I think ID is questionable science in some aspects, although the furiousness of the anti-ID crowd seems even more unscientific.

I am sure though that it is very bad theology.

To me, why couldn't G_d have done it the way Darwin said. The Bible doesn't give detailed instructions on how it was done. What are the odds of the history of the Earth being entirely by chance? For me, somebody pointed it in the direction it went. Then it was up to us to do the right thing or not.

The purpose of ID is not to answer questions; it is to stop reason and independent thinking altogether, and give religious zealots veto-power over scientific advancement, by introducing the argument-ending "It is so because God created it so - no further inquiry or research is necessary."

Can you imagine what would happen to the search for a cure for AIDS, if a group of "Christian" scientists simply ruled the AIDS virus "irreducably complex?"

"What if I.D. could be proven?" Perhaps the only way to prove that would be to find either the Intelligent Designer or firm evidence of his (her, its) existence.

The better question is, is there a way to disprove ID? Because if there isn't, it's not a valid theory. Every valid theory (we use that word in its real, scientific sense) has to be capable of disproof ("OK, for theory X, if we see Y, then X can't be true" - and we can define what Y might be - for Relativity, for example, we find that light isn't bent by gravity, or that a moving clock doesn't slow down. But both things have been seen, so we say that Relativity is a pretty strong theory).

It looks like, in order to disprove ID, you'd have to find that either there is no IDer, or that if there is, he/she/it had no part in our coming about.

I don’t see why ID necessarily has to be at odds with evolution, and I’m not coming from a standpoint of a hardcore religious person. Having a scientific background, I understand that evolution is still a theory, not fact, and that many scientists question it and see flaws with it. Now that does not mean we jump to the, everything one day *poof*, appeared out of nothing. But that is not what ID is about. It merely suggests that perhaps the complexity of life is an impossibility to arise from sheer chance and random events, no matter what the time frame. And not all scientists agree that ID lacks a scientific foundation. ID uses science to refute certain beliefs of Darwinism. Also, ID proponents, such as Michael Behe and William Dembski, have developed criteria for testing design inferences. Darwinists have not been able to prove, with empirical testing or otherwise, the evolution of existing species to others through Darwinian mechanisms. It would seem that pure Darwinism requires at least as much faith as any that ID would require.

Those of us who think for ourselves reject the accidentalist, atheist theory of evolution which says: "There is no Creator, no Intelligent Designer, everything happens by accident, we accidentally evolved from monkeys."

For one thing, that has never been proved. Show me a fossil and I'll show you the "Piltdown Man".

And after that they came up with: "Man evolved from the tooth of AN EXTINCT PIG!"

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

For another thing, it has been proved false. Read any book on the mythologies of the ages from Iceland to Hawaii and you will always find that each begins with a myth of Creation -- Divine Creation.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a Catholic priest, Georges Lemaitre, came with the theory of the Big Bang. For many years, evolutionists rejected the Big Bang because they knew what it means -- a Creation. With the discovery of background radiation, the Big Bang was proved to be true.

Also, evolutionists had never been able to solve Olber's Paradox: If you look at the night sky in any direction, you should see the light of stars. Yet, if that were so, the night sky would be as bright as the Sun. Why is it dark instead? Because the light has not yet had time to get here -- because the stars and galaxies were created some 15,000,000,000 years ago. The Big Bang.

Now, they're trying to tell us that the Big Bang is part of the evolution theory. False. Darwin had never heard of the Big Bang.

Time itself was created at the same time as the Big Bang. Which means that the Gods (Trinity, if you will, plus the Queen of Heaven, She for whom all things were created) are eternal.

Nor is the argument from design the only argument for a Supreme Being. There is also the cosmological argument (St. Thomas Aquinas), the ontological argument (St. Anselm), the argument from conscience (John Henry Cardinal Newman).

Like the argument from conscience, the ontological argument hits the hardest. She than Whom nothing greater can be conceived must therefore necessarily exist so truly that She cannot be conceived not to exist. Therefore, atheism becomes not only an error of the intellect but an an error, a corruption of the will.

Those who hate the very idea of a Creator, of a Supreme Being, inwardly hate the fact of their own being. No wonder they have such contempt for their own sexual longings, as we saw in a previous thread here. Tragic.

Amen Steve!

Well, the possibilities for novel inquiry are quite literally endless, high as the freaking sky and ten times as deep. But where are the definitive answers we all seek? Huh? Tell me that. What has Intelligent Design brought us? Just more mysteries.

This is what science is supposed to do right? To uncover the mysteries of the universe. But uncovering those mysteries only reveal more mysteries, just as quantum mechanics has vis a vis newtonian mechanics.

The thing that struck me immediately about Intelligent Design is that the simple fact of our creation, our design by some intelligent agency or other, in no way tells us what that agency might be like.

This is what the opponents of ID being mentioned in a school class seem to miss (purposely, I might add). The theory of ID makes NO SUPPOSITION on who or what the creator is, only that there is one. It is up to you, based on any evidence at hand, to determine who or what it is.

