Why Intelligent Design Isn't a Scientific Theory

[Jacurutu]

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory for several reasons.

1) Any scientific theory must falsifiable. This means that it has to be something that can be tested and proven wrong if it is indeed wrong. There is no means of doing this with the "theory" of intelligent design.
2) Any scientific theory must be parsimonious, in the sense that it must be the simplest and most realistic explanation. Now, I know that many people might say that it doesn't get more simple than saying "God created everything." However, based on scientific observation, does it seem more probable that the universe and all living things were spontaneously generated at once or that modern life is the result of the processes of natural selection and random mutation over the last three billion years? We can rule out the first simply by the chemical law that mass and energy are neither created nor destroyed (although they may be interchanged). The second possibility is supported by mounds of empirical evidence.
3) Any scientific theory should allow you to make predictions. With evolution, you can do this; with intelligent design, you cannot.
4) Any evidence must be reproduceable. There are countless experiments testing the tenets of evolutionary theory; for example, you could test random mutation by inducing mutation in yeast with UV radiation (the same radiation that comes from our sun) and observing the phenotypic variation after plating these samples and allowing colonies to grow. Likewise, you can induce mutation in more advanced animals and observing the phenotypic effects of those mutations. The results of these tests will be consistent over time. The other bases of evolution are quite testable and reproducable as well.

Anyway, I've seen plenty of people claim that evolution and intelligent design are equally viable scientific theories, but intelligent design does not meet the qualifications to be considered a scientific theory.

My question is: how do people still want to call ID a scientific theory and teach it alongside evolution when one is faith and the other is a true scientific theory?

[McCulloch]

Now I know why some users have a long record of postings. It's because they spend time contradicting without debating.

Refutations are an important part of debate.

A scientific theory is a model that explains observations. A scientist comes up with a model to explain those observations, and then they try to disprove it.

Is this not the same as a scientific theory seeking to prove if something is valid?

Not quite, but the distinction is subtle. You can gloss over it if it is too difficult for you.

If you don't believe that there is a purpose for everything then you would have to deny cause and effect.

No. Just ultimate cause.

If something ultimately causes something, wouldn't there be an ultimate effect? If there isn't an effect, then there wasn't a cause. So, If I raise my hand and pound it on the desk, I will make a noise and cause the table to move. Cause: pounding my hand on the table Effect: making a noise. If there is a noise and I didn't pound my hand than the noise was caused by something else. If there wasn't a noise, than nothing had caused it. With cause and effect something either is or isn't. Either something will move it or else it will not move.

You have well described cause and effect. Was that supposed to disprove the possibility of uncaused events?

Let's see if I follow. Humans procreate, therefore God exists. Gotcha!

If the complex process of procreation is achieved through complex steps which a human being has no control over other than a sexual relation, than Someone (God) is obviously directing things.

I missed your point. Now it is Human procreation is complex therefore God exists.

No there does not. The fifty third, 2kg rock in a crater on the dark side of the moon has no apparent purpose, but it arguably exists.

Just because you can't imagine that something has a purpose, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exists. Centuries ago people could not conceive of the existence of gravity and sound waves but although they can't be seen they have always existed and have always had a purpose, some of which has been taken advantage of. So if something that cannot be seen has been discovered and purposely used or taken advantaged of, than imagine how much significant something that can in fact be seen be.

This is a different thing. You have asserted without evidence that everything has a purpose.

Let's see if I follow this line of reasoning. Human inventors are purpose driven. Therefore nature must be purpose driven. OK. Sure!

If nature isn't purpose driven than why do many atheist attribute life processes to "mother nature"? So the idea of mother nature is faulty isn't it? Because according to you it isn't purpose driven right?

No atheist seriously attributes life to a personified mother nature. While pagans and pantheists may have a different point of view, atheists can only use the term mother nature metaphorically.

[Jester]

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory for several reasons.

A couple of weeks ago, I would have completely agreed with this. I have, however, read a defense of Intelligent Design that struck me as far more scientifically valid than I had expected. I am not defending the whole of Intelligent Design, but am now more uncertain about my stance, and would love some intelligent feedback from the forum members.

1) Any scientific theory must falsifiable. This means that it has to be something that can be tested and proven wrong if it is indeed wrong. There is no means of doing this with the "theory" of intelligent design.

This is one thing with which I am naturally inclined to agree, but am not certain. It is not hard to picture a situation in which we might receive evidence that alien life exists. If the universe is infinite (as scientists believe), however, there is no way of falsifying the theory of the existence of alien life. I understand that this is hardly typical of a scientific theory, but it does seem to come up in certain occasions.

2) Any scientific theory must be parsimonious, in the sense that it must be the simplest and most realistic explanation. Now, I know that many people might say that it doesn't get more simple than saying "God created everything." However, based on scientific observation, does it seem more probable that the universe and all living things were spontaneously generated at once or that modern life is the result of the processes of natural selection and random mutation over the last three billion years? We can rule out the first simply by the chemical law that mass and energy are neither created nor destroyed (although they may be interchanged). The second possibility is supported by mounds of empirical evidence.

This is an extremely valid point. A theory must fit the evidence. (I have never been certain about the idea that it should be the simplest explanation. I can understand that it usually is the case, but “simplest” cannot empirically be connected to “closest to truth”. But I do understand that that is not your main point.)
I have my opinions of evolution, but don’t see that it is necessarily at odds with the theory of intelligent design (though it necessarily is at odds with most interpretations of the creation accounts). This may be an apples and oranges comparison. I have read enough on evolution to believe that it is one of the countless cases in science in which we are not using the right theory, but the best theory we have. Scientists know there are problems, but nothing else has replaced it yet (though, of course, theists are hoping to do so with intelligent design). Christians have always attacked it, but do not seem to understand that the theory will not be removed from science books until a more plausible one overtakes it. I’m currently uncertain as to whether or not Intelligent Design actually covers the same material as evolution and will continue to compete with it, or that they will ultimately become parallel theories. For the time being, however, I will suggest that certain elements would be overturned by the acceptance of the concept of intelligent design, such as the formation of early single-cellular life, but that other areas, such as microevolution, will remain completely untouched.

3) Any scientific theory should allow you to make predictions. With evolution, you can do this; with intelligent design, you cannot.

This is a problem for supporters of ID, no doubt. Perhaps it has been proposed, but I have heard of no prediction, making process that has come from the theory, nor can I imagine what it might be. Of course, I suppose it is theoretically possible to make legitimate predictions using the theory, but would offer this response instead:
Though science arguably could provide evidence of an intelligent creation, our science currently excludes the means to study a creator (though it does seem to be branching into it). That is to say that, were science to provide evidence that “God did this”, it would be hard pressed to make predictions. Using an extreme example for clarity’s sake: If God appeared in localized form in front of several thousand people and television cameras and held back a Tsunami with his hand, it would be a well documented event, but I believe that scientists would be hard pressed to make predictions from the study of what happened. In such a case, of course, it would be due to the severe limit of the data. Such a case may or may not apply to Intelligent Design in the future, but we are dealing with a very new study.
My second response would be to point out that there is at least one prediction that could be made from Intelligent Design, though it is troublingly one that is completely out of our power to test. I would argue that it should lead us to the conclusion that there will always be a return to the existence of life in the universe regardless of how many birth and death cycles it goes through. Ironically, were it accepted by the scientific community, it would probably be used as a support for the existence of alien life. If a designer created one world of life, it would be likely that more should exist.

4) Any evidence must be reproduceable. There are countless experiments testing the tenets of evolutionary theory; for example, you could test random mutation by inducing mutation in yeast with UV radiation (the same radiation that comes from our sun) and observing the phenotypic variation after plating these samples and allowing colonies to grow. Likewise, you can induce mutation in more advanced animals and observing the phenotypic effects of those mutations. The results of these tests will be consistent over time. The other bases of evolution are quite testable and reproducable as well.

Without commenting on the reproducibility of the various aspects of evolution, I will agree that the “God of the gaps” argument lacks this aspect (as well as others) of a legitimate scientific theory. We can certainly rule out any concept of intelligent design that relies entirely on discrediting evolution as entirely non-scientific.

My question is: how do people still want to call ID a scientific theory and teach it alongside evolution when one is faith and the other is a true scientific theory?

I certainly don’t claim to defend the whole of intelligent design. There is however, at least one exception. This is the argument of information systems. In science in general (Archeology, all forms of Anthropology, etc.), the discovery of an information bearing system (such as a tablet containing inscriptions) is attributed to conscious construction. Intelligent Design points out that DNA and RNA are information bearing molecules that cannot be formed through the random collision of molecules (owing to the fact that the information must not only be arranged in an unpredictable, but meaningful way and the fact that they are only useful in the presence of other highly specific and developed structures and substances).
Basically, it does seem to stand to reason that the idea that this argument is no more guilty of inventing a “God of the gaps” than the archeologist studying ancient tablets from Egypt is of inventing a “scribe of the gaps”, as both are centered in what we know about information systems rather than what we do not know.

[Goat]

I certainly don’t claim to defend the whole of intelligent design. There is however, at least one exception. This is the argument of information systems. In science in general (Archeology, all forms of Anthropology, etc.), the discovery of an information bearing system (such as a tablet containing inscriptions) is attributed to conscious construction. Intelligent Design points out that DNA and RNA are information bearing molecules that cannot be formed through the random collision of molecules (owing to the fact that the information must not only be arranged in an unpredictable, but meaningful way and the fact that they are only useful in the presence of other highly specific and developed structures and substances).
Basically, it does seem to stand to reason that the idea that this argument is no more guilty of inventing a “God of the gaps” than the archeologist studying ancient tablets from Egypt is of inventing a “scribe of the gaps”, as both are centered in what we know about information systems rather than what we do not know.

Ah.. reading the 'Dembski' arguements, huh?

Well, First of all, evolution is not random. Second of all, when ti comes to the formation of molecues, it isn't "all at once".. It is accumulative change over time, not just 'all at once'. For that principle to devolop 'life' from the surrounding chemistry, you basically have to have a self replicating molecule. It isn't 'random' at all. While the details are not known (and might never be known), it does show that the statement 'They are useful in the prescense of other hight specific developed structures and substnaces') is ignoring the principle of accumuatlive changes over time.

And when it comes to dembski's claims about 'Information'. I don't see how he can test and quantify is claims. He has come up with some "Information Laws" that are nto testable in and of themselves, and then is promoting I.D. based on the assumptions he is calling 'laws' (such as the "law of conservcation of information', when he can't measure or quantify the term information)

[huberart]

I think the real question that should be posed before answering this question is: how does one define intelligence? Personally I would say that intelligence is the product of neurochemical exchanges in your brains "3-d" architecture. And by that definition intelligence is nothing more than a complex system of exchange, which functions by the same laws as the outside universe, therefore wouldn't the entire universe (which is undenyably a much more complicated system of exchanges) be intelengent (probably not in the same way us little humans with our tiny brains are)? So the real question becomes not if there was an intelligent designer, but is the whole universe an intelligence that spawned itself?[/quote]

[Jester]

Ah.. reading the 'Dembski' arguements, huh?

Yeah, I thought they were interesting, and better than I’d expected (though I wasn’t expecting much).

Well, First of all, evolution is not random.

Please allow me to clarify. I was referring to the formation of the earliest forms of cellular life, which, to my knowledge, is explained within the atheistic paradigm as being due to random events.
Evolution is a different matter. I agree that randomness is not the theory there, only mutation is accused of being random. I do have some intellectual concerns with evolution, but will agree that ‘randomness’ is an unfounded accusation.

Second of all, when ti comes to the formation of molecues, it isn't "all at once".. It is accumulative change over time, not just 'all at once'. For that principle to devolop 'life' from the surrounding chemistry, you basically have to have a self replicating molecule.

You have to have a self replicating molecule that is essential to biological life that forms through random events, manages to survive for an extended period of time until slowly developing (through more or less random acts of chemistry) into an early cell. The existence of such a molecule seemed perfectly reasonable given the knowledge of Darwin’s time, in which the cell was seen as a basically simple structure. It does not hold true given the information we have obtained since then.

It isn't 'random' at all. While the details are not known (and might never be known), it does show that the statement 'They are useful in the prescense of other hight specific developed structures and substnaces') is ignoring the principle of accumuatlive changes over time.

I understand that that is the theory, but my statement remains true. An information storage molecule has no value until a retrieval system for said information is developed. The retrieval system has no value until the information is there to retrieve. Obviously, there are cases in which interdependent things can be formed together. What I am arguing, however, is (first) that our current scientific theories do not adequately explain the process of developing the abundance of interdependent aspects of the cell. Second, that I am willing to consider the idea that is unrealistic to believe that such a system could ever be formed without intention, given what we know of the chemistry of the cell and information systems.
Most specifically troubling to the evolutionary concept of the earliest life is the nature of DNA and RNA molecules. They are self-replicating, of course, but for any variation to have formed randomly (there can be no principal of chemistry that influences the sequence of an information bearing molecule without destroying its ability to retain information) outside of a cell, containing enough information to be useful to a cell is not realistic given what we know.

And when it comes to dembski's claims about 'Information'. I don't see how he can test and quantify is claims. He has come up with some "Information Laws" that are nto testable in and of themselves, and then is promoting I.D. based on the assumptions he is calling 'laws' (such as the "law of conservcation of information', when he can't measure or quantify the term information)

You make a good point here. We should look into the testability of these claims. I would add the counterpoint that he did not invent these laws, however. They have traditionally been among the accepted working methods of science in several fields. I am not personally aware of a clear cut test of these concepts, but in all situations of which we do have knowledge, these rules hold to be true. That is a common means of testing within science.

[Jose]

[by the way--is anyone else using Firefox and finding that it handles phpBB in a completely bizarre way?]

1) Any scientific theory must falsifiable. This means that it has to be something that can be tested and proven wrong if it is indeed wrong. There is no means of doing this with the "theory" of intelligent design.

This is one thing with which I am naturally inclined to agree, but am not certain. It is not hard to picture a situation in which we might receive evidence that alien life exists. If the universe is infinite (as scientists believe), however, there is no way of falsifying the theory of the existence of alien life. I understand that this is hardly typical of a scientific theory, but it does seem to come up in certain occasions.

There are those who like to say that aliens would "count" as the intelligent designer. The trouble is, the data pretty much restricts them to seeding the earth with ancient bacteria-like things a few billion years ago. Aside from this, though, the hypothesis that no aliens exist is falsifiable if anyone ever sees just one. It's harder to falsify the idea that they do exist, because this requires looking everywhere...a tall order. It's even harder to falsify the idea that the ID folks' "favorite designer" (the Christian god) exists, because he is defined as existing outside of nature. There, we can't even look.

2) Any scientific theory must be parsimonious, in the sense that it must be the simplest and most realistic explanation. Now, I know that many people might say that it doesn't get more simple than saying "God created everything." However, based on scientific observation, does it seem more probable that the universe and all living things were spontaneously generated at once or that modern life is the result of the processes of natural selection and random mutation over the last three billion years? We can rule out the first simply by the chemical law that mass and energy are neither created nor destroyed (although they may be interchanged). The second possibility is supported by mounds of empirical evidence.

This is an extremely valid point. A theory must fit the evidence.

More importantly, a theory is derived from the evidence. It's not built first, and then a bunch of minions go out looking for anything that might seem to fit it. In this case, it's not even a matter of what's simplest or what's most probable. The evidence points clearly and unambiguously at evolution. There's no evidence at all that gods exist. Their strongest argument for existence is that they hide so well that they can never be found.

I have read enough on evolution to believe that it is one of the countless cases in science in which we are not using the right theory, but the best theory we have. Scientists know there are problems, but nothing else has replaced it yet...

You'll have to give us some examples here. Are there problems? The scientists I know don't think so. Of course they quibble about details where little data exist--the forefront of discovery--but that's as true in medicine as in evolution. As with all scientific knowledge, and all theories, we're using the best theory we have. The only clues that it might be close to correct are the numbers of tests that it has passed. In the case of evolution, it's passed 'em all.

This does not say that previous incarnations of evolutionary theory were right, or that they passed the tests. The basic ideas have passed the tests; the details have been more difficult. That's always how it is. It's like looking at a map from a long way off, where you can make out the outlines. You can try to fill in the details, but you're guaranteed to get some of 'em wrong at first, and have to correct 'em when you get closer.

I’m currently uncertain as to whether or not Intelligent Design actually covers the same material as evolution and will continue to compete with it, or that they will ultimately become parallel theories.

ID claims it covers the same ground, but does so by erecting false caricatures of evolution and proving them wrong. Nothing in ID "theorizing" has addressed the process of evolution as it is understood by science.

For the time being, however, I will suggest that certain elements would be overturned by the acceptance of the concept of intelligent design, such as the formation of early single-cellular life, but that other areas, such as microevolution, will remain completely untouched.

The origin of life is not a part of the theory of evolution. It's its own separate field, called the origin of life. Evolution specifically deals with the change of life over time, which pretty much requires that life exists before evolution can occur.

As I understand it, the creation/ID camp accepts microevolution because it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. They don't understand macroevolution (which turns out to be microevolution involving different genes, or microevolution over a longer time, depending on whose definition you use).

Though science arguably could provide evidence of an intelligent creation, our science currently excludes the means to study a creator (though it does seem to be branching into it).

This is a mis-perception of science. Scientific understanding starts with observations. There have been no observations or measurements or any kind of empirical data that say "god." It's all been ordinary, natural-world kind of stuff. If all you have is natural-world kind of data, there's no way to put gods into the explanations--except by saying "then something happens that we don't understand yet, so let's say god did it."

That is to say that, were science to provide evidence that “God did this”, it would be hard pressed to make predictions. Using an extreme example for clarity’s sake: If God appeared in localized form in front of several thousand people and television cameras and held back a Tsunami with his hand, it would be a well documented event, but I believe that scientists would be hard pressed to make predictions from the study of what happened. In such a case, of course, it would be due to the severe limit of the data.

One of the rules of science is that one should not trust one's observations as valid unless they are reproducible. When n=1, no theory and no predictions can be made. However, in this case, even n=1 is far greater than we have at present. All we have now is competing stories from ancient civilizations.

