An analogy written to shed light into ID’s identity as creationism or science . . . 8-)
The tiny figures scaling the monolith carefully examined its weather torn surface; certainly there was something creative at work in these features and patterns throughout the mountainside. As Royand observed the work from his distant position he saw that each of the four distinct forms had similar features, and the complexity of pattern revealed design, though the data input thus far remained inconclusive. This dead planet was very likely razed by random implosions and had exhibited no earlier known signs of life. However, the research would continue until all avenues of exploration for these phenomena were discovered. It remained the honoured work of their planet’s intrepid intellects to scan the cosmos for all intellectual signs of life. As the excavators worked Royand sought the sky for the familiar band of light which reminded him of home. It was a long way across that band and he would not see his green planet, Simaril, ever again. Still, they were certain now, that the cosmos held the mysteries to origin.
What if?
Intelligent Design advocates are asking a seemingly harmless question: Can objects in which nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause? What if humans became extinct leaving few signs of their pre-existence, and aliens visiting the earth discovered Mount Rushmore in largely the same condition as it is now? What about this rock formation would provide convincing evidence that it was due to a designing intelligence, not merely to wind and erosion? Would signs of an intelligent cause mean that the origin was God?
Two differing approaches~
Creationists start with the premise that God created, and deduct a Designer. ID inducts the arrangements of preexisting materials that point to an intelligent cause. Therefore, creationism and ID are quite different. Designed objects like Mount Rushmore exhibit characteristic patterns that point to a designing intelligence. In arguing the design of natural systems, Intelligent Design theorists are more modest than the design arguments of natural theology known as creationism, and a modest approach to new information is a common tact among the empirical sciences. A theologian might point to nature and say, “Clearly, the designer of this ecosystem prized variety over neatness.†A design theorist doing design-theoretic research on that ecosystem might reply, “Although that’s an intriguing theological possibility, as a design theorist I focus on the informational pathways capable of producing that variety.â€Â
Science is data, calculated and sifted, and slowly understood, no gambling is allowed.
What has kept ID outside the scientific mainstream since the rise of Darwinism has been the lack of precise methods for distinguishing intelligently caused objects from unintelligently caused ones. In studying and analyzing a system’s components, a design theorist may determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, part of natural law, have an intelligent design, or some combination of the same. Chance and design are integrally different, because design must be specifically complex, while any complexity in chance is a matter of probability. An improbable event is not sufficient to eliminate chance; by flipping a coin long enough, one will witness a highly complex or improbable event. Sound reason attributes this to nothing other than chance. The important thing about specifications is that they are found objectively prearranged and not arbitrarily imposed on events after the fact. Accordingly, specified complexity is a reliable empirical marker of intelligence in the same way that fingerprints are a reliable empirical marker of a person’s presence. Further, design theorists argue that neither purely material factors nor random variants can adequately account for specified complexity.
What does ID claim?
Intelligent design’s central claim is that only intelligent causes adequately explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable. To say intelligent causes are empirically detectable is to say that well-defined methods exist, which when based on observable features of the world, can reliably distinguish intelligent causes from undirected natural causes. Many special sciences have already developed such methods for drawing this distinctionâ€â€notably forensic science, cryptography, and archeology. Essential to all these methods is the ability to eliminate chance and necessity.
Just how scientific is ID?
The advocates of ID base their arguments on biological and physical data generally accepted in science. They use the same kinds of analytical methods as other scientists. ID scientists “observe†the types of information produced when intelligent agents act, then “rigorously test†objects which have those same types of informational properties commonly known to come from intelligence. Last, they seek to establish what “scientific hypothesis†can be drawn from the evidence. ID has applied these scientific methods to detect design in four areas of nature thus far. These include; irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion.
What written proof and acceptance does ID have, if any?
It has been claimed here that design theorists do not publish their work in appropriate peer-reviewed journals, a practice in scientific inquiry called formal disclosure. However, the scientists inquiring into intelligent design have published their work in a variety of appropriate technical venues, including peer-reviewed scientific journals, peer-reviewed scientific books (some in mainstream university presses), trade presses, peer-edited scientific anthologies, peer-edited scientific conference proceedings and peer-reviewed philosophy of science journals and books. A simple search for these documents may be found on the discovery.org website available to the public.
Every man who throws mud at another loses part of the ground he is standing on. :roll:
The result of blowing the creationist whistle has been wide spread defamation. The media and many within the respectable science community have succeeded in painting these scientists as God-pushers and barring their theory from scientific recognition in courts of law. The resulting intolerance and prejudice bans ID from ever being considered legally acceptable as a competing teleology for evolution in fields of science. This is blatant misuse of the separation of church and state clause. It is clear from U.S. Supreme Court precedents that the Constitution permits both the teaching of evolution as well as the teaching of scientific criticisms of prevailing scientific theories. The current legal judgment over whether competing teleology’s may be taught in the science classroom is not the most recent media-hyped case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, as it has not been appealed to any higher court authority than the case of Edwards v. Aguillard (1987).. In which the Court explicitly stated: “We do not imply that a legislature could never require that scientific critiques of prevailing scientific theories be taught.†Therefore as the law states, it is entirely legal to teach intelligent design alongside evolution in the classroom, but not in Dover.
Just how Darwinist was Darwin?
Finally, to the Darwinist; Darwin’s greatest achievement was to show how the structured complexity of organisms could be attained apart from a designing intelligence. ID therefore, directly challenges Darwinism and other naturalistic approaches to the origin of life. Yet, if Darwin had known what we now know about molecular biology with gigabytes of coded information in DNA, cells rife with tiny machines, and the highly specific structures of certain proteins, would he have found his own theory convincing? I believe he may have desired to find the fair results, his own writings confirm this. “A fair result can be obtained only by balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.†(Charles Darwin) Certainly, his fair-minded approach is not only clinical and scientific, but would suppose questioning his own theories for the sake of balance in good science.
Adding my bucks worth to this pot. :-D bonnie
