Intelligent Design is NOT Creation[ism]

I think you are getting caught up with definitions.I think everyone here has been admitting that if one uses a strict definition of creationism, which traditionally is YEC, then ID would not be creationism.The problem is that "creationism" does not have to be JUST YEC. You should realize this since you are a Buddhist and would not have to agree to any tenet of YEC and yet if you were pushing that your religious beliefs about how the earth was created should be taught in schools it would still count as "creationism".Thus the criticism is from a broad sense. And RAZD has gone further to define this in the form of involving faith, or specifically faith in the supernatural.But that I'll leave that for them... You have said that you doubt common descent. That makes you a creationist. You also call yourself IDman.Doesn't your argument that ID has nothing to do with Creationism seem particularly strained from that position?This message has been edited by holmes, 09-17-2004 11:49 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I don't understand what your position is. Or I should say I don't understand why you think RAZD or I are saying something different than you.We are both telling IDman that HE is not understanding the discussion because he keeps believing that creationism means just YEC. This is not true since there are many creation stories out there. The consistent denominator is "creation" as an explanation of how things happened.I don't think RAZD or myself are denying, nor does are argument take away from your point. I am way onboard with the criticism that they are trying to move us back centuries in science and rational thought, through undermining methodological naturalism.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

If by "not acting alone" you mean the possibility of front loaded programming in the original forms of life, then you still believe in common descent.The point of common descent or not is whether humans and other animals trace their birth lineages back to a common ancestor (which by the way does not have to be LUCA).Rejection of common descent is ONLY true if you believe that lineage is not traceable back because at some point a novel species was created separate from the rest. This is common to creationists who do not want humans mixed with other forms of life.Time to come on board or not. Regardless of underlying mechanism, do you agree all life can trace lineages back...But before answering I will mention LUCA. We have already discussed in the other ID thread that current theory is trending toward (and I personally believe we cannot know yet) whether it was one common ancestor (tree of life) or multiple types (hedge of life).If we can trace back to either a tree or a hedge then it is still common descent. Are you on board with this or not? You have seen NO evidence for it, or at least you have shown no such evidence. You have shown sets of criteria which have not been tested at all, yielding a result. Having not been tested the results are meaningless. This clearly exhibits the lack of an open mind. Methodological naturalism, which you have often referred to as materialistic naturalism, is a procedure for scientific investigation.It limits in order to avoid allowing into "scientific knowledge" absurd and patently untestable claims.If you find it too hard for a pet theory to squeeze through that filter, you cannot simply claim (as many ID theorists mistakenly do) that it is a tool for materialists to beat up religion. You can be religious and yet realize some issues have yet to gain evidence strong enough to place it in science.Empiricism and methodological naturalism beat out rationalism as scientific tools 100+ years ago. That is simply a fact.I don't see that as indicating the world must be less religious, just how humans must gain knowledge based on their very limited perspective.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Many chemists in history were also alchemists and astrologers. Their work that rejected methodological naturalism (MN) turned out to be shit (just like Newton etc etc above).The work of ID theorists which reject MN will go the same way as those failed projects above, and the same as YEC projects always will. Whoa whoa whoaaaaaaaa. What are you talking about?ID is only seeking the real answer to the questions:
1) can we find criteria which accurately detects the influence of intelligence on an object?
2) can this be applied to biological organisms?
