Stephen Meyer on ID’s Scientific Bona Fides

_{William Dembski

July 13, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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Gaz, What your write is the usual excuse the Darwinist scientists use. Darwinism is indeed an all-encompassing theory that attempt to explain the biological diversity around us. It does have a proposed mechanism and natural history deeply embedded into the basic idea. ID, on the other hand, states that it is possible to distinguish between natural causes and patterns that intelligent agents leave behind, and it is strikingly true for biology and cosmology. ID, consequently, opposes the very mechanism behind Darwinism, but does not offer in itself an alternative world history. It also does not tell us what methods the Designer used at the drawing board or in the lab. However, we can still tell that radio signals were sent by intelligent agents even if we do not know who they are or what they are trying to tell us. Just ask anyone at Seti... Yes, I understand that ID in itself would create a mighty vacuum for some in natural history, but just because Darwinist evolution gives cosy feeling for some people we cannot ignore that it is completely bankrupt at its very core. And by the way, what do you say when someone asks for a detailed, step-by-step, mutation-by-mutation explanation for the natural formation of the flagellum? More research is needed? Well, then remove this double standard and allow others also to do some "more research"!Alex73_{July 15, 2010
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Clive Hayden (31), "Ummm, 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…." 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.Gaz_{July 15, 2010
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PaulBurnett,
There is no intelligent design theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove…
Ummm, 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....Clive Hayden_{July 15, 2010
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Onlookers: Mr Engel has now presented the sad spectacle of one who loudly demands evidence for the scientific grounds of design theory and thought, then when presented with a current summary of such evidence, finds the first slanderous side track he can to avoid the evidence. CY's call to him to take the time to do his homework is entirely in order. If he does not have a copy of SITC handy, I suggest that there is now more than enough material online for him to learn the other side of the story, e.g. through IDEA center (assuming him to be of HS/General audience level). My own beta form independent survey course, here, may also be useful, as well as the weak argument correctives and glossary top right this and every UD page. Of course clicking on my handle -- accessible through every comment I have ever made at UD -- will lead Mr Engel to my online research notes on the subject. But also, since he tried to trash the PBSW paper, it is worth pausing to give a key summarising excerpt of its main argument, from my research notes, section C, on the roots of body plan level biodiversity: ____________ >> The Cambrian explosion represents a remarkable jump in the specified complexity or "complex specified information" (CSI) of the biological world. For over three billions years, the biological realm included little more than bacteria and algae (Brocks et al. 1999). Then, beginning about 570-565 million years ago (mya), the first complex multicellular organisms appeared in the rock strata, including sponges, cnidarians, and the peculiar Ediacaran biota (Grotzinger et al. 1995). Forty million years later, the Cambrian explosion occurred (Bowring et al. 1993) . . . One way to estimate the amount of new CSI that appeared with the Cambrian animals is to count the number of new cell types that emerged with them (Valentine 1995:91-93) . . . the more complex animals that appeared in the Cambrian (e.g., arthropods) would have required fifty or more cell types . . . New cell types require many new and specialized proteins. New proteins, in turn, require new genetic information. Thus an increase in the number of cell types implies (at a minimum) a considerable increase in the amount of specified genetic information. Molecular biologists have recently estimated that a minimally complex single-celled organism would require between 318 and 562 kilobase pairs of DNA to produce the proteins necessary to maintain life (Koonin 2000). More complex single cells might require upward of a million base pairs. Yet to build the proteins necessary to sustain a complex arthropod such as a trilobite would require orders of magnitude more coding instructions. The genome size of a modern arthropod, the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, is approximately 180 million base pairs (Gerhart & Kirschner 1997:121, Adams et al. 2000). Transitions from a single cell to colonies of cells to complex animals represent significant (and, in principle, measurable) increases in CSI . . . . In order to explain the origin of the Cambrian animals, one must account not only for new proteins and cell types, but also for the origin of new body plans . . . Mutations in genes that are expressed late in the development of an organism will not affect the body plan. Mutations expressed early in development, however, could conceivably produce significant morphological change (Arthur 1997:21) . . . [but] processes of development are tightly integrated spatially and temporally such that changes early in development will require a host of other coordinated changes