Intelligent Design: utterly demolished

In this weeks Guardian Science section Richard Dawkins (Oxford University) and Jerry Cone (Chicago University) demolish the concept that ID is, or every could be, a science:

www.guardian.co.uk...

It is an excellently written article: to the point and free of any technical jargon.

It also leaves no doubt that ID is religion and not science, and should never be taught in schools as such, even to "teach the controversy":



Should we be teaching Holocaust denial as an "alternative" theory? I don't think that would go down too well, and rightly so.

It also points out how ID has no evidence to support it and relies entirely on picking holes in another theory, evolution in this case:



Anyway, you can read the rest for yourself.

I don't want this to be a thread debating whether evolution if right or not, there are plenty of other ones out there for that.

This thread should be a debate on whether ID is a science or not

If any can prove that ID is a science I will eat my hat and shoes and post pictures of me doing so.

I read the article in the paper yesterday and it is spot on.

ID cannot be seen as a science because it doesnt have any scientific basis, no ID propenent has contributed anything to the field of evolution and those who support it tend to be either ignorant or misguided.

LOL.

Thanks, for your posts though!

I love it so much I paraphrased it in my sig.

Ok i'll begin by addredding the article, and what i think are claring mis-representations of Intelligent Design Theory. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course, but that's all this is, opinion. (IDT)"utterly demolished" it is NOT.




Firstly ID is not, repeat NOT Creationism. Creationism(predominately refers to Christianity) is the belief that the Book of Genesis from the Holy Scriptures is an accurate portrayal of the creation of the universe and life itself. Intelligent Design makes no such assumptions, it's hypotheses are NOT Biblically based. The theory is of course used by Creationists, as are MANY that are not labled Creationist by association. And IDT and Evolutionary Theory are NOT mutually exclusive and some argue they compliment one another. This tact by Theistic Evolutionists is pre-meditated strategy akin to the infamous "Wedge Document".(.pdf)/(.htm) These guys are cleary biased, as any on the "other side" of the fence.

(emphasis mine)

Hmmmm...wonder what these are then...scientific arguments imo, decide for yourself. "ID proponents have published in peer reviewed scientific journals in papers related to intelligent design and its central claims. Four examples include:"

Source

-“Investigating a General Biology” by John Bracht, Complexity 8(3):31-41 (2003) (critiquing models of self-organization for the origin of biological complexity)

- “The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories” by Stephen C. Meyer, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117(2):213-239 (2004) (explicitly advocating that intelligent design is the best explanation for the origin of biological information in the Cambrian explosion)

-Michael Behe and David W. Snoke,-“Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues,” Protein Science, 13 (2004). (testing for irreducible complexity among protein-protein binding sites)

-Jonathan Wells, -“Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?,” Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum, 98:71-96 (2005). (using explicitly ID assumptions to elucidate the behavior of centrioles—with potential applications to cancer research)

There are MANY more examples of the science behind Intelligent Design Theory. Not a well researched article i guess, why research when you know the answer without it, eh? But hey who needs a Pulitzer when you got "paraphrased" in the sig. line of an ATS member. j/k a funny analogy, even if i disagree, i'm afraid i'll be hearing it often from now on. I think William Dembski sums it up nicely here



The rest of the article goes on to make some false, IMO, assumptions about what is proven and what is not in Evolutionary Theory, but i won't bother you guys with those arguments. A Google search, heck even an ATS search will provide rebuttals. This is the best, IMO, ATS thread/debate on creationism-v-evolution(Creationist Confusion. Members Mattison0922 and Nygdan, both biologists, give extremely detailed(9 pages) arguments(of course other members do as well), and as you'll see what we know we know and what we think we know are indeed still debateable. As to the article i say but apparently i'm in the minority here so to each his own.

And one last note as to this golden opportunity.


Dollars to donuts i can't pass this up i'm in. Give me the parameters you require as proof ID is a science(assuming the published scientific papers i named above are inadequate), and i'll see what i can do. Also pictures are not acceptable, easily faked, i'll need video conformation(may i suggest having a friend near-by versed in the heimlich maneuver) Do i pick the shoes and hat or will you provide them?


