AC: "...and you keep posting the lie."
_______________________________________________
Andrew, I guarantee that Patrick Henry has never cracked a single book or perused a single article written by a proponent of ID. He critiques what he knows nothing about and is in no position to evaluate. In truth, he has no idea what ID proposes, as proven by his unfortunate inclination to equate it with "scientific creationism."
From Intelligent Design, by William Dembski --
Scientific creationism holds to two presuppositions:
1. There exists a supernatural agent who creates and orders the world.
2. The biblical account of creation recorded in Genesis is scientifically accurate.
The supernatural agent presupposed by scientific creationism is usually understood as the transcendent person God of the well-known monotheistic religions, specifically Christianity. This God is said to create the world out of nothing (ie., without the use of pre-existing materials). Moreover, the sequence of eventws by which this God creates is said to parallel the biblical record.
By contrast, intelligent design nowhere attempts to to identify the intelligent cause responsible for the design in nature, nor does it prescribe in advance the sequence of events by which this intelligent cause had to act. Intelligent design holds to three tenets:
1. Specified complexity is well-defined and empirically detectable.
Undirected natural causes are incapable of explaining specified complexity.
3. Intelligent causation best explains specified complexity.
Design theorists hold these tenets not as religious presuppositions but as conclusions of sound scientific arguments...
Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to the designing intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. For instance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character and purposes of this intelligence lie beyond the remit of science. As Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis remartk in their text on intelligent design: "Science cannot answer this question; it must leave it to religion and philosophy." Intelligent design as a scientific theory is distinct from a theological doctrine of creation. Creation presupposes a Creator who originates the world and all its materials. Intelligent design attempts only to explain the arrangement of materials within an already given world. Design theorists argue that certain arrangements of matter, especially in biological systems, clearly signal a designing intelligence.
Besides presupposing a supernatural agent, scientific creationism also presupposes the scientific accuracy of the biblical account of creation. Proponents of scientific creationism treat the opening chapters of Genesis as a scientific text and thus argue for the literal six-day creation, the existence of a historical Adam and Eve, a literal Garden of Eden, a catastrophic worldwide flood, etc. Scientific creationism takes the biblical account of creation in Genesis as its starting point and then attempts to match the data of nature to the biblical account.
Intelligent design, by contrast, starts with the idea of nature and from there argues to an intelligent cause repsonsible for the specified complexity in nature. Moreover in making such an argument, intelligent design relies not on narrowly held prior assumptions but on reliable methods developed within the scientific community for discriminating intelligently from naturally generated structures. Scientific creationism's reliance on narrowly held prior assumptions undercuts its status as a scientific theory. Intelligent design's religance on widely accepted scientific principles, on the other hand, ensures its legitimacy as a scientific theory.
These differences between intelligent design and scientific creationism has significant legal implications for the advancement of intelligent design in the public square. In formulating its position on scientific creationism in Edwards v. Aguillard, the Supreme Court cited the District Court in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education. According to the court, scientific creationism is not just similar to the Genesis account of creation but is in fact identical to it and parallel to no other creation story. Because scientific creationism corresponds point for point with the creation and flood narratives in Genesis, the Supreme Court found scientific creationism to be a religious doctrine and not a scientific theory.
The District Court in McLean, to which the Supreme Court appealed, listed six tenets as defining scientific creationism:
1. There was a sudden creation of the universe, energy and life from nothing.
2. Mutations and natural selection are insufficient to bring about the development of all living kinds from a single organism.
3. Changes of the originally created kinds of plants and animals occur only within fixed limits.
4. There is a separate ancestry for humans and apes.
5. The earth's geology can be explained via catastrophism, primarily by the occurence of a worldwide flood.
6. The earth and living kinds had a relatively recent inception (on the order of ten thousand years).
These six tents taken jointly define scientific creationism. The Supreme Court in Edwards ruled that taken jointly they may not be taught in public school science curricula. Nevertheless the court left the door open to some of these tents taken individually.
