Richard Feynman on Intelligent Design

The philosopher of science Philip Kitcher (1982) would call Feynman's position, as stated here, "naive falsificationism." But Feynman obviously recognizes that a "wrong" result can lead to an ad hoc hypothesis that itself must be fruitful - would "start us guessing again." For further discussion and examples, see (Young 2001).

Beckwith writes, "The "unfalsibiabilty" carnard is so deeply engrained--though never defended--and so rhetorically useful to the unitiated, I can understand why one would not want to abandon it. But it seems to me that any naturalist account of design--whether biological, cosmological, etc--counts against a design account. But if it counts against a design account, then a design theory in principle is not unfalsifiable. Now, there may be different naturalist accounts, some which are inconsistent with others. And there may be non-naturalist design accounts, some of which are inconsistent with others. But the former, if more plausible than the latter, count against the latter. If not, then the naturalist accounts are unfalsifiable as naturalist acocunt (but not as accounts within the naturalist paradigm, interestingly enough). This seems so obvious to me that I cannot believe that anyone would find it controversial."

Consider the problem of explaining why Beckwith thinks his reasoning is so obvious that it is thus uncontroversial. One explanation is that Beckwith is so blinded by his stereotype that 'naturalists' only use rhetroically canned, but philosophically unsound arguments, that he cannot escape his own mental roadblocks. This psychological explanation has several plausible accounts, some of which may not be consistent. For instance, one account is that while writing this paragraph, Beckwith was quite mentally impaired by the large quantities of intoxicating drinks due to the recent celebratory moods, and thus wrote an incogent account. The other is that Beckwith never drinks, but instead, he has had such a tramautic childhood experience defending scientific theories (his church leader would beat him senseless) that now he finds it easier not to trouble himself with contemplating any such defense.

The other explanation is that Beckwith has been revealed the Truth by God in such a convincing manner that only Beckwith knows there is no possible counter to his argument. In this non-psychological account, Beckwith's mind was specially tweaked so that only he could comprehend the divine revelation, but God acting in his mysterious ways, has rendered him incapable of explaining it to others. Of course, this explanation has several contradicting scenarios. One is that God loves Beckwith so much that He wished only him to know the Truth. The other is that God hates Beckwith so much that He cursed him with eternal frustration in being unable to share this Revelation to others.

Now, it may be that some consider the former explanation more plausible than the latter. But it seems to me that finding plausibility in the former counts against the latter. Then to me, the notion that Beckwith had a divine revelation is in principle falsified. Otherwise, it seems that those uninitiated, close-minded skeptics who complain about 'unfalsifiability' of the latter explanations are just being hypocrites who champion an equally unfalsifiable account. That is, the psychological explanation cannot be falsified anymore as a psychological account than the divine revelation can be falsified as a Truth account.

This seems so obvious to me that I cannot believe that anyone would find it controversial.

Have a good new year.

As a physicist, I feel kind of an insult seeing an appeal to such a heavy artillery as Feinman when all the fuss is about exercises by the likes of Beckwith.

To start with, Beckwith fights a straw man. He asserts that opponents of ID allegedly use as an "endlessly repeated" (or some such characteristic) argument against ID a reference to ID's unfalsifiability. Is this so? Let us see.

Look up the four most recent books opposing ID, to wit: (1) Forrest and Gross, Creationism's Trojan Horse; (2) My book Unintelligent Design; (3) Anthology Why Intelligent Design Fails, edited by Young and Edis, and (4) Niall Shanks, God, the Devil and Darwin. The total well over 1,000 pages. In all these pages which offer many detailed arguments against ID, the term "falsifiability" appears exactly once, and in such a context that has nothing to do with the repudiation of ID. In fact, ID has been shown to lack substance regardless of its being or not being falsifiable. If ID opponents have mentioned unfalsifiability of ID, it hardly has been offered as a crucial argument and certainly has not been "endlessly repeated," Beckwith's lamentations notwithstanding.

Furthermore, Beckwith asserts that critics of ID, on the one hand, claim that ID is unfalsifiable, but on the other hand try to falsify it. What a stupid ilk, those critics of ID are, aren't they.

Beckwith obviosly sees no distinction between the application of Popper's demarkation criterion to ID as a universal conjecture and its application to specific pro-ID arguments offered in quasi-mathematical and quasi-scientific clothes. As a universal conjecture ID is a philosophical/religious thesis and as such is obviously unfalsifiable, i.e. unscientific. On the other hand specific quasi-scientific and quasi-mathematical arguments of ID advocates can be refuted (i.e falsified in Popperian sense). Among such specific refutable points are Dembski's EF (which produces both false negaives and false positives); Behe's irreducible complexity; Dembski's law of conservation of informaion, as well as his misuse of the NFL theorems; Wells's assault upon biology textbooks; etc.

Indeed, in the four above listed books (as well as in many other publications) practically all main allegedly scientific and mathematical arguments of the ID advocates have been decisively refuted and this is in no way contradictory to the unfalsifiability of ID as a universal conjecture.

A discussion on the level of Beckwith's post is a regrettable waste of time.

If Lamoureux were in my denomination I would re-commend his ex-communication and barring from the communion table. If he wants to align himself with the Darwinists leadership rather than the evangelicals FINE, but he should label himself as such : an NCSE Darwinist who rejected a central claim of the evangelical faith. He can call himself a liberal compromiser, a die-hard Darwinist, but he has no right to say he's an evangelical.

— Salvador

My apologies to Professor Perakh, who thinks it is unseemly to swat the gnat of Mr. Beckwith with the sledgehammer of Feynman. Feynman was a magician - a genius who was not just smarter than you but so smart that you could not understand his thought processes even after you understood what he had accomplished (according to the mathematician Mark Kac).

Feynman was additionally superb at explaining complex concepts so that laypeople can understand them. He also cut through baloney whenever he could, most prominently during the space shuttle Challenger investigation. His (extemporaneous) lecture on how science works is a masterpiece of clarity.

I sincerely hope that Feynman would not be offended that I enlisted his lecture to help correct a serious misunderstanding about the nature of science.

Feynman was a real smart guy whose reputation nevertheless owes a lot to his highly marketable personality. I'm still reading and rereading his Lectures on Physics and, oddly enough, I wrote Feynman's official obituary. I cerainly respect the man. He didn't know a great deal about the philosohy of science,however; and he couldn't see through walls as he himself frequently pointed out. It is no derogation of anybody's memory to note that an argument from authority is just an argument from authority no matter how impressive the authority happens to be.

