Stephen Meyer on ID’s Scientific Bona Fides

_{William Dembski

July 13, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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Laugh for the day: (Then, weep for our civilisation, then pray, then get up and do something for the good . . . ) One of the latest materialist rants over at Youtube, courtesy a certain Mr Rainer:
So, in the whole vid, Meyer just ranting that the standard of science is too strict for his ID to get in, so please soften up. *boohoo, crybaby* And he lie about the same stringency will also cut evolution out. The? mechanism of evolution is known and testable (and tested!), but the mechanism of design is? not known, thus untestable.
Mr Rainer clearly has not bothered to do the basic homework to understand that he is dealing with a PhD level philosopher of science, and that there is a real demarcation issue that has come down to the impasse that there is no set of rules or specifications that are each necessary for and jointly sufficient to mark out science and scientific methods as unique and distinct form other fields of serious investigation of our world. (Onlookers, a useful 101 that sensitises on the issue is here. Unfortunately, this is exactly the sort of topic that one should not trust Wikipedia on, so though they have an article, it must be taken with a large grain of salt.) Worse, Rainer is utterly unconcerned to deal with the implications of imposed a priori evolutionary materialism that perverts science from being an unfettered but responsible investigation of the truth about our world on empirical evidence and reasoned discussion among the informed. He compounds all this by then resorting to slanderous accusations of lying. And, Mr Rainer is content to parrot how evolutionary mechanisms are tested. As in, shown capable of de noveo creation of the biological information to create novel body plans that require upwards of 10 mn new base pairs? I think not. (Minor population shifts in peppered moths have nothing to do with spontaneous origin of functionally specific complex biological information on the scale needed to account for macro-level evolution. This points to the defects of one of the classic bait and switch misleading icons of evolution.) By contrast, we know a lot about the fact that design exists and we have demonstrated cases where designers routinely produce FSCI at and beyond the relevant threshold. We even have some clues as to how designers work and produce their artifacts: software engineering and engineering are major disciplines. So, Mr Rainer has indulged an exercise in turnabout distractive false accusation and denigration. ___________ Youtube needs to look carefully at its comment policies, as it is plainly facilitating Internet vandalism by utterly irresponsible and destructive enemies of the common civil peace of justice. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 16, 2010
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A few notes: It seems Mr Burnett at least has come over. Mr Burnett: We are living in an era of ideologised science as documented by Richard Lewontin 13 years ago. In such an era of evolutionary materialist a priorism, "consensus" cannot be trusted. So, your appeal to consensus boils down to an inappropriate call for modesty in the face of claimed authority. It is also distractive and strawmannish, for the scientific nature of the intelligent design approach is readily apparent on simple inspection: 1 --> We routinely observe causal patterns in our world tracing to chance, mechanical necessity and/or art. 2 --> We notice that law-like necessity has peculiar signs: e.g. a dropped heavy object, reliably, falls at a certain rate near the earth's surface. Similarly, chance contingency has a characteristic statistically distributed, probabilistically controlled outcome: which face of a fair die will be uppermost. 3 --> By contrast, art often leads to complex, functionally specific organisation and associated information, e.g. posts in this thread. 4 --> So, we may readily identify a cluster of candidate generic signs of chance, necessity and design, and test them for reliability. 5 --> The test of natural regularity is sufficiently solid that this is a major occupation of the sciences. 6 --> Similarly, the field of statistics shows the utility of signs of chance. 7 --> Forensics, reverse engineering and other investigations that apply scientific methods to investigate art show how useful signs of intelligence are. And,t eh very existence of the vital field of information theory and e.g. the signal to noise ratio shows how useful quantitative signs of intelligence are. 8 --> It is readily seen that 1,000 or so bits worth of functionally specific complex information [config space 1.07*10^301 states, or about ten ties the SQUARE of the number of Planck time states of the 10^80 or so atoms of the observed universe across its thermodynamic lifetime] is a pretty good threshold where it is not empirically credible that chance could simply come across a functionally specific configuration. 