in separate but functionally interrelated developmental processes downstream. For this reason, mutations will be much more likely to be deadly if they disrupt a functionally deeply-embedded structure such as a spinal column than if they affect more isolated anatomical features such as fingers (Kauffman 1995:200) . . . McDonald notes that genes that are observed to vary within natural populations do not lead to major adaptive changes, while genes that could cause major changes--the very stuff of macroevolution--apparently do not vary. In other words, mutations of the kind that macroevolution doesn't need (namely, viable genetic mutations in DNA expressed late in development) do occur, but those that it does need (namely, beneficial body plan mutations expressed early in development) apparently don't occur.6 >> ____________ Let us see what Mr Engel has to say on the merits. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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Cable: Thanks, deeply appreciated. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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CY: Mr Engel plainly, sadly, does not wish to face inconvenient truth, evidence and argument. So, he finds the first slander-loaded excuse he can find to avoid having to deal with what is now emerging as a leading presentation of the case for Design thought in science. Then, he resorts to parrotting talking points that are often dishonest at source, based on slanderous caricatures and deliberately weakened forms of the actual case for design. (The leading anti-ID advocates know or should know better so -- pardon a few frank words -- they are morally responsible for the misleading and polarising rhetoric they so brazenly spew forth. I suggest a reading of the weak argument correctives top, right hand side this and every page at UD, as a first corrective. Unfortunately, straightening out misconceptions and distortions is very hard. Which is precisely what is being exploited by those leading evolutionary materialist advocates, who are teaching what they should know is misleading and polarising error.) In fact, one may find out the rest of the story here. On the controversy, regarding the PBSW paper in question, on an OSC special investigation, was found to have passed "proper peer review," by "renowned scientists." It was published with adjustments after that review. Mr Sternberg, on a clear harassing effort initiated by the NCSE and perpetuated through several officers at the Smithsonian, was subjected to the worst kind of unjust career busting. Unfortunately, peculiarities of his employment circumstances meant that the case could not be properly prosecuted as an administrative/legal matter. Ms Scott et al have a lot to answer for. A lot. After this shameful episode, which included things like false accusations of being a thief [change our locks . . . !] etc, the BSW executed an obviously political retraction of the paper. So, Mr Engel is indulging in the sad tactics of blaming the victim and refusing to listen to what the accused has to say in his defence. Kangaroo court tactics, in short. In addition, he has used the tactic of the distractive red herring, led out to the strawman soaked in slanderous misrepresentations, ignited to cloud, confuse, polarise and poison the atmosphere, frustrating following up the clues that point down the track of the truth. This all too common rhetorical resort of evolutionary materialistic advocates and fellow travellers is utterly cynical and dishonest. Mr Engel, when you stand up to declaim on an important matter in public, you have a duty of care to do your homework, and to be fair and accurate in your representations of those you oppose and what they have to say, as well as their underlying evidence. Mr Engel therefore should be ashamed of himself, but he may very well be following the worldview that -- as Plato pointed out 2300 years ago in The Laws Bk X -- radically relativises one's approach to both knowledge and morality, ending up in the utterly inexcusable and indefensible, destructive notion that "the highest right is might": ___________ >>Ath. . . . [The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only. [In short, evolutionary materialism premised on chance plus necessity acting without intelligent guidance on primordial matter is hardly a new or a primarily "scientific" view! Note, as he introduces the discussion, Plato is careful to subtly distance himself from the peculiar myths of the gods in Athens, hinting at a concept that approaches ethical Monotheism while being careful not to cross the lines that Socrates did] . . . . [Thus, they hold that t]he Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [Relativism, too, is not new.] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might, and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions, these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others, and not in legal subjection to them . . . >> ____________ In addition, there is a growing list of peer-reviewed (and peer-edited, the older approach that has worked for centuries) works in the scientific literature from an ID perspective. And of course, the revelations of the Climate gate scandal (and the cover-ups and whitewashes that are passing under the names of being investigations) are telling us much the same: something is radically wrong with the state of early C21 institutional science, science-based policy advocacy, formal science education and popular science education and journalism. Something that we had better correct now, or face horrendous consequences. Just as Plato warned, 2300 years ago. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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@kairosfocus Okay I linked to it. You are not allowed links so used tinyurl and replaces used 'DOT' instead of '.'Cable_{July 14, 2010
