The utility of ID

Well to be honest I wish we could detect design as easily as they suggest. But unfortunately the world as it is (or as Gods made it?) is not that easy. I think the ID concept is pretty much kiboshed since they do not have a working method, and they don't even have the cojones to apply it to objects to show if it does or does not work.

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

There are still a few 'cojanes' around however. I have noticed an interesting twist in Kant's Critique of Judgement that I think is the effect of the lack of expressed cause further on the part of any ID friends rather than the need to express the event probabalistically as I did before here on EvC. It seems that there is figurative langague to raise ID above other issues in creationism but there is trascendent "ground"(sic!) to suggest that there are other creation connections that need be dug up first. I will explain this futher with respect to "prudence" and maggot growth THROUGH corruption later.

I reckon you have a decent use for it there mate. It has a potential health implication. In the UK many people realy hate the idea of GM crops and propose health risks from it.A shame there is no counter part for the use of godly ID detection. Although to be fair I should say 'yet'. Any creo takes on the utility of ID?

If we could identify the designer I would say: "Dude, when is the 1.1 Patch coming out? This version is buggy as hell"

Never thought of it that way before. Maybe we're a beta test?

I reckon thats why there is no evidence of ID; we are in a beta and were not feature locked yet. If ID is true, Universe Publishing House would sue for breaking quality and completion deadlines. God is a cowboy

Seriouly though: any ID'er up to giving some constructive use for ID if it turns out to be true? As far as I see it it would be like finding super technology that we could never understand and thus never use. The only reason for ID seems to be to say "there look, god did do it".

Well, Larni, I'm no IDer--I've never even played one in court--but my reference to aliens (Daddy?) above was not entirely tongue-in-cheek.If we did have a methodology for detecting intelligent design, it could conceivably prove useful in extraterrestial exploration.Alien life--and alien artifacts--may be, well, really alien.To pick a sci-fi classic, what if we find crystalline forms that process energy from their environment for self-replication and other, mysteriously alien purposes--say, concentrating some trace element. Is this a mining operation? Is it life? Is it artifact? Is it both? Neither?Assuming we do find extraterrestial life, we may have to consider the possibility that it was created or altered by an intelligence.Having said that, I can't see how one would extract general principles of intelligent design (as applied to life-forms) without a data set of life-forms known to be designed by an intelligence other than our own.As the fanciful crystalline scenario suggests, it would be useful to have an ID test when we are otherwise totally ignorant of the phenomenon and its natural context.The simplest test seems to be the one we already have: Can we account for the phenomena with naturalistic causes? If so, we not only don't need to consider intelligent design, we have no valid reason to do so.Guess I failed Advanced ID Theoretics after all.

The problem with ID as I see it is that it can only apply after all normal scientific explanations are exhausted, and it still doesn't answer the question or prevent a future scientific explanation.This makes ID a mental end-game with no real purpose other than comfort to those who find little in the real world.When you think about genetic manipulation (where a specific mutation is artificially induced) and compare that to an actual random mutation (occuring by chance), is there any way that you can conceive of a test to differentiate them?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Agreed. Furthermore I am really begining to now think that the concept of ID is (as well as being intellectually dishonest) simply a psuedo science raft for god botherers to pin their phony religious promogulation agenda on.As no proponent of ID has attempted to answer the OP I can't think of any reason to carry on with this thread.Cheers for your (evo) input people

A flurry of activity on ID this week.The question is still open. If ID were true, what would be the use?

At the risk of digressing I think the thrust of ID may be missing the point (ignoring the fact it's really an attempt to get Christianity into American public schools).Establishing something has been designed is somewhat pointless. What's important is understanding how it was made - Intelligent Implementation or II maybe?Why is it important to know how it was made? Because then you can do it yourself. I know we can do gentic modification to some degree but I think we're still a bit away from being able to create a world sized ecosystem

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I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

ID is a tool that the evangelicals created. its a tool to make use of a loop hole in education to weasle religion into the public domain. If ID was ever phased into class rooms, what do you think the bias would be? Creationists wouldnt push for this so hard if they thought it'd help propegate budahism or taoism. it's purpose is to support and spread christianity in american public schools. technology wise, science wise, medically speaking, etc, it really has no utility. it doenst do any good to study or learn about it, except that it may help people find their way into a religion theyre comfortable with. but religion is no subject for the public domain. but its also not fair to make one point without explain the possibility of the counter point. thus creating a loop hole, into which evangelicals plan to slip christianity in as the counter point. you'll see.

Like where your going with this mate; if we can detect the "hand of god" and we can duplicate it for ourselves (in however many years) I will be a happy bunny.Joe Halderman in his book 'Forever Free' (lackluster sequel to the amazing 'Forever War) had the idea that our galaxy was a giant experimental lab and his hero was able to deduce this. This led to all kinds of physical law changes (as these were set as experimental parameters).Just think of the things we could do if we had a handle on 'creation'.But I imagine this idea would be called blasphemy or some such.

Yup, think you got it there mate.I read an artical in the 'Guardian' (UK broad sheet (well ex broard sheet now)) news paper about a cool Guiness advert which had the blokes drinking backwards in time. They de-evolved from men to little mud skipping lung fish thingies via the magic of cgi. Now the artical asked if this evolution based adverising would happen in the US. It raised the points we raise on this forum about the danger of relion and education.To echo the write of the artical: evolution is science and part of a grand tradition of progress and discovery. Religion is pop history. It can be a comfort and a psuedo moral compass, but thats it.I'm still waiting for a cre to come here. Is the Science Forum thread putting them off? Or are they banned from here? Is it possible that ID can be seperate from religion?