3) when applied, are intelligent influences detected?Right? If they are attempting to answer how did we get here, then they are clearly departing from scientific endeavours regarding the detection of design and are forcing evidence through a filter. You can always spot a real scientist by his repeated use of the word "ilk" when referring to groups of people who support an opposite theory.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Actually no one will find what you are promising in that book. You can look at reviews of the book to see that it does not contain what you suggest.In fact, Del Ratsch is NOT a scientist but a philosopher of Science with what appears to be a chip on his shoulder regarding scientists. But that is not to say he is dishonest and his book is fully wrong.What this is to say is that YOU are dishonest or at least deceptive about its contents.Instead of reading the book, one can find direct counters to your own statements by Del Ratzsch, even at ID favorable sites discussing his book. Reading some of his statements it could very well have come straight from my own keyboard. Following Del Ratsch quotes taken from this linked open Q&A session transcript at ISCID.Uhoh, IDman. I gotta start wondering if you read his book.On the question of Dembski's work... Uhoh.To the question "Given the hostility to the design movement, how can you say that opponents of design are not blinded by their naturalistic perspective?"... Body blow, definitely a body blow. You feeling this?Now we get to the very question that I was raising regarding the actual state of ID as a scientific discipline."...what experimentally verifiable predictions does ID theory make and what experimental methodology would you advocate to test these predictions?" What exactly that means I do not know, but clearly the future of ID hangs on exactly what I posed for it according to Ratzsch. Thanks IDman for bringing me back up.Oh by the way, that also means that they HAVEN'T DELIVERED IT YET.Next question... "Do you personally believe that ID has anything to offer science? In other words, do you think science was doing just fine without it? Also, do you believe that the scienitific world is now too far in the materialistic direction, and needs ID to push it back some?" Are the sparks coming out of your ears?Well this'll be the last one... "As a philosopher of science, do you think that ID is well developed enough (now or in the future) to challenge the reigning methodological naturalist paradigm?" Well well well. That certainly was enlightening.I assume you are going to start backing off on all your bad boy banter about how conclusive ID is?Or will you try and spin this one?Remember IDman, I READ ID. You can't flimflam me.This message has been edited by holmes, 09-18-2004 04:36 PM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Nothing wrong with that. I have also tried all sorts of things. The only thing that worked... and it was what was shown by the history of the people we are talking about... was research conducted via methodological naturalism. Uhhhh, what made me and asshole? Because I pointed out that the reserach conducted outside MN turned out to be shit? You deny this? Perhaps you can explain what research and discoveries made outside of MN by ANY of the people we mentioned are used today, especially by you.The second sentence says it all. We not only discovered that truth, but that a great way of cutting down research to only useful avenues was MN. Absolutely. I've known some brilliant science people that were also creationists. The OVERALL point is that one cannot be a good scientist and try to mix the creationism with scientific research. Yes, and your assertion does not make it not so. If your main scientific goal is to investigate design (in general) in order to come up with criteria to detect it in objects... and then start applying it to objects... to say you are seeking the real answer to the question "how did we get here?" kind of assumes what the result of all that research is going to be, doesn't it? No, but when they haven't finished with the question, "what are the criteria for detecting design?", nor "do we see design in biological organisms?", then one is jumping out of order to assume "what are the criteria for detecting design?" will even lead to "how did we get here?". You just nailed it on the head. IF an object was determined to be designed, and so an artifact, we could THEN ask the question "how did that object come to be"?But that is NOT the order ID has been taken as a movement. Creationists did not like the apparent answer to "how did we get here?", based on the cumulative scientific evidence regarding how living entities operate.Their desire, like Paley's centuries before, was to say science is making a mistake in not recognizing design. Design then, or "artifactness", was ASSUMED, and then criteria were sought to prove that assumption.That is why they mistakenly believe that applying a certain criteria and coming up with the result they were expecting, means that the criteria worked. In fact, they had to come up with the criteria first, then test it in many different situations, and if proven as a valid "detector", THEN applied it to the outside world and results noted.Can't you see this is all being taken out of order? And what's funny is they did invent a valid scientific program, pure ID, only to abandom its scientific pursuit to rush to the foregone conclusion they wanted and assumed they's get.Heheheh.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

