Letters to 'Unintelligible Design'

Hello Crashfrog:

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Er, well, no, it's not. It's not science-based; it's not scientific. It's driven by ideology, not evidence. I mean, one of the biggest ideologies in ID is "we can't ever talk or speculate about who the designer actually was, because then people will catch wise to the fact that we're all pretty sure that it's God."

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I mean, is that science? Of course not.

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I'm afraid this is only your opinion. We all should be tolerant of the views of others and I certainly won't stray very far from that credo. With this said, I'm sure you won't mind me pointing out some inaccuracy in the statement.I am glad to speculate on the ID of the designer, but then we are outside the realm of science because there is no evidence to point to the identity. It is pure surmisal. Could it have been a deity? Sure. I suppose so. But if so, which one? Again I would have no idea.Some may have us believe it was the Christian God of the Bible. Here is an islamic intelligent design site or two that would surely disagree with that:Why Muslims Should Support Intelligent Design? - IslamOnlineAND:http://www.harunyahya.com/Then we have the Panspermian side of ID consisting of such notable names in science as astrophysicist Fred Hoyle and the co-discoverer of the double helix nature of DNA, Francis Crick. These guys tend to run as fairly hard atheists.And....(I know, this is too long) then we might consider the EAM IDists in the vein of Shapiro et al and these guys are pretty much agnostic.So ID consists of people of all faith and mixed up people and people with no faith at all. But we get along OK, I guess.As to identification of the designer, I just don't know and that is the honest answer. Could have been a deity, an astronaut, an undiscovered race of very advanced earth critters or your Uncle Frank. And I don't particularly care as design and bios of design engineers are two separate subjects to begin with.

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Design Dynamics

If you're referring to Crash's somewhat sarcastic paraphrase of the ID position on the identify of the designer, then I grant that it's an opinion. But if you instead mean that it's only Crash's opinion that defining a priori limits to the questions one can pose is unscientific then I have to disagree. Science is free to ask any and all questions about physical phenomena. Dembski states in Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, "Taken strictly as a scientific theory, intelligent design refuses to speculate about the nature of [the] designing intelligence." That ID sets limits to inquiry should immediately set alarm bells going off.There isn't a field within science that does anything like this. Can you imagine cosmologists saying, "Theories about the structure of galaxies refuse to speculate as to the nature of dark matter." What if Rutherford had said, "Atoms just are, and we cannot speculate as to the nature of the atom."The reason ID doesn't want to go there is because it leads to the obvious conclusion, as Crash made clear, that the designer is God, and that ID is just another Creationist attempt to gain representation for their religious views in science classes.--Percy

Hey Brad:I may get to the other thread as time permits, but for now I'll answer your post here.

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Toward the end of my visit, John noted that ID fell short of a full creation model, but then commended ID for conclusively showing the bankruptcy of Darwinism. He was right.

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your url
I have had this much contanct with John Morris. If he is "right", as I myself also tend to think, I dont understand why ID IS the "limited" tool &
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a friend in the destruction of Darwinian materialism

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I think probably Dr. Morris has some points (I respect his work) but I disagree with him as I suspect that he is deeply immersed in creationism (and that's OK by me) and perhaps doesn't follow the science aspect of ID that closely.The why of design is unknown, of course, and boils down to individual beliefs rather than science. For the when of design, we just look at the fossil record and view events like the Cambrian Explosion and such. And as to the how of design ( a model) we have proposed this as well. In fact, this is partially my work.The model is based on quantum mechanics based on the early work of Heisenberg and Bohr and added to by the modern work of theoretical physicists John Wheeler and Frank Tipler. What we end up with is almost the same model that molecular design engineers use in proposing chemical design.

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Now when I first corresponded with HM in the 90s I was concerned somewhat in Dembski's words that
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Morris fails to address the fundamental issue here, namely, what is the proper scope of design-theoretic reasoning.

