Blast From the Past

by Guts

This entry was posted on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Intelligent Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. The trackback link is: http://telicthoughts.com/blast-from-the-past/trackback/

264 Responses to “Blast From the Past”

ID guy Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
2nd 10 minutes-

Ken Miller sez the Intelligent Designer designed the fossil record?

Are you kidding me?

Eugenie Scott says she gets frustrated?

Well Eugenie we have been frustrated at your lack of attention to detail and the lack of science your position yields.

Comment by ID guy — May 14, 2010 @ 1:57 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Didn't someone recently say there is no coherent Id position, only anti-evolution failings?

Comment by Richardthughes — May 14, 2010 @ 2:28 pm

ID guy Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Didn't someone recently say that ID is not anti-evolution and is based on positive evidence?

- Dr Behe accepts Common Descent and no one has argued for stasis in over 200 years

IOW the example Ken Miller provided about butterflies fits in nicely with baraminology- and I bet he doesn't even realize that.

I bet he, Eugenie and everyone on that anti-ID pamnel thinks ID = Biblical Creationism and Biblical Creationism = fixity of species.

That is the strawman Darwin erected- Creationism = fixity of species, and as with Haeckel's embryos has managed to stick around regardless of the facts.

That is the hoax that needs to be addressed first.

Comment by ID guy — May 14, 2010 @ 3:04 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
“Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera.”

Of Pandas and People, page 99.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 14, 2010 @ 3:20 pm

ID guy Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
“Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera.”

Of Pandas and People, page 99.

1- That isn't so. As I said Dr Behe accepts Common Descent- as does Dr Jones.

IOW that book doesn't seem to be a valid reference.

2- Even what the out-dated book says does not say that everything had to remain the way it is and no evolution took place.

Heck baraminology- that dog Richard has sed don't bite- allows for quite a bit of change.

It definitely allows for speciation and some Creationsists, YECs have said that the change can be at the level of Family, meaning new genera are OK.

If anyone has noticed to difference between two closely related species can be so minute and subjective speciation means very little.

IOW Rich wants to perpetuate the hoax.

"Meaningful discourse" my a$$ Rich…

Comment by ID guy — May 14, 2010 @ 3:50 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
It was written by Demsbki and Wells, probably two of the fathers of ID.

Is this an instance of "No true IDist"?

Speciation tends to mean reproductive isolation. This however does not necessarily stop an exchange of genomic information as seen in ring species or laterally through ERVs. Species is a very soft concept.

How do the more progressive ID proponents feel about you banging your YEC / baraminology / Young universe drum?

Comment by Richardthughes — May 14, 2010 @ 4:05 pm

ID guy Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Geez Rich your dishonesty knows no bounds.

"Of Pandas and People" was written by Davis and Kenyon.

And it is still a fact that ID doesn't say anything about Common Descent except that if it occurred it was by design.

Pound sand.

Speciation tends to mean reproductive isolation.

That doesn't really say too much and isn't necessarily true.

How do the more progressive ID proponents feel about you banging your YEC / baraminology / Young universe drum?

I don't.

I don't accept YEC.

However baraminology looks like it is pretty safe given what we do know.

And I have never said anything about a young universe.

As a matter of fact we can have an old universe and a young earth- but that isn't my position.

IOW Rich you aren't interested in meanigful discourse and just want to perpetuate misrepreentations and falsehoods.

Got it.

Comment by ID guy — May 14, 2010 @ 4:11 pm

ID guy Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
And BTW Jonathon Wells bangs the baraminology drum.

And again baraminology does not mean the fixity of species.

There is a whole lot of change, isolation and adaptaption going on- just "Not By Chance".

Comment by ID guy — May 14, 2010 @ 4:12 pm

KC Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
ID Guy writes:

Geez Rich your dishonesty knows no bounds.

"Of Pandas and People" was written by Davis and Kenyon.

Geez, ID guy, don't you even know the history of the book?

"The Design of Life", published in 2007, is the 3rd edition of "Of Pandas and People", and Dembski and Wells are listed as the authors. Davis and Kenyon are the authors of the 1st and 2nd editions.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...

Comment by KC — May 14, 2010 @ 4:54 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
My Apologies – Dembski and Wells were the authors of the third edition, under the title "The Design of life" – but the edition from which that quote comes had Behe, Wells, Plantinga and Nelson as "Critical Reviewers", and they're all ID bigwigs (unlike you).

Comment by Richardthughes — May 14, 2010 @ 4:55 pm

ID guy Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Geez KC, "The Design of Life" is not "Of Pandas and People".

There is a difference not only in title but also in content.

Also wikipedia is not a reliable source of information especially pertaining to ID.

IOW thank you for exposing your dishonesty.

Comment by ID guy — May 14, 2010 @ 4:58 pm

ID guy Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
but the edition from which that quote comes had Behe, Wells, Plantinga and Nelson as "Critical Reviewers", and they're all ID bigwigs (unlike you).

Except Dr Behe accepts Common Descent.

And you still appear incapable of understanding that what you quote-mined does not mean the fixity of species.

That was the point you were trying to respond to.

Comment by ID guy — May 14, 2010 @ 5:00 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Except Dr Behe accepts Common Descent.

He should have 'Critically reviewed' a bit harder, then.

Don't shoot the messenger, I'm just giving you the ID line.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 14, 2010 @ 5:12 pm

ID guy Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
Rich,

The problem is you don't know the ID line.

The fact remains ID does not argue against Common Descent and ID does not argue for the fixity of species.

That is the ID line whether you like it or not.

Also you are not a relaible messenger- especially pulling quote-mines from a book that doesn't have any bearing on ID.

Comment by ID guy — May 14, 2010 @ 5:29 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 11:13 pm
I find it amazing how dogmatic the Darwinian side is in this debate. For example, they seem to think that their theory of evolution is the only theory of evolution. In other words, evolution equals Darwinism, yet the evidence for Darwinism (natural selection acting on random variation) remains incredibly weak. David Berlinski, who is not a creationist, tried to point this out several times but found it extremely difficult to even get the Darwinian’s to simply stipulate that there are gaps in the fossil record. What other scientific theory is there so much resistance to admitting that there are problems, evidentiary gaps and anomalies? I can’t think of any. Why should Darwinism be treated any differently?

Why is it so difficult for Darwinians to consider even the possibility that natural selection is not a sufficient explanation for the diversity of all living things? Is it because of the science, or does it have something to do with their apriori beliefs?

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 14, 2010 @ 11:13 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 14th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Also you are not a relaible messenger- especially pulling quote-mines from a book that doesn't have any bearing on ID.

Wow. That's a lot of wrong for one sentence. Let me help you

Quote mine doesn't mean "Stuff Joe G. finds objectionable"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

…The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as "contextomy" or "quote mining", is a logical fallacy and type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning

I presented the book's definition in full in the context in which it was written. Feel free to extend the quote t prove me wrong.

This book has no bearing on ID – thank goodness they didn't try and use in the Kitzmiller case then or perhaps an activist judge might have fallen for it and those bad darwinbots would have won… oh wait.

Make sure you're at the next trail Joe so you can put them straight and tell them what's what.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 14, 2010 @ 11:21 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 9:06 am
Rich,

"Of Pandas and Paople" was used by the Dover school board because they were a bunch of dolts.

Not one of them knew what ID is.

That said you will not find that definition of ID anywhere outside of "Of Pandas and Paople".

The DI don't use it. Uncommon Descent doesn't use it. Dembski, Wells, Myers, Behe, Minnich, Johnson- none of them use it- you will not find any of them endorsing that definition anywhere.

IOW what you are doing would be akin to my saying that Darwin said whales evolved from bears and because we know they didn't then evolution is falsified.

IOW Rich you really need to find a reference that is a bit more recent than that.

The fact remains ID does not argue against Common Descent and ID does not argue for the fixity of species.

That is the ID line whether you like it or not.

Nice of you to keep ignoring the facts Rich…

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 9:06 am

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 9:12 am
The "Design of Life" supersedes both editions of "Of Pandas and People".

I know Rich doesn't understand the word "supersede" but that doesn't mean anything to me.

The point is if the definition Rich pulled out of "Of Pandas and People" is not in the "Design of Life" then it ain't relevant.

That is why it is a quote-mine…

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 9:12 am

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 9:20 am
Joe,

Discovery and its fellows are tied to the 1993 edition like Siamese twins. Behe admitted to be the ghost writer of one chapter (on blood clotting). Meyer wrote "Note to Teachers."

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 9:20 am

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Notice where ID critics, like Rich and KC, take the argument every time– Kitzmiller, textbooks the Discovery Institute, Philip Johnson etc. etc. How curious they want to talk about everything but the evidence. Why is this? Are they afraid to talk about the evidence? Or, are the obsessed with the conspiracy theory that the DI is attempting to institute a theocracy?

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 15, 2010 @ 10:43 am

KC Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 11:22 am
JAD

Notice where ID critics, like Rich and KC, take the argument every time– Kitzmiller, textbooks the Discovery Institute, Philip Johnson etc. etc. How curious they want to talk about everything but the evidence.

You obviously haven't read many of my posts on this blog. Big surprise.

Comment by KC — May 15, 2010 @ 11:22 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Joe, I attribute the quote to

Of Pandas and People, page 99.

Which is correct. You are wrong. There is no quote mine. You clearly don't understand what 'quote mining' is.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 15, 2010 @ 1:39 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
I'd love to talk about 'the evidence'. Got any, beyond "it looks designed to me"?

Comment by Richardthughes — May 15, 2010 @ 1:40 pm

fifth monarchy man Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Richard,

I'd love to talk about 'the evidence'.

Evidence for what?

Evidence For God‘s existance? You don’t need that. You can’t help but know God exists.

Evidence that life and the universe appear to have been designed by an intelligence?
Scientists even atheists like Dawkins and skeptics like Hawking grant this.

Evidence that we can trust our mental and faculties and senses until they are proven to be deficient in a specific case?

Well that's just common sense.

peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 15, 2010 @ 2:02 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Richardthughes: I'd love to talk about 'the evidence'. Got any, beyond "it looks designed to me"?

I am afraid that at least from my perspective the ball is in your court. I have never claimed that ID is science and indeed I have repeatedly claimed other wise. If you or KC had bothered to read any of my posts on this blog you would understand that. Furthermore, I have never used the argument "it looks designed to me" therefore it must be. Why the stereotyping and projecting? You are asking me to believe by faith alone that natural selection alone acting on random variation (NS + RV) can account for the diversity of all living things.

I am not, by the way, arguing that NS + RV cannot account for minor changes. However, there is no evidence, let alone proof, that it is the cause of major evolutionary change.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 15, 2010 @ 2:32 pm

KC Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I have never claimed that ID is science and indeed I have repeatedly claimed other wise. If you or KC had bothered to read any of my posts on this blog you would understand that.

How does this address your silly charge that I take the argument–every time– to "Kitzmiller, textbooks the Discovery Institute, Philip Johnson etc. etc."?

How does it address your inane comment that I "want to talk about everything but the evidence."?

Comment by KC — May 15, 2010 @ 2:56 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Rich,

You are sooo confused.

The book you quoted is not even relevant.

It is less relevant to ID than "On the Origins of Species" is to the current theory of evolution.

IOW Rich, you are quote-mining from an irrelevant book and making it appear as if it means something.

Quote- mining is when you look for out-of context or irrelevant shit and post it as if it means something.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:14 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
dick:
Discovery and its fellows are tied to the 1993 edition like Siamese twins. Behe admitted to be the ghost writer of one chapter (on blood clotting). Meyer wrote "Note to Teachers."

Except Dr Behe accepts Common Descent.

And nowhere on the DI website will you find that is how they define ID.

You will not find that definition at the DI, ARN, Uncommon Descent- nowhere except that book.

The book that superseded "Of Pandas and People" don't have that definition.

IOW you guys are proving that you don't care about meaningful discourse and instead wish to force your ignorance onto us.

Typical…

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:17 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
richtardhughes:
I'd love to talk about 'the evidence'

No you wouldn't.

You have had many opportunities to present positive evidence for your position and yet you have failed to do so.

All you have is "it looks like common ancestry" but that doesn't even address the mechanisms which are what is being debated.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:19 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
I attribute the quote to

Of Pandas and People, page 99.

Which is correct.

How do you know it is correct?

As I said Dr Behe accepts Common Descent.

You are wrong.

That is what you say but you are an ignorant dolt.

Now how about addressing the points I made?

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:21 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
I am correct that the quote comes from page 99 of "Of Pandas and People", a whole relevent book. The leaders of ID are all involved in some edition or other, The anti-IDists used at as evidence and the legal system found it relevant. The only person who thinks it isn't relevent is you, when the reality is that you aren't relevent to the discussion. Creating your own definition of quote-mining highlights that.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 15, 2010 @ 4:34 pm

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Joe, what does The Design of Life say about common descent? I think I know the answer.

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 4:35 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
I am correct that the quote comes from page 99 of "Of Pandas and People", a whole relevent book.

How do you know it is still relevant?

It has been superseded by the "Design of Life" so it can't be.

The leaders of ID are all involved in some edition or other,

The leaders of ID agree with me.

At least that is the result so far from the email inquiries I have sent out.

OTOH you cannot provide a separate resource to conform the first.

And Dr Behe accepts Common Descent.

Is he an ID leader or not?

The anti-IDists used at as evidence and the legal system found it relevant.

You are slow.

The Dover school board used the book. The same school board who didn't know a thing about ID.

The leaders of ID did not recommend the book to the Dover school board.

The only person who thinks it isn't relevent is you

That is false.

I don't know any IDist who thinks "Of Pandas and People" is relevant to ID.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:39 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:41 pm
dick,

The Design of Life does not say that ID argues against Common Descent.

Again Dr Behe accepts Common Descent.

Is he an ID leader or not?

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:41 pm

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Joe, what does the book say about common descent? It's a simple question. Yes or no?

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 4:42 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
dick,

I don't have my copy here and I don't have it memorized.

If you have a point then make it- or you can keep acting like a spoiled child.

Your choice…

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:47 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Scott refers to me as an intelligent design "creationist," even though I clearly write in my book Darwin's Black Box (which Scott cites) that I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that Scott acknowledges think "evolution occurred, but was guided by God." – Dr Behe

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:49 pm

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
O, where is your copy, Joe? And if you actually read the book, how come you don't remember what is says on the subject of common descent? It has an entire chapter devoted to the question.

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 4:51 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Does it say that ID argues against Common Descent?

Does it say that?

Or does it just say that the "evidence" for CD is nonsense?

There is a difference…

BTW I know it does not say that ID argues against Common Descent.

So wtf is your point- that is besides misrepresentation and tantrum throwing?

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 4:52 pm

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Why don't you find out, Joe?

Quoting Behe is fine, but he is not on the list of the book's authors. Dembski, who co-wrote the book with Wells, had this to say on the subject of common descent:

For the record: I personally don’t believe in common descent though I think there are lines of evidence that suggest considerable evolutionary change. At the same time, there are lines of evidence that suggest considerable discontinuity among organisms. Check out chapter 5 of my forthcoming book with Jonathan Wells titled THE DESIGN OF LIFE (publication date keeps being delayed, but I think it’ll be out in November).

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 4:55 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
dick,

Is Dr Behe a leader in ID?

If he is and he accepts Common Descent then it is obvious that ID does not argue against ID.

Are you that simple that you can't grasp that?

But that is moot- I found "The Design of Life" in my basement bookcase.

From page 109:

The theory of intelligent design (ID) neither requires nor excludes speciation- even speciation by Darwinian mechanisms. ID is sometimes confused with a static view of species, as though species were designed to be immutable. That is a conceptual possibility within ID, but it is not the only possibility. ID precludes neither significant variation within species nor the evolution of new species from earlier forms. Rather, it maintains that there are strict limits to the amount and quality of variations that material mechanisms such as natural selection and random genetic change can alone produce. At the same time, it holds that intelligence is fully capable of supplementing such mechanisms, interacting with and influencing the material world, and thereby guiding it into certain physical states to the exclusion of others. (bold added)

IOW I was right and Richtard, oleg (dick) and KC were wrong.

No surprise there…

BTW dick- Bill Dembski isn't ID, just an IDist.

And seeing the evidence for Common Descent requires that you must assume it to be true, he has a point about Common Descent.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 6:31 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
What did I say?:

The fact remains ID does not argue against Common Descent and ID does not argue for the fixity of species.

That is the ID line whether you like it or not.

The leaders of ID agree with me…

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 6:34 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Argument ad boldem

So when they write thigs you disgree with the book is wothless, but when you garee with it then the book is credible. Interesting.

Who get's to pick 'the ID line', Joe?

Clue: It's not you.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 15, 2010 @ 6:42 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
Richtardhughes-> argument ad ignorance…

"The Design of Life" supersedes both "Of Pandas and People".

Look up the word "supersedes" and stop with the ignorance already.

And you said no one agreed with what I said, yet I have proven the opposite.

Now all you can do is throw a tantrum because your tits got twisted and your panties are in a knot.

Thank you for proving that you are a dishonest punk.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 6:44 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Who get's to pick 'the ID line', Richtard?

Definitely not you.

Now stop whining just because you were exposed as a poseur…

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 6:46 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
argument ad blockquote-

Is Dr Behe a leader in ID?

If he is and he accepts Common Descent then it is obvious that ID does not argue against ID.

