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,
Page 45
“So far we have examined the question of irreducible complexity as a challenge to step-by-step evolution.”
Flint,
So you say, yet Behe said the following: Irreducible Complexity is an Obstacle to Darwinism Even if Parts of a System have other Functions
So? Behe is famous for saying lots of stupid things he can’t begin to support.
An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because [any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part] is by definition nonfunctional.
Yet dazz thinks IC is refuted if one step is traversed, ie only one modification is added and all of the other steps have already been taken.
There’s supposed to be a rule about posting in good faith…
I didn’t omit anything, can’t you read?. One precursor is sufficient and it’s provided.
That thing about “numerous, successive, slight modifications” is a deduction he makes from his definition, notice he specifically claims that any precursor that is missing a part is non-functional.
So “any precursor” is sufficient to debunk it.
It’s hilarious to question such an obvious conclusion. Of course if one presents a precursor for the precursor, that still won’t be enough and you will demand the precursor of the precursor of the precursor of the BF.
ID is dead Joey, deal with it. Dumbski & Luskin have come to terms with it already and just left the DI.
It’s over buddy.
Biological evolution has no such constraints on how IC systems are produced. FrankenJoe and Behe fail again.
dazz,
Any precursor but not one that you started with. You have to account for all of the steps, not just one.
And AGAIN, you can’t even say if the reversion was a happenstance occurrence, ie a genetic accident, error or mistake. What we know of regeneration capabilities that seems like an organism knew something was wrong and fixed it.
ID still has more going for it than evolutionism ever will.
dazz,
That part is from Darwin. The whole point of IC is to show that Darwin’s idea is refuted. And Darwin’s idea still rules evolutionary biology.
That you refuse to answer the question says it all, really:
Let’s turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes?
Your side can’t explain tables.
Oh!!! How convenient. Anyone will do…except whatever you present. LOLOLOLOL
LOL, you didn’t even read the paper. It was put under strong selection for motility.
So the paper clearly debunks IC because it’s random mutation & natural selection in action.
FrankenJoe doesn’t understand ID or evolution.
dazz,
I read the paper. Just because the organism was put under such conditions doesn’t mean the reversion was a genetic accident- you don’t know if it was a random mutation. And it is still only one small step whereas IC is about all of the steps. The more steps required the less likely natural selection can reach it.
It’s all in DBB- if you weren’t so intent in quote-mining you would actually read what IC is about
You were presented Matzke’s work, there’s the Avida model. There’s all the phylogenetic evidence that works for the flagellum just as good as for any other species… Nothing suggests the flagellum is special and couldn’t have evolved like we’ve seen with other organisms like in Lenski’s long term experiment
Do you question Gravity because no one can provide a step by step explanation for how the Asteroid Belt got there billions of years ago and exactly where & how those rocks formed?
Great argument there FrankenJoe. Science can’t disprove the claim tiny invisible Flagellum Fairies flew down and pushed those nucleotides around and caused the beneficial mutation, therefore ID.
Checkmate scientists! 😀
Even Behe admits this is not nonsense.
What does this mean? Scaffolding happens all the time. Parasites depend on it, and there are more parasites than there are hosts.
I think you’re right here. It would only be possible, in principle, to prove that the flagellum was produced by some other process. And that STILL wouldn’t prove that it could NOT have been produced by evolution.
So what you have to do in such cases is, you must decide if a process known to be fully capable of producing the flagellum, is more or less likely than a “process” not known to exist at all, and never EVER observed or demonstrated.
To put it in other words, do you prefer an explanation which is almost certainly correct (but not absolutely certain), or a non-explanation that the past happened essentially by magic (AKA “divine intervention”). The first can be largely (but not entirely) tested, examined, and understood. The second can only be insisted on, there being nothing else to support it.
It wasn’t a reversion! It was a different gene!
Yes he does, when he explicitly mentions ANY precursor.
dazz,
Matzke’s is a flight of fancy- there wasn’t any “work”- AVIDA doesn’t have anything to do with biology, let alone natural selection. And your position can’t even explain gravity.