Jim Harrison is, of course, wrong that an argument from authority is always a fallacy. Scienctific knowledge is based on the conclusions of experts, authorities if you will. A near consensus of professional astronomers accepts that the universe is expanding, which makes it a scientific fact. A near consensus of professional biologists accepts common descent, which makes it a scientific fact. That being said, scientific facts are highly probable, but tentative by definition. The authority of forensic scientists is the basis for imprisonment and execution. Appeal to authority can be a valid arguementative technique, depending on the authority.

But Ralph, an Argument from Authority as a technique is solely acceptable in the sciences because it is a short-hand technique for pointing out that we can reproduce the results ourselves.

I hope you are not actually advocating that Argument from Authority has some internal justification?

If you are, then America is a solely Christian country, evolution is errant nonsense, and gun-racks should be mandatory in the back of all pick-up trucks. %:->

Actually ID does suggest new lines of inquiry and ways to add to total knowledge. The most interesting, in my opinion, lies in Dembski's work i.e. specified complexity.

A mathmatical way to detect design would apply to very many fields from bioterrorism to stock market fraud. For instance, say a nasty variant of anthrax is spread around. Could further refinement of Dembski's mathmatical concept of specified complexity answer the question of whether the new anthrax strain is naturally occuring or should we go looking for a weapons lab somewhere because you can tell it was an engineered variant?

Could it be applied to the trading patterns in a stock to tell illegal manipulation apart from simple efficient market causes?

I wonder if anyone's bothered to run the poliovirus genome through the SETI filters to see if it rings the bell for an intelligent signal - as my calculus teacher used to say "just for kicks".

Actually ID does suggest new lines of inquiry and ways to add to total knowledge. The most interesting, in my opinion, lies in Dembski's work i.e. specified complexity.

A mathmatical way to detect design would apply to very many fields from bioterrorism to stock market fraud. For instance, say a nasty variant of anthrax is spread around. Could further refinement of Dembski's mathmatical concept of specified complexity answer the question of whether the new anthrax strain is naturally occuring or should we go looking for a weapons lab somewhere because you can tell it was an engineered variant?

Could it be applied to the trading patterns in a stock to tell illegal manipulation apart from simple efficient market causes?

I wonder if anyone's bothered to run the poliovirus genome through the SETI filters to see if it rings the bell for an intelligent signal - as my calculus teacher used to say "just for kicks".

Dembski did not invent the idea of inferring purpose from statistical data. He just claimed to invent a general purpose method for it, and he was wrong, and even some of previous supporters admit that.

Could further refinement of Dembski's mathmatical concept of specified complexity answer the question of whether the new anthrax strain is naturally occuring?

Could it be applied to the trading patterns in a stock to tell illegal manipulation apart from simple efficient market causes?

It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number.

Another thing I must point out is that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong.

Wedgie World wrote: Lamoureux sees to have so succesful that Salvador has been calling for his ex-communication.

The exchanges have confirmed what I known for a while about forums like this--the reality of human nature (dare I use the 's' word?).

Indeed, in the four above listed books (as well as in many other publications) practically all main allegedly scientific and mathematical arguments of the ID advocates have been decisively refuted and this is in no way contradictory to the unfalsifiability of ID as a universal conjecture.

I salute Feynman who promoted the real science of physics in contrast to the metaphyiscal non-science of Darwinism.

But Rilke, Appeal to Authority is acceptable in science by definition, not just because of experimental, reproducible results. In the historical sciences, such as archeology, geology, and forensic science, scientific fact is legitimately inferred from evidence in the present. Forensic science effectively illustrates this technique. Detectives arrive at a murder scene and observe present conditions to infer what happened in the past. They collect circumstantial evidence, such as hair samples, fingerprints, and tire tracks. Although laymen think circumstantial evidence is weak, quite the opposite is true. Adequate circumstantial evidence has persuaded many juries to sentence criminals to jail or death, which underscores the level of confidence that society places in the conclusions of forensic science. Similarly, biologists infer the phenomenon of macroevolution from present conditions. There is serious scientific debate about the various factors that cause evolution and the rate of evolution but not if macroevolution happened. Because science works this way does not mean other human endeavors such as politics, religion, or art do. Beware of False Analogy!

Ralph:

I think you and Rilke are saying the same thing. In science, it is legitimate to appeal to the authority of scientifically accepted human knowledge, even if this knowledge belongs to experts in the field and is not known to the layman. It's OK to cite some individual person as representing that authority provided there is no direct legitimate scientific controversy involved. And so it is NOT OK (for example) to cite Feynman as an authority on the philosophy of science if his position is in the minority among science philosophers. The distinction isn't that hard: Citing Feynman as a spokesman for what is known is fine, citing Feynman because he is Feynman to refute competing philosophers is wrong.

Flint,

My original response was to Jim Harrison who wrote, ". . .an argument from authority is just an argument from authority no matter how impressive the authority happens to be." I thought I made it clear that in science appeal to authority is legitimate if the authority is a near consensus of professional scientists, not an individual. Rilke conflated my narrow justification of Appeal to Authority to other fields.

Ralph,

I agree. What good is the effort to augment human knowledge, if we cannot appeal to what we have learned as meaningful, or use it as a basis for continued investigation? I speculate that by "argument from authority" others are referring to the attempt to justify a controversial opinion with the claim that some other (presumably more respected) individual shares that opinion. The key is the controversy. Where informed disagreement exists about the relevant material, appealing to "what lots of scientists think" loses cogency.

Flint,

Do you agree that Jim was wrong and/or that Rilke conflated? I hoped to be clear about "a near consensus of professional scientists accepts," which is nothing like "what lots of scientists think."

Excuse me for asking, but who has appealed to what authority? Citing a source and quoting from it is good practice, not appealing to authority, unless you think every scientific reference is an appeal to authority (I agree it is, in a sense, but not in the pejorative way that the term is usually used). Feynman gave a clear and compelling, if simplified, description of how science works, and I thought quoting Feynman a useful device to help expose some of the flaws in intelligent-design creationism.

By gum, I let you guys play by yourselves for a day and look what happens.

My comment on Richard Feynman referred to his orbiter dicta about the philosohy of science, not his physics. Even in the case of the physics, however, Feynman is rightly cited as an authority because his physics is right. His physics isn't right because he's an authority. As it happens, I agree with a lot of the Feynman remarks Matt quoted; but that's irrelevant to may point. By the way,allthough Feynman didn't have much use for philosophers, he couldn't completely escape their influence on the Zeitgeist and one can detect a bit of Carl Hemel and other figures of the 1950s and 60s in his comments so maybe the consensus in play isn't a consensus of physicists.

