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"As soon as you bring in the outside "designer" you stop doing science."

You should know the next question. What is science?

Why is intelligent design not science? Give me a nice concise definition.

How about I give you a nice simple definition. Science is the application of the scientific process with the intention of learning about the world in which we live.

What's wrong? Is the definition too theoretical? Does it define science in a way that doesn't provide nice comfortable answers?

If we start restricting science to things we understand, we become Ludditites. We stop seeking to qeustion what we know. Considering how little we really know about the world in which we live, it's kind of absurd to asume that we haven't made some incorrect assumptions in our scientific theories. After all they are theories, not proven facts.

"Its like the comment I read on one of these threads earlier of a scientific theory or mathematical proof or some such with "then a miracle happened" in the middle."

A proof with "then a miracle happened" in the middle isn't a proof. It's still a theory. It's not a very credible theory. It needs a bit of work in the area containing the miracle, but at least you know a good area to concentrate on when working to refine and improve on that theory.

"What is the evidence for an outside designer?"

Well, obviously there isn't proof of an outside designer. That's kind of part of the whole theory thing.

One way inwhich you evaluate theories is to simply ask questions that the theory might answer and look for other explainations.

Evolution might explain how life evolved, but where did this world come from? How did it all start? We've got that whole second law of therodynamics thing that says that systems tend toward entropy and that no system is 100% efficient.

So our univers must be increasing in entropy and must be expending energy in the process. Well where did all the energy come from to get this whole thing started?

Evolution isn't gonna answer that one for ya.

Whenever you ask why we teach evolution the answer is that it's the best theory we have that explains what we have observed.

Well, what's the best explaination you have for how all this got started. If it doesn't involve some form of intelligent design, explain why it's a better theory than some form of intelligent design. Make sure your reasoning doesn't include some self serving and limiting defintion of science. let's leave the semantics to Bill Clinton when he tries to define "is" in a way such that he can say he didn't perjure himself.

I'n not saying that ID is the only explaination to anything. I'm merely pointing out that it's a theory.

"Under what conditions does this designer operate. If you hypothesize such a designer, how will you test your hypothesis?"

There is no criteria for a theory that says it must be provable. Facts must be provable. Theories are possible answers to questions that usually bring up more questions than they answer.

I do not know how to test for a designer. I also don't know how to test that evolutionary mutations are truely random. By definition you can't prove that something is random. So much for really testing out that theory of evolution.

Oh wait, maybe that's one of the reasons why it's considered a THEORY?!?!

Science is not simply the study of nice conveient facts that you can go look up in a textbook. If it were it would be pretty boring. After all what we know about our universe is such a small amount compared to what we don't know. If we limit science to those nice comfortable facts, what are we doing when we try and learn about the things we don't currently understand? We obviously don't want to call that studying religion or we'll never get anywhere due to fighting lawsuits from the ACLU all the time instead of learning.

We could call it philosophy. I'm kind of fond of philosophy since what we like to consider science has it's roots in philosophy. I'm always amused that if you want to take a class on logic in a university you'll have to go to the philosophy department, because it isn't taught as science, yet you can't explain anything in science without understanding logic.

My theory is that science and philosophy are labels imposed by acedemics more concerend with empire building at universities than with learning. As evidence to support my theory I suggest you sit in on a budget meeting in which funds are being split up between those different departments.

Now religion on the other hand has something that distinguishes it from science or philosophy.

Religion takes an unprovable theory, recognizes that it is unprovable, and then compells you to believe in it anyway.

This is another reason I don't like how the ACLU and the teachers unions are pushing to teach the theory of evolution exclusively in our public schools.

You have my original comments and yours kind of mixed together, so I will put my original comments in italics and your responses in blockquotes (indented), followed by my responses in normal formatting.

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"As soon as you bring in the outside "designer" you stop doing science."

You should know the next question. What is science?
Why is intelligent design not science? Give me a nice concise definition.
How about I give you a nice simple definition. Science is the application of the scientific process with the intention of learning about the world in which we live.
What's wrong? Is the definition too theoretical? Does it define science in a way that doesn't provide nice comfortable answers?
If we start restricting science to things we understand, we become Ludditites. We stop seeking to qeustion what we know. Considering how little we really know about the world in which we live, it's kind of absurd to asume that we haven't made some incorrect assumptions in our scientific theories. After all they are theories, not proven facts.

That's easy; science is facts-and-theories. Facts by themselves don't mean much. A good theory organizes them into far greater usefulness. A powerful theory includes existing facts and accommodates newly discovered facts, and also allows you to make testable predictions.

This is the first place ID has problems. What are the facts? What I see on these threads is more like, "Its too complex, so God did it." or "Its too complex for me to figure out, so it must have been designed." There are no facts there, just assumptions. Not even a good working hypothesis, as it cannot be tested against data.

Evolution is a theory based on facts. The facts include hundreds of thousands of fossils, millions of existing plant and animal species, DNA, geological layers, and on and on and on. One of these facts is that things change through time. The theory of evolution builds on these facts and explains how all of the facts interrelate.

In answer to your specific question, "If we start restricting science to things we understand, we become Ludditites." That is where theory comes in--you build a theory from the facts you do have, spin off some nice hypotheses and test them. If they are falsified, throw them out and start over. No Luddites there. That's how science works.

And that's why ID doesn't fit into science. Imagine a scientific conference. You present a paper saying, "God did it." I present a paper saying, "Old Man Coyote did it." What are we going to use for data to distinguish between these two hypotheses? It all eventually boils down to individual belief, and that is no data. Science as a method has trouble when there are no facts of any kind to work with. I suppose you could try to build a hypothesis to test, but without a database how could you test it? That is where philosophy comes in.

