Witness: intelligent design has identified God as designer

York Daily Record ^ | 9/28/05

[Crackingham]

Supporters of intelligent design argue the concept is not religious because the designer is never identified. But this morning, in the third day of testimony in a federal court case challenging the Dover school district’s inclusion of intelligent design in biology class, an expert for the plaintiffs pointed to examples where its supporters have identified the designer, and the designer is God.

Robert Pennock, a Michigan State University professor of the philosophy of science, pointed to a reproduction shown in court of writing by Phillip Johnson, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley and author of books including “Darwin on Trial” and “Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds.”

Johnson, known as the father of the intelligent design movement, wrote of “theistic realism.”

“This means that we affirm that God is objectively real as Creator, and that this reality of God is tangibly recorded in evidence accessible to science, particularly in biology,” the writing stated.

Pennock was being questioned by plaintiffs’ attorneys. He will be cross-examined after a morning break.

[js1138]

When you get through that one, here's some more:

http://wiki.cotch.net/wiki.phtml?title=Flagellum_essay_comments
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagellum
http://www.aip.org/pt/jan00/berg.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?tool=bookshelf&call=bv.View..ShowSection&rid=cell.section.3946
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?call=bv.View..ShowSection&rid=stryer.section.4894
http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/~hongwang/ATP_synthase.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?tool=bookshelf&call=bv.View..ShowSection&rid=cell.section.3505
http://brodylab.eng.uci.edu/~jpbrody/reynolds/lowpurcell.html
http://www.arn.org/docs/mm/flagellum_all.htm
http://www.arn.org/mm/mm.htm
http://www.idurc.org/nofreelunchintro.shtml
http://www.iscid.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000299
http://www.idthink.net/biot1/flag1/
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design1/article.html
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/index.html

[DC Bound]

Well, damn, I asked for it. You know its going to take a little while to visit all these sites. I appreciate the links. Did you happen to refer to any of the sources I directed you to in 112--as they make the argument better than I?

[VadeRetro]

I reviewed our conversation so far. It started with you responding to a post I made to another Freeper regarding IC. You posted a link that supposedly debunks IC. I responded that it doesn't, and presented an article that does a good job of explaining why.

I presented Miller debunking the flagellum as IC specifically, then Lindsay compiling various critiques of Behe and IC. You have presented no articles to me, nor do I see where anything you've presented to anybody responds to what I've posted to you, which is by now a wealth of material. But please feel free to explain where and how you have done anything but shreik about personal attacks.

At that point, you begin posting links that have nothing to do with IC, but instead show progressions of fossils. Who changed the argument?

You characterized evolution as saying "It evolved" and nothing more. Evolution has outlined both a mechanism and history by which life on Earth has diversified. There is evidence for both. I have shown this. There's quite a bit of evidence for it. Again, you bludgeon with your failure to understand and remember, even down to what has happened on this thread for all to see.

Irreducible complexity has yet to be answered.

Where have you established this?

Have at it.

You have not answered the answers provided already on this thread. Have at that.

[inquest]

I haven't read through that link, and if I did, I probably would lack the expertise necessary to comment on it very usefully anyway. I just thought the second sentence of the abstract was interesting in the context of the larger debate:

"Such systems are sometimes proposed as puzzles for evolutionary theory on the assumption that selection would have no function to act on until all components are in place."

I'm forced to wonder if this would have been considered a puzzle worth examining if it hadn't been for the likes of Behe and Dembski pointing out the (then-existing) gap in the theory and making an issue out of it. This paper came out in 2003. The previous study it referred to was done in 2000. Behe came out with Darwin's Black Box in 1996.

The issue here is that there are two objections against ID: One, that it's incorrect, which is a perfectly examinable assertion which I take no position on myself. The other is that it's "unscientific", which is simply an illogical objection. First of all, if ID is unscenitific, then so is the contrary position. It means the whole question of origins is an unscientific pursuit. Secondly, as the above example strongly suggests, it does result in scientific progress. It's not going to result in scientific regress. Why so many people react to it in such a paranoid fashion as though it's to be avoided like the plague, I'll never understand.

[js1138]

A few on the evolution of blood clotting:

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/clot/Clotting.html
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/Clotting.html
http://www.evowiki.org/wiki.phtml?title=Blood_clotting
http://www.nmsr.org/coral_ic.htm
http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0304/Apr05_04/10.shtml

[js1138]

...the Cambrian Explosion. In a very brief window of time during the geological period known as the Cambrian, virtually all the basic animal types appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no trace of evolutionary ancestors.

This is simply untrue. There's an extensivive pre-cambrian fossil record. Saying there isn't doesn't make it true.

This is despite the rather obvious fact that as you go further back in time, fewer creatures have any hard parts to fossilize. Difficulty finding evidence that has been erased does not change history.

[js1138]

Thus horizontal gene transfer must be considered a significant source of genetic variation in all three domains of life.

So what? Darwinian evolution sets no limits to the source and kinds of variation.

[SauronOfMordor]

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

[js1138]

Go back and read what I said about non-coding DNA. If it has a function then it is subject to selection. If it doesn't have a function it doesn't support ID.

Either way the science isn't finished on this one.

[js1138]

I'm forced to wonder if this would have been considered a puzzle worth examining if it hadn't been for the likes of Behe and Dembski pointing out the (then-existing) gap in the theory and making an issue out of it.

No, Darwin was aware of irreducible complexity and acknowledged the need to address it continually. The full case for irreducible complexity was made in 1802 by Paley in "Natural Theology". Origin of Species was a response to Paley.

[DC Bound]

We have gotten to the point that trading punches on multiple issues is counterproductive. I'm game, but I get the feeling (and probably you do too) that either one of us could go on forever without seriously damaging the other's views, if we continue to discuss multiple facets of the argument at once. I admit you responded very well to my 2 part challenge in post 112, and concede you have a pile of evidence. However, for us to continue in the same manner would be to fail to do that evidence justice. So that I can give my best argument, would you permit me to narrow the focus of the discussion (for the time being) to a very narrow discussion: Irreducible complexity? I hope you accept the spirit of this concession--I'm game, but I don't think I'm going to learn as much by trading jousts without getting in-depth.

[js1138]

I thought my posts were directed at irreducible complexity, but go ahead.

[inquest]

No, Darwin was aware of irreducible complexity and acknowledged the need to address it continually.

That was well before his theory became accepted by the scientific community as a bedrock tenet of biology. I'm talking about since then.

[Gumlegs]

You mean this one:

[VadeRetro]

http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html

Very nice! I hadn't seen that one.

Behe's original text stated that there ABSOLUTELY IS NO EVOLUTIONARY SCENARIO to produce the flagellum.

As we see, there is at least one. There have been others postulated previously, as noted within that link. I guess having more than one possible scenario equates to not having any, if you're on the other side.

[Chaguito]

The collection of essays about ID, Uncommon Dissent, has contributions covering the spectrum from Christians to atheists to mystics. Try it. It's a real page turner.

[js1138]

That was well before his theory became accepted by the scientific community as a bedrock tenet of biology. I'm talking about since then.

I have no idea what you are gettin at. You'll have to spell it out.

[js1138]

It does have the virtue of complexity.

[inquest]

Behe's original text stated that there ABSOLUTELY IS NO EVOLUTIONARY SCENARIO to produce the flagellum.

His original text? You mean the one from '96?

[inquest]

Let me just ask this: What serious attempt has been made to account for the bacterial flagellum before Behe's book? Was it even acknowledged as a problem for evolution prior to then?