Since It incorporates NO testable hypothesis..."
Michael Behe writes "intelligent design in biology is not invisible, it is empirically detectable." This is a disputable point, but it is a valid scientific claim. Behe claims that design is observable. If design is not observed then the proposition is refuted. Unfortunately, observing design is not like observing a rhinoceros or an elephant. You can't just point at something and say "there! that's design." Design must be measured in a subtle way. For any given biological system you must determine if completely random events could have brought it about. If you can show that no number or combination of random events could produce that system, then you can infer that the system was designed. The problem is that the potential combination of random events approaches infinity, so the design inference only approaches certainty but never attains it. Fortunately for those who support the intelligent design hypothesis, no scientific claim can be proved beyond all doubt. The nature of a scientific hypothesis is that it attains a high degree of probability for being true, but never certainty.
Is this a straw man? "Completely random events"--where does this come from?---not evolution.
This is the kind of reverse logic that gets intelligent design nowhere. Proving one theory invalid, does not prove another to be true. Instead of spending all the time and effort finding flaws in evolution, IDers would be wise to present logical and rational evidence that all we se was created by a designer. Despite my readings I have yet to see any
The nature of a scientific hypothesis is that it attains a high degree of probability for being true, but never certainty.
Universal facts and truths are few and far between. A fact is only that which can be directly observed. Facts are confined to particular spatial and temporal scales. Microevolution is a fact, in that we have seen changes in the allele frequencies of organisms from one generation to the next. There is much evidence for macroevolution, but we cannot say it is fact until we can observe it directly taking place. This is much more difficult than it sounds as the concept of species is still in debate with recent genetic information. You will not convince many unless someone unearth Gods design blueprints or uncover some kind of actual evidence.
The flagellum argument made by Behe has had counter postulates regarding other functions. If an experiment is conducted via environmental pressures ( without splicing--aka, cheating ) that can produce an alternate function for a partial flagellum, then the argument you pose loses weight in favor of the counter postulates.
I haven't seen such an experiment or its results as of today.
Can that be shown?
The nature of a scientific hypothesis is actually that no amount of evidence can ever prove it with certainty, but that there is at least one (and preferably more) observation that would render the hypothesis false. ID seems not to have this property. What possible observation would lead to the conclusion that there is definitely no intelligent design? Since we know nothing (and ID is very careful to tell us nothing) about the characteristics and limitations of the designer, then there's no way that we can look at ANY possible observation and say that it is inconsistent with design. Contrast this with evolution, in which case, for example, a single new species which has something other than polynucleotides for its genetic material, a single fossil of a precambrian mammal or a whole host of other possible observations would render it false. That is how an idea gains support in science. It must be hypothetically possible to observe things that falsify it and then show that these things are never seen. An idea that is consistent with any possible observation is worthless.