Everyone should notice how Bill has tried to derail the thread after showing him how scientists quantitatively test for common descent. It completely obliterates his claim that we simply assume common descent. Instead of admitting he was wrong, he has now shifted to questioning the validity of these findings simply because science proceeds by methodological naturalism (even though MN has absolutely nothing to do with scientific rigor). This demonstrates Bill is not here looking for what is right, he is here to do ID apologetics. There is no point arguing with an ID-brain-dead fellow.
In actual scientific research, a rigorous study is one that adopts the best research practices when checking if the predictions of a hypothesis are consistent with observations or doing something else. I repeat, it has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with methodological naturalism. You are just telling us you are a complete buffoon when it comes to understanding how actual scientific research works.
If I wanted to compare the efficacy and safety of a new drug to a standard one, there are a number of factors that would make this comparative study rigorous. Double-blinding, randomization, having well-defined controls, etcetera are examples of these factors. Ditching one or more of these factors would diminish the rigor, hence, quality of the study. This is an example of how scientific research can be deemed rigorous or not.
Science proceeds via methodological naturalism because natural explanations have proven to be the best means of making sense of the natural world. However, there is nothing in principle that hinders science from considering “supernatural” explanations (whatever supernatural means). As long as these supernatural theories make verifiable predictions amenable to the methods of scientific testing, then science will have a go at it. In both papers I cited above, the “supernatural” hypothesis of separate origins was tested and its predictions did not pull through, invalidating the hypothesis; the converse was observed for common descent (did you even read both papers?).
Finally, evolution occurs in parallel, not in sequence. Get rid of that stupid strawman.
This is word salad (to borrow from John Harshman). It makes no sense and I bet you don’t understand what you wrote here. For example, how can you say we should “compare [the] alternative of LUCA to multiple origins” when the alternative to LUCA is multiple origins by default. In one of those papers I cited, a key prediction of separate origins, non-coalescence at the oldest time points possible, failed to bear out; instead the further one went back in time the more the sequences coalesced validating common descent; that’s how science works Bill!
Are you aware that Behe accepts common descent? If Behe’s “design detection process” failed to convince him to reject the common descent of man and apes, then why should it convince us?
More importantly, Behe has no design detection process. In his interview with Dr Dan, he was asked to provide a criteria for quantifying the extent irreducible complexity must reach before it can be deemed impossible for evolution to catch up to. Behe gave nothing! Yes, nothing after 20 long years of rambling about ICity. We have seen ICity evolve before our very eyes in the Lenski LTEE and other places and with the same mechanisms that guide evolutionary change in general. We have no need for the dead ideas parroted by the ID crew and its legion of brain-dead followers.