9 --> So, this is a pretty reliable sign of intelligence, as the whole Internet is a good confirmation of. 10 --> So, when we see in the heart of the living cell, a complex functionally specific code and algorithm based information system that uses well beyond 1,000 bits of storage capacity to support metabolic action and self-replication, we have excellent grounds to infer scientifically that such an entity is an artifact of a technology. Gaz: The breeding of Pekinese is an exercise in ART-ificial selection. You know or should know that he argument made on that over at Youtube was that the origin of such cannot sufficiently be made, absent reckoning with that intervention of art, i.e design. And if you do not know that animal breeding is an art, then you are not ready for prime time. (Darwin, BTW, was a pigeon fancier and breeder of note.) As for distractive remarks on what Creationists may or may not have promised (who, when?), this is little more than a crude attempt at guilt by association with those who have already been successfully smeared; similar to the way that the false accusation "racist" is being tossed around like a live hand grenade these days. Design theory -- as the weak argument correctives you need to read and take seriously point out -- is simply not the same as Creationism. Period. If you keep on trying to make that fallacious association in the teeth of easily accessible corrective information [just like Engel et al at Youtube . . . ], that would only tell us that you are fundamentally intellectually dishonest. That ball is in your court. As tot he notion that pretty nearly any questions one may ask of ID cannot be answered, that is a fact of life about just about any endeavour worth trying. We are limited in what we know and any fool can ask more questions than the wisest scientists and philosophers can answer. On the pivotal question that ID sets out to answer on a scientific basis, the answer is plain: yes, there are empirically reliable signs of intelligence, and they highlight that certain key features of the natural world are best explained as artifacts of design. That is sufficient to effect a revolution in contemporary science, liberating it from the iron grip of ideological a priori evolutionary materialism and the sort of ruthless censorship that is becoming more and more evident. And, plainly, that is the real complaint of the sad ilk over at Youtube and elsewhere. For, they are in the grip of the sort of avant garde materialism that provides rhetorical cover for their amorality and abusive agendas: "the greatest right is might." As Plato warned against 2,300 years ago, the ruin of Athens at such hands being vividly stamped in his memory. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 16, 2010
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Clive Hayden (59), "From your many posts at UD, I can tell that bookshelf placement in bookstores, publishing affiliations, “larger numbers” and “consensus” are very important to you, which tells me that you let others do your thinking for you as to how you see things. I don’t. So yes, ID is scientific." I see what you are trying to say, but it doesn't really help the ID position. Larger numbers and consensus are often good pointers - though not infallible - to what is actually going on. Bear in mind also that in science it isn't just somoeone's opinion , it's their opinion based on the evidence, which is available to everybody else as well. Science is a discipline of human endeavour where people from all around the world - China, US, France, Cameroon, Laos, New Zealand, Paraguay, anywhere you care to think - can have the evidence, and come to the same conclusion based on it, without necessarily speaking to each other and often not even speaking the same languages. The general consensus is that ID hasn't yet come up with anyhting that could be called science. We don't even know the scope of it - what was designed and what wasn't designed? When were the first designs done? Did design stop? Pretty much any question you care to ask about ID can't be answered, and there's no indication of when we ever will get answers. I was hoping the Biologic Institute might get its teeth into it, but so far nothing that gets to the root of ID, only some tangential papers that may have a vague relation to the subject. It's all becoming reminiscent of the saga over baraminology, when Creationists said years ago (a decade?) they were going to come up with a list of created kinds, and since then nothing.Gaz_{July 16, 2010
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WJM (45), "What I find interesting is how the anti-ID advocates cannot even allow themselves to admit that humans employ ID, or as TDG points out, that the pekingese and genetically modified crops are factual, empirical examples of biological features that cannot be sufficiently explained without reference to human intelligent design." Not entirely correct - pekinese were selected for certain traits, not actually "designed" to have them as GM plants are. In other words: the dogs had random mutations and humans selected those dogs with the features (generated by random mutations) that appealed to humans. As I understand it, the ID position is that the genes themselves had to have been made by humans. Or am I wrong?Gaz_{July 16, 2010
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PaulBurnett,
…as determined by whom? (Other than Meyer, Dembski, Axe, Gauger, Marks and Behe.) Has the American Association for the Advancement of Science or the National Academy of Sciences or any other actual science organization changed their long-standing official position (which agrees with Phillip Johnson’s stated 2006 position) that ID is not science yet?
From your many posts at UD, I can tell that bookshelf placement in bookstores, publishing affiliations, "larger numbers" and "consensus" are very important to you, which tells me that you let others do your thinking for you as to how you see things. I don't. So yes, ID is scientific.Clive Hayden_{July 15, 2010
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When all we see from the Intelligent Design Creationists are arguments from incredulity, demonstrations of scientific illiteracy, and bogus probability calculations that have nothing to do with real? biological systems, ridicule is the only rational response. IDC is a joke.
And what stands opposed to "arguments from incredulity"? Arguments from credulity? Moreover, when have the Darwinistas ever done any of the probability calculations that are truly necessary to back their "theory"?Matteo_{July 15, 2010
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Clive Hayden (#31) wrote: "...working out a positive theory is exactly what the scientific people like Stephen Meyer, William Dembski, Doug Axe, Anne Gauger, Bob Marks and Michael Behe have done…" ...as determined by whom? (Other than Meyer, Dembski, Axe, Gauger, Marks and Behe.) Has the American Association for the Advancement of Science or the National Academy of Sciences or any other actual science organization changed their long-standing official position (which agrees with Phillip Johnson's stated 2006 position) that ID is not science yet?PaulBurnett_{July 15, 2010
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"CannuckianYankee" (#26) wrote: "Never mind, It looks like Paul Burnett, of all people, invited him here. You're welcome. I also wanted him here.PaulBurnett_{July 15, 2010
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KF,
"For, we HAVE found the crashed spacecraft and are decoding a bit of its software systems, i.e. the living cell."
I find this illustrative and inspiring! --------------------- Phaedros @51, I agree. I'd like to see some evolutionary calculations, and some gaps filled in: How many novel features are evolved per 1000 generation for Bacteria (novel organelles)? Should we expect to see multicellular life evolve from unicellular life, in 50 years, 100, 1000, 10,000? How many generations should it take for a ground creature to evolve wings, given advantageous survival considerations for each explicit step? How would, say, two dozen or so primary intermediate forms confer positive selective advantage? How many generations did the flagellum likely take to evolve, and what is a plausible and verifiable pathway from a no-flagellum bacterium? How many cellular systems would be affected for a plausible transitional path, which would need mutations of their own in order to support the generation of novel organelles? In other words, which systems would need to change simultaneously in order to support new intracellular features, visible to NS? How large is the target space for functional proteins' amino sequencing? For example: for a 400 amino chain, how many functional targets are likely present in that ~10^520 config space? How dense would targets need to be in the config space for blind search to move from one to another given limited probabilistic resources? How did protein sequencing and folding evolve? What putative intermediate forms would need to exist to move from self replicators in which protein sequencing and folding were not present, to those in which they were? Does the fact that organelles responsible for translating and transcribing DNA are also proteins whose sequences are encoded in DNA present any unique challenges for evolution? Since proteins that fold amino acids are themselves encoded, transcribed, sequenced, and folded, does this require some measure of extraordinary evolutionary development, and how might this paradox be explained? How did self-replication evolve? How would a life form that could not self-replicate evolve into one which could? What would be some examples of functional intermediates with survivability advantages? Pardon my ignorance of evolutuion, but since there are a plethora of gaps to fill in regarding evolutionary explanations of species diversity development, why use a gap filler like random mutations to explain them away? Sounds like a science stopper.Apollos_{July 15, 2010
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blustering and bluffing** provide*Phaedros_{July 15, 2010
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kairosfocos- Thank you for explaining it. I want this peson, Oakran (?), to answer a simple question. Is he just throwing words like "bogus" around to unfairly attack these calculations or does he have any good mathematical support for his assertion that they are both "bogus" and that they do not apply to real biological systems? In other words, if he can't back it up then he should be honest and admit that or his blustering bluffing should be called out. If he really wants to provided a "reasonable response" then he should be honest and say that he does not really know that they are "bogus" and cannot prove it.Phaedros_{July 15, 2010
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Phaedros: Pardon a few remarks. You are looking at people who don't pause to notice that the calculations used above are on configuration spaces and that a simple comparison is being made to the number of states the observable universe would scan across its thermodynamically credible lifespan. That simple comparison -- not a calculation [Evolutionary materialist objectors suddenly start to object to he standard Bernouilli-Laplace indifference principle routinely used in Information theory and in statistical thermodynamics and broader probability and statistics when it does not suit where they wish to go . . . ] -- makes it all too blatantly plain that the observable universe does not have the search resources to credibly get to an island of function on blind chance and necessity, once we pass the rule of thumb threshold we have used, 500 - 1,000 bits of information storage capacity. 