Spotting Beretta's "designer" {Now only 1 summation message per member}

No problem with me. Your question is certainly more focussed. The point of this thread is not to get bogged down in ToE critcism. Rather, it is to explore the possibility (or impossibility) of an ID hypothesis with regard to a designer/God. Unsurprisingly, no IDists that I am aware of seem keen to tackle this...

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In essence, if a structure can be found that cannot have developed through natural processes, wouldn't that force us to conclude that some non-natural, intelligent agent had to be behind it?

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To expand on Ned's response a bit.In practice we could only discover that known natural processes as we understood them, under the conditions which we believe applied could not generate the structure.Even if we managed to rule out the possibility of unknown natural processes or known processes acting in an unexpected way (due to limits in our understanding or lack or knowledge) - a difficult task - we couldn't conclude that the source was both intelligent and supernatural. Because how can we rule out unintelligent supernatural causes ? Real forensic science avoids that question by relying on methodological naturalism - a point that virtually all IDer's prefer to obscure and avoid.(As a side note IDer's have a tendency to confuse the natural/artificial dichotomy with the natural/supernatural dichotomy. Methodological naturalism is about the latter and includes the actions of intelligent agents).To replace evolution ID really needs to have an alternative theory. And it doesn't. With an alternative theory they would not need to rely on arguments from ignorance. With an alternative theory they would not need to falsify evolution in an absolute sense. If they were honest scientists they would not be trying to influence the school curriculum until they had a robust theory that could be shown to be superior to evolutionary alternatives in at least some respects.To give ID it's due it could have been done on a much more scientific basis. That that is not the case is entirely the fault of the ID movement which cares about science only as a (useful but not necessary) apologetic tool.

Hi, subbie. This is true: there isn't much diffrence in ToE explaing 100% of the data and explaining only 98.5% of the data. However, the real trick is that, while it wouldn't falsify ToE, it would actually be substantial evidence for ID, because IDists don't have to disprove all the concepts in the ToE, they just have to make it make room for a God of the Gaps. For instance, if they could prove an intelligent agent is responsible for designing flying squirrels, they've still proven that the intelligent designer exists. Even better if they could prove some IDing in primate lineages.That little bit would completely vindicate them.Edited by Bluejay, : Added salutation so everyone knows who I'm talking to.

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Darwin loves you.

Hi, Ikabod. To me, this sounds a lot like claiming that, in order to understand a scientific study, you'd need to know something about the author (human design reference #1 by Bluejay). During my undergrad, I did a review on the thermoregulation of polar bears, which required me to cite a lot of studies by Nils Are Oritsland. I never saw his picture, never e-mailed him or anything, but, having read his materials and methods, I know exactly how each of his research papers was carried out.Under this logic, I think your point fails: I don't have to know anything about somebody to understand his materials and methods. And, I could easily develop a "theory" to explain his entire research career based on the materials and methods sections of his papers. The same for an intelligent designer: if I could figure out how he/she/it does things (i.e. his/her/its "materials and methods"), I would not need to know anything at all about him/her/it personally.Now, I would grant to you that, if I did know anything personal about Oritsland, I might be able to recognize other aspects of his personality in his research, but I don't think it's necessary to know him in order to understand his work. You offer two possibilities here. I would like to focus on the first, which is, of course, essentially omphalism: I agree that everything should fit nicely in a designed system, just like all parts of a car should fit together and perform a function to run smoothly (human design reference #2). However, I don't understand why the design shouldn't have data that couldn't be explained by evolution. That's weird.

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Darwin loves you.

Before I respond to the various issues raised in reply to my message 11, I'd like some kind clearance from Rick to pursue them. While my original message did address the topic, most of the replies have taken a different direction, and I don't want to hijack the thread. In the event that Rick doesn't want the thread to move in this direction, I'll happily start a new thread, because I think there are some interesting questions raised.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

You have it if the mods have no problem! The overarching idea was to tackle ID's need for it's own hypothesis, whatever form that would take.

Me neither. I may have read you wrong, but I took something you said to mean that there was only one way to falsify the ToE.However, the designer is the subject, not ToE, and I'm only half-joking when I say we have to consider omphalism. There is actually an alternative, and that's a very laissez faire designer(s) who just maybe kicks things off with the first self-replicator, and perhaps adds some light touches along the way.Either way, here's a personal prediction. I.D. supporters will never be able to agree amongst themselves about what the designer does and doesn't design.This is for the same reason that all the world's monotheistic religions and all their sects and theologians can never agree on what God is and what he does.It's due to what I call the zero evidence problem.

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Only? Rabbit fossils in the Precambrian? 100 million year old hominids?

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While any such discovery would be inconsistent with our current understanding of the history of life, it would not by itself undermine the ToE. It's important to keep in mind that there is a difference between the ToE and the details of how life evolved. A great deal of the evidence supporting the ToE consists of life as it exists on the planet today, together with descriptions of how descent with modification has been observed real time, in labs as well as in the natural world, over the last several decades. No number of anomalous paleontological findings will affect this evidence in any way.Thus, 100,000 year old hominids would require us to drastically alter what we think we know about natural history, but they would not falsify the ToE.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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this does raise the question is ID a stand alone idea , or is it there to rebutt ToE .... and as to the Good Old Designer issue , this goes back to my first question ...

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What raw material did the designer start with?

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.. which leave the whole creation issue in the air ..

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Your first question is probably unanswerable, as a theoretical matter, without a fuller exposition of exactly what ID theory you mean. There seems to be several different flavors. However, as a practical matter, in fact, ID is nothing more than a collection of ad hoc objections to various areas of science that certain religious sub-sects object to. In other words, no, it's not a stand alone idea.The other questions are questions that can remain unanswered without abandoning the central concept of some Grand Old Designer.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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1) How could we conclude that they cannot have developed through natural processes with out being in the position of giving an argument from ignorance? We know a lot more than we did 200 years ago but we still know far from everything about natural processes.

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Well, the first thing that comes to mind is something you mention, some sort of genetic discontinuity. Other that something of that nature, it may at bottom be nothing more than an argument from ignorance. But I wouldn't find that by itself overly troubling. It would all depend on how secure we are in our level of knowledge, and our assessment of how likely it is that an as yet unknown natural process might be found to account for it. I know that this all seems rather vague and not particularly satisfying, but unless and until we actually come across something that can't be explained by natural processes, it's a bit difficult to get any more specific.

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2) What do we mean by "non-natural"? Supernatural or just a natural intelligent agent? If it is a non-supernatural intelligent agent then it is acting through some selected natural processes. They would just be different than garden variety evolutionary processes. Even "artificial" selection acts through the usual evolutionary processes. We can't tell from the ongoing development of, say, dogs that it is not natural selection (can we?). We only know because we see the designer acting but the designer only selects from existing forms just as the environment does.

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Suppose we were to discover an organism that developed a trait that made them better able to survive some cataclysmic change in advance of the change? Surely that would be evidence of an intelligent agent at work.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Even if we managed to rule out the possibility of unknown natural processes or known processes acting in an unexpected way (due to limits in our understanding or lack or knowledge) - a difficult task - we couldn't conclude that the source was both intelligent and supernatural. Because how can we rule out unintelligent supernatural causes ?

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Well, the conclusions that could be confidently drawn about the nature of the agent, whether it was intelligent or supernatural, would depend entirely on what we saw as an example of a structure that could not have developed by evolution. I'm sure that with a bit of imagination, any of us could describe a hypothetical discovery that would difficult, if not impossible, to explain without resorting to the intervention of an intelligent agent, supernatural or not.

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To replace evolution ID really needs to have an alternative theory. And it doesn't. With an alternative theory they would not need to rely on arguments from ignorance. With an alternative theory they would not need to falsify evolution in an absolute sense. If they were honest scientists they would not be trying to influence the school curriculum until they had a robust theory that could be shown to be superior to evolutionary alternatives in at least some respects.

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I agree absolutely. Of course, the explanation for this is that IDists have no desire to build an alternate theory. They simply want to undermine evolution. If in the process they happen to come up with something that shores up their religion, they'd certainly be quite pleased with that, but it's not their main goal.

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To give ID it's due it could have been done on a much more scientific basis. That that is not the case is entirely the fault of the ID movement which cares about science only as a (useful but not necessary) apologetic tool.

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Quite so.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

We got some. Mammals were 'smart' enough to be small when the asteroid destroyed niches needed by animals that were too large. How do we know it isn't just dumb luck?

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That little bit would completely vindicate them.

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Well, yes and no.We've got to keep in mind that creos/IDists are not a monolithic bloc. It's a big tent that holds a broad spectrum of beliefs. Some are so completely ignorant of science that they think the whole game is still up for grabs, and fight tooth and nail against all science that conflicts with their reading of genesis. Certainly they would be emboldened by scientific evidence supporting ID, but that would only be one small step for them in their long journey.On the other hand, there are those who understand enough of science to know that science has conclusively established the inaccuracy of the six days of creation 6,000 years ago, that life evolves, and that we are all related. They still cling to the shred of hope that science will one day find evidence of the working of the hand of the Grand Old Designer. For them, yes, even one example of something that must have been influenced by some intelligent agent will be enough for them to declare victory.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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Mammals were 'smart' enough to be small when the asteroid destroyed niches needed by animals that were too large. How do we know it isn't just dumb luck?

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That would all depend on the nature of the discovery. Certainly it would have to be something considerably more forceful than small mammals surviving an asteroid crash.Keep in mind that what I'm doing here is not really proposing any serious area for scientific inquiry. It's more in the nature of a thought experiment. What kind of evidence would we have to see to support a conclusion of an intelligent influence? Obviously, for starters, it would have to be something inconsistent with any possible naturalistic explanation.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Actually a good thought (intended) you have there. So what would it be?We'll have to do this ourselves, 99.98 % of creationists (and a larger percentage of our sample here) aren't exactly well equipped for a thought experiment.