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But on thinking back what words he actually used in correspondence with me (he stressed that any mathamatical manipulation gained by evolutionists is equally available to creationists and he consisted in the words "creation" and "biology" (not 'life' etc) I dont think this soulful notice of Dembski's is correct. I think it is simply a matter of the economic sociality both limiting the development of creation science and intellectually giving academic support to neo-Darwinians that constricts the scope IN THE SAME POWER all people have.
Thus without a clearer description of this "limitation" to development( I have presented my own idea on probability spaces here on EvC) I can IN NO WAY see ID as alternative VIABLE OR NOT.

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I'm sorry, as an alternative to what? I don't think I understood much in that section of your post.

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Evolutionary biologists look at a cell and see the effects of material mechanisms, most notably natural selection and random variation. If Morris wants simply to say that these scientists are being willfully ignorant, instances of those who suppress the truth as in Romans 1, then there is no point even in introducing a concept like "organized complexity." In that case, Morris should simply say that the design in creation is self-evident. End of story.

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I think you mean specified complexity. I hope you understand that this complexity barrier in a fact of mathematics and existed long before I (or Dembski or anyone else) ever thought about using it in ID.Dembski was very close with his universal probability bound. I have written a short paper on this myself and have used slightly different mathematics to get basically the same answer. What this math calculates is just how many bits of information could have been produced by nature since the big bang and it falls far short of the amount of information contained in the simplest cell. You might want to read the paper if you get the chance:http://designdynamics.org/probabilitybound.pdf

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Design Dynamics

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If you're referring to Crash's somewhat sarcastic paraphrase of the ID position on the identify of the designer, then I grant that it's an opinion. But if you instead mean that it's only Crash's opinion that defining a priori limits to the questions one can pose is unscientific then I have to disagree. Science is free to ask any and all questions about physical phenomena. Dembski states in Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, "Taken strictly as a scientific theory, intelligent design refuses to speculate about the nature of [the] designing intelligence." That ID sets limits to inquiry should immediately set alarm bells going off.

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It shouldn't be setting any bells off if one understands the methodological naturalism inherent in the scientific method. This excludes a search for deities or anything else metaphysical using test tubes and Bunsen burners. Surely you would understand why a scientist would want to stay within physics when doing science. Any alternative would no longer be science.But perhaps I did not emphasize this well in my post to Crash. Designer biographies and design engineering are two separate subjects and do not logically lead from one to another. To mix those two concepts up would be similar to you assigning one of your students a task to write a manual on chainsaw repair and maintenance and she becomes so confused as to come back with a paper on the biography of the design engineer of Skill Saws.And it's simply irrelevant. I need know nothing about the identity of the design engineer of my vacuum cleaner in order to clean my rug and repair it when it breaks down. I'll just throw on a part from another vacuum just like it.Finally, we set no limits on inquiry and should evidence be discovered that points to the identity of a designer we will be all over it. Until then, what would you have us doing that we are not presently doing?

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There isn't a field within science that does anything like this. Can you imagine cosmologists saying, "Theories about the structure of galaxies refuse to speculate as to the nature of dark matter." What if Rutherford had said, "Atoms just are, and we cannot speculate as to the nature of the atom."

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No I can't imagine this. And neither would any ID theorist I'm aware of. Your examples fail to make a point because they all are seeking the nature of matter just as we do. To get to a comparable argument you will have to tell me how galaxies, dark matter and atoms were designed. This is the issue you're throwing at me.

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The reason ID doesn't want to go there is because it leads to the obvious conclusion, as Crash made clear, that the designer is God, and that ID is just another Creationist attempt to gain representation for their religious views in science classes.

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Ok. How does my admission that I don't know who the designer was/is logically lead to a conclusion it was a god? And again, many of us are not creationists, myself included, I'm afraid.