Imagine another conference. Someone presents a paper saying, "The earth is flat." What data can you bring to bear on this. Quite a lot, actually. That's why only the tiniest lunatic fringe still believes the theory that the earth is flat.

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"Its like the comment I read on one of these threads earlier of a scientific theory or mathematical proof or some such with "then a miracle happened" in the middle."

A proof with "then a miracle happened" in the middle isn't a proof. It's still a theory. It's not a very credible theory. It needs a bit of work in the area containing the miracle, but at least you know a good area to concentrate on when working to refine and improve on that theory.

That's right, but you work on refining the theory by reference to data! What are the facts, and to how many decimal points.

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"What is the evidence for an outside designer?"

Well, obviously there isn't proof of an outside designer. That's kind of part of the whole theory thing.
One way inwhich you evaluate theories is to simply ask questions that the theory might answer and look for other explainations.
Evolution might explain how life evolved, but where did this world come from? How did it all start? We've got that whole second law of therodynamics thing that says that systems tend toward entropy and that no system is 100% efficient.
So our univers must be increasing in entropy and must be expending energy in the process. Well where did all the energy come from to get this whole thing started?
Evolution isn't gonna answer that one for ya.
Whenever you ask why we teach evolution the answer is that it's the best theory we have that explains what we have observed.
Well, what's the best explaination you have for how all this got started. If it doesn't involve some form of intelligent design, explain why it's a better theory than some form of intelligent design. Make sure your reasoning doesn't include some self serving and limiting defintion of science. let's leave the semantics to Bill Clinton when he tries to define "is" in a way such that he can say he didn't perjure himself.
I'n not saying that ID is the only explaination to anything. I'm merely pointing out that it's a theory.

I didn't ask for proof (science doesn't deal in proof); I asked for evidence (facts or data). You responded, correctly, there isn't proof, but that's where theory comes in. But science is facts and theory. Where are the facts?

I'm ignoring the abiogenesis (How did it all start) question, as that's not evolution. And I can't believe you are bringing up the second law of thermodynamics. That has been dealt with so often I won't even bother here. See PatrickHenry's List-O-Links.

Your final comments in this section ask why the "theory" of ID is not equally valid. Again, no data which can be used to distinguish competing hypotheses--God vs. Old Man Coyote, etc.

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"Under what conditions does this designer operate. If you hypothesize such a designer, how will you test your hypothesis?"

There is no criteria for a theory that says it must be provable. Facts must be provable. Theories are possible answers to questions that usually bring up more questions than they answer.
I do not know how to test for a designer. I also don't know how to test that evolutionary mutations are truely random. By definition you can't prove that something is random. So much for really testing out that theory of evolution.
Oh wait, maybe that's one of the reasons why it's considered a THEORY?!?!
Science is not simply the study of nice conveient facts that you can go look up in a textbook. If it were it would be pretty boring. After all what we know about our universe is such a small amount compared to what we don't know. If we limit science to those nice comfortable facts, what are we doing when we try and learn about the things we don't currently understand? We obviously don't want to call that studying religion or we'll never get anywhere due to fighting lawsuits from the ACLU all the time instead of learning.
We could call it philosophy. I'm kind of fond of philosophy since what we like to consider science has it's roots in philosophy. I'm always amused that if you want to take a class on logic in a university you'll have to go to the philosophy department, because it isn't taught as science, yet you can't explain anything in science without understanding logic.
My theory is that science and philosophy are labels imposed by acedemics more concerend with empire building at universities than with learning. As evidence to support my theory I suggest you sit in on a budget meeting in which funds are being split up between those different departments.
Now religion on the other hand has something that distinguishes it from science or philosophy.
Religion takes an unprovable theory, recognizes that it is unprovable, and then compells you to believe in it anyway.
This is another reason I don't like how the ACLU and the teachers unions are pushing to teach the theory of evolution exclusively in our public schools.

"There is no criteria for a theory that says it must be provable. Facts must be provable." Again, theories are not provable. Fact should be verifiable. However, science can work by inference. So, we can construct a framework that says "Lets assume A is true, then B has to be true, and that leads to C. If we can devise a test for C and find it is true then the entire construct is supported. Not proved, but supported. Or, if C was shown not to be true the construct is falsified. If you have a large, logical construct which keeps spinning off testable hypotheses and those hypotheses are always found to be accurate, you are making progress. But at some point you have to have something to test, and that is where ID fails.

You note that "I also don't know how to test that evolutionary mutations are truely random. By definition you can't prove that something is random. So much for really testing out that theory of evolution."

I don't see how that is important at all. Who cares whether they are completely random. I don't see where this is a valid test of evolution. You want a test? How about something simple. Old and New World monkeys are said to have split off from one another millions of years ago. If that is true, they will not have the same mtDNA, but will have picked up some number of random mutations. Now that hypothesis can be tested (and probably already has). If the two are identical that's a problem for the theory of evolution. If they are wildly different, that's also a problem. The theory would predict somewhere in between. This is not my field, so some minor details may be off but that is the nature of predictions which can be made and tested.

Finally, your comment on religion " Religion takes an unprovable theory, recognizes that it is unprovable, and then compells you to believe in it anyway." All theories are unprovable. Religion is a belief system, not a theory. It (like ID) is not subject to testing. You either believe it or you don't, but you can't go out and dig up some data that would allow a test.

Anyway, I hope this helps. I'm out of steam. If you have spefic questions, toss them onto these threads and I am sure you will get answers (plenty of answers, most likely).