger, mijo is a creationist.

You seem to accuse a lot of people of being "creationists". I don't think that word means what you think it does.

Where does mijopaalmc indicate that he is a creationist?

[articulett]

Originally Posted by Wowbagger

Where does mijopaalmc indicate that he is a creationist?

It's the code words... you'll see. Behe will say he isn't a creationist either. It's the insistence than evolution really is random... that Dawkins is wrong and unclear when he says that natural selection is not random and that whatever it is they are saying is somehow more clear. It's mostly the inability to convey natural selection ... the way they confuse more than clarify... ask questions they don't want the answer to... dis Dawkins at every turn. I could give you links if you want--check out the threads he's started with smarmy loaded questions of the creationist type. I'm just trying to keep you from getting into digression land regarding whether evolution is random-- but pay no heed to me.

There are some people who sound an awfully lot like Behe... and I've just been around it so much that it jumps out at me-- Mijo is one of those people. But maybe someone somewhere will tell me something that Mijo has helped clarify for them.

Some people explain things and converse so that both of you seem to be learning more and some people seem to use a lot of words but never quite say anything. Behe, for example.

(And calling someone a creationist isn't nearly as bad as calling them a liar. I promise you I've never called anyone a creationist who hasn't called me something worse first.) What do you make of people who insist on using randomness to describe evolution... and what do you think of Dawkins commentary on this bizarre insistence? To me, another clue is when they use Behe terminology such as continually referring to the cell as the replicator rather than the DNA... they confuse the ability for a beneficial mutation to get itself copied with an organisms ability to copy it's genetic information. There is just this funny way they have of implying certain things without actually saying anything... like the way Behe' infers there is something wrong with evolution without offering an iota of anything for any alternative theory.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by T'ai

Better to prove stuff using simulations.

I agree. Finding the place where god poked the genome is going to end up looking like this:

http://www.hnabooks.com/product/show/3071

Do you honestly believe that biologists use Ev as proof that information can arise from evolution?

~~Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Look mijo you bring this **** up every time and you have been shown every time that your view is basically pointless. Why are you attached to labels so?

Evolution shall be random.

~~Paul

[T'ai Chi]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Do you honestly believe that biologists use Ev as proof that information can arise from evolution?

A better question is do you honestly believe that IDers hold that "god poked the genome".

(Aside to others: Note Paul's use of "god" and "biologists". Not so subtly suggesting that people who believe in ID hold a designer to be god, and also cannot be biologists.)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by T'ai

A better question is do you honestly believe that IDers hold that "god poked the genome".

Either that, or they believe that god set it all up at the beginning so that it would progress naturalistically in the exact way it has progressed. But the trouble with this scenario is succinctly specified in my second sig line.

By all means, tell us what you think happened.

Quote:

(Aside to others: Note Paul's use of "god" and "biologists". Not so subtly suggesting that people who believe in ID hold a designer to be god, and also cannot be biologists.)

Can you find me a rational IDer who holds that the designer is something other than god? It doesn't count to find an IDer who won't take a stand at all. My statement about biologists was completely separate and I made no implication about IDers as biologists.

~~Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Nope, no one would be so silly as to suggest any sort of poking.

http://www.islamic-world.net/intldes.php

Quote:

When God decides the time is right to create biological life He commands that His Will be done and sends messengers of Light from the spiritual existence to the physical universe instructing the necessary molecular forms He had already created to join together in the new, more complex relationship of simple biological life.

~~Paul

[mijopaalmc]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Evolution shall be random.

~~Paul

So you found that all-elusive piece of evidence that demonstrates all individuals of given phenotypes survive while all individuals of other phenotypes perish?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mijo

So you found that all-elusive piece of evidence that demonstrates all individuals of given phenotypes survive while all individuals of other phenotypes perish?

Mijo, we've had this conversation before. You know what I mean when I say that some people insist "evolution shall be random." I mean that they insist on calling it random without additional clarifying explanation for the newbies. And that is precisely what T'ai's sig line says.

Why do you suppose some people insist on starkly terse statements that mislead people?

By the way, it could be the case that some individuals survive and some perish for entirely deterministic reasons.

