What is your rule of evidence for distinquishing something as being designed verses something that is simply a naturalistic cause? At what point will your answer be provable?
Design is 'naturalistic'. If we agree there is design in biology then we just need to identify the designer. Just about all scientists that have studied the subject have come to the conclusion that the evidence points to the designer as being natural selection and perhaps a few other more complex ideas.
Intelligent Design's theory is that it is the product of 'an intelligence'. It so far has failed to provide a hypothesis for implementation (ie., no explanation for how the design was/is implemented). All we have is 'an intelligence did it'. Let's go back to the days of Paley, telling us about his watch and how it was made by a watchmaker with forethought and someone retorts:
quote:
A blind watchmaker did it!
Paley would look at such a person and say
quote:
Do you believe that an entity could exist that without any forethought managed to piece together a watch? What evidence is there for this counterintuitve creature? I know that humans have forethought {cites evidence} and that they can design tools {cites evidence} and that further they have fingers and other designed tools which can create watches {evidence} and they have a need/desire for watches {evidence} and that they have in fact created watches {evidence} previously.
And this is why the argument from design is not a scientific theory. The more advanced Intelligent Design argument is a response to a successful counter-theory. However, it is not a theory about Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design theory is: "The theory of evolution cannot explain all of biology". Which I'm inclined to believe is true. However - its proponents then make the illogical leap that if evolution cannot explain all of biology and if evolution undermines the argument from design then the argument from design must be true if evolutionary biologists can be shown to have failed to explain (or even if the disagree in explanations) some small piece of the world in any way.
Intelligent Design further falls foul of science by presenting examples of biology that evolution can't explain when in fact it can. Or by using hokey mathematics.
So basically - incorrect facts, poor logic, nonsense maths, and lack of any positive evidence pretty much covers the important features of why Intelligent Design does not follow the scientific method.
ID might look at things, develop arguments and draw conclusions - but that doesn't mean it follows the scientific method.
Let me remind you that this is all assuming that design exists. The crucial sticking point is the 'Intelligent' part.
We are dealing with methods and whether they are scientific in approach, not conclusions
Drawing conclusions is a key part of the method. If we weren't talking about drawing conclusions then all you'd be trying to say is that both use empiricism. But science is a particular suite of methods of reasoning to infer conclusions from empirically derived evidence. Where ID falls down is in the reasoning and inferring conclusions part of things.
What besides the categories of Observation, experimentation, evaluation, and prediction does the SM use that we do not?
We could start with:
Falsification {High risk. ID takes no risks, no discoverable evidence will be a problem, "The designer designed it that way for its own inscrutable reasons" will always serve as a get out clause for all possible observations}.
Parsimony {Postulates a being for which no evidence exists, except for the fact that ID supposes it does}
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
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