Can't ID be tested AT ALL?

Hi Bat Friend:But then you do understand what I am saying ?Obviously I did not postulate a mathematical measurement and/or equation.FACT: The brighter a person is equals the increased ability, capacity, and capability to understand and produce complexity.Computer chip v. human cell.The person who designed the cell is infinetly more brighter based on the known disparity between the two objects. The chip can accurately be likened to computers of the 1950's that took up the space equal to entire floors. The cell is a lap top.Complexity is measured by comparison to known undisputed examples. Any astronomic disparity in favor of increased complexity equals ID unless of course your philisophy does not allow the conclusion.Henry Herepton the Reptile

And why not? It was you who introduced the subtitle "How to Measure Complexity" in Message 18. Were you being deliberately obtuse? The output from the random number generator on my computer is very complex. Are you asserting that there is a very bright person hiding in the computer, and typing in those random numbers? Then you must really believe that there is some sort of intelligent designer typing in those random numbers.

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Obviously I did not postulate a mathematical measurement and/or equation.

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That is, indeed, obvious. Unfortunately, without calculating or measuring the numbers, phrases like "more complex than" or "less complex than" are scientifically meaningless.-

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The person who designed the cell is infinetly more brighter based on the known disparity between the two objects.

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This can be true only if a person designed the cell. Unfortunately for your position, there is no evidence that the cell was designed.

Chiroptera: Unfortunately for your position, there is no evidence that the cell was designed.Warren: Depends on what you count as evidence for design. Care to tell us what evidence would cause you to merely suspect the cell was designed?This message has been edited by Warren, 09-19-2005 02:31 PM

So by your logic a snowflake was intelligently designed as opposed to a snowman.

Science has no test for ID meaning that there have been no failed attempts to test for ID. If science had a test for ID, it would tell IDers to use it for themselves and witness the negative results. Where is the test for non-design? ID critics seem to think the lack of testability is only a problem for ID. Why? Does science have a test for abiogenesis? Or a test to verify the non-teleological evolution of the flagellum?

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Where is the test for non-design?

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Why is there a need for a test for non-design? You still don't seem to understand how science works. It has pretty much been demonstrated that natural selection of random variations can account for very complex structures; if, as you claim, you accept common descent, then you probably accept this. Therefore there is no need for an unparsimonius addition like an "intelligent designer" unless and until there is good evidence that there was such a designer. Evolution by entirely naturalistic means is the default position; it is up to the IDists to provide grounds for accepting their new theory.-Warren also askes:

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Care to tell us what evidence would cause you to merely suspect the cell was designed?

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Well, if some structure can be shown impossible (or at least very, very unlikely) to have arisen through entirely naturalistic means. Of course, that is begging the question; I don't know what would be evidence that some structure could not have arisen through entirely naturalistic means. Behe and Dembski have claimed to have provided such evidence, but their reasoning hasn't held up.I suppose that clear evidence that there was an intelligent presence in the solar system around the time of the beginning of life, or at least early enough time in the history of life that it would be plausible that the cell as we currently know it might have begun to exist at this time. Perhaps some sort of structure on the moon dated to about the right time. Then it would at least be plausible that life on earth is the result of some sort of experiment. The existence of readable records indicating that this actually did take place would be even better.

Just to back up Chiroptera here, I am quoting a long section from "The argument from biogenesis: probabilities against a natural origin of life" by R.C. Carrier, and published in the journal Biology and Philosophy (2004) 19: 739-764. Please note "AFB" = Argument from Biogenesis, the argument that life could not have arisen by natural forces, which is the argument that Carrier is attacking here (but more broadly, he attacks creationist argument per se). "Proposition A" is the proposition that natural explanations for biogenesis are not credible.

