Babble and blather. I'm really not interest in engaging in philsophical hair-splitting. The simple fact is that "intelligent design" is not science because it explains EVERYTHING the same way----"the designer dood it", and thus explains nothing. It cannot PREDICT NEW SCIENCE, which is one of the key requirement for a scientific hypothesis.
"With this approach, you can simply put off committing to the answer for ever, claiming that the future may yet prove it untrue.
ALL science is this way. "IF" a superior hypothesis/theory comes along which explains ALL CURRENT PHENOMENA explained by the previous theory AND, explains or predicts the explantion of phenomena NOT currently explained, then the new hypothesis becomes the "leading contender".
"Is there a defined threshold where irreducible complexity would become real to you?"
Sure---when there has been about a century of study of such biological systems ACROSS MULTIPLE SPECIES using the tools of todays molecular biology. It's simply too early to say that biological systems are "irreducibly complex".
Two problems with this.
First, you've drastically overreached here. We already know for a fact that the hypothesis of naturalistic evolution does not explain "ALL CURRENT PHENOMENA." We know of thousands of life forms for which the proper explanation must include the actions of human intelligent agents.
Second, it is no longer possible to reject a design hypothesis for any phenomena that came about during the time of human activity on Earth. (And for future developments, the "design" hypothesis only gains strength as humans become more adept at genetic engineering.)
Isn't that like saying physics is not science because it explains everything the same way: "Atoms and subatomic particles behave in ways explained by physical laws." I mean, really, do you think there is nothing to be learned in a universe that was created to be as it is by a superior intelligence? Would you also feel there is nothing to learn from a lecture prepared by a scientist smarter than yourself?
The idea that an Intelligence has created what we see does not diminish in the slightest the value of the knowledge we stand to gain by better understanding those things and how they behave.
ALL science is this way. "IF" a superior hypothesis/theory comes along which explains ALL CURRENT PHENOMENA explained by the previous theory AND, explains or predicts the explantion of phenomena NOT currently explained, then the new hypothesis becomes the "leading contender".
But that's just it! ID doesn't deny the existing and previous learning, it simply re-frames it in terms of causality. The facts don't change, they are understood in the context that observable forces and matter are under the control of something much more than chaos. The truth is still the truth. The only thing discarded is the worship of chance and chaos as creators.
Sure---when there has been about a century of study of such biological systems ACROSS MULTIPLE SPECIES using the tools of todays molecular biology. It's simply too early to say that biological systems are "irreducibly complex".
...conveniently postponing the final answer beyond your lifetime. ;-)