Are you that simple that you can't grasp that?

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 7:11 pm

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
Joe, you're reading the wrong chapter. The question wasn't about speciation, it was about universal common descent (UCD). Skip to Chapter 5.

Behe is about the only one among ID scholars who accepts UCD. Dembski, Wells, Meyer, Nelson, virtually anyone else denies it. The book dances around the question, but it is clear from reading it that they are trying to sow doubt about UCD. They wouldn't if they were truly neutral about it.

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 7:34 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
No dick, you are reading the wrong chapter.

Did you even read what I posted?

Did you read what I emphaiszed?

ID precludes neither significant variation within species nor the evolution of new species from earlier forms.

The sentences leading up to that makes it clear that new species from earlier forms is the macroevolution discussed in earlier.

And again all those guys have a right to deny Common Descent- all the evidence for it is nothing more than "it looks like common descent".

Get that through your head- I have said it more than once and that should be more than enough.

ID OTOH is not those guys.

And those guys would admit that if the designer designed for that to happen via targeted searches, then so be it. But first there has to be some positive evidence.

IOW dick you just seem to be void of critical thinking.

Heck in another thread you think just because people's conception of "God" evolves that "God" evolves.

And before that you ate it on additive specified information.

Adjust that frustrated magnet cap- please- or just take it off for a while.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 7:51 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
olegt:
Behe is about the only one among ID scholars who accepts UCD.

Even if true, and I doubt it, that means nothing to Intelligent Design.

You guys have some mental block- blind spot- that prevents that message from reaching your processing center.

Darwin thought whales may have evolved from bears. And he was all messed up about inheritance.

Oh well…

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 7:55 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
olegt bites it again-

End of Chapter 5 page 142:

The verdict is not yet in, and proponents of intelligent design themselves hold differing views on the extent of the evolutionary interconnectedness of organisms, with some even accepting universal common ancestry (ie, Darwin's great tree of life).

Common ancestry in combination with common design can explain the similar features that arise in biology. The real question is whether common ancestry apart from common design- in other words, materialistic evolution- can do so. The evidence of biology increasingly demonstrates that it cannot.

Get off of it guys. You don't know what you are talking about.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 8:04 pm

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Joe, irony isn't something that you can parse, so let me explain why that quote is so funny:

The verdict is not yet in, and proponents of intelligent design themselves hold differing views on the extent of the evolutionary interconnectedness of organisms, with some even accepting universal common ancestry (ie, Darwin's great tree of life).

You can just hear Dembski and Well choking at the thought that one of their esteemed colleagues accepts UCD. Behe is viewed as the black sheep in ID circles because of that. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Behe (MJB) conducted by Mario Lopez (ML):

ML: In The Edge, you make a defense for common descent (p.182) and later attribute it to a non-random process (p. 72). Considering the convergent evolution of the digestive enzyme of lemurs and cows, hemoglobin of human and mice, and in your own work resistance mutations that also arise independently (p77), why such a commitment to common descent? Isn’t genetic convergent evolution or even common design (considering your view of mutations) good alternative explanations to common descent?

MJB: I don’t think so. Although those other explanations may be true, I think that common descent, guided by an intelligent agent, is sufficient to explain the data. It has the great advantage of being easily compatible with apparent genetic “mistakes” shared by organisms, such as the pseudo-hemoglobin genes I wrote of in The Edge of Evolution.

ML: I know that you are well liked and respected by other ID proponents, but how do your ID colleagues feel about your commitment to common descent? Have they ever addressed that issue with you?

MJB: We have discussed it briefly and cordially, and have agreed to disagree.

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 8:26 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
dick,

Let me explain why your continued whining in the face of a very serious loss is funny-

It exposes you for what you are- an empty set…

You can just hear Dembski and Well choking at the thought that one of their esteemed colleagues accepts UCD.

I hear you, Richtard and KC choking on the fact that once again I have proven you wrong.

And it is as I said- they accept that the designer could have designed it that way- UCD- via targeted searches which don't require gradualism.

However again there isn't any positive evidence that excludes all alternatives.

What UCD explains common design explains as well if not better.

Deal with it.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 8:39 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Stephen Jones another IDist who also accepts UCD.

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 8:41 pm

ID guy Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
So we are back to:

Is Dr Behe a leader in ID?

If he is and he accepts Common Descent then it is obvious that ID does not argue against CD.

Are you that simple that you can't grasp that?

It appears so…

Comment by ID guy — May 15, 2010 @ 8:44 pm

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
ID guy wrote:

Stephen Jones another IDist who also accepts UCD.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel, Joe? Steve Jones is a guy with a blog, a nobody just like you. Why don't you find someone who actually matters in the ID movement and accepts common descent?

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 9:07 pm

olegt Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 9:42 pm
ID guy wrote:

Is Dr Behe a leader in ID?

No, Behe is part of the ID movement but he is certainly not a leader. He does not direct the movement in any way, you can call him a scientific expert in ID circles which consist mostly of lawyers and philosophers. The real leader of ID is Phillip Johnson.

Comment by olegt — May 15, 2010 @ 9:42 pm

Bradford Says:
May 15th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Olegt:

No, Behe is part of the ID movement but he is certainly not a leader. He does not direct the movement in any way, you can call him a scientific expert in ID circles which consist mostly of lawyers and philosophers. The real leader of ID is Phillip Johnson.

Johnson is retired, elderly and has some health issues. Why does the "movement" not even make the radar screens of those who actually mold societal rules and regulations?

Comment by Bradford — May 15, 2010 @ 10:42 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 1:01 am
Michael Denton is also someone, who has been associated with the ID movement from the beginning, who accepts UCD. Both Johnson and Behe cite Denton’s first book, Evolution a Theory in Crisis, as the book that caused them to begin questioning the standard neo-Darwinian account of evolution in the first place. In fact, I would argue without Denton’s very influential book there would be no Discovery Institute and we would never have heard of Phillip Johnson or Michael Behe, who would probably still be committed Darwinists.

Olegt is mistaken that it is leaders that typically start and sustain movements. Movements are primarily about ideas and it is ideas that sustain them. Johnson was someone who tried to coopt, with some success, an already existing movement.

KC: How does this address your silly charge that I take the argument–every time– to "Kitzmiller, textbooks the Discovery Institute, Philip Johnson etc. etc."?

How does it address your inane comment that I "want to talk about everything but the evidence."?

My apologies, KC. It appears that I got you confused with olegt who is obsessed with "Kitzmiller, textbooks the Discovery Institute, Philip Johnson etc. etc."

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 16, 2010 @ 1:01 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 1:03 am
Olegt – You're obsessed with the thing IDists, say, not True ID (c) !

Comment by Richardthughes — May 16, 2010 @ 1:03 am

Rob R. Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 1:50 am
JAD:

My apologies, KC. It appears that I got you confused with olegt who is obsessed with "Kitzmiller, textbooks the Discovery Institute, Philip Johnson etc. etc."

FWIW, assuming he's the same KC from ARN (I first noticed years ago), he's never struck me as your typical culture warrior. Plus, I think he's the only working biologist that comments here nowadays.

*shrug*

Comment by Rob R. — May 16, 2010 @ 1:50 am

KC Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 6:16 am
Hi Rob,

Yes, we're the same person. However, I'm a grad student, not a professional biologist.

Comment by KC — May 16, 2010 @ 6:16 am

olegt Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:13 am
JOHN_A_DESIGNER wrote:

Michael Denton is also someone, who has been associated with the ID movement from the beginning, who accepts UCD. Both Johnson and Behe cite Denton’s first book, Evolution a Theory in Crisis, as the book that caused them to begin questioning the standard neo-Darwinian account of evolution in the first place. In fact, I would argue without Denton’s very influential book there would be no Discovery Institute and we would never have heard of Phillip Johnson or Michael Behe, who would probably still be committed Darwinists.

Good catch, John. However, I would have to quibble with your assessment. Denton was associated with the ID movement but no longer is. His second book, Nature's Destiny, is manifestly at odds with the ID way. You should read the roundtable discussion of the book by Wells, Dembski, Meyer, Johnson, Behe, and Nelson at ARN. You'll see that Denton ca. 1998 is a theistic evolutionist rather than an ID proponent. He does not share the main tenet of ID, that God directly intervenes in the design of life. God simply wound the clock on Day 1, let it go, and retired.

Comment by olegt — May 16, 2010 @ 9:13 am

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:25 am
Is Dr Behe a leader in ID?

olegt:
No,

Wrong again- as usual.

Dr Behe is a leader in ID.

Behe is part of the ID movement but he is certainly not a leader.

He is definitely a leader.

Only a ignorant troll would say otherwise.

The real leader of ID is Phillip Johnson.

That is incorrect and firther exposes your ignorance.

Is that what you wanted to do?

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 9:25 am

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:27 am
Stephen Jones another IDist who also accepts UCD.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel, Jim?

Only by trying to have a discussion with you.

Steve Jones is a guy with a blog,

Dr Jones is a professional biologist.

Why don't you find someone who actually matters in the ID movement and accepts common descent?

Dr Jones is an IDist who accepts UCD.

That you have to make it into something else proves that you are a dishonest crackpot.

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 9:27 am

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:29 am
olegt:
He does not share the main tenet of ID, that God directly intervenes in the design of life.

That is not an ID tenet.

IOW you are a liar.

ID does not exclude that possibility but ID is not about "God" and direct intervention is not a requirement of ID.

IOW oleg your ID ignorance runs deep…

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 9:29 am

olegt Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:36 am
ID guy wrote:

Dr Jones is a professional biologist.

I don't think so, Joe. Jones has a B. Sc. in biology and was studying to become a biology teacher in 2009. Link.

Comment by olegt — May 16, 2010 @ 9:36 am

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:37 am
richtardhighes-

You are obsessed with misrepresenting ID and perpetuating falsehoods.

You came here saying you are interested in meaningful discourse but you think your ignorance passes for such.

Are you are good at making guitars?

If so stick with it because you are clueless when it comes to science.

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 9:37 am

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:42 am
Whatever oleg-

Perhaps you should write to him to find out more…

The fact remains that ID does not argue against UCD.

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 9:42 am

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Stephen E. Jones:

My commentary on creation, evolution and intelligent design issues. I am an Australian Christian old-Earth creationist/IDist biologist who accepts universal common ancestry (but not evolution).

He says he is a biologist…

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 9:48 am

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 10:10 am
olegt: "Denton ca. 1998 is a theistic evolutionist rather than an ID proponent. He does not share the main tenet of ID, that God directly intervenes in the design of life."

However, Denton has remained highly critical of the neo-Darwinian synthesis which puts him closer to the ID camp than it does the atheistic evolutionist camp. He also clearly embraces, like ID’ists, a strong teleological view of nature.

For example, in 1999 Denton participated in a symposium in which the participants discussed Darwinism, theistic evolutionism and creationism. It was there that he clarified his beliefs about evolution. He writes “that both Darwinists and creationists for their own reasons found it convenient to read ‘evolution’ for ‘Darwinism’ in Evolution a Theory in Crisis…” He goes on to confess that he might have contributed to the confusion by entitling his first book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, when he should have entitled it Darwinism: A Theory in Crisis. “The book,” he continues, “was intended to be an attack on the Darwinian claim that all evolution can be plausibly explained by the accumulation of successive, small random mutations… However, the book was not intended to support special creationism.” (Darwinism Defeated? The Johnson-Lamoureux Debate on Biological Origins, Regent College Publishing,1999. P142)

I like Denton but I disagree with the anthropocentric point of view (even broadly construed) that he espouses in Nature’s Destiny. Obviously we wouldn’t exist without the universe, but I find it a bit of a stretch theologically to argue that it was created all for us.

On the other hand, I have no problem, at least in principle, with the idea that evolution is somehow “front loaded.” However, that idea is not anti-ID but a form of ID which sees evolution itself as something that was designed (or "designed in") from the beginning. Again that is an idea that is not compatible or friendly with Darwinism, neo-Darwinism or any of it’s contemporary versions.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 16, 2010 @ 10:10 am

Satolep Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Who is the leader of ID? We know that the leader of evolution is Wallace & Darwin..

It isn't even possible to know whether ID accept or deny evolution. Some people insist it does, others deny it. Aren't Dembski and Behe the leaders of ID? As far as I know, EF, IC, CSI, FCSI, and arguments about the blood clotting chain, bacterial flagellum, cytochrome c and so on, the math to prove that evolution is not possible; all fundamental to ID, isn't all that coming from Dembski and Behe?

If ID is not a scientific theory it does of course not need a scientific leadership. It all strikes me as rather odd. My understanding of science is that it has no leaders.

While scientists just are doing their best to unravel the mysteries of nature, creationist organizations are created for the purpose of rejecting any science that supports evolution.

Comment by Satolep — May 16, 2010 @ 11:14 am

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 11:17 am
Umm no one said anything about "the" leader.

IOW another "country" chimes in with its ignorance…

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 11:17 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Joe, I've never made a guitar in my life, so I wouldn't know.

I've nearly won at bingo, though::

Here's the problem for ID. It is really creationism, but you can't do that in schools. So it is torn by the competing forces of wanting the trapping of science and conforming to the biblical creation narrative, hence this common decent, age of universe angst.

Baraminology!

Edited for format.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 16, 2010 @ 11:26 am

Bradford Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Critic: IDist, take me to your leader.

IDist: We have none. We are a group of disparate individuals sharing a belief that intelligent design can be evidenced by nature itself.

Critic: Then take me to the cabal which directs your movement.

IDist: Movement? ID is an idea whose time has come. Democracy, women's rights, the Tea Party, ID…

Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2010 @ 11:31 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 11:34 am
If you're looking for a clue on ID hierarchy, Bradford: The leaders write the books, The rubes buy the books and the research is done by ..er…..er….

Comment by Richardthughes — May 16, 2010 @ 11:34 am

Bradford Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Richard Tard Hughes:

If you're looking for a clue on ID hierarchy, Bradford: The leaders write the books,

Teh heh. You need a life's lesson Richie. Leaders are not qualified by their authorship skills.

The rubes buy the books

How many books have you read lately? Any outside your field. If not would that include you in the rube faction?

the research is done by ..er…..er….

Researchers. How is that relevant to the contents of research data?

Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2010 @ 11:41 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Leaders are not qualified by their authorship skills.

Hey, give Denyse a break.

How many books have you read lately?

Not many. and my comment was to help you with ID hierarchy, nothing beyond that. I'll bet you've got signed copies.

Researchers. How is that relevant to the contents of research data?

ID 'research' is different. It's a wholly parasitic enterprise that scans science papers for the word 'designed', or tries very hard to discredit findings that support evolution.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 16, 2010 @ 11:48 am

Bradford Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
ID 'research' is different. It's a wholly parasitic enterprise that scans science papers for the word 'designed', or tries very hard to discredit findings that support evolution.

An odd comment for the Telic Thoughts forum where most design arguments are fashioned around evolution or the origin of life.

Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2010 @ 12:55 pm

olegt Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
Bradford,

Are you saying that shooting the breeze at TT qualifies as ID research?

Comment by olegt — May 16, 2010 @ 1:09 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Here is a little interesting history from the acknowledgements of Michael Denton's book Nature's Destiny:

"I would like to thank my editor Bruce Nichols… I would also like to thank David Berlinski who initially suggested the Free Press as a possible publisher. It was through David that the manuscript eventually got to Bruce Nichols' desk. I became acquainted with David through a mutual friend of ours, Professor M.P. Schutzenberger, a leading French mathematician, anti-Darwinist, and member of the French Academy. Professor Schutzenberger was known to both David and myself and to his very many academic colleagues affectionately as "Marco." It was through one of many conversations with Marco in his flat near Bois de Boulogne in Paris, in 1989, that I first learned of Lawrence Henderson's great book The Fitness of the Environment and of the concept of the unique fitness of the cosmos for carbon-based life. Had Marco not brought The Fitness to my attention, the certainly this book would never had been written. I also owe a debt to the works of the physicists Paul Davies and John barrow and others in the anthropic camp which stimulated and encouraged me to consider fitness in the biological realm."

In other words, what eventually became "Intelligent Design" had roots other than the Discovery Institute and Phillip Johnson. Furthermore, contrary to the Theocracy conspiracy theories of anti-ID critics, these other roots were almost completely secular.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 16, 2010 @ 4:12 pm

olegt Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
John, you're mixing up Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and Nature's Destiny. ID was inspired by the former, but not by the latter.

Comment by olegt — May 16, 2010 @ 4:49 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
To be clear, "thought experiments', which seem to be the only experiments ID does, are fun and sometimes challenging, but are clearly in the realm of philosophy not science.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 16, 2010 @ 4:55 pm

fifth monarchy man Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
olget:

John, you're mixing up Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and Nature's Destiny. ID was inspired by the former, but not by the latter.

I can't speak for others but Nature's Destiny (along with DBB) is what made me an IDist. I still have my copy and refer to it often.

Before I read that book I was just a TEer.

Denton could probably be classed an extreme frontloader because he believes that the design was loaded at the beginning of the universe.

This is in contrast to Behe who seems to think it was also inputted at the first cell.

However I think it’s safe to say that he believes that nature is designed and this design is detectable in principle.

That is ID’s claim to fame and that is good enough for me.

I really think the conspiracy theorists here need to understand that ID is a lot like the Republican party there are Libertarians and Theonomists and Neocons and Tea partiers who probably don’t agree on anything but how much they hate progressives.

