Secondly, I want to congratulate you on your scientific open-mindedness. I rarely see that around here. You at least allow that a supranatural intelligent designer is in the realm of scientific possibility.
Concerning your evident belief that ID requires us to deny practical scientific information, nothing in ID suggests this. As I've stated before, much of what has come to light through the efforts of evolutionists is of great value. Dembski freely acknowledges this and is thankful for it. But when evolutionists, for instance, propose Darwinian algorithms to explain things like natural selection, and then sulk because those algorithms are shown mathematically to lack anthing near the informational, and therefore explanatory power, that's been claimed for them, I have to wonder what they're defending -- because it's certainly not science. Dembski has no problem at all accepting that the Earth is almost certainly 4-5 billion years old and that the physical universe is equally likely to be on the order of 14-16 billion years old. The evidence is just too compelling to take issue with this. Likewise, he would not dispute for one moment, the efficacy of the geologic techniques of oil exploration (supra) and their underlying scientific rationale. ID does not seek to limit the explanatory power of science. On the contrary, it seeks to expand that power by freeing it from an unnecessarily limiting paradigm, one that excludes the stronger theory in favor of the weaker, simply to perpetuate itself.
Oh, please, can't we dwell a little bit?
Because we've seen several such ID objections on this thread alone, and they are as idle and shopworn as the big "C" Creationists perpetual misunderstandings of entropy in open systems.
A nonfunctioning gene that is nonfunctional for the exact same reason in several species sure looks a lot more like the result of imperfect copying than design.
Hang out with more scientists, and fewer scientasters and amateur idealogues, and you will more frequently feel so refreshed.
I don't think I offered this up. I think I suggested that, as with fossil gaps, lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. The present lack of an adequate explanation for, say, the observed systemic discrepency in the DNA distance clock and the geological clock, is not an obvious demonstration that we should assume outside interference, rather than continue to look for natural explanations.
As I've stated before, much of what has come to light through the efforts of evolutionists is of great value. Dembski freely acknowledges this and is thankful for it. But when evolutionists, for instance, propose Darwinian algorithms to explain things like natural selection, and then sulk because those algorithms are shown mathematically to lack anthing near the informational, and therefore explanatory power
We are not sulking, we are patiently looking for explanations, while hoping that the entire enterprise of disciplined science is not replaced in schools with astrology, naturopathy, and creationism, by those too impatient with us to wait for further news.