O well, if you're going to set up famous scientists as oracles, Feynman is as good a choice as any. He was once asked whether there was a god. He replied, "No, I looked." I guess that settles that.

Ralph,

No, I don't agree, at least as I understand the issue. An appeal to "a near consensus of professional scientists accepts" does not meet the description of an appeal to authority, in terms of a logical error.

The issue isn't simple. Rilke is concerned about an appeal to the opinion of the majority of the people, without consideration of how well informed those people may be. I think she is correct that when knowledge matters and the majority has none, it's an error to appeal to majority opinion. I think she's also correct in saying that *informed* scientific opinion isn't an appeal to authority because those opinions are founded on direct, refutable empirical results. In other words, scientific authority is a proxy for the underlying reality itself.

I think Jim Harrison was correct as I interpret him, anyway, in regarding the appeal to authority as a debating technique, where a genuine debate exists within which to apply a technique at all. Of course, the evolution/creationism debate is not a scientific debate.

And so as I see it, all three of you are saying the same thing. Reality matters. It is the ultimate arbiter of things scientific. The appeal to reality rules, whether done directly by pointing to immediate physical phenomena, or done indirectly by pointing to "a near consensus of professional scientists." The appeal to authority means the appeal to the opinion of someone, NOT part of that consensus, who happens to be well known or respected.

But this gets us into the question of what constitutes a consensus, with respect to what we consider the point of contention. What if Feynman is in the minority? Should we nonetheless accept his position because he is known to have been an uber-genius? I don't think you, Jim Harrison, or Rilke's Granddaughter would wholeheartedly accept such a position solely because the Great Feynman said it. However, Feynman's track record is such that his position is worth taking seriously; he has earned this much.

And this in turn means we must be very careful about the pronunciamentos of the scientista. Are they voicing a near consensus, or an opinion subject to dispute? Just how near does that consensus (of acknowledged experts) need to be before it is NOT an appeal to authority and becomes an appeal to an accepted reality? 80%? 95%?

So true, Darwnism is the epitome of a vague theory, therefore it's not science.  Thank you, Dr. Feynman . . . .

— Salvador

Of course it is, Steve.

Just replace "was responsible" with "may or may not have been responsible" and you're done. Think "bacterial flagellum"....

Of course it is, Steve. Just replace "was responsible" with "may or may not have been responsible" and you're done. Think "bacterial flagellum" . . . .

— gaebolga

Perhaps Salvador is saying that ID is not science either, on the same grounds. The distinction isn't science/nonscience, the distinction is that Salvador's faith is not questionable, and science is.

Apparently charm and good looks are not enough. :-) First, Mark Perakh is absolutely correct about those four books and the absence of the "unfalsifiability" carnard. This speaks well of their authors and their sophistication, as well as of Mr. Perkah's breadth and depth of reading. Hats off to them for not extending the tradition advanced by the several bloggers who were critical of Hugh Hewitt's commentary. If I had said that the "unfalsifiability" carnard was universally advanced without exception, then that comment would have been falsified by Mr. Perakh. But I didn't, so I remain, fortunately, unscathed. (Pheww, that was a close one).

Second, Lurker should keep his day job. He is comedically falsified. :-)

Third, Matt Young writes that "Mr. Beckwith is seriously confused, as has been noted in the comments to his essay, if he thinks that the truth or falsity of design theory has any bearing on the truth or falsity of evolutionary theory." If evolutionary theory means a naturalist account of everything that may include (though need not include)Darwinian and neo-Darwinian accounts of biological complexity, then, epistemologically, evolutionary theory is a defeater to any agent-causation account of apparently natural phenomena. (They are, in that sense, mutually exclusive). Of course, there is another way to understand evolution that may be congenial to certain types of design accounts, as Del Ratzsch points out in his book Nature, Design, and Science, which I reviewed a couple of years ago in Philosophia Christi. But I would include Ratzsch among those who are critical (in the best sense of the term) though open to design theory. My views are very close to Ratzsch's. Mr. Young goes not to say that "Consistently with other creationists, Mr. Beckwith presents a false dichotomy, pretending that the choices are between evolutionary theory and creationism, in this case, intelligent-design creationism." Please reread my work on this matter. I point out that any evolutionary account that allows for non-natural agent-causation is a design account. So, someone may be a biological Darwinian and a cosmological design theorist. Another may be a theistic evolutionist with a robust view of agent-intervention that is not merely god-of-the-gaps. Both are design accounts. So, in that sense, design (broadly construed) is incompatible with any naturalist account of the order and nature of things (which must be some form of cosmic evolution).

Since design theorists of every stripe (from theistic evolutionists to young-earth creationists) accept that both agent causation and non-agent causation can be discovered in nature, it seems that the design folks are not the ones burdened by a false dichotomy.

Third, Wedgie World writes that "Beckwith is a typical example of ID'ist using flawed logic to infer design." I've never liked design arguments, and have never offered such arguments as an advocate of theism. I have described design arguments, and have presented them in my works, but I don't really have a horse in this race. So, I'm not sure what WW is talking about. It's possible that in my published works I could have used a bit more clarity, and perhaps that is why WW is making this judgment.

The posting on southern appeal that has gotten all your panties in a bunch does not offer an argument for "inferring design." So, I have absolutely no idea what Wedgie World is talking about. If he were sitting next to me, I would give him a wedgie. :-)

The Wedgemeister goes not to write, "Additionally, he makes the same error as found in many ID relevant writings, namely the suggestion that science rejects apriori an intelligent designer. Science, as ID proponents also argue, does no such thing and in fact ID proponents often quote criminology, archaeology, SETI and cryptology as examples." I was, of course, writing about the claim that design theories that try to account for natural phenomena are unfalsifiable. Thank you for allowing me to clarify what I was saying. Being conversant with my work, WW knows that I bring up, in my articles and book, these sciences that include agent-causation as a legitimate account of phenomena. So, it is a mystery to me why he tries to make it seem as if I am ignorant of this. Perhaps the New Year celebration was a bit too much. So, I forgive him. Nevertheless, agent-causation accounts can be falsified in these other scientific disciplines, which means that design accounts can in-principle be falsified. This, of course, was my pointn to begin with.

I probably should have used the term "criticizable" rather than "falsifiable," since, as Laudan, Kuhn, and Lakatos have pointed out in their writings, anomalies and recalcitrant data that seem to count against particular theories are usually subsumed under ad hoc hypotheses when no promising rival theory is forthcoming. My bad.

Have a Happy New Year!

From Las Vegas on his way back Texas,
Frank

Nevertheless, agent-causation accounts can be falsified in these other scientific disciplines, which means that design accounts can in-principle be falsified.

Regarding snipes against Shallit-Elsberry critique of Dembski's specified compexity a.k.a. Complex Specified Information (see comment 12512), the best way to judge this assault is to read Shalitt-Elsberry article ( www.talkreason.org/articles/eandsdembski.pdf ). Anybody reading it with an open mind will find that Shallit-Elsberry's discourse is impeccably logical, solidly substantiated and demolishes Dembski's half-baked ideas decisively. The accusation by the author of the above post 12512 of Shallit-Elsberry allegedly fighting a straw man is sheer nonsense. I don't know whether the author of comment 12512 honestly misunderstands Shallit-Elsberry's paper or deliberately distorts its contents, in either case his critique is crock.

Nevertheless, agent-causation accounts can be falsified in these other scientific disciplines [criminology, archaeology, SETI and cryptology], which means that design accounts can in-principle be falsified.

In a comment above Mr. Cordova mentioned his post to ISCID where he made some positive remarks regarding Mark Perakh's work. A positive word about Perakh in a pro-ID post is certainly far from common. Coming from Mr. Cordova, it is doubly suprising if we recall that Mr. Cordova had once accused Perakh of lying (in a post to ARN) and after this accusation was shown to lack merits, Mr. Cordova did not deem fit to apologize. Therefore I was intrigued by Mr. Cordova's reference and looked up his post to ISCID. Indeed, he wrote there some words in support of certain notions suggested by Perakh. The notion in question was Perakh's suggestion that simplicity rather than complexity may serve as a marker of design. Mr. Cordova seems to agree. So far so good. However, then Mr. Cordova asserts that in fact Dembski adheres to the same idea, and provides some quote from Dembski supposedly being in tune with Perakh's notion. Mr. Cordova does not, though, mention those numerous Dembski's statements wherein Dembski persistently asserts that "complexity=small probability." Perakh's particular example of a perfectly spherical pebble (which Mr. Cordova seems to approve) is in fact an example supporting the opposite idea, namely that "simplicity=small probability." Perakh's notion flatly rejects Dembski's thesis. If the particular quotation from Dembski cited by Cordova is indeed, as Mr. Cordova says, in tune with Perakh's notion (I leave out the discussion of that point) this only could testify to the well documented abject lack of consistensy which is the constant feature of Dembski's output, as was in particular revealed by the same Perakh in detail.

The White Dude writes:

"The bottom line, Frank, is that your 'design accounts' are worthless because there is no evidence that the sorts of all-powerful designers necessary for your 'design accounts' exist."

Perhaps a grammar school example will help me understand this. Suppose someone says that Elvis Presley is speaking at P.S. 108 in Brooklyn tomorrow afternoon. I go to P.S. 108 and discover that Elvis indeed is speaking, but it's Elvis Parlsey, a new mascot for the vegetable industry. I ask around and I'm told that Elvis Presley is dead, and the Brooklynites I'm asking laugh at me because my the question is completely idiotic. So, there is no evidence for Presley speaking at P.S. 108 on January 4. That is, my belief that Presley is speaking at P.S. 108 has been, for all intents and purposes, falsified (or at least I am within my epistemic rights in saying that it is falsified).

White Dude then says:
"And without knowing the first thing about how these purported designers go about their business of "designing" and "creating" a billions of planet years' worth of life forms, it's an unfalsifiable proposition IN PRINCIPLE."

Suppose a person from the wilds of South America comes across a cell phone left there by one of those nerdy European anthropologists looking to study "primitive people" even though Paris is closer. In any event, suppose the SA person rightly concludes that the cell phone is an artifact constructed by a mind but has no idea how the designer went about his business designing and creating millions of these things that are found throughout the globe. His ignorance of these latter facts would not undermine his first inference that someone designed the cell phone he now holds in his hand. If he were to conclude--given his limited experience and knowledge--that no one in-principle could know how these cell phones come to be, he would be excluding from consideration the designer whose existence he inferred from the evidence he has in hand. But that doesn't seem right.

So, if I am understanding GWW correctly, there is no evidence for a designer, but if there were evidence we would not be within our epistemic rights in accepting his existence because we couldn't explain the how and why of the entities he designed. And this makes the belief "unfalsifiable in principle." This is confusing. How can a belief both have no evidence in its favor (thus indicating that it could be falsified, as in the case of Elvis) and yet be unfalsifiable even if it has evidence in its favor? Heads you win, tales I lose. At leat that's the way I'm reading it.

Maybe I'm just talkin' high school. I'm not as smart as you science guys.

Frank

Frank:

I already asked (still waiting for an answer) how an explanation that "explains" everything can be falsified, without painstakingly demonstrating the falsity of every imaginable (and even UNimaginable) item one by one.

Now I have another question. How does your person from the wilds of South America infer that the cell phone is an artifact? On what basis does he do this? I am taking the liberty to assume that you placed this person as far from civilization as possible to indicate that he has *no basis of comparison*; that his experience includes nothing similar which he can use for his inference. So how does he do it? Does he guess? Does he say "I've never seen anything like this before, and therefore it must be artificial"? But we all encounter novelty all the time, and we don't assume artificiality on the basis of novelty alone, but rather on the basis of similarity to what is KNOWN to be artificial. In other words, we have a context for comparison, without which we may as well flip a coin.

Yet you, knowing a cell phone is designed, waste no time presuming your bone-ignorant SA savage would arrive at the same conclusion. why? The only way anyone can guess design is to notice that something to be assessed is "like" something else known to be designed. Lacking a single known example of the hypothetical handiwork of your Designer, what are you comparing life with?

In any event, suppose the SA person rightly concludes that the cell phone is an artifact constructed by a mind but has no idea how the designer went about his business designing and creating millions of these things that are found throughout the globe.

Um, have any of you guys seen the movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy?"

It's quite possible someone might conclude some human-manufactured device was, indeed, manufactured, having never seen anything like it before. Of course, that person may also conclude in error that the device was manufactured by a deity.

ID asks us to say "God probably did it" any time we hit a point where we don't understand how something got the way it is. That's a bad philosophical position to be in, because it leaves one's deity always open to falsification. Our experience over the past 2,000 years or so is that each of those gaps in knowledge, when set up as a potential disproof of God, rewards us with a disproof of God.

The difficulty, of course, is that the fact that Coca-Cola's bottle manufacturer made the bottle the bushman tribesman found, does not disprove the existence of any god. The original premise was faulty.

Dr. Beckwith may wish to keep open the possibility that God makes Coke bottles. It's another triumph of hope over experience, but it's a foolishly consistent sort of hope that rational people eventually abandon. When we find the bottle manufacturing plant, Dr. Beckwith and the ID folks will insist that the bottle we found could not have come from that plant, or that process, in any reasonable probability, and that therefore God is preserved.

The question is, should we allow Coke bottle deities to be taught in public school science classes?

Um, have any of you guys seen the movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy?"

George Taylor: Don't try to follow me. I'm pretty handy with this. Dr. Zaius: Of that I'm sure. All my life I've awaited your coming and dreaded it.

Ooops, now that I've actually read the comments, I discovered that my two main arguments in my comments were already pointed out in the comments to this thread.

1. Mark Perakh pointed out that certain ID arguments are testable, but that the generic proposition "IDdidit" is not.

2. Lurker pointed out that Beckwith confuses elimination-by-parsimony and elimination-by-falsification.

1.Certain ID arguments (such as "IC structures only have selectable functions when fully assembled", or "evolution can't produce new genetic information") are testable, and in fact have clearly been found false.

2. However, the central ID argument ("ID did it for unspecified reasons, with unspecified-perhaps-supernatural means, at an unspecified time/place, and generally no specification of anything at all.") is untestable, because the IDer is totally unconstrained. Any observation can be explained by "well, the IDer must have wanted it that way."

Now there's a creationist using my name? Great.

Maybe it was my name before yours...? In any case, I'll go by Steve T. from now on, if that's helpful.

If 8 mos ago, when I started posting here, I'd had my brain on, I would probably have used Steve S. But oddly enough, there's another guy who's posted here named Steve Sheets, who is also a physics guy at NCSU. So the hell with it, I'll stick with steve. Anyone who wonders which steve it is, if there's confusing, need just roll the mouse over to see the email address.

Suppose someone says that Elvis Presley is speaking at P.S. 108 in Brooklyn tomorrow afternoon.

— Francis Beckwith

Flint,

You wrote: "No, I don't agree, at least as I understand the issue. An appeal to "a near consensus of professional scientists accepts" does not meet the description of an appeal to authority, in terms of a logical error."

That is my point. Jim Harrison described every appeal to authority as a fallacy.

You wrote: "In other words, scientific authority is a proxy for the underlying reality itself."

Science is a human endeavor. Some long accepted "scientific facts" have been found to be wrong. Science is not reality or even its proxy necessarily. It is a collection of human conclusions. Those conclusions should be taught as science in science class.

You wrote: "Of course, the evolution/creationism debate is not a scientific debate."

I agree, but it is a philosophical debate and within that debate, the most salient fact is that almost all professional biologists accept organic evolution and do not accept ID so evo should be taught in public school science classes and ID should not. This is a logical appeal to authority.

I agree that appeal to scientific authority must be done only where there is virtual universal scientific agreement.

Since I live outside of Waco, Dr. Pepper bottle is the the appropriate soft drink container, Ed.

Seriously, Nick raises some good points that I did not have a chance to respond to on my blog. The parsimony-falsification confusion is a legitimate criticism, but I think it ultimately depends on what I mean by design and evolution. If by the latter I mean an account of the order and nature of things that excludes a non-natural agency, then design and evolution are mutually exclusive. But in that sense, "evolution" is not a theory, but a worldview, one for which may offer evidence and arguments, but in much the same way one offers evidence and arguments for theism.

Darwinism concerns biological evolution, but not cosmic evolution. Someone, for example, could hold to cosmological design while rejecting Behe's critique of the power of natural selection to produce apparently irreducibly complex entities. Or one could reject the application of Darwinism to a whole array of moral and metaphysical claims, e.g., natural rights, the existence of the soul, etc., without at all accepting any of the Behe, Meyer, Dembski arguments against the explanatory power of Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. If evolution (broadly construed) is the universal acid that Daniel Dennett claims, then the latter two scenarios are intellectually illegtimate according to the Pandas Thumb crowd (if I may be so bold). But if that is the case, then there really are only two options: evolution or design.

I'm not saying that this dichotomy captures the intellectual diversity in our universities. Of course it doesn't. But it seems that the game played by many is that its naturalism or superstition. But once that game is played, then its the naturalist, not the theist, who is puttng in place a false dichotomy.

I've never had much interest in the evolution-creation stuff until about 5 years ago when I decided to pursue a research project on public education and the First Amendment that eventually led to my grad work on the subject at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. Prior to 1999-2000, I probably would be best described as a theistic evolutionist open to critiques of evolution. Frankly, I didn't care too much about the debate. But what I found in my reading of the literature of the subject disturbed me. I would find critics of the ID guys saying that ID is religion and that religion deals with theological and moral stuff. But then I would read these same critics saying that evolution shows that morality is the result of natural selection and that science shows that there is no God or soul. So, I was confused. I thought that "science" didn't deal with stuff that was the exclusive domain of "religion." Therefore, as long as scientists do not scold their colleagues, untrained in theology and philosophy, who lecture theologians and philosophers on the parameters of their discipline, I don't see why philosophers and theologians can't return the favor. Until the NCSE starts issuing statements condemning the "misuse" of "science" in judging the veracity of religious claims, it's difficult to take seriously the claim on the part of the NCSE and its allies that religion and science are two different, non-overlapping, spheres of knowledge.

FJB

Beckwith writes, "If by the latter I mean an account of the order and nature of things that excludes a non-natural agency, then design and evolution are mutually exclusive. But in that sense, "evolution" is not a theory, but a worldview, one for which may offer evidence and arguments, but in much the same way one offers evidence and arguments for theism."

Chances are that you are better off telling us what you mean by design than telling us what is meant by evolution. Since you would define design as coming from non-natural agency, it is, by your logic, "design" (instead of evolution) that is clearly not a theory, but a worldview. You require design to be an account of the order and 'nature of things' that requires 'non-natural agency', which by the way goes against a lot of your fellow IDist's thinking. Hmm... an account of the 'nature of things' that requires 'non-natural agency'...

Anyway, it should be noted that evolution need not be pigeonholed by your useless critieria demarcating the role of 'non-natural' vs. 'natural' agencies. It is simply judged by other epistemological standards. One of them, of course, is that a scientific theory survives on the quantity and quality of testable, repeatable, observable evidence. This criteria by itself does not exclude a 'non-natural agency'. It is just that no one has yet demonstrated the utility of non-natural agencies in a successful scientific theory.

Finally, it is a categorical error to consider all religious claims immune to scientific purview. Conversely, religious claims should find no comfort by simply tacking the R-word onto them. This is, well, so obvious that I cannot believe any one would find it controversial. ;-)

Anyway, I really wanted to write that if you thought my previous post was an attempt at comedy, you have a false sense of humour. ;-)

Cheers

Finally, it is a categorical error to consider all religious claims immune to scientific purview.  Conversely, religious claims should find no comfort by simply tacking the R-word onto them.  This is, well, so obvious that I cannot believe any one would find it controversial. ;-)

...I would read these same critics saying that evolution shows that morality is the result of natural selection and that science shows that there is no God or soul... as long as scientists do not scold their colleagues, untrained in theology and philosophy, who lecture theologians and philosophers on the parameters of their discipline, I don't see why philosophers and theologians can't return the favor.

Until the NCSE starts issuing statements condemning the "misuse" of "science" in judging the veracity of religious claims, it's difficult to take seriously the claim on the part of the NCSE and its allies that religion and science are two different, non-overlapping, spheres of knowledge.

Is this what it really comes down to for you, FJB? That because some Darwinian X claims morality can be explained by natural selection, therefore the NCSE and the scientific community should disavow evolution as a failed worldview and apologize for all the abuses of science? Perhaps, in return, you would like to disavow Christianity because some Christian Creationist Y fouled up the age of the earth?

I understand that you'd like to think the S-word adds nothing, as if to assert some sort of universal truth. However, your view would be in the significant minority. For in this day and age, the S-word definitely has value. And in particular areas of knowledge, it definitely has demonstrated its superior worth compared to the R-word. However, I am quite ready to allow that the S-word has less value in certain other areas of knowledge, even less than the R-word. In fact, I find it quite valuable that the S-word has epistemological limitations. It is how one identifies and rejects the misappropriated use of the S-word. In fact, I dare say, one can judge the claim the morality is explained by natural selection largely on the epistemological standards used to judge many other S-based ideas, without recourse to evaluating R-based explanations for the same phenomena.

But, are you ready to make similar concessions about the limiations of the R-word, FJB?

If not, I'd like to hear your R-based, non-natural account of the nature of living things in this world. In particular, I'd like to know how an R-based account of morality is a superior account than morality as explained by natural selection.

Dr. Beckwith, can you cite for me any paper in any peer-reviewed journal, or even perhaps a book review (that is clearly not peer-reviewed)in such a journal, in which a scientist "misuses" science by judging religious claims?

I find your implicit claim to be uncredible. I know of no such instances. Can you find a few? Can you find one clear example?

Alan Gourant tells an untruth: Coming from Mr. Cordova, it is doubly suprising if we recall that Mr. Cordova had once accused Perakh of lying (in a post to ARN) and after this accusation was shown to lack merits, Mr. Cordova did not deem fit to apologize.

Dr. Perakh,

Wesley Elsberry points out that I did not accuse you of lying. See Elsberry's post

http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000484.html#c7832

respectfully,
Salvador

PS
The above post by Alan is the second time Alan made that untruthful statement. I demand he withdraw it, and make sure he does repeat his false acusations against me again.

Seriously, Nick raises some good points that I did not have a chance to respond to on my blog. The parsimony-falsification confusion is a legitimate criticism,

but I think it ultimately depends on what I mean by design and evolution. If by the latter I mean an account of the order and nature of things that excludes a non-natural agency, then design and evolution are mutually exclusive. But in that sense, "evolution" is not a theory, but a worldview, one for which may offer evidence and arguments, but in much the same way one offers evidence and arguments for theism.

Darwinism concerns biological evolution, but not cosmic evolution. Someone, for example, could hold to cosmological design while rejecting Behe's critique of the power of natural selection to produce apparently irreducibly complex entities. Or one could reject the application of Darwinism to a whole array of moral and metaphysical claims, e.g., natural rights, the existence of the soul, etc., without at all accepting any of the Behe, Meyer, Dembski arguments against the explanatory power of Darwinism or neo-Darwinism. If evolution (broadly construed) is the universal acid that Daniel Dennett claims, then the latter two scenarios are intellectually illegtimate according to the Pandas Thumb crowd (if I may be so bold). But if that is the case, then there really are only two options: evolution or design.

I'm not saying that this dichotomy captures the intellectual diversity in our universities. Of course it doesn't. But it seems that the game played by many is that its naturalism or superstition. But once that game is played, then its the naturalist, not the theist, who is puttng in place a false dichotomy.

I've never had much interest in the evolution-creation stuff until about 5 years ago when I decided to pursue a research project on public education and the First Amendment that eventually led to my grad work on the subject at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. Prior to 1999-2000, I probably would be best described as a theistic evolutionist open to critiques of evolution. Frankly, I didn't care too much about the debate. But what I found in my reading of the literature of the subject disturbed me. I would find critics of the ID guys saying that ID is religion and that religion deals with theological and moral stuff. But then I would read these same critics saying that evolution shows that morality is the result of natural selection and that science shows that there is no God or soul. So, I was confused.

I thought that "science" didn't deal with stuff that was the exclusive domain of "religion." Therefore, as long as scientists do not scold their colleagues, untrained in theology and philosophy, who lecture theologians and philosophers on the parameters of their discipline, I don't see why philosophers and theologians can't return the favor. Until the NCSE starts issuing statements condemning the "misuse" of "science" in judging the veracity of religious claims, it's difficult to take seriously the claim on the part of the NCSE and its allies that religion and science are two different, non-overlapping, spheres of knowledge. FJB

Science, Religion, and Evolution NCSE is concerned with evolution education and the public understanding of the nature of science. How will these three intersections of science and religion affect our issues? My evaluation is that the "science and religion" movement, consisting primarily of theists who already accept evolution and who have a healthy respect for science, is not a challenge and may be beneficial to the public understanding of science and evolution. Many members of the general public have not heard a counterargument to the anti-evolutionist position that one "must choose between evolution and religion." Greater public prominence of religious scientists who accept evolution should help put that falsehood to rest and may promote a climate in which more teachers can teach evolution without fear of reprisal. "Science and Religion", "Christian Scholarship", and "Theistic Science": Some Comparisons by Eugenie C. Scott (1998)

I would like to point out that this discussion becomes vastly more illuminating when run through a leetspeak filter.

Biology does not study miracles.

Beckwith makes a curious assertion "Until the NCSE starts issuing statements condemning the "misuse" of "science" in judging the veracity of religious claims, it's difficult to take seriously the claim on the part of the NCSE and its allies that religion and science are two different, non-overlapping, spheres of knowledge."

First of all, people who use science to support their beliefs can be found at all sides of the spectrum, and they are all wrong, science cannot resolve issues of religious faith. Secondly, unlike ID organizations like the Discovery Institute, few atheists etc are trying to introduce a poorly developed concept as science into the classroom and even fewer are working on overthrowing a strawman (read the DI's Wedge Document). In other words, atheists may be using science to make their case, but ID proponents are not even use science when insisting that ID is or its code word variants are taught in science classes.

Finally, if this is the standard to which Beckwith is holding the NCSE then surely he will be a voice within the Discovery Institute to denounce creationisms/creationists before one can take seriously the claim on the part of the DI and its allies that intelligent design and creationism are two different spheres of knowledge.

The point is that there cannot be data, and therefore science, on the other side of the divide. So where do we put the line? To merely assert, as Frank Beckwith seems to, that such a line exists is irrefutable as a philosophical position. Drawing the line at a particular place, however, shuts off the possibility of scientific inquiry into the subject. And the history of science is that we have never encountered the line, and my prediction is that we never will. This is why ID gets us so riled; it is an attempt to pre-limit, not merely the applications of science, but science itself.

This has some terrible consequences. If some touchy subjects like "the mind" had been placed beyond the pale by the religious crowd, would we know about the influence of neurotransmitters on mood? Or that mental retardation due to metabolic deficiencies can be prevented by diet? In their search for theological certainty the anti-evolution crowd would have us stop doing science. Then we could all be lawyers. And wouldn't a world full of Phillip Johnsons be a wonderful place?

I believe that human consciousness is a conjuring trick, designed to fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an inexplicable mystery. Who is the conjuror and why is s/he doing it? The conjuror is natural selection, and the purpose has been to bolster human self-confidence and self-importance - so as to increase the value we each place on our own and others' lives.

With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3rd, 1881

Science can proceed quite happily within a design paradigm.

Is the mind completely comprehensible by science? Or does it disappear when we attempt to look at it through the narrow lens of a microscope?

At one level, [noting that science can flourish in a design paradigm] is simply stating the obvious. (Note the ID conjuring trick: find a statement that is blaringly obvious and then use it for drawing specious conclusions.)

To deny this would mean, in the extreme, that no science can be done by anyone who isn't an atheist.

Incidentally, quoting Newton as you do on your web page to justify the use of theistic reasoning in science is fatuous. He also believed in alchemy.

Actually, the fact that science can proceed with or without a "design paradigm" is pretty damning.

The relevant question for science and scientists regarding ID is whether there is any utility in positing the involvement of a non-observed, nonobservable, identity in Biology (rather like 19th century vitalism or the luminiferous ether in Physics).

I must say from reading the alleged contributions of the ID apologists on scientific topics, that the evidence for such utility is underwhelming at best. Does the poorly defined "design paradigm" make sense of the Miller-Urey experiment? The ID could have used the materials at hand. Or not. Does it lead to an understanding of emergent systems? Such properties may result from the Designer's will. Or not.

At best the use of ID in Biology goes against Occam's razor, a principle that can be justified by centuries of utility, and leads to wasting time.

Worse, ID puts answerable questions in Biology into the unmentionable category. For example, you write: Is the mind completely comprehensible by science? Or does it disappear when we attempt to look at it through the narrow lens of a microscope? The obvious answer is that we won't know until we do the science. It's going rather well, actually, considering the magnitude of the problem and the late start.

I am afraid I have posted a reply to Salvador twice to wrong threads. Please look up my today's comment to Elsberry's contribution of September 22, 2004. I believe it happened because I saw there today's comment by Gourant (who admitted having confused Salvador with Alonso and apologized). I don't know why Gourant posted his today's comment in the thread of September 22 and I can't remember how I happened to come across that comment, but having seen Gourant's comment, I added my comment replying to Salvador, without checking in which thread it appeared. Hopefully it will get clarified now.

BTW, why think we couldn't know something about the mind apart from science?

I think this conflates ID with theism, which seeks to identify intelligence as a cause alongside of chance and necessity. If successful, then clearly there would be a great deal of utility insofar as truth is connected to usefulness. But others have written on this before.

So much vituperation, so little time...

On a positive note, thanks for the invitation to TalkOrigins and Panda's Thumb. I've already benefitted from some of the writing here and there, and expect to do so in the future.

Take care,

Steve

Overly simplistic theories that have no room for things like the effects of intelligence and its effects on the empirical world may be just a little myopic. Really, I think some sort of ID theory is needed to expand science to capture phenomena we surround ourselves with every day. Anything else seems like an artificial restriction.

So much vituperation, so little time . . .

However, positing the involvement of an intelligent agent requires some corroborating evidence for the existence and involvement of the supposed agent.

We don't ascribe the extinction of the dinosaurs to human hunters, simply because there is no evidence of coincident humans. Read Elliott Sober's discussion of the design argument for an explanation.

Why am I not surprised?

(Read Dawkins on echolocation; it's quite difficult to think that it could have arisen on its own.)

— Steve T.

ID advocates have no need to eliminate natural processes; on the contrary, all they need to do is show one example of design.

— Steve T.

I think some things bear obvious signs of intelligence. Even Dawkins and Crick have admitted that, prima facie, biological structures appear to be designed. (Read Dawkins on echolocation; it's quite difficult to think that it could have arisen on its own.)

And when we descend to a tractable level in biology, one that we can apply mathematics to, we find molecular machinery - reaffirming the prima facie impression. And that does have implications: it eliminates direct Darwinian pathways from the get go.

ID advocates have no need to eliminate natural processes; on the contrary, all they need to do is show one example of design.

ID advocates have no need to eliminate natural processes; on the contrary, all they need to do is show one example of design.

burp?

Rilke:

Here's a mental exercise for you. Presume, just for grins, that there IS a designer, and that the designer DID create life, and that the designer IS actively introducing genetic variation, for example during copying processes, or by directing cosmic rays, etc.

Now, how could you possibly demonstrate it? Under what circumstances could you show that this process isn't natural? Remember, you're trying to show the *actual fact*! Is it possible?

Mr. Elsberry,

Dawkins gives a popular treatment of echolocation in bats in his The Blind Watchmaker. I'd have to review it for specifics, but it's far more complex and finely-tuned than I would have imagined before reading about it. Again, prima facie, the burden seems to be on the evolutionist, not the design theorist.

As to your other post, direct or indirect, the point is that we need not take a pantheistic or animist view of the universe as advocates of design.

Take care,

Steve

As Wesley very accurately points out, in two hundred years not one ID advocate has shown such an example, or even clafiied what such an example would look like.

Perhaps Dr. Dembski is wrong, but why doesn't the bacterial flagellum count as "what such an example would look like"? Reputable scientists are claiming that it strongly resembles highly efficient, designed machinery, after all. So why doesn't this count? Fill me in.

Here's a mental exercise for you. Presume, just for grins, that there IS a designer, and that the designer DID create life, and that the designer IS actively introducing genetic variation, for example during copying processes, or by directing cosmic rays, etc. Now, how could you possibly demonstrate it? Under what circumstances could you show that this process isn't natural? Remember, you're trying to show the *actual fact*! Is it possible?

Steve T. is being rightly smacked in this forum for the usual ID sins. This isn't a smackdown, but a scientific challenge. Steve, if ID is to be taken seriously as a scientific hypothesis, it must, as Flint says, GO somewhere.

So here's the challenge. Can you identify in advance what properties a newly discovered biological system would have that would rule out its being designed by a supernatural agent?

The converse happens in Biology every day. We test new phenomena daily vs. evolutionary models but we find none that are inconsistent with having arisen through the evolutionary processes of variation, selection and reproduction. And we have phenomena that would falsify our model of evolution through natural selection: new organismal genomes (it would be earth-shattering if one didn't have ribosomes, although that might be accommodated), adaptive mutation in bacteria (initially appeared to be Lamarckian evolution but now known to be due to a fascinating set of mutational processes), newly discovered fossils (they all fit into the existing trees), etc.

Why do I say rule out? Because that is the test of a useful hypothesis. We can hypothesize that Marvin the Martian is the one responsible for the loss of Mars probes, and is just better at hiding than we are at finding him. I cannot convince an Intelligent Martian theorist that this is impossible. But a moment's thought will show that this hypothesis, like ID, doesn't GO anywhere.

Cheers,
Frank

Perhaps Dr. Dembski is wrong, but why doesn't the bacterial flagellum count as "what such an example would look like"? Reputable scientists are claiming that it strongly resembles highly efficient, designed machinery, after all. So why doesn't this count? Fill me in.

found, not a transcription or simple copying error, but an entire gene (introns and all) that matched perfectly a gene in another species . . . . then I might get suspicious.

Reputable scientists are claiming that it strongly resembles highly efficient, designed machinery, after all. So why doesn't this count?

Mr. Elsberry,

— Steve T.

Dawkins gives a popular treatment of echolocation in bats in his The Blind Watchmaker. I'd have to review it for specifics, but it's far more complex and finely-tuned than I would have imagined before reading about it. Again, prima facie, the burden seems to be on the evolutionist, not the design theorist.

— Steve T.

As to your other post, direct or indirect, the point is that we need not take a pantheistic or animist view of the universe as advocates of design.

— Steve T.

"ID advocates have no need to eliminate natural processes; on the contrary, all they need to do is show one example of design." This would mark a break from the reasoning employed thus far by the leading ID advocates. Both Behe's irreducible complexity and Dembski's specified complexity are premised upon the elimination of alternative explanations, not the direct assessment and identification of "design". Dembski, in fact, defines design as the residue left when one pares away chance and necessity. What, precisely, is the proposed procedure for "showing" design in this "one example"? The "one example" seems quite elusive, since no one from Paley onwards seems to have come up with such that is universally convincing.

Perhaps Dr. Dembski is wrong, but why doesn't the bacterial flagellum count as "what such an example would look like"? Reputable scientists are claiming that it strongly resembles highly efficient, designed machinery, after all. So why doesn't this count? Fill me in.

— Steve T.

Dr. Elsberry,

Thanks for the links. I'm somewhat familiar with Miller and Van Till's arguments, but I'll read over all three articles, since you recommended them as evidence counting against design.

Take care,

Steve

Sigh. There cannot possibly be any evidence against design. Not even in principle. What there CAN be is evidence in favor of other possible explanations that produce a wealth of testable hypotheses, whereas design produces none. Design can't be proved right or wrong. If it could, it might contribute something.

Sigh. There cannot possibly be any evidence against design. Not even in principle. What there CAN be is evidence in favor of other possible explanations that produce a wealth of testable hypotheses, whereas design produces none. Design can't be proved right or wrong. If it could, it might contribute something.

— Flint

I'm somewhat at a loss to understand the last couple of comments. When I ask why the flagellum is not a case of design, and then Dr. Elsberry throws me three references and says, "here's why", that doesn't count as evidence against design? It rules out design, but isn't evidence against it?

Thanks for your patience.

Steve

Steve T:

No, design can't be ruled out. Why isn't this clear to you?

Maybe it would be helpful to fill in some of what has been unspoken. The ID people are attempting to make the claim that design is the ONLY possible cause of the flagellum. Dr. Elsberry's examples show that this isn't so; that there are other possible mechanisms. This doesn't rule design out, it simply shows that design doesn't have the field to itself. And in general, design NEVER has the field to itself. In the worst case, it must share the field with "we don't know yet."

Steve T. is in good company in his confusion, though. Michael Behe and William Dembski have made statements about falsifying "intelligent design" that make it clear that they did not understand what falsification meant.

In order to do that would require some result, checkable in good old empirical data, that MUST be the case if "intelligent design" were true. The observation of contrary results in the data would then tell you that "intelligent design" was false. This means that "intelligent design" would have the form of a universal statement in order that things could work that way. But "intelligent design", as a concept, has no such representation. Instead, it is posed as an existential statement that somewhere, sometime, some phenomenon will be found that won't be explicable in terms of other processes. This is the sort of statement in the class of statements that Popper dismissed as unscientific.

But ID advocates are fond of asking people what's wrong with Phenomenon X, and when they get considered answers that show what is wrong with Phenomenon X as the proposed "one example" that will validate the existential goal of "intelligent design", they are happy to abandon Phenomenon X as having no bearing upon the truth-value of the general concept of "intelligent design", and say instead, "OK, now what about Phenomenon Y?"

This sophomoric pastime of ID advocates soon palls on the people who routinely take up the tiresome burden of providing an answer for each instance. Yet if answers beyond "We don't know yet" aren't forthcoming, it's amazing the froth that such ID advocates will work themselves into over Phenomenon Y, thinking, apparently, that they've discovered that magic bullet that will kill Darwinism dead on contact.

A lengthier exposition is at
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000191.html

Thank you for taking up the question, Dr. Elsberry. I'll definitely review what you've said, and read over the material you've recommended.

Take care,

Steve

P.S. I should have said this earlier, but I meant no disrespect in referring to you as "Mr." Just the opposite, but I had failed to notice your credentials.

Wesley,

For the Van Till, thank you, thank you. Manna from Heaven, as it were. I'm in a dogfight on another board and in over my head. It'll definitely help.