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Design Dynamics

I happen to agree. Those interested in ID may leave the identity of the designer as "unknown". It is normal in any complex area of knowledge to have many things which are, as yet, unknown.I might even agree that ID'ers attempt to be a bit scientific. However, in doing this they fail. Perhaps you, Jerry, could pick up some of the various threads on ID and offer some details of what science has been done: the evidence used and the steps taken to arrive at conclusions.I'm not claiming to be terribly familiar with the details of the current state of the arguements for ID. What I have seen is not at all convincing; for example, the probabilistic arguements based on obviously wrong and unfounded calculations. Perhaps there is something better now? I suggest that we probably have lots of threads where you could tuck the details in.

I am still only unfortunately for your point of view still discussing "why" design is not well known. That IS a part of the 'why' design. Dr. Morris seems to maintain a more stable position in this regard but you are obviously closer to the actual work of ID whether unintelligable and hence not well known for that reason, sooooorather simply intelligeable, in any sense, you, might be chating about. Perhaps you can answer then my supposition that ID either consiously or not ascended where Biblical Creationism is at least legislatively practical BECAUSE evolutionists CHANGED the probablity space they (evolutionists) worked in?
http://EvC Forum: Current status/developments in Intelligent Design Theory -->EvC Forum: Current status/developments in Intelligent Design TheoryDembski was saying that ID IS an alternative to materialistic naturalism I thouhgt?? But if scientific creationism, that in creationist movement that IS or BECOMES science IS RIGHT in the SENSE that WIlliam realized with John Morris then there isnt place for ID {unless} (and this is my own thought) spaces that the evos changed the places of with probability that creationists prior to ID did not discurse (BECUASE THE PROBABILITY WAS (if true) a priori WRONG) are distributed differently (in the word "alternative" of WD) & thus ID work gained its appearence in the thing itself of giving a different space enumerated with yours or Dembski's or Morris' qualititive number seperatly from that logically correct extension.I was not sure what "limited tool" meant in terms of "full creation model" for with a "full" model"" there is no need for the limited one. You see John Hubbard is speaking at Cornell this week on stability and chaos in the solar system but what he says is

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"If planents obeyed Kepler's laws exactly, the solar system would go on forever, more or less as we see it. But Jupiter perturbs Saturn's orbit (as well as all the others), and these perutrbations could build up over time. Newton thought that God needed to reset the clock every serveral centuries before the perturbations got out of hand. The puzzle of how the solar system can be as stable as it is was not "solved" until Kolmogorov showed in 1954 that with "postitive probability" the solar system might be stable despite the perutrbations. Does that reassure you?

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Cornell Daily SUNIf I recall correctly this is the same Hubbard that spoke in the ecology, evolution and systematics department in the 80s just after the Julia set broke that DNA was like the fractal of THIS PARTICULAR SET. HIs idea didnt work. And I think so because they try to force the space of proabablity distributions in where deduction actually is and was. That is what needs to be returned to and through a duty can outlive a particular probablism whether from Physics, ID or Evolutionary theory. The perturbation approach or the solar system vision of the molecule leads to different distributions potentially as I understand the little bit of the actual physical connection if I do indeed.Gnojek is concerned that the writings attempted to NOT use evolution when doing biology and I was providing my own understanding not of ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny but phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny (because Brownian motion is not mutually reciprocally independent of gravity fall) and I still have seen NOTHING in ID probablisms that is able to handle this complexity of my thought (where biology and phsysics need be mutual but not necessarily reciprocal). Perhaps I just dont know well enough but if ID is as smart as the COrnell Dept of Math listening to Hubbard it still only is about what "MIGHT BE". In my writings I try to syntesize - to the word - not the dissemination postitive truth. Evolutionary modelers are not any better technically. I am not reassured by general reflections on proability spaces but I was by the words and continuing words of Henry Morris. Phillip Johnson couldnt decide between biochemistry and genetics. Biologists can. The last quote was from your URL of Dembski's. I thought WD was saying that HM's organized complexity is not needed if one is only than going to say ROMANS but instead that specified complexity would be better recalled. I question this context if I am correct about the probability space.I hope this isnt more opaque. Feel free to find any other post of mine with ID in it to discuss further but I think there needs to be a better tie in to Gnojek's opening post than merely waking me or you up to write.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-26-2005 12:24 PMThis message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-26-2005 12:26 PM

Hello Ned:

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I happen to agree. Those interested in ID may leave the identity of the designer as "unknown". It is normal in any complex area of knowledge to have many things which are, as yet, unknown.

