S2Focus

The latter is *not* the problem. The Discovery Institute is very generously funded -- it just chooses not to spend any money on research. If the DI would cut its employees' travel budget in half, there'd be plenty of money available for some meaningful research.

S2Focus

Name five agnostic supporters.

Also, name *one* non-religious organization that helps fund the ID movement, and tell us how much money it has contributed.

Guts

S2F wrote:

Why put the burden on a political instution that is privately funded? Why can't ID get a lab at a university and get funding like all other enteprises do? How many will donate money to fund ID research they don't understand?

S2Focus

To get university funding, you first have to write up a workable research proposal. Can you provide a link to an ID research proposal that might be worthy of funding?

Edited to add: To give you an idea as to what I'm looking for, you might want to read though the guidelines for submitting grant proposals to the National Science Foundation (NSF) (available at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2003/nsf03041/start.htm )

Principia

LOL

Not at all. Not even close.

The problem is that there is no "ID" hypothesis about enolase. There is a prediction about enolase function, but there is nothing to indicate that only an "ID" perspective will lead to that prediction. But predictions are a dime a dozen. Buy yourself a comfy armchair, and you might enjoy prediction-making as a daily activity. What is lacking from the "enolase prediction" is a scientific hypothesis with a means of verification. *more below*

Let me give an example. I would wager that the "drinking-with-buddies" perspective gives scientists all sort of interesting predictions about the world around them. See what's required is a good bar, some lively dialogue about a scientific problem, and plenty of beer. My guess is that "drinking-with-buddies" has generated many an Eureka moment. Does that mean that when one of those scientists makes the wonderous discovery about enolase function in a degradosome, he credits "drinking-with-buddies" for providing the crucial insight? Does this mean that more grant money should be spent on "drinking-with-buddies"?

In any case you are clearly referring to MG's enolase article. Show me where MG acknowledges his enolase hypothesis is scientific or scientifically testable. In fact, why don't you show us how to conduct the enolase experiment. Let's detail it out right here, "Guts." Show us how enolase demonstrates an external intelligent designer and thus ID.

scombrid

A shitload of the funding at my research institute comes from private sources. Most are political NGOs and charitable trusts that award funding to projects that fall under the umbrella of their general mission statements and that have merit. DI could most certainly provide funding to investigators at institutions of higher learning. Instead they are purely political and seek to argue science with lay people and children and avoid scientific peers like the plague.

pz

No, this is not convincing. In fact, I find your enolase example to be a clear demonstration of the fact that intelligent design proponents have a very poor grasp of the basic principles of science and the scientific method. Mike Gene's online 'paper' on this topic just leaves me shaking my head with pity.

One of the first and most fundamental rules when trying to distinguish between the validity of two competing hypotheses is that one must first find an instance of differing and unambiguous predictions. The enolase example fails on both criteria. You and Mike Gene have seized upon a functionalist explanation; however, evolutionary theory predicts functional solutions as well as does ID. There is no virtue specific to ID that allows you to predict that a component of a cell will play a role in metabolism that is not also found in "purposeless, undirected" evolution.

It also fails on the basis of the ambiguity of ID models. If you want to make functionalist hypotheses, you must have some standard of expectation. Biologists have a low standard; we predict that evolution is extremely sloppy and will allow a wide range of deleterious, non-functional, sub-optimal, and well-adapted solutions to persist in organisms. That property of evolutionary theory alone makes this a difficult target for testing competing hypotheses. However, ID proponents compound the problem by having an even vaguer idea about what level of functionalism to predict; that would require making hypotheses about the nature of the designer, which is an absolute, dogmatic no-no for IDists.

I would think that a better domain in which to go looking for differences is in historical explanations. Evolutionists propose a continuous process of undirected modification, with all organisms on the planet linked by common descent. IDists seem to favor...um, well, again we run into that difficulty with ambiguous hypotheses. What do you guys favor? Discrete intervention by Designer(s) at specific times in history? Continuous tinkering? Species introduced de novo? Genes introduced from above, broadcast to large numbers of species simultaneously? That near-religious reticence about actually saying anything concrete about your hypothetical designer really interferes with your ability to do any hypothesis testing, doesn't it?
Nope, you don't need that at all. There are lots of well-equipped labs around, each one regularly stocked with new, ambitious grad students and post-docs, all looking for that stunning idea that will launch their career. It would be more than enough if you provided stimulating, promising ideas. Intelligent design doesn't. Why do you think Darwinism took off with such vigor? It wasn't because Darwin did all the good experiments first -- it was because he convincingly showed that his ideas were a fruitful framework for analyzing and guiding observations and experiments, and those ideas have inspired generations of scientists since.

The only thing I've seen out of IDists is how not to do science. No fruitful inspirations there, that's for sure. And I haven't seen any grad students who are enthused about trying to test the sloppy hypotheses you guys generate, either -- and any who did think there was some value to those poor ideas would have to have such a feeble grasp of the basics of the scientific method that their career would be doomed to failure from its onset, anyway.

Guts

Principia and PZ,

Being able to formulate a prediction and to pursue whether the prediction is correct or not, makes the hypothesis concerning the observation testable. This is simple.

If what lead Mike to predict that enolase functions as an adaptor because of the machine-like complexity of the degradosome, and that it is not a functionless vestige of co-option, then you can see how ID makes testable hypothesis.

pz

No, it is not so simple. There is a substantial difference between inventing a prediction and a test, and coming up with a good and appropriate test. You and Mike seem to be incapable of doing the latter.

For instance, I could claim that rainfall in my area is a consequence of whether I burn my toast in the morning or not. It's certainly trivially testable. It's also a really stupid hypothesis. It becomes even more stupid if I document an instance of burned toast on the same day that it later rained, and claim that this is an example of tested prediction that supports my hypothesis.

This is precisely what Mike Gene does on his website.

pangloss

You lack a basic understanding of how science works, and that is why you will never be a legitimate critic of it.

There are no 'experiments' shown in textbooks. Ther are pictures shown to demonstrate the phenotypic differences between the different moths. But don't feel bad - propagandist number 1 - Jonny "embryologist, no molecular biologist, no Darwin destroyer" Wells makes the same laughable error.