Intelligent Design: utterly demolished, page 1

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":

Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world. But it no more belongs in a biology class than alchemy belongs in a chemistry class, phlogiston in a physics class or the stork theory in a sex education class. In those cases, the demand for equal time for "both theories" would be ludicrous. Similarly, in a class on 20th-century European history, who would demand equal time for the theory that the Holocaust never happened?

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:

If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals. This doesn't happen. It isn't that editors refuse to publish ID research. There simply isn't any ID research to publish

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.

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.

The Guardian
alleged controversy between evolution and creationism or "intelligent design" (ID)? And, by the way, don't be fooled by the disingenuous euphemism. There is nothing new about ID. It is simply creationism camouflaged with a new name to slip (with some success, thanks to loads of tax-free money and slick public-relations professionals) under the radar of the US Constitution's mandate for separation between church and state.

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.

The Guardian
Intelligent design is not an argument of the same character as these controversies. It is not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one. It might be worth discussing in a class on the history of ideas, in a philosophy class on popular logical fallacies, or in a comparative religion class on origin myths from around the world.(emphasis mine)
.....snip.....
If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals. This doesn't happen. It isn't that editors refuse to publish ID research. There simply isn't any ID research to publish. Its advocates bypass normal scientific due process by appealing directly to the non-scientific public and - with great shrewdness - to the government officials they elect.

(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

Currently, the most popular strategy for discrediting intelligent design with regard to peer review is to admit that it is represented in the peer-reviewed literature, but not in any literature that matters. Thus, in particular, it is claimed that design theorists are not publishing work that supports intelligent design in the peer-reviewed biological literature. But this claim too is false, as can be seen from the ID FAQ on my website (www.designinference.com). Nevertheless, in keeping with their zero-concession policy, our critics won’t concede that this claim is false. They can accept that the papers in question are by design theorists and that they appear in respectable, peer-reviewed biology journals. What they can’t accept is that the papers support intelligent design.

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.

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

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!

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:"

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:

If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals

(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:

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

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.

- “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)

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.

-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)

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".

-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)

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

There are MANY more examples of the science behind Intelligent Design Theory.

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

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.

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

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.

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):

"...All the statements of empirical science (or all 'meaningful' statements) must be capable of being finally decided, with respect to their truth and falsity; we shall say that they must be 'conclusively decidable'. This means that their form must be such that to verify them and to falsify them must both be logically possible.

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:

In all cases there is a hidden (actually they scarcely even bother to hide it) "default" assumption that if Theory A has some difficulty in explaining Phenomenon X, we must automatically prefer Theory B without even asking whether Theory B (creationism in this case) is any better at explaining it.....

This kind of default reasoning leaves completely open the possibility that, if the bacterial flagellum is too complex to have evolved, it might also be too complex to have been created. And indeed, a moment's thought shows that any God capable of creating a bacterial flagellum (to say nothing of a universe) would have to be a far more complex, and therefore statistically improbable, entity than the bacterial flagellum (or universe) itself - even more in need of an explanation than the object he is alleged to have created.

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.

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?

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.

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke
Welcome Rren, looks like we can keep each others posts going!

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)

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

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?

fatherlukeduke
If ID really were a scientific theory, positive evidence for it, gathered through research, would fill peer-reviewed scientific journals

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.

fatherlukeduke
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:

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?

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

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.

from ISCID forum board(by Bracht)
"While we have, it seems, adequate concepts of matter, energy, entropy, and information, we lack a coherent concept of organization, its emergence, and self-constructing propagation and self-elaboration." In his quest, Kauffman hopes to arrive at a general biology which encapsulates this defining essence of life itself: consistent with the usual subjects of scientific investigation like physical laws, matter, and energy, yet somehow transcending those categories and able to act on its own behalf. The essence of life, Kauffman argues, is bound up in the idea of an autonomous agent, a conglomeration of matter that can carry out work cycles and reproduce itself.

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):

Notwithstanding the vast sweep of the overall book, I will focus here on
the core proposition the characterization of autonomous agents. It seems
to me that Kauffman's proposal here certainly is a novel one, and deserves
to be explored in much greater depth. Equally, and not surprisingly at this
early stage, some caution is surely necessary.

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.

from link:
In the tradition of Schrodinger's classic What Is Life?, this book is a tour-de-force investigation of the basis of life itself, with conclusions that radically undermine the scientific approaches on which modern science rests-the approaches of Newton, Boltzman, Bohr, and Einstein

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.

- “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)

(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.

Conclusion

An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate--and perhaps the most causally adequate--explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa.

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

-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)

fatherlukeduke
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".

(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.

Abstract
Here we model the evolution of such protein features by what we consider to be the conceptually simplest route—point mutation in duplicated genes.
....snip...
We conclude that, in general, to be fixed in 108 generations, the production of novel protein features that require the participation of two or more amino acid residues simply by multiple point mutations in duplicated genes would entail population sizes of no less than 109.

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".

-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)

abstract
Instead of viewing centrioles through the spectacles of molecular reductionism and neo-Darwinism, this hypothesis assumes that they are holistically designed to be turbines.

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.