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Thank you. That is exactly my position. Of course, we hope to know someday and would love to uncover evidence to start that inquiry.

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I might even agree that ID'ers attempt to be a bit scientific. However, in doing this they fail. Perhaps you, Jerry, could pick up some of the various threads on ID and offer some details of what science has been done: the evidence used and the steps taken to arrive at conclusions.

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How do we fail? That's a very sweeping assertion to just throw out. And to arrive at WHAT conclusions? You lost me with that one.

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I'm not claiming to be terribly familiar with the details of the current state of the arguements for ID. What I have seen is not at all convincing; for example, the probabilistic arguements based on obviously wrong and unfounded calculations. Perhaps there is something better now? I suggest that we probably have lots of threads where you could tuck the details in.

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Well, I'm still not sure what you're talking about. What calculations? I'm a science guy and therefore a math guy and will be glad to walk you through any calculations in ID you would care to examine with greater detail. Our math walks tall just as it did for Bolztmann, Einstein and Boyle (not comparing any of us to them, but they had good math!)

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Design Dynamics

My limited understanding has me believing that CSI is an important part of ID. Message 1Perhaps that thread is a good place to define CSI in a useful way. Or you could correct any misperceptions there.Another concept is IC (irreducible complexity). This thread discusses that:
Message 1If you just browse the topic titles in the ID forum you should find lots of places to make comment.Separately from that:
The calculations I am refering to are those that discuss the probability of the first life forms arising by chance. I have never seen these done in a way that isn't meaningless.ABE:
"What conclusions?"
That there is any need to consider an intelligent designer at all. Of course, you might do well to start off by clarifying your personal position. It seems that ID'ers cover a rather wide range from an intelligence that set the initial parameters of the universe (the current ultimate god of the gaps) to those that seem to suggest that each speciation event is a result of direct tinkering.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 04-26-2005 12:38 PM

I must be misunderstanding this, because it reads like a tacit admission that the designer is supernatural. But this analogy doesn't apply to what ID actually proposes. ID requires the designer to both design *and* implement. How the designer implemented would provide clues to how the designer designed, which in turn would provide clues to the nature of the designer.Addressing your analogy, a cleaning lady might not be curious about the design and implementation of a vacuum cleaner, but a scientist studying vacuum cleaner design and manufacture or an archeologist of the future trying to better understand the 21st century certainly would be. A similar analogy, and more appropriate to this discussion, would be a natural sponge. Someone taking a shower using the sponge might not be interested in its evolutionary history, but a scientist certainly would.Let's consider an example. ID proposes that the bacterial flagellum could not have evolved naturally, that it must have been the product of intelligent design. The natural question is how did the designer accomplish this. Did he work with an existing bacteria and modify its DNA, or did he create an entire new bacteria? Did he do it in a single step or multiple steps? Did he craft new DNA or work with existing DNA? Did he insert new DNA into existing bacteria using viruses or micromachines? There should be clues to the designer's means of implementation. In fact, finding such clues, were they sufficiently different from what could occur naturally, would be important evidence for ID. The issue I was actually raising was about setting limits upon scientific inquiry. You go on to say: I'm getting an inconsistent message. How do you reconcile this with Dembski's statement that the designer is not an object of inquiry? It doesn't. Saying "I don't know" is much different than saying "One mustn't ask," which is what ID does. There are two possible answers to the question, "Who is the designer?":

1. An alien race, which just pushes the question off to another planet. Ultimately, intelligent life had to evolve naturally at least once somewhere.
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2. A supernatural being.