As long as you try to act like all Republicans are Neocons you are doomed to failure. You might find yourself wining an occasional battle against the Neocons only to be beaten by the Tea Party when your not looking.

know your enemy

peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 16, 2010 @ 5:56 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
olegt: John, you're mixing up Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and Nature's Destiny. ID was inspired by the former, but not by the latter.

And, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis was written by whom? The point I was trying to make was not that Nature’s Destiny played a formative role in launching the ID movement but that Denton’s skepticism was a result of primarily secular not religious influences. Of course it was Denton’s earlier book that inspired the ID movement. However, Marcel Schutzenberger, one of the men who had an influence on Denton, was an outspoken critic of neo-Darwinism going back to the 1960’s.

Whether Denton was a friend of Schutzenberg’s prior to writing 'Evolution' I do not know. However, Denton does know about and mention Schutzenberg’s work in his first book. He writes:

The inability of unguided trial and error to reach anything but the most trivial of ends in almost every field of interest obviously raises doubts as to its validity in the biological realm. Such doubts were recently raised by a number of mathematicians and engineers at an international symposium entitled “Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution”, a meeting which also included many leading evolutionary biologists. The major argument presented was that Darwinian evolution by natural selection is merely a special case of the general procedure of problem solving by trial and error. Unfortunately, as the mathematicians present at the symposium such as Schutzenberg and Professor Eden of MIT pointed out, trial and error is totally inadequate as a problem solving technique without the guidance of specific algorithms, which has led to the consequent failure to simulate Darwinian evolution by computer analogues. (p 314)

Once again, my point is simply that there was some skepticism of the power of natural selection being expressed by non-creationists long before ID and it current proponents appeared on the scene.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 16, 2010 @ 9:05 pm

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:27 pm
richtardhighes:
Here's the problem for ID. It is really creationism,

That's the problem with you- you think you know what you are talking about but you are an imbecile.

As for baraminology at least it is supported by the scientific data whereas your position is not.

And your position doesn't even have a thought experiment because people who choose your position can't think.

It is very telling that neither Richtard, olegt, KC. Art, Alan Fox nor Zachriel can produce any positive evidence for their position.

All they can do is whine about ID.

Typically pathetic…

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 9:27 pm

ID guy Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Here's the problem with the theory of evolution:

It really is an atheistic theory but they cannot say that because it would run into the "seperation of Church and State" issues.

So they try to pawn it off as not being for or against religion and they parade the few "religious" biologists who accept the ToE as "evidence" it is not an atheistic theory.

IOW richtard you really need to focus on your position because all you have are BS and more BS…

Comment by ID guy — May 16, 2010 @ 9:34 pm

olegt Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
fifth monarchy man,

However you want to classify Denton, he is definitely not in the ID camp. The Note to the Reader in Nature's Destiny makes it quite clear (emphasis in the original):

Because this book presents a teleological interpretation of the cosmos which has theological implications, it is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science–that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school." According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world–that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies.

To see that this is incompatible with ID as it is practiced, here is Dembski in What Every Theologian Should Know about Creation, Evolution, and Design:

Henceforth this debate will be over whether life exhibits nothing more than the outcome of fully naturalistic purposeless material processes, or whether life exhibits the purposeful activity of an intelligent agent (usually called a designer) who in creating life has impressed on it the clear marks of intelligence. Phillip Johnson has dubbed the first view the Blind Watchmaker Thesis–BWT. We'll call the second view the Intelligent Design Thesis–IDT. BWT and IDT are mutually exclusive and exhaust all possibilities. According to Johnson the key problem to be resolved in the creation-evolution controversy is deciding which of these theses is correct, BWT or IDT. How then shall we reach a decision?

The first thing to notice is that BWT and IDT both make definite assertions of fact. To see this, let's get personal. Here you are. You had parents. They in turn had parents. They too had parents. And so on and so on. If we run the video camera back in time, generation upon generation, what do we see? Do we see a continuous chain of natural causes which go from apes to small furry mammals to reptiles to slugs to slime molds to blue green algae, and finally all the way back to a pre-biotic soup, with no event in the chain ever signaling the activity of an intelligent agent? Or as we trace back the genealogy do we find events that clearly signal the activity of an intelligent agent?

As I have said a few times already, it boils down to this: can we detect God's intervention at various stages of life development? The ID camp insists that the answer is affirmative. Denton makes no such commitment. That's why he and Discovery parted ways.

Comment by olegt — May 16, 2010 @ 9:49 pm

olegt Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
JOHN_A_DESIGNER wrote:

Once again, my point is simply that there was some skepticism of the power of natural selection being expressed by non-creationists long before ID and it current proponents appeared on the scene.

Doh! I never said otherwise. Fred Hoyle was a well-known skeptic of evolution, or more precisely, of the natural origin of life.

But so what? Every scientific theory, no matter how well established, has its skeptics. There are theoretical physicists with impeccable credentials who doubt general relativity and declare that black holes are impossible: S.S. Gershtein, A.A. Logunov, and M.A. Mestvirishvili, Impossibility of Unlimited Gravitational Collapse. Gershtein taught a lecture course in quantum mechanics at my alma mater and Logunov was president of Moscow State University. So what? They are still wrong: there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Comment by olegt — May 16, 2010 @ 10:18 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 16th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Evolution is an atheist theory. uh-huh.

Its that crazy ID world where religion is a science, science is a religion, I know you are but what am I?

ID guy/ Joe G. If you're a Poe, PLESAE STOP. It's funny to laugh at but give them a chance to make their case without promoting the most batshit insane caricature of their position you you can think of.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 16, 2010 @ 10:19 pm

Pez Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 1:45 am
Oleg packs every square inch with errors, equivocations and misrepresentations.

ID is not Special Creation.

Denton's book may present an "assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school." but it is not opposed to ID. Read Behe.

As I have said a few times already, it boils down to this: can we detect God's intervention at various stages of life development?

If you've said this before you've been wrong before. ID has nothing at all to say about where, when and at what stage God, or the Designer, "intervened". Dembski explicitly states this in book after book and explicitly tells you that ID is not a theory about interventions.
Behe even tells you that an unfolding of preprogrammed laws in nature a la Nature's Destiny is fully compatible with his idea of ID.

Comment by Pez — May 17, 2010 @ 1:45 am

Pez Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 2:18 am
Behe , Edge Of Evolution:

But the assumption that design unavoidably requires "interference" rests mostly on a lack of imagination. There's no reason that the extended fine-tuning view I am presenting here necessarily requires active meddling with nature any more than the fine-tuning of theistic evolution does. One can think the universe is finely tuned to any degree and still conceive that "the universe [originated] by a single creative act" and underwent "its natural development by laws implanted in it". One simply has to envision that the agent who caused the universe was able to specify from the start not only laws but much more.

page 231, EoE

Those who worry about "interference" should relax. The purposeful design of life to any degree is easily compatible with the idea that, after its initiation, the universe unfolded exclusively by the intended playing out of natural laws. The design of life is also fully compatible with the idea of universal common descent, one important facet of Darwin's theory. What the purposeful design of life is not compatible with, however, is Darwin's proposed mechanism of evolution – random variation and natural selection – which sought to explain the development of life explicitly without recourse to guidance or planning by anyone or anything at any time.
page 232

Comment by Pez — May 17, 2010 @ 2:18 am

Pez Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 2:27 am
Dembski on interventionism:

Intelligent design is not a theory about the frequency or locality at which a designing intelligence intervenes in the material world. It is not an interventionist theory at all. Indeed, intelligent design is perfectly compatible with all the design in the world being front-loaded in the sense that all design was introduced at the beginning (say at the Big Bang) and then came to expression subsequently over the course of natural history much as a computer program's output becomes evident only when the program is run. This actually is an old idea, and one that Charles Babbage, the inventor of the digital computer, explored in the 1830s in his Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (thus predating Darwin's Origin of Species by twenty years).

http://www.designinference.com...

"Indeed, intelligent design is perfectly compatible with all the design in the world coming to expression by the ordinary means of secondary causes over the course of natural history, much as a computer program's output comes to expression by running the program (and thus without monkeying with the program's operation).
..
Likewise, should a designer, who for both Van Till and me is God,act to bring about a bacterial flagellum, there is no reason prima facie to suppose that this designer did not act consistently with natural laws. It is, for instance, a logical possibility that the design in the bacterial flagellum was front-loaded into the universe at the Big Bang and subsequently expressed itself in the course of natural history as a miniature outboard motor on the back of E. Coli. Whether this is what actually happened is another question (more on this later), but it is certainly a live possibility and one that gets around the usual charge of miracles.

http://www.meta-library.net/id...

Allen Orr seemed to get it:

To be fair, Dembski admits that there are no grounds for excluding either front-loading or intervention. But it's clear where his heart lies. He seems less than crazy about the former idea and perceptibly leans to the latter. At the very least he defends intervention with gusto.18

http://bostonreview.net/BR27.3...

Although Dembski is somewhat noncommittal, he seems to favor a design theory in which an intelligent agent programmed design into early life, or even into the early universe. This design then unfolded through the long course of evolutionary time, as microbes slowly morphed into man.

http://www.newyorker.com/print...

Comment by Pez — May 17, 2010 @ 2:27 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 7:01 am
richtardhughes:
Evolution is an atheist theory.

It is.

Just ask Richard Dawkins, Will Provine and PZ Meyers- people who know more about the theory of evolution and rel;igion than you do.

As I said the only reason that it is denied to be an atheistic theory by others is to get around the law.

That is a fact.

And obviously all you can do is respond like the little baby you are.

And if that is all you have then why even bother posting?

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 7:01 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 7:03 am
olegt:
can we detect God's intervention at various stages of life development?

ID is not about any God.

IOW oleg you are being dishonest.

Just because some or even most IDists think the designer is God, that doesn't make ID about God.

You seem to be incapable of rational thought oleg.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 7:03 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 7:07 am
olegt:
Every scientific theory, no matter how well established, has its skeptics.

The theory of evolution via blind, undirected chenmical processes is not established at all.

There isn't any way to test it. There isn't any positive evidence for it-> you have failed to produce any.

That means it isn't science and is far from being established.

And that is why ID is here-> your failures plus experience and observation supports ID.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 7:07 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 7:09 am
olegt:
John, you're mixing up Evolution: A Theory in Crisis and Nature's Destiny. ID was inspired by the former, but not by the latter.

Neither one had anything to do with ID.

ID has been around for millenia-> the ancient Greeks argued about it and ID won.

IOW oleg you don't know what you are talking about, as usual.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 7:09 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 8:59 am
It is.

Just ask Richard Dawkins, Will Provine and PZ Meyers- people who know more about the theory of evolution and rel;igion than you do.

I just asked some catholics (easy to find, there are about a billion of them) and they are fine with it, but think you're a maroon.

Are you completely impervious to reality?

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 8:59 am

fifth monarchy man Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:12 am
The ID camp insists that the answer is affirmative. Denton makes no such commitment. That's why he and Discovery parted ways.

Discovery is not ID anymore than the Weekly Standard or the Cato institute is the Republican party. Feel free to continue to try and pigeon hole a diverse group of folks but don’t say I did not warn you about misunderstanding your enemy.

The IDists here are all claim Denton and all recognize him as one of there own. That should be enough to prove the point.

Democrats can claim all day that Ron Paul is not a Republican because he was against the Iraq war but Republicans know better.

Peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 17, 2010 @ 9:12 am

fifth monarchy man Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:23 am
I just asked some catholics (easy to find, there are about a billion of them) and they are fine with it

Do you honestly want to stereotype Catholics in this way? What do you think Behe is?

This kind of prejudice and profiling based on religion went out of style 40 years ago.

Comment by fifth monarchy man — May 17, 2010 @ 9:23 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Discovery is not ID

They're the only ones with a lab doing 'ID research'.

Behe I think has lab access but I don't know what he's up to.

Joe's watching 'ghost hunters' doesn't count.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 9:24 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:29 am
It is.

Just ask Richard Dawkins, Will Provine and PZ Meyers- people who know more about the theory of evolution and rel;igion than you do.

richtardhughes:
I just asked some catholics (easy to find, there are about a billion of them) and they are fine with it, but think you're a maroon.

Ask those alleged catholics what is the difference between their God and no God at all.

The people who know the theory of evolution the best- actual evolutionary biologists- agree with me.

As I said you will always be able to find a few people who say they are Christians who agree with the theory of evolution.

Yet that means their Bible is totally meaningless and therefore so is their religion.

Are you completely impervious to reality?

Obviously you are.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 9:29 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:31 am
FMM:
Discovery is not ID

richtardhughes:
They're the only ones with a lab doing 'ID research'.

All scientists do ID research.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 9:31 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:36 am
Hey I just asked some catholics too.

Not very hard to find as I have a family loaded with them.

They also agree with me.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 9:36 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:37 am
All scientists do ID research.

Yes, they do. They can't wait for ID to form a testable hypothesis so they can get right on it..

Oh, wait, you mean if the use the word 'design' in a paper you'll quote mine them.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 9:37 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:38 am
I'm pleased you can sort out true religions from not and true catholics from not, Joe. That, with your own definitions of concepts mean you can quite literally rewrite reality.

I salute you.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 9:38 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 10:47 am
Richtard,

How about you presenting a testable hypoithesis for your position?

ID has one.

OTOH all you have is "No, it can't be designed by a designer. But I don't have any positive evidence for any alternative."

But that is not even it.

Richtard, everytime scientists go into a lab they have the opportunity to show that blind, undirected chemical processes can build some complex functional biochemical machine.

Yet they have nothing to support that scenario.

Yet complex functional biochemical machinery exists and if it cannot be reducible to matter, energy, chance and necessity, then we have to look elsewhere to answer the question of "How did it come to be this way?", which is one of the three basic question science asks.

So richtard anytime you want to start producing positive evidence for your position we will be here waiting…

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 10:47 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 10:52 am
richtardhughes:
I'm pleased you can sort out true religions from not

That as never even discussed.

So why are you putting words in my mouth- are you that dishonest?

and true catholics from not, Jim.

I understand that logic and reasoning elude you but just because you are easily duped doesn't mean everyone has to be so gullible.

That, with your own definitions of concepts mean you can quite literally rewrite reality.

You have any evidence for that or are you lying again?

So when richtard said he wanted "meaningful discourse" that must have meant he was here to lie about people and concepts, and act like a baby when exposed as a poseur.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 10:52 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Catholicism accepts evolution, Joe.

In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points….Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies – which was neither planned nor sought – constitutes in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory

Who said that? Have a google.

It would appear your "family loaded with them" are off message. But you can help them now.

I'd expect evolutionary theory to show e-coli adapting to consume a new medium, or to help us find some fishy intermediate or other.

What does ID tell us?

PS.
…..Baraminology!

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 11:00 am

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
richtardhughes:
Catholicism accepts evolution, Jim.

Theistic evolution- not blind watchmaker evolution.

They accept that we are part of "God's" plan.

Also the speech you quoted really doesn't help you.

He talks about many theories of evolution- or is it mnay hypothesis.

He was also trying to keep the peace- you know say anything as long as the collection plates keep getting filled.

I'd expect evolutionary theory to show e-coli adapting to consume a new medium, or to help us find some fishy intermediate or other.

LoL!

Baraminology accepts that e. coli can do that. ID accepts that also.

And what you posted has nothing to do with any mechanism.

IOW richtard you are eiother obtuse or wilfully ignorant for posting that as some sort of hypothesis for your position.

Both ID and baraminology would say the adaptation was most likely due to directed mechanisms- not the blind, undirected chemical proceses that your position demands.

Also richtard you don't know a thing about baraminology so why do you keep on trying to say something about it?

Do you really think your ignorant blurbs actually refute the concept?

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 12:00 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
I would say it is safe to say that David Berlinski has it right (see the second video)- the theory of evolution is nothing more than "whatever survives, survives".

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 12:06 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
or to help us find some fishy intermediate or other.

That sez nothing about a mechanism.

Not only that it is too vague to be of any use.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 12:07 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I think you'll find the e-coli changed via a frameshift.

But maybe god did it when Lenski wasn't looking.

he's was also tampering with fish back in the day hence we got tiktaalik. But he's stopped now folks are looking out for him.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 12:15 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
richtard:
I think you'll find the e-coli changed via a frameshift.

But maybe god did it when Lenski wasn't looking.

Umm good programs don't require programmer intervention.

Do you see a programmer rush to your house everytime to run an application of your computer?

Read "Not By Chance" so you won't be so damned ignorant of your opponents.

he's was also tampering with fish back in the day hence we got tiktaalik

Again your ignorance of ID and the evidence doesn't help you.

That is why you have to insist that ID argues against Common Descent.

But I digress-

Tiktaalik was found in the wrong strata to be of any use to Common Descent- tetrapods had already existed for millions of years by the time it showed up.

Also as far as anyone knows it was just an example of what we would expect to find in that type of environment- IOW it wasn't transitioning into anything.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 12:34 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
And e. coli "evolving" into e. coli fits in perfectly with baraminology and ID.

Just how the heck you think it supports your position is beyond me.