~~Paul

[mijopaalmc]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Mijo, we've had this conversation before. You know what I mean when I say that some people insist "evolution shall be random." I mean that they insist on calling it random without additional clarifying explanation for the newbies. And that is precisely what T'ai's sig line says.

Why do you suppose some people insist on starkly terse statements that mislead people?

By the way, it could be the case that some individuals survive and some perish for entirely deterministic reasons.

~~Paul

I was mislead by your starkly terse comment

I apologize.

[joobz]

Originally Posted by articulett

There is just this funny way they have of imply certain things without actually saying anything... like the way Behe' infers there is something wrong with evolution without offering an iota of anything for any alternative theory.

And that seems to be the single most powerful part of their strategy. It allows others, who are even less informed, to make statements such as
"I'm just not convinced by the evolutionary hypothesis."
"There are just too many holes in the theory of evolution..."

The funny part is that they masquerade with a skeptic's aire, knowing that incredulity is a typical position a scientist will take. But it's like watching a 1 year old pound on the keyboard. He's pretending to be daddy and may convince other 1 year olds that he is, but he isn't actually writing anything.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Mijo

I was mislead by your starkly terse comment.

Touche.

~~Paul

[Wowbagger]

Originally Posted by articulett

It's the code words... you'll see. Behe will say he isn't a creationist either.

His actions speak louder than his own words, though. There is plenty of evidence demonstrating he is a Creationist, if he admits it or not. Intelligent Design, after all, implies the basic gist of creationism.

Originally Posted by articulett

It's the insistence than evolution really is random... that Dawkins is wrong and unclear when he says that natural selection is not random and that whatever it is they are saying is somehow more clear. It's mostly the inability to convey natural selection ... the way they confuse more than clarify... ask questions they don't want the answer to... dis Dawkins at every turn. I could give you links if you want--check out the threads he's started with smarmy loaded questions of the creationist type. I'm just trying to keep you from getting into digression land regarding whether evolution is random-- but pay no heed to me.

I think this is more of a semantics battle, than a creation vs. evolution battle. Just because we are arguing what is "random" or not, does not necessarily mean one of the parties must be a creationist!

It seems Mijo thinks evolution is valid, he just disagrees on what constitutes randomness in it.

Originally Posted by articulett

Some people explain things and converse so that both of you seem to be learning more and some people seem to use a lot of words but never quite say anything. Behe, for example.

Just because someone uses a lot of words, without "saying anything", does not automatically mean the person is a Creationist. I think you are jumping the gun.

A creationist is one who thinks life could not have emerged naturally, but had to be created by some pre-existing outside entity of some sort. Behe is searching for one, true. But, near as I can tell, Mijo is not, (based on his posts here, anyway).

Originally Posted by articulett

(And calling someone a creationist isn't nearly as bad as calling them a liar. I promise you I've never called anyone a creationist who hasn't called me something worse first.)

You should call people what they are. If you find evidence that someone knowingly told a mistruth, you can call them a liar. Not all liars are creationists. Not all creationists are really liars: some are delusional.

Originally Posted by articulett

What do you make of people who insist on using randomness to describe evolution... and what do you think of Dawkins commentary on this bizarre insistence?

It depends on what you mean by Random. Dawkins, himself, used the word, when he says evolution is "Non-random adaptation from random mutations". But, he then goes on to explain those mutations are only "random" as to whether or not they will benefit the life form.
For this reason, I prefer to use "indifferent", instead of "random". But, whatever.

Originally Posted by articulett

To me, another clue is when they use Behe terminology such as continually referring to the cell as the replicator rather than the DNA... they confuse the ability for a beneficial mutation to get itself copied with an organisms ability to copy it's genetic information. There is just this funny way they have of imply certain things without actually saying anything... like the way Behe' infers there is something wrong with evolution without offering an iota of anything for any alternative theory.

Just because someone erroneously thinks the cell is the ultimate replicator in contemporary life forms, instead of the gene; does not automatically make one a Creationist.
Until I read The Selfish Gene, and other material about genetics, I thought the cell was the ultimte replicator, as well. And, I was never a Creationist.

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Evolution shall be random.