My second response would be to point out that there is at least one prediction that could be made from Intelligent Design, though it is troublingly one that is completely out of our power to test. I would argue that it should lead us to the conclusion that there will always be a return to the existence of life in the universe regardless of how many birth and death cycles it goes through. Ironically, were it accepted by the scientific community, it would probably be used as a support for the existence of alien life. If a designer created one world of life, it would be likely that more should exist.

I suppose ID predicts this as much as it predicts a bazillion other things that have never been observed. It predicts that the designer might step in sometime and do something, maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe the designer left, or isn't interested in starting life again, or maybe she'll have learned enough from this particular round. If there's a designer, said designer should have a motive, and that's unfathomable. Hence, no predictions.

4) Any evidence must be reproduceable. There are countless experiments testing the tenets of evolutionary theory; for example, you could test random mutation by inducing mutation in yeast with UV radiation (the same radiation that comes from our sun) and observing the phenotypic variation after plating these samples and allowing colonies to grow. Likewise, you can induce mutation in more advanced animals and observing the phenotypic effects of those mutations. The results of these tests will be consistent over time. The other bases of evolution are quite testable and reproducable as well.

Without commenting on the reproducibility of the various aspects of evolution, I will agree that the “God of the gaps” argument lacks this aspect (as well as others) of a legitimate scientific theory. We can certainly rule out any concept of intelligent design that relies entirely on discrediting evolution as entirely non-scientific.

Note that Jacurutu does not say "evolution" is reproducible, but that experiments illustrating "the tenets of evolutionary theory" are reproducible. One of those tenets is that mutations are statistically random and cannot be predicted. This fact predicts that, if evolution were to be rewound and run again, it would come out different. In fact, we already know it comes out different--each species on earth is a different run of the evolution machine.

God of the gaps, of course, is not scientific. It's a silly characterization of the idea that things we don't yet understand are all "god did it" things. As we learn more, those things become fewer, and god shrinks. It's a weird sort of hybrid between accepting science and accepting some kind of god, but it casts science as a big eraser that nibbles away at god's penciled-in image.

Intelligent Design points out that DNA and RNA are information bearing molecules that cannot be formed through the random collision of molecules...

This is one of those false caricatures of evolution I mentioned above. While it is undeniably true that random collision of molecules won't create the human genome, no one but the creationist/ID folks pretend that evolution works that way. Evolution works by modification of what already exists. (That's why the origin of life and the evolution of life are different fields of study.)

As has been said before in these forums, if you shuffle a deck of cards, you will get a particular order. Yet, the probability of that order occurring from random assembly of cards is vanishingly low. There's even information in that order of cards. Did you shuffle the deck, or did a designer do it for you? Dembski's information argument rests on the premise that there is a particular sequence that evolution has always been aiming for. His calculations prove this to be impossible. Well, duh. We already knew it didn't work that way. Mutations cannot be targeted.

Basically, it does seem to stand to reason that the idea that this argument is no more guilty of inventing a “God of the gaps” than the archeologist studying ancient tablets from Egypt is of inventing a “scribe of the gaps”, as both are centered in what we know about information systems rather than what we do not know.

No, we know a lot about the mechanisms of creating information in both systems. We know how people work, and we know that they write on stuff. A scribe of the gaps, aka "missing pages" fits all known mechanistic information. For nucleic acid information, we know a tremendous amount about mechanisms of mutation, as well as about selection for and against phenotypic consequences. Because of this knowledge, we explain the "gaps" scientifically as "more of the same process, and maybe someday we'll find enough fossils to identify the route the process followed." The creation/ID folks tend to say that we know all we will ever know, so any current gaps must be places where god did it.

And when it comes to dembski's claims about 'Information'. I don't see how he can test and quantify is claims. He has come up with some "Information Laws" that are nto testable in and of themselves, and then is promoting I.D. based on the assumptions he is calling 'laws' (such as the "law of conservation of information', when he can't measure or quantify the term information)

I've also wondered where he dug that up. It kinda makes you wonder what alien world we're impoverishing by continuing to write more and more books.

[Goat]

Ah.. reading the 'Dembski' arguements, huh?

Yeah, I thought they were interesting, and better than I’d expected (though I wasn’t expecting much).

Well, First of all, evolution is not random.

Please allow me to clarify. I was referring to the formation of the earliest forms of cellular life, which, to my knowledge, is explained within the atheistic paradigm as being due to random events.

Well, as far as I can see, it doesn't appear that is random too. There is chemistry rules that are involved in carbon based reactions. There appears to be the raw
building blocks of life all over the universe. Even Titan, which has an atmosphere
very similar to what the early earth was thought to be life , has many very complex orangic compounds in it's atmosphere.

There also is the matter of the way that amino acids form chains when aligned on
quartz crystal faces. This forms very simple proteins. All you need to get 'life' kick started is to have one of these protien chains be self replicating (in theory at least).

Evolution is a different matter. I agree that randomness is not the theory there, only mutation is accused of being random. I do have some intellectual concerns with evolution, but will agree that ‘randomness’ is an unfounded accusation.

Second of all, when ti comes to the formation of molecues, it isn't "all at once".. It is accumulative change over time, not just 'all at once'. For that principle to devolop 'life' from the surrounding chemistry, you basically have to have a self replicating molecule.

You have to have a self replicating molecule that is essential to biological life that forms through random events, manages to survive for an extended period of time until slowly developing (through more or less random acts of chemistry) into an early cell. The existence of such a molecule seemed perfectly reasonable given the knowledge of Darwin’s time, in which the cell was seen as a basically simple structure. It does not hold true given the information we have obtained since then.

It isn't 'random' at all. While the details are not known (and might never be known), it does show that the statement 'They are useful in the prescense of other hight specific developed structures and substnaces') is ignoring the principle of accumuatlive changes over time.

I understand that that is the theory, but my statement remains true. An information storage molecule has no value until a retrieval system for said information is developed. The retrieval system has no value until the information is there to retrieve. Obviously, there are cases in which interdependent things can be formed together. What I am arguing, however, is (first) that our current scientific theories do not adequately explain the process of developing the abundance of interdependent aspects of the cell. Second, that I am willing to consider the idea that is unrealistic to believe that such a system could ever be formed without intention, given what we know of the chemistry of the cell and information systems.
Most specifically troubling to the evolutionary concept of the earliest life is the nature of DNA and RNA molecules. They are self-replicating, of course, but for any variation to have formed randomly (there can be no principal of chemistry that influences the sequence of an information bearing molecule without destroying its ability to retain information) outside of a cell, containing enough information to be useful to a cell is not realistic given what we know.

That problem is being addressed now. For example, there is this article from Nature in 1996

Lee DH, Granja JR, Martinez JA, Severin K, and Ghadri MR, 1996 "A self-replicating peptide" Nature, 382:525-8

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The production of amino acids and their condensation to polypeptides under plausibly prebiotic conditions have long been known. But despite the central importance of molecular self-replication in the origin of life, the feasibility of peptide self-replication has not been established experimentally. Here we report an example of a self-replicating peptide. We show that a 32-residue alpha-helical peptide based on the leucine-zipper domain of the yeast transcription factor GCN4 can act autocatalytically in templating its own synthesis by accelerating the thioester-promoted amide-bond condensation of 15- and 17-residue fragments in neutral, dilute aqueous solutions. The self-replication process displays parabolic growth pattern with the initial rates of product formation correlating with the square-foot of initial template concentration.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And when it comes to dembski's claims about 'Information'. I don't see how he can test and quantify is claims. He has come up with some "Information Laws" that are nto testable in and of themselves, and then is promoting I.D. based on the assumptions he is calling 'laws' (such as the "law of conservcation of information', when he can't measure or quantify the term information)

You make a good point here. We should look into the testability of these claims. I would add the counterpoint that he did not invent these laws, however. They have traditionally been among the accepted working methods of science in several fields. I am not personally aware of a clear cut test of these concepts, but in all situations of which we do have knowledge, these rules hold to be true. That is a common means of testing within science.

No, his claims about 'information' are not quite a comon means within science. He went far beyond any 'information theory'. .. to the point of speculation. So far, he has not even approched /

Here is a link talking about Dembski and his information theories.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/informa ... mbski.html

And this is one about information theory in general, and how the ID movement is
using it.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/informa ... heory.html

[Goat]

[quote="Jose"][by the way--is anyone else using Firefox and finding that it handles phpBB in a completely bizarre way?]

I was having problems for a while after I used the search function. Then again, it was being weird on this particular board in oprea, netscape, and IE after using the search function too.

I found out I had to clear out all temporary internet files to get it working right again.

[jcrawford]

My question is: how do people still want to call ID a scientific theory and teach it alongside evolution when one is faith and the other is a true scientific theory?

Because without having an intelligently designed scientific theory, no intelligence nor design in the brain can be accounted for or be said to exist according to Darwin's deluded theory about ape-men.

ID theory on the other hand accounts for the intelligent design of the brain by presupposing that either an intelligent process or an intelligent being purposely designed and either constructed or created intelligently designed brains.

Unfortunately for convoluted evolutionary theorists, they think their brains intelligent but not intelligently designed.

[Jester]

There are those who like to say that aliens would "count" as the intelligent designer. The trouble is, the data pretty much restricts them to seeding the earth with ancient bacteria-like things a few billion years ago.

Also, that begs the question “who or what created the aliens?”

Aside from this, though, the hypothesis that no aliens exist is falsifiable if anyone ever sees just one. It's harder to falsify the idea that they do exist, because this requires looking everywhere...a tall order. It's even harder to falsify the idea that the ID folks' "favorite designer" (the Christian god) exists, because he is defined as existing outside of nature. There, we can't even look.

That is a problem for this argument in general. It means that we dare not assert that a creator exists because of a lack of disproof. On the other hand, difficulty is the name of the game in science. The fact that a theory is difficult to disprove should not discredit it. Now, I’m not asserting that ID is correct. I’m still undecided myself. If I reject it outright, however, I want it to be because I’ve seen some way in which it’s assumptions or logic are shown to be incorrect.

More importantly, a theory is derived from the evidence. It's not built first, and then a bunch of minions go out looking for anything that might seem to fit it. In this case, it's not even a matter of what's simplest or what's most probable. The evidence points clearly and unambiguously at evolution. There's no evidence at all that gods exist. Their strongest argument for existence is that they hide so well that they can never be found.

I’m actually going to disagree with your basic stance here. In an ideal world, all theories would be derived from evidence, but this is not the case in the reality of science. A hypothesis must usually be formed before all of the evidence is available (as it precedes the experiment/observation process). While failure to adjust the hypothesis when evidence contradicts it is folly, some very highly respected laws and theories were formed long before there was anything like sufficient evidence to support them (such as the theory of relativity, and, by modern standards, much of the law of gravity).

I have read enough on evolution to believe that it is one of the countless cases in science in which we are not using the right theory, but the best theory we have. Scientists know there are problems, but nothing else has replaced it yet...

You'll have to give us some examples here. Are there problems? The scientists I know don't think so. Of course they quibble about details where little data exist--the forefront of discovery--but that's as true in medicine as in evolution. As with all scientific knowledge, and all theories, we're using the best theory we have. The only clues that it might be close to correct are the numbers of tests that it has passed. In the case of evolution, it's passed 'em all.

As I don’t really ascribe to the belief that evolution and the existence of God are diametrically opposed, I’m probably not going to give this as much attention as most would feel it deserves. Enough to say that, scientifically, it has not passed all the tests thrown at it, and is continually being adjusted to match the evidence. With this, I am not referring exclusively to details; we have some major troubles that we’re still trying to work out.

What follows is an example. Actually, the response is quite a bit longer and there are ten questions in total. I thought posting all that might be obnoxious, so I’ll stick to one excerpt, as I feel that it touches on a key point of the evolutionary theory.

My Question: ORIGIN OF LIFE. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life’s building blocks may have formed on the early Earth--when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?

[The National Center for Science Education Answers]’ response: Because evolutionary theory works with any model of the origin of life on Earth, how life originated is not a question about evolution. Textbooks discuss the 1953 studies because they were the first successful attempt to show how organic molecules might have been produced on the early Earth. When modern scientists changed the experimental conditions to reflect better knowledge of the Earth’s early atmosphere, they were able to produce most of the same building blocks. Origin-of-life remains a vigorous area of research.

