If Evolution is black and Creationism is white...

what happened to numerous shades of gray?

in the mind of a konservative fundamentalist.

cannot handle gray. They do not have the intellect to think about shades of gray. They are inferior in an intellectual way. When confronted with shades of gray they resort to their bible and things become once again black and white.

They do not like professors in colleges and universities that challenge the beliefs of young Hitler Youth. They fear it is possible that the deficient portion of the youths' brains may start to develop and they will begin to understand things other than black and white. The youths may even see things beyond gray and see color. They therefore program their youths to report teachers and professors to Homeland Defense. Good strategy.

read some of the posts on here about evolution

...oppose!

You see there was a thread I saw here on DU where an article was released regarding a bill requiring science textbooks to mention flaws in the full-scale evolution theory. Immediatley, many stanch pro-evolution DUers labled it as "fundie nonsense". Then there was an thread about a man who thought macroevolution was a hoax, immedietly the same thing happened.

And then there are real "religious nuts", the ones that truly see the book of Genesis at face value. Any mention of a 7 blillion year old Earth drives them crazy.

So my point is: where's the middle-ground in all of this?

or it came about through natural processes. There's no middle ground between those positions.

between a thing that occurs naturally and something that supecedes nature? Nothing. It's one or the other. The cosmos can exist naturally or by fiat. If the universe/life/whatever was called into existence by a higher being with the power to transcend the laws of nature (that it itself created, but that nothing in that creation can break except by the miraculous interference of that being), it was not created naturally. If the opposite is true, it exists naturally without the will of a divine intelligence. There's no middle ground there.

The universe can be created by higher beign gradually, in a way that can appear to be completely random but at closer examination maintains the proper order for life. As for evolution species can be created throught Earth's history, not in one moment. Some species became extinct and some change. It would only make sense that if a species were created some 12 million years ago, it's apperance and structure would vary slightly to today than it did long ago and it would branch out into various subspecies and closely related species via natural selection.

If "The universe can be created by higher beign gradually, in a way that can appear to be completely random but at closer examination maintains the proper order for life." then it was supernaturally created. Thus it was not naturally formed. That's not middle ground. And there's no reason to suppose a supernatural hand *disguising* itself as nature when nature itself is a sufficient explanation. Look, I'm not trying to disabuse anyone of their faith - it's no matter to me whether one belives in a natural or supernatural origin of the cosmos. But when you try to have your cake and eat it too, you muddy the waters of discourse and produce arguments and rationalizations that are flawed to the point of meaninglessness. Let scientists have science, let the faithful have their faith. Centuries of better thinkers than us have failed to synthesize the opposites, why on Earth do you imagine we're going to do it on a political internet forum?

leave each other alone. But face it, many religions and scientific explantations overlap eath other.

Now that I think about Christianity is one of the religions in which science and religion overlap the least. For example in many Native American religions, the story goes about some kind of animal, usually a coyote or crow who drops pebbles on the Earth and creates humans from clay. In Asatru, or Norse Heathenism, the universe was created when fire and ice collided.

"Look, I'm not trying to disabuse anyone of their faith - it's no matter to me whether one believes in a natural or supernatural origin of the cosmos."

There are quite a few DUers, especially those from the Unitarian Universalist church who believe in evolution. In the DU article "The Trouble with Creationism" the author states " Furthermore, as a religious person I think it is a mistake to try to define God in terms of our ignorance."(http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/05/02/22_trouble.html).

"But when you try to have your cake and eat it too, you muddy the waters of discourse and produce arguments and rationalizations that are flawed to the point of meaninglessness."

Why? I'm not stating there is a grand unified theory between evolution and intelligent design. In fact I'd be open to several ideas. Just because there is no highly organized unified theory doesn't mean it should not be discussed. Or maybe it's just the subject is hard to swallow because now you actually have to think this time instead of repeating talking points from either Skeptic magazine or Creation magazine. If you asked me what I believe, I'd tell you that I do believe in intelligent design, but I also believe that the Earth is at least a few billion years old, that dinosaurs and humans never saw each other alive, there was a time when humans lived in caves and hunted mammoths(farming was something humans had to figure out on their own), and that some animals are slightly different from what they were long ago. Creationism by itself is a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Please consider that the book of Genesis can be interpreted many different ways as well as creation stories from other religions.

The whole gray area thing centers around the fact that religion and science cannot explain everything, so instead of picking a side, consider both.

that if Darwinian naturalism is a scientific theory, then there would have to be an empirical way of verifying naturalism.

But think about that for a moment. It would mean that there would have to be an empirical way of verifying that there are no supernatural beings with causal relations to the world. And of course, there is no empirical test that would show this. It is a common claim among theists, for instance, that the world depends at all times upon God for its existence. Another is that the laws governing the universe do not cease to operate only because God keeps them operating. (Ask yourself the question, what causes the laws of physics to continue operating, day after day?)

Obviously, there is no empirical procedure that would confirm that the laws of physics, or the continued existence of the universe, do not depend upon God. The theistic claim is that if God did not exist, then nothing at all could possibly exist---God is the ground of all being, etc. There's just no way to refute that idea empirically. Even if it seemed to us that nature was ontologically self-sufficient, it's logically possible that it's necessarily dependent for its existence and continued operation on God.

Along comes Darwinian naturalism. It claims to be scientific. But if it is construed as an ontological theory which denies the existence of a supernatural creator, then it immediately to that extent ceases to be an empirical or scientific theory, and simply becomes a philosophical worldview.

This is what the ID people keep asking for. If one denies design in nature, then for that to be a scientific claim, there have to be scientific, i.e., empirical, criteria for being designed.

What are those criteria, in general? Problem is, there's no consensus about the scientific criteria for being designed. There is no mature, uncontroversial science of design. Hence, there's no scientifically established way to say if something in nature is designed or not. But that means that denials of design are just as scientifically illegitimate as are affirmation of design.

The honest Darwinian theorists and the honest ID theorists ought to admit this, and the former should confine their naturalism to a methodological choice, and the latter should confine their supernaturalism to philosophical argument, until such times as science arrives at a science of design, if such there possibly be.

God(s) don't exist when it does no such thing. At best, scientific theories explain the physical, not spiritual, world. Science in general makes NO affirmations on the existence or non existence of supernatural entities that may or may not have created the universe. Through the scientific process, they have found NO evidence of such entities, so, at best, those theories make no assertions due to lack of evidence. This holds true for any scientific theory, whether of the Life Sciences, like Evolution, or more Physical ones like the theory of Continental Drift.

This is the most important point, evolutionary theory does NOT make any assumptions on the existence of any Gods. To say it does is both dishonest and wrong. I also object to your use of language, for one, Darwinism ISN'T the name of the theory. Also, I have no clue HOW you define naturalism, but as far as I can tell, you hold to the philosophical definition while saying that it holds true for ALL evolutionary scientists. This is NOT how science works, and you apparently know it. Science is a process, not a goal, all it does is explain the world as best as possible, with the best tools we have available at this time.

BTW, I object to your repeated use of Darwinism for a reason, it makes no sense. Guess what, Darwin, while the originator of evolutionary theory, isn't the end all be all of it. A lot of what he theorized on was wrong, however, at the time of his discovery, it was the best theory available to describe the evidence. At the time, he, nor anyone else, had any conception of DNA, RNA, retroviruses, normal viruses, nor any of the plethora of things we know now. This is true of any theory, Newton was wrong about a lot of things in the theory of Gravity, Einstein later turned that upside down, to put it kindly. However, Newton's theory was great in describing how an apply can fall from a tree, or describing the orbits of the planets in our solar system. However, it was woefully inadequate in explaining, the motions of a Galactic structure, or the behavior of atomic and sub atomic particles. This is how science works, when a theory is inadequate in explaining what scientists observe, then it is replaced or refined.

This is true of Darwin's theory as much as Newton's, he couldn't adequately explain random mutations, because he lacked the tools and knowledge in both genetics and radiation. So what happened, is his theory so rock solid it is never modified? No of course not, it has been refined over the years, and it will continue to be refined for the foreseeable future as well.

As far as you last statement, "Darwinian theorists" already do what you ask, ID theorists on the other hand, don't.

At least, I have to assume you do.

I think you should also re-read my first and second paragraphs.

I did not say 'evolutionary science'. I said 'Darwinian naturalism' on purpose. Richard Dawkins, among others, exemplifies the latter position.

I am quite aware that there is science, and that there is naturalism, and that they are not co-terminous.

But folks like Dawkins and Monod seem less clear on the distinction.

When you say that science does not assert a negative, I have to wonder about that, because evolutionary science, as far as I can make out, asserts that there is no evidence of design in nature (though it's hard to be sure if it is asserted as a strictly scientific proposition). Indeed you asserted as much in your post. That is a negative, and it has been asserted loudly and clearly by the scientifically respectable theorists of evolution in their attacks on ID theorists.

Hence, in my post, I asked what is the general science for the detection of design, upon which the assertion that there is no design evident in the biological data is supposed to rest. And I said that I did not think there was a mature science of design, or that there is a scientific consensus about criteria for something being designed. Hence my statement of the problem: denial of design--is it a scientific statement (in which case it ought to be falsifiable, which would mean that we need to have an idea of what would count as evidence for intelligent design)? Or is it simply a corollary of a philosophical worldview, namely naturalism?

Hence the suggestion in the last paragraph of the post you're replying to.

it simply is a theory to describe the facts as they stand right now. Those facts have displayed no evidence that design is inherent in nature, therefore, in evolutionary theory, there is no evidence of design as you say. It is a logical fallacy to say that the burden of proof is on evolutionary theory. There is the general process of science, and through that, interepreting the facts through the self correcting mechanism that is science, ID advocates must shoulder the burden. Since evolutionary theory makes no designs on this(pardon the pun), yet also stands up to scientific rigor, so must ID, and if it is lacking, then a new theory, or an old one, as the case may be, is a closer fit to the facts.

Sorry to hark on about this, but is that supposed to be a scientific assertion?

If not, then fine.

If so, then surely it can only be asserted justifiably if we know, or have reasonable criteria for, what would, and what would not, constitute evidence of design. In other words, what is the scientific basis for making the assertion?

For there to be a scientific basis for it, there would need to be a scientific basis for saying that something, in any given case, is designed or not designed. For example, we may look at what we take to be Acheulian era tools, say, and we assert: "Hey, those were intelligently designed--they're not just random pieces of rock."

Ok, that's fine, but what it is that licenses the design inference in those cases, and indeed what would license such an inference in any possible case? What are the general scientific criteria, in other words, for inferring that something was designed, and for inferring that something was not-designed? In short, what is the correct science of design?

The statement, in the context of evolutionary theory, that there is no evidence of design presupposes that one can in general tell the difference between data that constitute such evidence and data that do not, that one has clear and readily applicable criteria for differentiating between designed and non-designed objects of investigation. To say "there is no evidence of design", if meant to be a scientific statement, implies that one has some notion of what would falsify that claim. And of course, the only thing that would falsify it is evidence of design. So what would constitute for evolutionary theorists evidence of design, were it to be found?

First things first, data points related to either archeology, geology, or any other science, do NOT occur in a vacuum, many other factors and facts are considered as well. Another point, scientific theories must not only explain NEW facts that arise, but also make predictions and explainations for old facts as well.

Let's go back to the stone tool example of yours, and see if I can explain how we know they are actually stone tools and not some random pieces of rock. For one, in geology, we know the composition and chemical properties of all sorts of rocks in the ground, this includes density, fracture points, and how they are formed. So with this knowledge in addition to other types of knowledge, such as discovering a burial pit of ancient humans, we can deduce a few things. To give an example, what makes a stone spear point different from a rock of the same composition. The main point is that it was formed into its shape from some unnatural means, usually hit together by another rock at a specific angle, too specific for chance or nature to do alone, to make it into a specific shape. Knowing how the rock was formed in the first place helps in this endevour, because we would know the stresses needed to shape the rock. In addition to that, we can take a similarly composed rock and make our own stone tools from it. This is one way we can tell a natural object was intelligently designed, because it contrasts with the natural.