Steven W.: Wrong on all counts. ID offers no testable hypotheses whatsoever, and no "scientist" has ever attempted to define, let alone perform, any set of experiments or observations that might prove or disprove ID. When asked about this issue in the Dover trial, Behe himself flatly refused to offer any such test, and insisted that it wasn't his job to explain how his own "theory" might be proven.

Evolution is universally accepted as the ONLY theory that satisfactorily explains all that we observe about life on Earth. No scientist has ever proposed an alternative hypothesis that has withstood rigorous observation or peer review. Claims to the contrary have been disproven both in public discourse and in court.

Furthermore, all of the objections which the IDiots have raised about evolution have been conclusively answered, contrary to the feverish claims of said IDiots, who, when their assertions are refuted in one forum, simply bugger off to another forum and raise the same objections all over again. The debate is settled, and even most mainstream Christian churches admit it.

I myself firmly believe that the processes of evolution were indeed guided and controlled by at least one God. But that is my faith, nothing more. It is not science. Period. And anyone who says it is, is either a fool or a liar.

Further information can be found, among other places, in Panda's Thumb and Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

The theory of ID makes NO SUPPOSITION on who or what the creator is, only that there is one.

Yeah, right, a global replace in the ID textbook -- from "God" to "the hypothetical designer" -- makes it real science. And the right-wing Christians who are leading and financing this whole manufactured controversy are really open to the possibility that it might have been space aliens and not Yahweh.

If you really believe any of that, I have some ocean-front property in Utah you might want to buy. Great surfing, trust me...

"What if I.D. could be proven?" Perhaps the only way to prove that would be to find either the Intelligent Designer or firm evidence of his (her, its) existence.

The better question is, is there a way to disprove ID? Because if there isn't, it's not a valid theory.

(Minor nitpick: "hypothesis" not "theory".)This is the key point when it comes to deciding whether or not ID belongs in the science text books, as anything other than as a negative example in the chapter on what is and is not science.

If you aren't willing to propose evidence that you would accept as proving your idea wrong, it's not science, it's speculation. Science isn't about proving things right, it's about trimming the deadwood, closing off blind alleys, and taking out the trash.

The history of science is littered with reasonable ideas, with good experimental evidence behind them, that ultimately proved wrong. (The luminiferous ether, for one.) They're still a part of science.

On the other hand, even if ID is right, if it can't meet this standard, even in principle, it's not a hypothesis, and isn't part of science.

There's another problem with ID I don't see discussed much. It dead-ends in a, ahem, irreducibly complex black box: The Creator's Brain. Where does God (forgive my short hand) keep his knowledge about building worlds and creating life? Where did that knowledge come from? What mechanisms translate his thoughts into deeds? Then there's the ancient question all children ask, if they're brave enough: where did God come from?

"OK, wise guy," I can hear some asking, "Where's evolution's brain?"

Fair enough: it's the totality of the biosphere. All living things keep the knowledge of immediate experience in the short-term memory of their bodies and brains; their DNA comprises the long-term storage of what works.

The biosphere learns, and it is that learning we call evolution.

Oh, and the furiousness of the anti-ID crowd? It arises from the frustration of outsiders trying, not to introduce new ideas or answers, but to take out a critical component of what makes science work as well as it does: the falsifiability filter. They realize that if ID gets through, without passing that test, there is almost nothing that can be kept out. Mere opinion will reign, and the whole enterprise will collapse. They're not just trying to keep invaders out of the castle; they're defending the very idea of the castle itself.

Appendices. Tonsils. Wisdom teeth.

The human body is full of what might be called legacy organs; things that we have because our ape-men ancestors used them to digest raw tubers and now we're stuck with them because it's much easier for evolution to produce new organs than to destroy existing ones.

The existence of useless organs is consistent with the theory of evolution. It is also consistent with a possible "stupid design hypothesis". It isn't consistent with any kind of intelligent design worthy of the name.

I wrote:
"Those who hate the very idea of a Creator, of a Supreme Being, inwardly hate the fact of their own being. No wonder they have such contempt for their own sexual longings, as we saw in a previous thread here. Tragic."

They so debase themselves that they equate themselves with monkeys!

RB: Aside from your ad hominem attacks on anyone who offers an opinion different from yours by calling them “IDiots”, it would be beneficial to remember that science doesn’t prove, it only disproves. So the whole argument, which is morphing into a question of God, is pointless because it cannot be refuted by science.
Asking many unfair questions about what ID cannot answer is just as pointless, as science cannot answer many questions as well, but we don’t give up on science.

The fact that scientific inquiry leads certain scientists toward a conclusion compatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview -- that intelligent causes were behind the creation of the universe and life -- does NOT disqualify them as scientists any more than the militant secularism of many Darwinists disqualifies them. No amount of protest and name-calling from the scientific community will change the fact that ID proponents are not pseudo-scientists.

The prestigious Russian biologist Vladimir L. Voeikov said, "The ideology and philosophy of neo-Darwinism, which is sold by its adepts as a scientific theoretical foundation of biology, seriously hampers the development of science and hides from students the field's real problems."