My Response in Outline:
• Most biology textbooks include the origin of life--and the Miller-Urey experiment--in their treatments of evolution. If the NCSE feels that the origin of life is really “not a question about evolution,” the organization should launch a campaign to correct biology textbooks.
• Because the Miller-Urey experiment used a simulated atmosphere that geochemists now agree was incorrect, it was not the “first successful attempt to show how organic molecules might have been produced on the early Earth.” When conditions are changed to reflect better knowledge of the Earth’s early atmosphere, the experiment doesn’t work.
If the origin of life “remains a vigorous area of research,” it is only because origin-of-life researchers are dedicated to their work, not because they have discovered anything that demonstrates how life originated.

This does not say that previous incarnations of evolutionary theory were right, or that they passed the tests. The basic ideas have passed the tests; the details have been more difficult. That's always how it is. It's like looking at a map from a long way off, where you can make out the outlines. You can try to fill in the details, but you're guaranteed to get some of 'em wrong at first, and have to correct 'em when you get closer.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, and believe that it was perfectly reasonable to believe in the Theory of Evolution at the time Darwin proposed it. But I disagree with some fairly basic assumptions of evolution that have been overturned since then (such as the fact that evolution has been unable to explain the origin of life in light of the relatively new discoveries of it’s complexity and the Cambrian Explosion). Now, this is not to say that, if evolution is not accurate, we must automatically conclude that God must have created all life. That is not scientific in the slightest, and many apologists miss this point. It is my love for science, not God, that is bothered by the assertion that evolution is obvious fact. I believe that we should find a better scientific, rather than religious, theory to replace it.

I’m currently uncertain as to whether or not Intelligent Design actually covers the same material as evolution and will continue to compete with it, or that they will ultimately become parallel theories.

ID claims it covers the same ground, but does so by erecting false caricatures of evolution and proving them wrong. Nothing in ID "theorizing" has addressed the process of evolution as it is understood by science.

I will agree that this is a common practice of apologists when dealing with evolution. I do not defend such actions. I also agree that the proponents of ID are claiming that it covers the same material, but this is the main point on which I am uncertain. I think they might be talking at cross purposes with the evolutionists. Nor am I convinced that they are right, and will not accept their theory as true unless I become convinced that it is scientific (my current opinion is mostly not with a few gems that might turn out to be much more scientific than I had first believed).

The origin of life is not a part of the theory of evolution. It's its own separate field, called the origin of life. Evolution specifically deals with the change of life over time, which pretty much requires that life exists before evolution can occur.

Fair enough. I apologize for treating the two theories as one. My basic suggestion (that ID, in theory, could overturn some aspects of evolution while leaving others untouched) remains possible so far as I can see.

As I understand it, the creation/ID camp accepts microevolution because it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Agreed. Short of very unrealistic and irresponsible science, this one exists.

They don't understand macroevolution (which turns out to be microevolution involving different genes, or microevolution over a longer time, depending on whose definition you use).

I would not go that far. Many, assuredly, do not understand evolution, and I can see how it is very tempting to say this (I’ve faced the same temptation on numerous occasions). To say that all who disagree or hold a specific theory clearly do not understand is dangerously close to a dismissive and judgmental statement. I can understand the possibility, but think that should be supported if you wish to make the claim.
Getting more to your actual point, I would argue that it is oversimplified to the point of being untrue that macroevolution is microevolution involving different genes, or microevolution over a longer time. There are very specific problems that are involved in the development of new Orders, Classes, and Kingdoms than cannot be addressed with the principals of microevolution.

Though science arguably could provide evidence of an intelligent creation, our science currently excludes the means to study a creator (though it does seem to be branching into it).

This is a mis-perception of science. Scientific understanding starts with observations. There have been no observations or measurements or any kind of empirical data that say "god." It's all been ordinary, natural-world kind of stuff. If all you have is natural-world kind of data, there's no way to put gods into the explanations--except by saying "then something happens that we don't understand yet, so let's say god did it."

I agree that science is limited to the study of the natural world, and am generally skeptical about the idea that science will ever really provide data for the existence of anything supernatural. I do, however, believe that science (like all other studies) is defined by arbitrary definitions that do not coincide perfectly with the real world. I merely wanted to point out that there may be some overlap, and that we seem to be looking for that overlap in the current era. Forgive me if I have implied more than this.

That is to say that, were science to provide evidence that “God did this”, it would be hard pressed to make predictions. Using an extreme example for clarity’s sake: If God appeared in localized form in front of several thousand people and television cameras and held back a Tsunami with his hand, it would be a well documented event, but I believe that scientists would be hard pressed to make predictions from the study of what happened. In such a case, of course, it would be due to the severe limit of the data.

One of the rules of science is that one should not trust one's observations as valid unless they are reproducible. When n=1, no theory and no predictions can be made. However, in this case, even n=1 is far greater than we have at present. All we have now is competing stories from ancient civilizations.

I don’t have much problem with this response, except to say that experiences can, in theory be valid without being reproducible. We cannot call such experiences scientific on the ground that we cannot test and understand them, but they are scientific on the ground that they happened. Truly, this is a major part of the difficulty in drawing any conclusions about the origin of species, the origin of life, or the origin of the universe. These are cases of events that are not practically reproducible, and are therefore extremely difficult to make observations and predictions about. Of course, I do believe that it is useful to make the attempt, but here we get into a blurry line about what the rule of reproducibility means on a practical level.

My second response would be to point out that there is at least one prediction that could be made from Intelligent Design, though it is troublingly one that is completely out of our power to test. I would argue that it should lead us to the conclusion that there will always be a return to the existence of life in the universe regardless of how many birth and death cycles it goes through. Ironically, were it accepted by the scientific community, it would probably be used as a support for the existence of alien life. If a designer created one world of life, it would be likely that more should exist.

I suppose ID predicts this as much as it predicts a bazillion other things that have never been observed. It predicts that the designer might step in sometime and do something, maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe the designer left, or isn't interested in starting life again, or maybe she'll have learned enough from this particular round. If there's a designer, said designer should have a motive, and that's unfathomable. Hence, no predictions.

