Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: Fester Chugabrew

"The potential falsification of ID would be for particle matter to disperse into unintelligible chaos, at which point science would cease. (BTW, evolution does not meet this criteria. Any life form found today can be crammed into the imaginary tree, or lawn, of common descent.)"

Particle matter is already unintelligible chaos. Uncertainity principle anyone?

"Inasmuch as science is subjective and does not attain to a full understanding of how things work there will always be modifications involving interpretive and expressive elements, just as the work of intelligent design itself is subject to change, sometimes even in mid course."

They assumed the conclusion, provided "evidence" for it, and concluded the assumption. In no way is it open to change and the ID-crew, even after falsifications of IC and CSI, make it clear.

"The word 'natural' is not scientific, but arbitrary. Unless you can answer on what basis science determines what is natural and what is not, the word is scientifically meaningless. It certainly does not apply to intelligent design, since intelligent design is an observable phenomena and has been since the dawn of science itself."

That's because this is a contention of philosophy science has taken to ensure that explanations remain falsifiable. Natural simply means anything conforming to nature. While I admit I cannot think of a precise definition of nature, that doesn't exclude ID. ID, as set down by its proponents, understand the natural and have proposed a non-natural cause. That doesn't change anything.

"It attributes the organization of matter performing specific functions to a most likely cause: intelligent design. Moreover, the inclination is to assume a single intelligent designer for the sake of simplicity."

No, it doesn't. Matter is subject to chemical laws and self-organization based on physics. This explains why snowflakes form spontaneously, why chemical reactions occur with regularity, why tektites can form in volcanic explosions, etc. It is violating parsimony by complicating itself and it also has to brush off identical ERV insertions, the abundance of noncoding DNA, etc. as the will of a Designer whose intentions are not testable.

"Intelligent design predicts we will find organized matter performing specific functions, whether it extends to the fossil record or matter as yet unknown by science."

Organized matter however arise from chemical laws. Intelligent causes are not necessary. Evolution of biochemical pathways have been observed anyway, without intelligent intervention.

"Intelligent design recognizes the dynamic processes that take place as result of the implementation of a well-designed machine. As such, it expects to find change within a limited scope."

There is no known mechanism that limits evolutionary change and evidence contradicts it anyway. ID does not explain identical ERV insertions, macroevolutionary changes observed in the fossil record and in nature, noncoding DNA, the evolution of biochemical systems which are supposed to be irreducibly complex, the variation of biochemical systems (for example, there are 3.8x10^93 possible functional variations of cytochrome c alone), etc.

"You can start by counting the number of characters in this post and how they combined in a way that conveys information from one party to another. Then consider how many such communications take place in such a manner in a single day on FR. Then consider the physical apparatus needed to make this happen, and whether this kind of organization can happen apart from intelligence, design, or a combination of the two."

Non-sequitur. CSI has not been shown to exist and it is even contradicted and IC has been completely refuted.


263 posted on 08/20/2006 1:39:17 PM PDT by Dante Alighieri
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 256 | View Replies ]


To: Dante Alighieri
Particle matter is already unintelligible chaos.

Perhaps in your world. But in the world of science intelligibility depends upon material consistency, as it does with intelligent design.

. . . snowflakes form spontaneously . . .

Snowflakes form in a manner and at a time as designed. They do not pop up "spontaneously."

271 posted on 08/20/2006 2:47:30 PM PDT by Fester Chugabrew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 263 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson