A short quiz on Intelligent Design for both advocates and opponents of ID

_{Vincent Torley

August 11, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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1. On a scale of 0 (diehard disbeliever) to 10 (firm believer), how would you rate your level of belief in Intelligent Design? (Minimal Definition of Intelligent Design: The idea that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and not by an undirected process.)

Update: When I say “certain features”, I mean, “certain generic features of the universe-as-a-whole (e.g. constants of Nature) and of living things in general (e.g. the specified complexity of DNA”. When I say “an undirected process” I mean a process lacking long-range foresight.

2. What do you regard as the best argument for Intelligent Design?

3. What do you regard as the best argument against Intelligent Design?

4. I’d like you to think about the arguments for Intelligent Design. Obviously they’re not perfect. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective?

5. Now I’d like you to think about the arguments against Intelligent Design. Obviously they could be improved. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective?

6. (a) If you’re an ID advocate or supporter, what do you think is the least bad of the various alternatives that have been proposed to Intelligent Design, as explanations for the specified complexity found in living things and in the laws of the cosmos? (e.g. The multiverse [restricted or unrestricted?]; Platonism; the laws of the cosmos hold necessarily, and they necessarily favor life; pure chance; time is an illusion, so CSI doesn’t increase over time.)

(b) If you’re an ID opponent or skeptic, can you name some explanations for life and the cosmos that you would regard as even more irrational than Intelligent Design? (e.g. Everything popped into existence out of absolutely nothing; the future created the past; every logically possible world exists out there somewhere; I am the only being in the cosmos and the external world is an illusion requiring no explanation; only minds are real, so the physical universe is an illusion requiring no explanation.)

Some guidelines for answers:

Please try to keep your answers brief – no more than 200 words per question. Less than 50 would be ideal.

Anonymous responses are perfectly fine, and participants’ privacy will be fully respected.

I’m afraid I don’t have any prizes to offer. I’d just like to hear what people think.

If you have any further questions, or if you are unable to respond to the quiz online, then please feel free to email me. See my Web page.