*We now return you to the back-slapping and at-a-boys, already in progress*


(edit)can't spell, let's not even discuss my grammar.










[edit on 2-9-2005 by Rren]

Welcome Rren, looks like we can keep each others posts going!


And the papers you have posted are scientific, however they are just attacking current theories, rather than providing any positive evidence to support IDT.

What Dawkins says is:


(My emphasis). He did not say that no scientific papers had been written by people who support IDT.

I won't pretend I've read the papers (and I don't reckon you have either), so I can only comment on their titles:


This appears to be just "critiquing [existing] models" of self organisation. I'm sure this journal carries papers all the time critiquing existing theories, just because this one is written by a IDT propent does that make it somehow support IDT? That isn't how science works.


Well this one does at least seem to be explicit, though I'd be curious to know what evidence he supplies to support IDT that doesn't rest on attacking existing theories.


I don't see any mention in the title of attemting to provide positive evidence for IDT. I'm still waitng for the paper titled "Evidence in support of IDT".


I presume this one starts from the position of assuming ID, which is hardly providing supporting evidence.


As I said, they may well be scientific articles but they don't provide positive evidence for IDT.


I am purely concerned (in this post anyway) with whether IDT is a science or not.



OK, fair enough I should have said.:

A scientific theory, or predications based upon it, should be falsifiable

To quote Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery):



Now the hypothesis of IDT is roughly this:

"That organisms, or certain mechanisims in organisms, where designed by a third party"

(I'd be happy with another definition if you like, as I presume it involves a designer)

Now how exactly do I go about attempting to falsifying that? What test or experiment (real or theorectical) could I carry out to attempt to prove that a designer didn't (or even did) play a part in the creation of life? There isn't one.

IDT rest purely on the logical fallacy that Dawkins points out, that is:



Which is why IDT is an intellectual dead end, which ultimately will please neither scientitists or religious people. It doesn't answer any questions at all.




Well, it's bit of a cheat this one to be honest. What I didn't tell you was that I'm in the circus as the "Human Garbage Disposer". I regularly swallow hats, coats, shoes and umbrellas from the audience. I once ate a light helicopter for a bet.

Looks like nobody else wants to play with us Got a little game of tetherball going here. (link provided for any un-sophisticated Brits not hip to the game)



I would have to strongly disagree with your statement here. These papers do deal with specific IDT claims, what exactly are you looking for here?




We've already covered some of the problems IDTists have with getting their papers published(over in my thread). But i believe it's only a matter of time before this changes. And Dawkins isn't exactly approaching this from an unbiased purely scientific position. He and most of the other more vocal opponents to IDT(Miller et al) have philosophical objections more-so than scientific one's, imo anyway.



You're correct that i have not read these papers, i do try to search for free online copies of papers(via google scholar) but most of the time i can't follow them(or find for free), WAY over my head, especially Dembski which is alot of mathematics. Not that i'm any more "fluent" in Biology either. As a layman i have to rely on the conclusion/summary of the experts in the respective field(s). You can almost always find an explanation or rebuttal written in layman's language. We'll go through these four examples again and i'll provide some additional info for you beyond the titles. Which imho, do seek to provide positive evidence(and/or essential refuting of evolution) for IDT. If an already established theory is contrary to your own, then you must also attempt to falsify the competing theory/hypothesis, no? Perhaps not positive evidence for IDT, but still a necessary component is it not?



Here's an abstract by Bracht on this paper(actually looks like a review of another book, (taken from the ISCID board tho). As is the case with most published papers, best i can tell, you have to either put up some dough or have a particular affiliation to read the actual paper. I'm not sure what constitutes a published paper(peer reviewed), seems to me to be a book review although they're calling it a "paper". Maybe one of our resident scientists can explain this for us.