The first alternative is not an answer, and the second alternative is not science.By the way, there's a small reply button at the bottom of each message for replying to that specific message. Using it causes links to and from the original message and the reply. This makes it easy to figure out who's replying to whom. The large general reply button is for when you're not replying to anyone specifically.--Percy

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I am still only unfortunately for your point of view still discussing "why" design is not well known. That IS a part of the 'why' design. Dr. Morris seems to maintain a more stable position in this regard but you are obviously closer to the actual work of ID whether unintelligable and hence not well known for that reason, sooooorather simply intelligeable, in any sense, you, might be chating about. Perhaps you can answer then my supposition that ID either consiously or not ascended where Biblical Creationism is at least legislatively practical BECAUSE evolutionists CHANGED the probablity space they (evolutionists) worked in?

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We've just brought a different paradigm into the field of origins, Brad. ID is a slightly different scaffolding with which to examine observations, hypotheses and theories of science. And we seem to be becoming well known faster than any other concept I am familiar with in the history of this country.We haven't attempted to replace creationism, I have no problem with creationists as I believe in intellectual freedom of the masses. I just operate differently than they do because they study creations and creators and unless quantum mechanics are stuck in there somewhere, I don't even know what that is.We don't seek to replace evolution either as ALL of us accept evolution to some degree as long as that evolution is known science.Finally, I don't think we will have legislative problems as there are no gods or spirits in this body of beliefs. We can trace the roots of teleology back to Socrates and Plato hundreds of years before Christ was ever heard of.

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http://EvC Forum: Current status/developments in Intelligent Design Theory
Dembski was saying that ID IS an alternative to materialistic naturalism I thouhgt?? But if scientific creationism, that in creationist movement that IS or BECOMES science IS RIGHT in the SENSE that WIlliam realized with John Morris then there isnt place for ID {unless} (and this is my own thought) spaces that the evos changed the places of with probability that creationists prior to ID did not discurse (BECUASE THE PROBABILITY WAS (if true) a priori WRONG) are distributed differently (in the word "alternative" of WD) & thus ID work gained its appearence in the thing itself of giving a different space enumerated with yours or Dembski's or Morris' qualititive number seperatly from that logically correct extension.

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Dembski has stated that ID is a scientific alternative to materialism and I agree with him in some respects. But I'm just not understanding the way you are using the word "spaces." What in the heck are you talking about? The probability of macrostates or microstates or something?

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I was not sure what "limited tool" meant in terms of "full creation model" for with a "full" model"" there is no need for the limited one. You see John Hubbard is speaking at Cornell this week on stability and chaos in the solar system but what he says is

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"If planents obeyed Kepler's laws exactly, the solar system would go on forever, more or less as we see it. But Jupiter perturbs Saturn's orbit (as well as all the others), and these perutrbations could build up over time. Newton thought that God needed to reset the clock every serveral centuries before the perturbations got out of hand. The puzzle of how the solar system can be as stable as it is was not "solved" until Kolmogorov showed in 1954 that with "postitive probability" the solar system might be stable despite the perutrbations. Does that reassure you?

