Specified complexity

[DaveB]

But if man is in the image of God, then we could look for design analogous to human design.

Blessings,
Lee

From the looks of it, they (TheLurch and shunyadragon) are using straw-men to argue with.

TheLurch's arguments are only valid if you are trying to claim who the designer is. That's why you would need to know the capabilities of the designer.

shunyadragon is using the word "natural" to mean "non-supernatural", when in reality, it means (the definition applicable to the topic), not made by humans.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/natural

1 Existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind.

Of course, ID says nothing about determining who the designer is, nor whether the intelligence is supernatural or not.

It simply says "we can infer if something is the result of intelligence" (as opposed to non-intelligent natural processes).

[shunyadragon]

From the looks of it, they (TheLurch and shunyadragon) are using straw-men to argue with.

TheLurch's arguments are only valid if you are trying to claim who the designer is. That's why you would need to know the capabilities of the designer.

shunyadragon is using the word "natural" to mean "non-supernatural", when in reality, it means (the definition applicable to the topic), not made by humans.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/natural

1 Existing in or derived from nature; not made or caused by humankind.

Of course, ID says nothing about determining who the designer is, nor whether the intelligence is supernatural or not.

It simply says "we can infer if something is the result of intelligence" (as opposed to non-intelligent natural processes).

Apologetic argues for Intelligent Design as design based on a designer outside our physical existence, God. SETI seeks no such thing. It looks for intelligence in radio waves that are comparable to human intelligence of beings with a natural origin.

[shunyadragon]

But if man is in the image of God, then we could look for design analogous to human design.

Blessings,
Lee

No, because God would not use the methods used by humans, who use human intelligence to design and make things. There is no parallel of what humans design and what would be the natural nature of our physical existence.

[DaveB]

Apologetic argues for Intelligent Design as design based on a designer outside our physical existence, God. SETI seeks no such thing.

That isn't true.

https://intelligentdesign.org/whatisid/Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.

ID does not argue for God or for the supernatural. The implications of ID are another matter.

ID is only looking for signs of intelligence. It doesn't matter if the intelligence is human, alien or otherwise.

You're right about one thing, though. SETI doesn't seek a supernatural origin of an "intelligent" signal. Such an origin has been ruled out from the start.

[shunyadragon]

That isn't true.

https://intelligentdesign.org/whatisid/Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design does not claim that modern biology can identify whether the intelligent cause detected through science is supernatural.

ID does not argue for God or for the supernatural. The implications of ID are another matter.

ID is only looking for signs of intelligence. It doesn't matter if the intelligence is human, alien or otherwise.

You're right about one thing, though. SETI doesn't seek a supernatural origin of an "intelligent" signal. Such an origin has been ruled out from the start.

Not true your sources betray you. The only staff at the Discovery Institute and AIG are Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians. 'Product of Intelligent Design' directly refers to Design that is outside nature that CANNOT be accounted for by NATURAL causes. More references to follow.

By the way they have not been able to falsify any theory nor hypothesis that would support their belief in Intelligent Design.

[DaveB]

Not true your sources betray you. The only staff at the Discovery Institute and AIG are Evangelical Fundamentalist Christians.

I doubt that is true about the DI, but what does this have to do with anything? Smells like ad hominem to me.

'Product of Intelligent Design' directly refers to Design that is outside nature that CANNOT be accounted for by NATURAL causes.

Not accounted for by natural causes, yes, but that doesn't mean the only answer is the supernatural. Things designed by humans (or aliens) fall within ID but are not supernatural.

And again, ID stops with the inference of intelligence.

More references to follow.

That would be great.

[HMS_Beagle]

That isn't true.

Sadly yes, it is true. ID is a religiously motivated political movement, not a scientific one. Its written goals are to end "materialism" and get Christian creation views reintroduced to public school science classes. That ID is just rebranded Creationism was made quite clear in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial over 13 years ago. ID proponents had every opportunity on a national stage to make a scientific case and face planted big time. Since then the only thing keeping ID on life support is the religious think tank Discovery Institute. Every major ID supporter these days is on the DI payroll - Meyer, Behe, Axe, Gauger, Wells, etc. They do no science, just produce propaganda books and films aimed at the scientifically unschooled lay public. Every one of those ID supporters has also come out publicly and said the "Designer" is their Christian God.

