Intelligent Design and Evolution at the White House

SETI Institute ^ | August 2005 | Edna DeVore

[trebb]

Intelligent design: bad theology, bad philosophy, bad science, just plain bad in every respect.

I don't claim to be a theologian, philosopher, or scientist; I'm impressed that you have mastered all three subjects. Try to conceive a time before time or a universe without bounds, and when you get the picture firmly in your head, let me know.

[js1138]

The premis of science is simply that a natural explanation can be found for any observable phenomenon. This is not going to change.

[bobdsmith]

Reading DNA code, like reading computer programming code, could likewise turn up REM comment statements or chemical markers in the genome left by an intelligent insertion, or different DNA in the animal's offspring, etc.

DNA is nothing like computer programming code.

[js1138]

Reading DNA code, like reading computer programming code, could likewise turn up REM comment statements or chemical markers in the genome left by an intelligent insertion...

Unfortunately for the ID community, when you actually analyze DNA for oddball stuff, you find evidence for common descent.

But keep on a happy face. Entire DNA sequences will eventually be available, and you can use them to find Bible Codes, or whatever you want.

[RadioAstronomer]

I know what you mean. As someone who works on fundamental intelligent systems R&D (ne "AI"), I have to deal with fact that nutjobs and armchair philosophers get to define the field every day through sheer force of numbers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the real state-of-the-art in my field is in a space that almost no one has ever heard of and which does not look like anything they have heard of. Having to constantly justify your work in relation to some lame theory forwarded by the kook/lamer fringe is taxing. :-(

Believe it, I do understand. Try every time you bring up SETI, you get the obligatory question about UFOs. Sigh. (I am with ya my friend)

[RadioAstronomer]

They are properly lumped together because they are based on the same types of "scientific" premises.

Question.

Do you also then purport that the folks looking for gravity waves or a new particle in an accelerator are not doing science as well?

[jwalsh07]

Evolution is defined as purely naturalistic, ie, no design. Genetic engineering has put the lie to that definition. Allele frequencies in populations are changed routinely by design, genetic engineers. Dawkins, and you know how I feel about Dawkins, is smart enough to recognize that the old paradigm is about to be replaced by the new paradigm. Of course, de facto, it has already been replaced.

But ponder this Torie. Evolutionists tell me that homo sapiens has been around about 500,000 years. The universe is about 15,000,000,000 years old according to science. In that very, relatively speaking, short period of time on the third rock homo sapiens are, by intelligent design, changing allele frequencies at their whim. My point is thus, scoffing at an intelligent agent doing the same some time way back in the past is Luddite.

And you know that I'm not an advocate for either ID or ToE. I believe God did it all and the why and wherefore of mechanisms He uses is up to Him.

[bobdsmith]

What AI field are you in? out of interest.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" One way to determine intelligent design is to find irreducible complexity. "

There is no way to find irreducible complexity. The examples that Behe used (flagellum for instance) have been shown to not be irreducibly complex. IC is just an argument from incredulity.

"Another way is to properly read DNA code for evidence in the genome of non-natural insertions (e.g. non-natural species skipping genes or recombinant DNA that was perfectly programmed from scratch)."

Good luck on that. If ID is true, and EVERY organism has been intelligently designed, how would that design appear to be anything but natural? You still haven't demonstrated any way to tell an intelligently designed from a non-intelligently designed trait. Simply stating that intelligent design can be found is not evidence that intelligent design can be found.

You can't seem to grasp that all you have ever shown is that human beings have intelligence and have designed things. Well DUH! Nobody has denied that. That is NOT evidence that an intelligent designer created life and directed it's later evolution. Human beings didn't create themselves. They didn't create the universe. They didn't direct the evolution of the world's organisms before they themselves existed.

ID can be anything and everything to those who wish it to be.

[bobdsmith]

Noone here has claimed intelligent design (small 'i' and small 'd') of organic life is impossible. The claim has been that this does not provide any evidence for Intelligent Design (large 'I' and large 'D'). Intelligent Design being the claim that life on earth has been intelligently designed by non-human designers.

This claim has no evidence, whether humans can intelligently design life or not.

The fact that humans can intelligently design life does not provide evidence that humans themselves are intelligently designed. We could be intelligently designed regardless of whether we can ourselves intelligently design life.

So the fact that we can intelligently design life provides no evidence whatsoever towards the claim that we are intelligently designed.

