Is ID a Big Change or a Small Change?

Design
(S. Joshua Swamidass) #1

@pnelson, @bjmiller, @EricMH, and @Agauger.

I here two conflicting narratives on ID, and I"m not sure which you really believe. Can you help me sort this out?

First, on one hand, some times we hear the narrative that ID is totally revolutionary for every aspect of science.

Second, on the other hand, some times we hear the narrative that allowing for ID in science would leave everything intact except a narrow set of questions about origins. This usually comes up when people are arguing against methodological naturalism.

Which one is it? Or how do these two things fit together?

(T J Runyon) #2

I’d consider Behe’s ID a small change. Because it’s really just an additional mechanism. Then you have some of the separate ancestry ID stuff. That would revolutionize evolutionary theory in a big way I think. Wonder what it would be called? Intelligent evolutionary design theory?

(George) #3

@T.j_Runyon

How is it a separate or additional mechanism? In Behe’s video interview, he says there is no special mechanism. The “intelligent” part comes from God’s plan for creation that he sets from the very moment of creation!

Creationists seem to think Behe is endorsing “miraculous” moments of creation - - like ZAPPING flagellum into existence… but I dare anyone to produce any quote from Behe describing a miraculous event… his descriptions always seem to be about “natural processes”, doing natural things, but based on God’s intelligent organization of these natural processes!

(S. Joshua Swamidass) #4

That is what I thought too. Though it seems like it requires a whole sale reinterpretation of molecular biology to justify his point. It seems to be a large change.

(Craig Johnson) #5

I don’t see how ID can be considered a science. It doesn’t have any predictive qualities, it doesn’t have any experiments to repeat in order to satisfy peer review, and it’s unfalsifiable. The Dover trial found ID to just be a repackaging of creationism, so on what grounds would someone even be justified calling it a science?

To be clear, I’m not claiming that ID is incorrect or inaccurate. Whether or not the claims of ID are true is seperate from whether or not ID is a science.