Tenets 1, 5 and 6 are the most problematic for inclusion in public school science curricula. Tenet 1 asserts the creation of the universe from nothing. Such an act of creation must by definition occur outside of space and time. More than rearranging a pre-existing universe, creation originates the universe itself. Conseqently creation lies beyond the remit of science. Indeed creation is always a theological or philosophical doctrine.
Tenets 5 and 6, on the other hand, are suject to scientific investigation. Nevertheless the scientific warrant for tenets 5 and 6 must be sought outside intelligent design. Geology, for instance, can investigate the age of the earth and whether a worldwide flood killed all terrestrial life within the last several thousand years. But such investigations will proceed without considering specified complexity, that key trademark of intelligence.
Intelligent design has no stake in tenets 1, 5 and 6. Intelligent design requires an intelligent cause that is capable of arranging complex specified structures. That capacity to arrange matter, however, is exercised within space and time, and need not violate any laws of nature. Intelligent design does not require a creator that originates the space, time matter and energy that together constitute the universe. Nor does intelligent design require any particular time-frame within which an intelligent cause must act. Nor for that matter does it require that any particular historical even must occur (like a worldwide flood 5,000 years ago). Intelligent design is compatible with a biophysical universe that developed over billions of years.
Tenets 3 and 4, by contrast, are legitimate subjects for consideration in public school science curricula. These tenets, though largely rejected by the scientific community, are nonetheless debated within it. Moreover many active areas of rsearch bear on tenets 3 and 4. Tenet 4 is really a special case of tenet 3. Whereas tenet 3 prescribes a limit to evolutionary change for organisms generally, tenet 4 prescribes such a limit specifically for primates.
It is a legitimate scientific question whether evolutionary processes have limits. According to the neo-Darwinian synthesis, there are no limits whatsoever: All organisms trace their ancestry back to an original single-celled organism (sometimes called the "protobiont"). This view is called "monophyly" or "common descent" and contrasts with "polyphyly," the view that some groups of organisms have separate ancestries.
Common descent, though widely held in the biological community, is nonetheless a legitimate subject for scientific debate. Actual scientific evidence, both experimental and paleontological, supports only limited variation within fixed boundaries, or what is called microevolution. Macroevolution -- the unlimited capacity of organisms to transform beyond all boundaries -- is an extrapolation from microevolution. As with all extrapolations it is legitimate to question whether this extrapolation is warranted. For instance, promintent naturalistic evolutionists like Stuart Kauffman, Rudolf Raff and George Miklos are actively investigating the warrant for this extrapolation.
Intelligent design is compatible with both a single origin of life (ie., common descent or monophyly) and multiple origins of life (ie. polyphyly). Design theorists themselves are divided on this question. Dean Kenyon and Perival Davis, for instance, argue against common descent in Of Pandas and People. On the other hand, in Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe provisionally accepts common descent. Nonetheless design theorists agree that discussion of this question must not be shut down simply because a majority of biologists happen to embrace common descent. The limits of evolutionary change form a legitimate topic of scientific inquiry. It is therefore illegitimate to exclude this topic from public school curricula.
