Talk:Intelligent design/Archive 12

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Archive 5

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Archive 10

Section in need of editing

To Be = To Design (8/13/05)

The counter argument of "Who designed the designer?" is the wrong one and a bad one against ID. The argument for intelligent design highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of existence; i.e. of being that both Id believers and many non ID believers share.

The fundamental assumption being made in this case is that without a designer existence would not be possible, or, if it were, existence would exist as pure chaos without order rhyme or reason . Since existence does not exist as chaos (not at the macro nor quantum levels) and certainly does exist (cognito ergo sum), therefore there must be a designer is the IDers argument.

What if, however, the very nature of existence itself, i.e. of being, was order and evolution. What if those attributes of the final, presumed divine, designer; i.e. the attributes of eternal existance and no origin, were actually the attributes of being, of existance itself.

What if the very nature of existence is, in fact, to be organized, ordered and developing, then the need for a designer logically ceases to exist. In other words what if existence is not and does not start as a blank slate, as nothingness. What if the very quiddity of being is self-designing?

"What designed the designer?"

By raising the question of the need for a designer for objects with irreducible complexity, ID also raises the question, "what designed the designer?" By ID's own arguments, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex. Unlike with religious creationism, where the question "what created God?" can be answered with theological arguments, this creates a logical paradox, as the chain of designers can be followed back indefinitely, leaving the question of the creation of the first designer dangling. The sort of logic required in sustaining such reasoning is known as circular reasoning; a form of logical fallacy.

One ID counter-argument to this problem invokes a n [[uncause d causer]] - in other words, a deity - to resolve this problem, in which case ID reduces to religious creationism. At the same time, the postulation of the existence of even a single uncaused causer in the Universe contradicts the fundamental assumption of ID that a designer is needed for every complex object. Another possible counter-argument might be an infinite regression of designers. However, admitting infinite numbers of objects also allows any arbitarily improbable event to occur, such as an object with "irreducible" complexity assembling itself by chance. Again, this contradicts the fundamental assumption of ID that a designer is needed for every complex object, producing a logical contradiction.

Thus, according to opponents, either attempt to patch the ID hypothesis appears to either result in logical contradiction, or reduces it to a belief in religious creationism. ID then ceases to be a falsifiable theory and loses its ability to claim to be a scientific theory.

Is it me or does this 1. Personify ID. 2. Belong as a criticsm of Irreducible complexity?

--Tznkai 3 July 2005 19:15 (UTC)

At the very least we have to include the content, if not he style. It is an excellent pointing out of the major flaws in ID, namely that even assuming ID is true, you STILL have to create the causer, and if not create a causer any and all ID artguments are invalid and thus ID provides a strong argument against isteslf.... IreverentReverend 3 July 2005 23:37 (UTC)+

Definatly think its pertinent, the style needs work, but my problem with it is not iherent to the content, but that it doesn't seem to be an additional crticism, but a very direct criticism on the irreducible complexity portion.--Tznkai 4 July 2005 02:14 (UTC)

I see it as a general criticism, as it undermines the entire concept, but that is just me... IreverentReverend 4 July 2005 04:54 (UTC)

"by raising the question of the need for a designer for objects with irreducible complexity, ID also raises the question, "what designed the designer?"" Thats where I see it.--Tznkai 4 July 2005 06:20 (UTC)

I supose it could fit their as well ;-) IreverentReverend 4 July 2005 06:22 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll get to it myself tomorrow--Tznkai 5 July 2005 00:54 (UTC)

Further debate between DBergan and FuelWagon on the topic of "Who designed the designer" has been moved to user:tznkai/playground--Tznkai 6 July 2005 16:12 (UTC)

Tznkai, what about Johnstone's quote* where Dembski says that this IS irrelevant? That's a valid reference which says that this section is only going to cause misinformation. David Bergan 6 July 2005 15:11 (UTC)

*My quote of Dembski was as follows: "Design-theoretic explanations are proximal or local explanations rather than ultimate explanations. Design-theoretic explanations are concerned with determining whether some particular event, object, or structure exhibits clear marks of intelligence and can thus be legitimately ascribed to design. Consequently, design-theoretic reasoning does not require the who-designed-the-designer question to be answered for the design inference to be valid."--Johnstone 7 July 2005 00:32 (UTC)

Simple. IR: what is it, what is the support, What is the notable criticism, dembski says they've got it wrong. Case closed, readers aren't stupid. Move on.--Tznkai 6 July 2005 15:39 (UTC)

Cool. I can go with that. Dawkins is the one who argues "who designed the designer?" although I don't have the actual reference on hand. David Bergan 6 July 2005 15:59 (UTC)

As long as you understand that the "dembski says this is missing the point" or whatever the sentance comes out to will be rather short, since we're not cataloguing the entire debate. The fact that he says they are wrong and a very breif why will be good enough I think, for readers to investigate themselves.--Tznkai 6 July 2005 16:12 (UTC)

Is it me or does this 1. Personify ID. yes. FuelWagon 6 July 2005 02:30 (UTC) 2. Belong as a criticsm of Irreducible complexity? yes. FuelWagon 6 July 2005 02:30 (UTC)

