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To: Heartlander
[id predictions]

One trouble with all of these is that you "didn't show your work" - how do you get from some hypothesis of the so-called "theory" of ID to the specific prediction.

Remember, if you postulate a suffficiently-powerful designer, anything goes.

· Transposable LINE-1 (junk) actually serves a purpose.

This may actually be testable. It would be surprising, but certainly wouldn't be incompatable with standard biology.

· Functional parts will be reused in unrelated species.

It is already known that, occasionally, a virus can copy a gene from one organism to an "unrelated" one. So, presumably you mean something more here. Standard biology predicts that there will never be evidence for a transitional between, say, mammals and birds. No bird with mammalian hair (it is possible for feathers to resemble hair, eg kiwis) or hearts, no feathered mammals or mammals with gizzards, etc etc. Are you seriously predicting things like that will one day be found!?

· Intelligent and purposeful information will be found in DNA (encoded information).

You mean like the digits of pi, or a copyright notice? This "prediction" sounds a bit like a psychic's predictions - it's so vague that a lot of things could be retrofitted to it.

· Mindlessness cannot create consciousness.

This is already known to be false - see, for example, Calvin's Throwing Madonna. This gives a step-by-step progression from ape to human brains. So the "cannot" is not true. What I think you're trying to say is that we're just soooo special that our brains just couldn't have evolved. Even if this were true, you need to prove it.

· Absolutes exist beyond mankind.

Too vague to make any sense of. What did you have in mind?

So: Out of five "predictions", two are testable (#1 and #2), and the rest are too vague to take seriously.

Let's wait until a few of these have actually been refined and then tested before we start calling ID science or a theory.

And let's be honest enough to say that if no use is found for LINE elements, and no functional parts have been found reused, and no coding is found in DNA, etc, that ID has in fact been disproved. How long do you think it will take?

715 posted on 03/03/2004 9:46:25 PM PST by Virginia-American
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To: Virginia-American
Kiwi feathers unique texture <-- KIWI feathers up close.
 
 
from --> http://www.kiwirecovery.org.nz/Kiwi/AboutTheBird/NewZealandsIcon/KiwiCharacteristics/FeathersLikeHair.htm
 
This evolved to keep the kiwi safe from aerial predators that hunted using sight and sound, such as the now extinct goshawk.
 
This sure sounds like  direction (From biologists!  )

718 posted on 03/04/2004 5:54:46 AM PST by Elsie (When the avalanche starts... it's too late for the pebbles to vote....)
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