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Never mind, It looks like Paul Burnett, of all people, invited him here. wpengel, if you're reading this and the above post, I suggest that you read SITC without your bias shades on. On YouTube you keep asking for the evidence, but apparently that's not what you're really looking for. If so, I think you could tolerate Meyer's writing despite the alleged lies. Read it for the argument, rather than ignore it in light of the negativity that has been hashed out against Meyer by his opponents.CannuckianYankee_{July 14, 2010
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KF, I tried to post on youtube for wpengel to come here. Unfortunately, for some reason my posts don't work. Just for your information, here's what wpengel stated about SITC: "Sorry, tried to read it but couldn't get past the massive dishonesty in the introduction when he lies about the publishing of his paper in The Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. If you can't be honest I'm not reading anything you have to say.?" So he doesn't even read the important literature. How can we expect that he's getting the right information?CannuckianYankee_{July 14, 2010
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Meyer apparently disagrees with Phillip Johnson, who is quoted as saying: "I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s comparable. Working out a positive theory is the job of the scientific people that we have affiliated with the movement. Some of them are quite convinced that it’s doable, but that’s for them to prove… No product is ready for competition in the educational world." – quoted by Michelangelo D’Agostino in an article, "In the matter of Berkeley v. Berkeley," Berkeley Science Research, 10, Spring 2006 (http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/articles.php?issue=10&article=evolution) So if intelligent design is scientific, as Meyer claims, when exactly (since 2006) did it become "scientific"?PaulBurnett_{July 14, 2010
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Oh right. Thanks. :)Phaedros_{July 14, 2010
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It's the Type III Secretory System. Hence, TTSS. ;)tragic mishap_{July 14, 2010
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PS: The Youtube thread is now descending into dishonest namecalling and spouting of Darwinist talking points as though they are gospel truth. Sad, but predictable.kairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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Also: Turns out the TTSS is a derivative of the flagellum, not the other way around. It even apparently has the complement of genes, just some are not operative. And all along the biggest IC entity of all, the core life functions (especially self-replication on programmed information), is going a begging. Then, when we come to diversity of body plans, the problem is that the most likely to be lethal mutations are those that would affect at random the core architecture and are expressed early in the embryological development. Late acting mutations don't change body design, and are less likely to be lethal. We see the latter, not the former, save perhaps as spontaneous abortions or otherwise failed embryological development. Guess why we see a bursting out of dozens of body plans in the strata generally called Cambrian and conventionally dated to about 540 MYA? Darwin knew about it, and could only hope that later investigations would reverse the evident trend. With 1/4 million fossil species and millions and millions of specimens (and billions more of the same in the ground), we are seeing the same pattern: discrete appearance, interpreted as sudden emergence, stasis, and disappearance and/or continuation to the current time. (The Coelecanth shows how a "vanished" form can be around in our current world.) So, the only actual record is not supportive of the Darwinian story -- chance variations among populations and culling out by extinction of the less fit forms. Somewhere along the line, the necessities of closely integrated, complex and coordinated, information rich function are trying to tell us we don't quite have it right. And that does not begin to address the issue of the worldview level destructive implications and consequences of evolutionary materialism. Does Mr Engel, for instance, understand the issues raised by Plato in The Laws Bk X, in light of the career of Alcibiades and co? Perhaps,then, in addition to the above, he should read this, on the implications for society. It did not start with Nietzsche or the Darwinist Eugenicists or the Social Darwinists (of whom Darwin himself was one of the first, as chs 5 - 7 of his Descent of Man will make painfully plain)! Time to clean house. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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We should take a moment and consider that Irreducible Complexity fits right in with Darwinism. Early on, organisms that contained irreducibly complex functionality had a survival advantage over those that didn't, and won out in the end. Natural selection is powerful stuff! ;-)Apollos_{July 14, 2010
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Wasn't Ken Miller's supposed refutation of irreducible complexity the existence of the Type I Secretory System? I guess you're pretty committed if that's all it takes to convince you.Phaedros_{July 14, 2010