1,000 bits is 125 bytes, and we are basically dealing with what is required to get to a von Neumann replicator, to BEGIN self-replicating life. Unless you have self-replication and metabolic capacity, you do not yet have life as we know it, and you cannot argue for differential reproductive success. For, reproduction is not happening yet. And 125 bytes is manifestly vastly too small a storage capacity for a self-replicator. (Life forms start out at 100 - 500 kbases, i.e over 100 times the threshold!] In short, the still warm ponds, undersea vents and comets, etc are non-starters so that there is no credible root for the Darwinian tree of life; and indeed the metabolism firsters and genes firsters have ended up in mutual refutation. (Ever wondered why Darwinists so often insist that OOL is not part of their theory?) Then when it comes to getting new body plans, a comaparison of the 1 mn bases or so for a reasonable unicellular form, and the 10's - 100's of millions in typical multicellular body plans, tells us the problem just got compounded. Actually, exponentiated. In short, the Cambrian life revolution where dozens of body plans pop up in the record without credible antecedents, puts a solid roadblock: top level first, and the required explosion of bioinformation vastly exceeds the resources of our cosmos. Dozens of times over, 10s of millions of bases of novel bioinfo, and ont he usual timeline, in a 5 - 10 mn year window (not that 4.5 BN years would make a significant difference). To distract attention from those sorts of unmet challenges, too many Darwinist advocates try instead to indulge in distractive turnabout accusations. So, probability calculations routinely used in information theory [cf my notes here] are suddenly suspect and unacceptable. Selective hyperskepticism. If you want to get a feel for what is going on try my thermodynamically tinged discussion here, which scales down Sir Fred Hoyle's tornado in a junkyard to quasi molecular scale. read the context for more. (And, Darwinist objectors too often have the gall to try to dismiss a holder of a Nobel Equivalent prize on his thermodynamics and related probability calculations! News for such objectors: Sir Fred may be wrong on a technical subject [e.g. Steady State cosmology], but he isn't blundering simplistically, and he is going to teach you some lessons along the way. Learn a little respect, Wikipedia!!! For shame!) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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"bogus probability calculations that have nothing to do with real? biological systems" I'd really like to see this statement argued and supported otherwise this guy should stop using it.Phaedros_{July 15, 2010
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Oakram again:
"Ridicule is? never a rational response." When all we see from the Intelligent Design Creationists are arguments from incredulity, demonstrations of scientific illiteracy, and bogus probability calculations that have nothing to do with real? biological systems, ridicule is the only rational response. IDC is a joke.
1 --> Again, he begins with a slanderous false accusation intended to achieve guilt by association. As he could learn from the Weak Argument Correctives (or simply by asking he Creationists) Design theory is not to be equated with Creationism as currently understood. 2 --> Al we see are . . . Is of course false, and a strawman distortion in the teeth of easily accessible corrective information. (Remember Engel's refusal to simply read SITC, on the handiest slander-laced excuse.) What has been discussed is an inference to best explanation on known, observed signs of intelligence [that is, an appeal to what we do know, not to incredulity], supported by the problem of searching for specific targets in a vast config space on the gamut of resources of the observed universe. Let us put it directly: we routinely observe the source of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information, e.g. posts in this thread: intelligence. 3 --> Demonstrations of scientific illiteracy is a deliberate personal insult, to one who holds graduate level qualifications int he sciences, and who has successfully taught same at High School and College levels. This is a case of insistence on a lie, for the incorrect claim was already corrected, not just for myself, but for Dr Puccio and others, including a great many who are highly qualified in the sciences. Repeating a lie in the teeth of correction, is an even worse offence. 4 --> The objector has not even paused to understand the difference between analysing the scope of a configuration space and then showing how a search that would use up the resources of the observable universe would not begin to scratch its surface, and a probability calculation. (Not to mention, the "bogus" probability calculations he objects to are essentially those used to ground say the statistical form of the second law of thermodynamics.) 5 --> As the asserted irrelevance of such search space challenges to biology, the point is that the DNA for a given life form is highly specific. But, for a DNA strand of length n, the number of possible 4-state configs is 4^n, ie, 4 * 4 * 4 . . . n times over. So, for a dna of just 500,000 bases [towards the bottom end of the viable life form range], we have a space of 9.9 * 10^301,029. The whole observed universe of 10^80 atoms or so, changing state every Planck time, would access something like 10^150 states across its thermodynamically credible lifespan. So, the cosmos is not going to be able to credibly BEGIN to search the relevant space. 6 --> So, what is really goig on is that, having failed to address the issue ont he merits, Oakram resorts to red herring distractors led out to strawman caricatures soaked in denigratory dismissals, which he lights up to try to cloud, confuse, polarise and poison the atmosphere. 7 --> So, the "joke" is not as he imagines. Ridicule, then, is not his rational response, it is his retort to the patent reduction to absurdity of Oakram's favoured theories on the origin of the cosmos and of life including our own, once the issue of the credible explanation for the origin of complex, functionally specific bio information is on the table. A sad spectacle. But one that tells us much about what has gone wrong with our civilisation, and points out what we need to do to begin to correct the rot before it is too late. G'day. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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07: Design theory studies signs of intelligence, and on the grounds of identifiable markers of chance necessity and intelligence, infers from sign to signified. Consequently, it has concluded that certain features of the natural world are best explained -- per the above considerations -- as the product of art, as opposed to blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. Since the living cell shows abundant signs of design [discrete codes, storage media used to control processes that are algorithmic, associated machinery, organisation, synchronisation and information . . . ], we may conclude that it is designed. A heaped pile of rocks at the foot of a hill may have been designed, but because its features are easily explained on the hypothesis of an avalanche, i.e. chance + necessity, it would infer the best explanation (absent further evidence) of such a rock pile would be chance plus necessity. For we don't need more than that to account for it. (Just like Paley's rock in a field. By contrast, the self-replicating watch that Paley envisioned in Ch II of his book, would SCREAM design. A cell is far more sophisticated than a watch, and its metabolic and replication mechanisms are integrated in a complex information system.) But if the hill were on the Welsh border and we were to see stones arranged to say Welcome to Wales, we would infer that the arrangement is most likely designed. Even though the particular config is a possible result of chance and necessity. (Cf my discussion of lucky nose in App 8 my always linked notes). In short we see inference to best explanation as a matter of empirically based warrant in action. Is everything designed? Possible. Is everything blind chance and necessity? Possible. But, what are the relevant signs and where do they point on a best reasonable explanation basis . . . ? At another level, some designs use chance processes as a component. Yes, but if the design leaves behind markers that point to design, then we are still warranted to infer to design. Finally, the cosmos shows fine tuning, and that points to the physics of the cosmos being set up to found a universe that supports carbon chemistry cell based life. But that does not mean that there are not a lot of specific processes that are necessity and/or law. As to specific mechanisms of design, the first thing is that in a quantum world with sensitively dependent nonlinear dynamical processes at macro levels, the Laplace perfect clockwork cosmos is a non-starter. So, any cosmos-generating program would have to have control elements integrated into it, it won't just start form an initial point and roll and snowball downhill from there. Life probably has front-loading in it as a sort of neo-Lamarckian mechanism where there are robust responses to radical environmental shifts or niches. (Some of that is by a pretty well observed mechanism. When multiple genes contribute to an effect, isolation of sub populations will lead to breeds that can be quite diverse, e.g people and dogs.) Some of it will be small-d darwinian, i.e. small random changes allow wandering around within islands of function, i.e populations of malaria parasites can do a few mutations to resist selection pressure by new drugs. But, at a global fitness cost, similar to hospital superbugs and insect resistance to insecticides etc. And so on. But that does not explain where body plans came from. That could be in part front loaded, and in part guided or initiated or even injected by viri etc. Mechanism is an interesting speculation and onward investigation. So is whodunit. But, such are secondary to the issue of grounding inference to design on empirically reliable signs thereof. We need to confidently know that design before we can focus on who and how, then reverse engineer. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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I have some questions that continue to puzzle. Does ID hold that some things (eg the cell) are designed, and some things are not designed? Or is everything designed? Did the designer create the the forces we observe around us and then leave them to do their thing (therefore introducing an element of randomness, or non-design into the process)or is the process controlled every step of the way?zeroseven_{July 15, 2010
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Looks like the "game" over at Youtube is winding down.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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WJM: You are plainly right.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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What I find interesting is how the anti-ID advocates cannot even allow themselves to admit that humans employ ID, or as TDG points out, that the pekingese and genetically modified crops are factual, empirical examples of biological features that cannot be sufficiently explained without reference to human intelligent design. Unless one is going to argue that a finding that some such feature likely required such teleological intelligence (even lacking known human designers) cannot be rigorously exculpated from the evidence, then there is simply no rational reason to deny that ID is both a scientific fact and theory. The alternative, as TDG points out, is that we must eternally try to explain any alien spacecraft or artifact in terms of unintelligent (natural) forces. This is indicative of the absurd lengths that anti-ID advocates will go to avoid examining ID via basic logic; they cannot answer simple questions in a straightforward manner, because they know they will not be able to escape the inevitable conclusions.William J. Murray_{July 15, 2010
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Worth adding: TDG's onward reply: _______________ >> TDG: Let's say we find what appears to be an abandoned alien spacecraft on an otherwise desolate planet. By what rigorous, scientific methdology could we determine that the artifact was indeed the product of some alien intelligence? According to many here, there is no (and can be no) such rigorous means and, unless we appeal to intuition, we must? be regulated to trying? to find non-intelligent (natural) explanations for the object - regardless of what mechanisms we find inside.>> ______________ The reductio ad absurdum of evolutionary materialist a priorism is evident. For, we HAVE found the crashed spacecraft and are decoding a bit of its software systems, i.e. the living cell.