Posted on 07/08/2008 11:48:40 AM PDT by neverdem
Another strawman. There is absolutely no requirement for such a constraint.
To demonstrate the validity of the biological ID hypothesis, it is enough to point out that specific examples of intelligent design -- in the form of large scale biological changes --can and do take place, on a daily and industrial-scale basis.
Validation of a hypothesis is not verification, of course (you do understand the difference, I presume). One cannot simply brush off the scientific necessity of producing evidence through testing.
Nevertheless, your suggestion that the post-production detection of such biological efforts is scientifically impossible, and therefore not worth doing, is rather difficult to take seriously.
I accept Behe’s contention as being definitive, as he is the only actual Biologist to weigh in on the I.D. side that I know of. His I.D. hypothesis is that ‘The Intelligent Designer is needed to effect any large scale change or innovation in Biological systems’. So what then is YOUR I.D. hypothesis?
If all it is is that there are things that are designed by intelligent agents and that we can detect such, well then of course that is completely Scientifically valid as long as you are not delving off into supernatural agency.
Students need to know about the current scientific consensus on a given issue, but they also need to be able to evaluate critically the evidence on which that consensus rests.
So when teachers teach that creation "science" and intelligent design are fundamentalist religious propaganda dishonestly masquerading as science they will be protected by this new law.
Talk about unintended consequences!
Neither is evolutionary theory “science”. Where are the testable and repeatable hypotheses which illustrate the formation of cells or organs, OR the cross-spcies evolution necessary for the millions of species on the planet to exist? Bob
I believe you have mischaracterized Behe's position. He may well have concluded, based on his observations and interpretation of them, that naturalistic evolution is not sufficient to explain the sorts of large-scale changes one sees in nature. Note, however, that Behe also acknowledges that evolution can and does occur at a certain level.
Clearly there is a balance that can be struck between the two. So I would say that "large scale" is a term that needs to be carefully defined, and you have not done so.
The fact of the matter remains, however, that intelligent design can and does occur on a daily basis. It is clearly not the impossible hypothesis that you make it out to be.
If all it is is that there are things that are designed by intelligent agents and that we can detect such, well then of course that is completely Scientifically valid as long as you are not delving off into supernatural agency.
You're almost there ... but not quite. There's no scientific requirement to rule out a "supernatural agency," either. For one thing, it is as imprecise a term as "large scale." For another, to rule out the actions of a "supernatural" designer a priori assumes that we would not recognize anything that designer did ... but it is not really valid to assume that.
I have provided one based upon Behe’s “irreducible complexity” argument and it seems well in line with what the Discovery Institute is promoting. If you don't like it provide a substitute.
So if one can distinguish engineered human insulin producing bacteria as “intelligently designed”, does that mean that the other bacteria is not designed?
Appeals to a supernatural agency is not and never will be Scientific. Not unless that agency is predictable and measurable; and then it is hardly supernatural anymore is it?
So was Citrate plus e.coli intelligently designed?
Was nylon eating bacteria intelligently designed?
What exactly is your I.D. hypothesis. Hard to address it if you will not state it.
I am so pleased to hear this!
Thanks for the feedback! Go forth and multiply.
One could easily ask the same about the intelligent designer? How do you test that?
I guess your definition of “intelligent designer” is quite different than mine. Sounds like the word “intelligent” is somewhat foreign to you.
Now that you mention it, I hope that the evolutionists attempt just that in the classrooms. The kids are a lot sharper than you give them credit for and they will see right through that. It will be obvious to the kids that the evolutionist will do anything, use any trick they can grab to 'avoid confronting the weaknesses of common descent'
Actually in that regard ID is used by the evolutionist as a strawman
Exactly - and breeding produces results which are just the opposite of what we see in nature. The products of breeding often (perhaps usually) cannot survive in the wild at all; when they do survive, the features produced by breeding are generally soon lost.
That's not a "simple question," it's just you trying to lure me into a religious debate. Sorry ... not biting.
(Rolls eyes) You're determined to add complexity, aren't you?
The hypothesis would be: "this phenomenon was the result of an intentional action by an intelligent agent."
Simple as that.
Now, verifying the hypothesis may very well be difficult to do -- but the hypothesis itself is much easier than you apparently wish it to be.
For example, when confronted with our insulin-producing bacterium, we can state the following ID hypothesis: "this insulin-producing bacteria does what it does as a result of deliberate genetic modification."
One source of evidence to support the hypothesis would be to sequence the bacterial genome. It will reveal the "extra" human insulin gene among what otherwise appears to be "regular" bacterial DNA -- about what one would expect from the recombination process.
As a "scientist" who rejects the possibility of a valid ID hypothesis, you'd be stuck trying to show how that human insulin gene got into the bacterium by natural means. You could probably even come up with a mechanism -- albeit one that requires a whole lot more, and more tenuous, assumptions than the ID hypothesis does in that case.
This is the exact opposite of the truth. The point of eugenics is to defeat natural selection, which eugenicists hubristically imagine they are able to do.
steve-b is quite right to point out (in post 2) that eugenics is a form of intelligent design. Not intelligent enough, you say? Exactly: nothing and nobody is intelligent enough. The believer need not dispute this; I have said before that omniscience is not a high level of intelligence, but a different concept altogether.
So what intentional act and what intelligent agent led to the development of citrate plus e.coli?
If one can tell that a gene modified organism was the result of the intentional act of an intelligent agent couldn't this only be detected against the background of an organism that the majority of the genome was not the intentional act of an intelligent agent but the accumulation of millions of rounds of mutation and selective pressure?
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