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Footnote: I see a dismissal that every case of irreducible complexity proposed by Behe has been refuted. This is nonsense, all it means is that the commenter is taking objectors as gospel, and viewing Behe with contempt. To then infer or imply that Behe is an idiot etc, is inexcusable. When one stands up in public, one has a duty to have done his or her homework, and to treat people with some reasonable degree of civility. Especially where they are speaking in their field of Doctoral level expertise and you have not got anywhere near the same qualifications or basic competence in analysis and research. Indeed, the very first irreducibly complex entity is the information system that makes for self-replication in the very first metabolising, self-replicating life form. Without codes, algorithms, storage media, machines to interpret and implement and the right ports to take in the right raw materials and energy sour5ces, all organised correctly, it will not work. Indeed, this should be no surprise. Once we have complex function based on properly organised and synchornised components, disorganising or breaking synchronisation are going to break function. Just look around you at the world of technology. Then, understand that the cell is a world of even higher technology. Not to mention, higher level systems. Here is Denton, 1985 in His Evo, a theory in Crisis: ______________ >>To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter [[so each atom in it would be “the size of a tennis ball”] and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units. The nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. A huge range of products and raw materials would shuttle along all the manifold conduits in a highly ordered fashion to and from all the various assembly plants in the outer regions of the cell. We would wonder at the level of control implicit in the movement of so many objects down so many seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect unison. We would see all around us, in every direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like machines . . . . We would see that nearly every feature of our own advanced machines had its analogue in the cell: artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices used for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction . . . . However, it would be a factory which would have one capacity not equaled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours . . . . Unlike our own pseudo-automated assembly plants, where external controls are being continually applied, the cell's manufacturing capability is entirely self-regulated . . . . [[Denton, Michael, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler, 1986, pp. 327 – 331.] >> ________________ And, when we look at particular cases commonly objected to, we see too many rhetorical side tracks and strawman arguments to be mere coincidence. BTW, genetic knockout studies are premised on the principle of irreducible complexity: knock out a gene, see what breaks, restore it, see what works again. Should be easy to follow for anyone who has had to search for a core car part without which the car does not start up or will not run or is uncontrollable. And that a car can work with some parts broken does not mean that no parts are vital. See what passes for science education and critical thinking education today? We need to clean house folks, and break the monopolies that have driven prices up and quality down. Which is what monopolies normally do. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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Cable Can you link? Or, maybe say where the discussion is: e.g. Uncommon Descent, Stephen Meyer on ID's bona fides, July 14th, comment no 5? GEM of TKI PS: 372 characters does not lend itself to any serious discussion. Maybe that is why the sort of comments we see are there.kairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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@kairosfocus Would add your comment to Youtube but it only allows 372 characters. Anything in particular you would like posted? Tried my best to comment but I am no where near as intelligent or as knowledgeable as you.Cable_{July 14, 2010
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Wag, Good points. With an embed though the comments do not track over to the blog, like above in the original post. Gkairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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Phaedros I agree with you. The arguements being made are not rational nor productive. Which is why your voice would so strongly stand out and perhaps knock the cobwebs loose. I do rehab. What that means is that I help peoples pain go away. Do you know how many times I've heard this: "I'm not coming in today because I'm too sore/painful." That isn't rational either but after I discuss with them the rational side of things they usuallty come around and from then on come to me to help their pain. This I think is what can be done intellectually with those who are not IDers. Call me niave but that's what I believe. Don't get me wrong I realuize the path is "narrow" and few will follow.wagenweg_{July 14, 2010
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Wagenweg- Please show me an example of a productive, rational debate in the youtube comments section. I'd like to see it. I think generally it's true that that kind of thing is rare on youtube especially concerning this topic.Phaedros_{July 14, 2010