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Cornell Daily SUN
If I recall correctly this is the same Hubbard that spoke in the ecology, evolution and systematics department in the 80s just after the Julia set broke that DNA was like the fractal of THIS PARTICULAR SET. HIs idea didnt work. And I think so because they try to force the space of proabablity distributions in where deduction actually is and was. That is what needs to be returned to and through a duty can outlive a particular probablism whether from Physics, ID or Evolutionary theory. The perturbation approach or the solar system vision of the molecule leads to different distributions potentially as I understand the little bit of the actual physical connection if I do indeed.
Gnojek is concerned that the writings attempted to NOT use evolution when doing biology and I was providing my own understanding not of ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny but phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny (because Brownian motion is not mutually reciprocally independent of gravity fall) and I still have seen NOTHING in ID probablisms that is able to handle this complexity of my thought (where biology and phsysics need be mutual but not necessarily reciprocal). Perhaps I just dont know well enough but if ID is as smart as the COrnell Dept of Math listening to Hubbard it still only is about what "MIGHT BE". In my writings I try to syntesize - to the word - not the dissemination postitive truth. Evolutionary modelers are not any better technically. I am not reassured by general reflections on proability spaces but I was by the words and continuing words of Henry Morris. Phillip Johnson couldnt decide between biochemistry and genetics. Biologists can.

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Probability math is deduction, not induction. All fields of science that deal with changing matter uses it.The principle of locality, a conception that correlated events are related by a chain of causality in time, drives Newtonian and classical physics. And since all sciences that involve matter find their roots in some aspect of physics, scientists must eventually seek to understand those correlated events that caused the macroscopic system if they are to understand the system, the existence of the system and its complex workings. In other words, a complex phenomenon viewed in the macroscopic realm must be defined, explained or understood by studying the more simple or primitive events that lead up to it. Microscopic knowledge explicates macroscopic existence.All disciplines eventually learn this. Physicists attempt to better understand macroscopic events through the study of the behavior of tiny particles in quantum mechanics. Chemists investigate chemical reactions happening in macroscopic beakers by breaking down the chemicals into elements, then attempting to understand what is happening to those elements within the chemicals. Biologists study the changes in microscopic nucleotides, genes and cellular genomes to glean an understanding of evolution happening in the bigger picture: a population of organisms. In the world of the reductionist, once a system is boiled down to microscopics, then equations and mathematical relationships can be formulated and the behavior of the system may be understood and mathematically defined.In a nutshell: science is science and I there is little difference between genetics and biochemistry when we get into the meat of the subjects. All is just atoms, I'm afraid. Sorry, I'm not that familiar with Johnson's work.

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Design Dynamics

I'd be interested in a presentation of the math supporting ID.--Percy

I have to disagree Ned. When we talk about the "identity" if the designer we really mean the designer's capabilities and intentions.Without hypotheses for these it is impossible to produce an ID theory whihc could explain, even in part, the diversity of life, and in fact all scientific attempts to detect design use at least one or the other.

Percy's post points out the difference between not asking the question and not knowing the answer.I agree it is ok to not know the answer. However, I also agree with you that it would be normal science to at least speculate on the nature of the ID as an early step in the process of figuring out what the designer is like and what evidence we should look for.I'll wait for Jerry's explanation of all that.