The ploy to sneak Creation past the Constitution's Establishment Clause by removing references to God failed miserably. No one in the scientific community or courts was fooled.

[lee_merrill]

No, because God would not use the methods used by humans, who use human intelligence to design and make things.

But how do you know this about God?

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

That ID is just rebranded Creationism was made quite clear in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial over 13 years ago. ID proponents had every opportunity on a national stage to make a scientific case and face planted big time.

Actually, the judge in that case misrepresented Behe's testimony:


Yet the judge concluded that Behe said they weren't good enough.

Blessings,
Lee

[rogue06]

Sadly yes, it is true. ID is a religiously motivated political movement, not a scientific one. Its written goals are to end "materialism" and get Christian creation views reintroduced to public school science classes. That ID is just rebranded Creationism was made quite clear in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial over 13 years ago. ID proponents had every opportunity on a national stage to make a scientific case and face planted big time. Since then the only thing keeping ID on life support is the religious think tank Discovery Institute. Every major ID supporter these days is on the DI payroll - Meyer, Behe, Axe, Gauger, Wells, etc. They do no science, just produce propaganda books and films aimed at the scientifically unschooled lay public. Every one of those ID supporters has also come out publicly and said the "Designer" is their Christian God.

The ploy to sneak Creation past the Constitution's Establishment Clause by removing references to God failed miserably. No one in the scientific community or courts was fooled.

As Leonard Krishtalka, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Director of the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas, once quipped: "Intelligent design is nothing more than creationism in a cheap tuxedo." This view is strongly supported when one reads what the leaders of the movement tend to say to friendly audiences. For instance:

Philip E. Johnson (the father of the Intelligent Design movement):


William Dembski:

The Wedge Document:^[1]

Governing Goals ... To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Then there is the book "Of Pandas and People," which was designed to be a school textbook that promoted Intelligent Design. It was originally written as a strictly creationist tract with the original title being "Creation Biology" and was only slightly altered to get around the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court decision Edwards v. Aguillard which declared it unconstitutional to teach creationism in classrooms. For instance, the passage

was changed to read

cdesign proponentsists

As a final note about the book, one of its co-authors, Percival Davis, later acknowledged in a November 1994 interview with the Wall Street Journal, that religious concerns underlay the writing of it, saying: "Of course my motives were religious. There's no question about it."

There are the statements of other leading advocates of ID worth considering here such as those by the Discovery Institute's spokesperson Casey Luskin who spends a lot of time running about insisting that Intelligent Design is not Creationism or religion but pure science. Yet upon occasion the mask slips such as when he attacks the anti-ID book "" as being "an anti-religious polemic" written by atheists. That's a funny criticism for defending a scientific proposal.

Luskin has said and written many other things that serve to undercut his claims. For example, from the first line of the conclusion of a paper that Luskin co-authored called "Intelligent Design Will Survive Kitzmiller v. Dover:

"The opinion in Kitzmiller is a misguided attempt on the part of a federal judge to settle controversies over science and religion that properly belong to practicing scientists and religious groups respectively.

So according to Luskin, the Kitzmiller case was all about "controversies over science and religion." And here I thought he said ID wasn't religiously based.

Luskin is also the sole author of "Alternative Viewpoints about Biological Origins as Taught in Public Schools" published in Journal of Church & State in 2005 (exactly where one would expect someone to argue the case that ID is science). His abstract is as follows (bolding added):

Reviews several laws to assess the ability to present creation science, intelligent design theory or scientific criticisms of evolution in public school districts in the U.S. which have various teaching viewpoints. Restrictions faced by the teaching of creation science; Background on the Lemon test, a judicial vehicle used by the U.S. courts to determine the constitutionality of teaching creation science; Nature of intelligent design theory.

Um... This does not exactly help his case that Intelligent Design is not a form of creationism.

Finally, on Luskin's biography provided by the Discovery Institute it says that he "is co-founder of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness (IDEA) Center, a non-profit helping students to investigate evolution by starting "IDEA Clubs" on college and high school campuses across the country." Yet according to the IDEA Center website "IDEA Center Leadership" (which would naturally include their co-founder, who is still listed on their Board of Directors and acts as the organizations Secretary) "believes that the identity of the designer is the God of the Bible" although they try to hide behind a disclaimer clause saying that it is "because of religious reasons unrelated to intelligent design theory."

Similarly, a comment from Discovery Institute Vice President John West also seems to acknowledge the religious nature of ID when he declared that allowing schools to criticize ID is "tantamount to state endorsement of an anti-religious view."

Another prominent ID spokesperson, Stephen Meyer, the director at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, is on record saying that the "designer" is God and that sub-optimal designs along with deadly diseases are not examples of an unintelligent design, but rather were the result of the Fall in the Garden of Eden.



Now to be fair, it is possible that not all of the advocates of Intelligent Design are creationists or "cdesign proponentsists" (David Berlinski claims he is an agnostic but often uses religious terminology in his arguments). What's more some of the largest creationist groups and their spokespersons have given ID a lukewarm reception at best.

Henry Morris, one of the founders of modern YEC movement expresses his dissatisfaction when he writes in "Design is not Enough
Still it appears that Morris sees ID and irreducible complexity are mere euphemisms for creation and watered down versions of creationism.

John Morris, Henry's son, who inherited the role of leader of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) after the latter's passing, takes a more hard-line approach:

More recently John Whitcomb, who co-wrote the Bible of the YEC movement with Henry Morris ("The Genesis Flood1. Put out by the Discovery Institute, the primary organization backing ID. Although initially dismissed by the Discovery Institute as merely an "urban legend" pushed by "Darwinist Paranoia," one of its co-founders, Stephen C. Meyer, eventually admitted that they were indeed the source of the document.

[shunyadragon]

I doubt that is true about the DI, but what does this have to do with anything? Smells like ad hominem to me.

Smells like Christian fundamentalism to me. In fact ALL the following in the Science section are fundamentalist Christians with exception of a Jew that believes in literal Genesis. . .

Accounted for by natural causes, yes, but that doesn't mean the only answer is the supernatural.

Things designed by humans (or aliens) fall within ID but are not supernatural.

And again, ID stops with the inference of intelligence.

Other than designed by humans which is obvious as far as science is concerned what other Intelligent Design sources could there be other than the supernatural, ie God?

That would be great.

More to follow . . .

[HMS_Beagle]

Actually, the judge in that case misrepresented Behe's testimony:


Yet the judge concluded that Behe said they weren't good enough.

Blessings,
Lee

You mean Behe whined after the fact he had been misrepresented. Doesn't explain why all the other IDiots also failed miserably to make their case. Also doesn't explain why ID "research" has produced nothing new in the 13+ years since then.

ID is religious apologetics in a cheap lab coat. It doesn't fool anyone except scientifically illiterate goobers who want to be fooled.

[shunyadragon]

But how do you know this about God?

Blessings,
Lee

IF the above is the case you could not differentiate what is Created by God or humans. The ID proposal is that there is something that cannot be explained by Natural processes. Humanity and human intelligence can be explained by natural processes.

God is not an engineer
God is a Creator.

[Roy]

Sadly yes, it is true.

Not quite - Berlinski is Jewish.

[lee_merrill]

IF the above is the case you could not differentiate what is Created by God or humans.

Surely you can, humans did not create life, for instance, yet life is present and is exquisitely designed.

The ID proposal is that there is something that cannot be explained by Natural processes. Humanity and human intelligence can be explained by natural processes.

And the point then is that as man is in the image of God, then human designing and divine designing will be somewhat analogous.

God is not an engineer
God is a Creator.

A creator of all things, which have the fingerprints of design all through them.

Blessings,
Lee