Look all you have is a “falsification” that demands one to prove a negative and you don’t have a positive case as evidenced by the failure to answer a simple question:
Let’s turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes?
dazz,
The reversion back to a functional flagellum
It isn’t a candidate for IC if it requires only one step. IC is not falsified by showing the minimal is achievable. Did you not understand what Behe said in the OP? The best you can say of your example is Darwinian processes can take one step. It says nothing about taking two or more
If it didn’t share any genetic commonalities with pretty much anything else for example?
Now how could one falsify the claim that, say, the Asteroid belt was produced by accretion and gravity?
Flint,
There aren’t any known evolutionary processes capable of producing a bacterial flagellum. That is the whole problem- yours is an entirely untestable position. If you had what you say then there wouldn’t be any argument. But yours can’t even be modeled whereas GAs model directed evolution just fine.
BTW design isn’t magic. However saying accidental genetic changes didit is saying magic did it.
When a sophisticated model is developed and constantly improved, over a long time, until it describes genuine observable biological processes in incredible detail and makes consistently verified predictions, it’s hard to argue against the claim that it simply DOES NOT DO what it very clearly and demonstrably does.
This has been called the “black knight problem” with creationists. They can look you straight in the eye, tell you you’re not there, and sincerely believe it. The straight-faced claim that biological models have nothing to do with biology falls into this category. When someone flat denies that the sun shines down in the daytime, you can’t hope to persuade them with evidence or logic. Instead, you nod, smile, back away, and hope the nutcase is not violent.
dazz,
That doesn’t even come close to answering the question. Genetic commonalities are evidence for a common design. Or do you think it is wiser to reinvent everything for each organism you were designing?
I don’t know. It could have been formed by an existing planet getting torn apart
Joey, we all know you’ll never yield no matter how much longer we flood you with evidence. It doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, you’re doing a great service to the skeptics and rational people in general
Anyone reading this, potentially creationists or people who may not be convinced, will clearly see who’s got the arguments and who’s the crank. It’s people like you why in afew generations creationism will be a thing of the past.
Thank you!
Yes FrankenJoe, there are. Stamp your feet and hold your breath as much as you want but the empirically observed processes of evolution won’t go away. 🙂
Flint,
AVIDA does not have anything to do with biology, Flint. That is a given. The organisms are much too simplistic. Not only that when realistic parameters are used nothing evolves- EQU does not evolve.
dazz,
I can support my claims with quotes from Behe and Dembski. Your ignorance isn’t my fault, dazz.
Of course there are. Your ignorance is not an argument.
This position has been getting tested for nearly 200 years now, and has only become better attested.
And there isn’t any argument.
Unless you can produce and demonstrate a Designer, it’s magic.
Without feedback, this would be largely correct. But CONSERVED accidents (that is, those that happen to work are preserved) changes the whole ballgame. Think of flipping an honest coin, discarding all the times it came up tails and keeping all the times it came up heads. After a while, you have a big collection of ONLY heads. Is this magic? Did your selection process MAYBE have something to do with this?
The sun does not shine in the daytime. That is a given. I SAID SO! Prove me wrong to my satisfaction.
Why not quote bozo the clown? More people are familiar with him.
Flint,
Your bluffing is not evidence nor is it an argument
It can’t be tested. It can’t be modeled. It doesn’t produce any predictions
Science doesn’t deal with absolute proof. And if absolute proof is what you need then you are not interested in science. But I already knew that of you.
Tat is your opinion. However seeing that the concept doesn’t generate any predictions anything goes
No, it’s DESIGN
ARTIFICIAL selection works and can actually do something. Natural selection is very different from artificial selection
I am talking about a concept those two either started or developed. Their word means something when it comes to that concept.
Frankie,
Tiktaalic.
OK, back to the OP:
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.
