Behe came up with a testable definition. Design detection is based on the observation of a purposeful arrangement of parts. This can be a flagellum a cell or an animal organ. Humans can test this hypothesis with their own capability for recognizing the work of a mind.
Where we see a purposeful arrangement of parts a mind is behind that arrangement. This is a prediction.
Here is the debate: You can review Behe’s argument at the time 14:00 to 17:00.
Science has no way of measuring “purpose”. I have yet to see any evidence presented of “purposeful” arrangements.
This only works for human minds and things designed by humans. Behe would have us believe that humans designed the flagellum. This is obviously wrong.
@sfmatheson
What a great and concise summation!!!
@Kevin
I am sure you would object to this, but this is how people in mainstream science react to I.D. Who would you nominate as the most scientifically productive supporter of I.D.?
FAIL again Bill. No one including Behe has ever shown any biological feature has a purposeful arrangement of parts. “Purposeful” implies something was constructed or an action taken with a pre-planned outcome in mind. Biological systems may be very complex and have complex functions but that is not the same having a purpose.
When you demonstrate a purposeful arrangement in any biological feature, let us know. All Behe is doing is making a fallacious argument based on his own personal beliefs.
ID pretty much died in the public eye right after the Kitzmiller v. Dover face plant for the IDers. The Discovery Institute and the money they pump into their political propaganda is the only reason ID still exists at all. The DI keeps ID on life support but ID been brain dead for more than a decade.
To my knowledge no one anywhere has ever done any productive science based on the tenets of ID. There are a handful of ID supporters who still do good science but none of their output has anything at all to do with the Intelligent Design of biological life.
You are building your conclusion into your statement. A more neutral way of putting this would be to use the word ‘functional’ instead of ‘purposeful’. Do that, and you will see that you can’t conclude very much about the origin of the arrangement of parts.
If you listen to Behe’s talk that I posted at 61 you will hear him interchange the words purpose and function. I agree you have identified the way to break the theory down to testable pieces.
The statement that I heard for the first time at the Texas A&M forum that I find fascinating is:
A purposeful arrangement of parts is the way-the only way -that we recognize the work of a mind.
That is stunningly false. Do you know much about the problem if other minds?
Look at Behe’s explanation at 18:00 through 20:00 and you can see how your example may fit into the design inference. Is it more like Mount Everest or Mount Rushmore?
My point is that I can’t look at those chemical structures and determine if they were created by minds or not. Can you tell whether either of the structures are created by a mind or not? I don’t think “Everest vs Rushmore” helps here. What do you see in these structures?
In my opinion, Behe is not correct in poo-pooing the idea that the Old Man in the Mountain is/was not designed. Certainly, the large rocks were arranged seemingly with a purpose, to provide onlookers with a view of a face. They are indeed purposefully-arranged.
Heck, there is even more to the design of the Old Man. It was obviously created for the benefit of natives of the region. When they departed, the Old Man self-destructed. Planned obsolescence is, IMO, a strong indication of engineering.
Everest vs Rushmore is an analogy to try and help understand Mike’s claim that the design inference is quantitive. I would say your diagram is more like Mount Everest where the bacteria flagellum is more like Mount Rushmore.
Both may be designed but have different quantitive levels of design detection.
But shouldn’t the analogy help me predict whether either or both of those structures were designed by a mind?
This is not the claim he is making. It is worth the time to carefully review. 18:00 through 20;00.
Design detectability is different then if something was factually designed.
How so Bill? Please show your work where you determined the quantitive level of design in each. Isn’t that what the useless ID metric “CSI” was supposed to do?
The Old Man consists of purposefully-arranged parts. Isn’t this the way Behe claims we detect design?
So would you say that if we see a Rushmore designed is inferred (it’s detectability is high) and if we see an Everest we don’t know one way or another (it’s detectability is low)?