Now, lets expand that to the living world, where ID advocates go in regards to biology. Applying the same scientific method used by evolutionary theory, ID should be able to make predictions and explain both living and dead organisms found around the world. Now before you ask again how we can tell whether an organism was "designed" or not. ID advocates must come up with a hypothesis that can stand up to the rigors of scientific inquiry to explain the facts. Evolutionary theory does not hold that any living organism is purposely designed, excluding GM products. They would have a leg to stand on if one important thing actually happened, that evolutionary theory encountered severe problems in explaining how most lifeforms evolved.

This is not to say it is perfect, nor saying that evolutionary theory isn't without problems. However, those problems usually stem from the spotty fossil record that is expanding all the time. Just like the theory of gravity by Isaac Newton, evolutionary theory is the best explaination at this time. The problem I have with ID is that it is not scientific at this time, could it supplement or replace evolutionary theory at this time, no it cannot, however it could in the future, if they would stop advocating for it in the legislature, and actually did research and publish in peer reviewed journals to explain the theory. Then maybe, just maybe, evolutionary scientists would take them more seriously. At this point in time, ID is nothing more than philosophy wrapped in pseudo-scientific prose, so why is the burden of proof on evolutionists in the first place?

BTW: I make that assertion about design based on facts at this time, unlike many people, I can actually change my mind if new facts presented themselves in a manner that is consistent with scientific theory. There is no evidence for design in biology because, as of right now, there has been no radical deviation in facts throughout the natural world regarding living organisms.

But human beings, and human activities, including intelligent designing activities, are part of nature, are they not? There's nothing unnatural about designing a watch, is there? So surely, what you ought to say is that human activity contrasts in some way with the rest of nature.

And that's fine. But so do living organisms contrast rather evidently with non-living natural objects (though both are part of nature).

Let's just forget about ID for a moment.

Suppose you're standing at the shoulder of a master watchmaker as he sits at his workbench making a watch. What do you physically see? You see a variety of complex material bodies moving and interacting. Let's say you've got a machine that scans the watchmaker's brain to record every single neural event. At no point do you physically see the watchmaker's inner, subjective thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and other contents of consciousness. You're not inside his mind, after all. You are not communicating telepathically with him, or 'inhabiting' his body, as it were. You're simply an external observer of the physical processes that result in the production of a watch.

You marvel at the intricate way the watchmaker's body interacts with its environment to produce the watch. And while the particular interactions of this physical body and this environment are different from the interactions of other bodies and environments, they are all in accordance with the laws of nature, as far as you can tell. So there's nothing unnatural going on, as far as you can see. But, not unreasonably (or so most people would say), you conclude that this was an instance of intelligent design.

And if asked, perhaps you'd say you do so on the basis that the particular physical processes involved are highly complex, and apparently goal-oriented and functional. Or something like that.

Similarly when you observe the construction of a Boeing 747, etc.

And similarly when you travel to Mars and find a working spacecraft, which dating techniques tell you is 23 million years old.

And similarly when you pick up certain types of messages from outer space.

But not similarly when you observe the functioning of DNA, etc?

Is that about right?

I'm just trying to get a more precise handle on the scientific criteria for something being designed, or not designed.

And I'm asking what precisely is it in the biological data that assures us that none of it was designed.

I would see someone who is making an object out of alloys and substances that cannot be made by any natural process, of rock or metal formation. This is similar to seeing an Aluminum object on the ground, that is impossible to see naturally, Aluminum is the most abundant metal on the planet's surface, yet it does NOT exist in the state we use it in, but rather, quite literally in dirt, combined with other atoms to for Aluminum Oxide and other chemicals. Same for any other man made object, is Nylon natural, no, because it cannot be made without human hands, a designers hands.

