Can't ID be tested AT ALL?

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What I was getting at is: although they apply this kind of design-oriented thinking, they WON'T accept "intelligent design" as an endpoint to work towards. They will always intend to break down the answer "designed" into smaller constituents.

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"It appears designed, but HERE are the deeper reasons/mechanisms WHY/HOW it comes accross as intentional design"

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ANY "deeper understanding of biotic reality" comes from the second part of the sentence. The 'conclusion' design in itself is useless as long as it doesn't lead to meaningful research behind it.

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I don't think that "intelligent design" should be an endpoint to work towards though, even if a person believes God is the Designer. In Ancient Egypt, Middle Age Islam, etc, we see this scenario. They studied the world and marvelled at it as God's creation and God's work of Genius. The deeper you go, the more you go wow. It's a little simplistic the way I put it but, that approach wouldn't stop scientific progress. That's why I specified in another thread that the conflict between science and religion doesn't occur in alot of other major cultures and civilisations. This dichotomy emerged from the Church's persecution of science. But if it wasn't for that, I don't see how religion and science are a problem. Especially when it's understood that religious writtings are meant to be primarely allegorical, moral and spiritual. In other cultures outside the West, science was a way to bare witness to God's greatness. No big issues like what happened with the Church.But in a recent book published by certain Bishops of the Catholic Church, called Gift Of Scripture, they say:
“We should not expect to find in Scripture full scientific accuracy or complete historical precision"If only that had been published when Galileo was around, we wouldn't be in this mess today.

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Testability of ID is not a logical impossibility, if only because ID itself is not logically impossible. We ourselves are living proof of that: we have made lots of intelligently designed objects. (An alien could have an ID hypothesis about one of the probes we sent out into space. It could test this hypothesis by following the path of the probe in the opposite direction and find us.)

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Now, if something is not logically impossible, then it can be true. And if something can be true, then, if it is true, it is logically impossible to prove it untrue.

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Science works on the basis of hypotheses that are constantly under scrutiny, to see if some way can be found to disprove them. But scientific hypotheses are only scientific because these ways to disprove them can be formulated at all.

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For ID, no one has ever formulated a way to disprove it. So, although ID is a logically possible hypothesis, it is not a scientific one until some test has been proposed that could prove it false. And such a test would have to be concerned with the defining tenet of ID, namely that life is too complex to have arisen without the help of an intelligent designer.

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The question is thus whether such a test can ever be formulated.

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Parasomnium,
I can't tell how much I like the way you formulated that..

The posts subtitle is "how to measure complexity" -- does this post have anything to do with that?Please make it easier for those browsing by keeping the subtitles in line witht the post contents. Thanks.

sorry, forum rookie's mistake..

Intelligent design can never be tested because it involves the idea of a higher being or a 'designer.' Science and testing can only include the natural and a non-specific designer is most definitely supernatural and therefore untestable. No matter how intelligent design is looked at, the theory includes a higher being so ultimately it can never be fully tested.

I don't believe it's possible to scientifically test the supernatural aspect of ID. However, the idea of irreducible complexity in cells is used by ID theorists as scientific evidence in support of a designer. Therefore, while a designer cannot actually be detected scientifically, certain parts of the ID theory are directly related with science and can be scientifically tested.

We're glad you chose to join our little board. At the end of this message you'll find links to several threads that may make your stay here more enjoyable.Again, welcome to EvC.

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We're glad you chose to join our little board. At the end of this message you'll find links to several threads that may make your stay here more enjoyable.Again, welcome to EvC.

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So what you are saying is that ID's arguments for design can be scientifically tested, but ID itself cannot. Is that it ?

Yes, I think there are scientific aspects that intelligent design theorists use to prove their point that can be scientifically tested. That does not mean that science can point to a designer. It just means that there are parts of the ID theory that are science-based and not directly related to the supernatural, although ID theorists will infer this.

I am not sure that any ID arguments have of a scientific basis. The argument based on irreducible complexity was incomplete when it was first published and since then both Behe and Dembski have tried offering different definitions of "irreducible complexity", neither of which seemed to be very helpful.SO really I would say that some ID arguments might be science-based, if they did the science and the results supported them.

But even the parts of ID that can be scientifically tested are based on the idea of a designer. The bacteria flagellum is used as scientific evidence for ID, while at the backbone of the argument lies the fact that it was 'designed' by a non-specified 'designer' which, once again, can ultimatley not be tested or proven.

Actually, if you look at it, the arugment about 'irreducably complex' is just an attack on evolution, and does nto promote an 'intelligent designer'. Aside from that, the bacteria flagellum has been shown to be reducibly complex anyway. There are a number of articles on that (some of which that even came out before 'Darwin's black box' was published).Other than personal incredibility, Behe was not able to explain WHY an 'irreducibly complex' structure demonstrates 'an intelligent designer'. There are paths that can happen by purely evolutionary means that could theoritically produce an irreducibly complex system. HOwever, every example of 'irreducibly complex' that Behe proposed has been shown to be reducible.

I agree with you in the fact that some, if not all, of Behe’s examples of ”irreducibly complex’ organisms have been found to be reducible. However, I don’t think his argument that ”irreducible complexity’ points to intelligent design as invalid, or that it is only a criticism of evolution. He specifically states that he was not among the first to criticize Darwinian theory with regard to the complexity of organisms, many other scientists have claimed the same and have done much research along these lines. Therefore, his claim is goes beyond “an attack on evolution”, suggesting that because organisms are found to be irreducibly complex, there is a good possibility that they were in some way designed.Like you stated above, many of the organisms that he used as examples of irreducible complexity have since been found to be ”reducible.’ However, I do not think that invalidates his point”if there are other organisms to be found that are indeed irreducibly complex, how could this not be an argument for intelligent design?If an organism was found to be truly ”irreducibly complex,’ I think the argument that it was designed is just as valid as the argument that chance and mutation put it together. It is important not to dismiss the idea of Design purely due to its stigma. It can be studied academically if given the chance.

I don't see how you can say that. Irreducible complexity was explicitly presented as an attempt to falsify evolution - a causal reader of Darwin's Black Box might even believe that it was a successful attempt.However it was not successful. It has still to be shown that we can reasonably conclude that an irreducibly complex system could not evolve.

Just a couple thoughts. First, you are using something that has yet to happen as a proof of ID? ("If an organism was found to be truly ”irreducibly complex,..."). How bizzare. Second, "if" the organism was truly "irreducibly complex", then chance and mutation would not be able to explain it anyway, therefore you statement makes no sense whatsoever. That is to say...both cannot be equally valid.If natural processes (mutation and selection) can explain the emergence of the "thing" in question, then ID is not needed. If ID explains it, and only ID explains it, then natural processes, by definition, cannot. You can't have it both ways.