The short times can be justified if the selection pressure is high enough. Or is it “lack of selection” pressure if the species is invading an open niche? Either way, you really have to argue that this selection pressure is unrealistic, or when replicated in the lab doesn’t lead to the same results. Darwinists have Nilsson’s eye calculations to use for their argument that “abruptly” could mean half a million years.
It is curious that the theory demands gradualism, yet Darwinists can accommodate almost any timescale. The Nilsson and Pelger paper is unable to demonstrate anything apart from Darwinian dreaming. There is no serious engagement with the issues at all, as Berlinski has shown: “But in their paper there is no mention whatsoever of randomly occurring changes, and natural selection plays only a ceremonial role in their deliberations.” http://www.discovery.org/a/1408

That isn’t my assumption. The fitness landscape changes over time, since a large part of it is the other living species co-existing with the one we’re focused on. That makes the path to the current hilltop probably some undulating and contingent pathway.
Actually, the point I was making is still relevant. I am not suggesting the pathway is not undulating and contingent, but that there is no single pathway! There is no “linear route”! Complex structures cannot be built like this. Things have to happen in parallel – concurrently.

Quite right. Humans value design principles such as separation of concerns, nature favors exaptation – yes, it’s a floor wax and a dessert topping! Feathers – flight surface, thermoregulator, sexual signal.
Again, I think you have not realised the implications of comparing tinkering evolution with exquisite design. The test is – do we see tinkering? Maybe in a few cases we do. But the overwhelming evidence is for exquisite design. That rules out an unintelligent causal process. And as for feathers, I’ll post another blog on this soon.

Who cares if they do? As I said, they can believe in magical purple orbs that fart out mindless matter and information if they choose. Just so long as they do their jobs well.

And yes, yes, pro-ID websites, to see that design detection is done in science (unless of course you discount anthropology, archeology, crime scene investigations, …).

If you want to consider cosmology and biology entirely under the domain of archeology, be my guest. Rather violates the supposed limitations of science, but then, who honors those anyway?

And yes, yes, again on the NCSE webpage. If design is the best explanation no matter if it evolved or not, then everything is ID. You have won. All other scientists should just take their ball and go home.

You seem to not understand the limitations of science. Alas! But if this is all they have, then yes – go home. Leave the ball though. That’s ours!

To start somewhere, there are not billions of years to play with: multicellular organisms go back to the Ediacaran only.

Well, that is when we start to have fossil evidence. Multicellularity could go much farther back in a variety of lineages. See this article on the molecular toolkit of multicellularity.

Even then, not only body plans but also detailed structures appear abruptly – not over long timescales.

A failure to fossilize or rapid radiation into new niches, which reason to choose? They’re both so tempting…

Darwinian evolutionists think that they have time to achieve their incremental processes, but the short emergence times are actually a great argument against their theory.

That actually skipping a step. The short times can be justified if the selection pressure is high enough. Or is it “lack of selection” pressure if the species is invading an open niche? Either way, you really have to argue that this selection pressure is unrealistic, or when replicated in the lab doesn’t lead to the same results. Darwinists have Nilsson’s eye calculations to use for their argument that “abruptly” could mean half a million years.

Your comment appears to presuppose that biomimetic design can be described as a local optimum.

I tihnk ‘local’ is suitably humble. There may be several such local optima – the wings of insects, birds, and bats are all different. ‘Optimum’ is arguable, if you look at the motivations mentioned in the article you are discussing in your OP, the researchers simply think that the evolutionary process has explored a reduced parameter space, which they can exploit. Feathers might be ‘optimal’ for birds, but not for supersonic jet aircraft.

It is as though there is a linear route from an ancestral form to the local optimum today.

That isn’t my assumption. The fitness landscape changes over time, since a large part of it is the other living species co-existing with the one we’re focused on. That makes the path to the current hilltop probably some undulating and contingent pathway.

I would suggest that “design principles” do not emerge like this. You do not build a system in this way – although it can lead to cobbled together outcomes. But look at a cobbled together scenario and see if you can identify design principles that can be valued by scientists and engineers!

Quite right. Humans value design principles such as separation of concerns, nature favors exaptation – yes, it’s a floor wax and a dessert topping! Feathers – flight surface, thermoregulator, sexual signal. So much for doing one thing well. Humans can go back to first principles when it suits, nature is burdened with history. We invent the wheel.

And yes, yes, pro-ID websites, to see that design detection is done in science (unless of course you discount anthropology, archeology, crime scene investigations, …).

And yes, yes, again on the NCSE webpage. If design is the best explanation no matter if it evolved or not, then everything is ID. You have won. All other scientists should just take their ball and go home.

Much!

Really? I would have thought there were others that might be much more suitable objections.

Oh, there’s plenty of objections. What a pity they’re extremely weak and/or fallacious, eh?

I don’t believe that any scientist ditched the idea of looking and evaluating design (google confirms that it is an extremely useful topic in science).

So long as you’re googling for pro-ID websites, sure.

Try reading the NCSE’s webpage. Try reading Eugenie Scott’s ‘explanation’ of the NABT’s actions. Hell, just read up on the delicately worded explanations of methodological naturalism sometime.

And funny, I thought design wasn’t a question science was properly suited to address one way or the other – that’s the front and center objection to ID, and one I accept as well. But it seems like that’s a standard ID critics alternately embrace or ditch depending on convenience.

Really? I would have thought there were others that might be much more suitable objections. And really again! I don’t believe that any scientist ditched the idea of looking and evaluating design (google confirms that it is an extremely useful topic in science).

Better?

No, I said design was the most reasonable conclusion. Maybe it was all chance. Maybe magical purple orbs mindlessly fart out matter and information now and then. Believe in whatever magic you wish, so long as you know where science ends and philosophy / (a)theology / speculation begins.

And funny, I thought design wasn’t a question science was properly suited to address one way or the other – that’s the front and center objection to ID, and one I accept as well. But it seems like that’s a standard ID critics alternately embrace or ditch depending on convenience.