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Just because something isn’t proven
doesn’t mean it is false, and a hypothesis that can’t even be tested yet
cannot be said to have failed. However, one might argue that theism has
greater explanatory scope than scientific naturalism if we can point to genuine
explanatory failures in the latter (Snoke 2001; Ratzsch 2001: 143-146; Moreland
1989, 1994). If we can show that all hypotheses for a phenomenon
proposed so far are false (not merely unproven, but actually discredited by
contrary evidence) then theism could become the best available explanation
of biogenesis - though tentatively, for the AFB is a purely negative argument,
which succeeds only by the effective elimination of all available alternatives.
So the arrival of any new alternative will scrap the AFB, as will any alternative
supported by a positive argument.
Therefore, only if there are no alternatives in contention can the formal
validity of a gaps argument be established - and then only as an inference,
not a necessary truth. But even a valid inference can be defeated by a stronger
contrary inference, and this is one problem that Proposition A might never
overcome. For example, if I observe my wallet missing, and know that a
known pickpocket brushed against me recently, that my wallet was stolen
would be a valid inference. However, if I also had a known tendency to forget
my wallet, it would still be a valid inference that I simply forgot it, even given
knowledge of the pickpocket. This could be a sufficiently strong inference, in
fact, that I would be more justified in searching for where I usually leave my
wallet before accusing the pickpocket.
With regard to Proposition A there is a very strong contrary inference:
since natural explanations have so far been confirmed for every phenomenon
that could be fully explored, probably other phenomena will have them, too.
Since we cannot access much of the data or exactly recreate the conditions
surrounding any origin-of-life scenario, it is to be expected that we cannot
confirm any of our hypotheses. Our inability to do so is thus not the product
of the failure of our hypotheses, but of the inaccessibility of the evidence. In
such circumstances it is reasonable to draw inferences from past cases. And
this leads to naturalism: the view that everything (probably) has a natural
cause.
For example, ancient scientists said lightning was caused by friction
between colliding clouds, by analogy with colliding flint stones. They had
no proof, but it wasn’t unreasonable - and it turned out to be closer to the
truth than the theory that God caused lightning. They only lacked the missing
details of pressure and electricity. Since then, natural explanations have had
a flawless track record: every time we get to the bottom of things, it is
always a natural explanation that ends up being true. Natural explanations
also have wider explanatory power than supernatural alternatives, predicting
more things, more successfully. They succeed so routinely it is impractical
to expend any effort testing supernatural theories before natural ones can be
thoroughly tested first.
Hence “there is a natural explanation for everything” is a valid inference
from the fact that all reliable and unambiguous evidence available supports
the rule, and so far offers no support for breaking it. So uniform and massive
is this body of evidence, representing centuries of steady scientific progress
in hundreds of fields, it is hard to imagine any contrary inference, such as
Proposition A, ever achieving the same force. This does not mean miracles
are impossible. It only means that very reliable and unambiguous evidence
is necessary to justify believing in them, given the weight of the inference to
naturalism.
Proposition A also suggests a theory with almost no explanatory utility.
The theory that a god started life makes hardly any testable predictions
regarding the nature of life. In contrast, every natural theory entails a vast
range of predictions that, once confirmed, would explain a large amount
of data - for example, why life is coded with a DNA molecule instead of
something else (e.g. see Mulkidjanian et al. 2003), why some life breathes
sulfur, some oxygen, some carbon dioxide (and what the first life breathed
and why), why life began as a microscopic cell, and so on. Creation theory
predicts none of these things, and thus cannot explain them except by appeal
to God’s enigmatic whim, which is unhelpful as a contribution to scientific
progress. As Frank Salisbury (1969) put it, “Special creation or a directed
evolution would solve the problem of the complexity of the gene, but such an
idea has little scientific value in the sense of suggesting experiments.”
Nevertheless, lack of utility is not an objection to a proposition’s truth,
and I will grant for the sake of argument here that Proposition A might yet
meet the high standard of inferential power posed by naturalism. As I will
show, even granting that, no one has successfully demonstrated the truth of
Proposition A.

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I keep going back to Carrier's paper because it so clearly spells out the logical fallacies of creationism - it's worth a read by any member of this forum.MickThis message has been edited by mick, 09-19-2005 09:32 PMThis message has been edited by mick, 09-19-2005 09:33 PMThis message has been edited by mick, 09-19-2005 09:38 PM

Evidence that features from two (or more) different cells were combined into a "new, improved" version of a specific feature.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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The one thing I always find irritating about the ID claim, is that it comes down to the absolute sillyness (not the Official, RAZD meaning ;-) ) that Intelligent Design is the best explanation because it exactly explains why a structure does exactly what it does or has taken on the exact shape that it has.It was DESIGNED to do exactly what it does or look exactly what it looks like , for what else would it be designed???But more importantly: what possible USE does this conclusion have? It is pure idiocy.This message has been edited by Annafan, 20-09-2005 01:32 PM

Yes, I agree - irreducable complexity isn't a good example. But I wasn't focussing on that side of things, merely on the assumption that God wouldn't have made an ambiguous creation. It seems like a significant assumption, though I'm not really sure why. I think maybe it indicates that a YEC IDer might have difficulty invisaging a "tricksy" God who might leave apparent evidence that the world is millions of years old and so forth.

Okay - that makes a lot of sense. The evidence for a mouse creator does indeed seem to point to Mum and Dad of Mouse. That's a very neat little thing.

Annafan: The one thing I always find irritating about the ID claim, is that it comes down to the absolute sillyness (not the Official, RAZD meaning ;-) ) that Intelligent Design is the best explanation because it exactly explains why a structure does exactly what it does or has taken on the exact shape that it has.It was DESIGNED to do exactly what it does or look exactly what it looks like, for what else would it be designed???But more importantly: what possible USE does this conclusion have? It is pure idiocy.Warren: I don't know where you are getting this. IDers are interested in exploring whether an explicit teleological approach can carry out a progressive investigation that serves to weaken or strengthen the design inference and whether it can help expand our understanding of biotic reality.Design-type thinking is already part of science so I fail to see what you are complaining about.Consider:“Both history and present Darwinian evolutionary practice have shown us that this kind of design-type thinking is involved in the adaptationist paradigm. We treat organisms - the parts at least -- as if they were manufactured, as if they were designed, and then we try to work out their functions. End-directed thinking - teleological thinking - is appropriate in biology because, and only because, organisms seem as if they were manufactured, as if they had been created by an intelligence and put to work.”
Michael Ruse, Darwin and Design: Does evolution have a purpose?, p. 268 (Harvard, 2003)This message has been edited by Warren, 09-20-2005 05:40 PM

Warren, could you please finally learn how to quote properly? When reading your posts, I always have to look out for the tell-tale "Warren:" to know where your quotes end.Please press the peek button of a message with proper quotes and see how it's done. It's not that hard.This has been asked before and it's becoming tiresome. Do something about it.This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 20-Sep-2005 10:51 PM

I repeat, Evidence that features from two (or more) different cells were combined into a "new, improved" version of a specific feature.Or, in other words, evidence of real world actual design processes being employed in the design of species.This particular example would be any single connection between any two branches of the evolutionary tree of all life, and further, this particular example is one of the most common features of good design: taking what works best from a number of solutions and combining them into an improved solution.An example of this would be an octopus type eye appearing in a human, using muscles to move the retina in and out for focus and doing away with the need for glasses.Enjoy.This message has been edited by RAZD, 09*20*2005 08:40 PM

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