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Right and that's my point. If we are all watching the video and reading the comments, then they all probably aren't "hoardes of middle school kids". So why not respond in the comments section? I don't think it woudll be "futile".wagenweg_{July 14, 2010
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Wag: Youtube is probably the easiest base for embedding, to a blog or a wiki etc. That is how I mostly view Youtube. Gkairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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If the demographic is merely middle school kids on youtube then why post the video on such a website to begin with? Why not post it on a website where the demographic would be more suited for this type of content? Beside, middle aged minds need the truth too.wagenweg_{July 14, 2010
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PPPS: now you know why Wikipedia is so often utterly untrustworthy. A shame, as it spoils the general credibility of often quite good information put up by honest and public spirited people who do know what they are talking about. Wiki needs a system that stops that kind of contributor and -- worse -- moderator led -- vandalism and deception.kairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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PPS: Could someone with a Youtube account --maybe, God's iPod? -- please point Mr Engel to the above? Thanks.kairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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I generally agree, and I don't usually comment on youtube videos. But I read through some and one really bugged me. He basically said Stephen Meyer was in it for the money. That always bugs me because of course he's in it for the money. If he's not using his degrees for that, he would have to result to something else to take care of his family. Money really has got nothing do to with good arguments, and I'm tired of people on youtube using that to excuse ID. Anyhow, mean comments just help youtube vids get views. Above, I've never tried to add anything to wiki, but I know atheists love the site. They're always sending me links to it. I try to stick to conservapedia or theopedia.Pevensie15_{July 14, 2010
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Okay: Let's take up the current latest comment at the Youtube site, by a certain wpengel, for a little overdue correction:
So you? think he is correct? That ID should not have to follow the rules of every other scientific discipline, but still be allowed to be called science? I invite you to present one single piece of verifiable evidence in support of Intelligent Design. A piece of evidence that can be independently confirmed by anyone interested in doing so. The people interested in redefining science are the IDers, so that their pet hypothesis can be called science.
1 --> This commenter, first, clearly has not done enough homework to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all scientific method (just as Mr Meyer, a PhD Philosopher of science who has published on the demarcation problem stated). 2 --> Further, he does not understand that here are no one size fits all rules of science that suffice to neatly identify what is and what is not science. 3 --> In particular, there is a world of difference between operational sciences that operate in the here and now world where direct observations check our proposed explanatory models, and origins sciences that try to plausibly reconstruct a remote, unobserved deep past. 4 --> Further to all this, the best we can say about science is -- roughly -- that, at its best, it is an unfettered (but intellectually and ethically responsible) progressive pursuit of the truth about our world based on observation, experiment, modelling, analysis and discussion among the informed. Of which Mr Engel is clearly not one. 5 --> Mr Engel -- probably thanks to Judge Jones et al and to the media that have consistently distorted the issues for over a decade now, and to his own failure to do even basic investigations before spouting off dismissively -- is equally ignorant on the evidence that supports the inference that certain features of the natural world are best explained as the product of intelligence and intent, not of blind chance and mechanical necessity. (He might find the UD weak argument correctives, top right on every UD page, a basic place to begin.) 6 --> For instance, a commonly encountered feature of our world is functionally specific, complex organisation and associated (often discrete state) information. Of such J S Wicken classically said:
'Organized’ systems are to be carefully distinguished from ‘ordered’ systems. Neither kind of system is ‘random,’ but whereas ordered systems are generated according to simple algorithms [i.e. “simple” force laws acting on objects starting from arbitrary and common- place initial conditions] and therefore lack complexity, organized systems must be assembled element by element according to an [originally . . . ] external ‘wiring diagram’ with a high information content . . . Organization, then, is functional complexity and carries information. It is non-random by design or by selection, rather than by the a priori necessity of crystallographic ‘order.’ [“The Generation of Complexity in Evolution: A Thermodynamic and Information-Theoretical Discussion,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, 77 (April 1979): p. 353, of pp. 349-65.]