From "The Design of Life" page 109:

The theory of intelligent design (ID) neither requires nor excludes speciation- even speciation by Darwinian mechanisms. ID is sometimes confused with a static view of species, as though species were designed to be immutable. That is a conceptual possibility within ID, but it is not the only possibility. ID precludes neither significant variation within species nor the evolution of new species from earlier forms. Rather, it maintains that there are strict limits to the amount and quality of variations that material mechanisms such as natural selection and random genetic change can alone produce. At the same time, it holds that intelligence is fully capable of supplementing such mechanisms, interacting with and influencing the material world, and thereby guiding it into certain physical states to the exclusion of others.

Your inability to grasp basic concepts is comical…

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 12:38 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Oh Joe, that's not a True ID (c) book!

Umm good programs don't require programmer intervention.

God: and I'll fron load this e-coli as well becuase this other thing that I've from loaded to become apes will pop out a Lenski at some point and he'll start experimenting and it's really important that he gets evolution type results.

It's a shame that I front loaded all that stuff for the 99% of species that aren't going to make it, though.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 2:17 pm

chunkdz Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
richardthughes: God: and I'll fron load this e-coli as well becuase this other thing that I've from loaded to become apes will pop out a Lenski at some point and he'll start experimenting and it's really important that he gets evolution type results.

It's a shame that I front loaded all that stuff for the 99% of species that aren't going to make it, though.

Yet another critic of frontloading who has apparently not bothered to discover what frontloaded evolution is.

Comment by chunkdz — May 17, 2010 @ 2:56 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Yet another critic of frontloading who has apparently not bothered to discover what frontloaded evolution is.

LOLs. Like it's this real thing that we can study. 'Bothered to discover', how apropos, IDers.

Quick, to the thought experiment lab, batman!

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:00 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
richtard,

It isn't that it is an ID book.

It is that the book would give you some insight as to what your opposition says.

Your disinterest in your opponents' position tells me that you don't give a shit about "meaningful discourse".

As for something real we can study- again tat is comical coming from a person who can't even put forth a testable hypothesis for his position.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 3:06 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
And btw ole ignorant one-

"Built-in responses to environmental cues"- that is the program that doesn't require intervention.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 3:09 pm

Pez Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
Which 99% didn't make it?
It would seem that this is yet another presumption based upon the requirements of a failed paradigm. It would actually seem that >90% did make it, all the way to today.

Comment by Pez — May 17, 2010 @ 3:12 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Yeah, you've not really thought this through:

I know you have to make it look just like evolution because that's what the evidence supports, but are you suggesting an auto-adaptive algorithm that has no knowledge of future environments or interactions with its cousins?

What was the objective function?

Were people the end product?

Enquiring minds not commited to genesis want to know!

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:13 pm

Pez Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
It seems that God designed the bacteria in such a manner that we can look back in time as far as possible (about 200 million years so far) at its genome and not see evolution-like results.

Comment by Pez — May 17, 2010 @ 3:25 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Which 99% didn't make it?
It would seem that this is yet another presumption based upon the requirements of a failed paradigm. It would actually seem that >90% did make it, all the way to today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

…Extinction, though, is usually a natural phenomenon; it is estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct.[2][3]

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:26 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Pez. How many bacteria did Lenski have? How many are here knocking about right now?

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:28 pm

chunkdz Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
richardthughes: LOLs. Like it's this real thing that we can study. 'Bothered to discover', how apropos, IDers.

Quick, to the thought experiment lab, batman!

Well, you can continue to make up silly, uninformed monologues or you could actually read a book about FLE.

It's ironic that you poo-poo thought experiments when it's painfully obvious that your understanding of FLE was formed entirely in your own mind.

Ape seeds? Really?!?

Comment by chunkdz — May 17, 2010 @ 3:29 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
You keep talking about 'Front loaded evolution' like it's a real thing. You've even given it an anchronym – my goodness, the trapping of science! I can also read a book about Narnia. But that doesn't make Narnia real nor one author's concept of it authoritative.

All I can do with you cats are thought experiments. There is no science to be had – but that's not my fault.

The only studying of 'front loading' you'll get to is Joe's comparative analysis of dishwasher design.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:40 pm

Pez Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Yep, wiki regurgitates the guess. I'd have expected no less, Richard.
If Darwinian evolution by random (sorry Allen MacNeill) mutation sorted by NS is true, then, yes, there must be have been billions upon billions of species that didn't survive and left no fossil record.
If this scenario is not true, then just about everyone made it.

Including the bacteria whose genome has remained virtually unchanged, save for some information loss and degradation for 200 million years. Joining sharks, sea horses, horseshoe crabs, octopi, rays, jellies, wollemi pine, bats, ants, wasps, , etc., etc., who like to hang around the geologic record for tens or hundreds of millions of years while not showing evolution-like results.

Comment by Pez — May 17, 2010 @ 3:43 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
*shakes fist and well suited, highly enironmentaly adapted organisms*

Curse you all, for not being pressured to evolve laser eyes!

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:46 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
richtard:
I know you have to make it look just like evolution because that's what the evidence supports,

Again "evolution" is not being debated.

IOW richtard you have serious issues.

Perhaps you should seek professional help.

That said there isn't any evidence for blind watchmaker evolution beyond the lose of information and breaking things that we observe..

but are you suggesting an auto-adaptive algorithm that has no knowledge of future environments or interactions with its cousins?

Well what are you suggesting? That shit just happens and sometimes that is good enough to enable survival?

WTF richtard?

Do you have anything beyond your ignorance of ID, the ToE and science?

You keep talking about 'Front loaded evolution' like it's a real thing.

You keep talking about your position like it is a real thing, yet you can't even produce a testable hypothesis for it.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 3:48 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
As for enquiring minds- well they would like to know what positive evidence you have for your position.

So how about it- hopefully something more than e. coli "evolving" into e. coli or some vague and wrong reference to some fish.

What experiments show that blind, undirected chemical processes can produce complex functional biochemical machinery?

A frameshift doesn't do that.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 3:50 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
richtard:
*shakes fist and well suited, highly enironmentaly adapted organisms*

Curse you all, for not being pressured to evolve laser eyes!

Yup when all else fails continue to act like a little whiny baby…

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 3:51 pm

Pez Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Richard shakes his fist at empirical evidence while embracing guesses used to shore up his metaphysics. Must be a tired hand, that one.

Comment by Pez — May 17, 2010 @ 3:52 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
You've got me there, Joe.

Given the timescale, it's wholy reasonable to expect to find a tiger and or dragon in the petri dish the next day.

Do you stare at the rocks in your garden and mock plate-techtonics?

'look! not moving at all!'

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:53 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
richtard,

Perhaps instead of ignorantly flailing away at ID you could show us how your position does it so us maroons can have a good example to guide us.

Now I have asked you to describe the methodology that your position uses but that got your panties in a knot.

IOW richtard you are showing us that your position is nothing but ignorantly flailing away at anyone who disagrees with you…

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 3:54 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
That's right Pez. Every species ever should have fossilized in a convenient location for us. How thoughtless! It's not like we can use math to approximate how many there were based on the incidence of our findings and our knowledge of the fossilization process, or anything.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:56 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
richtard:
Given the timescale, it's wholy reasonable to expect to find a tiger and or dragon in the petri dish the next day.

Another straw man.

The dishonesty runs deep in this one too.

OK richtard, how many generations- Lenski's bacteria have had 20, 000 or more- does it take to get something other than bacteria when starting with bacteria?

As for plate tectonics- a Creationist- Snyder- was the first to make a claim that the crust moved.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 3:57 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
And Richtard, if all you have is to throw time at something then you ain't doing science.

IOW thanks for proving your position is not science…

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 3:58 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:58 pm
richtard,

Perhaps instead of ignorantly flailing away at ID you could show us how your position does it so us maroons can have a good example to guide us.

Now I have asked you to describe the methodology that your position uses but that got your panties in a knot.

IOW richtard you are showing us that your position is nothing but ignorantly flailing away at anyone who disagrees with you…

*cough*

Didn't someone recently say there is no coherent Id position, only anti-evolution failings?

Comment by Richardthughes

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 3:58 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Didn't someone mention there isn't a coherent evolutionary position?

Isn't richtard proving that to be so?

I don't know why richtard wants to go to what has already been refuted.

Hell he got his lunch handed to him for quote-mining an irrelevant book…

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 4:00 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
OK richtard, how many generations-..

Let me stop you there, because you're not thinking, as usual.

You might want to consider generations AND population. then acknowledge that its a stochastic process.

How many times MUST you roll a die before you get a 6, Joe? A question as nonsensical as yours.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 4:01 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
richtard,

Perhaps instead of ignorantly flailing away at ID you could show us how your position does it so us maroons can have a good example to guide us.

Now I have asked you to describe the methodology that your position uses but that got your panties in a knot.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 4:01 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Joe, repeating your own defiition of "quote mining" doesn't make it correct.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 4:02 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
OK richtard, how many generations-..

richtard:
Let me stop you there, because you're not thinking, as usual.

You might want to consider generations AND population. then acknowledge that its a stochastic process.

First there has to be evidence that it is a stochastic process.

But that is moot because you need some way to measure your position or else it ain't science.

How many times MUST you roll a die before you get a 6, Joe? A question as nonsensical as yours

I never said dice rolling is science.

So if you are saying dice rolling and your position are equivilent then we agree- neither are science.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 4:04 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Richtard,

I explained why it is a quote-mine.

Are you really that stupid?

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 4:06 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Yes, but your arbitrary decision that the book was 'not relevant' despite being key evidence in ID's most recent court case doesn't make it a quote-mine. Quote-mine's are concerned with changing the meaning of a passage through selective editing or decontextualization. I did neither of those things.

You fact you don't like it doesn't make it quote-mining, it just means you don't understand 'quote-mining'.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 4:10 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
First there has to be evidence that it is a stochastic process.

Well, you can do your own e-coli experiments and single out the ones that are going to evolve. That'll show me.

I never said dice rolling is science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Statistics is the science of making effective use of numerical data relating to groups of individuals or experiments

You didn't say it because you'd have been right, and that's just not in your repertoire.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 4:13 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
richtard:
Yes, but your arbitrary decision that the book was 'not relevant' despite being key evidence in ID's most recent court case doesn't make it a quote-mine.

You are sooo dense.

The only reason it was in that court case is because the Dover school board- who didn't know anything about ID- picked it.

And it is very telling that the judge wouldn't allow the publisher to defend the book during that hearing.

Quote-mines are just that- mining for quotes as one would mine gems or coal- digging deep and picking stuff out of seemingly nowhere.

The book you quote-mined has been superseded by "The Design of Life".

So far from being arbitrary what I said is based on logic and reasoning.

That you refuse to accept that just further exposes your agenda of lies and misrepresentations.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 4:16 pm

ID guy Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
So rolling dice isn't science- statistics is a science, and therefore mathematics is.

Comment by ID guy — May 17, 2010 @ 4:18 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Quote-mines are just that- mining for quotes as one would mine gems or coal- digging deep and picking stuff out of seemingly nowhere.

Well done you've just made up your own definition, can you find a real definition that matches it?

In the context of

How many times MUST you roll a die before you get a 6, Joe?

, dice rolling is science,

Edited for format.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 4:23 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
olegt: Doh! I never said otherwise. Fred Hoyle was a well-known skeptic of evolution, or more precisely, of the natural origin of life.

But so what? Every scientific theory, no matter how well established, has its skeptics.

But you sir, are the one who keeps bringing up the history of ID. You are the one who wants to make the connection between ID, religion and creationism. My point, once again, is that the skepticism that inspired early ID’ists, like Johnson and Behe, came from a secular not a religious source.

Michael Denton was not devoutly religious, he was not and is not a creationist. His skepticism developed from his own examination of the so called evidence. Indeed, he had no a priori reason to reject Darwinism.

Phillip Johnson was inspired to develop his particular approach to ID while on sabbatical in England in 1987 after noticing Denton’s book displayed along with Richard Dawkin’s book, A Blind Watchmaker in a bookshop window. Behe was also inspired by Denton’s first book.

The July 1966 Wistar symposium that Denton mentions, in the excerpt that I provided above, is where mathematicians like Marcel Schutzenberg, Murray Eden of MIT and D.S. Ulam raised doubts about the sufficiency of natural selection to bring about any kind of major evolutionary change. “For example, mathematician D.S. Ulam argued that it is highly improbable that the eye could have evolved by the accumulation of small mutations because the number of mutations would be so large and the time available was not nearly long enough for them to appear.”

The response from the biologist present was simply to give a dismissive wave of the hand. “Nobel Laureate Sir Peter Medawar replied that the mathematicians were thinking backwards in their scientific appraisal. Clearly he pointed out, the eye had evolved. He implied that this notion was simply not in doubt. Therefore, the plausibility problem must have arisen due to errors or oversights in the mathematician’s equations. Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr… said ‘Somehow or other by adjusting these figures we will come out all right. We are comforted by the fact that evolution has occurred.’”

In other words, for the committed Darwinian rationalization trumps reason. BTW the problems raised at this conference have never been resolved. They have only been brushed under the rug.

However, there was another “reliable” tactic that was developed at this conference: if you can’t come up with a reasoned response then attack your opponents motives.

For example when Schutzeberger, an agnostic, announced, “’There is a considerable gap in the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot be bridged within the current conception of biology.’ Darwinist C.H. Waddinton sensed a move toward religion and replied, ‘Your argument is simply that life must have come about by special creation.’ Schutzenberger, joined by others in the audience shouted, ‘No!’” (Doubts About Darwin, Thomas Woodward, pp 37-38)

And, of course, if you don’t know your opponents motives, as we can see above, then feel free to just make something up.

Never mind honesty. Never mind being reasonable. Just try to win the argument by any means possible. But in the end who have you really fooled, except yourself?

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 17, 2010 @ 4:30 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
So rolling dice isn't science- statistics is a science, and therefore mathematics is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Comment by Richardthughes — May 17, 2010 @ 4:31 pm

chunkdz Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
richardthughes: All I can do with you cats are thought experiments. There is no science to be had – but that's not my fault.

The only studying of 'front loading' you'll get to is Joe's comparative analysis of dishwasher design.

Well, there's also your own FLE hypothesis that you shared with us earlier. You know, the one where you said hominids were front-loaded but e.coli was specially created?

But richardthughes, if the choice comes down to reading a well thought-out argument like The Design Matrix, or reading another one of your juvenile stories about the god who planted ape seeds, well, the choice is obvious, isn't it?

Even John A. Davison has more interesting and well thought ideas than you. And as a bonus he's actually entertaining!

Your position seems to boil down to "I have no idea about this front-loading thing you are talking about, but if I were to come up with a front-loading hypothesis it would be waaaaaay stupider than anything you guys can come up with".

I can't argue with that.

Comment by chunkdz — May 17, 2010 @ 6:10 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 9:39 am
richtard:
In the context of

How many times MUST you roll a die before you get a 6, Joe?

, dice rolling is science,

Then answer the question-

How many times must I roll the dice before I get a 6?

If the answer is "as many times as it takes" then it ain't science.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 9:39 am

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 9:44 am
quote mining

Quote mining is the practice of using the words of partisans against them to undermine support for the viewpoint held by the partisans.

quote mining

Quote mining is looking through large amounts of material for quotes that can be taken out of context or otherwise distorted.

Those fit what you are doing richtard.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 9:44 am

Pez Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Sez Richard:

Richardthughes Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
That's right Pez. Every species ever should have fossilized in a convenient location for us. How thoughtless!

No one ever claimed that.

It's not like we can use math to approximate how many there were based on the incidence of our findings and our knowledge of the fossilization process, or anything.

That's not how it works. Once upon a time Darwinists knew that the theory was a theory of extinctions and that evolution required replacement. Since there have to be insensible gradations between species and billions upon billions of steps from bacteria to man there have to be billions and billions of missing species. This so called evidence is invented to support the narrative – it is not observed.

Yep, love that evolution. Monkeys to man in a few million years. Bats and whales from the same ancestor with ten. But then some species are just adapted so well that they don't evolve at all for hundreds of millions of years. The TOE is the theory of whatever we observe.
Bacteria somehow were under such evolutionary pressure that they evolved into man but they are also so adapted that they haven't evolved in hundreds of millions of years. They are so well adapted that they own the planet and thrive in every environment from the deep sea to the bedrock to deep ice to volcanoes to the clouds to the gut, etc.
But at the same time natural selection leaned on bacteria so hard that it resulted in billions upon billions of diverse species. And it did this in a fraction of geologic time. Science.

Comment by Pez — May 18, 2010 @ 10:02 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Chunkdz – you use 'hypothesis' but let's be very clear this board only uses it in the vernacular – there is never any testability nor falsifiability. If you prefer your own brand of navel-gazing over my somewhat ironic efforts, that's your prerogative. But I'm excited that this may be the co-option of 'courtier's response' for ID – an anchored web of self-referential nonsense offered as an detailed exposition of design detection.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 10:20 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Hmm – Joe G.

Definition 1 is clealry made up nonsense – of wait, Conservapedia. Well done. They can 'help' you with your age-of-the-earth crisis as well, Joe:

This formula depends on the laws of physics remaining constant over time… Some creationists have argued that God increased the rate of potassium-argon decay during the first few days of Creation, thus causing the potassium-argon dating method to give erroneously old date readings.

Definition 2 from 'info-polution' isn't really correct but still not what I did. I gave an ID answer from IDists from a mainstream ID book that was suppose to be used to teach ID.

Why don't you try and get a dictioary type definition, Joe?