I don’t have much argument with the basic claims here. That might indeed be the crippling blow to ID. The only reservation I have is that the ability to make predictions really seems to be more a matter of the practical application of science than the scientific study of the universe. That is to say that, on this particular point, ID is stripped not really of its credibility so much as of its function in technological development, ecological policy, etc.

Note that Jacurutu does not say "evolution" is reproducible, but that experiments illustrating "the tenets of evolutionary theory" are reproducible. One of those tenets is that mutations are statistically random and cannot be predicted. This fact predicts that, if evolution were to be rewound and run again, it would come out different. In fact, we already know it comes out different--each species on earth is a different run of the evolution machine.

Back to evolution (I’m quickly developing the opinion that I trust neither of these theories. I wish there was a third option).
I agree that there is a distinction, thus your point is valid. I would argue, however, that the tenets of evolutionary theory are not as reproducible as the evolutionists claim. The yeast mutations that occur when bombarded with UV rays which was mentioned in the OP is only reproducible if scientists use a specific range of UV rays. If the entire breadth of UV radiation present in sunlight is used, the low frequency waves inhibit the process. As for the existence of different species as evidence that mutation is random, this is circular logic, as it must presume that the species of earth are the result of evolution in order to reach this conclusion.

God of the gaps, of course, is not scientific. It's a silly characterization of the idea that things we don't yet understand are all "god did it" things. As we learn more, those things become fewer, and god shrinks. It's a weird sort of hybrid between accepting science and accepting some kind of god, but it casts science as a big eraser that nibbles away at god's penciled-in image.

I totally agree. This is a ridiculous idea.

Intelligent Design points out that DNA and RNA are information bearing molecules that cannot be formed through the random collision of molecules...

This is one of those false caricatures of evolution I mentioned above. While it is undeniably true that random collision of molecules won't create the human genome, no one but the creationist/ID folks pretend that evolution works that way. Evolution works by modification of what already exists. (That's why the origin of life and the evolution of life are different fields of study.)

Perhaps I am simply missing something, then. Please let me explain and answer a question.
With this statement, I was referring to the origin of life theory (combined the two again; that doesn’t make me look good). It is a problem for our current concept of the origin of life that the structure of information bearing molecules cannot be formed by rules of chemistry and retain their ability to bear information. This is problematic in that such molecules would have to be extremely complex without any rule of nature to guide them. Given this, we seem to be stuck back at random chance, though even it seems to ignore the requirement of complexity on such a molecule.
I have heard it argued that, in every other area of science, it is acceptable to conclude intelligence at the discovery of an information bearing system (such as ancient writing). I am not to the point of advocating this myself, but do want to discuss/study the idea before automatically concluding that it is unscientific.

As has been said before in these forums, if you shuffle a deck of cards, you will get a particular order. Yet, the probability of that order occurring from random assembly of cards is vanishingly low. There's even information in that order of cards. Did you shuffle the deck, or did a designer do it for you? Dembski's information argument rests on the premise that there is a particular sequence that evolution has always been aiming ofr. His calculations prove this to be impossible. Well, duh. We already knew it didn't work that way. Mutations cannot be targeted.

While I am not yet decided, I will argue that this is not what Dembski’s arguments have claimed. The argument is that, when shuffling the cards, the arrival at any combination that can sustain itself biologically is vanishingly small, coupled with what is a generally accepted argument in other forms of study (complex information is the result of intent).
The fact that all life on Earth has a similar structure, on this point, would be evidence (though in no way proof) that there were not a great number of possible forms life could have taken, and we came out by random chance by this one. That would hardly explain why all cells have such similar structure unless there was a very limited number of practically creatable cells which had the ability to survive indefinitely. As such, we would be back to Dembski’s “vanishingly small” numbers.

Basically, it does seem to stand to reason that the idea that this argument is no more guilty of inventing a “God of the gaps” than the archeologist studying ancient tablets from Egypt is of inventing a “scribe of the gaps”, as both are centered in what we know about information systems rather than what we do not know.

No, we know a lot about the mechanisms of creating information in both systems. We know how people work, and we know that they write on stuff. A scribe of the gaps, aka "missing pages" fits all known mechanistic information. For nucleic acid information, we know a tremendous amount about mechanisms of mutation, as well as about selection for and against phenotypic consequences. Because of this knowledge, we explain the "gaps" scientifically as "more of the same process, and maybe someday we'll find enough fossils to identify the route the process followed." The creation/ID folks tend to say that we know all we will ever know, so any current gaps must be places where god did it.

I both agree and disagree. I love the idea that we cannot throw the word God at something that we simply do not understand, but do feel that you have missed my basic point. What we know about information bearing objects thus far is that any natural law that might assemble them destroys their ability to retain unique order (thus, contain information). Selection may explain the development of existing Nucleic Acids, but it cannot be applied to the creation of such molecules.

And when it comes to dembski's claims about 'Information'. I don't see how he can test and quantify is claims. He has come up with some "Information Laws" that are nto testable in and of themselves, and then is promoting I.D. based on the assumptions he is calling 'laws' (such as the "law of conservation of information', when he can't measure or quantify the term information)

I've also wondered where he dug that up. It kinda makes you wonder what alien world we're impoverishing by continuing to write more and more books.

Lol.
I’m back and forth on that issue, but I do have an excerpt from an ID advocate that discusses it. I don’t know if I agree, but I do think it is logical enough to consider thoroughly.
And, apologies for the length of this, everybody.

