"Creation Science" experiments.

There are many ways. Here's a possible experiment for Young Earth Creationists.YEC hypothesis: There was a world wide flood 4,300 years ago.Observation: The oldest known living non-clonal tree is 4,800 years old (counted by tree rings, and it's a Bristlecone Pine, which doesn't produce double rings).Experiment to answer the question: Can a Bristlecone pine survive a year completely immersed in water?The YECs would need to construct a tank around one or more B. Pines that are several hundred years old, and then fill the tanks with dark, briny water, covering the tree (this is perfectly feasible - the trees aren't large). The greater the depth of covering the better.Then they wait for a year, perhaps diving to examine the state of the trees at intervals.Then they would find (we know from real floods covering trees for a long time), that the trees would be dead.They would have then falsified their hypothesis to a reasonably high level of confidence.

Me. See the the bluegenes Challenge (bluegenes and RAZD only)Great Debate[/bgcolor] the bluegenes Challenge thread. When I treat the supernatural as possible, and offer up a theory about supernatural beliefs which is described as falsifiable (something that assumes the possibility of the real existence of supernatural beings) it is theists, not atheists, who object.For me, there is no reason for the a priori exclusion of the supernatural from science. The reason we do not study the anatomy of unicorns is not because of such an exclusion, but because we have no evidence to support their existence, and no place to start.Scientists and philosophers are divided on this point, but many, both atheistic and theistic, agree with my stance. Richard Dawkins, for example, regards a creator god as being a scientific hypothesis. Alvin Plantigna is a Christian philosopher who also thinks his god should be considered in science. As I've demonstrated, you do not know this. A view that natural causes are far more likely than supernatural is one that both atheists and theists take in real life, and is born of experience and observation.Do you seriously start from the point that the gremlins might be responsible when your car breaks down, or do you assume that a material, mechanical fault is by far the most likely explanation?(If you wish to comment on my "Great Debate" theory of the supernatural, there's a Peanut Gallery Message 393 on it, and I'll certainly reply to any questions you might have).

And note mine. It isn't necessary for science to consider unicorns, intelligent designers, or elves and fairies who help tend the flowers in the forests as being impossible.These were your words: And I pointed out that, if we have an unknown, then the attitude of many of us isn't what you describe.It is that a naturalistic explanation is far more likely than anything else, because whenever we do explain things with a high degree of confidence, those explanations have always turned out to be natural. And you seem to agree with this point.There's never any need for finality; no need for "period... end of discussion", as you put it. As you emphasise, you are describing a hypothetical situation. It would seem to arise only at the (hypothetical) point when we have reached the "end of naturalistic science", and no further understanding of nature could be had.That's of no concern to us, and won't be to our grandchildren.You'd probably be able to tell if and when we're nearing that point. The amount of scientific research going on would decline rapidly, and any new discoveries would be getting few and far between.Presently, it's the opposite, and the rate of discovery continues to increase.

No. Supernatural explanations do not need to be regarded as impossible. What I'm pointing out is that our current level of ignorance does not, at present, validate supernatural explanations for any known phenomena as being any more than theoretically possible. But if, in the future, after having pushed our knowledge forward to its apparent limits, then that situation could change, and supernatural explanations could be promoted beyond just being theoretically possible.However, if you're talking about a hypothetical situation where we find positive evidence that supports the view that there is supernatural intelligent design in nature, that's something different. You would be wrong if you assume that, for example, if a group of atheistic scientists were doing field work, and they came across a group of angels doing some genetic modification on some creature, that they would ignore them, and continue as usual. That, for me, would radically transform my view of how new species came about, and Intelligent Design would certainly become mainstream science immediately.It may be that we're talking at cross purposes, and that may be because you consider there is valid reason at present to consider supernatural design of things around us as more than theoretically possible.But I know of no scientific evidence to support that. And I keep saying that I have no problems with the possibilities of intelligent designers, unicorns, or anything else supernatural you care to mention. And I say that people like me have no philosophical bias against unicorns, but we see no positive evidence to support their existence at this point in time.The problems for I.D. advocates are not that the world is biased against them. On the contrary, most people in the world are brought up as children to believe that an intelligent designer is responsible for life, and therefore start off with a pro-I.D. bias before they even start doing science.The real problem for I.D.ists is that they do not actually have any positive evidence to support their view. There's also the considerable problem that there isn't actually an I.D. theory of biology (something many of I.D.'s leading advocates agree with).Gaps in human knowledge, I must emphasise, do not mean evidence for intelligent design in nature.I, for one, am very much in favour of I.D. advocates conducting research, and publishing their results for scrutiny wherever they can, peer reviewed or not. I'd love to know which (if any) of the differences on the genomes of ourselves and the chimps were designed, and which ones (if any) occurred naturally, for example.But I know enough about biology to be reasonably sure that I.D. advocates will never be able to agree with each other on that, and will never be able to tell me. Edited by bluegenes, : typos

Prior? If you like playing at metaphysics, here's one for you.We observe that time is a property of the universe. We observe cause and effect within spacetime. If we go back to the beginning of the universe, time = 0. If cause and effect apply at this point, then they must be simultaneous. Therefore, the universe must be self created, and cannot be caused or preceded by anything. You'd better write to Stephen Hawking and inform him of this, then. I'm not a cosmologist.We're wandering off topic for this thread, unless you regard your metaphysics as creation science, which I hope you don't, as there's no reason that the uncaused cause you're suggesting should be a god of any kind, let alone the god of Jewish mythology.