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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PPS: This exchange is symptomatic: ___________ >> TDG: @wpengel "There is every reason to assume we are? the only intelligence in the universe? capable, other than dolphins; because we have no evidence that suggests? there are other intelligences out there. " Lack of evidence that a thing exists is not evidence that a thing doesn't exist. Unless one is going to? make a case that intelligence is somehow unique to humans (and dolphins), there is no reason to assume there are no other forms of intelligence. Engel: @ThreeDivineGifts "Lack of evidence that a thing exists is not evidence that? a thing doesn't exist." That's exactly what it is and why ID fails, you cannot prove Intelligent Design in Biology or in the Universe itself (part of your definition). And despite your attempts to avoid admitting it your theory does require an Intelligent Designer on a cosmic scale. ? You are proposing a theory based on nothing but inference and wishful thinking. @ThreeDivineGifts "Lack of evidence that a thing exists is not evidence that? a thing doesn't exist." That's exactly what it is and why ID fails, you cannot prove Intelligent Design in Biology or in the Universe itself (part of your definition). And despite your attempts to avoid admitting it your theory does require an Intelligent Designer on a cosmic scale. ? You are proposing a theory based on nothing but inference and wishful thinking. >> _________________ TDG is pointing out that we have no good grounds for limiting the circle of possible intelligences tot he circle of those we have already observed. For the sake of argument he accepts that there is no [direct?] evidence of other intelligences just now, and observes that our finitude, fallibility and the progressive nature of our knowledge means that we cannot close our minds to indirect evidence of intelligence, on empirically reliable sign. Engel, who already found any handy slander-filled excuse to refuse to inspect a serious presentation of actual evidence for such design, then commits precisely the fallacy TDG warned against. He has also failed to learn the lesson Newton taught in 1704 in Opticks, Query 31: inductively based knowledge claims are provisional and subject to correction in light of further evidence. For, that is what he nature of things forces. So, proof beyond all doubt on set premises acceptable to all is simply not on the cards, once we address the world of experiences. In short, selective hyperskepticism rears its head. But it has nothing to do with what has plainly long since been shown: we observe causes tracing to chance, necessity and intelligence or art. We see that each has characteristic signs that may be empirically investigated using generally scientific and certainly responsible approaches, yielding results that are comparably trustworthy and useful as in science as a whole and many other fields of consequential endeavour. When we do so, cell based life shows strong signs of being designed, and so does our cosmos. But that is utterly repugnant to the evolutionary materialist establishment, and it seems ludicrous to those they have indoctrinated. But to reject the evidence, they have had to resort to inconsistencies, via selectively hyperskeptical fallacies, which again tells us that we are on the right track. For, those who reject are forced to be inconsistently skeptical between what they wish to accept and what they try to reject. Such an intellectual double standard is all too revealing on the evolutionary materialist a priorism that was already pointed out above.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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PS: A measure of what is going on in the Youtube thread. This by TDG, was flagged as "spam," plainly by a censorship-minded evolutionary materialist Internet vandal:
This has been flagged as spam show hide @wpengel: "Saying that human's use Intelligent Design does not prove that anything does. " Are you saying humans do not intelligently design things? @wpengel "Your words, by this I guess you mean? that we can assume there is an Intelligent? Designer. Are we to assume there is evidence for the Intelligent Designer as well?" Humans are intelligent designers. Are you claiming that humans do? not intelligently design things?
TDG is dead right: the known existence of human beings who design things with intelligence and purpose proves that such are possible as causes. Further, on evidence -- cf 5 above in this thread -- inferring from empirically reliable signs of intelligence to acts of intelligence as their cause, is an act of reasonable induction. One that is prior to the question of the identity and nature of the particular designer implicated. It is to be noted thsat in the case of life, right from the outset of the modern design movement in The Mystery of Life's Origin, 1984, it has been well understood and publicly pointed out that identifying carbon chemistry, informational macromolecule using cell based life as credibly a technology is not grounds for inferring the identity or nature of the source of that technology. It is the level of the finetuning and complex functional organisation of the observed cosmos that the candidacy of an intelligence that is beyond our cosmos becomes a relevant consideration. And, since the design of the cosmos facilitates and is fine tuned for life, it is then plausible to argue that the intelligence behind the cosmos is the intelligence behind life as we observe it. but, such a wider argument (important as it is) is a worldview level argument, not a scientific one, strictly speaking. The vandalism exerted against TDG is all too revealing, all too sadly so.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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PS: Discovery Institute's rebuttal to the scare-mongering and strawman-ising on the Wedge Document is here.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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Onlookers: Sigh . . . Oakram, 33 mins ago, Youtube:
Review the history of the Intelligent Design Creationism movement, from the Wedge? document through the Dover trial and the rampant and obvious scientific illiteracy demonstrated at "premiere" IDC sites like Uncommon Descent? and you'll find that ridicule is the only rational response. IDCers certainly aren't willing to learn about science.