Finally we come to tenet 2. This is the one tenet[out of SIX!] of scientific creationism that overlaps with intelligent design.. It needs to be squarely addressed in public school science curricula. Indeed any adequate treatment of biological evolution must consider the possibility that mutation and selection might be insufficient to explain the diversity of life. Only strict neo-Darwinists hold to the sufficiency of mutation and selection to produce the fully diversity of living forms. All others regard the mutation-selection mechanism as to varying degrees incomplete. The includes not only scientific creationists and design theorists but also a significant number of theistic and naturalistic evolutionists. Well-known proponents of naturalistic evolution who arlgue against the sufficiency of the mutation-selection mechanism include Stephen Jay Gould, Stuart Kauffman, Ilya Prigogine, Manfred Elgen and Francis Crick. Gould holds to a theory of "punctuated equilibria" in which organisms evolve in spurts, followed by long periods of stasis (ie., lack of change). Gould's theory offers no mechanism of organismal change, however. Kauffman and Prigogine look to the self-organizational properties of matter to supplement mutation and selection. Manfred Eigen hopes to find the key to biological complexity in novel natural laws and algorithms. Francis Crick thinks the prob lem of solving life's origin is so beyond the resources available on earth that life had to be seeded from outer space. (This is his theory of "directed panspermia.") Each of these scientists opposes the sufficiency of the mutation-selection mechanism on scientific grounds. For them the problem of biological complexity exceeds the capacity of mutation and selection. Design theorists agree. They too regard mutation and selection as insufficient to explain the origin and development of life. Likewise, their reasons for holding this view are strictly scientific. Design theorists argue that certain data of nature (ie., Michael Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical systems) point decisively to the activity of a designing intelligence. Skepticism and controversy about the sufficiency of mutation and natural selection is already part of mainstream science. To deny the controversy or to prevent its open discussion is dishonest and stifles scientific inquiry. The public square -- and the public school science curriculum in particular -- needs to be careful about not suppressing dissent against a prevailing scientific view (in this case neo-Darwinism with its mutation-selection mechanism) when that dissent is backed up with scientific evidence and argument. Intelligent design offers precisely such evidence and argument. Intelligent design is not scientific creationism cloaked in newer and more sophisticated terminology. Intelligent design makes far fewer commitments than scientific creationism, carries far less baggage and consequently has far less chance of going wrong. Scientific creationism describes the origin of the universe, it duration, the mechanisms responsible for geologic formations, the limits of evolutionary change and the beginnings of humanity, all the while conforming its account of creation to the first chapters of Genesis. In contrast, intelligent design makes no claims about the origin or duration of the universe, is not committed to flood geology, can accomodate any degree of evolutionary change, does not prejudge how human beings arose and does not specify in advance the mode by which a designing intelligence brought the first organisms into being. Consequently it is mistaken and unfair to confuse intellgent design with scientific creationism. Intelligent design is a strictly scientific theory devoid of religious commitments. Whereas the Creator underlying scientific creationism conforms to a strict, literalist intepretation of the Bible, the designer underlying intelligent design is compatible with a much broader playing field. To be sure, the designer is also compatible with the Creator-God of the world's major monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But the designer is also compatible with the watchmaker-God of the deists, the demiurge of Plato's Timaeus and the divine reason (ie., logos spermatikos) of the ancient Stoics. One can even take an agnostic view about the designer, treating specified complexity as a brute unexplainable fact. Unlike scientific creationism, intelligent design does not prejudge such questions as 'Who is the designer?' or 'How does the designer go about designing and building things?' William A. Dembski, Intelligent Design, pp.247-252
When posters such as Patrick Henry, jennyp and Vade Retro dispute the scientific validity of ID, they are tilting at an apparition arising strictly from their own fevered imaginings, jousting with a creature that no proponent of ID has ever proposed. This is an absolutely classic example of straw man argumentation and, as such, consitututes proof positive that they cannot cope rationally with ID as it actually is.
I disagree. I could be wrong, but I think the ID crowd has an agenda which is very far from the discovery of scientific truth. From Dembski's words at the start of what you posted, with my own additions placed [in brackets]:
Scientific creationism is committed to two religious presuppositions and interprets the data of science to fit those presuppositions [later given as a supernatural creator and the scientific accuracy of Genesis]. Intelligent design, on the other hand, [wink, wink] has no prior religious commitments and interprets the data of science on generally accepted scientific principles. In particular, intelligent design does not depend on the biblical account of creation. [But -- wink, wink -- it is very comfortable with it, which is why creationist so often advocate ID.]Here are Dembski's words from the end of the piece you quoted, again with my additions [in brackets]:
To be sure [but let's be careful not to emphasise this], the designer is also compatible with the Creator-God of the world's major monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But the designer is also compatible with the watchmaker-God of the deists ...In my opinion, there are two problems with ID. First (and this one takes up too much time to go into here, but as we all know there are websites devoted to it) ID fails to make a credible case, in peer-reviewed journals, that an external designer is essential. Second, and most damning, ID is the opening wedge for the teaching of "scientific" creationism in government schools.