I seem to be a little late on this topic, but you really should throw a reference to David Hume in this section, as he wrote the seminal work on this 250-ish years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume#The_design_argument ... It (along with legal problems) is one of the main reasons that ID people don't like to talk about the designer in their theory. The whole thing falls apart as soon as any designer speculation comes into the picture. Actually, the whole thing basically shoots down the teleological argument (ID is just a somewhat obscured, sanitized rendition of teleology... not out of place in a philosophy class, but totally out of place, most people would aggree, in a science classroom). LukeD Jul. 16, 05:40:39 UTC

May I suggest that this article may begin by describing the philosophical issues at the bottom of it (in this case, the philosophical general problem of causality), with perhaps a historical review of the debate (a history of the argument of design, in its various expressions and noted objections to it), and finally the "new" claims advance by the contemporary scientist advocating this point of view and their reasons to attribute to it 'scientific' pedigree, with the corresponding counter arguments. I think this outline would favor clarity. since as it stands the sections of the article do not follow a clear line of fair descriptive neutral presentation that is the standard wiki articles should aim at.

Evolutionary creationism.

Although I have notably been one of the editors who've used the butcher's knife around here, I'm actually going to *gasp* suggest a new section, or atleaast a new paragraph. It'd be nice if we can describe the diffrence (if any) between evolutionary creationism and ID. As far as I can tell, I am an EC because I believe in God inspiring evo, while I am not an ID because I hold this position based on my faith, not because its science. (which it is not). Am I on target here?--Tznkai 5 July 2005 05:54 (UTC)

Errr, let's dig thru the history tomorrow. There used to be a nice section that got moved (I forget where) on Pope John Paul's take on ID. Let's start by parsing that. Also, we need to mention the "stacked deck" concept.--ghost 5 July 2005 05:57 (UTC)

That was me. I rewrote and tossed it into the movement article.--Tznkai 5 July 2005 06:15 (UTC)

Edit by 162.129.236.18

abiogenesis, the generation of life from non-living matter, is only partially understood by science despite being repeatedly reproduced in Miller-Urey experiments.

Really? Great. Please provide us with links to back this assertion. We need to be careful of creating a POV tone, but adding facts is always welcome.--ghost 5 July 2005 15:32 (UTC)

The design argument, precursor to Intelligent Design

Philosophers as far back as Plato have reasoned that the complexity of nature shows grounds for believing in supernatural design. The most notable forms of this argument were expressed by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica^[1] (thirteenth century) and William Paley in his book Natural Theology (nineteenth century) where he makes the famous watchmaker analogy. According to William Dembski, Intelligent Design is different from the design argument in one important respect: ID says nothing about who did the designing. It only seeks to know whether object X was designed, and pleads agnosticism on all questions of identity, purpose, or intent. ^[2]

First off, I'd like to congratulate Dbergan on a fine addition, even suffering the indignity of a revert on his first attempt (that was me).

Secondly, I think this section (which may later need to be moved around) is an excellent place to put some missing peices. The philosiphy of science, scientific creationism, theistic evolution, and that important distinction between ID as a philosiphical stance, and ID, the pseduo scientific theory.

Also, I think here is a good place to put the "additional criticism" about stealth creationism, without victimizing nor supporting DI or ID. I think a statement along the lines of "according to Dembski..." "Critics of Dembski and ID say this is disengenous..." would be fair.--Tznkai 6 July 2005 17:17 (UTC)

ID in Summary

Just a comment on why I deleted Tznkai's sentence. It disrupted the flow of the section. Moving from Dembski's analogy, we now have the response of ID opponents, rather than reiterating that ID is controversial and listing the variety of opponents. S.N. Hillbrand 7 July 2005 01:25 (UTC)

I thought the introductary sentance didn't count as having introduced the subject? Atleast this is a conflict over style and not neutrality!--Tznkai 7 July 2005 01:29 (UTC)

Good news, Bad news

I logged on (work's been crazy...) and noticed that we were back up to 54kB. :-( Then I took a deeper look, and found something interesting:

Good news - We have one of the best written Reference sections I've seen. It's got great stuff, and it's (mostly) built well.

Bad news - It's 17kB long. If you hit 'Print Preview', you'll see the Reference section takes 5 of the 15 pages in hardcopy. Without it, we're down to 37kB and well on our way to meeting the guidelines of Wikipedia:Article size.

There's no guide for reducing the size of a Reference section (and the Harvard links may need to stay on page to work). What's the best way to trim this, without losing value? I'm thinking we could setup the "See Also" and other more static sections as off-page tables/templates. Would that work? And would the Template Police come to take us away? One advantage would be the ability to easily carry the references across to the subarticles. I'm sure we could trim a couple, but the impact would be negligable. Any ideas?--ghost 7 July 2005 04:33 (UTC)

We can try going throug hthe refrences and seeing if we can come to a consensus on what is no longer needed?--Tznkai 14:57, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Benchmark

We've come a long way baby since I first saw this article a month ago. However, one of my original comments was that I counted up the "pro-ID" sentences and the "anti-ID" sentences of the intro. As a benchmark, I'm going to do that again with the intro and ID in summary.