1 --> Starts with slanderous namecalling intended to project guilt by association in the teeth of easily ascertainable facts. Design theory is not Creationism, as can easily be shown, and as is shown in the weak argument correctives that this commenter ignores in his rush to spread a slanderous falsehood. Unwillingness to acknowledge such a basic and easily accessible fact shows a truthfuloness-challenged status. Credibility shot in the foot coming out the start gate. 2 --> Since I am an obvious focus of the slanders, I can speak on my behalf: I have a triple major science first degree and a graduate degree in the sciences. Many other mere commenters have similar qualifications, and the leading design theorists are by and large graduate trained in the sciences and other relevant fields, many holding doctorates. So, the cheap Parthian shot that design thinkers are not willing to learn about science is blatantly false and defamatory. Our sin is that we will not swallow materialist censorship of science that frustrates it from being an unfettered, responsible pursuit of the truth about our world based on empirical studies and reasoned discussion. For that, we face slander and career busting. 3 --> As to the notion that I and others are scientific illiterates, that falls of its own weight as an outright lie in the teeth of obvious facts to the contrary. 4 --> Oakram owes me and others an apology for slander. Not that I expect such to have the decency to respond to standards of civil conduct and even basic broughtupcy as we call it here in the Caribbean. 5 --> The Wedge document is of course routinely distorted into a claimed theocratic agenda. Just look above folks to see the real, evolutionary materialistic agenda and censorship that are being exposed and corrected, and that in large part on building a new scientific research programme, design theory; which is what the Wedge document proposed. (Wikipedia's domination by ideological materialists makes it utterly unreliable on this subject. As for the Darwinist advocacy sites that are obviously being used as a basis for comments as cited, the Weak Argument Correctives are enough to show their fundamental inaccuracy, unreliability and in some cases, frankly, blatant dishonesty.) 4 --> Judge Jones' decision, insofar as it spoke to Design Theory first is a blind copy of a post trial submission by the ACLU/NSCE complete with gross and slanderous blunders of fact. Methodological naturalism is not the centuries old definition/rule of science. ID-friendly papers have long been published in peer reviewed literature (and Judge Jones had a stack of such papers submitted to him in the trial), Scott Minnich testified to ID research right there in open court, and more. 5 --> So the resort to personal attack and attempted ridicule in the teeth of evident facts shows itself for what it is: an implicit admission that the balance on the merits is on the other side. 6 --> No wonder those who so gleefully spread falsehoods and slanders as cited above are unwilling to come over and defend their record in a forum where facts and reasoning can be adduced at reasonable length. (And observe, in the course of the past 24 hours, how the design side focussed on facts and evidence and those who tried to trash Mr Meyer have tried to distract, distort, demonise denigrate and dismiss.) _________ A sad commentary on the true state of civil discourse on important matters in our civilisation today. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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Just to add weight to the argument, this is hot off the press: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10598926 It says that plants signal, remember, compute and use encripted information. Exatly what one would expect when unintelligent, unguided natural processes are given enough time :)Alex73_{July 15, 2010
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F/N: P Burnett at Youtube, 7 hrs ago: ". . . the fight against the scientific illiteracy and willful ignorance of intelligent design creationism." This is of course exactly a case of slanderous, false accusatory willful ignorance that design theory and Biblical Creationism (what is usually meant by "Creationism") are not at all the same. I suggest Mr Burnett needs to read the weak argument correctives 1 - 8, top right. And then, he needs to consider Ms Scott's record in the case of Dr Sternberg and other similar incidents, and think again about just what the "fight" he so lauds is, and how it proceeds: suppression of unwelcome truth by resort to the nastiest forms of personal attack, unjustified career busting and willful misrepresentation of the truth and the right.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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Pardon duplication, please remove.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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Weird reaction at UD to submission. Trying again: Gaz: Years ago, Wm A Dembski pointed to TRIZ as a key illustration of the dynamics of technological evolution. (And if the root of biology is a technology, then technology evolution is a very relevant consideration for biology. The same would hold for cosmology. On this view, science is a form of reverse engineering, a view that dominated from Bacon, before the days of Newton; to the days of Einstein.) Remember, design theory is an information/organisation origination theory, and as such it does not have the same zone of applications as Darwinian Evolution. It is for instance in principle applicable to cryptanalysis, steganography etc. So, there are multiple fronts for ID to advance on, including identification of design (as opposed to natural patterns manifesting effects of chance and mechanical necessity), identification of dynamics of technological evolution [with applications to tech futures markets and investing . . . ], and of course systematisation of identification of most credible agent responsible for a given instance of intelligent action [i.e. an onward systematisation of forensics]. All of these can be and are being developed on an empirical, scientific evidence basis, some under the name ID, others, not. Again, the key issue is the centrality of seeking, discovering and validating of truth about our world based on empirical evidence to science. Once truth is seen as central, evolutionary materialistic censorship of scientific investigations will be exposed as utterly unjustifiable. A capital illustration of that censorship is of course the notorious remarks by Lewontin in his review of Sagan's The Demon-haunted World, in the January 1997 NYRB: __________ >> . . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [NB: this is self-refuting, as the claim that science is the only begetter of truth is a philosophical claim to truth] . . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [“Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997. >> ___________ One who assumes evolutionary materialism as an a priori like that, has abandoned the open minded, empirically based search for truth and has instead taken science captive to an ideology. Which is precisely what Mr Engel et al have shown us so plainly over at Youtube. Prof Philip Johnson's rebuke is apt and well-deserved:
For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them "materialists employing science." And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence. That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." . . . . The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [Emphasis added.] [The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]
It is time to set the philosophical house in order, so that science can be freed from ideological captivity to evolutionary materialism. When the materialistic blinkers are taken off, it will at once be obvious that, whatever the outcome at length, the question of whether one may identify and develop a theory of signs of intelligence is obviously -- and even self-evidently -- a scientific issue. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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Gaz: Years ago, Wm A Dembski pointed to TRIZ as a key illustration of the dynamics of technological evolution. (And if the root of biology is a technology, then technology evolution is a very relevant consideration for biology. The same would hold for cosmology. On this view, science is a form of reverse engineering, a view that dominated from Bacon, before the days of Newton; to the days of Einstein.) Remember, design theory is an information/organisation origination theory, and as such it does not have the same zone of applications as Darwinian Evolution. It is for instance in principle applicable to cryptanalysis, steganography etc. So, there are multiple fronts for ID to advance on, including identification of design (as opposed to natural patterns manifesting effects of chance and mechanical necessity), identification of dynamics of technological evolution [with applications to tech futures markets and investing . . . ], and of course systematisation of identification of most credible agent responsible for a given instance of intelligent action [i.e. an onward systematisation of forensics]. All of these can be and are being developed on an empirical, scientific evidence basis, some under the name ID, others, not. Again, the key issue is the centrality of seeking, discovering and validating of truth about our world based on empirical evidence to science. Once truth is seen as central, evolutionary materialistic censorship of scientific investigations will be exposed as utterly unjustifiable. A capital illustration of that censorship is of course the notorious remarks by Lewontin in his review of Sagan's The Demon-haunted World, in the January 1997 NYRB: __________ >> . . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [NB: this is self-refuting, as the claim that science is the only begetter of truth is a philosophical claim to truth] . . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [“Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997. >> ___________ One who assumes evolutionary materialism as an a priori like that, has abandoned the open minded, empirically based search for truth and has instead taken science captive to an ideology. Which is precisely what Mr Engel et al have shown us so plainly over at Youtube. Prof Philip Johnson's rebuke is apt and well-deserved:
For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them "materialists employing science." And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence. That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." . . . . The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [Emphasis added.] [The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]
It is time to set the philosophical house in order, so that science can be freed from ideological captivity to evolutionary materialism. When the materialistic blinkers are taken off, it will at once be obvious that, whatever the outcome at length, the question of whether one may identify and develop a theory of signs of intelligence is obviously -- and even self-evidently -- a scientific issue. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 15, 2010
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Gaz said: But what they haven’t done is come up with any mechanism for ID. Until they do that, ID won’t be taken seriously in the scientific community. Of course they have; the putative "intelligent designer" uses the same materials and forces (i.e., "mechanisms") that are otherwise described as the lawful and random interactions of the materials present, only it does so purposefully - teleologically. Your strange challenge is like claiming that no "mechanism" has been offered for how computers or battleships come into existence; it is via a purposeful manipulation of materials and forces that otherwise cannot, on their own, construct the artifact in question.William J. Murray_{July 15, 2010
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