Since 1859, natural selection has been recognized as a liklier explanation--- in fact, it has replaced design as the de facto explantion for complex phenomena. That's why I refer to "Darwinism". It's the extent to which Darwin's proposed mechanism for evolution is accepted that divides William Dembski from Richard Dawkins, or even Noam Chomsky from Daniel Dennett, not a difference over evolution or common descent.
Now, as to successful algorithms for deriving design, obviously the Design Inference was an attempt in that direction and yes, it seems to me it's pretty clear he and others have a research program in Popper's sense (even though the thinker David Stove showed Popper had some of the same limitations Popper had criticized Thomas Kuhn as having). What I don't see is why that should be hard to admit. Popper's definition covers quite a bit of ground--- it's not really giving much if anything up to admit that ID makes predictions (such as about "junk" DNA)and searches for ways to disprove those predictions.
I'm surprised you would claim that refusing to infer traits about a supposed designer is "anti-scientific". Number one, it's hard enough to establish any evidence for design in the first place-- in fact, according to you, we know it can't be done, period. So speculation about the psychology of a purported designer would compound the error you're describing ID as making. Although Darwin did believe that if a designer existed, if he was anything like man, he must be like an evil man, he expressed this belief after he had rejected design and I doubt he would have considered it scientific... not that I'm claiming he's your guru or anything!:) I think we can agree such an attempt would purely speculative--- what Popper would label as metaphysics because, having been based upon such scanty evidence, it wouldn't have sufficient "explanatory power" to be falsifiable. Look, your proposed standard of science amounts to "disregard a phenomenon if you can't explain it satisfactorily". As a mind-body dualist who worked with the Nobel Prize winner and Freeper namesake J.C. Eccles who nonetheless recognized his limitations in describing the mechanisms by which he believed oen's consciousness affected one's brain, Popper would have been the last person to agree with the approach you describe. After all, Newton himself didn't propose a mechanism by which to explain gravity and in Euprope, scientists continued believing in Descartes’ vortex theory on account of the fact that it did provide a mechanism. As for what will be able to be done inferred based on present genetic information regarding the physiology of a common ancestor between the macaque and human, I don't know. That seems quite worthwhile but far off. Do we know that a phylogenetic relationship will be reflected that precisely by purely genetic inofrmation? At any rate, the answers one derived regarding said ancestor would be pretty hard to falsify, which shows why Popper's standards (or at least those standards narrowly construed)aren't always appropriate.
Now now, a little reciprocity here, please. If you want me to pretend that ID isn't a stealth form of creationism, stick to discussing ID as an idea, and let's not get into demographics. It's been my observation that the majority of IDers are creationists who have hoisted ID as a flag of convenience - which of course is consonant with the general phoniness of the concept. But you said you wanted to avoid that. So, let's avoid it.
Also, if you want to argue why you are justified in using the term Darwinism, you can argue with yourself. I told you my objection; I backed up my objection to show my observation isn't a personal peculiarity. If I'm a Darwinist, you're a creationist. Is that how you want it, or is all the courtesy supposed to go one way?
Now, as to successful algorithms for deriving design, obviously the Design Inference was an attempt in that direction and yes, it seems to me it's pretty clear he and others have a research program in Popper's sense (even though the thinker David Stove showed Popper had some of the same limitations Popper had criticized Thomas Kuhn as having)
Dembski has a research program? When's he going to start publishing? I thought his current occupation was technical, spiritual and menu adviser to Ann Coulter. Behe has written one paper recently, that wasn't relaated to ID but was merely trying to refute gene duplication as an evolutionary mechanism. Who else is there that I've missed?
I'm surprised you would claim that refusing to infer traits about a supposed designer is "anti-scientific". Number one, it's hard enough to establish any evidence for design in the first place-- in fact, according to you, we know it can't be done, period. So speculation about the psychology of a purported designer would compound the error you're describing ID as making
Again, I graciously stipulated that ID might not be an outright impossibility, and went on to examine where we would go from there. You throw that stipulation back in my face and use my skepticism about ID to prove we can't go any further! Give me a break here!
Let's go back to Paley's watch. You find the watch. You infer it's designed. Is that the only thing you can tell? Of course not; it was made by a being conscious of the idea of time; one capable of metallurgy and fine machining; one disposed to use a base 12 system of numerals, and we can identify some of those symbols; one who is approximately the same size as us, neither microscopic nor planetary in size; one who does not live in a corrosive fluorine atmosphere or at temperatures far different from our own. Once we've established the watch is designed, there are a billion things we can say about the designer! We can tell his technological state of development! If we were Sherlock Holmes, we might even to be able to tell he was a one-legged older gentlemen who lately spent some time in the orient and had a daughter married to a parson!
I think we can agree such an attempt would purely speculative--- what Popper would label as metaphysics because, having been based upon such scanty evidence, it wouldn't have sufficient "explanatory power" to be falsifiable.
I agree to no such thing. If the designer designed life, say, at the RNA world stage, the designer had a command of RNA based technology. The designer most certainly had far more computing power than we have, since merely predicting the structure of RNA is beyond our means at the moment. The designer worked under conditions where RNA was stable, etc. The designer worked X billion years ago. Etc.
BTW, Popper and Kuhn are the only two modern philosophers of science most people have heard of, but few philosophers of science take Popper seriously any more except as a historical figure.
As for what will be able to be done inferred based on present genetic information regarding the physiology of a common ancestor between the macaque and human, I don't know. That seems quite worthwhile but far off. Do we know that a phylogenetic relationship will be reflected that precisely by purely genetic inofrmation?
Oh, the phylogeny is easy, and for a species as close as the macaque, precise. We can map human chromosomes, segment for segment, onto macacque chromosomes. We're within a matter of years of a full genetic history.
This very nice post on Pharyngula tells you how to map human gemones onto pufferfish genomes, a far more difficult task than humans onto macaques.
At any rate, the answers one derived regarding said ancestor would be pretty hard to falsify, which shows why Popper's standards (or at least those standards narrowly construed)aren't always appropriate.
Naive falsificationism is long dead.
The probability that a maximum parsimony common ancestral gene is correct can be calculated mathematically, and it has all sorts of internal checks. For example, does it make a stable, functional protein, that can be expressed in a primate?