It looks like you're

looking through large amounts of material for quotes that can be taken out of context or otherwise distorted.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 10:27 am

Bradford Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 10:28 am
RTH: But I'm excited that this may be the co-option of 'courtier's response' for ID – an anchored web of self-referential nonsense offered as an detailed exposition of design detection.

Why the gooblygok explanation for peeing your pants? Design issues predate the advent of experimental methodology. Science is limited with respect to what it can document. The data itself though allows for broader and rational inferences.

Comment by Bradford — May 18, 2010 @ 10:28 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Hi Bradford – it should have read 'unanchored' not anchored. But referring me to tomes of navel-gazing doesn't offer any meaningful support. If you dig down, right to the heart of it, you get things like:

1) But it looks designed to me.
2) My faith mandates it is designed
3) I feel personally devalued if I'm not designed

etc.

What we don't get is a robust methodology.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 10:51 am

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 10:52 am
richtard:
Definition 1 is clealry made up nonsense – of wait, Conservapedia.

You referenced wikipedia, which is known to be nonsense.

They can 'help' you with your age-of-the-earth crisis as well

What age of the Earth crisis?

Definition 2 from 'info-polution' isn't really correct

You aren't in any position to make that decision

but still not what I did

Yes it is.

You dug deep into out-dated material, material which has been superseded, and tried to present it as being relevant.

And you are distorting the ID position with that out-of-date material.

Then when this is explained to you you throw a hissy fit and ignore the explanation and press on as if your ignorance helps your case.

I gave an ID answer from IDists from a mainstream ID book that was suppose to be used to teach ID.

You used out-of-date and superseded material.

That is being dishonest.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 10:52 am

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 10:57 am
richtard:
1) But it looks designed to me.

And based on experience and redction it was designed.

However, according to the EF, if chance and necessity can account for it then we don't infer design.

IOW the design inference is definitely testable and falsifiable.

What we don't get is a robust methodology.

Stop talking about methodology unless you are willing to present the methodology used to determine that life and all of its diversity is due to blind, undirected chemical processes.

IOW richtard prove to us that your methodolgy is more than "It's not designed, it looks like common ancestry and we know accumulating mistakes brought it all about because we reject a desogner."

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 10:57 am

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:01 am
So richtard talks about testable hypotheses but cannot present one for his position.

Richtard talks about methodology yet refuses to tell us about the methodology used to infer stochastic processes can account for the universe and living organisms.

Lead by example Rich.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 11:01 am

Bradford Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:04 am
1) But it looks designed to me.

More like digital codes indicate an intelligent source so why should genetic codes be an exception?

2) My faith mandates it is designed

Faith mandates a creator. That, as opposed to atheism, allows for design possibilities.

3) I feel personally devalued if I'm not designed

My experience is that it is atheists who feel threatened by design. And for obvious reasons.

Comment by Bradford — May 18, 2010 @ 11:04 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:07 am
Hi Joe:

http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersI...

The money shot, at the end:

The point is not that these prove evolution right. The point is that these were predictions that could have turned out to be wrong predictions. So, the people who made the predictions were doing science. The Theory of Evolution was also useful, in the sense that it suggested what evidence to look for, and where.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 11:07 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Hi Bradford -

1. The way you use code, I'm thinking almost anything could be a 'code'

2. I'd let the evidence guide your value system, not vice versa.

3. Hmmm. I think they get upset when you try and pass dogma off as science.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 11:14 am

Bradford Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:26 am
1. The way you use code, I'm thinking almost anything could be a 'code'

The mappings of codons to amino acids are not subjective imaginings.

2. I'd let the evidence guide your value system, not vice versa.

It does. There is plenty of historic and archeological evidence supporting scriptural references.

3. Hmmm. I think they get upset when you try and pass dogma off as science.

Then they should be upset with themselves. Assertion of no design is dogma. Claims that ID is science have not come from this source.

Comment by Bradford — May 18, 2010 @ 11:26 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Cheers Bradford. You took less than 5 posts to make it religious.

Edited.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 11:27 am

Bradford Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Cheers Bradford. You took less than 5 posts to make it religious.

Edited.

I see why you edited the exchange. It was you who introduced the claim that:

My faith mandates it is designed

You followed that with this remark:

I'd let the evidence guide your value system, not vice versa.

To which I responded: "It does. There is plenty of historic and archeological evidence supporting scriptural references." You introduced the reference to faith and I answered. ID not being science does not make it religious any more than abiogenesis and SETI not being science make them philosophy.

Comment by Bradford — May 18, 2010 @ 11:48 am

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Actually there was a typo. So you don't see. maybe the server saved the old version – why don't you pull it up for it all to see?

You confirmed that faith makes you an IDist. That's fine. Noodle on it all you want, how many designers can fit on a pin-head, or any other member of Joe's family? All fun blog fodder. Just stay out of schools unless your a-priori convictions can give us something emperically varifiable that makes novel predictions.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 11:55 am

Bradford Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
You confirmed that faith makes you an IDist. That's fine.

I said my faith made it possible to be an IDist in that it is not ruled out by atheism to which I do not hold to. But neither is it ruled in by theism as there are plenty of theists who are not IDists.

Comment by Bradford — May 18, 2010 @ 12:04 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Atheists can be IDists; they're occasionally paraded around. It was Ace Spalians and time travellers, right!

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 12:11 pm

Bradford Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
It was Ace Spalians and time travellers, right!

So atheists are not just sourced from methane infested swamps!

Comment by Bradford — May 18, 2010 @ 12:16 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Any 'nobility' I have or don't have comes not from my authorship or lack thereoff but from the choices I make.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 12:21 pm

Pez Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Or from the physical and chemical reactions taking place in the conglomeration of cells that for some reason has deluded itself into thinking it is an "I" referred to as Richardthughes.

Comment by Pez — May 18, 2010 @ 12:58 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
So complex things only come from complex things? welcome to the bottomless world of infinite regress.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 1:06 pm

Pez Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
It has nothing to do with complexity cell-conglomeration. You might have an illusion of consciousness but unfortunately it also creates all kinds of illusions about what you are reading.
It is about taking credit for the nobility and for the actions of large cluster of cells – about half of which are bacteria and not even "yours".

Comment by Pez — May 18, 2010 @ 1:18 pm

chunkdz Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
richardthughes: Chunkdz – you use 'hypothesis' but let's be very clear this board only uses it in the vernacular – there is never any testability nor falsifiability. If you prefer your own brand of navel-gazing over my somewhat ironic efforts, that's your prerogative. But I'm excited that this may be the co-option of 'courtier's response' for ID – an anchored web of self-referential nonsense offered as an detailed exposition of design detection.

Richard, the Courtier's Reply was an appeal to philosophy. Front-loading is not a philosophical position so your analogy is irrelevant.

I understand your desire to have testable falsifiable scientific hypotheses to answer the big questions like "where did life come from?". But you must realize that science is far too limited and impotent to detect something so sublime as intelligent design. Science is merely a tool to aid critical thinking; it was not intended to supplant it.

Comment by chunkdz — May 18, 2010 @ 1:19 pm

Pez Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 1:28 pm
. Just stay out of schools unless your a-priori convictions can give us something emperically varifiable that makes novel predictions.

Great Charles Darwin! Who will save the children?
Protect the schools, Richardthughes, you must protect the schools!

Oh wait, what does rubbing your nose around this blog have to do with schools? Did Bradford submit a curriculum change proposal in your district?

Comment by Pez — May 18, 2010 @ 1:28 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
I've yet to see ID raise above the level of 'philosophy', Chunkdz.

Are the threads of ID so very, very fine that science can't detect them? To the uneducated dolts who haven't studied Demksi's zero-thread-count weaving or Gene's thinky-matrix-of-stuff darning would it seem as if there was nothing there at all?

http://www.cambridgeprints.com...

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 1:31 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Hi Pez.I wanted to see the current state of ID. Underwhelmed. But, to be fair, at least you allow commentary.

Also, any blog with Joe G is a goldmine for entertainment.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 1:34 pm

Pez Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Cool. If you ever get up to speed and decide to actually read the words in front of you I'd be interested in seeing if you can provide any.

BTW, whatever this blogs allows or doesn't has nothing to do with me.

Comment by Pez — May 18, 2010 @ 2:10 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
richtard:
http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersI...

The money shot, at the end:

The point is not that these prove evolution right. The point is that these were predictions that could have turned out to be wrong predictions. So, the people who made the predictions were doing science. The Theory of Evolution was also useful, in the sense that it suggested what evidence to look for, and where.

This proves you don't know anything Rich.

Is that what you were shooting for?

Darwin predicted that precursors to the trilobite would be found in pre-Silurian rocks.

Nothing to do with evolution and nothing to do with any mechanisms.

Similarly, Darwin predicted that Precambrian fossils would be found.

Nothing to do with evolution and nothing to do with any mechanisms.

All the alleged "predictions" are based on evolution and yet ecvolution is nlot even being debated.

Not one prediction based on the proposed mechanisms.

IOW rich thank you for proving that you don't know what you are talking about.

And that link the stuff is from Don Lindsay- he ain't even a biologist!

He's just some clueless person who think he has something to say.

He once told me that the eye could evolve with a handful of mutations but when pressed he couldn't support that claim.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 2:37 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
So richtard talks about testable hypotheses but cannot present one for his position.

Richtard talks about methodology yet refuses to tell us about the methodology used to infer stochastic processes can account for the universe and living organisms.

Lead by example Rich.

Obviously Rich's example is to be obtuse…

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 2:39 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
richtardhughes:
I wanted to see the current state of ID.

Is that why you quoted from an out-dated book?

Rich sez one thing but does another- typical.

You should focus on the current state of your position for it is the utter failure of your position to make any progress that has allowed ID to stay.

You still have yet to post a testable hypothesis for your position.

Why is that?

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 2:54 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
You still have yet to post a testable hypothesis for your position.

Hi Joe:

http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersI...

The money shot, at the end:

The point is not that these prove evolution right. The point is that these were predictions that could have turned out to be wrong predictions. So, the people who made the predictions were doing science. The Theory of Evolution was also useful, in the sense that it suggested what evidence to look for, and where.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 11:07 am

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 3:13 pm

Zachriel Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Darwin predicted that precursors to the trilobite would be found in pre-Silurian rocks… Similarly, Darwin predicted that Precambrian fossils would be found.

ID guy: Nothing to do with evolution and nothing to do with any mechanisms.

It's Darwin's theory. He proposed it. He made predictions based on that theory. But you say it has nothing to do with evolution. Amazingly, Darwin was right. Lucky guess?

Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2010 @ 3:19 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Richtardhughes,

There isn't any testable hypothesis on that page and there isn't anything pertaining to any mechanisms.

IOW Rich that page doesn't help you.

IOW Rich you are still proving tat you are a clueless dolt.

Is that what you were shooting for?

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 3:19 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Zachriel.

Darwin said something about whales evolving from bears.

But tell me just what do those prediction have to do with "evolution"?

And more specifically what do they have to do with the proposed mechanisms of blind, undirected chemical processes?

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 3:21 pm

chunkdz Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
richardthughes: Are the threads of ID so very, very fine that science can't detect them?

Science has limitations. Detecting that which can only be perceived by the mind and not with instruments is one of these limitations. That's why recording people's thoughts and perceptions is the stuff of science fiction and not science.

To the uneducated dolts who haven't studied Demksi's zero-thread-count weaving or Gene's thinky-matrix-of-stuff darning would it seem as if there was nothing there at all?

Even the most educated scientist could never hope to detect design using science. It's far too weak and limited in it's scope. The fact that you criticize that which you've never read merely speaks to your closed-mindedness, not your ability to detect design.

Comment by chunkdz — May 18, 2010 @ 3:32 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Richtard links to Don Lindsay, who isn't even a biologist.

The "predictions" do not exclude ID- IOW the "predictions" have nothing to do with any mechanisms making them useless in a debate pertaining to mechanisms.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 3:42 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
As Berlinski sated the theory of evolution is nothing more than "whatever survives, survives".

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 3:47 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
I think basic RM & NS actually predicts all the things he describes:

Fossil series is certainly an entailment of RM & NS but not necessarily of design unless you've got a very slow and very old designer. Now, we can try really hard to make design look like evolution, but we see evolution doing design type things in the timescales we have available for observation, so is there a need, parsimoniously?

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 3:49 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
oh Joe, if you think being a biologist is a necessity for commentary, then by all means self-censor.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 3:51 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Even the most educated scientist could never hope to detect design using science.

Are you brand spanking new to ID? I suspect that may become a signature at AtBC.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 4:26 pm

Satolep Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
As Berlinski sated the theory of evolution is nothing more than "whatever survives, survives".

Anybody; even I can make smart arguments of the same quality: What's black is black, what's white is white. I would hate to be on the record for making an observation like that like it was my Eureka.

I would however like to point out that while Berlinski seems to have hit upon a truism, he never addressed the why and how 'whatever'; i.e. alleleles, survive. That's what evolution is about. I'd like to learn about the when, how and by whom of the implementation of ID. Is any such research going on?

Comment by Satolep — May 18, 2010 @ 5:13 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
richtardhughes:
I think basic RM & NS actually predicts all the things he describes:

No one cares what you think.

We care what you can present positive evidence for.

And nothing in what he says relates to RM & NS.

There is no way to predict what mutation will pop up and there is no way to predict what will be selected for at any point in time.

Whatever survives, survives.

Fossil series is certainly an entailment of RM & NS but not necessarily of design unless you've got a very slow and very old designer.

Because you say so?

There isn't anything with RM & NS that expects a fossil series.

Heck whole populations are missing from the fossil record so we wouldn't expect to see any series.

And there isn't any insect series…

Now, we can try really hard to make design look like evolution, but we see evolution doing design type things in the timescales we have available for observation, so is there a need, parsimoniously?

We have never seen "evolution" doing design things from scratch.

All we have ever observed is oscillating traits within a population.

And again if all you have is to throw deep time at the issues then you are not doing science.

if you think being a biologist is a necessity for commentary, then by all means self-censor.

Hey you were the one harping on me for not being the voice of ID yet you link to someone who isn't a voice for anything and is a known crackpot to boot.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 5:23 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Satolep:
I would however like to point out that while Berlinski seems to have hit upon a truism, he never addressed the why and how 'whatever'; i.e. alleleles, survive.

That is his whole point- they survive just because they survive.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 5:25 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
chunkdz:Even the most educated scientist could never hope to detect design using science.

richtard:Are you brand spanking new to ID? I suspect that may become a signature at AtBC.

Rich chunk is slamming materialistic science, ie scientism and the materialistic scientists.

Is that what people want for a signature? Really?

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 5:36 pm

Richardthughes Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
But they don't just survive because they survive. Selection is partly based on certain attributes.

And I know this guy with two doctorates who's very highly regarded in the ID community who thinks you CAN detect design using science and that design detection IS science.

Comment by Richardthughes — May 18, 2010 @ 5:39 pm

chunkdz Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
richardthughes: And I know this guy with two doctorates who's very highly regarded in the ID community who thinks you CAN detect design using science and that design detection IS science.

We can use science as a tool for investigation. In fact, this is exactly what's happening every day in labs around the world.

But if life itself were intelligently designed, science would be impotent to detect it. I think it was Mike Gene who said detecting design is akin to detecting another mind. Science fails miserably at this, and when it does try it invariably collapses into heaps of metaphysical reductionist rubbish.

Trying to detect intelligence via science is like trying to detect cosmic radiation with a spatula.

Are you brand spanking new to ID? I suspect that may become a signature at AtBC.

Won't the rest of the herd be impressed.

Comment by chunkdz — May 18, 2010 @ 6:44 pm

Daniel Smith Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
olegt – quoting Denton:

the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world–that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies.

The use of the word "forms" seems to intimate an Aristotelian/Thomist bent. I don't think Denton is an advocate of A-T philosophy, but it strikes me that his outlook – at least as described above – is more in line with traditional A-T philosophy than other ID proponents appear to be.

It's funny that atheists would seize on his differences with other ID supporters – as if that somehow bolsters their case – while ignoring the fact that a teleological universe undermines the very heart of their own philosophy.

Oh well, no one ever accused atheists of rationality!

Comment by Daniel Smith — May 18, 2010 @ 7:08 pm

ID guy Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
richtard:
But they don't just survive because they survive. Selection is partly based on certain attributes.

Except "selection" is nonsense.

Whatever survives, survives, for many reasons.

Chance/ luck comes into play. Sometimes having an advantage comes into play, but not always and sometimes never.

And I know this guy with two doctorates who's very highly regarded in the ID community who thinks you CAN detect design using science and that design detection IS science.

You are missing the point, as usual.

Materialistic science will never detect design other than human/ animal design.

Comment by ID guy — May 18, 2010 @ 8:05 pm

chunkdz Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
And I know this guy with two doctorates who's very highly regarded in the ID community who thinks you CAN detect design using science and that design detection IS science.

If you are referring to Dembski, he refers to ID as a "bridge" between science and theology.

Comment by chunkdz — May 18, 2010 @ 8:11 pm

olegt Says:
May 18th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Pez wrote:

Oleg packs every square inch with errors, equivocations and misrepresentations.

ID is not Special Creation.

…

If you've said this before you've been wrong before. ID has nothing at all to say about where, when and at what stage God, or the Designer, "intervened". Dembski explicitly states this in book after book and explicitly tells you that ID is not a theory about interventions.
Behe even tells you that an unfolding of preprogrammed laws in nature a la Nature's Destiny is fully compatible with his idea of ID.

