My point is that data for ID can and is found in other areas of science (besides biology).

Fross:
The reason YECism is such an easy target to discredit is because the evidence for an old earth and old universe is so overwhelming that no matter what you say beyond that subject, you are not going to be taken seriously.

But YEC has a valid exoplanation for the age of the universe. As for the age of the Earth well that depends directly on HOW it was formed.

For example man can now make diamonds. Diamonds were once thought to require eons of time to form. We now know that intelligent agencies can do things to speed up processes.

Fross:
In the same manner, many in the ID movement and a lot of their press make it seem like common descent is still being questioned. Once again this is a very easy target to discredit.

Not until someone can tells us about those differences.

IOW I am of the cloth that Copmmon Descent can be easily discredited. And I mean easily.

If Darwin’s TOL is exploding, how much of common descent are we now talking about?

The hypothesis put forth is one of Pattern Pluralism.

Why would anyone want to agree with Common Descent at this time when pieces are falling off the tree?

Wasn’t there some scientist who was recently quoted as declaring that we never would figure out how RM+NS did it?

Oh yea, Schwartz, “The history of organic life is undemonstrable; we cannot prove a whole lot in evolutionary biology, and our findings will always be hypothesis.” http://www.uncommondescent.com.....#more-2057

That said, the front-loading hypothesis (of which Davison’s PEH is a variant) should hold findable data. If the the phylogenic tree branches due to front-loading, then both the left and right branch should contain the data necessary for both branches. The ‘no longer needed’ data may deteriorate once it is no longer necessary, but it should still be there.

Testing the twiddling method may be more of a process of elimination. However, I think it is testable. Consider the lowly HAR1F gene. It took on 18 point mutations between the common ancestor to the chimp and man. However, it took on only 3 point mutations between the chimp and the human. There aren’t very many mutation events to consider, if every pathway of single or pair mutations between the chimp and human produces a defective HAR1F, then the entire 18 mutation set must have occurred in one whack. This would be clear evidence of twiddling.

The best proof I can think of for the common design argument is to show that random drift does not occur — that all genetic variation that survives between species is planned by the designer. A case in point would be the cytochrome C gene. This gene represents the phylogenic tree with a mapmaker’s precision. Attempts to find a naturalistic explanation for the perfection in the map have been weak at best. Such would be the evidence that discounts the “falsification” of genetic drift.

Lets not get lost in the “its not teatable” argument. That argument is so much hooey. It will remain hooey until the day that neo-Darwinian evolution becomes testable.

Read “The Privileged Planet”. It makes it perfectly clear that ID extends well beyond biology.

Without that Common Descent is “accepted” as a matter of faith (at least between those two populations).

DaveScot:
Gravity is accepted as a matter of faith too.

And here I was led to believe we could observe gravity and directly test it.

So faith is keeping me on this planet. Thanks- that’s a good thing to know. That way when I start floating away I know I have lost my faith.

To BFast,

ANY scenario requires a way to test it- objectively. Even the scenarios you posted in comment 19.

But I agree in that the ONLY Common Descent scenarios that (at least) appear likely are those you mentioned (plus JD’s Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis).

In those billions of observations of life coming from life, no one has ever observed a new species coming from a different species, not gradually, not suddenly.

Evolution is an historical science with no written record so here we all are conjecturing about what happened.

Without that Common Descent is “accepted” as a matter of faith (at least between those two populations).

Gravity is accepted as a matter of faith too. We don’t know how it works but we have observed it working the same way without exception so many times we just call it a law of nature and accept that as a matter of faith.

Similarly we have the law of biogenesis. Omne vivo ex ovum. Every living thing we see where its origin can be determined came from another living thing. There have been no exceptions and billions of observations of life coming from life. It is a law of nature just as gravity is a law of nature for the exact same reasons. In every observation it has never failed to be true.

From this standpoint, ID isn’t just distancing itself from the accepted science of biology, but of paleontology, cosmology and geology as well.

What does evolutionary biology have to say about whether black holes really exist or not? Or what does it say about gravitons? Or what is its position on cosmic rays and cloud formation?

ID doesn’t speak to the age of the earth. There’s nothing wrong with that. The age of the earth isn’t related to ID. Is there some part of that you don’t understand?

I would accept Common Descent (again) if someone, anyone, can explain how any mechanism can account for the physiological and anatomical differences observed between two populations which allegedly shared a common ancestor- humans and chimps.

I observe phenomena such as Haldane’s dilemma or the HAR1F gene, and I conclude that some greater cause is at play than random mutation and natural selection. There appear to be three candidates:

1. Front-loading — life itself is a grand organism that is unfolding according to the plan injected into it at the beginning. As an acorn becomes an oak, so a single cell has followed its programming to become, well, man. This is clearly a “common descent” model.

2. Twiddling — the idea that an agent has manipulated the genes of a common ancestor to produce man and chimp. This model would suppose that the agent was acting with strategy, but modifying the genetic code bit by bit. This model supports common descent. It is my preferred model at the moment.

3. Common design — the idea that an agent holds the master plan of organisms. One day the agent made a modified version of an ape (or whatever) and fashioned it into man — Adam and Eve. The evidence that I see which seriously challenges the common design model, favoring the twiddling model, is the apparent drifting of some genes in the genome. Either all “drifting” is very tightly controlled by the agent, placed into the code as some sort of signature or copyright notice, or drifting really happens. If drifting really happens, then why would the drifting show up in the fact that in the vast majority of cases (HAR1F notwithstanding) the chimp is more like man than it is like a dog.

I must admit, I have been startled at Denton’s evidence re the cytochrome C gene. Its drift seems perfect — too perfect. I believe that the only logical explanation for the cytochrome C is that it is the equivelant of the designer’s copyright notice.

All that to say, just because one buys into common descent, doesn’t mean that one buys into a naturalistic explanation. I do not by any means believe that RM+NS can get past Haldane’s dilemma.