And here's Bracht's "paper", a five page .pdf file (review of Kauffman's book). Seems Kauffman's book is the "meat and potatoes" of the argument("fish and chips" if you prefer)
A quote from the full review(.pdf file):


Here's a paper on the "Evolvable Model of Development for Autonomous Agent Synthesis", not an IDT paper but relevant to understanding autonomous agent(i didn't know myself, not sure if you were already familiar). This is a prime example of what i mean by papers, for the most part, being over my head. But i'm trying.

And here's a link to Kauffman's book.


Ok that's enough about that one, although i think i'm gonna have to give that book a go, hopefully it's wriiten in lay ease.



(emphasis mine) seems to be positive evidence(or pursuit there-of) for IDT to me here's some more info, what will it take?
This paper got alot of attention in the scientific community apparently, so Dr. Meyer made it available in .html format here at discovery.org.



Ok let's move on now to my next example:



(emphasis mine) How is "testing for irreducible complexity"( a central claim of IDT) not positive evidence? This is "evidence in support of IDT" as best i can see it, whether titled as such or not.



Perhaps your argument that this is not positive evidence for IDT but instead evidence against naturallistic origins is possibly valid. But showing the inadequacy of (undirected) natural mechanisms for biological origins(and subsequent evolution) is still important and essential to IDT, based of course on my limited understanding of Biology. Falsifing claims of evolutionary theory that directly contradict IDT is also the job of the IDT proponent, wouldn't you atleast agree with that? And in fairness here's a rebuttal from Talkorigins.org dealing with the evidence presented in "IDT papers".







Making a hypothesis(assumption) and then testing that (model), is exactly what a scientist does in pursuit of validating a scientific theory is it not? read this page about Wells' paper.

(emphasis mine) Wells says his assumptions are "testable predictions", how is this unscientific or not positive evidence for IDT? And also may have usefullness outside of proving that "GOD dun it" (as opponents would have us believe IDT is all about). I'd say the argument that IDT is un-scientific, un-testable pseudoscience is the notion that's being "utterly demolished". I'll say it again: Most IDT opponents(Dawkins, Miller et al) have mainly philosophical objections to IDT and not scientific one's imo. Here's a great article, imo, about the "battle" betwwen IDT proponents and theistic evolutionists.(i believe it's from the UK too )







I would say you are being stubborn as to what's science and what is not. You can disagree with the assumptions and/or conclusions of IDT without reducing it to pseudoscience. You say that you disagree with Big Bang Theory, do you also view it as un-scientific?



I believe i have provided you with adequate examples that fit Popper's definition, if not i'm at a loss.



I don't know how many different ways to say this. IDT basically says that we can detect and test the fact that organisms are designed. That statement is different from who or how it was designed. The who(GOD for me) is certainly philosophical, the how may be simply beyond our current understanding. You can't discard a theory based on the possible implications. That, imo, is unscientific. IDT seeks to detect design NOT designer, honestly i don't know how to simplify or ellucidate that further.



...I love the circus, i am, however, gonna need some positive evidence. Of course only if i win the bet, that 'snapshot' from the vid. is gonna be my new avatar.

BTW, not to toot my own horn, but my tetherball to IDT/Theistic evolution debate analogy was genius...toot toot

*hello is this thing on*

Oh and P.S.
Sorry for the long post but defending IDT is a tough job but somebody(around here) has to do it.

I'll just toss in my 2 cents.

ID is not a science, it is a philosophy.

There are numerous examples of philosophic thought flitting around the edges of true science. Some of the examples posted above fit into this category.

Quantum mechanics, for example, lends itself readily to the philosophical exploration of the relationship of the electron (or other particle of your choice) and the desein, or the consciousness, or other concept of choice.

That doesn't meant that these discussions are fundamentally scientific in nature. They are not.

Rren - thanks for your reply. I haven't had chance to sit down for a few hours and read through all the material and arguments you have presented, let alone formulate a reply.

I'll hopefully get a chance this weekend, though with the last England vs Australia test match of the series perfectly poised, there are 2 days of fantastic cricket to watch as well (it's cricket mania here at the mo).

You bring up some interesting points Rren, it is nice to see someone concentrate on ID as a science and not connecting it to young earth creationism.