Wrong. Single celled organisms communicate by chemical codes, and can form themselves as a group into complex arrangements. They have no intelligence.Both intelligent and unintelligent organisms are capable of complex communication.You'll need to define what you're describing as "abstruse particularized communication" in a way that excludes the actions of all unintelligent creatures, and also excludes non-living processes, like chemical autocatalysts.Then you hit a serious problem. Your attempts at observation are selective. Observation of all known intelligent beings tells us that they are dependent on complex communication and complex processes for their existence. All of this complexity is a prerequisite for the existence of humans, dolphins, apes, and anything other known beings that you wish to describe as intelligent.So, how will you define "apc" in a way that doesn't make it an apparent prerequisite for all intelligent designers?At present, you just appear to be begging the question when you say:

But you've missed my point. Your observation was based on looking at what you described as intelligent organisms, and claiming that your "apc" comes only from intelligence. I pointed out that it also comes from unintelligent organisms, so you have no observational basis for your claim.I also pointed out that what we really observe is "apc" before intelligence, not the other way around.Show me an intelligent designer who does not have your "apc" as a prerequisite, and I'll send you a million dollars. Are you seriously suggesting that there's no evidence that chemical processes can increase complexity? Is that supposed to be the observation at the base of your "theory"?

Have you shown that anything other than a "pre-programmed biologic machine" that depends on DNA can exhibit intelligence?As I understood it, you claimed to have made observations that something called "apc" can only come from intelligent beings.Could you detail those observations again.If you need to assume that the DNA code is intelligently designed in order to reach your desired conclusion that it is intelligently designed, you are simply begging the question.

Now, follow your thoughts through. Supposing, for the sake of argument, life is the only thing that has "specified complexity". All the living intelligent designers you observe will certainly contain loads of "specified complexity".But, if life is distinguished from all else by this characteristic, and life cannot be evoked as an explanation for the origin of life, then clearly life must have come from something non-living that does not have "specified complexity". Something simpler than itself.Would all intelligent designers have "specified complexity"? If so, intelligent design cannot be a requirement for the production of "specified complexity", can it?Are specified complexity and your "apc" the same thing, and if not, what's the difference?

Surely all organisms contain it, according to you. Therefore, your observations should tell you that all known intelligent designers contain it. This is exactly what you have not established. You are assuming your conclusion. That's not science.You have assumed that the "apc" (or "specified complexity") that is contained and exhibited by unintelligent organisms is the indirect product of intelligent design in order to prove that to be the case. Microorganisms (and bees) do not intelligently design their own communication systems.Surely you can see what a basic mistake that is.It's also impossible to attempt to explain "specified complexity" from observation by evoking intelligence, because observed intelligence is packed full of specified complexity however you define it, thus leaving "specified complexity" unexplained, and merely pointing out that it can produce itself, which we all know.

You keep saying this, but I've pointed out that both intelligent and unintelligent organisms can be said to originate it. Think of termite mounds (air conditioned buildings that contain farms), the bee dances you mentioned, and the chemical codes micro-organisms use for communication. What we really observe is "specialized complexity" reproducing itself.But my main point is that, if you're attempting to explain the existence of "specified complexity", then you would need to define it in a way that excludes intelligence itself in order to formulate an "intelligent design theory of the origin of specified complexity".You would need to demonstrate that an intelligence which had no specified complexity could exist and design the first thing that contained "specified complexity".

The production of a termite mound fits which category? You couldn't do it without the "program" in your genome. "Specified complexity" is a prerequisite for all known intelligent designers. You say that your theory is built on observation. It's necessary to include all relevant observations. So you keep saying. You are both designed and designer. But your ability to design things that contain specified complexity cannot explain the origin of specified complexity, because you are dependent on it. A lot of biologists will tell you that the bees are pre-programmed as well. Again, what about the termites building their mounds, and, while we're at it, to what extent are the birds building their nests pre-programmed, and to what extent are they flexible intelligent designers? Agreed. And where does it originate? In the genome of the engineer? In the genomes of his ancestors? Can the engineer design the system without the input of information from his environment; information that has a non-intelligent source?We know that "specified complexity" can produce "specified complexity". That does not tell us what the origin of specified complexity is, though. If specified complexity has an original cause, it would have to be something that does not contain it, by definition.I don't think that intelligent designers are a very good candidate for that cause, do you? But SETI is not looking for the origins of specified complexity, are they? They are looking for beings like us, for whom specified complexity would be a pre-requisite.

I object! I described a very good YEC experiment here. Message 19Many of their hypotheses can be tested.