In his recent paper in Rivista di Biologia, “Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?”, Jonathan Wells makes the following testable predictions regarding his hypothesis that the centrioles of cells generate a polar ejection force:
....snip....
He adds, “If the hypothesis presented here withstands these and other experimental tests, then it may contribute to a better understanding not only of cell division, but also of cancer.”

(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 )

from the articleThe Intelligent Design Movement.
I hope this article will enable people to get a handle on what is being said for much that is reported in the public arena can only give the impression that the argument has degenerated into igonorant abuse from those opposed to Intelligent Design. This though would only be true of some on that side of the argument.

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

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?

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

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

fatherlukedukeThis kind of default reasoning leaves completely open the possibility that, if the bacterial flagellum is too complex to have evolved, it might also be too complex to have been created. And indeed, a moment's thought shows that any God capable of creating a bacterial flagellum (to say nothing of a universe) would have to be a far more complex, and therefore statistically improbable, entity than the bacterial flagellum (or universe) itself - even more in need of an explanation than the object he is alleged to have created.

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.

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.

...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.

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...

None of those papers give any actual evidence for intelligent design.


Dembski's book was reviewed by philosphers, not biologists, and it does not provide evidence for design in biology. It is about a means to detect design. It has also been refuted many times over.


Axe (2000) finds that changing 20 percent of the external amino acids in a couple proteins causes them to lose their original function, even though individual amino acid changes did not. There was no investigation of change of function. Axe's paper is not even a challenge to Darwinian evolution, much less support for intelligent design. Axe himself has said that he has not attempted to make an argument for design in any of his publications (Forrest and Gross 2004, 42).


Loennig and Saedler (2002) cite Behe and Dembski only in a couple long lists of references indicating a variety of different options. Neither author is singled out; nor is the word "design" used.


The other papers also deal with non-Darwinian evolutionary processes, but they do not support intelligent design. In fact, Denton et al. (2002) explicitly refers to natural law.

One peer-reviewed intelligent design article has now been published, albeit in a fairly minor journal that focuses on taxonomic description (Meyer 2004). Others likely will follow, given enough time.

Publishing, however, is not an end in itself. Scientific ideas mean nothing unless they can withstand criticism and be built upon. (See Elsberry [2004] and Gishlick et al. [2004] for criticism of Meyer [2004].) Publishing such poor papers only hurts the cause of ID as science.

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).

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

abstract
Instead of viewing centrioles through the spectacles of molecular reductionism and neo-Darwinism, this hypothesis assumes that they are holistically designed to be turbines.

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

originally posted by leftbehind
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

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

Source
Unfortunately, this tidy circularity does nothing to address the mounting evidential difficulties facing neo-Darwinism. Nor does it get the unwanted elephant out of the room. If all living systems look though as they were “designed for a purpose”6 as neo-Darwinists have long acknowledged, and if neither neo-Darwinism nor any other materialistic evolutionary theory accounts for the most striking appearances of design in living systems (such as, say, the cellular information processing system), then perhaps livings systems look designed because really were. I would invite those willing to consider this possibility to read the article at the center of this controversy. Debates about journal guidelines, peer-review and the definition of science are ultimately diversions.

(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

The following information-based analysis of the Cambrian explosion will support the claim of recent authors such as Muller and Newman that the mechanism of selection and genetic mutation does not constitute an adequate causal explanation of the origination of biological form in the higher taxonomic groups. It will also suggest the need to explore other possible causal factors for the origin of form and information during the evolution of life and will examine some other possibilities that have been proposed.

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.

The Cambrian explosion thus marked a major episode of morphogenesis in which many new and disparate organismal forms arose in a geologically brief period of time.

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

To say that the fauna of the Cambrian period appeared in a geologically sudden manner also implies the absence of clear transitional intermediate forms connecting Cambrian animals with simpler pre-Cambrian forms. And, indeed, in almost all cases, the Cambrian animals have no clear morphological antecedents in earlier Vendian or Precambrian fauna (Miklos 1993, Erwin et al. 1997:132, Steiner & Reitner 2001, Conway Morris 2003b:510, Valentine et al. 2003:519-520

emphasis mine)

As a result, debate now exists about the extent to which this pattern of evidence comports with a strictly monophyletic view of evolution (Conway Morris 1998a, 2003a, 2003b:510; Willmer 1990, 2003).

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.

Can neo-Darwinism explain the discontinuous increase in CSI that appears in the Cambrian explosion--either in the form of new genetic information or in the form of hierarchically organized systems of parts? We will now examine the two parts of this question.

"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.

Cumulatively, these constraints imply that proteins are highly sensitive to functional loss as a result of alterations in sequencing, and that functional proteins represent highly isolated and improbable arrangements of amino acids -arrangements that are far more improbable, in fact, than would be likely to arise by chance alone in the time available (Reidhaar-Olson & Sauer 1990; Behe 1992; Kauffman 1995:44; Dembski 1998:175-223; Axe 2000, 2004). (See below the discussion of the neutral theory of evolution for a precise quantitative assessment.)

"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.

Conclusion

An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate--and perhaps the most causally adequate--explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa.

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]

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,

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