If an admin wants this discussion somewhere else just pull out sponer's silver one. It's still in the plum pudding model.It's deductions based on events. Evolution is about change yet the dispute is largely over time transformations ON EARTH. I see you have a very opened mind and it would be great if you can put up or down with us all. You might feel a bit overwhelmed. If not great for you.Let me read your paper on flagellum. The "spaces" will relate to say amino acid substitions etc but I tend to find the barrier is simply a matter of the models not being based on principles of symmetry. It is because I analyze to this point of perverse simlicity i still have not agreed to the simple philosophy of macro from micro but only because I am thinking of hierarchies such that macro can INFORM the understandings of micro. With the little bit of physics I have been able to absorb it seems that the FUTURE of physics will be about competition between quantum computation that has the chain entangled before the computation and that which uses pieces you called "cause". Yes, they would be micro states but I am just begining to flesh in a formalism that does not use the Nfactorial subtraction as in the quantum case but instead depends on the temporal existence of supramolecularly stable molecules in line with Gladyshev's monhierarchy for any given biochemistry and genetics WHICH REMAIN DISTINCT both deparmentally and actually in the rightful place of biology in the creation of newer curricula of cross hierarchy causality investigators' means.I fully think as to design that biological hierarchies ARE NOT LARGER than plum puddings but instead reverse information flow. I have a fairly unique thought process and if you dip a little deeper into EVC you will find as much difficulty with understanding me as you like I guess. Both of my brothers are physicists. I think like a biologist but one who needs to find a continuum where these events physcially are being seperated but as to inheritance are probably NOT so seperated. This leads to issues as to if probablism of events with barriers are just NOT the thing to use when it comes to comparining mathematical heirarchies with taxanomic ones no matter what the neotology indicated approximatedly.There are indeed levels of organization as you suggest but how causality works with them is still unknown and the reason Gould wrote his last large account but that they can be rigidly demarcated so as to depend ONLY ON the exact microstates of Quantum MEchanics has never been proved. In truth, althoug I dislike organacism it is to prevent science from doing that that that division in biology emerged. If you can DEDUCE the application of mendelism to biological change in your computation of events then indeed all the above would be worth the ether it was netted on. I havent seen that either but that is not about "design" but simply about the way nature works. The issue of the "designer" does come up in biology but it does not need to in physics unless you insist on Schrodinger's cat suviving etc LOL.Try to see creationism and ID as a "smaller" picture and GOd as the angels on a pin and you would be closer to this way I approach the philosophy of it.Of course that is experiential and subject to change. Thanks for your paper. I saw the picture.If this post doesnt work for you I can give a point by piont commentary of your reponse to me.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 04-26-2005 01:38 PM

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My limited understanding has me believing that CSI is an important part of ID.
Message 1 (Thread CSI and Design in Forum Intelligent Design)
Perhaps that thread is a good place to define CSI in a useful way. Or you could correct any misperceptions there.

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Really I'm afraid to bite off more threads than I can keep up with. You guys have kept me busy just keeping up with this one! I am glad to explain the intricacies of CSI by sending you to some of my writings which speak for themselves. One need only know that complex specified information must 1) be specified:http://www.designdynamics.org/faq15.htmlAnd 2) it must contain more than 500 bits of information because we understand that is all the information that nature could produce by itself since the big bang as I pointed out here:http://designdynamics.org/probabilitybound.pdfUnless someone on here can show us some different math then it is settled that CSI cannot form by nature as that is simply mathematically impossible. Little more than that need be discussed. We have done our work and it will be up to someone now to refute it.

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Another concept is IC (irreducible complexity). This thread discusses that:
Message 1 (Thread Behe's Irreducible Complexity Is Refuted in Forum Intelligent Design)
If you just browse the topic titles in the ID forum you should find lots of places to make comment.

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Irreducible complexity has never been refuted. Many like Miller and Matzke have attempted this but we have easily rebutted their attempts. I explain IC here:http://www.designdynamics.org/faq14.htmlNow if someone can take the cardio-pulmonary system I describe in this FAQ into a lab and remove any of these parts and show how the system still functions, then they win the argument. Here they are: "Consider the irreducibly complex mammalian cardio-pulmonary apparatus. The minimum system consists of a heart to pump the blood, a lung to oxygenate the hemoglobin, hemoglobin, plasma to carry the hemoglobin, a kidney to keep the blood clean and a system of veins and arteries to carry the blood around the organism."If not, IC stands and that matter is settled as well. See how easy this is?

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Separately from that:
The calculations I am refering to are those that discuss the probability of the first life forms arising by chance. I have never seen these done in a way that isn't meaningless.

