ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92):
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
So to falsify ID all you have to do is show that undirected causes such as natural selection and drift can produce CSI and/ or IC.
The positive case can be simplified by:
Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: theordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.- Behe in “Darwin’s Black Box”
” Might there be some as-yet-undiscovered natural process that would explain biochemical complexity? No one would be foolish enough to categorically deny the possibility. Nonetheless, we can say that if there is such a process, no one has a clue how it would work. Further, it would go against all human experience, like postulating that a natural process might explain computers.” Ibid
The positive case for ID is very similar to the positive case for archaeology and forensic science- we look for signs of work and/ or counterflow.
Dr Behe responds to some critics:
Now, one can’t have it both ways. One can’t say both that ID is unfalsifiable (or untestable) and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is therefore testable. The fact that critical reviewers advance scientific arguments against ID (whether successfully or not) shows that intelligent design is indeed falsifiable.
In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin’s Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can’t be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum–or any equally complex system–was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven.(1)
How about Professor Coyne’s concern that, if one system were shown to be the result of natural selection, proponents of ID could just claim that some other system was designed? I think the objection has little force. If natural selection were shown to be capable of producing a system of a certain degree of complexity, then the assumption would be that it could produce any other system of an equal or lesser degree of complexity. If Coyne demonstrated that the flagellum (which requires approximately forty gene products) could be produced by selection, I would be rather foolish to then assert that the blood clotting system (which consists of about twenty proteins) required intelligent design.
Let’s turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes?
Even the explanatory filter demands a positive case for ID- one of specification on top of the elimination of necessity and chance. And the elimination of necessity and chance before considering a design inference is mandated by science- see Newton’s four rules of scientific reasoning.
“Thus, Behe concludes on the basis of our knowledge of present cause-and-effect relationships (in accord with the standard uniformitarian method employed in the historical sciences) that the molecular machines and complex systems we observe in cells can be best explained as the result of an intelligent cause.
In brief, molecular motors appear designed because they were designed” Pg. 72 of Darwinism, Design and Public Education
Cause and effect relationships-> science 101.
dazz,
ID is an argument from our KNOWLEDGE of cause and effect relationships. Evolutionism is an argument from ignorance as evidenced by the failure to answer Behe’s question.
Yay? Where?
Nooooooo…
I don’t think you understand “positive case”.
So sorry, Richie and Acartia, but if you have something to say to me you have to start your own thread. The noise filter isn’t allowing your comments to show up.
No, they’re definitely there. I’m not surprised you don’t understand how it works, though. Perhaps Alan can explain it to you? I’m quite enjoying this thread, its a good study on how IDists misunderstand many valuable key concepts.
That’s all you have. I rest my case
Bravo!
Already answered. Move on.
Ouch. If I had any respect for you, my feelings would be hurt.
Turn the dial a little, change the frequency…..
Wow, talk about selective reading. That is all we have for a falsification and it is superior to your position’s falsification.
whoopsie
That changes what wavelength I will receive. It doesn’t allow noise to pass. 😛
Let’s turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes?
It is very telling that all attempts to answer that question have failed to do so.
I say that the following are positive arguments for ID:
1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
and
Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.
Some people disagree yet their disagreement is subjective. I challenge them to post the positive claims of evolutionism so we can compare. ID has already won the battle of falsification. I bet ID can go 2 for 2
I was going to suggest that he vary the wavelength.
It’s not subjective. Those things don’t follow from any ID theoretical framework so those are NOT things that can be attributed to ID as positive claims.
Don’t you understand high-school level concepts like that?
Already answered. Move on. Unless you are capable of explains why my response didn’t answer the question.
dazz,
You avoided the main part- are you afraid?
I challenge them to post the positive claims of evolutionism so we can compare. ID has already won the battle of falsification. I bet ID can go 2 for 2
Well its in bold, so it must be true! 😉
Please note that both 1 and 2 require ‘specified’, Dembski himself on Specification:
http://billdembski.com/documents/2005.06.Specification.pdf
” Moreover, H, here, is the relevant chance hypothesis that takes into account
Darwinian and other material mechanisms. ”
So both 1 and 2 are negative arguments, contingent on ruling out “Darwinian and other material mechanisms”. This is very basic stuff.
Apparently Dembski, author of the concepts you wish to use disagrees. This makes your argument self-refuting.
You have a strange definition of subjective. I, and others, have pointed out that your first point has only been observed for humans. Zero degrees of freedom. Statistically invalid. Unless, of course, you have other clear examples.
Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.
Then explain, what in ID theory predicts “lots of information”, and why little information is not a prediction of ID (based on ID theory, not your opinion).
dazz,
Oh my- high information content is just a sure sign for ID. Low information would be subject to further investigation.
dazz,
You know, dazz, you should actually take the time to read what the ID experts have to say about ID instead of making it up on your own.
Actually, any configuration of N objects has the same information content, unless you compress the information. Frankie needs to read the ID basics.
Why? Is that not limiting the purported designer to a sub-set of all possible designs?
For example, if all it took was a single atom diverted to turn a gas cloud into a sun and your designer diverted it for it’s own ineffable reasons and “caused” that sun to form where it otherwise would not have, is that a low or a high information content “design”?
If a viable solar system for life can be created with a single atom diverted, aren’t you restricting your designer from such low information “designs” with your rules?
I notice there is a lot of talk about ID and a lot of people recommending people read what ID books there are, but not so much actual ID work.
Seems to me Frankie is confident in his design determination. If molecular motors appear designed because they were designed, unless ID actually comes up with something useful that can be done with that “information” we might as well note it in a footnote and forget about it.
