Far be it from me to answer a question to eligoodwin, but I felt you questions weren’t of the same nature as the question put by eligoodwin. For example, your point:

“Try telling an anthropologist that he has to demonstrate the entity that created the flint arrowheads before accepting them as of human origin”

is somewhat offbeam. Flint arrowheads are known to be made by humans because they have been found with the remains of humans and other artifacts made or used by humans (and also the stone tools used for making arrowheads).

There is no such associated evidence for ID.

Furthermore, an anthropologist is still expected to provide evidence as to the type of human (primarily culturally, but for older tools it could be the species/subspecies of human). In that regard, an anthropologist IS expected to provide evidence of the designer. Why shouldn’t ID be hled to the same standards?

You then ask about gravitation:

“Newton formulated the inverse squared law.
Yet has science ever explained “What” gravitation “IS”?”

That’s not entirely true – general relativity provides an explanation which gives an excellent fit to the observed evidence (better than Newton provided over two centures before), and scientists are looking for yet more evidence to bolster their understanding (e.g. looking for gravitons). There may be a yet better explanation.

But both these examples demonstrate the main feature of science that ID kills off by refusing to consider the designer: science is built up by small bits of evidence, with the occasional great leap, painstakingly searched for in mud layers, or rock strata, or particle colliders, or telescopes. Science is like a house built brick by brick – someone puts a brick here, another a tile there. With ID, nothing can be built: all avenues are cut off because no-one is prepared to talk about the designer.

And ID COULD be used to talk about the designer. For example, design events could be located in time – say, lungs were considered something that had to be designed, therefore there must have been a design event when we find the first lunged creatures (Devonian? Carboniferous?) and therefore there was a designer of some sort at that point in time. It’s by small bricks like that that the science of ID would have to be built up.

You still have not done the homework assigned you in 7 and 39!

You said:

“hence the “design detection.” The premise of the theory relies on an such an agency existing, but can you demonstrate such an entity?”

False logic.
1) The agency can be presumed without demonstrating such an entity.
2) The design methodology is to provide evidence for the existence of such an intelligent cause.
(i.e., In contrast to materialism which presupposes that everything can be explained by excluding such intelligent causation.)

Try telling an anthropologist that he has to demonstrate the entity that created the flint arrowheads before accepting them as of human origin.

Newton formulated the inverse squared law.
Yet has science ever explained “What” gravitation “IS”?

I repeat your assignment in 39:

1) Was the computer you are using designed?
2) By what? (sic. – By whom?)
3) Where is it? (sic. Where is that designer?)

If you are not willing to answer those basic questions, how can you expect your superficial questions to be taken seriously?

Can you demonstrate that you understand the logical chain of causation in engineering and computer science?

Explain the basis for reverse engineering?

Show an understanding of software architecture recovery?

How does science distinguish laws of nature from stochastic processes?

How does forensic science distinguish between human and natural causation?

If you have a victim with a bullet to the head, is that;
A) a stochastic process,
B) evidence of animal causation, or
C) evidence of human causation?

Was the obelisk in Space Odyssey 2001 an artifact or a natural object?
On what basis do you answer?
Or do you refrain to avoid self incrimination?

Can you seriously address issues or are you just a Darwinian parrot, evolving from one sound bite to the next?

If you want more than condescension, show yourself a scholar and a gentleman, and grapple with real issues.

Just to add to the previous post I made on this – the Appendices C and D to the Henke paper were written after and in response to the Humphreys articles you posted from true origin.

I suggest you read the Appendices to Henke’s paper. In response to the specific point you make, I draw the following from Appendix C:

” Dr. Humphreys needs to explain why he continues to ignore the contents of Dunai and Roselieb (1996) and the consequences this article raises for his agenda. I have repeatedly cited this article in both my original March, 2005 essay and my November, 2005 update. Dunai and Roselieb (1996) deals with the SLOW diffusion of helium through garnet, a HARD silicate like zircon. Dunai and Roselieb (1996, p. 412-413) feared that garnets would be too unstable under a vacuum for their experiments. As an alternative, they exposed their garnets to helium under high pressures (250 bars), subsequently measured the amount of the helium incorporated into the garnets, and then calculated the diffusion of helium in the minerals. Garnets are silicate minerals that retain helium very well over time, even at high temperatures. Dunai and Roselieb (1996) concluded that even at high temperatures (700°C), helium would take TENS to HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS TO PARTIALLY DIFFUSE out of garnets. They also discuss the possibility of excess helium in garnets, which Dr. Humphreys should think about with his zircons. Because garnets, like zircons, are hard silicates, the proclamations in Humphreys (2006) on mineral hardness are hardly relevant. The question is, once the defects in his zircons begin to close under pressure would the diffusion of helium in Dr. Humphreys’ zircons behave more like these garnets? Again, Dr. Humphreys needs to be responsible and perform these experiments.”

And further to your statement that “the same could be said about Darwinists”, let me ask you directly:

(a) what objective evidence disproves Darwinism, and

(b) explain why.

http://www.trueorigin.org/helium01.asp

and here:

http://www.trueorigin.org/helium02.asp

The main argument the Talkorigins article proposes is that the temperature and pressure at the given depth of the samples would have thrown the results off by an order of up to 6 magnitudes. The rebuttal to this central claim and made by Henke can be summed up by saying the margin of error of the rate of helium diffusion in zircon crystals has been experimentally verified to be proportionate to the hardness of the material.

The example Henke uses to dispute Humphrey’s data is the effect of pressure and heat on the diffusion in Mica, which is about a 2 on the Mohs scale, thereby making it very susceptible to heat and pressure as he showed the results being effected by up to 2 orders of magnitude. However Zircon crystals are a 7.5 on the Mohs scale, this is harder than steel and quarts, which thereby leaves a verified margin of error of up to 20%, which is significantly lower than the 6 orders of magnitude that Henke originally cited.

The rebuttals to the central claim and the rest of the arguments made in the TalkOrigin article can be found in the links I have provided if you’re truly interested. But in a nutshell, basically Henke’s arguments show a lack of thorough review of the research and experimentation done by the RATE team, most likely due to not taking them seriously in the first place. This directly ties into and lives as an example of why Academic Freedom should be supported.

The willingness to discard obsolete hypotheses when the evidence disproves them is perhaps the single most important faculty for scientists. If creation science wants to be taken seriously then its adherents must start discarding their theories when the objective evidence is clearly against them.

*sigh* The same could be said about Darwinists…

Within the the “theory” of intelligent design it is implied an intelligent agency is responsible for things science supposedly cannot explain, hence the “design detection.”

That is false. Science helps us explain things that are designed on a daily basis.

And it is those things that cannot be explained by reduction to matter, energy, chance and necessity, which also have a specification characteristic, that we then infer were designed.

The premise of the theory relies on an such an agency existing, but can you demonstrate such an entity?

So you are NOT interested in science and instead require proof.

Can YOU demonstrate the power of accumulating genetic accidents?

Those magical mystery mutations are some powerful stuff.

Too bad they still remain a mystery. But their magical powers are legendary…

“I’ve always found this young earth creation study interesting:

http://www.icr.org/article/114/”

It’s certainly interesting, but the evidence given does not actually support a young earth for the reasons given in the following paper:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faq.....rcons.html

The willingness to discard obsolete hypotheses when the evidence disproves them is perhaps the single most important faculty for scientists. If creation science wants to be taken seriously then its adherents must start discarding their theories when the objective evidence is clearly against them.

Apparently when it comes to macro evolution, it is for the current evolutionary synthesis, the only science where one’s imagination counts as evidence.