Does ID follow the scientific method?

Hi Coyote. Since you work in a field that specializes in scientifically differentiating designed things (i.e. artifacts) from non-designed things (i.e. rocks), you're probably in a unique position to explain how actual scientists do distinguish design from non-design.What sorts of criteria do archaeologists and anthropologists use to determine if a given piece of rock is, e.g., an arrowhead, rather than just a broken rock?This would give us a way to establish what ID should be doing in order to find design in nature. Maybe then we could easily determine whether that is what they're doing.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Bluejay (I'm replying to myself). I have an idea or two to add here.There are situational clues that make intelligent design a plausible explanation in certain situations. Stone-flake objects (tools) are found in the spatio-temporal vicinity of human/hominid remains. In addition, humans/hominids are clearly capable of the hammering, flaking or carving motions that would produce the objects.These situational clues form the basic reasoning that leads to the "archaeological hypothesis of intelligent design." This means that they provide a reason to bring the intelligent design hypothesis to the table.From there, we can see how stone tools fit within the continuum of human technological development that archaeologists and historians have documented. This increases the plausibility of the intelligent design explanation.I still have a series of questions, though:Are there non-design processes that can shape rocks in similar ways to human manufacture?
If so, how do archaeologists decide which hypothesis (design or non-design) is better?
If not, are they basing their conclusion on the absence of alternatives? Is this scientific?
More importantly, do IDists do this too? What distinguishes what they do from what archaeologists do?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Coyote.I figured you would have some good information on that stuff.It seems that the criteria are pretty situation-specific. By that, I mean you don't use any universal principles of design to decide whether an artifact was designed, but you rely on context and the details of the technique in question.In order for ID to work the same way you do, they would have to obtain some information on the context or technique of the purported design in order to show that design is a plausible hypothesis. Or, they would need to find some universal principles of design that could be applied in some way.They seem to favor the latter approach. And, I think all of their thought experiments and mathematical models related to these alleged universal principles of design could count as science in a sense (ecology has a lot of modeling based on hypothetical, universal principles, for example), but it fails in that it retains the premises after many lines of reasoning based on those premises are shown to be inaccurate.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Dawn.I would like to do one thing.I would like you to write a post containing four lines. This is what I would like to see on those four lines:

1. An example of ID making observations of the natural world.
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2. An example of ID formulating a hypothesis based on those observations.
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3. An example of ID experimenting to test that hypothesis.
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4. An example of ID forming a theory based on the results of the experiment.

If you can provide examples of all of these steps, then I would say that ID has at least passed the barest minimum standards of the scientific method.I suspect that most scientists would require more than just this bare minimum, but it would at least be a start.Can you do this much?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.