Comments

1. 10 2. The fact that we know design is real in the human sphere at the very least, that we have awareness of our own minds and our own abilities to plan ahead to achieve goals, and the dramatic progress of human technology. It's less an argument than an observation that forms the core of most ID arguments. 3. "It's logically possible that everything has happened by chance and ultimately without cause." Arguments for evolution are not arguments against design. Arguments for common descent are not arguments against design. 4. ID proponents need to emphasize and highlight the accomplishments of known intelligent designers more, the trends of technological capability of humanity, etc. By all rights ID proponents should be more hopped up on talk like this than transhumanists and singularitarians, but for some reason next to no time is spent by ID proponents highlighting technological accomplishments and capabilities of known designers. 5. Not really applicable. 6a. See 3.nullasalus_{August 11, 2011
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Q1: 10. Q2: Non-Local Quantum Information being found on a massive scale in molecular biology. i.e. Quantum information is not reducible to a material basis PERIOD, and thus falsifies the materialistic framework of neo-Darwinism from within!!! Q3: With reality being shown to be Theistic in its basis, by quantum mechanics, there are, in reality, no arguments against ID, there are, in reality, only arguments as to which form of ID was implemented; Q4: I would like to see a more detailed elucidation of the 'hierarchy of information', from classical information, to epigentic information, to quantum information, that is within life. Q5: There are no true arguments against ID since reality is Theistic in its foundation. How do you improve something that is based on a lie as neo-Darwinism is??? Maybe some of the more hate filled neo-Darwinists could be kinder to us as they lie to our faces??? Q6: NAbornagain77_{August 11, 2011
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1. 10 2. Inference to the best explanation, includes specified complexity as comparison criteria between known designed objects and objects of unknown origin. (Not necessarily mathematical formulations of CSI, not a big fan.) 3. The T-urf13 example by Arthur Hunt OR the idea that variation could have been generated by super fast mutators such as HIV and used HGT to move novel genes throughout biology, including to organisms which could never have had the probabilistic resources required to generate novelty on their own. These fast mutators could be the source of specified complexity and transfer it to more "complex" organisms, driving evolution forward. 4. Arguments for ID could be improved by simply doing a lot more experiments modeled after Doug Axe's work. The more we test protein variability the more certain we can be of its limits. 5. Arguments against ID could be improved by experiments showing viruses can generate novel genes useful in other organisms and transfer those genes to other organisms. Experiments which show high protein sequence variability with retained function. 6. The idea that the designer hides his actions in the world behind QM. In other words there is a designer but his actions are undetectable. (QM is so strange and nobody really understands it, so it can usually be used to argue anything.)tragic mishap_{August 11, 2011
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Q1: 0. Q2: I have not come across a decent argument for ID. Q3: Most of the arguments presented for ID are so bad, that I count them as arguments against ID. Biodiversity is well explained by evolution. Origin of life is, as yet, unexplained, but it is better to leave it unexplained than to invent pseudo-explanations. Q4: ID proponents need to find ways of connecting their ideas with actual empirical data, and then they need to build a body of empirical data and see where it leads. Q5: We don't actually need arguments against ID. Rather, we should go where the evidence leads us. But we do need to argue against the use of politics to force bogus science into the curriculum. Q6(b): I can live with some things being unexplained. Hawking's ideas are interesting, but they are still only a speculative hypothesis, so we should remain skeptical.Neil Rickert_{August 11, 2011
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Okie dokie: 1. On a scale of 0 (diehard disbeliever) to 10 (firm believer), how would you rate your level of belief in Intelligent Design? (Minimal Definition of Intelligent Design: The idea that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and not by an undirected process.) --> 11 2. What do you regard as the best argument for Intelligent Design? -> Inference to best, observationally anchored explanation on empirically warranted signs of intelligence [includes CSI, FSCI, IC, and Functionally specific complex organisation] --> Note significance of the eqn emerging from the discussions a few months back: Chi_500 = I*S - 500, bits beyond the solar system threshold. --> Notice for 500 bits of complexity, the solar system size scope is equiv to a random walk picking 1 straw size sample from a cubical haystack a light month across, and to find a needle under such conditions would be utterly unreasonable even if there were many many needles in there. --> but intelligences routinely produce ASCII text beyond 72 characters in English, e.g. in this thread. 3. What do you regard as the best argument against Intelligent Design? --> IF an empirically reliable counter-instance to the above could be found, just as a perpetuuum mobile would shatter thermodynamics --> I have about as much expectation on either case, on the same basic grounds. 4. I’d like you to think about the arguments for Intelligent Design. Obviously they’re not perfect. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective? --> Further investigation on signs and the cases OOL, OO body plans, OO contingent cosmos --> I do not expect ID standing by itself to allow for identification of candidate designers, and convicting a prime suspect 5. Now I’d like you to think about the arguments against Intelligent Design. Obviously they could be improved. Exactly where do you think these arguments need the most work, to make them more effective? --> Find the required counter-example, instead of playing at red herrings and assumption games or misrepresentations 6. (a) If you’re an ID advocate or supporter, what do you think is the least bad of the various alternatives that have been proposed to Intelligent Design, as explanations for the specified complexity found in living things and in the laws of the cosmos? --> An infinite multiverse, if laws hold necessarily and force life, that is a strong sign of cosmological ID, i.e. a theory of everything would be an unacknowledged ID project (e.g. The multiverse [restricted or unrestricted?]; Platonism; the laws of the cosmos hold necessarily, and they necessarily favor life; pure chance; time is an illusion, so CSI doesn’t increase over time.) (b) If you’re an ID opponent or skeptic, can you name some explanations for life and the cosmos that you would regard as even more irrational than Intelligent Design? (e.g. Everything popped into existence out of absolutely nothing; the future created the past; every logically possible world exists out there somewhere; I am the only being in the cosmos and the external world is an illusion requiring no explanation; only minds are real, so the physical universe is an illusion requiring no explanation.) --> NA _________ GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{August 11, 2011
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1. 9 2. Best argument for ID is IC, not specified complexity. I like IC better because it is easier to understand, not because it is logically more sound. 3. I know this is not a scientific argument, and that it has been addressed but I still don't know why God would do it that way. Or any designer for that matter. I'd like to know that. 4. I'd like to see more refinement of IC so that we can apply it to artifacts that may or may not have been created by people and see if a neutral person can use IC to reliably tell the difference between natural and artificial things. 5. Why doesn't the designer just talk to us? Did he die? Disappear? Go back to planet x? 6. Maybe some sort of Platonism where life falls into cookie cutter life pattern. But it seems like SC would just be built into the universe. How did it get there? I give up.Collin_{August 11, 2011
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