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Really. Well, I will be glad to walk you through a calculation in that area I believe to be meaningful.Chemical reactions operate quite differently than calculating the odds of say, winning a lottery.For two atoms to bond (join together into a molecule) they must be within an interacting neighborhood. In fact, in order for two atoms to react together, they must be in the area of about 100 picometers (10 to the -10 power meters) in distance from one another.The universe is big. And atoms must be moving in order to come into the neighborhood of another atom. The faster they are moving, the more opportunities they have to form a bond.But this gets a little hairy because if they are moving too fast, the momentum will shoot them past each other before they can bond.And, the temperature can‘t be too cold as reactions will not effectively occur and if it is too hot more bonds will be broken than are formed, and even when the temperatures are perfect, bonds of a long molecular chain may be broken simply because a random high energy atom or molecule knocks it loose. The point is, there is a certain finite number of opportunities available, even in 50 billion years for a reaction to occur in realityFor these reasons, chemists conclude (I was an environmental chemistry major at the undergrad level), based upon the size of the universe, the temperatures under which bonding occurs, the surmised age of the universe, the nature of bonds and how they form and break-- that 10 to the 67th power is the ultimate upper threshold for any chemical event to happen--anytime, anywhere in the universe, even in 20 billion years. However, we can use the universal probability bound of 1 chance 10^150 as well, doesn't really matter.Anyhow, the smallest known bacteria I’m aware of consists of around 300 proteins but I don’t think anyone would disagree with me that I am cutting you some slack by using a 100 protein scenario in order to form an organism that could remotely be called life.Proteins from which all of life is based are formed from amino acids. Stanley Miller showed long ago that under the correct conditions we can create amino acids in a beaker. The problem is they come out completely racemized. There’s a fancy word and I will define it for you. The amino acids produced by Miller consisted of equal amounts of right-handed and left-handed molecules. The atoms that react to form amino acids bond together into cork-screw shapes--these cork-screws can curve to the right (right-handed) or to the left (left-handed). But a useable protein for organisms has to be composed entirely of left-handed molecules.But when an amino acid adds itself to a protein chain from a racemized mixture, the odds are one in two that it will be left-handed. That’s not a big deal if the protein chain is short--say three amino acids long. Our probability would be one chance in 2 to the 3rd power or 1:8. That’s not bad odds for this type of thing.So we are going to give the Naturalist his primeval ooze from which that first protist magically popped and we are going to surmise that this ooze was racemized amino acids that had occurred naturally.The odds against assembling a protein chain consisting of only left-handed amino acids by chance is 2 to the n th power. And n is the number of attached amino acids in the protein. So its not difficult to calculate that the odds against assembling a useable protein of only 250 left-handed amino acids from a racemized mixture is one chance in 2 to the 250th power. This is about 1 chance in 10 to the 74th power.Well shoot, we are already past either barrier with one tiny protein and we are nowhere near our organism.And many of the proteins found in nature are 50,000 chained amino acids. The odds of assembling a protein that long are 1:10^15,000Could this ever happen in nature? Of course not we are off the map of any probability barrier before we ever get our first protein.But just so the Naturalist won’t think we don’t know how to calculate the probability of our little organism, we’ll go ahead and do it just so we can say we did.To calculate the organism, we have to multiply together the odds of each one of our amino acids. When we do we come out with a 1:10^7400 chance that this tiny, highly unrealistic and overly simplistic organism could ever form.. These are staggering odds and it is indisputable by any reasonable person that this could occur in reality.Now perhaps you can see why some Idists (including me) calculate that the odds against a fully functioning human (eukaryotic) cell occurring by chance is one chance in 10 to the 100 billionth power! That’s hundred billion zeroes. You can think of it as a 100 gigabyte hard drive full of nothing but zeroes.Is that one settled?

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That there is any need to consider an intelligent designer at all. Of course, you might do well to start off by clarifying your personal position. It seems that ID'ers cover a rather wide range from an intelligence that set the initial parameters of the universe (the current ultimate god of the gaps) to those that seem to suggest that each speciation event is a result of direct tinkering.

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Correct. I do not consider any intelligent designers at all. I only detect design in systems and artifacts as do archeologists, paleontologists, cryptographers and SETI scientists. And you're right. ID is very diverse as is most fields.

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Design Dynamics