This argument could apply to the living world as well. You said:
And if asked, perhaps you'd say you do so on the basis that the particular physical processes involved are highly complex, and apparently goal-oriented and functional. (emphasis mine). This is the problem you have, evolution, and indeed all natural process, have no goals. This is evident in all the natural world, Crystals can be highly complex, beautiful even, are formed by complex chemical bonds, yet there is no goal as to why they formed. That is outside of science's purview to begin with, but really, if you wanted to, you can philosophically create a goal for it. However, to scientists, diamonds were not made by a God so we would appreciate their beauty.

Same thing with DNA and life in general, life has no goal, in and of itself, just processes to increase or decrease survivability of species. Some flourish, others don't, and numerous other things effect that as well. As far as the biological evidence, let's see, there are numerous medical problems caused by our "poor design" if you want me to use those words. We have organs that are of dubious origins that cause us problems, yet have no benefits, like the appendix. Would a clock maker put an extra part in his watch, just for the hell of it, even if it causes a failure in the function of the watch 10% of the time? No of course not, however, in evolution, there is no goal, and all a species needs to survive and flourish is to live to reproduce.

This is true of other problems with just Human beings, biologically, Males of the species have problems with the fact that our waste disposal pipes crossect with our reproductive pipes, so to speak. Along with other problems, and odd medical conditions due to DNA faults. Not to mention "junk" DNA, which we have more of than activated traits that we display as a species. Sometimes these latent, dormant traits are activated, causeing either harmeless mutations, such as excessive hairness throughout the body, like a family in Mexico has, or tails in some families, such as what my father was born with and surgically removed. Or other traits, such as enlarged canines, like I have myself, that serve almost no purpose, yet is annoying like hell(bloody lips). Yet it makes it easier for me to eat tough meat as well. Or horrid mutations that cause many individuals to not survive past birth, or die in the womb, or other mutations that label them freaks, and shunned by society.

These are but a few examples of how evolution works, think of Human beings, and all other contemporary animals, as piled together life forms that have just enough survivability to flourish in our niches, but nothing more than that. We have DNA in our body that has been cobbled together with itself for over 3 billion years, and should we be surprised that even today, there are problems with it?

Ok, this will have to be my last post in this exchange, so I'm making it long enough for you to get your money's worth.... ;-)

Suppose you travel back in time, and see what metals are on or near the surface of the planet. You take careful note. Then you jump forward in time, and you see the kind of aluminum that humans use today. You note the difference.

You go back in time again, and you see no elephants, nor anything that even remotely resembles an elephant. Then you go forward in time again, and you see elephants. Big difference!

In the first case, you attribute the change to intelligent design, but not in the latter.

Yet if you actually looked at humans manufacturing aluminum, what you would see is natural bodies interacting with other natural objects in the physical environment, resulting in the finished aluminum product. Nothing supernatural about aluminum manufacture!

And that's what you would see if you were to observe the emergence of elephants from some prior living organisms. Again, you'd be observing a set of natural physical processes.

But in the aluminum case, you say "This substance was intelligently designed." Not in the elephant case. But in both cases, what you would have observed is, in essence, a set of material bodies interacting with their physical environments in accordance with the laws of nature. So, again, the question is: what is it that licenses the design inference in the aluminum case but not in the elephant case?

You say, well, the aluminum we observe now was not observed prior to some point of time in the past. But we could say that of elephants too. At one time, there weren't any. And now there are. A time-traveler could have truly said during a visit to the past, "Elephants are not found in nature (at present)". And an observer could truly say today that aluminum we use is found in nature because, from the point of view of an objective physical observation of nature, humans manufacturing things like aluminum, or Ford autombiles is just as natural a process as any other. (Let's assume that the observer is an alien from another solar system. The alien sees birds making nests, monkeys peeling bananas, humans manufacturing aluminum, etc).

Now, you bring up another argument to do with maladaptive mutations to advance the claim that the biology we have doesn't appear to be very intelligently designed, if it's designed at all. Well, I find that an astonishing thing to say.

