Posted on 03/07/2009 4:26:11 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
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The next for consideration is Jonathan Wells and his Icons of Evolution. A stinging critique of ten familiar textbook evidences for evolution, Wells’ book provoked shrill cries of dismay from Darwinists, including Jerry Coyne and Eugenie Scott. Wells’ reply is highlighted as a rhetorically powerful rebuttal in which he catches his critics in scientific carelessness and in the debate tactic of ‘shifting the goalposts’. An example is the issue of embryonic homology—the Darwinian claim that embryos in various vertebrates look alike at various stages of development, and that this indicates common ancestry. Wells pointed out the extensive dissimilarities between embryos, blowing the traditional textbook image out of the water. Coyne argued that if only Wells understood their evolutionary history, then he would see the differences as evidence for evolution. This is shifting the goalposts, and as Wells remarked,
So let me get this straight. Some of the strongest evidence for Darwin’s theory is that vertebrate embryos are most similar in their early stages—except that they’re not. But if we just interpret the embryos’ dissimilarities in the light of Darwin’s theory, they then have “evidential value”. … Darwin’s theory wins no matter what the evidence shows’ (quoted p. 94).
Woodward reviews in detail the arguments of Wells, Stephen Meyers and others based on the fossil record. The debate focuses on the Cambrian explosion and the lack of evolutionary ancestors, and Woodward notes that this is just the very visible tip of a very large iceberg of recalcitrant fossil issues for the evolutionists. A delicious irony Woodward points out is that though the Darwinists have always said that the fossil record problems would decrease as more fossils are uncovered, the situation on the Cambrian is worse now that it was just a few years ago for the evolutionists...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
“It is only when an intelligent agent (such as a scientist or graduate student) intervenes and “tweaks” the reactions conditions “just right” do we see any progress at all,”
Is he saying that it might be possible for man to create life?
Oh, but it is mainline ID. It is what was testified under oath at the Dover trials where the ID'ers put up their biggest guns. Mr. Behe, under oath, said that it should be taught in the schools that the ID (God) may be dead.
Please show me where you think I am mistaken.
Behe is one of many in the ID movement. Emerging from a pond is not what the preponderance of the ID movement believes. And besides, I am not going to defend ID...I say again, I am a young Earth creationist.
A lot of words but nothing to support your position. As a YECer you must also condemn the ID movement. I have never understood why the YECers would join with the ID crowd which posits that man developed by common descent from primitive organisms.
YEC’ers do not condone the ID movement. But, men like Dembski can contribute to our understanding of creation through their study of irreducible complexity, and the Design Inference. Their biggest problem is they operate under an umbrella that it too large.
Dembski's problem is that he operates under an umbrella that is not science. He has no education in any field related to biology.
YEC'ers were all over themselves during the recent Dover trials.
Don’t expect to get anywhere with coldwater- anyone that can’t even cede that ID is a science isn’t really worthy of discussing matters with- they just continue to show a blatant willful denial/ignorance of the issue
Evos whine and whine, and drone on and on, while all the time falsely claiming that ID is ‘not testable’, and that it therefore invalidates ID as a ‘true’ science, but as I mentioned, they FULLY excuse hteir own hypothesis for not being testable, while looking down their noses at ID which actually DOES meet the criteria that they demand of ID- As you will see in the following, it’s a blatant bald-faced HYPOCRISY on their part, that they think somehow gives their own hypothesis more mirrit, but which in all actuality, just exposes how deceitful and hair-brained hteir reasoning really is:
“The testability objection to intelligent design can be interpreted in two ways. One is to claim that intelligent design is in principle untestable. This seems to have been Scott’s line in the early nineties. Certainly it is a hallmark of science that any of its claims be subject to revision or refutation on the basis of new evidence or further theoretical insight. If this is what one means by testability, then design is certainly testable. Indeed, it was in this sense that Darwin tested William Paley’s account of design and found it wanting. It simply won’t wash to say that design isn’t testable and then in the same breath say that Darwin tested design and refuted it.
The other way to interpret the testability objection is to claim that intelligent design may in principle be testable, but that no tests have been proposed to date. This seems to be Scott’s line currently. Indeed, if the testability objection is to bear any weight, its force must reside in the absence of concrete proposals for testing intelligent design. Are such proposals indeed lacking? Rather than looking solely at the testability of intelligent design, I want also to consider the testability of Darwinism. By comparing the testability of the two theories, it will become evident that even the more charitable interpretation of Scott’s testability objection does not hold up.
In relation to science testability is a very broad notion. It certainly includes Karl Popper’s notion of falsifiability, but it is hardly coextensive with it and can apply even if falsifiability does not obtain. Testability as well covers confirmation, predicability, and explanatory power. At the heart of testability is the idea that our scientific theories must make contact with and be sensitive to what’s happening in nature. What’s happening in nature must be able to affect our scientific theories not only in form and content but also in the degree of credence we attach to or withhold from them. For a theory to be immune to evidence from nature is a sure sign that we’re not dealing with a scientific theory.