However the picture you present is that of an emerging field of science that may or may not have any signifigance.

I do agree that there is a lot of ambiguity concerning the very early days of life on earth. While I may concede the point that it could have been created by some form of intelligence, natural or otherwise, I have a hard time seeing a way to prove such hypothesis.

We can say that aliens helped life along, god created it, or that it is a natural progression from the building blocks of life. We do not have the information at this time to prove any of those hypothesis.

However if we conclude that an intelligent designer is our choice, what is the mechanism? Irreducable complexity or improbable chances still do not propose a mechanism for these things to happen. They only say that it is improbable for chance to end with results that we have.

To me that is unacceptable. I have an easier time thinking that life could be prolific enough to combine in the ways we traditionally think they have. While there are several mechanisms proposed by evolution, I have yet to see a mechanism that could be proven to be used by an intelligent designer.

No matter how improbable flagella, or irreducibly complex as Behe would say, the fact is that these features and early life forms did exist. Some would say that the mechanism was natural selection, others that it required intelligent design, natural or supernatural. So while it is intriuging, I don't see how ID is provable.


Now to your points.


I have trouble with what you are getting at with the autonomous agents, and what they mean for these concepts. I also have found trouble trying to digest some scientific papers, as well as needing to pay to look at copies.


The Meyer paper I have found to be rife with controversy. His paper in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington seem to have been published under suspicious circumstances. In fact the BSW has since repudiated Meyer's publishing.

www.ncseweb.org...

Bowe and Snoke's abstract seems that they are requiring a certain population size for features to appear. This to me is not a very convincing argument for ID. Instead it requires that organism need a set amount of time and population to acquire "irreducibly complex" features. However as a layman I might not understand the whole thing.

Your last three or four links did not work for me so I can't comment without further review.

I do agree witth the talk origins site.

www.talkorigins.org...




I also add that I don't see any valid way to prove a designer's influence without also proving the designer's existence. Some of those papers provide interesting insights into our origin but imho don't provide any proof of ID.


That being said, I see no reason to teach ID along with evolution in biology classes. Without more research ID remains a hypothesis. Not one that has been "utterly demolished" but one that has a long way to go. And one that should distance itself from the young-earth creationist that would use it as a political tool.



[edit on 12-9-2005 by LeftBehind]

Sorry 'bout the bad links LB i didn't notice them originally, my edit button has expired so i'll give them to you here(in context).






Again sorry for the bad links(however i only noticed these 2? if more let me know i'll fix-em-up too) next time i'll make sure they all work before i post.

Time for dinner and then i'll be pretty busy the next few days, so i'll get back to you on the rest of your post some other time, but thanks for the response.

-Rren

Dr. Meyer has responded to this, so i'll let him speak for himself.



(emphasis mine) Look this is an effort by some in the mainstream scientific community to dis-credit IDT without actually having to comment on the work(read: science) that is being done(and published BTW) by ID theorists. Just look at the 2002 AAAS statement repudiating the theory of intelligent design as unscientific by definition (accessed through your link) they have allready come to a conclusion without looking at the data and evidence. They make many erroneous(read: UNFOUNDED) statements, imo, in their declaration that ID is unscientific.

Perhaps when some in the ID community decided to politicize the debate(ie Kansas) they were asking for this sort of knee-jerk dogmatic response. I don't advocate teaching ID in public schools(i DO agree that it's yet to be proven but i disagree that it has been sufficiently proven un-scientific) and i imagine most of the arguments and data (on both sides) are more fit for college level Biology...this whole thing was much adue about nothing imho. The now infamous "wedge strategy" was a mistake imo and this counter stategy by some in the evolutionist community is also mis-guided imo. Alot of people think it's bad to mix science and religion, i'm not sure but maybe, but it's far far worse imo to mix science with politics. To say that because it challenges the currently held theory(ies) of evolution it has no place in the peer-reviewed journals is ridiculous, there's a vetting proccess for these things, is there not? Meyer's paper was published because it should have been, only because he's an IDT proponent is it now considered unacceptable??