Pez, here is what Dembski wrote on the subject of interventions in Mere creation: science, faith & intelligent design, p. 301:

Design, Chance, and Theistic Evolution

Two major issues separate most design theorists from most theistic evolutionists. First, theistic evolutionists tend to believe that appeal to supernatural design involving intervention or discontinuity in the actual history of nature is scientifically or even theologically impermissible. Design theorists nearly by definition believe it to be permissible in principle (for specific cases see Meyer 1994 and Dembski 1994 in Moreland 1994; Moreland 1989, chap. 6)…

Second, theistic evolutionists nearly by definition believe that appeal to supernatural involving intervention or discontinuity in the actual postcreation history is scientifically unnecessary. Design theorists nearly universally believe such appeal to be supported, if not demanded, by the data.

That's a pretty unequivocal statement and Dembski speaks not for himself, but as a spokesman for the ID movement.

Comment by olegt — May 18, 2010 @ 9:25 pm

Pez Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Very good, Oleg.
Intervention is supported, pace Dembski, by the data, not the theory.
It is supported, not demanded.
Design theorists nearly universally believe this. That means that there are design theorsits who don't and that means that the theory does not demand, necessitate not require intervention.

Indeed, intelligent design is perfectly compatible with all the design in the world being front-loaded in the sense that all design was introduced at the beginning (say at the Big Bang) and then came to expression subsequently over the course of natural history much as a computer program's output becomes evident only when the program is run.

Design can be detected and interventions are not what is being detected.

Comment by Pez — May 19, 2010 @ 12:31 am

Pez Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 3:07 am
BTW,
I know you don't actually read ID books, but in that essay not only is Dembski not speaking for the ID movement, but he isn't even speaking for himself. It is Del Ratz' essay, not Dembski's.
There are also YEC contributors and Dembski would not agree with their take nor would they speak for the ID movement.
Dembski is the editor, not the sole author.

Comment by Pez — May 19, 2010 @ 3:07 am

Pez Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 3:47 am
And in Ratzsch's essay
http://books.google.com/books?...

He says:

Design could be built protohistorically into the very fabric of nature and nature's operations. For instance, a fine tuning of natural constants for some specific purpose would involve a design not introduced into nature but a designing of nature itself.
…
And as will be seen later, supernatural design does not necessarily counterflow or intervention in history.
…
designedness entails neither counterflow nor intervention,…
Those results would ex hypothesi be the direct outcome of deliberate activity, intent and design. There would not, however, be any direct empirical evidences, either present or historical, of deliberate interventions…
Theistic evolution can readily incorporate design that tracks back (continuously) to primordial conditions or to the ultimate structuring of natural laws and principles.7
(7 footnote)
Behe defines intelligent design in a way that does not preclude products of evolution being design or for that matter, the process of evolution itself being a result of intelligent design.

Good times.

Comment by Pez — May 19, 2010 @ 3:47 am

Pez Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 3:49 am
I guess it's pretty obvious I retract my first comment in this series where I thought you were properly attributing your quote to Dembski.

Comment by Pez — May 19, 2010 @ 3:49 am

Zachriel Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 7:35 am
Design theorists nearly universally believe such appeal to be supported, if not demanded, by the data.

Pez: Design theorists nearly universally believe this. That means that there are design theorsits who don't and that means that the theory does not demand, necessitate not require intervention.

You're parsing that pretty fine. The author is making a claim about a near universal consensus among Design theorists that the data virtually demands intervention. If ID were a scientific theory, then, it would be rather a stretch to say that "ID is not a theory about interventions."

There are two components to such a theory. The mechanisms, which ID refuses to consider; and the history, which ID tries to sidestep. There's not much left to constitute a theory.

Comment by Zachriel — May 19, 2010 @ 7:35 am

ID guy Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 7:50 am
Yes Zachriel, at some point in time- or even before time itself- the designer intervened.

Howeber ID does not require any intervention once it all got going.

As for mechanisms, we have been over this already- design is a mechanism.

And the only way to figure out the specific mechanism used is by studying the design in question- which is exactly how it is done in archeology and forensics.

Comment by ID guy — May 19, 2010 @ 7:50 am

Zachriel Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 8:01 am
ID guy: at some point in time- or even before time itself- the designer intervened. Howeber ID does not require any intervention once it all got going.

The author claims that Design theorists nearly universally believe in postcreation intervention.

Second, theistic evolutionists nearly by definition believe that appeal to supernatural involving intervention or discontinuity in the actual postcreation history is scientifically unnecessary. Design theorists nearly universally believe such appeal to be supported, if not demanded, by the data.

Comment by Zachriel — May 19, 2010 @ 8:01 am

Zachriel Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 8:04 am
ID guy: As for mechanisms, we have been over this already- design is a mechanism.

Just so we're clear, we're using the term "mechanism" to refer to the manipulation of matter and energy to bring about an effect.

Comment by Zachriel — May 19, 2010 @ 8:04 am

ID guy Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Zachriel:
The author claims that Design theorists nearly universally believe in postcreation intervention.

ID does not require it. However it is a conceptual possibility.

Comment by ID guy — May 19, 2010 @ 8:13 am

ID guy Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 8:15 am
As for mechanisms, we have been over this already- design is a mechanism.

Zachriel:
Just so we're clear, we're using the term "mechanism" to refer to the manipulation of matter and energy to bring about an effect.

Yup and design refers to a method or process used to bring about a specific effect.

Comment by ID guy — May 19, 2010 @ 8:15 am

ID guy Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 8:35 am
mechanism:

b : a process, technique, or system for achieving a result

design:

1 : to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan

plan:

2 a : a method for achieving an end

Comment by ID guy — May 19, 2010 @ 8:35 am

Zachriel Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Zachriel: The author claims that Design theorists nearly universally believe in postcreation intervention.

ID guy: ID does not require it. However it is a conceptual possibility.

So you disagree with the author.

ID guy: argumentum ad dictionarium

So what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

Comment by Zachriel — May 19, 2010 @ 9:08 am

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Olegt: Pez, here is what Dembski wrote on the subject of interventions in Mere creation: science, faith & intelligent design, p. 301:

Design, Chance, and Theistic Evolution
Two major issues separate most design theorists from most theistic evolutionists. First, theistic evolutionists tend to believe that appeal to supernatural design involving intervention or discontinuity in the actual history of nature is scientifically or even theologically impermissible. Design theorists nearly by definition believe it to be permissible in principle (for specific cases see Meyer 1994 and Dembski 1994 in Moreland 1994; Moreland 1989, chap. 6)…
Second, theistic evolutionists nearly by definition believe that appeal to supernatural involving intervention or discontinuity in the actual postcreation history is scientifically unnecessary. Design theorists nearly universally believe such appeal to be supported, if not demanded, by the data.

That's a pretty unequivocal statement and Dembski speaks not for himself, but as a spokesman for the ID movement.

Pez to olegt:

I know you don't actually read ID books, but in that essay not only is Dembski not speaking for the ID movement, but he isn't even speaking for himself. It is Del Ratz' essay, not Dembski's.

There are also YEC contributors and Dembski would not agree with their take nor would they speak for the ID movement.

Dembski is the editor, not the sole author.

Oops.

Is it just me or does the scholarship on the part of our critic leaves something to be desired?

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 19, 2010 @ 9:24 am

ID guy Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 9:28 am
ID does not require it. However it is a conceptual possibility.

Zachriel:
So you disagree with the author.

The author does not say that intervention is a requirement of ID.

So I don't disagree with the author.

Comment by ID guy — May 19, 2010 @ 9:28 am

ID guy Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 9:30 am
mechanism:

b : a process, technique, or system for achieving a result

design:

1 : to create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan

plan:

2 a : a method for achieving an end

Zachriel has difficulty with accepted definitions for words we are discussing the definitions of and has to say:

So what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

And the only way to figure out the specific mechanism used is by studying the design in question- which is exactly how it is done in archeology and forensics.

Do you think that by being an obtuse jerk you help your position?

Comment by ID guy — May 19, 2010 @ 9:30 am

Pez Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 9:40 am
ID does not depend on "interventions" in postcreation history of the world. It does not require it and it does not locate such interventions.
"The author" says so himself.

That was not a thin parsing but an accurate reading.
Does TOE try to prove that God does not exist even if Provine says that is exactly what it shows, if Dawkins says it makes him an atheist and Darwin knew from the beginning that it meant that no gods worth having existed?
Since the majority of evolutionary biologists are atheists does that mean that this is the main tenet of TOE?
Since the vast majority of the "elite" biologists are atheists does it?
What if hey nearly universally agreed with Provine? Would that make it true that

Remember what I am disputing here on "interventions":
Olget:

can we detect God's intervention at various stages of life development? The ID camp insists that the answer is affirmative. Denton makes no such commitment. That's why he and Discovery parted ways.

The ID camp does not insist on this and the main players, as quoted clearly, show that seeing that design is implicated says nothing about when, where or at what "various stage" it was implemented.
Oleg quoted Denton to put him at odds with them and they show that they are not at odds. The Ratzsch (not Dembski) essay clearly demonstrates that a single front-loaded design, a la Denton and Behe and Dembski above is still ID.
The ID camp obviously does not insist as Oleg says.
And if Ratzsch "speaks for the ID movement" why aren't you guys braying at him instead of Dembski and Behe?

Comment by Pez — May 19, 2010 @ 9:40 am

Pez Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 9:45 am
Hmmm. No editing capabilities.
Tag something onto this part:

Since the vast majority of the "elite" biologists are atheists does it?
What if they nearly universally agreed with Provine? Would that make it true that

like…

Would that make it true that evolutionary biologists insist that TOE demonstrates there is no God and that anyone who disagrees is not really an evolutionary biologist?

Comment by Pez — May 19, 2010 @ 9:45 am

Zachriel Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Zachriel: So what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

ID guy: And the only way to figure out the specific mechanism used is by studying the design in question- which is exactly how it is done in archeology and forensics.

Great! What have you discovered so far? What matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

Comment by Zachriel — May 19, 2010 @ 9:50 am

Pez Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 10:18 am
As Spokesman Dembski actually says in that book, when he is actually thw author and actually speaking for himself:

Intelligent design is logically compatible with everything from utterly discontinuous creation to the most far reaching evolution. For intelligent design the first question is not how organisms came to be but whether organisms demonstrate clear, empirically detectable marks of being intelligently caused. In principle an evolutionary process can exhibit such marks of intelligence as much as any act of special creation.

In other words, he does not insist that ID's central tenet is that life is " the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law."

Comment by Pez — May 19, 2010 @ 10:18 am

Satolep Says:
May 19th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
That is his whole point- they survive just because they survive.

I see, events without a cause. Interesting. The same mechanism that powers Intelligent Design? That explains why it is not accessible to science, only to people

Detecting that which can only be perceived by the mind and not with instruments

Which means that people incapable of perceiving ID with their mind will have to trust the seers. Won't that make it a religion?

Comment by Satolep — May 19, 2010 @ 1:12 pm

ID guy Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 7:40 am
And the only way to figure out the specific mechanism used is by studying the design in question- which is exactly how it is done in archeology and forensics.

Zachriel:
Great! What have you discovered so far?

That it is going to take more resources in order to do anything beyond design detection and study.

Comment by ID guy — May 20, 2010 @ 7:40 am

ID guy Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 7:42 am
That is his whole point- they survive just because they survive.

Satolep:
I see, events without a cause.

Luck/ chance is a cause.

As I said there are many reasons why organisms survive.

The same mechanism that powers Intelligent Design?

Nope- design paowers ID, but chance is always there…

Comment by ID guy — May 20, 2010 @ 7:42 am

Zachriel Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Zachriel: So what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

ID guy: And the only way to figure out the specific mechanism used is by studying the design in question- which is exactly how it is done in archeology and forensics.

Zachriel: Great! What have you discovered so far?

ID guy: That it is going to take more resources in order to do anything beyond design detection and study.

Great! What is your hypothesis concerning what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time, and what test would you propose?

Comment by Zachriel — May 20, 2010 @ 10:22 am

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Pez: As Spokesman Dembski actually says in that book, when he is actually the author and actually speaking for himself:

“Intelligent design is logically compatible with everything from utterly discontinuous creation to the most far reaching evolution. For intelligent design the first question is not how organisms came to be but whether organisms demonstrate clear, empirically detectable marks of being intelligently caused. In principle an evolutionary process can exhibit such marks of intelligence as much as any act of special creation.”

In other words, he does not insist that ID's central tenet is that life is " the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law."

That should settle the issue.

Of course this is not to deny that some form of interventionism might be the prevalent view among the scholars at the Discovery Institute. From some of the things that Michael Behe has said I would suspect that that is true. However, the Discovery Institute does not represent even a majority of the people involved with ID as a movement.

Is interventionism something that can be proven scientifically? I would argue that it can’t. On the other hand, neither can it be disproven scientifically.

However, I think from a natural philosophy/ natural theology perspective it is an inference that can be drawn. After all, people with a naturalistic worldview make philosophical inferences about the world supposedly based on the scientific evidence. Why would it be illegitimate for ID’ists to make scientifically supported inferences based on their own world view.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 20, 2010 @ 1:42 pm

olegt Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Pez wrote:

I know you don't actually read ID books, but in that essay not only is Dembski not speaking for the ID movement, but he isn't even speaking for himself. It is Del Ratz' essay, not Dembski's.

My mistake, Pez. It was indeed an essay by Del Ratsch in a volume edited by Dembski. That said, Ratzsch's assessment of the split between theistic evolutionists and design theorists is echoed by Dembski. Let's look at Intelligent design: the bridge between science & theology again. After the usual evasive qualifiers that ID is compatible with anything from discontinuous creation to the most far-ranging evolution, which you quoted in this comment, he switches the tone and tells quite explicitly that ID is incompatible with evolution, theistic or otherwise:

That said, intelligent design is incompatible with what typically is meant by "theistic evolution" (or what is also called "creative evolution," "evolutionary creation" or most recently "fully gifted creation"). Theistic evolution takes the Darwinian of the biological world and baptizes it, identifying this picture with the way God created life. When boiled down to its scientific content, theistic evolution is no different from atheistic evolution, treating only undirected processes in the origin and development of life.

Theistic evolution places theism and evolution in an odd tension. If God purposefully created life through Darwinian means, then God's purpose was ostensibly to conceal his purpose in creation. Within theistic evolution, God is a master of stealth who constantly eludes our best efforts to detect him empirically.

So I think my point still stands. ID theorists just do not accept a natural development of life painted by theory of evolution. Here is Dembski again:

The design theorists' critique of Darwinism begins with Darwinism's failure as an empirically adequate scientific theory, not with its supposed incompatibility with with some system of religious belief… Their critique is not based on any supposed incompatibility between Christian revelation and Darwinism. Instead they begin their critique by by arguing that Darwinism is on its own terms a failed scientific research program—that it does not constitute a well-supported scientific theory, that its explanatory power is severely limited and that it fails abysmally when it tries to account for the grand sweep of natural history.

Comment by olegt — May 20, 2010 @ 5:45 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
I wonder olegt have you read the whole context? Do you understand the whole context? Do you understand that Dembski is responding to theistic evolutionists, like Howard Van Til, (see footnotes on p.288) who have framed their theology in such a way that it must reject ID? They are the ones who have made their theology incompatible with ID not vice-versa.

You provided this quote from page 110.

Theistic evolution places theism and evolution in an odd tension. If God purposefully created life through Darwinian means, then God's purpose was ostensibly to conceal his purpose in creation. Within theistic evolution, God is a master of stealth who constantly eludes our best efforts to detect him empirically.

But the nest part of the paragraph is also important.

Yes, the theistic evolutionist believes that the universe is designed. Yet insofar as there is design in the universe it is design we recognize strictly through the eyes of faith. Accordingly the physical world in itself provides no evidence that life is designed. For all we can tell, our appearance on planet earth is an accident.

Then on page 111 he writes this:

Intelligent design and theistic evolution therefore differ fundamentally about whether the design of the universe is accessible to our native intellect. Design theorists say yes; theistic evolutionists say no… To be sure there is a scientific disagreement: Design theorists think the scientific evidence favors design, whereas theistic evolutionists think it favors Darwin and his successors. Nonetheless in discounting intelligent design, theistic evolutionists tend also to appeal to philosophical and theological considerations…

If theistic evolution finds no solace from intelligent design, neither does it find solace form the Darwinian establishment. For the Darwinian establishment the “theism” in theistic evolution is superfluous.

I don’t think that Dembski is claiming that all self-described TE’s are opposed to ID. However, I would agree with him that a majority probably are.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 20, 2010 @ 10:16 pm

olegt Says:
May 20th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
John,

If your theory is that theistic evolutionists fired the first shot and ID theorists are merely responding, it's not going to work. The father of the ID movement Phillip Johnson wrote this in his 1991 Darwin on Trial (p. 114):

Theistic or "guided" evolution has to be excluded as a possibility because Darwinists identify science with a philosophical doctrine known as naturalism. Naturalism assumes the entire realm of nature to be a closed system of material causes and effects, which cannot be influenced by anything from "outside." Naturalism does not explicitly deny the mere existence of God, but it does deny that a supernatural being could in any way influence natural events, such as evolution, or communicate with natural creatures like ourselves. Scientific naturalism makes the same point by starting with the assumption that science, which studies only the natural, is our only reliable path to knowledge. A God who can never do anything that makes a difference, and of whom we can have no reliable knowledge, is of no importance to us.