What then are we to make of the testability of both intelligent design and Darwinism taken not in a generic abstract sense but concretely? What are the specific tests for intelligent design? What are the specific tests for Darwinism? And how do the two theories compare in terms of testability? To answer these questions, let’s run through several aspects of testability, beginning with falsifiability.
FALSIFIABILITY: Is intelligent design falsifiable? Is Darwinism falsifiable? Yes to the first question, no to the second. Intelligent design is eminently falsifiable. Specified complexity in general and irreducible complexity in biology are within the theory of intelligent design the key markers of intelligent agency. If it could be shown that biological systems like the bacterial flagellum that are wonderfully complex, elegant, and integrated could have been formed by a gradual Darwinian process (which by definition is non-telic), then intelligent design would be falsified on the general grounds that one doesn’t invoke intelligent causes when purely natural causes will do. In that case Occam’s razor finishes off intelligent design quite nicely.
On the other hand, falsifying Darwinism seems effectively impossible. To do so one must show that no conceivable Darwinian pathway could have led to a given biological structure. What’s more, Darwinists are apt to retreat into the murk of historical contingency to shore up their theory. For instance, Allen Orr in his critique of Behe’s work shortly after _Darwin’s Black Box_ appeared remarked, “We have no guarantee that we can reconstruct the history of a biochemical pathway.” What he conceded with one hand, however, he was quick to retract with the other. He added, “But even if we can’t, its irreducible complexity cannot count against its gradual evolution.”
CONFIRMATION: What about positive evidence for intelligent design and Darwinism? From the design theorist’s perspective, the positive evidence for Darwinism is confined to small-scale evolutionary changes like insects developing insecticide resistance. This is not to deny large-scale evolutionary changes, but it is to deny that the Darwinian mechanism can account for them. Evidence like that for insecticide resistance confirms the Darwinian selection mechanism for small-scale changes, but hardly warrants the grand extrapolation that Darwinists want. It is a huge leap going from insects developing insecticide resistance via the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection and random variation to the very emergence of insects in the first place by that same mechanism.
Darwinists invariably try too minimize the extrapolation from small-scale to large-scale evolution, arguing that it is a failure of imagination on the part of critics to appreciate the wonder-working power of the Darwinian mechanism. From the design theorist’s perspective, however, this is not a case of failed imagination but of the emperor’s new clothes. Yes, there is positive evidence for Darwinism, but the strength and relevance of that evidence on behalf of large-scale evolution is very much under dispute, if not within the Darwinian community then certainly outside of it.
There is more here [LINK] http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_isidtestable.htm which more than shows how assinine hte claims that ‘ID isn’t testable, therefore it’s not a true science’ really is- but again- be prepared to have it all waved away with the evo’s magic wand of blind denial and willful ignorance and brought up time and time again i nthe future, hopibng that we will have all forgotten how their claims were soundly defeated in this thread.
1)Courts have nothing to do with whether things are real or not.
2)Intelligence is very difficult to define. You actually can’t do it without having a philosophical basis.
3) The ID theory is based on some type of non-human divine intellect. Declaring that intelligence is not relegated to human description is not the same as proving it. It is a statement of your faith.
[[1)Courts have nothing to do with whether things are real or not.]]
Lol- Yeah, right- whatever- looks liek you aren’t going to discuss anythign with any intelectual honesty eh? Of course they do
[[2)Intelligence is very difficult to define. You actually can’t do it without having a philosophical basis.]]
Intelligence is not difficult to define- you’re living in your own little world that is detached from reality and has no merit in such discussions
[[3) The ID theory is based on some type of non-human divine intellect. Declaring that intelligence is not relegated to human description is not the same as proving it. It is a statement of your faith.]]
I’ve explained ID previously- obviously oyu’re goign to just turn a blind eye to it and keep arguing nonsense- Intelligence examinations determine beyond a reasonable doubt whether or not non intelligent forces can cause IC or not, and this is ALL that ID science determines- it posits nothign further- regardless of how many times antiID folks falsely claim it does- but whatever- have a nice day.
The signsof intelligence include abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, and when these atributes are displayed in designs, they can very reasonably be determiend to be designs of intelligence. In life, all these atributes can be seen even in the ‘simplest’ of life forms. Life was designed to solve problems, and to anticipate problems, life hsows that the designer was able to htink abstractly, to comprehend ideas, and to design features of systems to solve problems as they arise- Nature simpyl is not capable of such foresight, planning, reasoning and anticipatory abstract predesign. Arguing the symantics of precision in definitions is simply a goalpost moving argument which has no place in intellectual discussions. It does NOT take a ‘precise definition’ to recognize intelligence, nor do courts need such precision to determine cases of intelligence detection- you’re argument is dead in the water.
We’ve had a nice discussion. I wish you well.
Who knows? I think mainly what he says is it doesn’t appear to form without some kind of intelligence and design behind the process.
But they do have a profound effect on science and the perception and application of what's real or not.
If anything, the hypocritical evos should be more concerned about separation of state and science...
from algore's hot air cult to today's reversal of Bush's human embryo stem cell research, science is in alot more trouble by those hijacking it from the left. Instead of getting in a tizzy over their multiple God hang-ups, people should be more aware that science is being stolen right out from under their very noses.
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