I'll leave the majority of your comments alone, i think we could go back and forth at infinitum. Well who designed the designer, what was the mechanism employed by the designer, etc........ While i think they are interesting questions IDT makes no such speculations or claims to the identity and/or purpose of the designer(THAT'S creationism not ID), just that design is detectable and testable. So let's deal with Meyer's paper specifically and see why it's not scientific and had no business being published in a peer-reviewed journal. Not that i'm saying that i'm qualified to do so(i most certainly am not) but i'll give it a go.

Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories



emphasis mine Ok so far so good, don't see any problems here, but it's my guess the sentence following my emphasis is where we will find our problem and subsequent drama. But let's read on.

I'm sure your familiar with what's known as the "Cambrian explosion" which took place about 530 million years ago.


morphogenesis: The study of morphogenesis involves an attempt to understand the processes that control the organized spatial distribution of cells that arises during the embryonic development of an organism and which give rise to the characteristic forms of tissues, organs and overall body anatomy

"Geologically brief period of time"= a 5 to 10 million year window

emphasis mine)



monophyletic: Composed of members which all originated from a single ancestral line. All members of the taxonomic group are descendants of the same ancestor, and all descendants of that ancestor are members of the group. For example, "birds" is a monophyletic group. Compare with polyphyletic and paraphyletic.



"CSI": Complex Specified Information Many special sciences have already developed such methods for drawing this distinction -- notably forensic science, cryptography, archeology, random number generation, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Whenever these methods detect intelligent causation, the underlying entity they uncover is a type of information known alternately as specified complexity or complex specified information.


I'll spare you a point by point post of Meyer's paper just wanted you to get an idea of what it's about, and how i go about trying to understand/comprehend it in order to form my own opinion(so far as is possible/reasonable). I assure you that i did read it in full. I did need to use a life science dictionary and Wikipedia when i came across a term i was unfamiliar with...about every other word

But i'll skip to the 'juicy stuff' as best i can tell that's where the argument is, valid or not. What Meyer is really doing in this paper, imo, is attacking the neo-Darwinists position(actually touches on many of evolution's postions) that selection and (random) mutation are sufficient to "generate information in the form of novel genes and proteins" not saying that evolution(on the "macro-ist" of scales) is impossible but improbable and as of yet not adequately explained. Not an unscientific position or premise for a paper imho. BTW "macro-ist" is not a real word, i made it up, i'm an idiot.



"improbable arrangements of amino acids" = Thus, the probability of finding a functional protein among the possible amino acid sequences corresponding to a 150-residue protein is similarly 1 in 10^77.

Which is an enormous number especially considering:

"new Cambrian animals would require proteins much longer than 100 residues to perform many necessary specialized functions. Ohno (1996)"

..and also considering that these calculations were arrived at by conceding many points of evolutionary theory which are still debateable and sometimes directly contradict the evidence we do have.

Alot of evolutionary theory(again the "macro-ist" of stuff) is based on luck. Yeah sure it's improbable and unlikely but any effort to refute this with the facts should go unpublished and be discredited as creationist babble(it's an obvious strategy...conspiracy anyone?) Um ok sure that's reasonable Like i said politics and science is worse than religion and science, imo anyway.

And here it is the conclusion, which i believe is at the heart of the controvercy surrounding this paper.


So there you have it give it a read and tell me why this had no business being in "proper" peer-reviewed literature.

And i might have to take the excessive quote penalty on this(especially being i have rambled on so long as it is). But i would like to point out that Dr. Meyer backed up every claim he made. See next post sorry mods but i had to do it....go easy on me.

[edit on 16-9-2005 by Rren]

[edit on 16-9-2005 by Rren]

Literature cited in Dr. Meyer's paper


(edit)Ok, that was a bit too excessive the list of 148 citations! can be found on this link, from my post above, at the bottom of the page...sorry Just wanted to point out that this paper is well researched science, agree or disagree with the author's conclusions, it's science.(/edit)


Whew talk about your unsubstantiated creationist philosophical pseudoscience eh???? Sorry Mods had to do it

[edit on 16-9-2005 by Rren]

Guy with the Stork to Sex Ed is a great example of what ID is! it uses non-scientific ideology to explain something science already explained. It is like.....