Intelligent Design vs. stupid design
It’s basically ‘‘ Nature designed this’ or ‘ Nature is incapable of designing this’…
It’s used in science now.
Intelligent design holds to three tenets:My, my! ID is the un-science. It seeks to undiscover by bad models and selective data what we have already learned or may ever learn about unguided evolution and anything else unguided.1. Specified complexity is well-defined and empirically detectable.[2.] Undirected natural causes are incapable of explaining specified complexity.
3. Intelligent causation best explains specified complexity.
... By contrast, intelligent design nowhere attempts to to identify the intelligent cause responsible for the design in nature ...Gee! It also openly promises to erect nothing in evolutinon's place. (But of course that's where the creationists hope to come in.)
These differences between intelligent design and scientific creationism has significant legal implications for the advancement of intelligent design in the public square ...I'm sure Dembski means that the differences have implications. And how convenient that the science of "We Know Nothing Except That Something Intelligent Designed It" is not a religion and avoids language aimed at creationism!
It's almost like a cynically-crafted "Wedge Strategy."
Intelligent design is compatible with both a single origin of life (ie., common descent or monophyly) and multiple origins of life (ie. polyphyly).
"In fact, we can make it as vague as we need so anyone can imagine he's hearing exactly what he likes."
Each of these scientists opposes the sufficiency of the mutation-selection mechanism on scientific grounds.
For an absolute fact, Dembski mischaracterizes Gould with this generalization, probably also Prigogene who is often misquoted by creationists. I don't know Kaufmann or Eigen.
Consequently it is mistaken and unfair to confuse intellgent design with scientific creationism. Intelligent design is a strictly scientific theory devoid of religious commitments. Whereas the Creator underlying scientific creationism conforms to a strict, literalist intepretation of the Bible, the designer underlying intelligent design is compatible with a much broader playing field. To be sure, the designer is also compatible with the Creator-God of the world's major monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But the designer is also compatible with the watchmaker-God of the deists, the demiurge of Plato's Timaeus and the divine reason (ie., logos spermatikos) of the ancient Stoics. One can even take an agnostic view about the designer, treating specified complexity as a brute unexplainable fact. Unlike scientific creationism, intelligent design does not prejudge such questions as 'Who is the designer?' or 'How does the designer go about designing and building things?'
ID is so agnostic on the question of who or what the Designer is, there's no there there. For example, what does ID have to say about the Multiple Designer Theory (MDT)? How would you detect whether there were multiple Designers vs. a single Designer? And is any ID theorist willing to put forth a hypothesis regarding when or how often the Designer(s) stepped in to tweak things?
IOW, are we ever going to see an ID research program??? And without a research program, what the heck is there to teach high school students?
It is interesting that the Scientific American article was used as evidence against ID and it contains a falsehood about a simple program that shows nothing except that programs can be written to type out messages using inefficient methods. This is the best that Scientific American can do!? Dawkins' weasel program is better at doing something unique. Scientific American used to be a well-respected magazine. Now I can't find it in places that used to carry it. It seems to have been replaced by a magazine called "Gene Simmons Tongue". (Sciam gone and GSTongue appears, it has even got a website http://www.genesimmonstongue.com/)
William A. Dembski, Intelligent Design, pp.247-252, (quoted by Bonaparte in post 40 to this thread).
Very interesting claim, coming as it does, in a book titled, ""Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology."