Joe G:
There is plenty of evidence for design. ID is all about the design, not the designer. Now what IDists want is to be able to check as to whether the design is real or illusory.

There is no evidence for design, other then the "negative evidence" that boils down to Behe and a few others saying "I don't believe this could arise through evolution".

Can you name a single experiment performed on actual biological samples that supports ID?

But we do have known methods for detecting design. And that is all ID requires to get started.

Then why aren't they employed?

Let me make this dirt simple: you say that there has to be a designer. Fine. Go to the lab, make a theory of Intelligent Design, find a way of experimentally proving it, and go on to do so.

We can test ID by the strict criteria put forth by IDists- namely Wm. Dembski& Mike Behe.

Those criteria are everything but strict. Even they cannot define it strictly. The best Behe could do is to say "you know complexity when you see it".

To falsify ID all you have to do is to show that life can arise from non-living matter via unintelligent, blind/ undirected processes.

And that is exactly what the science of abiogenesis has been doing. The chain of events that could lead to life is being elucidated, link by link; with fewer links remaining unknown all the time.

But IC isn't an argument againsy evolution. It is an argument against the blind watchmaker thesis

It, actually, isn't really an argument against anything; since nobody, including its designers, can define it properly.

If you wish to argue differently, please look at the ribosome and the flagellum. Then give me a reproducible, firmly defined method that would allow me to calculate or decide how and why one is IC and the other isn't.

REally? The Dover case demonstrated otherwise- that blood clotting still stands as IC.

On the contrary. The Dover case illustrated that Behe will wave his hand, say "all of that is insufficient", without even a word to the contents of the research.

Blood clotting system is anything but irreducible; the mechanism of its evolution is actually genetically quite simple. See:

http://www.millerandlevine.com...

We have certainly seen evolution of more biochemically and genetically complex sets of genes.

But reality demonstrates that IF you could support your claims (of NDE) then ID would never have made a come-back.

ID hasn't made a comeback. ID is a political idea, fashionable among non-scientist believers, who don't understand the scientific background of evolution enough; which allows the ID crowd to get huge amounts of money by, basically, lying. It is the same story as with the creationists before them - make up some arguments that sound good enough to be accepted by the poorly educated Christians, publish a book, and laugh on your way to the bank.

In science, ID has zero effect. It is mostly as source of some irritation (when you have to explain, for the umpteenth time, that none of the arguments in "Icons of Evolution" is true - and none would be true even if Evolution was incorrect, because the mistakes made have nothing to do with evolutionary theory itself), and some amusement.

Krauze:
To GM, the only valid way to research ID is to identify the designer. For the DI to satisfy his demand, they would have to spend their $20 million budget looking for the designer, like som Indiana Jones. Until then, they "produce zero new knowledge."

Actually, no. You are reading far too much from the way I formulated the question.

Investigate the design. Investigate something. But do an experiment, with a control, comparing two things, one designed and one undesigned, and produce some way of defining your basic terms. If you need to start somewhere, look at the question about the ribosome and the flagellum above; what makes one IC, and the other not?

Take a look at vancomycin resistance. Or HIV membrane fusion. Those things evolved recently (or were they designed recently? evidence?). Show us why and how they are not IC, while flagellum is.

Until you do, all you have is an opinion that flagellum is IC, because you can see IC when you see it, and you are the judge of it…which, in science, isn't worth even the paper it's written on.

Also, evolutionary theory is the basic of modern bioinformatics. Practically none of our bioinformatic systems would work if evolution didn't hold. Since you claim that the similarities are similarities of design, and not of change over time, you can make a bioinformatics system that calculates the differences in, say, protein sequences based on design. If that shows better results then calculations based on evolutionary premises, that will be good evidence for your side of the argument.

Anything, really, that I can actually use in the lab. How about it?

The best way of doing that, then, is developing an alternative hypothesis and doing research to demonstrate supporting evidence for the alternative, just as we have reason to think ID didn't happen because there is an alternative explanation, evolution, which is strongly supported by the evidence.

Do you know of any scientists doing research that, if successful , would weaken the concept of abiogenesis?

Of course, the scientists who are working on abiogenesis research themselves. In attempting to demonstrate the feasibility of their hypotheses, they could just as easily demonstrate that they are not feasible, as has already happened in this field. If every hypothesis is invalidated, and scientists run out of ideas, that would weaken the concept.

"Krauze, I'm just trying to find out what it is specifically you think scientists should be doing."

In case you didn't see it, here's what I wrote in my previous comment:

"My post didn't contain any claims that scientists should do this or that. I simply pointed to a discrepancy: Even though everybody seems to agree that skepticism is a good thing, no one in the scientific community seems to be interested in directing some of that skepticism towards abiogenesis. Simple as that."

"You say you know of no scientist doing experiments to disprove abiogenesis. I don't know how any scientist could possibly "prove" that abiogenesis is impossible."

"Disproving abiogenesis" could also cover the possibility that abiogenesis, although possible, didn't happen. That's the meaning many ID critics use when asking whether ID is falsifiable. I thought turnabout would be fair play.

Anyway, let's drop the word "disprove", as this has an absolutist undertone. Do you know of any scientists doing research that, if successful , would weaken the concept of abiogenesis?

"I assume Krauze wants scientists to do something with the thought that maybe abiogenesis didn't occur."

My post didn't contain any claims that scientists should do this or that. I simply pointed to a discrepancy: Even though everybody seems to agree that skepticism is a good thing, no one in the scientific community seems to be interested in directing some of that skepticism towards abiogenesis. Simple as that.

"If all he wants is for them to take a moment to consider the possibility that abiogenesis didn't happen, then continue in exactly the same acitivities they would have engaged in anyway, I don't see how that would amount to anything of significance."

This is interesting. Taking "a moment to consider the possibility that abiogenesis didn't happen, then continue in exactly the same acitivities they would have engaged in anyway". Is that what you think skepticism amounts to?

I already dealt with that in my post:

"Sure, origin-of-life researchers criticize each others' scenarios, but no one doubts the most basic assumption: That life did arise as the consequence of physical and chemical processes. I know of no scientist doing experiments to disprove abiogenesis, and apart from creationists and ID supporters, I can't name any who even thinks that doing so would be a good idea."

doctor(logic) would have us believe the absurd result that the reason for this lack of skepticism about an abiogenic origin of life is that there are only two logical possibilities:

1. There is no explanation for abiogenesis
2. The explanation is abiogenic

The first option is not interesting, so we assume the second option and pursue it.

"I agree that there should be a teensy weensy amount skepticism that we can find a naturalistic explanation of abiogenesis,"

Indeed. So why isn't there?

It's there alright. It's just that the alternative is that there is no explanation at all, and that we're all wasting our time doing scientific research. So, I would expect scientists, in their professional capacity, to betray zero skepticism that science will be fruitful.