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To: Frumious Bandersnatch
Hoo boy.  Absolutely not true.  The only areas in science that are invalidated by my argument, are those areas wherein ID has to be invalid.  To my knowledge, the only area of science claiming this is evolutionism.  Everywhere else, the art is advanced by designing experiments to test hypotheses - their very nature not only assumes, but demands ID.  If not so, then the results would be useless.
I don't understand your point. You claimed that any experiment that was intelligently designed could not rule out ID, therefore only experiments that were not designed could rule out ID. You claim that the very fact that an experiment exhibits design makes it unable to detect the cause (or rule out a certain cause) for a natural phenomenon. It's like saying "this experiment cannot apply to phenomena that exist in Japan, because none of the test equipment was made in Japan." It's a non-sequitur.

It just so happens there's a similar controversy in meteorology: Godless materialistic meteorologists claim that there's ice in the winter because the temperature drops to below freezing. But a loud, very small but well-funded minority claims in the popular press that there is an Intelligent Ice Fairy who only comes out in the winter who produces ice.

So let's try this experiment:

  1. Pour some water into an icecube tray.
  2. Place a thermometer in the water & note the temperature.
  3. Place the icecube tray and thermometer in a freezer.
  4. Check the apparatus periodically, and note the temperature when the water turns to ice.
  5. Take the apparatus out onto the kitchen table.
  6. Check the apparatus periodically, and note the temperature when the ice turns back to water.
Now, what can we conclude from this experiment?

A. There is ice in the winter because the temperature drops below 32oF.

B. The experiment & apparatus were intelligently designed, therefore it cannot rule out the Intelligent Ice Fairy who only comes out in the winter.

Well! Now it becomes clear just what the IIF'ers are really saying: No amount of materialistic explanations will prove IIF theory wrong because there's always the possibility of a really sneaky Intelligent Ice Fairy out there (cousin, no doubt, to the cobbler's elves) who diabolically changes the environment in exactly the way needed to perfectly cover His tracks.

Don't you see? This would be the only reason why an experiment would never rule out IIF (or ID). And the fact that the experiment itself was "intelligently designed" is irrelevant! I'll bet you can't even describe to me a "non-designed" version of the above experiment.

1,001 posted on 06/18/2002 1:30:18 PM PDT by jennyp
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To: jennyp
Your argument is flawed, because Evolutionary Theorists are trying to prove that something happened by random chance when they themselves only prove that it happened by design.

And no matter how they try to get around it, evolutionists have to assume random chance, intelligent design, or a combination of both.  The last 2 are anathema to the evolutionary cultists.  Random chance has been pretty much rejected by most of the rest of the scientific world.  Even in computer science, no true random numbers (with the exception of Jay Gould or Richard Dawkins - although I consider them more of irrational numbers...) have been found.
1,016 posted on 06/18/2002 2:15:04 PM PDT by Frumious Bandersnatch
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To: jennyp
You claimed that any experiment that was intelligently designed could not rule out ID, therefore only experiments that were not designed could rule out ID. You claim that the very fact that an experiment exhibits design makes it unable to detect the cause (or rule out a certain cause) for a natural phenomenon. - jennyp -

He is claiming that it and he does make some very valid points, especially in the paragraph below which you did not quote:
My argument still stands: You cannot honestly claim that the results of an ID experiment show the work of random chance. The most that can be said is that given a certain set of circumstances and assumptions, these are the results. But the results themselves were produced as a result of ID. - frumius -

The first point above is really quite good. Experiments are repeatable. Now how can a repeatable experiment repetitively confirm the occurrence of something that happens only at random? Clearly, whatever is repeatedly observed is not random at all.

The second point he makes is also quite good - the experiment was designed by intelligent beings. The people designing the experiment chose the how, when, where and used in many cases instruments not found in nature. So an experiment which tries to prove that something occurs normally in nature has the additional burden of proving that the circumstances replicated by the experiment do occur by themselves in nature. This is a heavy burden and in many cases I would say that they cannot be surmounted. Reason is this: if the experiment is replicating the conditions normally occurring in nature - what is the need for the experiment? One should be able to find examples of the what is trying to be proven in nature without doing an experiment.

1,062 posted on 06/18/2002 5:11:09 PM PDT by gore3000
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