It would be ridiculous to suggest that in 1991 Johnson was defending ID from theistic evolutionists. ID did not exist at that point in any form, either as a theory (still doesn't) or as a movement. He was attacking evolution and he saw theistic evolutionists as the enemy. ID theorists have followed his approach ever since.

Comment by olegt — May 20, 2010 @ 11:21 pm

Bradford Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 12:29 am
Olegt:

ID theorists just do not accept a natural development of life painted by theory of evolution.

Just put a cell into the mix, disregard natural explanations for its existence and have it evolve.

Comment by Bradford — May 21, 2010 @ 12:29 am

Pez Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 12:59 am
Oleg,
Your inability to know anything about this subject is being eclipsed by your insistence that you will not learn.

So I think my point still stands. ID theorists just do not accept a natural development of life painted by theory of evolution.

But your point does not stand and never has.

You presented Denton's argument which is opposed to special creation :

This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called "special creationist school." According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God's direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law.

And said that it was also incompatible with ID because:

He does not share the main tenet of ID, that God directly intervenes in the design of life. God simply wound the clock on Day 1, let it go, and retired.
…
As I have said a few times already, it boils down to this: can we detect God's intervention at various stages of life development? The ID camp insists that the answer is affirmative.

As you've plainly seen, ID does not detect God's interventions at various stages of life development and is completely compatible with Denton's God.
I'll just quote myself because your latest attempt to avoid the truth doesn't touch the truth demonstrated already:

The ID camp does not insist on this and the main players, as quoted clearly, show that seeing that design is implicated says nothing about when, where or at what "various stage" it was implemented.
Oleg quoted Denton to put him at odds with them and they show that they are not at odds. The Ratzsch (not Dembski) essay clearly demonstrates that a single front-loaded design, a la Denton and Behe and Dembski above is still ID.
The ID camp obviously does not insist as Oleg says.

—

After the usual evasive qualifiers that ID is compatible with anything from discontinuous creation to the most far-ranging evolution, which you quoted in this comment, he switches the tone and tells quite explicitly that ID is incompatible with evolution, theistic or otherwise:

That said, intelligent design is incompatible with what typically is meant by "theistic evolution" (or what is also called "creative evolution," "evolutionary creation" or most recently "fully gifted creation"). Theistic evolution takes the Darwinian of the biological world and baptizes it, identifying this picture with the way God created life. When boiled down to its scientific content, theistic evolution is no different from atheistic evolution, treating only undirected processes in the origin and development of life.

Theistic evolution places theism and evolution in an odd tension. If God purposefully created life through Darwinian means, then God's purpose was ostensibly to conceal his purpose in creation. Within theistic evolution, God is a master of stealth who constantly eludes our best efforts to detect him empirically.

Still incorrect.
1) You admit that the spokesman for all ID says of his own theory that it is compatible with the most wide-ranging evolution. Therefore, it is not a tenet of his theory (he would know) that the vision Denton has is incompatible with ID.
2) You conflate "evolution" with "Darwinism". Dembski is discussing Darwinian evolution and you claim he is saying ID is, in principle, opposed to evolution. You know full well that both Behe and Dembski are on the record that ID is compatible with evolution even if God did nothing since the Big Bang.
3) The claim against Darwinian evolution is that it is metaphysically wed to "random, purposeless, undirected, unguided, goalless, sightless, blind" processes only. And its proponents keep claiming that it demonstrates these scientifically.

As per your history on Phillip Johnson, you are wrong there as well. Darwin On Trial was not Johnson's first introduction to the world and theistic evolutionists rejected his thesis when he was still writing articles seeking common ground. As his book states, which you quoted but of course have not read, he felt they would be natural allies until they rejected him.

Comment by Pez — May 21, 2010 @ 12:59 am

Pez Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 3:22 am
I think you quoted Dembski's letter to theologians. Here's something that would come in handy when you say that ID is incompatible with evolution fo any kind:

Nor can design theory strictly speaking be said to be anti-evolutionist. This may sound surprising, especially since design theorists tend to dislike the term "evolution," viewing it as a weasel word that serves more to obfuscate than clarify. The reason design theorists dislike the word is not because they repudiate every possible construal of it, but because they regard it as a Protean term which, much like the process it describes, adapts itself too readily to any situation. Although design theorists regard the word "evolution" as assuming too many distinct meanings that are too easily confused, the notion that organisms have changed over time hardly upsets them. Design theory places no limits on the amount of evolutionary change that organisms might have experienced in the course of natural history. Consistent with classical views of creation, design allows for the abrupt emergence of new forms of life. At the same time design is also consistent with the gradual formation of new forms of life from old.

The design theorists' beef is not with evolutionary change per se, but with the claim by Darwinists that all such change is driven by purely naturalistic processes which are devoid of purpose.

http://www.origins.org/article...

Comment by Pez — May 21, 2010 @ 3:22 am

ID guy Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 8:28 am
Zachriel:
What is your hypothesis concerning what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time, and what test would you propose?

That doesn't have anything to do with ID.

Also you should focus on your position as it is obvious that you cannot provide a testable hypothesis for it.

Comment by ID guy — May 21, 2010 @ 8:28 am

ID guy Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 8:31 am
olegt:
ID theorists just do not accept a natural development of life painted by theory of evolution.

That is incorrect as design is natural.

ID theorists just do not accept the blind, undirected development of life painted by theory of evolution.

Also ID has existed in one form or another since at least Aristotke's time.

Comment by ID guy — May 21, 2010 @ 8:31 am

Zachriel Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 8:42 am
ID guy: And the only way to figure out the specific mechanism used is by studying the design in question- which is exactly how it is done in archeology and forensics.

Zachriel: Great! What have you discovered so far?

ID guy: That it is going to take more resources in order to do anything beyond design detection and study.

Zachriel: What is your hypothesis concerning what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time, and what test would you propose?

ID guy: That doesn't have anything to do with ID.

You had suggested that ID might be scientifically fruitful. You then suggested the only problem was resources. But, in fact, not only can't you provide a "specific mechanism" (what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time), but can't even provide a testable hypothesis.

Comment by Zachriel — May 21, 2010 @ 8:42 am

ID guy Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 9:02 am
Zachriel:
You had suggested that ID might be scientifically fruitful.

It is at least as scientifically fruitful as archeology and forensics.

You then suggested the only problem was resources.

That is incorrect. The resource issue was in response to your thinking ID has to have all the answers first- only then will it be science- by your "logic".

But, in fact, not only can't you provide a "specific mechanism" (what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time), but can't even provide a testable hypothesis.

We don't need to know the specific mechanism before reaching a deign inference. IOW your ignorance doesn't mean anything to real investigators.

The hypothesis is that when intelligent agenicies act they leave traces on their involvement behind.

We can find and study these traces in an attempt to answer the 3 questions science asks.

But that is moot – Don't you think that it is lame to ask of ID what you cannot provide for your position?

You probably don't but then again your perspective is skewed.

Comment by ID guy — May 21, 2010 @ 9:02 am

ID guy Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 9:07 am
Thanks Pez!

The design theorists' beef is not with evolutionary change per se, but with the claim by Darwinists that all such change is driven by purely naturalistic processes which are devoid of purpose.- Wm Dembski

This is as I have been telling these anti-ID types for many years.

But it is as if their heads are at the bottom of a very deep gravity well where ideas can't even venture…

Comment by ID guy — May 21, 2010 @ 9:07 am

Zachriel Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 9:08 am
ID guy: It is at least as scientifically fruitful as archeology and forensics.

Except that they propose and test hypotheses concerning "specific mechanisms" (what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time).

ID guy: We can find and study these traces in an attempt to answer the 3 questions science asks.

Great! What have you discovered so far? What matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

Comment by Zachriel — May 21, 2010 @ 9:08 am

ID guy Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 9:30 am
It is at least as scientifically fruitful as archeology and forensics.

Zachriel:
Except that they propose and test hypotheses concerning "specific mechanisms"

Only after design has been determined.

And they aren't always successful when looking for mechanisms.

We can find and study these traces in an attempt to answer the 3 questions science asks.

Great! What have you discovered so far?

That most- maybe all- anti-IDists are obtuse freaks who couldn't support their position if theor lives depended on it.

What matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

That doesn't have anything to do with ID.

Thank you for proving my point.

Don't you think that it is lame to ask of ID what you cannot provide for your position?

You probably don't but then again your perspective is skewed.

Comment by ID guy — May 21, 2010 @ 9:30 am

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Pez to olegt:

As you've plainly seen, ID does not detect God's interventions at various stages of life development and is completely compatible with Denton's God.

While Michael Denton, at least as far as I am aware, does not identify himself as a theistic evolutionist it is not hard to see that he shares a number of common beliefs with them. For example, like most TE’s he rejects any form of special creation or interventionism. Therefore like them he cannot be accused of being a creationist.

However, unlike TE’s Howard Van Til and Denis Lamoureux,
for scientific reasons, he adamantly rejects neo-Darwinism.

He also argues that teleology in nature in general is an obvious inference from the evidence.

For example, in Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, he writes:

The strength of any teleological argument is basically accumulative. It does not lie with any one individual piece of evidence alone but with a whole series of coincidences, all of which point irresistibly to one conclusion. It is the same here. Neither the thermal properties of water, nor the chemical properties of carbon dioxide, nor the exceptional complexity of living things, nor the difficulties this leads to when attempting to give plausible explanations in Darwinian terms– none of theses individually counts for much. Rather it lies in the summation of all the evidence, in the whole long chain of coincidences which leads so convincingly toward the unique end of life, in the fact that all the independent lines of evidence fit together into a beautiful self consistent teleological whole. (p. 384)

Notice how this escapes the criticism that Dembski directed towards other theistic evolutionists.

“Intelligent design and theistic evolution therefore differ fundamentally about whether the design of the universe is accessible to our native intellect. Design theorists say yes; theistic evolutionists say no… To be sure there is a scientific disagreement: Design theorists think the scientific evidence favors design, whereas theistic evolutionists think it favors Darwin and his successors. Nonetheless in discounting intelligent design, theistic evolutionists tend also to appeal to philosophical and theological considerations…”

Whatever Denton thinks of ID, I think Dembski would see him on his side of the fence.

Once again it is the TE’s who have defined themselves outside of ID.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 21, 2010 @ 1:17 pm

Pez Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Eep. How sloppy of me. You're right, of course, JAD. Denton is not a theist of any stripe (by anything I've ever heard) and has no "God".
What I was alluding to is the fact that he had said his book did not provide support for a Special Creationist's God, one who intervened in the various stages of life's history. Of course, ID does not require this God.

Comment by Pez — May 21, 2010 @ 1:54 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Pez, At least privately Denton has admitted that he is theist. (follow the link the olegt has provided) Olegt, in the following quote, says that he is a theistic evolutionist. However, I have never he heard or read of him using that term regarding himself or his own beliefs. However, he does refer to the argument that he develops in Nature’s Destiny as a natural theology.

Olegt: Good catch, John. However, I would have to quibble with your assessment. Denton was associated with the ID movement but no longer is. His second book, Nature's Destiny, is manifestly at odds with the ID way. You should read the roundtable discussion of the book by Wells, Dembski, Meyer, Johnson, Behe, and Nelson at ARN. You'll see that Denton ca. 1998 is a theistic evolutionist rather than an ID proponent. He does not share the main tenet of ID, that God directly intervenes in the design of life. God simply wound the clock on Day 1, let it go, and retired.
http://telicthoughts.com/blast...

From what I have read, Nature’s Destiny, which he published just before accepting a brief fellowship with the Discovery Institute, was well received by ID’ists.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 21, 2010 @ 4:01 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Here is the link that olegt provided. (It did not copy over in the quote above.)
http://www.arn.org/docs/odesig...

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 21, 2010 @ 4:05 pm

Zachriel Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 4:36 pm
ID guy: Only after design has been determined.

Okay. So design has not been determined.

Comment by Zachriel — May 21, 2010 @ 4:36 pm

olegt Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 11:25 pm
Pez wrote:

Still incorrect.
1) You admit that the spokesman for all ID says of his own theory that it is compatible with the most wide-ranging evolution. Therefore, it is not a tenet of his theory (he would know) that the vision Denton has is incompatible with ID.

Here is what Dembski said on the Origin and Design panel discussing Nature's Destiny:

Having said this, I think there’s a serious confusion in Nature’s Destiny between necessary and sufficient conditions, a confusion related to Denton’s deeper goal of explaining life only in terms of natural regularities. “Creation by law,” or “design by law”–that’s what Denton is after. It reminds one of the ideas circulating in the early 19th century. God designed the world, to be sure, only he did so through natural laws. Denton cites the pre-Darwinian teleological evolutionist Robert Chambers favorably, and calls his idea of “directed evolution,” as elaborated in Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), “immensely attractive” (p. 272). The idea may be attractive, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t work. Natural regularities, or the necessary physical conditions which Denton discusses, by their very nature cannot generate the specified complexity required for life.

That sounds like an unequivocal and principled rejection of Denton's approach.

2) You conflate "evolution" with "Darwinism". Dembski is discussing Darwinian evolution and you claim he is saying ID is, in principle, opposed to evolution. You know full well that both Behe and Dembski are on the record that ID is compatible with evolution even if God did nothing since the Big Bang.
3) The claim against Darwinian evolution is that it is metaphysically wed to "random, purposeless, undirected, unguided, goalless, sightless, blind" processes only. And its proponents keep claiming that it demonstrates these scientifically.

Really? Then why does Dembski reject Denton's approach?

As per your history on Phillip Johnson, you are wrong there as well. Darwin On Trial was not Johnson's first introduction to the world and theistic evolutionists rejected his thesis when he was still writing articles seeking common ground. As his book states, which you quoted but of course have not read, he felt they would be natural allies until they rejected him.

Can you provide specific quotes illustrating that?

Comment by olegt — May 21, 2010 @ 11:25 pm

olegt Says:
May 21st, 2010 at 11:40 pm
JOHN_A_DESIGNER wrote:

From what I have read, Nature’s Destiny, which he published just before accepting a brief fellowship with the Discovery Institute, was well received by ID’ists.

Well received? Let's have a look at their concluding remarks:

Nelson: None of us could have missed the statement in italics right at the beginning of the book, which Denton places in his introductory “Note to the Reader”: “The cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended ultimately in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes” (p. xviii). Denton says his whole project is “entirely consistent” with this “basic naturalistic assumption,” which he places in opposition to what he calls the “special creationist school.” I think this necessitarian or deterministic conception of design raises problems.

Behe: Behe: I would agree. Here’s an analogy I used in my review of the book for Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. The gravitational constant and coefficient of friction of the pool table may enter precisely into a sensational trick shot by Minnesota Fats, but they do not completely account for it. To explain the event, you also need to refer to Minnesota Fats as a cause. Likewise, the origin of life on Earth may depend on the viscosity of water, the chemistry of iron, and other physical factors, but those factors by themselves do not explain how life started. As Steve said, a necessary condition is not a cause.

Dembski: Having said this, I think there’s a serious confusion in Nature’s Destiny between necessary and sufficient conditions, a confusion related to Denton’s deeper goal of explaining life only in terms of natural regularities. “Creation by law,” or “design by law”–that’s what Denton is after. It reminds one of the ideas circulating in the early 19th century. God designed the world, to be sure, only he did so through natural laws. Denton cites the pre-Darwinian teleological evolutionist Robert Chambers favorably, and calls his idea of “directed evolution,” as elaborated in Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), “immensely attractive” (p. 272). The idea may be attractive, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t work. Natural regularities, or the necessary physical conditions which Denton discusses, by their very nature cannot generate the specified complexity required for life.

Meyer: Exactly. To locate design in natural law reflects a fundamental theoretical incoherence. Laws are, by definition, descriptions of repetitive patterns of events. But life is characterized by specified complexity: the aperiodic, information-rich sequences of DNA and proteins, for instance, which appear nearly random to standard information theory. Life is anything but simple and repetitive. In trying to explain these biological objects via natural regularities, Denton trips over a basic problem.

Johnson: You can put this all in political terms. A guy like Michael Denton can say, ‘I’m fundamentally with “us,” the mainstream of the scientific community, rather than with “them”–the creationists or whomever–on this issue. I just don’t believe the Darwinian angle.’ And I don’t object to that. Indeed I welcome it, because it’s stirring the pot, so to speak.

But that brings me to my bottom line. Does a project like Denton’s have any possibility for success? That is, can you domesticate the design critique of Darwinism? And I would say no. It can’t be done. People will try to do it, of course, with the most honorable of objectives–critiquing Darwinism but keeping strictly within naturalism, in order to gain a hearing from the naturalistic community–but in the end the attempt will fail.

They all say Denton's approach is doomed to failure.

Comment by olegt — May 21, 2010 @ 11:40 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 1:45 am
Olegt, you’re looking at the cup half empty. Of course if you have a movement that is diverse you are going to have disagreement and criticism. However, there were also a number of positive, even strongly positive, statements made about Denton’s book and I don’t think the criticism was by any means harsh.

