Is ID on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough?

It has been suggested on this forum.

Does anyone know more about this? What kind of breakthrough? Anyone heard any rumours, or have any guesses?

nonsense. complete hype. They have nothing and never will.

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Supposedly Meyer is coming out with a new book containing the definitive evidence the Intelligent Designer is his Christian God. That would probably count, right? :slightly_smiling_face:

Are you being serious?

Absolutely. Meyer made the announcement about his new God proving book at EN a few weeks ago. The DI even put it on a YouTube video.

Meyer’s new book: Return of the God Hypothesis

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"Meyer uses three scientific points to refute popular arguments put forward by the “New Atheists” against the existence of God:

"The evidence from cosmology showing that the material universe had a beginning.

"The evidence from physics showing that, from the beginning, the universe was been “finely tuned” to allow for the possibility of life.

“The evidence from biology showing that since the universe came into being, large amounts of genetic information present in DNA must have arisen to make life possible.”

Wow. Never heard any of those before.

These people aren’t even trying anymore. Just pumping out product to keep the cash flowing.

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Makes you wonder why the ID-Creationists here are still arguing the Intelligent Designer could be any nearly omnipotent sentient entity when the Head Clown of the DI’s Clown Circus says of course the Designer is the Christian God.

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Anyway, that’s not the rumoured breakthrough. It’s apparently coming from @Agauger. Kid you not.

She announced it here on the forum, no less. She took a fair amount of flak, too. Wasn’t the most peaceful day on peacefulscience.org when it was being discussed. :thinking:

And why is he taking on the new atheists that have the worst arguments and not the top atheist scholars that have the best arguments?

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I think she probably does know what population genetics is, but that clip was certainly a rambling and incoherent answer to the question posed. I’ve no idea why she decided to talk about homoplasy and the accuracy of phylogenetic trees, based on her implicit statement that population genetics is “trying to prove common descent”. The idea that homoplasy is a “hidden secret” of population genetics or evolutionary biology in general is laughable.

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I predict an argument from Big Numbers™. If X was to just spontaneously assemble from some random (gaseous?) state, that would be almost statistically impossible, therefore ID. QED.

Come to think of it, I can’t remember a pro-ID claim that doesn’t essentially take this form. Tornado in a junkyard - therefore God.

That would be impressive if they could actually define what range of values the physical constants could take, meaning that they likely have a comprehensive theory of the string landscape and perhaps have the specific details of eternal inflation worked out. Along with that they have measured primordial gravitational waves from inflation and have experimental evidence of strings existing. Very incredible stuff, can’t wait for this part of the major scientific breakthrough report!

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Then why does she discuss phylogenetics when she says she is going to talk about population genetics?

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A corollary question is, if she really did mean to talk about phylogenetics, why wasn’t the video quickly pulled down or a correction/replacement made? The title could have been edited and some disclaimer made in the video information tab. But this nonsense has been left up with a misleading title.

And that’s before we analyze just how silly the things she say are even if they were actually meant as criticisms of phylogenetics.

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Well, we are glad the video was not taken down. Because it wasn’t, @Agauger will always be known as “Green Screen Annie.” TBH, she might prefer that to her previous claim to fame: Admitting at an ID Creationist conference that a beneficial mutation had occurred right in her own lab.

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They appear to be using the same arguments ID/creationists have been using since Paley, but with more cowbell.

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Coming Soon from some ID author; the latest rehash of the good old argument from incredulity.

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That’s not fair. She actually did work in a lab and it was ham handed publicity, not her, that lead to this. There are many reasons to critique @Agauger, but this not one of them.

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@pevaquark Can you explain more about what you mean here? I understand that a purely scientific argument from fine-tuning is inconclusive, because we don’t know whether there is some deeper theory that may determine the range of values that the constants in the Standard Model (for example) can take. We’ve talked about that here a few times. However, I am a bit murky on what the connection to string theory is. Why does experimental evidence that string theory is true has any bearing on the fine-tuning argument? After all, string theory is just one possible theory of everything.