Chemist and five time Nobel nominee, Henry "Fritz" Schaefer of the University of Georgia, commented on the need to encourage debate on Darwin's theory of evolution. "Some defenders of Darwinism," says Schaefer, "embrace standards of evidence for evolution that as scientists they would never accept in other circumstances."

You might be surprised to learn that over 400 scientists from all disciplines have signed onto a list of those expressing skepticism "of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life." And that list is growing, despite the persecution of some signers since they signed it.

Signers of the statement questioning Darwinism came from throughout the US and from several other countries, representing biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, geology, anthropology and other scientific fields. Professors and researchers at such universities as Princeton, MIT, U Penn, and Yale.

Take a bacterial flagellum for example. “Each component in the flagellum alone is highly specialized in its function and it is highly unlikely that many of the components, if any at all, would have any preadaptive value. A subset of components would constitute a collection of superfluous parts which according to Darwinian theory should be eliminated by natural selection.” Each of those genes in their own right is complex and any small change in even one gene renders the whole thing pretty much useless. You have to have all the genes all at once for it to work, in other words, there are no intermediate steps. Darwinian theory cannot explain this biological structure.

Despite your desire to remove the title of “scientist” from anyone who does not bow to the Darwinian idol, there are many intelligent scientists who hold a different view and for valid scientific reasons.

“In concluding, it is important to realize that we are not inferring design from what we do not know, but from what we do know. We are not inferring design to account for a black box, but to account for an open box. A man from a primitive culture who sees an automobile might guess that it was powered by the wind or by an antelope hidden under the car, but when he opens up the hood and sees the engine he immediately realizes that it was designed. In the same way biochemistry has opened up the cell to examine what makes it run and we see that it, too, was designed.”

http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mm92496.htm

http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.02.Miller_Response.htm

The prestigious Russian biologist Vladimir L. Voeikov said, "The ideology and philosophy of neo-Darwinism, which is sold by its adepts as a scientific theoretical foundation of biology, seriously hampers the development of science and hides from students the field's real problems."

"Hampers the development of science" how specifically? I've heard no one saying that evolution hampers the search for a bird-flu vaccine, a cure for AIDS, or any other serious scientific enterprise.

Chemist and five time Nobel nominee, Henry "Fritz" Schaefer of the University of Georgia, commented on the need to encourage debate on Darwin's theory of evolution. "Some defenders of Darwinism," says Schaefer, "embrace standards of evidence for evolution that as scientists they would never accept in other circumstances."

There's debate going on all the time. The theory of evolution is constantly refined in the specifics, and reinforced in general, with each passing year. ID keeps on losing the debate, despite changing the names, as the blogs I referenced clearly show. Have you read them?

You might be surprised to learn that over 400 scientists from all disciplines have signed onto a list of those expressing skepticism "of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life." And that list is growing, despite the persecution of some signers since they signed it.

Those "400 scientists from all disciplines" are, as you just admitted, not all biologists (evolution is a mainstay of biology, not physics or astronomy or electrical engineering, remember?). Meanwhile, there are THOUSANDS of biologists who support evolution, and know from their own work that it is valid.

(Also, one of those 400, a devout Christian, defected from that list, admitting that ID was both bad science and bad religion.)

Oh, and another note: that non-specific claim of "persecution" is a pretty sure sign of a con-artist pretending to be a victim. When was the last time a real scientist was "persecuted" for offering a new idea?

Have you followed the Dover trial? The verdict isn't in yet, but those who followed it agree that the plaintiffs have indeed established that ID is nothing more than religion disguised as science. Behe himself admitted that the word "science" had to be redefined to include ID; he also admitted that his redefinition included astrology as well.

John P.: regarding your diversionary talk of "ad-hominem attacks," here's a letter from a creationist member of the Kansas State Board of "Education" that proves that creationists really are as stoopid as we say they are:

http://www.kcfs.org/standards05/Morris%20newsletter%206-05.pdf

If you make statements that are stupid or dishonest (and the above-cited letter has both), then your statements will be so labelled by those who see through them. This is not an ad-hominem attack; it's perfectly fair game.

I'm not surprised at the number of comments that this brief post on ID raised. . . people get emotional about this issue.

I hope that everyone, regardless of which side of the issue they are on, carefully reads the post by "refugee". It does a great job of explaining WHY many anti-ID folks are so passionate about their position. Read this paragraph, about the "falsifiability filter", again:

"If you aren't willing to propose evidence that you would accept as proving your idea wrong, it's not science, it's speculation. Science isn't about proving things right, it's about trimming the deadwood, closing off blind alleys, and taking out the trash."

THAT'S what gets anti-IDers so whipped up. . . the idea that pro-ID folks seem to be unwilling to say "Here's some specific points that seem to be the STRONGEST evidence for ID instead of evolution, points where the SIMPLEST COMPLETE explaination for biological reality is ID not evolution. If you anti-ID folks can use evolution to explain this reality in a way that is simpler and/or more complete than ID, I will be open to rethinking my position. I will not simply toss out OTHER points that I expect you to refute."

The core of the issue: What will it take, *specifically*, to convince you that evolution is a simpler, more complete explaination than ID?