Here let me cherry pick, like you did, a few of the more positive comments:

Meyer: I agree with Mike on this. I don’t think Denton makes the connection between his evidence and an intelligent designer as clearly as perhaps some of us would like, but he’s pointing to the same evidence that other design theorists have pointed to–namely, you have very improbable events which are also necessary in the sense that they are specified independently by the functional requirements of the living system. And in that evidence is the improbability that Mike spoke to, as well as the specification which Bill Dembski would insist is there. Conjoined, the small probability and specification yield a design inference. Now Denton doesn’t make the theoretical basis for that conclusion explicit, and I think his attempt to root biological design in natural law is problematic, but the evidence is no different in that kind from that sustaining standard design reasoning.

Dembski: Yes, necessary conditions are not sufficient conditions. That’s a real problem with Denton’s argument. Before I get to that, however, let me say that I think Denton does a masterful job of spelling out those necessary conditions that do require explanation. And, indeed, necessary conditions can require explanation, contra the weak anthropic principle, the skeptical position Paul outlined at the start of our discussion.

Johnson: I’ll say something about that momentarily. But first I want to turn back to the evidence for design. The book really brought home to me how much appearance of design there is in the natural world, outside of biology. That water example which Mike Behe mentioned is a good one, although as Denton notes, it’s not original with him–he does however bring the various threads of evidence about water together in a wonderful way.

Wells: OK. Well, I have the advantage of having listened to all of you first.

Let me start by saying that I think the book will have a good effect on discussions about this topic within the academic community. Even the tentative steps Denton takes in the direction of intelligent design, limited as they are by his contradictory goal of wanting to uphold naturalism, as you guys have noted, will have tremendous repercussions. It’s hard for me to imagine Stephen Jay Gould liking this book, for instance, because Denton so clearly wants to talk about ideas we’re supposed to have left in the dusty shadows of the scientific past. In that respect–in taking seriously, even if confusedly or imperfectly, heretical notions like design–I think the book does very well for itself.

And in their summaries Behe, Meyer and Johnson all give Denton’s book high marks.

Nelson: Other summing-up remarks, anyone?

Behe: I thought the book was really terrific. Denton not only extended anthropic arguments right up into biology, but he widened what people will now have to think about when they speculate about the requirements for life.

Johnson: It’s a good book, yes, but the bottom-line question for me is whether there is any alternative to Darwinism within the materialistic framework.

Lots of people, including Denton, like to believe that there is, but when one looks closely, there’s nothing there. What that means–and I think this is terrifying for many people–is that if Darwinism turns out to be false, the mainstream scientific culture will lose control over the origins story they’ve been telling everyone for a long time. If there isn’t a materialistic alternative to Darwinism, and if Darwinism is false, then materialism is in real trouble.

Meyer: I think Michael is one of the most interesting people writing on origins today, and Nature’s Destiny makes another really valuable contribution to the whole discussion. His extension of the fine-tuning argument to biology and chemistry highlights an aspect of this discussion that has been overlooked to this point, and is very valuable. Neverthless, his reliance upon natural laws to close the gap between the conditions necessary for life and the set of conditions sufficient for life lacks, from my point of view, both empirical and information theoretic support. In fact, it seems to run counter to some of Michael’s own insights about the “problem of emergence” which he expressed in his first book and articles back in the late 1980s. As I mentioned, I found those insights very persuasive personally.

It sound to me like they were saying that the book was going to have a positive influence. Were you reading the same revies that I was?

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 22, 2010 @ 1:45 am

Pez Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 1:54 am
Oleg,
First, to your quote of Johnson from Darwin On Trial, Oleg.
You presented it as Johnson firing the first shot at theistic evolutionists.
That seemed odd to me. Of course it was odd.
What he was doing was presenting the Darwinist's view of theistic evolution.

Is mainstream science opposed to the possibility that the natural world was designed by a Creator for a purpose?
…
When evolutionary biologists speak of "evolution", they are not referring to a process that either was or could have been guided by a supernatural Creator. The mean naturalistic evolution, a purely materistic process that has no direction and reflects no conscious purpose.
…Make no mistake about it. In the Darwinist view, which is the official view of science, God had nothing to do with evolution.
…
Theistic or "guided" evolution … (your quote)

You see, Johnson was not talking about theistic evolution or theistic evolutionists, or the compatibility or not with his views. In fact, this quote did not even show up in the index as a reference to theistic evolution.
I don't blame you, though. It's not like you read the book – as opposed to having lifted a hopefully useful quote off the internet.

After his book came out he responded to his Theistic Evolution critics thusly:

In any case, Darwinistic evolution would be a most peculiar creative method for God to choose given the Darwinistic insistence that biological evolution was undirected. That requirement means that God neither programmed evolution in advance nor stepped in from time to time to pull it in the right direction. How then did God ensure that humans would come into existence so that salvation history would have a chance to occur? Once this logical difficulty is recognized, the attempt to reconcile Darwinism and theism collapses. Either God rules creation-which means that He somehow directed evolution to produce humans-or He doesn't. The former isn't Darwinism, and the latter isn't theism.
…
Of course, God could make some use of random mutation and natural selection in a fundamentally directed creative process. God can act freely as He chooses: that is just the problem for those who would constrain God by philosophy. God could employ mutation and selection or act supernaturally, whether or not His choice causes inconvenience for scientists who want to be able to explain and control everything.
…
To know that Darwinism is true (as a general explanation for the history of life), one has to know that no alternative to naturalistic evolution is possible. To know that is to assume that God does not exist, or at least that God does not or cannot create. To infer that mutation and selection did the creating because nothing else was available, and then to bring God back into the picture as the omnipotent being who chose to create by mutation and selection, is to indulge in self-contradiction. That is why Darwin and his successors have always felt that theistic evolutionists were missing the point, although they have often tolerated them as useful allies.

Notice his view allows for an evolution that is programmed or directed, not one that is purposeless. But also it does not demand "interventions" from time to time.
http://www.arn.org/docs/johnso...

You want quotes showing Johnson was writing about this before Trial and had critics to respond to?
http://www.arn.org/docs/johnso...

Also before Trial:
http://www.arn.org/docs/johnso...

This paper, which appeared even before the publication of Darwin on Trial, shows Phillip Johnson attempting to find common ground with theistic evolutionists like Howard Van Till of Calvin College. All such attempts failed, and in his Founder's Lectures at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1992, Johnson coined the term "theistic naturalism" to describe the Van Till position. Read this paper if you want to understand see how conciliatory Johnson was at the beginning.
…
Although I insist that God has always had the power to intervene directly in nature to create new forms, I am willing to be persuaded that He chose not to do so and instead employed secondary natural causes like random mutation and natural selection. I have no preconceived idea about how long God took to produce the universe and all its forms of life, and no objection to the possibility that the process was sufficiently gradual to be termed "evolution."

Here's Johnson in '92 on his position
http://www.arn.org/docs/johnso...

In a broader sense, however, a creationist is simply a person who believes in the existence of a creator, who brought about the existence of the world and its living inhabitants in furtherance of a purpose. Whether the process of creation took a single week or billions of years is relatively unimportant from a philosophical or theological standpoint. Creation by gradual processes over geological ages may create problems for Biblical interpretation, but it creates none for the basic principle of theistic religion. And creation in this broad sense, according to a 1991 Gallup poll, is the creed of 87 per cent of Americans. If God brought about our existence for a purpose, then the most important kind of knowledge to have is knowledge of God and of what He intends for us. Is creation in that broad sense consistent with evolution?
The answer is absolutely not, when "evolution" is understood in the Darwinian sense. To Darwinists evolution means naturalistic evolution, because they insist that science must assume that the cosmos is a closed system of material causes and effects, which can never be influenced by anything outside of material nature-by God, for example. In the beginning, an explosion of matter created the cosmos, and undirected, naturalistic evolution produced everything that followed. From this philosophical standpoint it follows deductively that from the beginning no intelligent purpose guided evolution. If intelligence exists today, that is only because it has itself evolved through purposeless material processes.

As for your repeated assertion that Denton's view is incompatible with ID, you're pretty cutty with your quotes, Oleg.
Here's what the ID proponents say of Denton's use of the evidence:

Behe: Can I jump in for a second? Maybe I’m reading things into the book, but I certainly got the strong sense–perhaps Denton didn’t state this explicitly, but he does so implicitly–that he was arguing for the relevant choices being made by an intelligence.
Let me give you some background. During the April 1996 meeting at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in Washingon, DC, where Denton and I both spoke, he said to the whole group of journalists and other folks there that he thought God had set up the universe to produce human beings.
Moreover, the night before that meeting, Denton and I had dinner at Tom Bethell’s house. I told him that I had read his manuscript–at that point, the book was called Biology, The Anthropic Perspective, with the subtitle, An Essay in Natural Theology–and that I liked it very much. He was pleased. Then I said, “But there just one thing that bothers me. For a natural theology, it doesn’t mention God.” Denton seemed a bit startled by that, and he said, “Well, I certainly believe in God, and I think God did this. I was just trying to style the arguments in the fashion of the natural theologies of the early nineteenth century.” So it seems pretty clear to me that Denton in fact sees the evidence for design as pointing, ultimately, to a transcendent intelligence.
Nelson: Given what you’ve said–and I recall his remarks from that Washington meeting, too–I think you’re probably right. There’s a significant tension in Nature’s Destiny, however, between what I would agree is its implicit theme, design as being transcendently caused by an intelligence, and Denton’s desire nonetheless to attribute that design solely to natural laws or natural processes.

The problem they have is that he does not show in his book exactly what the evidence demonstrates, that an intelligence had to make choices and that this is what his evidence shows. That is ID. Regardless of whether those choices were made at once at the very beginning, or whether they were enacted throughout history. Dembski could not be more clear about this if you actually read him. Over and over he says ID sees places where the design became apparent, not where it was enacted.
And again, none of this supports your claim that his view is incompatible with Id because it is the central tenet of ID that the designer intervened here and there in the history of life.
Will you learn?

Comment by Pez — May 22, 2010 @ 1:54 am

ID guy Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:17 am
Zachriel:
Okay. So design has not been determined.

It has been determined and we are studying it.

And that is ID- the detection and study of design.

Comment by ID guy — May 22, 2010 @ 9:17 am

ID guy Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:20 am
olegt,

Denton thoughts on the subject have evolved since "Nature's Destiny"…

Comment by ID guy — May 22, 2010 @ 9:20 am

ID guy Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:22 am
Denton's thoughts….

Comment by ID guy — May 22, 2010 @ 9:22 am

Zachriel Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:56 am
ID guy: It has been determined and we are studying it.

Great!

ID guy: And the only way to figure out the specific mechanism used is by studying the design in question- which is exactly how it is done in archeology and forensics.

Great! So what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

Comment by Zachriel — May 22, 2010 @ 9:56 am

olegt Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 10:07 am
Pez and JOHN_A_DESIGNER,

The panel's conclusions on the book can be summed up by one sentence: nice effort, but in our view the author is fundamentally misguided. You seem hell-bent on seeing the glass half-full but

Here is are a couple more quotes from the discussion to disabuse you from this notion:

Dembski: I see design as directed contingency–meaning some agent choosing and making real this outcome, rather than the indefinitely many other possible outcomes allowed by the background regularities and chance.That’s just not Denton’s conception of design, however, so unfortunately he and I part company at a fairly fundamental level. A strong determinism runs through the whole book, and directed contingency washes out in this great forward thrust of necessity, rushing towards its end, which is humanity.

Everything, literally everything, is fine-tuned for human life in particular. But you can’t fine-tune a gene sequence. It has to be specified, and I don’t think natural laws are capable of doing that. There are profound limits, easily reached, on what natural laws can do for you.

Meyer: I think Michael is one of the most interesting people writing on origins today, and Nature’s Destiny makes another really valuable contribution to the whole discussion. His extension of the fine-tuning argument to biology and chemistry highlights an aspect of this discussion that has been overlooked to this point, and is very valuable. Neverthless, his reliance upon natural laws to close the gap between the conditions necessary for life and the set of conditions sufficient for life lacks, from my point of view, both empirical and information theoretic support. In fact, it seems to run counter to some of Michael’s own insights about the “problem of emergence” which he expressed in his first book and articles back in the late 1980s. As I mentioned, I found those insights very persuasive personally.

It's clear that the panel members loved Denton's first book and were disappointed by the second one. Furthermore, Dembski took pains to stress a few times a fundamental nature of his disagreement with Denton's views. Somehow neither of you seem interested in commenting on that.

Comment by olegt — May 22, 2010 @ 10:07 am

Pez Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 11:34 am
You're almost there, Oleg.
Being disappointed does not make it incompatible with their view.
Dembski says that he sees that a real agent must be making the choices and the panel was disappointed that this was only implicit and not explicit in the book. But the two are not incompatible.

And once again, what disappoints them is not what you said it was. You claimed that because he didn't support special creation and detectable interventions in various stages of life that his view is incompatible with ID.
As you can see this is not a central tenet of ID. What is is that whatever mode and timing of design the designer used is detectable empirically. Denton agrees that the empirical evidence shows there is a designer.

He showed that the necessary conditions for life are designed. Dembski thinks there is more yet.
To say that they are incompatible is like saying that the Cosmological Fine Tuning argument is incompatible with biological ID because it only discusses the physical constants of the universe.

Comment by Pez — May 22, 2010 @ 11:34 am

ID guy Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 11:39 am
And the only way to figure out the specific mechanism used is by studying the design in question- which is exactly how it is done in archeology and forensics.

Zachriel:
Great! So what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

That still has nothing to do with ID.

Do you want to discuss ID or not?

Your question has more to do with what happens after ID is the accepted paradigm and the necessary resources have been allocated so that we can attempt to answer those questions.

IOW your questions prove that ID is not a dead-end as we have questions that we will try to answer.

Comment by ID guy — May 22, 2010 @ 11:39 am

Zachriel Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 11:41 am
ID guy: Your question has more to do with what happens after ID is the accepted paradigm and the necessary resources have been allocated so that we can attempt to answer those questions.

Great! In order to allocate those resources, we need to propose testable hypotheses. What specific hypotheses do you propose we test that can answer the question of what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time?

Comment by Zachriel — May 22, 2010 @ 11:41 am

ID guy Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 11:48 am
Your question has more to do with what happens after ID is the accepted paradigm and the necessary resources have been allocated so that we can attempt to answer those questions.

Zachriel:
Great!

Indeed- come back when ID is the accepted paradigm and we can talk about it.

In order to allocate those resources, we need to propose testable hypotheses.

That's not how your position went about it.

So why the double-standard?

Comment by ID guy — May 22, 2010 @ 11:48 am

Zachriel Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:04 pm
ID guy: Indeed- come back when ID is the accepted paradigm and we can talk about it.

So being to propose a scientific hypothesis about what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time requires acceptance by others. That's very odd.

Zachriel: In order to allocate those resources, we need to propose testable hypotheses.

ID guy: That's not how your position went about it.

There is nothing whatsoever preventing you from proposing a testable hypothesis. Perhaps a test could even be arranged.

Comment by Zachriel — May 22, 2010 @ 12:04 pm

ID guy Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Zachriel:
So being to propose a scientific hypothesis about what matter was manipulated by what means using what energy source at what time requires acceptance by others.

That is incorrect.

However if you feel so strongly about it then please have at it.

There is nothing whatsoever preventing you from proposing a testable hypothesis.

I already have proposed a testable hypothesis pertaining to ID.

And that is more than you have pertaining to your position.

However you want someone to propose a testable hypothesis for some potential (future) research.

And that is just stupid…

Comment by ID guy — May 22, 2010 @ 12:15 pm

olegt Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Pez wrote:

Being disappointed does not make it incompatible with their view.
Dembski says that he sees that a real agent must be making the choices and the panel was disappointed that this was only implicit and not explicit in the book. But the two are not incompatible.

They're not just disappointed, Pez. Expressions like "fundamental theoretical incoherence," "there is no intellectually viable midpoint between naturalism and intelligent design," "his argument goes badly off its track," "Denton fails utterly to demonstrate his thesis," "Denton commits himself to an inadequate cause," "he and I part company at a fairly fundamental level" make it crystal clear that the view Denton's newly acquired views incompatible with their program. Johnson puts it this way:

It’s a good book, yes, but the bottom-line question for me is whether there is any alternative to Darwinism within the materialistic framework. Lots of people, including Denton, like to believe that there is, but when one looks closely, there’s nothing there.

ID theorists disagree with Denton on a fundamental level. You can't deny that.

Comment by olegt — May 22, 2010 @ 12:54 pm

ID guy Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 1:01 pm
olegt:
ID theorists disagree with Denton on a fundamental level.

Perhaps but we also agree with Denton on a fundamental level- Darwinian evolution- evolution via blind, undirected chemical processes- is untenable.

Comment by ID guy — May 22, 2010 @ 1:01 pm

JOHN_A_DESIGNER Says:
May 22nd, 2010 at 2:48 pm
olegt: ID theorists disagree with Denton on a fundamental level. You can't deny that.

All ID theorists, olegt? What about Michael Behe or David Berlinski? Or, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, who quote Denton approvingly book the Privileged Planet? They are all Discovery Institute fellows, they are all making contributions to ID. They don’t count?

Even someone like Dembski who said he parted company with Denton over his views during the “Round Table Discussion,” hasn’t parted company completely. For example, Dembski included Denton in his 2004 anthology uncommon dissent and he was invited to participate in an online ISCID discussion. Once again, methinks you are looking at the cup half empty.

Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 22, 2010 @ 2:48 pm

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