Stuff’s designed Frankie, we get it. Are you ever going to do anything about that “fact” other then repeat it over and over?
What was the most significant development in ID in 2015 Frankie?
OMagain,
Your imagination is not an argument and your selective quoting is duly noted.
Richard, I believe that Frankie is responding to our comments with the time-tested and successful tactic of putting his fingers in his ears and yelling “I can’t hear you. I can’t hear you.”
As HWSNBN is so find of saying, that speaks volumes.
Acartia,
There’s a time honored creationist behavior of ignoring contrary evidence and repeating the same old debunked claims.
dazz,
Those thing flow from the ID experts and their understanding of ID (which is better than yours). They are a positive case as only intelligent agencies can produce them.
Unfortunately you won’t answer Behe’s question so we could compare.
Evolution: Common descent, descent with modification, natural selection, genetic drift, the tree of life with a detailed description of the nested hierarchy, phylogenetics, population genetics, evo-devo, fossil record, paleontology, molecular biology, biochemistry…etc, etc…
Vs.
Intelligent design = Look! It’s superspecificandcomplexialidocious! Praise the lawd!
And infinitely better than yours too apparently, because you can’t explain why ID predicts “high information content” and how much is “high” or why low information content doesn’t suggest design. The fact is that none of those experts can tell either because there’s no such thing as an ID theory and you know it
Nice bluff- ID is not anti-evolution. ID argues against evolutionism. And evolutionism does not predict a nested hierarchy. Mayr said it is the antithesis of what we would expect if evolutionism is true.
You are just bluffing and you are still too afraid to answer Behe’s question
dazz,
I can explain that but you wouldn’t understand. Look this discussion is for people who already understand the subject and obviously you do not.
Let’s turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes?
And
Let’s turn the tables and ask, how could one test the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes?
ID is based on three premises and the inference that follows (DeWolf et al., Darwinism, Design and Public Education, pg. 92):
A reference was provided. I am not going to reproduce everything written just because ID’s opponents are too lazy to find out what ID is really about. Posting in good faith means you have knowledge of what you are defending and opposing.
dazz,
I’m sure if you keep pushing you’ll find that none of the terms you mention are defined well enough to measure. Intelligent design creationists wouldn’t want to put their speculations at any risk of disconfirmation, after all.
Perhaps one day an IDCist will provide an operational definition of information and examples of how to calculate it, but today is not that day.
Unless its “specification”. Then you can just ignore links to primary sources that explicitly show you don’t understand what you’re talking about.
Patrick,
You mean it hasn’t been done to your anal-retentive satisfaction. However it has been done and it beats anything you have to offer in support of evolutionism.
Shannon showed us how to measure information and the operational definition is simply the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects– Meyer “signature in the cell”.
So yes it can be observed and measured
From Kirk K. Durston, David K. Y. Chiu, David L. Abel, Jack T. Trevors, “Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins”, Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Vol. 4:47 (2007):
Defined and measured.
Information means here the precise determination of sequence, either of bases in the nucleic acid or on amino acid residues in the protein.– Sir Francis Crick, hence the connection to the definition provided above and in “Signature in the Cell”
Evolution can be falsified if one single organism had a genetic structure largely dissimilar to all other organisms and didn’t fit in the phylogenetic tree. That’s a pretty serious constraint that not a single life form, including the flagella, fails to conform to.
What about design? If the flagellum is the poster child of ID, what does ID do to explain how, when or who designed the flagellum?
You essentially demand a step by step mutational path from the first ancestor of the flagellum billions of years ago till now, you even asked me to prove that mutations are “undirected” which you know full well is not well defined and is impossible and unscientific.
If you use the same standard for verification, then you must reject every other scientific theory. Or how could one test the claim that, say, the Rings of Saturn were produced by gravitational processes?
If you ignore all the positive evidence for gravity and demand a step by step accretional depiction for the formation of the Rings of Saturn, and if some hypothesis is presented that attempts to explain it involving some comet, then you ask for evidence that the comet arrived there by natural means, then you have no other option but reject gravity too, and electromagnetism, and relativity, etc, etc…
What reasonable people do is to take the huge amount of supporting evidence for evolution and it’s mechanisms, including the paper I presented where the BF evolved the flagellum in a two-step mutational process (which Behe claimed was impossible) under selective pressure for motility (providing support for natural selection) and with different cultures finding two different pathways by repurposing two different genes (suggesting there’s no pre-established solution, hence no teleology) and assume it works the same for other steps of the process.
Because the process has been tested over and over and over and over and over and over again and has never failed the test. What are the odds?
They keep scouring through the bible but can’t find it. Chances are slim hahaha
dazz,
That doesn’t have anything to do with natural selection, drift or neutral changes.
Wrong again- Your position says it has a step-by-step process for producing the diversity of life. We just ask you to test it. Don’t blame us because your position makes claims no one can cover.
The paper you presented did not show a BF can evolve via natural selection. You are delusional
ID doesn’t have anything to do with the Bible
BTW, your position can’t explain gravity so perhaps you should just stop bringing it up as if it means something.
So not only you guys are incapable of detecting design, but also sarcasm. Good to know
Can gravitational processes like accretion account for the Rings of Saturn yay or nay?
Another great positive ID argument!
As this thread is “testing intelligent design”
I’d like to know:
What was tested
When
By Whom
What were the results
ID was tested by the straightforward expedient of dismissing evolution for lack of any gods. The beauty of this test is that it can be done by anyone, and is incontrovertible. Prove me wrong.