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To: Quark2005
Please explain how to empirically differentiate between the following: 1) An irreducibly complex organism/biological mechanism

First, the notion of an irreducibly complex organism is an absurdity since all organisms are irreducibly complex. To remove a factor from any organism is to irretrievably terminate that organism. A genetic alteration in a given organism makes a different organism. The two are not the same nor is one less or more than the other. Second, natural evolution is not inconsistent with ID.

Third, claiming that science is restricted to the phenomenological reduces science to non-reality based quackery.

You may count the scales on a fish as a means of categorizing divergent populations but you can not determine mating choices without reference to motivational influences, not all of which are mechanistically categorizable.

Color, for example, has no chemical properties. It is refracted light. (To claim that light is actually materialistic but that the materialists simply have not yet figured out how it is, is disingenuous at best.) Yet color is a highly determinative factor in the choosing of mates, especially among cold blooded critters.

I have seen animals change colors to suit their environment or their mood and to communicate between species. Yet they do not do so in the same way every time. The results are not duplicatable. Again, to assume that they are duplicatable but we have not yet figured out how, is not a defensible position.

136 posted on 11/17/2005 12:35:22 PM PST by Louis Foxwell (THIS IS WAR AND I MEAN TO WIN IT.)
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To: Amos the Prophet
First, the notion of an irreducibly complex organism is an absurdity since all organisms are irreducibly complex. To remove a factor from any organism is to irretrievably terminate that organism. A genetic alteration in a given organism makes a different organism. The two are not the same nor is one less or more than the other.

I can't tell what point you're trying to make here. All organisms are reducibly complex because changing anything about their genes would result in an altered organism? I thought that was what evolutionary theory already stated.

Second, natural evolution is not inconsistent with ID.

I thought that was my whole point. What does ID have to offer at all, then, besides adding a needless complication?

Third, claiming that science is restricted to the phenomenological reduces science to non-reality based quackery.

Again, this doesn't make sense. You're not clarifying much of anything here. Please, explain (clearly and specfically) what you mean by "non-reality based quackery" and how the "non-phenomenological" can generate a testable hypothesis.

You may count the scales on a fish as a means of categorizing divergent populations but you can not determine mating choices without reference to motivational influences, not all of which are mechanistically categorizable.

Again, please clarify. What does determination of "mating choices" have to with ID or evolution in this context?

Color, for example, has no chemical properties. It is refracted light. (To claim that light is actually materialistic but that the materialists simply have not yet figured out how it is, is disingenuous at best.) Yet color is a highly determinative factor in the choosing of mates, especially among cold blooded critters.

Are you trying to say chemical properties of pigments have nothing to do with the color they reflect? Again, what are you talking about? Materialists don't know what light is? I can't even tell where you're trying to go with this.

I have seen animals change colors to suit their environment or their mood and to communicate between species. Yet they do not do so in the same way every time. The results are not duplicatable. Again, to assume that they are duplicatable but we have not yet figured out how, is not a defensible position.

More of the same of the above.

Let me rephrase my question - How can we differentiate between Intelligent Design and a creature/mechanism that evolved naturally that we just don't have complete knowledge of yet? If we can't, what use does ID have at all? Can you answer this question without lending credence to my tagline?

140 posted on 11/17/2005 1:26:44 PM PST by Quark2005 (Science aims to elucidate. Pseudoscience aims to obfuscate.)
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To: Amos the Prophet
To remove a factor from any organism is to irretrievably terminate that organism.

explain amputees

144 posted on 11/17/2005 2:20:30 PM PST by King Prout (many accuse me of being overly literal... this would not be a problem if many were not under-precise)
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