Kipper: Well then, who is the prime mover.

Aristotle: Please reread my first comment.

Identifying the Designer

Identifying the Designer

It ends with the very appropriate:

Suffice it to say, I have little patience with the “identify the designer” rhetoric. It’s not just an example of sloppy thinking. It’s a form of sloppy thinking that gunks up any sincere interest in design. It turns an attempt to adhere to logical, responsible thinking into a sinister motive. So perhaps, there is a better question to ask. Why do ID critics refuse to publicly acknowledge that it is illogical to identity the designer using the criteria of mainstream ID (IC and CSI)?

Irreducible complexity is real and can be tested.”

Then why has it never been done so?

It has been done and that is why anti-IDists are busy trying to refute it.

It is not a scientific argument, it is simply the “argument from incredulity”

And yours is an argument from belief only.

“Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are evidence for a designer.”

First off, no one has ever shown any living thing (or part of a living thing) to be irreducibly complex.

That has been done many times over. Your ignorance is not a refutation.

Secondly, why must complex information be evidence of a designer?

Everytime we have observed CSI and knew the cause it has always been via agency. We have never observbed CSI arising from nature, operating freely.

IOW if you can show CSI arising from nature, operating freely, you would falsify ID.

Good luck.

“ID is NOT about the designer and it is NOT a search for the designer.”

But it has to be, their can be no design without a designer.

The only way to make any determination about the designer or the specific process(es) used, in the absence of direct observation or designer input, is by studying the design in question.

That is the reality of the situation.

ID is only about the detection and understanding of the design.

The designer and process are kept separate. just like abiogenesis is kept separate from the theory of evolution even though how life ariose directly impacts any subsequent evolution.

You all know it has to be, it would be your biggest (and it seems only) piece of evidence.

You don’t want evidence, you want proof.

IOW you aren’t inrterseted in science.

“So if we find the designers of Stonehenge we have to find out how they came into existence before we can determine that Stonehenge was designed?

That’s plain dumb.”

We have a good idea of how they came into existence.

We don’t even know who id it.

But more importantly, Stonehenge is not another life form, therefore it did not come into existence in the same method as those that designed it now did it.

How is that relevant?

Furthermore, anyone studying Stonehenge desperately wants to now all they can about who made it.

How do you know?

“What caused the “bang”?”

I have no idea, but I would certainly not postulate a designer if I have no evidence for their existence.

There are only so many options. And saying “I have no idea” does not aleve you of the responsibility of having to explain it.

The evidence for the designer can be found by reading “The Privileged Planet” as well as the evidence presented in “Darwin’s Black Box”, “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis” and “Why is a Fly not a Horse?”.

It is also very telling that you cannot even provide any data which accounts for the physiological and anatomical differences observed between chimps and humans.

This means you accept that humans & chimps share a common ancestor as a matter of faith.

Because the designer is irrelevant to the design. As a matter of fact the ONLY way to make ANY determination about the designer(s) or the specific process(es) used, in the absence of direct observation or designer input, is by studying the design in question.

Also, with respect to Darwinism, the processes you mentioned have NEVER been shown to do the things it has been ckaimed to do.

And compared to natural selection/ random mutations, design is just as valid of a mechanism.

We have experience with designing agencies and we have a pretty good grasp on what nature, operating freely, can do. Couple those and we get the design inference based on the observable evidence.

Again we don’t have to know who designed Stonehenge or who designed the designer of Stonehenge, in order to determine Stonehenge was designed and then set out to study it so that we can understand it.

And in all those years of studying Stonehenge we only have a rudimentry understanding of it.

If we knew the designer or the specific processes used we wouldn’t have a design inference, design would then be a given.

Why? For Darwinian evolution, based on natural selection and random mutation, etc. to be an adequate theory, evidence of those processes must be present. Why not the other way around?

Irreducible complexity is real and can be tested.”

Then why has it never been done so? It is not a scientific argument, it is simply the “argument from incredulity”

“Irreducible complexity and complex specified information are evidence for a designer.”

First off, no one has ever shown any living thing (or part of a living thing) to be irreducibly complex. Secondly, why must complex information be evidence of a designer? Just because you state it does not make it so.

“ID is NOT about the designer and it is NOT a search for the designer.”

But it has to be, their can be no design without a designer. You all know it has to be, it would be your biggest (and it seems only) piece of evidence. Your just afraid to ask the question, and true scientists would never be afraid to ask the question.

“So if we find the designers of Stonehenge we have to find out how they came into existence before we can determine that Stonehenge was designed?

That’s plain dumb.”

We have a good idea of how they came into existence. But more importantly, Stonehenge is not another life form, therefore it did not come into existence in the same method as those that designed it now did it. Furthermore, anyone studying Stonehenge desperately wants to now all they can about who made it.

“What caused the “bang”?”

I have no idea, but I would certainly not postulate a designer if I have no evidence for their existence.

How Darwinism Turns a Cow Into a Whale by David Berlinski.

One had to include other factors entirely, such as sexual selection, to account for the peacock’s impressive feathers, which are presumably advantageous enough in impressing peahens that the disadvantages they must offer when it comes to quickly escaping predators and that sort of thing.

It is easy to see something in nature and dream up a story how such a feature is advantageous. Such a scenario, however, is almost impossible to refute. For example, if the peacock never developed such beautiful patterns, it would not be a problem for natural selection either. Any theory that can just as easy explain 2 opposite conclusions is not very easily tested.

When you start to go beyond mere imagination and try to quantify how plausible these scenarios really are for gradual development, serious problems begin to emerge. Look at this article for a few of these

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1832/

The main reason I find myself unpersuaded by ID as a scientific approach is that it wishes to redefine science rather than play according to its rules. I do not believe science requires adherence to metaphysical naturalism, but I do think it requires methodological naturalism, because science itself is about natural processes.

First, ID is not about naturalism versus supernaturalism. Rather it is about distinguishing between causes of chance and necessity and intelligent causes. The SETI program uses these very same principles.

Also, I have no problem with limiting science to only natural explanations. The problem comes in when science must assume evolution is correct because the philosophical system chosen only deals with natural causes. This hinders science by preventing evolution from being subjected to critical scrutiny like other theories of science must go through. Any alternate hypothesis like ID must be ruled out by definition. That is not good science. The public is never told that is what is really happening.

Again, I refer you to the excellent work of Cornelius Hunter who has a podcast explaining this further.

http://www.idthefuture.com/200....._hunt.html

That doesn’t mean persons natural or supernatural don’t have a role to play in the universe – it just means that science isn’t about that, at least as the overwhelming majority of scientists understand it.

No real poll of scientists has ever been done, so I don’t think you can really argue that there is overwhelming support for Neo-Darwinism. A recent poll of US doctors showed the majority support ID

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....or_th.html

At minimum, I would say a very high percent (well above the ‘fringe’ level) of scientists are willing to go as a far as Dr. Behe. I mean 90% of the US population are willing to go at least as far as he does. Most, of course, will allow design to play a much larger role in history.

So should ID attempt to identify design by rules that proscribe it? And who changed the rules? The founders or materialist ideologues?

And, as others have pointed out (such as StephenB in 21), if the rules forbid a teleological inference then a chance and necessity solution is true by definition. Thus if we rule out design we have also ruled out Darwinism.

Naw! Gimmie that old time science, for if it was good enough for Copericus (and Galileo and Newton and Kepler and Mendel and Linneaus a la Joseph 10) then it’s good enough for me.