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,
And yes, evolutionism is one long argument from ignorance. You don’t know how natural selection could have produced any flagellum. You don’t know how natural selection, drift and/ or neutral changes could have produced the diversity of life.
No models, no predictions, no experiments but a lot of whining
ID isn’t about fossils. I think it would be better to find a biological mechanism capable of producing them instead of just assuming there was one.
ID isn’t about science. Period.
Do you think the mutations that did the trick were the only ones to happen in the experiment? Was god so perverse that he was out to debunk Behe?
No Frankie, no. Mutations are unpredictable. There’s plenty evidence for this and I’m sure you’re not going to shift the burden of proof once again right? If you think those mutation weren’t random, prove it. and prove whether others are “directed”. Prove that baby born with two heads was not because of random mutation. God certainly has a sick sense of humor!
Would two do it?
Surprise! Another creationist with logic issues. Because evolution posits a nested hierarchy, doesn’t mean all nested hierarchies are evolution you moron
Frankie,
I guess it will remain a mystery forever.
Oh no wait: http://www.fossilmuseum.net/fossilrecord/fossilization/fossilization.htm
Its a very well know natural phenomena.
Evolution does not posit a nested hierarchy. Evolutionism posts transitional forms and they would blur all lines of distinction.
Just because mutations are unpredictable doesn’t make them random. Dennett says we cannot predict what will be selected for at any point in time and yet natural selection is said to be non-random. And it is up to you to provide a methodology that can determine if the mutations are happenstance occurrences or not. That is the claim your position makes.
A certain little cherub has conflated two parts. Rolling two dice is random. Me choosing the highest, isn’t.
You know what funny guys?
I believe this paper refutes another paper from Behe, the one where he claimed that adaptations requiring two coordinated mutations presented a barrier for evolution. One of the assumptions he made was that any intermediate mutation should be deleterious.
Behe & Snoke (2004): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2286568/
Look at this:
http://microbialcell.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015A-Taylor-Microbial-Cell.pdf
So the “resurrection” of the flagella required not one, but two steps, proving that the assumption made by Behe & Snoke (2004) that any intermediate mutation should be deleterious is debunked too
Talk about killing two birds with one stone!
I don’t know if Behe insisted that all two step mutations have one step as deleterious. He merely said that overcoming a deleterious mutation is “difficult.”
He does seem to say that certain paths to drug resistance in malaria involve a deleterious mutation. I don’t know if he ever explains why this mode of resistance only takes ten years in the wild.
My guess is there is a non-deleterious path that he hasn’t thought of. That, or the effect is masked by a compensating mutation.
In any case, Behe is stymied by the fact that function is widespread, and pathways are complex networks. If a gap was bridged, it was because there was a bridge. Behe’s Edge is just another failed god of the gaps.
How to “poof” a flagellum. Creationism in a cheap lab coat.
It seems to me the IDiots in charge certainly promoted that paper as evidence that any adaptation requiring two or more mutations presented a challenge to evolution:
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/01/bio-complexity_paper_shows_man042611.html
Seven years of college down the drain.
Am I missing something?
I just wonder what Behe and Snoke did with their education. And why is Behe hanging out with the Supreme Leader of the First Order?
Been there. Done that. Bought the T-shirt. Next question.
Frankie (repeated ad nauseum): “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.”
How would that falsify ID? It would only demonstrate that CSI and/or IC can ALSO be produced by natural causes. Let’s be honest, ID is not falsifiable.
Acartia,
My next question is, Why have you refused to answer the first question?
Plus, Dembski tells us :”Moreover, H, here, is the relevant chance hypothesis that takes into account Darwinian and other material mechanisms”
Frankie has shifted the goal posts so many times, I don’t remember what the first question was. Please enlighten me.
Unless you are referring to this question:
“Let’s turn the tables and ask, how could one falsify the claim that, say, the bacterial flagellum was produced by Darwinian processes?”
I provided a very detailed answer to this earlier in the comment string. After You find it and read it, please tell me why it doesn’t answer this question. Frankie refuses to, or is incapable of, telling me why my comment didn’t answer it. Or maybe Mung or Sal could explain it to me. But I expect that Sal would agree with me.
“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.”
It’s much simpler than this. ID can be denied by showing that the concept of CSI/IC is incoherent. Since no definition of CSI/ID has been provided, the ID argument in the post is vacuous and there’s nothing to refute. In my experience, refutation of ID was always as simple as this – ask for the definition of ID/SCI/IC and that’s where you see the argument fall apart.
dazz,
No, I’ll check that out, thanks!