How many hedges? One hedge. And with one hedge there are no numbers of trees. I'm not sure how many different bodytypes would have emerged from the "hedge", but it is clearly a distinct concept from what creationists are discussing.You actually don't understand what's being discussed do you? Wait a second. So do you believe in common descent, regardless of underlying mechanism, or not?This sounds like you totally disagree with Behe's conclusion that the evidence is conclusive. and ?????????? Perhaps you can point to the post you presented the evidence. Just a post number is fine.And what double standard are you talking about? You have to test your detection criteria BEFORE you apply it to live trials. I certainly accept that as a restriction. Having worked in analytical chemistry I can tell you that's how it worked there.You said you were a scientist, right? And....? Because Campbell says something that Kuhn says, there I have it? I'm surprised that you see what they are talking about is not as simple as you make it out to be... and maybe they make it out to be in the larger piece.There is an unstated fact, that what PUTS the rule in question has to be something more credible that an assertion that it is in question.I do agree that pure ID can be practiced within scientific methodology. The problem is that the ID movement is not keeping it within that methodology, and when criticized for not doing so, wheels out the above argument.And I love the "teach the controversy" angle. What controversy? That people have differences of opinion on mechanisms? How does that compare with the fact that (even according to your own description) ID theory does not have a concrete model as to whether common descent is a feature of their theory or not?On is peripheral differences of a set central model, the other is central differences regarding the model itself. Hey, I'm all for "teach the controversy". Wait, you have said you were FOR MN to Percy, just not materialist naturalism. Now you are against MN.And I am uncertain what "beyond the cell wall" has anything to do with MN. Behe's use of our ignorance of what lay within cells (oversimplifying the reality) has nothing to do with MN, just a shift in the amounts of evidence we have to deal with.Why would someone, now knowing the internal mechanisms of cells is more complex than originally believed, have to reject MN as a program for scientific study? Actually all of it did. It all stemmed from the still valid and waiting question of whether YOU are a creationist or not.I will answer your question, but you need to answer the question of whether you believe in common descent or not, and so whether you are a creationist?I believe that creationists came up with ID as an answer to their legal problems of getting creationism (or at least a questioning of evolutionary theory) into schools.They crafted it well both legally and philosophically such that pure ID programs would be science and NOT creationism.HOWEVER, most if not all programs and writings of ID are not pure ID, that is to say a scientific program dedicated to making criteria to detect design in objects, but rather IDIOT theory... which is Intelligent Design Inference and Organic Teleology theory.It is concerned with how to INFER a creative being and TELL US what it wanted. From the DI website it is clear that our teleology is to be good religious republicans.Thus it is an active tool for creationists, and no longer seriously active as a scientific endeavour. It can go back to being so, and still emerges there from time to time.As a scientific program, it is stalled during the creation of various detection mechanisms. None have been tested, except theoretically on the very objects it would need to be applied to later.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Uhmmm, that wholly contradicts... It clearly DOES NOT show how we can detect design. BY HIS OWN WORDS he said ID had not delivered on a detection system.Thus the above is a promise which will not be fulfilled. I didn't mean a critical analyses of the book, I meant a descriptive review of the contents. I even noted you could find them on ID friendly sites.Is there a reason only a fool would judge the contents of a book by a descriptive review of contents?I suppose I shouldn't judge by the table of contents?You know I did go on to corroborate may statement with statements from Ratzsch? It does NOT discuss how to detect design, except in some theoretical sense. He said so himself.And your last sentence directly contradicts the quote by Ratzsch that the next and critical phase for ID (upon which the future of ID hangs he said) is to begin testing the criteria to see if they work at all. Oh man, what is this, denial? That quote was from RATZSCH, the guy you said we should listen to. He was saying that people (like those on this website) could HONESTLY BELIEVE that ID offers no promise and presents risks.Are you now saying we are not supposed to believe what he says? I want to put it into the record that the above was a response to this... Now either you have no idea what is being discussed, or you are now changing your position.In an earlier post, when discussing common descent, you thought that the biological mechanisms we were watching could have been "designed" or "frontloaded" into organisms.Do you not understand that the biological mechanisms would be "efficient causes", and that the ID frontloading scheme would be "final causes"????If you cannot figure that simple thing out... and by Ratzsch nonetheless... I am curious if you understood what his book was about.The above statement BY RATZSCH indicates that Boyle would not allow for common descent through frontloading schemes and only accept the immediate biological mechanisms we discover.Are you REALLY agreeing with that? Maybe I'm missing where evolution is only useful if it will predict exactly what mutations (or other physical changes) will occur and be better suited for any particular environment over long periods of time?It has however been pretty good with fitting all evidence we have accumulated and continue to accumulate. Other than this assertion, how EXACTLY will ID theorists be able to do any of this? Why wouldn't geneticists and biochemists simply be able to do this by understanding the mechanisms underlying change?Your entire statement above jumps to an extremely radical conclusion of what ID will find, before it has even past its initial tests.Indeed, and this is where I really start cracking up at what you say, if ID is right about a creator making everything, why would it help breeders at all? Essentially breeders can't do anything. The code and the form of creatures are locked in by design already, right?If you say we can change things for our will, then that throws teleology right out the window. Or don't you get that?