Further, just as magnetic letters can be combined and recombined in any way to form various sequences on a metal surface, so too can each of the four bases A, T, G, and C attach to any site on the DNA backbone with equal facility, making all sequences equally probable (or improbable). The same type of chemical bond occurs between the bases and the backbone regardless of which base attaches. All four bases are acceptable; none is preferred. In other words, differential bonding affinities do not account for the sequencing of the bases. Because these same facts hold for RNA molecules, researchers who speculate that life began in an "RNA world" have also failed to solve the sequencing problem--i.e., the problem of explaining how information present in all functioning RNA molecules could have arisen in the first place.
For those who want to explain the origin of life as the result of self-organizing properties intrinsic to the material constituents of living systems, these rather elementary facts of molecular biology have devastating implications. The most logical place to look for self-organizing properties to explain the origin of genetic information is in the constituent parts of the molecules carrying that information. But biochemistry and molecular biology make clear that the forces of attraction between the constituents in DNA, RNA, and protein do not explain the sequence specificity of these large information-bearing biomolecules.
Significantly, information theorists insist that there is a good reason for this. If chemical affinities between the constituents in the DNA message text determined the arrangement of the text, such affinities would dramatically diminish the capacity of DNA to carry information. Consider what would happen if the individual nucleotide "letters" in a DNA molecule did interact by chemical necessity with each other. Every time adenine (A) occurred in a growing genetic sequence, it would likely drag thymine (T) along with it. Every time cytosine (C) appeared, guanine (G) would follow. As a result, the DNA message text would be peppered with repeating sequences of A’s followed by T’s and C’s followed by G’s.
Rather than having a genetic molecule capable of unlimited novelty, with all the unpredictable and aperiodic sequences that characterize informative texts, we would have a highly repetitive text awash in redundant sequences--much as happens in crystals. Indeed, in a crystal the forces of mutual chemical attraction do completely explain the sequential ordering of the constituent parts, and consequently crystals cannot convey novel information. Sequencing in crystals is repetitive and highly ordered, but not informative. Once one has seen "Na" followed by "Cl" in a crystal of salt, for example, one has seen the extent of the sequencing possible. Bonding affinities, to the extent they exist, mitigate against the maximization of information. They cannot, therefore, be used to explain the origin of information. Affinities create mantras, not messages. The tendency to confuse the qualitative distinction between "order" and "information" has characterized self-organizational research efforts and calls into question the relevance of such work to the origin of life. Self-organizational theorists explain well what doesn’t need explaining. What needs explaining is not the origin of order (whether in the form of crystals, swirling tornadoes, or the "eyes" of hurricanes), but the origin of information--the highly improbable, aperiodic, and yet specified sequences that make biological function possible.
To see the distinction between order and information, compare the sequence "ABABABABAB ABAB" to the sequence "Time and tide wait for no man." The first sequence is repetitive and ordered, but not complex or informative. Systems that are characterized by both specificity and complexity (what information theorists call "specified complexity") have "information content." Since such systems have the qualitative feature of aperiodicity or complexity, they are qualitatively distinguishable from systems characterized by simple periodic order. Thus, attempts to explain the origin of order have no relevance to discussions of the origin of information content. Significantly, the nucleotide sequences in the coding regions of DNA have, by all accounts, a high information content--that is, they are both highly specified and complex, just like meaningful English sentences or functional lines of code in computer software.
Yet the information contained in an English sentence or computer software does not derive from the chemistry of the ink or the physics of magnetism, but from a source extrinsic to physics and chemistry altogether. Indeed, in both cases, the message transcends the properties of the medium. The information in DNA also transcends the properties of its material medium. Because chemical bonds do not determine the arrangement of nucleotide bases, the nucleotides can assume a vast array of possible sequences and thereby express many different biochemical messages.
If the properties of matter (i.e., the medium) do not suffice to explain the origin of information, what does? Our experience with information-intensive systems (especially codes and languages) indicates that such systems always come from an intelligent source--i.e., from mental or personal agents, not chance or material necessity. This generalization about the cause of information has, ironically, received confirmation from origin-of-life research itself. During the last forty years, every naturalistic model proposed has failed to explain the origin of information--the great stumbling block for materialistic scenarios. Thus, mind or intelligence or what philosophers call "agent causation" now stands as the only cause known to be capable of creating an information-rich system, including the coding regions of DNA, functional proteins, and the cell as a whole.
Because mind or intelligent design is a necessary cause of an informative system, one can detect the past action of an intelligent cause from the presence of an information-intensive effect, even if the cause itself cannot be directly observed. Since information requires an intelligent source, the flowers spelling "Welcome to Victoria" in the gardens of Victoria harbor in Canada lead visitors to infer the activity of intelligent agents even if they did not see the flowers planted and arranged.
Scientists in many fields now recognize the connection between intelligence and information and make inferences accordingly. Archaeologists assume a mind produced the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone. SETI’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence presupposes that the presence of information imbedded in electromagnetic signals from space would indicate an intelligent source. As yet, radio astronomers have not found information-bearing signals coming from space. But molecular biologists, looking closer to home, have discovered information in the cell. Consequently, DNA justifies making what probability theorist William A. Dembski calls "the design inference."
Of course, many scientists have argued that to infer design gives up on science. They say that inferring design constitutes an argument from scientific ignorance--a "God of the Gaps" fallacy. Since science doesn’t yet know how biological information could have arisen, design theorists invoke a mysterious notion--intelligent design--to fill a gap in scientific knowledge. Many philosophers, for their part, resist reconsidering design, because they assume that Hume’s objections to analogical reasoning in classical design arguments still have force.
Yet developments in philosophy of science and the information sciences provide the grounds for a decisive refutation of both these objections. First, contemporary design theory does not constitute an argument from ignorance. Design theorists infer design not just because natural processes cannot explain the origin of biological systems, but because these systems manifest the distinctive hallmarks of intelligently designed systems--that is, they possess features that in any other realm of experience would trigger the recognition of an intelligent cause. For example, in his book Darwin’s Black Box (1996), Michael Behe has inferred design not only because the gradualistic mechanism of natural selection cannot produce "irreducibly complex" systems, but also because in our experience "irreducible complexity" is a feature of systems known to have been intelligently designed. That is, whenever we see systems that have the feature of irreducible complexity and we know the causal story about how such systems originated, invariably "intelligent design" played a role in the origin of such systems. Thus, Behe infers intelligent design as the best explanation for the origin of irreducible complexity in cellular molecular motors, for example, based upon what we know, not what we don’t know, about the causal powers of nature and intelligent agents, respectively.
Similarly, the "sequence specificity" or "specificity and complexity" or "information content" of DNA suggests a prior intelligent cause, again because "specificity and complexity" or "high information content" constitutes a distinctive hallmark (or signature) of intelligence. Indeed, in all cases where we know the causal origin of "high information content," experience has shown that intelligent design played a causal role