The problem for intelligent design creationism is that it’s a political movement without a scientific theory behind it. That means that even an experiment like that can neither support nor disconfirm their claims. Without some constraints on the designer, it can do literally anything and so explains exactly nothing.
Mung,
Cdesign Proponentsists. Game over.
Patrick,
http://microbialcell.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015A-Taylor-Microbial-Cell.pdf
Fascinating stuff. Truth is the technical details go well over my head (any insight from the pros would be greatly appreciated), but it’s amazing what regulatory systems can do and how fast they can adapt to react to selective pressure.
LoL! b@ Patrick! Darwin mentioned a Creator to get life started so by your “logic” evolutionists are also creationists.
Nice own goal
Patrick,
Nice projection, Patrick. ID’s falsification criteria is superior to evolutionism’s. AND ID makes a positive case and it is clear that evos cannot.
dazz,
Behe did not make such a claim.
LoL! ID, CSI and IC have been properly defined. And those definitions are superior to anything evolutionism can muster.
petrushka,
Or, in the case of some of the UD regulars, seven years of high school.
Or in the case of evolutionists seven years of third grade 😛
Design vs creationism? Do designers create, or do they just think deep thoughts abought what might be?
If something that exists was designed, was it not created? Isn’t that what is in contention? Created rather than the result of happenstance?
If a stochastic system is created, how is its behavior different from evolution? If an apparently stochastic system is created in such a way that everything that happens was forseen, how is that different from creationism? If a stochastic system is diddled with to produce a deliberate outcome, how is that different from creationism?
How can ID not be creationism?
That’s the point Mung desperately tried to wriggle out of with Meyer’s claims in Darwin’s Doubt. Apparently Meyer only said there is an Intelligent Design but no Intelligent Designer or Intelligent Creator. After the unknown agent made the Design some other unknown agent actually did the physical construction.
It’s always stupid rhetorical games and wordsmithing with the IDiots. Always has been, always will be.
Without a clear definition , your criteria for falsification of ID is like Tantalus’s pool, forever receding.
There is a clear definition. Just because I haven’t posted it here doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Because Creationism relies on and is based on the Bible and ID does not and is not
Then why did Meyer say ID is presented so the Designer can be the Christian God?
newton,
BTW, newton, evolutionism doesn’t include any clear definitions.
Whether evolutionary biology has a glossary that is clear enough for Frankie or not is rather irrelevant to whether it is possible to test the non-existent hypotheses of ID.
I thought that we have been over this. If your example of the falsification criteria is the one mentioned in your OP (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.) then you are mistaken. Even if it is/has been conclusively shown that a CSI and/or IC can be produced by natural processes, this does not preclude that they could be produced by a designer.
It is impossible to falsify ID. The only things that would be potentially falsifiable are the proposed mechanisms used by the designer. But since you refuse to propose any mechanisms, I guess you are stuck with unfalsifiability.
Alan Fox,
LoL! There is a design hypothesis in the OP and I am not talking about evolutionary biology- I am talking about evolutionism, Alan. Do try to follow along
And Dembski said, “Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.” Even though he is wrong about Logos theology, his intention with ID is clear.
Erik,
In his book “Signature in the Cell” Stephen C. Meyer addresses the issue of Intelligent Design and religion:
You are conflating personal opinions with ID
“The Design Revolution”, page 25, Dembski writes:
He goes on to say:
I don’t think anyone is concerned about what “Intelligent Design” doesn’t require. Some of us wonder what it would require, if there were any effort applied to trying to construct a working hypothesis that could be tested.
There is such a hypothesis in the OP. That you just ignore it proves what we already knew.
ID requires an Intelligent Designer. And that means we look for the following :theordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.
And that requirement can be sliced off by Occam’s Razor if someone could just step up and show that undirected causes such as natural selection and drift can produce CSI and/ or IC.
The logic goes like this.
X is observed.
We think Y can explain X.
Therefore Y caused X.
Full stop.
Oh, and therefore we don’t need no stinking designer.
QED
Mung,
I thought Darwin introduced natural selection as a stinking designer to oppose the non-stinking designer of creationism… 🙂
How can ID critics avoid being dishonest about whether ID is creationism?
Do you know of a single ID proponent that is not a creationist?
So? That’s not the argument. Let me rephrase that for you in the interests of clarity:
Even if it is/has been conclusively shown that a CSI and/or IC can be produced by natural processes, this does not preclude that they could be produced by non-natural processes.
See how silly that sounds? but that is, in effect, exactly what you just said.
The theory of intelligent design as stated in the OP would fall apart if if could be shown that it had no foundation in either IC or CSI, and whether or not that means it could have been brought about by a God or gods is completely irrelevant.