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I vowed early on to experience as much of this world as I could. Like a curse, it has come to haunt my every moment.People can easily criticize me as a dilettante, and I am certainly a jack of all trades. But I like to think of myself as a wellrounded philosopher... a very hands on empirical natural philosopher.And I am thoroughly convinced that in this day and age there is NO REASON for anyone to be less than a Renaissance man.I won't give a real bio as I prefer some anonymity. But in science I was trained in chemistry. I began in physical chemistry modelling chaos in polyatomic molecules, then moved into analytical chemistry working on microelectrodes.Something personal happened (not academic related) and when I moved I decided to shift into an Earth Science program, which was a broader subject but still highly related to chemistry.I'll leave it a complete mystery how I went from THAT to making movies and documentaries and living with a gf in the porn biz.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I third the request to see this evidence.And I would add that I also want to see it applied outside of unknown biological systems as well in an experimental setting.I will point out that I have already said numerous times that the criteria for detecting design has not been tested and MUST be tested. The above is a form of test.I will also point out that Mr Ratzsch, who you are fond of pointing to, has said the same thing is vital for the future of ID. That is where it is stuck

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Oops, I should have added that short bio was just my physical science background and pertains to my grad school work. Before grad school I minored (1 class shy of a second major) in Sociology... my major was Philosophy.To be fair, I think many on here show a much greater grasp of science, specifically the fields related to evolution. I'm just good at analyzing research from different fields and relating them logically to conclusions regarding the debate.Thankfully a past gf of mine was a bio major and so I have some benefit of her knowledge, and am used to reading bio research.Oh as an added bit of trivia me and that past gf owned a snake that was a certifiable mutant (one that could very well have been favorable in the wild). I can't remember if it had a paper written on it or not. I think so.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

I want to get this straight, you agree with Del that evolutionary theorists are not merely dogmatic, nor are they biased, and they are correct for using methodological naturalism?In addition, you believe these people have a valid reason to say that ID offers no promise and presents real risks to science?This is all very confusing given the content of your earlier posts. I find this quite ironic. What evidence, including the fossil record, does ID deal with at all? What is the model? And if you are going to go so far as evolutioanry theory needing all mechanisms fleshed out, give me a mechanism for ID.But to answer your question, evolutionary theory is a model built from both the fossil record (which shows some kind of change over time for "whatever" reason), and research into ongoing change and mechanisms of change in living organisms. It makes an assumption that the mechanisms we see today are the ones that happened in the past. Nothing in the fossil record betrays this assumption.Although there were and now are mechanisms which we do not understand, that is where research is ongoing. I can't say evo has solved all mechanisms and so give pat answers to everything. If ID can, I'd love to have some.We do see prokaryotes and we see eukaryotes. Are you unaware that we have seen organizational behavior within proks and euks leading to complex communities of these simple organisms?Do you have some reason to believe that symbiosis within such communities would not result in the community becoming an organism?Oh yes, and by the way we already have evidence for this. Maybe you haven't been keeping up with science, but mitochondria (essential to cell function) have their own DNA and it's pretty evident they were a product of symbiosis?Am I to understand that under ID, we would have ruled that as having been "caused" by an unknown intelligent agent? And thus we would have lost the valuable research which discovered this fact?And in any case, I would like to hear what ID says about prokaryotic and eukaryotic life. Once again, are you for common descent or what? Are you a creationist or what?You know these questions are simply going to keep coming.This message has been edited by holmes, 09-25-2004 06:44 PM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This... and this... ...leave me a bit puzzled. I thought you said you were a Buddhist?Does anyone else remember IDman saying he was a Buddhist? Did he reverse this at some point?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Oh, that's right.Is that the religion where God is your best bud? "Hey bud, how about some peace on earth?" and things like that?Or is that where they worship Budweiser?You know where the three weiser men gathered together in a barn to consecrate that King of Kings of all Beers?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Why? ANY given finite physical and temporal location is bound to give any entity at that location a unique perspective on some events.What is so objectively important about a solar eclipse that it beats all of the other phenomena we have missed and will miss in the future? I find this interesting as the thrust of your argument so far has been that we are horribly misplaced for scientific discovery. Remember how the fossil record can show us nothing about how previous life actually existed, and that we can never know about the beginning of life (much less the big bang)?I assume, since you are now verging fully into anticommon descent, and great flood that you also have problems with radioactive dating? So how are we placed for scientific discoveries again?This message has been edited by holmes, 09-28-2004 04:34 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)