Well, if Paul declares it so, then that means it must be true!!

Originally Posted by T'ai Chi

A better question is do you honestly believe that IDers hold that "god poked the genome".

IDers hold that something must have been poked at. They just cannot seem to figure out what it could possibly be. (All their examples keep getting explained by evolutionary biologists, all the time. Kinda annoying, don't you think?)

Originally Posted by T'ai Chi

(Aside to others: Note Paul's use of "god" and "biologists". Not so subtly suggesting that people who believe in ID hold a designer to be god, and also cannot be biologists.)

Until you can identify what the nature of the Intelligent Designer is, we might as well use the shorthand "god" in the meantime. I am sure the Designer would be honored, no matter what its true nature actually is.

[articulett]

Originally Posted by T'ai Chi

A better question is do you honestly believe that IDers hold that "god poked the genome".

(Aside to others: Note Paul's use of "god" and "biologists". Not so subtly suggesting that people who believe in ID hold a designer to be god, and also cannot be biologists.)

What? Actually the only people who believe in ID are people who have religious or religious type reasons for doing so-- they're people who don't understand natural selection and why it renders a god unnecessary. Sure, you can add all the invisible entities to the equation that you want to-- gods, demons, engrams... but in order for that to be science, you have to prove such entities exist. Otherwise, occams razor disposes of the riff raff, obfuscations, irrelevencies, and word games-- we aim for the facts that are the same for everybody so we can understand more and take that knowledge further. Belief that "magic" is responsible doesn't exactly encourage further exploration. Imagining that something is beyond human understanding, assures that it will be... at least for the humans who subscribe to such notions. Religion has never discovered any great truth before science... and tends to get in the way of further discovery. Science clarifies. Religions obfuscates and pretends that the mystery is something magical.

[articulett]

Originally Posted by joobz

And that seems to be the single most powerful part of their strategy. It allows others, who are even less informed, to make statements such as
"I'm just not convinced by the evolutionary hypothesis."
"There are just too many holes in the theory of evolution..."

The funny part is that they masquerade with a skeptic's aire, knowing that incredulity is a typical position a scientist will take. But it's like watching a 1 year old pound on the keyboard. He's pretending to be daddy and may convince other 1 year olds that he is, but he isn't actually writing anything.

Yes... and it's all about making people think they can't understand... which pisses me off. I like Dawkins and Randi because they show you that there is no "magic understanding"-- no higher truths... they give you the tools you need to help you understand-- I have no patience for the smarmy dishonesty disguised as "academic rigor" or "technical correctness" etc. I like how Sagan gives you a way of understanding the stuff he knows. And I chafe at those who purposefully obfuscate understanding because they imagine themselves teachers while being impervious to what they have yet to learn. Behe could understand evolution--but he bends over backwards to make sure he doesn't understand it and others don't either so that he can use his pedantry to pretend like he's saying something of value while saying nothing at all. He never really says what exactly he believes...never proffers a claim you can test--he just casts aspersions on evolution and hopes that people see that as merit for a designer. He won't let you pin him down on what he is saying... and the most successful obfuscaters do the same.

Such techniques do work to keep people from understanding, and thus, they evolve. What else do creationists have other than obfuscation and pedantry and inferences that the other side is wrong? They certainly don't have facts in favor of their viewpoint. And I think Judge Jones nailed it. I look forward to the Nova Special on November 13 on the topic. I would imagine that anyone who actually wanted to convey understanding to others on the topic would use the words and terminology and analogies of those who actually HAVE conveyed understanding to others on the topic instead of speaking in a manner indistinguishable from known woo. (Beware of folks who speak as though they are experts on a subject that no one else seems to recognize their expertise in.)

[T'ai Chi]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

By all means, tell us what you think happened.

Like you, I think time+chance+magic.

Quote:

Can you find me a rational IDer who holds that the designer is something other than god?

The ones who just say 'designer' and not 'god'? By logic that allows for non-god designers. What they personally feel about it is irrelevant to the theory.

Now can you find me an atheist who doesn't believe Darwin didn't make it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist?

I guess it is shocking news that alll 'grand' theories have some implication for other parts of life.