Earth flat to Gravity
Earth Center to Earth Revolves around Sun
Demons Possessing People to Disease/Insanity

I miss the days where crazy people who heard voices were Saints. Didn't Bush say he hears voices and that it was God talking to him telling him he was chosen to be president? Which is disrespectful to God, another reason not to like the President.

Wow what a clever well thought position clearly backed up by the evidence. There's no way i could possibly counter such a lucid and evidential statement such as "..something science already explained". Unless of course your not to busy studing "stork theory" to 'scroll-up' and read my post which already dealt with your naive and ignorant statement.




What??? Geez talk about incoherent babble, do you even have any idea what your talking about?



Not sure where you get your info(read: dis-info) guy, but perhaps you may want to double check your sources....just a thought.

And i'm no Bush supporter, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's funny how the "bashers" can work in a "bush sucks" or "bush is stupid" into almost any discussion, no matter how irrelevant.

I think you need to 'zip-up'...uh hummm... your ignorance(read: bigotry) is showing...just FYI. Where you off to now, got a Klan meeting or something?

Rren,
question on all the Literature cited in Dr. Meyer's paper
what were you looking to prove / disprove.
Sorry do not have time to research the various papers that you cited at the moment. perhaps this weekend
as for fullmetal, what he is saying sounds extremely familiar to the postings of another who was banned. Check out postings by James_the_Lesser and you will see what I mean
edited to correct my spelling

[edit on 16-9-2005 by kenshiro2012]

I was just trying to show that Dr. meyer, in his paper, backed up his statements about probabilities and what (mechanisms of) evolution are capable and incapable of doing with already accepted (peer reviewed) scientific literature. Some folks seem to think that ID theorists don't utilize real science in their theory(ies) i just wanted to show otherwise. (it's directly related to my post just above it)



Good point does seem to have that loveable JTL style, and yes i'm very familiar with him prior to his banning..ain't had to discuss gravity in a IDT/Creationism thread in quite a while.

I've got a "Testing Intelligent Design Theory" thread in this same forum you may be interested in. More in-depth review of the science behind IDT imo. Nygdan, Zipdot, and fatherlukeduke bring up some great points, turned out to be an informative discussion for me anyway. Stop by and contribute if you feel so inclined. I did ask for an anti-ID position from a christian perspective(that would apply to you yes?) and haven't had any fellow Christians come by and "rip me a new one".. yet. Man i need some back-up, i think i'm the only guy around here that advocates IDT...hmmmm what do you think that tells you Rren? Like i said it's a tough job but somebody ('round here) has to do it.

well, I am not anti-ID
but, I attempt to support it from a non-christian perspective.
Nygdan and I have gone the rounds a few times and we both seem to enjoy the tussle

Your question of whether ID is science or not depends on what you consider science. ID is a science if it is a methodological activity, discipline, or study. So that it is definitely a science of study. It is not science based on observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. So it is definitely not a physical science, it is new mythology. It is by no means a theory whatsoever. No facts, no hypotheses to be tested. It is An Intelligent Design story.
KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid.''


The explanations of how life started begin at the very same absolutely identical spot. Then using identical reasoning you expect people to either understand or ignore the facts the hypotheses and the theories. Right from the start both creation and intelligent design are not theories at all. This is the very first place every faith pusher screws up. At best they could be hypotheses but they are not. They are not hypotheses because the only information they stand on by is their knowledge gap. Since physical science cannot explain to these peoples in a few sentences how we came to be they see their lack of understanding as proof of their claims. Then it is pseudoscience.

God, this argument makes me sick,
The truth is nobody Knows, anybody who disreguards either alternative is the ignorant one, each and everybody has his/her belief system, its all about each persons individual faith, and any suggestion that we should'nt have an alternative to the evolution theory, is misguided.

Any comparisons about this subject are just stupid,

www.illustramedia.com...