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.
We have detected design and all you can do is whine about it
Flint,
Wrong- ID is not anti-evolution
You don’t have an explanation for gravity so stop bringing it up
Maybe design in a double fudge chocolate donut but not in biological life you haven’t.
Wrong. ID was confected in the first place, as an attempt to stick the Christian god into evolution. Since this requires completely misrepresenting evolutionary theory in every possible way, ID is effectively anti-evolution.
Please note: It is anti-evolution as understood by science. Whether it’s anti-evolution as misrepresented by IDiots depends on the IDiot. Maybe it’s not anti-YOUR misunderstanding of evolution, but so what?
If only we had an ID leader here to clear things up.
Stop deflecting, can gravitational processes like accretion account for the Rings of Saturn yes or no?
If you can’t answer this, with a step by step accretional path, then you must reject gravity too. Don’t gravitationists claim that the entire Solar System came about by accretion from a primordial nebula? Yes they do.
So tell me, I’m willing to embrace your way of thinking. We both know those evil gravitationists have no evidence for macro-gravity. They drop an apple and claim gravity explains the origin of the Solar System, but that’s just micro-gravity
So?
Frankie, you just don’t get it. ID is whatever the critics of ID say it is, therefore it is not science. See how easy that is?
Pay no attention to the lack of research, lack of research funding, lack of peer reviewed publications, lack of science budget, lack of results, lack of theory, lack of testable predictions, and lack of agreement about what ID is even in the ID community.
Again, an example has been provided that you have ignored. As everyone here can see. If I were JoeG, I would call you a bluffing coward, but I have more class than JoeG. As does my cat.
You keep repeating this question and then ignoring any response that is given. Frankie want a cracker?
But they do have Barry Arrington, Virgil Cain and Gordon Mullings. That must count for something. After all, who wouldn’t want to have these three geniuses in their corner?
Let’s not forget Paul Nelson, who was going to publish his theory of ontogenetic depth within the next couple of weeks — a dozen years ago! Over at Panda’s Thumb they celebrate his announcement every year.
Acartia,
How can one test the claim that the bacteria flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes? I have looked, but can’t find anywhere that you have answered that. Can you copy and paste that answer?
Don’t feel alone FrankenJoe. Mung doesn’t get ID and can’t answer any questions about it either.
Adapa,
ID is what Barry says it is!
This is the hole Behe has crawled into – provide documented proof of every mutation that has ever occurred. And no, showing homologous structures in related bacteria doesn’t count, only verifiable video evidence of the actual flagellum evolving in real time is good enough.
For such developments, indirect evidence is ample (and even the video evidence wouldn’t be sufficient for the True Creationist – it might be doctored, you know!) It’s been shown that the process resulting in the flagellum (and every other bacterial characteristic) happens, and keeps happening all the time. Look at Lenski, for example.
So, as an analogy, it can be demonstrated that a car CAN drive from Chicago to Los Angeles. It can’t be demonstrated that THIS car made the trip. Does this inability prove driving itself can’t happen and doesn’t happen? It sure does in creationismland.
This particularly stupid demand by Behe also became known as ID^2 (ID squared) for “I Demand Infinite Detail!”
Flint,
In what way has it been demonstrated that Darwinian processes CAN produce a bacteria flagellum? Lenski hasn’t shown that at all, that is just pure making shit up.
Its great that you can admit that science can’t provide the details. But you need to admit that it can’t even show us that it can be done. There is no evidence for that. There is a story.
Phoodoo, that was not the question that was asked by Frankie. He asked what would falsify the claim that the flagellum arose through Darwinian processes. I provided him with an answer that he has responded to by filtering out my comments from his view. I would comment on the childish immaturity of his actions, but I prefer not to be quanoed.
Maybe you are willing to be brave enough to respond. Would the example I provided not falsify Darwinian processes as the source of the flagellum?
Yes, require infinite detail from the opposing view, but insist that his side does not require any detail at all. Evolution can’t provide a mutation by mutation description of how the flagellum evolved so god must of done it.
We also can’t detail a cm by cm description of how the continents arrived at their present position, but I don’t hear Frankie or IDism claiming that this disproves plate tectonics.
ID is as falsifiable as the theory that angels are responsible for maintaining the planets in their orbits. And as valid.
Richardthughes,
Haha, you have really outdone yourself with this one Richard. Link to a video that plays cool music and shows a video game of a flagellum being built.
See how easy it is to make a flagellum, whoppee!! Just build it like with legos, only try to remember the legos are accidents of copying. Ho ho ho.