7 --> In our experience and direct observation, functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information are the product of design. Wicken hoped that natural [undirected, environmental] selection [by extinction of the relatively less fit] acting on random variations would adequately account for the biological case, but of course the actual observed case of artificial selection to get breeds shows us that there tend to be sharp limits to such selection, and the issue comes down to the existence of credible engines of variation to create the data strings in dna to be selected from; especially once the issue on the table is the origin of body plans. (Starting from the first one.) 8 --> The further evidence starting from OOL is that one would have to explain how a von Neumann-type self-replicating automaton with codes, algorithms to guide assembly, machines to read and effect the codes, and further machines to couple to available energy sources and raw materials/components came about by chance and necessity without the possibility of differential reproductive success being on the table. For, that is one of the key features to be explained. 9 --> We do know from direct observation and experience where codes, algorithms and executing machines come from. Art, not chance and necessity. 10 --> This is backed up by the mathematics of getting even just 1,000 bits worth of such functionally specific complex information, which is hopelessly too short a length of code [125 bytes]: 1.07*10^301 possible configurations. That is over ten times the SQUARE of the number of Plack-time states of the 10^80 atoms of our observed cosmos across its thermodynamically credible lifetime (about 50 mn times the 13.7 By said to have passed since the big bang). 11 --> In short, prebiotic soups or comets or thermal vents simply do not have the credible resources to accidentally hit on the right configs, on the gamut of our observed universe. (And multiverse speculations are after the fact philosophical postulates, not science.) 12 --> But, we routinely observe sources for such FSCI: intelligence. So, on inference to best explanation, the best explanation for the complex information systems in the biological natural world is the same as that for the technological world; especially where codes and algorithms are concerned. (Just, we are not far enough along yet to have self-replicating computers etc. Though, the much mocked Paley was already considering the implications of seeing a self-replicating watch over 200 years ago. Bet the strawman Paley you heard of was not doing that!) 13 --> So, on the fundamental epistemological pattern of reasoning used in science, inference to best current explanation across factual adequacy, coherence and explanatory power, we do have a world full of evidence that points to design, in the biological world. Every cell that uses DNA is a case in point! 14 --> Going beyond that, for decades, it has been an open secret that he cosmos shows every sign of functionally specific, finely balanced complex organisation, to achieve a cosmos in which carbon chemistry based intelligent life is possible. On dozens of factors. For this, there is quite literally a universe full of evidence. 15 --> As for the turnabout, deceptively and maliciously false accusation Mr Engels parrots, that it is design thinkers who are "redefining science," let us first listen to Newton (who was by the way most definitely a design thinker), 1704, in Opticks, Query 31:
As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy. And although the arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no Demonstration of general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the Nature of Things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general. And if no Exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards any Exception shall occur from Experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such Exceptions as occur. By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: And the Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discover'd, and establish'd as Principles, and by them explaining the Phaenomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations.
16 --> This is precisely what we find summarised in the sort of dictionary definitions used in schools before the imposition of a definition that boils down to a priori evolutionary materialism force-fitted unto science under the name "methodological naturalism" by today's reigning orthodoxy, over the past 25 or so years:
Science The investigation of natural phenomena through observation, theoretical explanation, and experimentation, or the knowledge produced by such investigation. [American Heritage Science Dictionary, 2005] Scientific methods are the principles and processes of discovery and testing scientists use, “generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis.” [American Heritage Dictionary.]
17 --> This of course sharply contrasts with the sort of ideologically loaded, materialistic redefinitions that have been imposed in recent years by various magisteria of evolutionary materialism. For instance, we may see the one first forced on the students of Kansas in 2001 by the radical materialists and their fellow travellers: “Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations of the world around us.” 18 --> The trick in that is the implicit question-begging in the slippery term "natural explanations," which boils down to: only evolutionary materialistic explanations need apply. That is, in the teeth of the known possibility of intelligent action into the world, censorship is used to block considering explanations that do not fit with the materialistic agenda. 19 --> This is ideology, agenda, indoctrination and propaganda, not science or science education. _______________ So, Mr Engel shows the impact of the manipulation he has been subjected to, and his lack of ability to carry out enough independent research to critically review what he has been told. He has been indoctrinated, not educated. A telling sign of where our world is today. GEM of TKI PS: Mr Engel, if you come over and read this, why not start re-examining your views with the weak argument correctives above, right hand column, and also you may find some help here, as a 101 survey.kairosfocus_{July 14, 2010
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Like Phaedros said, it's pointless. Youtube is just a collection of anti-intellectual and highly emotional kids. I don't bother with the comments section to be honest. Incidentally, while slightly off topic, last week I took the time to go on wikipedia and read up on the section on 'atheism' and 'criticism of atheism'. A lot of the stuff that was said there was obviously very bias so I decided to add several parts to provide a more objective view, all of which were backed with specific citations. Within minutes they were all deleted. So I decided to redo them and again within minutes they were deleted. This back and forth went on for about 4-5 times until I got bored and left. Has anyone else had a similar experience on wiki?above_{July 14, 2010
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