RBH

If I am understanding this dispute correctly, DC is focusing on the empirical requirement for ID to actually do what it claims it can do, namely reliably detect intelligent/volitional design in biological structures and/or process. Theyeti, on the other hand, appears to be focused on the requirement for ID to articulate an actual theory or model that organizes the data and leads to testable implications. As a result, DC and theyeti appear to be talking past each other. Am I right, you two?

RBH

Mordy

I think the 2001 principle 2001 principle.net is a good place to start in asking questions. (Ignoring the religious overtones of the article, the point still holds in my mind).

Basically it boils down to this:

The audience and everyone (even secular people) agreed that a monolithic cut and polished black slab if found on the moon is evidence of design, but not a proton powered motor (like the flagella) that is in fact more advanced then the black slab. So this is one of those things that make you say "thats funny, you agree a black polished, accurately cut piece of rock is designed, but not an advanced proton driven motor?"

Prince Vegita

Except that anyone who's seen or read 2001 knows that the black slab is much, much more "advanced" (which you really should define) because what it does is (ironically) make calculations on how to encourage the evolution of sentient species and then goes and does it.

The proton powered motor just spins around. You can't make judgments on design/non-design based upon appearance when you have no idea about the nature of the designer(s). You can't infer purpose like that.

Gooch's dad

A very good topic, and Mordy has brought up a good point, IMO.

So what if, instead of the monolith, we found something like a calculating machine or electronic computer on the moon? An obviously manufactured artifact, in other words.

Yes, the obvious conclusion is that the artifact was designed by some alien race. Why? Because there is no plausible explanation of how such an artifact could have arisen by any other method.

In the case of the bacterial flagellum, we *do* have a plausible explanation, that of evolution through mutation and natural selection. That is what makes the question of ID, applied to living systems, a non-falsifiable and irrelevant proposition.

It's like claiming that a designer is necessary for a quartz crystal. Sure, it's all symmetric and pretty, but solid state physics explains crystal formation quite adequately.

OK, so let's give some boundary conditions for the problem:

electronic computer found on moon: obviously designed

the chunk of regolith that the electronic computer was found sitting on: quite obviously a product of lunar conditions over the past 4.5 billion years, and therefore not designed

The boundary conditions are easy. For stuff in the middle, we have a mechanism that we know can produce complexity--evolution through descent and modification. We know from the work of Wolfram and others like him that very simple rules can lead to very complex structures.

Behe and his ilk have tossed out irreducible complexity as the principle by which to judge such questions. Yet Behe himself couldn't present a single example that hadn't already been addressed in the scientific literature.

IC may be the dividing principle by which to judge if something is designed. If so, it is up to the ID camp to present an example and justify how it really IS irreducibly complex. I'd be deluded if I thought they really had a goal of scientific credibility, though, in light of Behe's admitted error:

That quote is from a 2000 journal article. Four years later, Behe has yet to "repair this in future work".

Peez

Something other than ID. What I am saying is that ID is fundamentally unscientific, as far as I can see.

Peez

Prof

[My emphasis]


The difference should be obvious: that from what we know of the moon, such an object as the 2001 black slab is virtually impossible to have arisen. There is nothing there to support the idea that such a thing would exist. Especially if there was only one of them, in the middle of nowhere.

In contrast, the flagella is well known to be part of an organism that grows, reproduces, and does so within an environment that richly provides for it's existence. To top it off, it lives on a planet we know to be suffuse with organisms of all types. (Earth, of course).

The black slab is really being used in the above as the old Paley's Watch analogy, which has always been a totally flawed analogy. A better match would be this:

Say we found another planet "behind the sun." We visit it and find on it's surface the 2001-like "black slab." Wow! Someone must have placed it there!

But then...we notice these other things around too. They look like the black slabs, only a bit smaller. Then smaller ones that look kind of like the black slabs, but maybe a little misshapen or softer...we keep finding forms all the way down to these little black buds in the surface dirt sprinkled near the base of the big black slabs. We actually see the slab emit some of the buds Wait...are these "baby" slab seeds? We follow the development of the seeds and watch them grow into black slabs...just as a plant does on earth. Oh...so someone didn't need to have actually sculpted the slab in the form we initially found it. These things grow here! The more we study them..their structure, their reproductive cycle, their energy source etc, we find they exactly mirror the plant and tree growth back on earth. Using energy from the sun, soil and atmosphere they self-suffiently grow and reproduce.

In other words: the conclusion is more reasonable that you've discovered a life-form indigenous to the planet, rather than a mechanical artefact of an alien intelligence.

And the more you tighten the analogy with life-forms on earth - the slab exists in a planet full of such "life," it's environment fully supports a self-sufficient energy acquisition and reproductive cycle, we discover a similar DNA/mutation/selection pressure mechanism working on the planet etc - the less room there is for any recourse to an alien having designed anything.

The black slab vs the bacteria is just a bad, bad, entirely misleading analogy.

Prof.

theyeti

One of my favorite things about ID: It uses fiction to uphold its methodology. Really.

theyeti

Epictetus

Intelligent Design is scientific. Not in the sense that wacko creationists use it, however. It usually goes by its more famous name... Natural Selection. Creatures that are intelligent enough to survive pass their genetic material along, creating a better design over time. A design that is more able to survive in any given environment.

Contrary to the creationist claim that evolution is random, it is far from it. Natural Selection is preferential evolution that is anything but random.

gcameron

However, intelligence is only one of many features that may be naturally selected, and even if you use a broad definition of intelligence it is probably a characteristic that a relative minority of species have possessed over the eons.

monkenstick

a repeatable test for intelligent design, that is observer independent, and that is verified by something akin to the kind of tests medical diagnostic tools have to pass

that'd be a start