Compared to Darwin:
ID asks for a positive and Darwin wants us to prove a negative. ID’s is the superior falsification criteria
But dazz just proved the flagellum can be created in a single bound. No IC required.
What definition of IC are you using? What is the CSI of the bacterial flagellum, one would need to know that first correct?
Evolutionism seems to be indistinguishable from creationism.
Why do we need to falsify a completely unsupported and unscientific hypothesis like ID that has zero scientific credibility already?
newton,
I am working on a post for that. The latest seems to be from No Free Lunch- Dembski – supposedly it was a collaboration to formalize the definition, make it more robust and clear.
They both have their sacred trinities -> Father Time, Mother Nature and Emergence vs THE Father, THE Son and THE Holy Spirit. 🙂
Frankie,
Unless you’re a Muslim, or pretending to be one 😉
You’ve mastered your fallacies like very few other creationist. That’s quite an achievement. What that paper proves is that an IC system can emerge through random mutation and natural selection from a precursor that’s missing a part.
No true scientist would dare question the implications of that. An honest scientist, one with a minimum of integrity would retract his work immediately.
And evolution would be falsified if any living form didn’t fit in the phylogenetic tree. It’s pathetic when you creationists pretend that commonalities are evidence for common design. The fact is that if those commonalities weren’t there, evolution would be falsified, but creationism wouldn’t because you can fit anything under the vague “design” umbrella. Common descent predicts a nested hierarchy. Design doesn’t predict anything. If evidence was found that certain phyla can’t possibly be located in the tree of life, something that doesn’t look like anything else, would that falsify ID? Of course not, it’s just how the designer rolls!
You wish. BTW, tu-quoque. Another fallacy right there. If you think evolution is wrong, what kind of an argument is it to degrade it to the level of creationism?
If you think they’re indistinguishable then you should conclude creationism is wrong too. Why not try intellectual honesty for a change?
Just to clear up some confusion- Tiktaalik is not a prediction borne from undirected evolution or natural selection. It is supposed to be a prediction borne from the idea that tetrapods evolved from fish- that is the simplified ancestry and Tiktaalik has intermediate traits. However given the fossil evidence for tetrapods having existed millions of years before Tiktaalik, the fossil succession is twisted and Tiktaalik is on the wrong side. So until something else comes up Tiktaalik is just a side show
Then we have FrankenJoe who has mastered a dozen or so IDiot buzz-phrases that he repeats ad nauseum. He doesn’t understand them, can’t defend them but chanting them makes him feel better.
Specified Complex Information!
Irreducible Complexity!
Stonehenge!
Designed to evolve!
Behe and Dembski said so!
Your side has no evidence!
Evolutionism!
Baraminology!
Rah! Rah! Go Team Go!
And ID’s explanation for Tiktaalik is…?
dazz,
Except it doesn’t even do that. How did they determine the mutation was random? And why do you think that numerous = one?
Except transitional forms would ruin a nested hierarchy. Nested hierarchies require nice, neat, pristine sets that exhibit summativity. Evolution is too complex and gradual evolution would produce populations with a smooth blending of traits.
The US Army is a nested hierarchy and it has nothing to do with descent with modification. Linnaean taxonomy is a nested hierarchy and it doesn’t have anything to do with undirected descent with modification
ID’s list of fossil finds attributable to ID theory includes…
Over 400 posts now and it should be abundantly clear by now that ID makes no positive claims. All of the falsifications demanded consist in proving evolution can do this or that.
Arguments from Ignorance, shifting burden of proof… all ID ever had
Your rejector shields are down, Frankie. What are the relative odds of
1) a subject matter authority accidentally digging in the right place
Vs.
2) internet person who’s consistently wrong about most aspects of human knowledge getting it wrong again
???
Ballpark percentages will do. Thanks!
dazz,
To be fair, it isn’t like Frankie is an ID leader. He doesn’t get airtime on ID friendly venues.
dazz,
The positive claims are in the OP and ID’s falsification criteria is superior to evolutionism’s. Heck you think that numerous = one.
You lose