Equally noone claims that intelligent design cannot be used to build stars (because certainly with enough technology a human designer could build a star - it is simply a task of rearranging matter - it is easier than designing life). But the fact that human designers could build a star does not in any way provide any inkling of evidence that stars in the universe today have been Intelligently Designed.

Intelligent designers with sufficient technology can re-arrange matter however they want, and by doing so can replicate anything that already exists.

In fact even if humans could not intelligently design life, it would still be the case that some type of Intelligent Designer with abilities beyond that of humans could theoretically do so.

So that humans can intelligently design life really does not provide evidence that life is intelligently designed. As life could be intelligently designed even if humans could not do it. So the fact that we can do it does not change anything.

I know I am repeating myself a lot here, but I feel it better to repeat myself on one post than repeat myself over the course of several.

[stremba]

Even if, for the sake of argument, I grant that evolution should be taught as you say, do you disagree with me on how ID should be taught? Simply put, evolution is science, ID is not. Evidence for evolution exists, and there is a lot of it, even if in the minds of some people, this is a different type of evidence (scientists do not make a distinction between the type of evidence found for evolution and that found for other sciences.) No evidence whatsoever exists for ID. If I am wrong, please present some. Arguments from irreducible complexity, specified complexity and all the other ID arguments have already been dealt with. Please also note that Biblical or religious references have no standing as evidence in the scientific community.

[stremba]

In terms of importance for the well-being of our country, I certainly agree with you. The whole evo/crevo debate is extremely unimportant. However, we both know how liberals and the media behave. If they see creationism/ID as a club that they can use to beat conservatives with and diminish our chances of winning elections, they will put the truly important issues on the back burner, and focus on relatively unimportant, but potentially damaging, issues like this debate.

[malakhi]

google was there:

How bizarre is that? Who would've thought that there would be 1,310 google hits for the phrase "ice cream has no bones"! LOL.

[plain talk]

I see ID as a net plus for conservatives in rallying the troops against the global warming / evolution / atheist crowd. But it's a side issue.

[Chameleon]

Do you also then purport that the folks looking for gravity waves or a new particle in an accelerator are not doing science as well?

I never said that SETI or ID is not doing science. I said they are on the "outskirts" of science.

I feel that they are similar in that they both search for signs of intelligence, where there is really no need of the hypothesis.

I think they both have something to offer, but both have also produced bad science and a bizarre, kooky cult-like following.

So I see a lot of similarities, and think they're best off not casting stones at eachother.

I don't think either is properly compared to scientists looking for evidence aimed at refining or testing existing theories. I see a big distinction between searching for data that refines existing scientific knowledge, vs. searching for a notion of intelligence in order to answer questions like "Are we alone" or "Was life designed by intelligence."

Specifically, the idea of gravitational waves was produced by Einstein based on his theory and mathematical understanding of how gravity must work with two huge, close stars. Looking to test Einstein's predictions in this manner seem far different to me than looking for - say - the "infinite superior spirit" that Einstein referenced in coversations.

My point isn't that SETI or ID aren't science...It's that the principle arguments against one not being science also apply to the other.

[stremba]

Maybe RA can correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that SETI suffers from precisely the same problem as ID. SETI searches for extraterrestrial radio signals and attempts to determine if they have an intelligent origin. However, it seems to me that the only thing that can really be done is to rule out any known natural processes as the origin of the signals, which is a far cry from showing that the signals have an intelligent origin. Similarly, ID attempts to show that certain features of life have an intelligent origin. However, again, all that can be done is to rule out known natural processes as the origin of these features, which is again a far cry from demonstrating an intelligent origin. If ID is not scientific (and it isn't) then SETI also is not scientific. Of course, SETI does benefit the cause of science, as was pointed out earlier, just by gathering data that can be used by astronomers. ID has no such redeeming feature.

[Fester Chugabrew]

The premise of science is simply that a natural explanation can be found for any observable phenomenon. This is not going to change.

Innocuous on the surface, but in substance loaded with presumption. On the whole it leaves falsifiability out of the question, assumes limits of, and for, "natural" and "observable," and asserts no possibility of change. I suppose even within a small box like that there is plenty for science to do, but I am happy to know science is inclined to think bigger. As long as your premise is the one under which evolutionists operate, I can understand why the evidence always fits, and always will.

[js1138]

SETI is cheap, gathers useful data, and has a high stakes payoff, if successful. Actually, this is one situation where negative results are interesting by themselves.

[js1138]

It's the premise under which science operates. Point to an exception.

[longshadow]

"Festival of the Narcissistic Troll who wouldn't Die" placemarker