In order to improve on the biology, you'd have to change the basic underlying chemistry and physics. And I suggest that there is no very obviously mathematically coherent alternative chemistry and physics that would produce us with a better overall biological 'design'. When one is criticizing a design, you have to show that a superior design is available and feasible, etc. But nobody has yet figured out how life was created in the first place, let alone how complex life-forms could function without genes, and without mutations. There are guesses regarding abiogenesis, but that's all.

Now you're confidently saying that a truly intelligent designer could have not only produced life, but do it with better ultimate consequences than those we observe. Well, for that claim to have adequate rational foundation, you'd have to specify how the alternative physics/chemistry/biology would work, in all detail and complexity, and calculating all benefits and harms; and then compare the total biological result to the actual biology we observe. Not an easy task, and not one that anyone has really carried out. The calculational difficulties would be immense.

However, let me just focus on a couple of more specific points regarding this one issue of harmful mutations. If we look at a ruined castle, we don't infer that it was badly designed straight off the bat. Castles interact with the environment. But even a very well designed castle might become a ruin under certain environmental circumstances. The environment includes a lot of stuff, including inter-stellar stuff produced by stars. Life needs stars, because stars are needed to create a rich array of elements, etc. But stars also give off harmful radiation and matter, some of which may cause mutations. So, to get rid of the mutations without getting rid of the stars (and hence getting rid of life itself) is actually a bit tricky.

What an intelligent designer would do is really quite hard to say from our vantage point, involving, as it does, all kinds of complex modal reasoning. Moreover, the intelligent designer has to look at the whole picture, not just one piece of the puzzle.

Secondly, let's suppose that some mutations that appear non-adaptive are the result of events governed by the laws of quantum mechanics.

Would an intelligent designer wishing to create intelligent physical life, capable of doing science, nonetheless design and make a universe that is quantum-mechanical? There are reasons to think so:

In addition to the four factors listed above, the inflationary multiverse generator can only produce life-sustaining universes because the right background laws are in place. Specifically, the background laws must be such as to allow the conversion of the mass-energy into material forms that allow for the sort of stable complexity needed for life. For example,without the principle of quantization, all electrons would be sucked into the atomic nuclei and hence atoms would be impossible; without the Pauli-exclusion principle, electrons would occupy the lowest atomic orbit and hence complex and varied atoms would be impossible; without a universally attractive force between all masses, such as gravity, matter would not be able to form sufficiently large material bodies (such as planets) for complex, highly intelligent life to develop or for long-lived stable energy sources such as stars to exist. (an excerpt from this fascinating piece).

So the apparent non-adaptiveness of certain biological phenomena may be the result of things like stars and quantum mechanics, without which there'd be no life at all. It appears that life needs to be based on quantum mechanical physics and the formation of stars.

In short, all design involves problems, which are logically inherent in finitude and in the deep underlying mathematical rules and properties of material reality. Intelligent designers solve them, incorporating the solution into the design.

A couple of recent books I bought are

Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty Of Particle Physics, by Bruce A. Schumm

and

Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe, by Leon M. Lederman

It is not clear that the actual particle physics which is responsible for mutations is dispensable in favor of something better, without losing many biological benefits, including the very possibility of life itself.

There have been any number of statements by any number of physicists who have noted that the precise laws and constants governing the physics of this universe are such that even very small changes to them would have rendered the universe uninhabitable. So I am not convinced that you know of a genuinely possible superior design that a truly intelligent designer would have selected in preference to the 'design' we actually observe.

Is there a published article in a refereed scientific journal describing the complete alternative physics that would generate living physical beings at least as smart as humans are, but with less natural harm overall for those beings than humans are subject to, complete with all the relevant, independently checked and verified calculational details?

If the harmful mutations you mention are the result of the actual physics governing the universe (which I'm presuming they are), then improving upon the design might be much tougher than it may at first appear.

But returning to the main issue we're discussing, here's a summary of my view. I do not consider myself an adherent of ID. I regard it as akin to a philosophical argument, not a competing theory within biological science. But I do think that in its most sophisticated versions, ID is asking the right kinds of questions. In particular, it is questioning the ability of science to state categorically that there's no evidence of design in nature, because there are in fact no clearly established general scientific criteria for something being or not being designed.

