This quote from you (above) has to be your most egregiously erroneous statement here at Peaceful Science.
This is a better description:
I.D. is better understood as “an Epistemological Assertion that the sciences can document and demonstrate God’s existence by demonstrating the presence of God’s design in creation.”
In other words, ID is a sub-topic of the vastly more general topic: Proving the Existence of God.
Any philosopher or scientists can see that I.D. is not self-evidently true - - since if it were, the question of whether or not we could Prove God’s Existence would be considered TRUE and CONFIRMED!
Throughout the counter arguments to ID we see unsupported assertions, straw-man arguments and ad hominem arguments. ID is science and a very important argument to keep science honest.
Humans are simply a testbed. There is no requirement based on the scientific method for them being the actual cause of the phenomena we are observing. Humans demonstrate that a mind as a source of intelligence can arrange a sequence, plan and create a functional device based on an arrangement of parts.
Again: when you are Worzel Gummidge, living in a straw house, farming straw, eating straw for breakfast, driving a car made of straw to your straw office where you work principally with straw, it is probably wise not to accuse people of making “straw man arguments.” And if it is an ad hominem to praise your intelligence by pointing out that it is unlikely that you actually fail to understand what is wrong with what you’ve said, well, I think it is a good deal softer than the contrary suggestion that you are not wise enough to figure that out. But have the latter, if you prefer.
But a disembodied mind cannot be shown to exist at all, much less to do any of these things. Nor can the thinking-about do substitute duty for the actual making-of. I can think about blue cheese, and I can make it in my kitchen. I can think about cars, and could possibly learn enough about auto mechanical work to build one if given the right parts. I can think about skyscrapers but I cannot build one unless I can enlist others to help. I can think about speed-of-light spacecraft, and cannot build one at all.
You have no demonstration that any factor at work in your proposed causal chain even exists, much less actually does anything. Thought experiments based upon hideously poor analogies are not science.
I understand your assertion that the testbed has to to be the same as the proposed mechanism. I think many standing scientific hypothesis need retraction if this becomes the standard. Thanks for the discussion.
I can’t help but notice that you cut off what was actually said by @Puck_Mendelssohn . He actually wrote:
He gave his reason that he does not consider them scientists – namely, that they don’t actually do science. But you are trying to misconstrue that in terms of whether they believe evolution.
Are you referring to the claim that ID people do not actually do science? Yes, that seems to be mostly true. A few ID people do some science, but mostly it is science that is peripheral to the claims of ID.
But the force causing the former is exactly the same one that causes the latter.
Whereas if we did not see gravity causing massive objects to be attracted to one other, there would be no reason to believe it could create a black hole.
ID Creationists, OTOH, go from the observation that a mind cannot ever cause something to just pop into existence to arguing that only a mind can cause a DNA sequence to pop into existence.
I hear you and don’t agree with those who make a claim like this. Science is tentative and we certainly need to acknowledge that a mechanism in the cell may be identified that can create the order we are observing. @Mercer has already brought forward a candidate with VDJ recombination.
The real issue with the design argument is its limitation. Thats why I think its value is an addition to random as comparison to scientific hypotheses in biology and perhaps physics. We know Einstein certainly used it in some of his arguments.
No Bill, the real issue with the design argument is the complete lack of positive evidence. Couple that with the fact the ID-Creation movement is populated with dishonest charlatans and you get the train wreck which is IDC.
I think guys like Axe, Behe, Ewert and Dembski along with the Baylor group are doing a fair amount of work here. Behe’s last book included research backing up his claims. Have you followed the discussion between @Joe_Felsenstein, Tom English and Eric Holloway at TSZ?
As best I can tell, Dembski is mainly doing philosophy. Yes, Axe is doing some science, but it isn’t anything that would make a scientific case for ID.