One question Richard, does it matter if all the accidents that precisely make up the video game graphics happen in the right order? Just lucky perhaps?
phoodoo,
You’re inability to see the whole picture is unsurprising. If we allow multiple generations and reward those that do better (fitter) you might get some good computer graphics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGt3iMAJVT8
Of the forty or so proteins in a flagellum, only 23 are found in all flagella. Apparently there are around twenty that are interchangeable with other proteins.
And of the required 23, there are only two that are not found, slightly modified, serving another function (I was going to say “purpose”, but I know how this gets IDists all hot and bothered). This is easily explained by evolution. How does ID explain it?
Nice projection, Flint. Evolutionism has all of the resources and no answers, no testable hypotheses, no results, no theory, no predictions, and nothing but a bunch of bluffers for support.
Flint,
LoL! Lenski has proven that evolution is very limited and doesn’t have a chance at producing a flagellum unless it is guided.
It doesn’t mean that it does either
It does exist and your ignorance is not an argument.
Frankie,
So why not post it, there’s a good boy.
dazz,
Gravity is evidence for ID
OK then ID is bunk because you can’t account for the Rings of Saturn.
Is there anything that isn’t asserted evidence for ID?
Newton’s theory of Intelligent Falling. Can you imagine how many intelligent entities, all working together under the direction of the unfallen Fallmaster, it takes to keep an object falling continuously and always missing the ground?
dazz,
That doesn’t follow. However your position is bunk because it can’t account for anything but disease and deformities
petrushka,
Umm, Newton wrote that an Intelligent Being made it so and that science was a way to discover God’s handiwork. And if the anti-IDists weren’t so ignorant of ID they would have known that the case for gravity being evidence for ID was made by Newton and others.
Of course it doesn’t follow! Can’t you see I was challenging you with your same “logic”? If it doesn’t follow that gravity is debunked because it can’t provide a step by step account for the formation of the Rings of Saturn by accretion, then it’s also not valid to claim that evolution must provide a step by step mutational path for the flagella or else is debunked
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site:intelligentreasoning.blogspot.com+tat
About 124 results (0.60 seconds)
dazz,
You only think that is what you are doing.
AGAIN- evolutionism makes the claim that it has a step-by-step process for producing the diversity of life. It no one can support that claim it needs to be retracted. No one claims that about gravity and the rings of Saturn.
Your desperation is showing
Does it? Where are these evolutionismists?
Evolution posits gradualistic mechanisms, it doesn’t claim to have ALL the steps in the billions y.o. long paths.
The same way the mechanisms by which gravity is supposed to have formed the Solar system is accretion.
Same thing. “Gravitationists” don’t claim to know every step in the process either, but if you demand them for evolution, you must apply the same standards of verification for all other theories… LIKE ID!!!!
dazz,
Loser:
He said that because his “theory” posits numerous, successive, slight modifications.
But thanks for proving that you are also ignorant of evolutionism.
Yes, so what? That’s what I meant when I said that evolution posits gradual mechanisms. Darwin didn’t even know about genetics and it’s one of those great things about his theory, that he could get that right in the 1850’s
You guys really struggle with logic so much, SMH
He’s saying that showing gradual steps can’t produce new organisms would disprove evolution, that’s not the same thing as “unless all steps are found evolution is disproved”
Get it now?
dazz,
Man you are dense. Evolutionism posits slight, successive modifications. That means it is up to evolutionists to demonstrate such a thing. And if you can’t then you just have to admit that you can’t and move on.
And it isn’t so much disproving evolutionism as it is exposing it as being untestable gibberish
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=site:uncommondescent.com+tat
Like little chubby fingerprints in donut frosting. 😀
We’ve done that. The paper about the flagellum shows how it can evolve by “rewiring” the regulatory system with two tiny point mutations. There are thousands upon thousands of other experiments and approaches to prove this. Lenski’s long term experiment is another great example, The models in phylogenetics, the molecular clocks suggesting that, with genetic drift and fixation of neutral alleles alone, our last common ancestor with chimps would have lived some 5-10 million years ago, which is consistent with other lines of independent evidence: those mechanisms are tested constantly and always pass the test.
It’s nice to hear that the theory of evolution is analogous to the theory of rocks rolling down a mountain and gathering in a pile at the bottom.
dazz,
You have done nothing and that paper has nothing to do with natural selection producing a BF. You are deluded. Lenski proved that evolution is very limited. Not sure why you would bring that up. As for chimps and humans sharing a common ancestor, tat is just another untestable claim.
You are nothing but a bluffing fool
Yes! in 50,000 generations, Not one E Coli became a giraffe or penguin!
IC is more than just showing two tiny point mutations can produce it. Even Behe’s mousetrap had 5 parts that had to be configured properly
Oh. Is a mousetrap biological?