Let's say we create self-replicating robots. Let's say we die out, and the robots take over the planet, building marvellous cities, etc. Let's say the robot race is visited by aliens. Would the aliens be making an error of reasoning if they posited that the robot race had been intelligently designed? We talk about Artificial Intelligence as being a respectable scientific notion. But suppose we are examples of it ourselves? (For a very stimulating essay on this, based on Stanley Kubrick's famous movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", go here.

If science is or aims to be truly a complete theory of reality, then there will be a good science concerning intelligence, and a good science concerning design. I think we're still a long way from that. But I think those sciences are possible. And if they are possible, they will yield evidential criteria regarding the presence and detection of intelligence and of design.

So perhaps the only reason ID isn't well established is because the correct science regarding intelligence and design generally isn't well established yet.

The argument is really very simple, and I'll try to keep it that way.

1. We are familiar with the concepts of intelligence and design. We also generally take them to describe certain things in reality (such as people, and computers).

2. If science aims to investigate the whole of reality, then there ought to be a general science of intelligence and a general science of design, since we take those things to be real. Part of those sciences will explicate the notions of 'evidence of intelligence' and 'evidence of design'. There will be some level of material complexity and functional performance that will generally count as evidence of intelligence and count as evidence of design.

3. When those sciences give well-established, scientific criteria for intelligence and design (it's not clear that they are anywhere near being mature enough sciences to have done so yet), then we can ask the question of whether the biological data furnish us with types of evidence that meet those criteria.

4. In the meantime, it is premature for either IDers or Darwinians to say that there definitely is, or that there definitely is not, evidence of intelligent design in the biological data. We typically think that the existence of computers and computer code indicate intelligence and design. We need to make that inference more precise in order to be able to make, or rule out, a similar inference regarding biological data.

5. It is not a good objection to say that we 'know' that computers and computer code are intelligently designed, because we can see people at work doing the designing, and that this is why those cases are different from the evolution of species case; and that's because we don't physically observe anyone's intelligent consciousness. What we literally see when we look at a computer scientist at work is complicated material bodies in various states of mathematically intelligible motion. That's also what we see when we observe any life form or investigate its history. In other words, the cases of intelligent design that we 'know' about are no different in terms of physical observation from the cases in biology, except for the precise form and kinds of complexity involved. So, if science is meant to explain and investigate everything, there must be a scientific way of making precise what types of material motions and complexity of structure and function license an inference to intelligent design, and what types do not.

6. The necessary degree of precision has not yet been established. ID is essentially asking that scientific criteria of intelligence and design be established, and then used to evaluate the biological data we have to see if those data license an inference to intelligent design.

ON EDIT: Guess what! An email advert for this book just popped into my inbox. Sounds interesting!

I could go back to any point in time on Earth, all the way back to the pre-Cambrian, and then, like in the movie "The Time Machine" hit the fast foward button and see species evolve into others, live on and die out, new species dominating the planet and old ones surviving, all the way up to both the ancestors of the Modern Elephant and then to the Modern Elephant itself. During all that time, I would not see, until around this previous century, and change in the composition of the element Aluminum in the ground. It would present itself as dirt, by and large, with a few example of brief glimpses of it in somewhat pure form where lightening struck at just the right point where the element was dense enough to form a solid substance of it, before breaking down again. Maybe once every 100,000 years or so.

I don't understand you saying that all things humans due is natural because it doesn't violate laws of physics. Everything is limited by the laws of physics, plain and simple, but that didn't stop us from creating a dozen new elements that do not exist naturally (too unstable). Same goes for most plastics and other chemicals that require a precision in tempurature or pressure to form. This requires a higher degree of precision than nature can provide on its own. This is also true with Aluminum, it may be plentiful, and it is cheaper now, but it takes a HELL of a lot of energy to extract it from dirt. Aluminum plants literally dump tons of dirt into the electrolasis chamber, and out comes a half a ton of aluminum. After a hell of a lot of electricity was used.

