Nine predictions, if intelligent design is true

Complete series of transitional fossils will not usually be found because most proposed series have never existed.

Denyse, how does this square with Mike Behe and others’ view that common descent is true?

I’m not even sure if it is even possible to mutate say, a fly into a new form. If I’m not mistaken, heavy mutation results in deformed flies, not some amorphous alien blob.

ari-freedom: I’m not even sure if it is even possible to mutate say, a fly into a new form. If I’m not mistaken, heavy mutation results in deformed flies, not some amorphous alien blob.

Yes. It seems to me that random mutations are the worst way to evolve simple organisms into more complex ones. The reason is that the probability that a random mutation is harmful increases with complexity. So, NS + RM work against increased complexity, not for it. As others have mentioned on this blog, the genome probably probably incorporates a mechanism that minimizes the effects of random mutations, i.e., a quality control system that eliminates all changes due to mutations.

russ: “Denyse, how does this square with Mike Behe and others’ view that common descent is true?”

“Hopeful monster”-type evolution is quite compatible with ID, as being due to the pre-programmed (front-loaded) rapid (and hence non-transitional) change from one form to another, even in a single generation. Common descent is preserved, but the children can look a lot different than the parents.

SCheesman: I think russ point was how Denyse’s “prediction” about ID squares with Behe’s belief in the opposite.

Either Behe isn’t doing ID work or Denyse is wrong about the prediction.

None of these actually involve real positive predictions or derive directly from ID (how the heck does ID in general lead to a prediction that the ecosystem/global warming isn’t as dangerous as some think? What if the designer wanted them to be fragile?).

They are all either simply variations on “we’ll never explain this via intelligible testible means” or bizarre obvious truisms like “cultures that have a value of not beating ones wife will see less wife beating.” Evolutionary psychology isn’t exactly a settled or non-controversial branch of mainstream science in any case, and the idea that it thinks that culture plays 0 effect on anything is a complete straw man (though most evo psychs do think that evolutionary processes shaped cultures too).

And common descent can also be true if the sequence never existed, as well. As was mentioned above, the rapid change of appearance between parent and child makes fossils a terrible way to study common descent, even if it were true. The point is that ID presents a way more viable avenue of research than trying to study an ambiguous at best fossil record.

Dog_of_War: “The point is that ID presents a way more viable avenue of research than trying to study an ambiguous at best fossil record.”

In fact, it would be no disadvantage to ID to posit that the fossil record is, in fact, an excellent, accurate and mostly complete record of evolution on earth; it is not the fossil record that is ambiguous or incomplete, but our own understanding of the proecesses which led to its creation.

@ SCheesman:

That is a great point. In fact, this is exactly the kind of positive prediction that ID can make which the Darwinists are always poo-poo-ing. That’s what happens when a group is so entrenched in their own righteousness–they fail to see the accomplishments brought about by other avenues of research.

dog_of_war

Sure. Let’s just turn Denyse’s fossil prediction into a positive one. She predicts that the fossil record is essentially complete and well explored. What you see is what you get.

2 reasons to expect a complete record:
1) Paleontologists are evolutionists and there is great selection bias. They are only interested in finding transitionals to the point where we have to catch them before they claim to find a missing link on a grilled cheese sandwich.
2) Pareto principle. 20% of the effort usually produce 80% of the results and there was a lot of effort.

So we will probably not find millions of transitionals as required by Darwinism as they probably never existed in the first place.

So we will probably not find millions of transitionals as required by Darwinism as they probably never existed in the first place.

Right, a theory that requires an impossible find can’t be said to be a real scientific theory in any case. This falls squarely into the camp of untestable theories–and the Darwinists are claiming that you just fill in the gaps between the fossils they’ve found. Well, you can always say “fill in the gaps”, what is needed is a theory that doesn’t rely on something as murky as the fossil record–ID can be that theory.