Also, about my flaws in biology, you mention outside sources, I did not, they were flaws in our DNA. If a castle collapsed due to piss poor design, blame the designer, because the castle didn't exist on its own. Unlike biological processes, which never stand still, castles cannot adapt to their enviroments, and are not natural rock formations. Rocks, no matter how much you want to think, do not stack themselve into towers. Just like tree don't grow into palisades.

Think about this, the Universe may be good for life, that doesn't mean much however, if our Sun reverses its magnetic poles, like the Earth does occasionally. In that case, kiss your ass goodbye, or flee to better pastures if you can, of course we don't have that option right now, but maybe in a century or two. The flares from that would sizzle the oceans and cause mass extinction not seen since the Cambrian period.

Also, just an FYI: We already have ID designed biological specimens, GM crops ring a bell? That does not require a change in physics either.

Creationism and its iterations are attempts to teach religion in a science class. Creationism is not a theory derived from the scientific process. Biology classes teach biology which is a subset of Science. Creationism simply doesn't belong in such a class.

You could teach about creationism in public school if you taught it in a comparitive religion course. But of course this is not what the proponents of creationism are fighting for. They do not want to be put on display alongside other religious beliefs with their story having equal footing. They want control of the class that tells what happened to our best ability. They want the perception of their story being the true story.

Its not a case of black and white. Its a case of Apples and Thumbtacks. Creationism is simply not science.

would be to say that God created the world, including human beings and other living things, and that some form of evolution is also true.

The question to ask is not whether evolution is true or not. The question to ask, rather, is:

Are there any conceivable biological data that would, if discovered, constitute evidence tending to falsify the claim that the emergence of human beings and other living things did not depend in any way on an intelligent creator?

If the answer is "No", then I doubt that this claim can itself be viewed as a genuinely scientific one.

If the answer is "Yes", then it strikes me that it is a legitimate scientific endeavor to attempt to formulate criteria for determining what kinds of empirical data would constitute such evidence. And it also strikes me that there is as yet no scientific consensus as to what those criteria, if any, ought to be.

It further strikes me that there are several possible routes this can go.

1) The neo-Darwinian scientific establishment will say "No", and require that Intelligent Design or any other explanation that is not purely naturalistic be deemed to be a philosophical claim, rather than a scientific one.

2) The neo-Darwinian scientific establishment will say "Yes" in principle, but forever disagree with their challengers on what the proper criteria are.

3) The neo-Darwinian scientific establishment will say "Yes" in principle, agree with their challengers as to what the proper criteria are, but forever deny that those criteria have been met in any of the data.

All three possible outcomes have the advantage, from the neo-D point of view, of rendering the neo-D position scientifically impregnable.

things for which there is evidence, with things for which there is no evidence. The purpose of that is....:shrug:

--IMM

I wish the opposite were true.

There is nothing in evolution that precludes religious belief.

try telling Richard Dawkins that.

I was reading something about this recently, to the effect that the DNA code is like a written language, and that attempts to explain it purely naturalistically would be like saying that the ink used to print a sentence such as "The cat sat on the mat" was responsible for producing the meaning of the sentence.

Or something like that.

I'm not sure this is what you are talking about. But what you said reminded me of somehting that is always left out.

You see, much of this discussion occurs between atheists and die-hard Christian fundamentalist creationists. But what do other religions say about this? What about Shintos have to say? What do the Buddhists, Hindus, and Wiccans have to say? What about those in small cults and tribal religions? What about those who do not believe in God but believe that humans were created by alien life forms?

... in that post ...

force school systems to include both in biology classes. Evolution is biology. Creationism is theology. Apples and crabgrass.

"If Intelligent Design is white and Evolution is black"

It's just many DUers mix up the two, so I got the two concepts confused!

Intelligent design is the new term used by creationists to try again to shove their religion into the public classroom. It's a conscious tactical decision. Same goal, different name.

;-)

or absoulute evolution

In between.