Intro - 4 sentences: Pro, Pro, Subtly Anti, Blatantly Anti

ID In Summary

Paragraph 1 - 6 sentences: Pro, Pro, Pro, Pro, Pro, Pro

Paragraph 2 (and quote) - 3 sentences: Pro, Pro, Pro

Paragraph 3 - 11 sentences: Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti

Paragraph 4 - 6 sentences: Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti, Anti

Paragraph 5 - 3 sentences: Anti, Anti, Anti

Total: 11 Pro, 22 Anti

Personally, I think it is unacceptable to see 2 Anti for each Pro sentence... no matter what the subject is. Take a peek at evolution and you will see that the intro of that article has precisely zero Anti sentences. In fact it doesn't have any Anti sentences until you get all the way to the last section. If we did that here, we would be accused of burying the criticism.

Am I the only one, or is anyone else disturbed by this balance? Or does everyone else think the ID article deserves to be 66% criticism? Do the wiki guidlines support that? David Bergan 7 July 2005 06:03 (UTC)

as long as it is factual and acurate, I have no problem with it. It is not like the article is "anti" biased or anything, it comes of as slightly pro/ nuetral. it is our job to document the facts as they lie. It is the pro-ID peoples job to defend their cause to the scientific community. Honestly, I don't think that politics should intervien with the facts. Unless you can come up with more pro-ID facts, and we keep the pro-science portion to a minimum, and only facts, then it's ok. IreverentReverend 7 July 2005 13:10 (UTC)

The way I see it, ID commits several major logical fallacies, and a lot of criticism has to spend time educating the reader, such as telling them about Occam's Razor, or telling them about the difference between observation-based knowledge and intuitive-based knowledge. So, I don't have a problem with that ratio. FuelWagon 7 July 2005 14:01 (UTC)

I am not completely happy with the balance, since I think we're criticizing ID to much, not because its not worthy of criticism, or because of balance issues, but I feel like we're constantly reinventing the wheel. The ID and Evolution articles are not paralells. Evolution is an old old old theory with a great deal of popular and scientific support. ID is not. If you look at the coverage that the public gives it, we're probably underreporting slightly the ammount of criticism that ID gets (again, thats ok, since we'd be reinventing the wheel anyway)

Whether or not ID is inherently flawed or not is not really my perspective on what makes this article good and NPOV. (Part of why I get into edit conflicts on both sides of the wall here), but accuracy of reporting what the public at large thinks. To take another view, I don't think ID is taken seriously at all by the World At Large, its primarly an American phenominon. So if we're going with ratios, ID should be verrrry tiny. You do bring up an intresting criticsm, so what I propose is that we go through the criticsms and cut them down verbage wise, and also possibly remove the ones that are less pertinent to the discussion. We're not trying to give an exhaustive list of everything here. We also should start depending on the reader and wikilinks more to explain certain concepts past a single sentance.--Tznkai 7 July 2005 14:55 (UTC)

Content should not be cut based on "ratios". Any attempt to do so is assinine. ID is like someone asking "Have you stopped beating your wife?" It is a short sentence with only 6 words. To reply, however, you first have to explain what a "loaded question" is, point out that the person being asked the question is assumed to have beaten his wife without it being established as fact, rephrase the question to "Do you beat your wife?", and finally answer "no". These are all valid and needed pieces of a legitimate reply. And it's about FIFTY words long. To cut out a piece of this response because of ratios (6 word question, 50 word reply) is about the most assinine thing I've ever heard of. FuelWagon 7 July 2005 15:14 (UTC)

First, I'd appreciate if you cut down on the pejoritives, just for the sake of WP:AGF and civility. I do agree that ratio editing isn't always a great idea, but it does influence the apperance of POV or NPOV. Remember, appearance is something we have to worry about, thats the nature of POV and NPOV. I think we can find away to get all the pertinent facts, supports, and criticisms without using the format "ID says this. Critics say this, and this, and also this. Critics note that, and that." and so on, which is what skimming the article, it looks like it'll do sometimes.

As for your analogy, I disagree that you have to explain that its a loaded question. For a super simple example: "Thats a loaded question, I do not, have not, will not beat my wife. Ever." And in my case "... and I'm not even married." My point there is learn to depend on wikilinks. If they don't know what a loaded question is, maybe they'll find out.--Tznkai 7 July 2005 15:26 (UTC)

It was a 6 word question. and your "super simple" example is 24 words long. This means your example is 20% question, 80% rebuttal, sufficient for anyone to cry "Ratios!" as an excuse to cut material. FuelWagon 7 July 2005 17:11 (UTC)

....Did I disagree that ratio editing is bad?--Tznkai 7 July 2005 17:17 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that NPOV does not require equal balance of opinions, as some positions are more strongly supported. The fact that there were even 11 "pro" ID statements is actually quite amazing. If we think about a less belief-based topic, it becomes more obvious. For example, in an article on Spherical earth, one would not expect a 50-50 split between pro and anti (that is between spherical earth and Flat earth). Mmmbeer 15:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

False analogy. --goethean ॐ 17:41, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Its not really a false analogy, since it illustrates the concept that ratio editing does not always mean WP:NPOV. Its an observable fact (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that Intelligent Design (theory) is not acknowledge by the scientific community, or the majoirty of people.--Tznkai 19:22, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you should actually read false analogy. The point of the originating comment was that since there were more anti than pro it indicated an NPOV problem. Here I was stating that not every point of view deserves equal treatment. Mmmbeer 23:04, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

archived discussion

David, tznkai archived an active thread that we were talking on. my last reply is here. FuelWagon 8 July 2005 13:35 (UTC)

"What is Intelligent Design?"

When I think of ID, I think of isolating signs of intelligence like irreducible complexity... things that if we find an object that has this sign we know conclusively that that object was designed. I know of course that everyone wants to know if biological organisms have these signs of intelligence, but to me, that is a secondary consideration. ID theory makes a ton of sense when looking at inorganic stuff (Mt. Rushmore, pyramids, your computer, lego castle in the desert, watch on a beach, etc.). You analyze the parts and then say, "Yup, this was designed by an intelligent being." At this point, I don't really care if plants, animals, and cells have these signs of intelligence or not. Trying to apply these principles to anything organic just seems to infuriate people and muck up the idea. Therefore, my view is that ID is based on sound principles. Design is a causal agent in nature, and we should be able to distinguish designed stuff from undesigned stuff... but we aren't ready to apply the ID principles to biology, yet, and we may never get to that point.

But I'm not stupid. I know that this was all forged in a political context, and that overzealous mouths are salivating at the prospect of saying anything in school to topple Darwin from his throne. And in their haste to push their agenda they don't stop and actually try to learn about ID... just skim the book and give it to the students. So their ill-formed notions of ID lead to misunderstanding and they apply transparent fallacies to cover their ignorance. Anyone with an IQ above 100 can beat a fallacy, so the criticisms come quick and plenty... and the whole idea of ID is soiled.

But, I contend, that beneath this dunghill of politics is a jewel of insight. A jewel that may in the end only apply to inorganic objects, but an important one that seeks to confirm ancient intuitions. Can we know that X was designed simply by examining X? Can we know that a certain string of characters was written by an intelligent entity rather than being randomly drawn? Can we know that a particular radio signal was emitted by intelligent extra terrestrials?

If one could only shed all the muck that comes from talking about ID and biology, I think we would all agree that design theorists are on to something. And this is why my efforts have always been to elucidate the concept in inorganic terms. I would like the reader of our article to be enchanted with a notion that they can pick up any inorganic object in the world and wonder if it has signs of intelligence. They can pick up a mere pop bottle and say to themselves, I know by the shape that this was designed... but how do I know that? David Bergan 7 July 2005 18:48 (UTC)

I heartily agree here that there such thing as "signs of intelligence" although I do not know if that is scientific or not. It is very philosiphical. I think we have a holistic view of ID for this article. The sum and total of all the arguments involving the ID(theory) specificly used in attempt to prove life was designed. To refrence my earlier statements, if we take god and life out of the question I don't think ID breaches naturalism in anyway. Watches have a watchmaker. Why? Theoretically, this is observable. It is not however, actually observable by me. When we have a supernatural designer, we breach naturalism and scientific method (inobservable). When we talk about the universe, it again breaches naturalism, since the designer must be 1. Outside the (multi)-universe (unobservable, testible, touchable), or 2. Supernatural

As a personal belief, I think that there is a God, and he did "design" things. I don't think that'll ever be conclusivly proved one way or another by science. He's Supernatural after all. I think that is where most of us are, understanding that ID, as a whole, is terrible science, but intresting philosiphy. I'd like to dedicate a small section, and possibly start a new article on the merits of signs of intelligence, examining the scientific and philosiphical ramifications of that outside of the larger debate.--Tznkai 7 July 2005 19:00 (UTC)

Good questions. To push the limit one further, there is a very old philosophical question of whether or not intelligence itself is natural or supernatural. (Pascal said it best: "For it is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if any one maintain that we are simply corporeal, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself.") If intelligence is spiritual, can any study of intelligence thus be scientific?

On the other hand, intelligence is observable. We know we have it, and we attempt to measure it with a myriad of objective tests.

But intelligence is also supremely unpredictable. Precisely the reason we say Bobby Fisher is intelligent and the ocean tides are not is because Bobby has the ability to suprise us with his next chess move, yet the tides run on schedule. If Bobby's chess play was as predictable as the tides, we would think him a moron.

And these are the difficulties in dealing with ID. It is undeniable that some things are designed. Design is a third mode of causality in the universe. (The first being natural laws, and the second being randomness. If you want to explain how anything happens, you can explain it all with one or more of those three.) For sure, the scientific explanation for my laptop is intelligent design. (Right?) It would be ludicrous to insist that science has to explain its existence as only a product of natural laws and randomness, when quite obviously we all know it was designed.

Therefore the best scientific comparison for ID is forensic science. Forensic science doesn't observe the crime, or insist on repeating it. They never expect it to happen again. They just try to gather as much data as possible to determine if the fire started by accident (ie. natural laws and/or randomness) or arson (intelligent design). David Bergan 7 July 2005 19:25 (UTC)

Intresting. Forensic science is essentially a thought experiment to fill in the holes going with what is not known. Notably however, forensic science generally doesn't postulate new knowledge, it tries to apply what is already known. We're on the poise for a rather deep dive into philosiphy here.--Tznkai 7 July 2005 19:36 (UTC)

Forensic science follows the evidence; and indeed it (ideally) stays within the bounds of what is known and knowable. ID does not attempt to fairly weigh the three modes of causality. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 01:56, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

You don't know that any organic example you can point to was designed, by any scientific definition of the word "know". What you have is an area where humans do not know how something formed, and you guess that god did it. Unlike archeology or other historical sciences, your guess can never be tested. All that can happen is that humans may eventually come to understand some natural process that could explain the previously unknown thing, and your guess is shown to be unneccessary. Your guesses can never be proven wrong, since it is possible that God did step in and create the thing, and left false evidence to throw off the investigation. In the end, what you have amounts to a conspiracy theory. The idea that the CIA executed Kennedy is not a proven fact now. evidence may say that Oswald acted alone. But good conspiracies can always explain away the logical explanation and reinsert themselves into the dialogue. The conspiracy theory could be proven unneccesary in the future, perhaps when records show Oswald and three other non-CIA individuals did the deed, but the conspiricist can always say that the CIA payed them to do it. Linguistically, logically, and empirically, there is no difference between ID and any currently surviving conspiracy theory. The CIA killed Kennedy. The military is hiding captured alien spacecraft. Some bits of observations are given. A bunch of stuff is not known. And inside that unknown, the conspiricist inserts their theory. FuelWagon 7 July 2005 19:09 (UTC)

FW, I think you may have missed the point. Just looking at the idea of designer inference outside of the big questions, and focusing on the small. If we accept the naturalist philosiphy that God is a matter of faith and outside of our realm of knowledge, design becomes limitedly testable.--Tznkai 7 July 2005 19:15 (UTC)

Much of this article has nothing to do with the concepts of Intelligent Design and instead focuses on pointing out "creationist" motives of those in the Intelligent Design Movement. I wanted the article to be split up the article to have a main article that basically would have the "principles" of Intelligent Design (possibly expanded by those knowledgeable about it (not me), with Biological Intelligent Design, Cosmological Intelligent Design,...), and move the supernatural/creationist views of those in the movement to another page Supernatural Intelligent Design. Possibly one could create another page Extraterrestrial Intelligent Design (ETID), though google tells me that this has been assosiated with the Raleans. It seems that "Supernatural Intelligent Design" has been marked for deletion, even though the concept is not new, and the viewpoint is the same as the main article. Therefore it seems that people would like the POV nature of the ID article to remain, No, I do not generally believe in ID or ETID, despite my username. --GodWasAnAlien 2005-07-08 05:38

part of the issue of Intelligent Design is finding its proper definition is difficult. The article is written from a holistic standard of the largest use of ID, a politically motivated pseudoscientific theory used to attempt to make proving god scientific/redifine science. As I discussed with Dbergan, what we think of ID is usually diffrent from how it is defined in the mainstream. The problem with further splitting is that we cannot on wikipedia, coin neogolisms, rather we use the terms as applied and used. The ID article is in no ways perfect, but splitting it up won't work. I'd like to improve the introduction so we can sort out all these diffrent notions of what ID is, but I'll need some time to think on it. Anyway, in summation, my point is we're all indoctronated with some rather divergent ideas of what ID means.--Tznkai 8 July 2005 06:34 (UTC)

Yup. True story. Let's try to list everyone's divergent ideas so that we can go about building a solid intro. David Bergan 8 July 2005 15:46 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with the intro. I see no reason to "list everyone's divergent ideas" so that we can rewrite the intro. If there is a problem with the intro, bring it up and we can address it. but I'm not going to have this article get regurgitated from scratch everytime someone doesn't like it. If you have a specific problem, point it out. Otherwise, there is no justification for starting from scratch. FuelWagon 8 July 2005 17:54 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure if its a problem with the intro or just needs a subsection, but there is considerable confusion as to what ID is. Just let the process go through and see what it comes up with.--Tznkai 8 July 2005 18:02 (UTC)

Some Divergent Ideas

Most ID proponents see ID as their scientific little shepherd boy who will slay the Darwinian Goliath. They only are interested in ID insofar as it will get something un-Darwin in the schools. David Bergan 8 July 2005 15:46 (UTC)

Immmediatly want to link ID movement from here. Note that many of the great ID proponents belong to this camp.--Tznkai 8 July 2005 16:24 (UTC)

Ok... so are you thinking that we give all the political/social aspects of ID (including the court cases) a paragraph and head it with a "Main article: ID Movement"? David Bergan 01:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Reducing the content here on political/social aspects of ID and merging it with the ID Movement article is going to be tricky... it's tantamount to writing an article on Catholicism that attempts to avoid discussing the Vatican. The concept of ID and the social/political agenda of it's leading proponents is inextricably linked. Not to mention that those same leading ID advocates have made de-linking the two a matter of policy in an attempt to obfuscate. Also to be considered is that while the political/social aspects of ID arise out of the ID movement, they do indeed have a place here by providing the context in which the concept of ID is argued, i.e.; ID arose not as a natural result of the efforts of scientific community at large, but as a product of a far smaller number who were prompted and motivated by personal religious motivations. Presenting ID in its full context is necessary for a factually accurate and complete article. FeloniousMonk 17:51, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we should remove it entirely, I was thinking we should make it clear whos linked with what when, and encourage people to read the main article. Perhaps we can refactor part of this article, or just open up a new article called "The development of ID" It'll allow us to show how and why ID was constructed, as opposed to discovered--Tznkai 15:07, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Many ID proponents see natural science as working under a prejudice of methodological naturalism which excludes any explanations from intelligence. They find this absurd because intelligence is very obviously a third way of explaining natural causes... if someone asked you how your bike came about, you wouldn't rely on an explanation of only randomness and natural laws. (Some critics say that because they point this out, it means they are trying to redefine science...) David Bergan 8 July 2005 15:46 (UTC)

No, this isn't quite right. Methological naturalism (the article which we need to fix at somepoint) is a neogolism for the concept that no supernatural causes may be used in science. Intelligence is not a problem, I don't see design itself is a problem. Part of the problem with ID is that the movement has managed to make Intelligent Designer=Supernatural/Near supernatural (god or alien). --Tznkai 8 July 2005 16:24 (UTC)

What's a neogolism? (5 hits with Google - none explaining it... and not in any dictionary I have handy) David Bergan 01:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

My ignorance of neogolism aside, I'm not sure that your take is totally right, either. I suppose science probably doesn't have a problem attributing design to a working 1990 bicycle, because it was made by a human. But it would have problem attributing design to a working bicycle that was dated from 100 million years ago... and it doesn't matter if the supposed designer was someone supernatural (Zeus) or someone natural (Chewbacca). The same issue probably comes up if we find a working bicycle on one of Jupiter's moons. So I would say that methodological naturalism means that science has an issue attributing intelligence/design to any object with signs of intelligence that we know for sure humans didn't make. Or in other words, intelligence is always a problem explanation for science except when we are talking about human intelligence (or ape/dolphin/dog/bee/beaver/etc intelligence... but those don't amount to much, and certainly won't explain a bicycle). David Bergan 01:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

neologisms are new terms to describe an idea, possibly an old one. Johnson I believe was the one who made it up. Anyway, a better term may be empiricism. Science, as I understand it, does not ignore intelligence, but ignores the supernatural. We're suffering the problem that the ID movement created, where inteligence becomes equivlent to supernatural in many minds. Empricism allows intent and purpose and thus design but it never allows a supernatural explanation.--Tznkai 15:07, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

DBergan is charmed not so much by the possible anti-Darwin consequences of the theory as its novelty of understanding in the inorganic realm. Although, to be honest, he doesn't have much faith in evolution beyond the species/genus level, and he likes Jesus. But to his credit he isn't trying to push those agendas on anyone... he is only defending ID as a concept free of logical fallacies. The philosophy of science issues enchant him, and he isn't totally sure if ID is technically science or not... but for now he believes it is. He will be happy to adjust his belief upon hearing persuasive arguments to the contrary. David Bergan 8 July 2005 15:46 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the idea of finding signs of intelligence or more accuratly signs of design is philosphical or is science. My guess is it is not inherently unscientific to attribute a cause of something as the work of a designer. Certainly in social sciences we do. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to refer to ID as the holistic inteligence design theory and SoI (signs of intelligence) as the limited finding proof of designers. SoI seems perfectly scientific (I am not certain), but ID is definatly not. I think if we can find the right refrences, we can spin off an article on SoI (with a diffrent title) giving due credit to dembski (who I am not enchanted by in general) as well as the philosophers that thought it up first. ID however, is used and almost explicitly states that it is searching for design in living cells, and commits a basic flaw, of using lack of evidence as evidence of lack.--Tznkai 8 July 2005 16:24 (UTC)

My guess is it is not inherently unscientific to attribute a cause of something as the work of a designer. Most people I talk to seem to think it unscientific if you attribute design to a thing that exists in a time/place where humans have not been. (Design theorists coined the term "methodological naturalism" to label this belief... see comment above.) David Bergan 01:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, ID does almost fully concentrate its efforts on biology... but Dembski's definitions don't limit it to that. He expects the principles to be applied to SETI, forensics, anthropology, etc. Every time he writes about intelligent design in the abstract, it is a multi-faceted theory. So it is inaccurate to say that ID is only searching for design in living cells. But totally accurate to say that by far the majority of the "research" and media attention is focused on biology.

I'm not seeing how an article split would help things. There are two concepts to your so-called holistic ID: (1) What are the signs of intelligence (if any exist)? (2) Does biology have these signs of intelligence? If you make part (1) into a new article, you (a) distort the actual definitions of ID by design theorists and (b) take away the framework from which they build their answers to part (2). Or, if you make part (2) into a new article, you'll have millions of readers walking away from the ID article saying, "What the hell? I thought this was something about evolution?" David Bergan 01:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes ID is confused with evolutionary creationism--Tznkai 8 July 2005 22:06 (UTC)

And we should probably clarify the distinction. Dembski says that the two have nothing in common. If life was intelligently designed, then it could have happened in a plethora of ways... one possibility is evolutionary creationism... a second possibility is young earth creationism... a third possibility is alien designers... a fourth is biker mice from Mars. ID has nothing to say with how a thing is designed, or who designed it. It only answers if a thing is designed. David Bergan 01:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

It answers that, how so? - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 02:48, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Reply sent to RoyBoy's talk page. David Bergan 15:55, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Moved from my talk page. While I like getting new messages; I want group discussion of this, and hence I don't want it on my talk page.

No problem, but let's make a new section for it. (goto: "How does ID answer if a thing is designed?") David Bergan 18:48, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

How does ID answer if a thing is designed?

This is the principle behind ID: "If object X has certain physical characteristics, we know that object X was designed." Those physical characteristics that necessitate design are called signs of intelligence. Currently, design theorists consider irreducible complexity, specified complexity, and information mechanisms to be signs of intelligence, meaning that based on inductive (or empirical) reasoning every time we see an inorganic object that is, say, irreducibly complex, we know that that object was designed. Every time we see a bicycle, we know that the bicycle was designed... we have never seen a bicycle that nature made without intelligent input. Thus, we make the inductive conclusion that all bicycles were intelligently designed.

However, ID is limited to only knowing if a thing is designed and not how or who because the physical properties of an object do not reveal how or who. Your bicycle might say "Rincon" which would lead you to believe that the "Rincon" company made the bike... but you cannot say that with certainty since someone else could easily have made the bike and put a forged logo on it. David Bergan 15:40, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I see no indication of reasonable inductive (and certainly not empirical) "reasoning" in ID. The reason even inductive reasoning fails is because they clearly (I've seen this myself) do not understand the extent to which natural mechanisms can create biologic systems (and yes, even information); and their judgments of "complexities" are naive (re: mousetrap} and based on misconceptions (re: eye). What I'm attempting to get you to realize is it cannot know if a thing is designed; it can propose something is designed... but of course if the basis (re: complexity, information mechanisms) of their proposal is based on misconceptions, then we can ignore them.

As to inorganics being "irreducibly complex", that serves as a handy example of not understanding systems and placing ones rigid preconceptions on its innate flexibility and potential evolutionary path(s) (re: earlier versions, and prototyping) – especially regarding a bicycle. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 17:41, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Alright let's start by leaving the organic issues alone and see if we can come to any agreement. When you see a bicycle is there any doubt in your mind that that bicycle was designed? Probably not. Would you wager $1000 that that bicycle was designed by an intelligent agent? Of course. Yet, you also probably were not in the factory when the bicycle was made. So what makes one think that the bicycle was intelligently designed and not randomly assembled by weather acting on minerals? Simple. Empiricism. The same principle that science is based on. Every time you saw a bike being formed (if any), it was by a human. For every bike you inquired into its origins, you would find that it was made by a human. And you've never heard of any account of a bike being made by weather/minerals. Therefore, since 100% of all the observations you have access to were bike-->designer, you assume that every other bike was made by a designer.

In all the cases of bicycle formation that we've investigated, the bicycle was designed by an intelligent agent. When we see another example of a bicycle, therefore, induction leads us to conclude (in the absence of evidence to the contrary) that it too was intelligently designed. In the case of biology, however, we have NEVER observed the ab initio design of a cellular organism by an intelligence; therefore, induction would NOT lead us to conclude that all cellular organisms are derived from an intelligent design. (We have, on the other hand, observed evolution.) 67.186.28.212 01:34, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

(We have, on the other hand, observed evolution.) But not of irreducibly complex things like the flagellum. For those sorts of components, we've neither seen it designed by an intelligence nor evolved. For inorganic, irreducibly complex complex, we've never seen them "evolve", but we have seen them designed. David Bergan 03:28, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't accept the assertion that the flagellum is irreducibly complex. However, leaving that aside for the moment: the point is, that while it may be a valid inductive argument to say "All bicycles previously studied were designed, therefore the next one is also," it is not valid induction to say that "All bicycles previously studied were designed, therefore this flagellum was also." It's not a valid form of induction, since a flagellum isn't a bicycle.

Put it another way: there are enough differences between bicycles and cells that I would be extremely leery of making inductive conclusions about one based on observations of the other. Bicycles don't reproduce; would you conclude, by induction, that cells don't reproduce either? If both are irreducibly complex, why doesn't the argument work? It's the inductive version of the Fallacy of the undistributed middle. -- And remember that we haven't even yet agreed that cells are irreducibly complex. -- 67.186.28.212 01:18, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

You would assume that the bicycle was designed, because in the optimization space that you're talking about (general weather, erosion, mineral formation) there's no selective pressure that would make the bicycle shape more optimal or more common than more-or-less round rocks, or sand. If you were in an environment where selective pressure is created, for example in a evolutionary computer program that fits together random shapes, simulates their efficacy at moving people around, and recombines parts of machines based on how effective they were, you wouldn't be surprised to find a bicycle, and you wouldn't say that it was intelligently designed. If ID is to be determined based on finding examples of things existing that serve no purpose, then I think ID has yet to find any examples at all. Like the flagellum, the bicycle is only one possible solution to an a general selective pressure, that being that being more mobile than other things competing in your space gives an advantage. Unknown 21:05, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

This is the same principle as knowing what temperature freezes water (assuming standard pressure, etc.). You drop the temp of a cup of water below 0 (celsius) and it freezes. Raise the temp, it thaws. Drop it again, it freezes. You can do it the next day and you'll get the same result. So if 2 years later someone asks you, "I have a cup of water... what temp do you think will freeze it?" You answer, "0 degrees" even though you haven't run any tests on this man's particular cup of water yet. Because all the water you have known up to that point freezes at 0, you make the inductive conclusion that this cup will also. Do you agree that inorganic ID is a sound use of induction? David Bergan 18:48, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, insofar as objects we know are designed. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 20:23, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Do you agree that inorganic ID is a sound use of induction? No, I would not. Both your "bicycle" and "ice water" examples are loaded analogies that will lead to the result you want. That is not science, inductive or otherwise. FuelWagon 20:39, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Please explain. Do you honestly look at a bicycle and think that it might not have been made by a human? Could you give us a better example of induction than water-to-ice? David Bergan 20:46, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

That is not what I said. I said your analogy is loaded. A bike is designed, but saying "we look at a bike and determine it is designed, and since a bike really IS designed, then the approach used by ID is sound" is a load of rubbish. It isn't logic. It is a word game posing as logic. The analogy is worthless, so there isn't any point debating it. FuelWagon 22:11, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean by "word game posing as logic"? Where is the fallacy in (1) Every bike we know of is designed. (2) I have a bike in front of me, but I do not know how it came about. (3) Based on induction (aka the foundation of science) we can legitimately apply principle (1), to the bicycle in (2) because there are no counter-methods to explain a bicycle's existence. Therefore (4), science says this bike in front of me was designed.

I don't care if you think the analogy is worthless or not. I'm not even using it as an analogy. I'm only talking about bikes. Just tell me my reasoning is accurate, or else show me where I made my error. (Or don't reply at all... which I will take to mean you agree with me.) David Bergan 22:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

RoyBoy is right, claims that complexity proves design is merely an argument from incredulity. Again, paraphrasing Ian Pitchford, "Claiming that X explains everything and that X requires no explanation is not a contribution to knowledge..." The bicycle analogy you employ like the computer analogy used by Johnson as a justification for positing an additional entity is flawed: complexity does not equal design. Arguing that every time we see a bicycle, we know that the bicycle was designed, hence every time we see complexity in the world we know that that complexity was designed is as incoherent as arguments for the Tooth Fairy's existence based on the quarter kids find under their pillows. Additionally, inferring an additional entity whose only possibility of ever being verified is by further inferences, in other words, which in turn needs no explanation, is not how science is done. FeloniousMonk 18:22, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Ok, we need to stop putting words in DBergan's mouth. I'm talking about literal bicycles and I never made any extrapolation of "complexity" into the organic realm here. Can we all agree that when we see a bicycle we all think it was designed... even if we didn't watch the bicycle-making process of this particular bike? David Bergan 18:53, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Ground rule here people, lets KISS. anyway, I think Dbergan is working on the concept of design, not complexity. Can we have a physical property ANY property, that establishes design? If so, then ID may still be incorrect, but is not nonsense. We need to get these things out of the way here, and then put it in the article. Now, as far as I can tell, design, not always meaning purpose, is perfectly scientific through empiricism/methological naturalism, but I am not certain.--Tznkai 18:58, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, establishing a valid criteria for establishing design, "signs of intelligence," etc. is an excise in circular reasoning. Any criteria for establishing design necessitates evidence. And physical evidence is by definition physical and hence natural. Thus there is no reason to assume that any evidence being considered as establishing design will not be explainable by naturalistic causes. This renders any claim that physical evidence demands the assumption of a supernatural cause premature and an argument from ignorance: Just because it is not explained by our current knowledge does not mean that we will not explain it later, meaning invoking an additional entity (an intelligent designer, God, etc.) is premature and not justifiable. FeloniousMonk 19:37, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Where did this supernatural stuff come from? We're talking about bicycles being made by humans. It is not circular to say that since every bicycle known to us was made by a human, therefore we inductively believe that this particular bicycle (of which the origin is uncertain) was also made by a human. Every other cup of water we know about freezes at zero, so this particular cup of water will also freeze at zero. David Bergan 20:07, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, that's how you and the Discovery Institute would like to frame the discussion around ID, but how it is that an "intelligence" "designed" life and but was not designed itself and is not supernatural is just one more impossible paradox in the ID concept. Your premise is that 'design' requires a designer, hence you posit a designer. But the designer appears designed himself; he's intelligent. Thus circular reasoning. Any attempt to wriggle out, by saying for example that the designer may be natural (i.e.; aliens), you could also say about evolution, making your additional entity unnecessary. And you really couldn't say it in the first place since it undercuts the very argument that got you there (design requires a designer). That you fail to see the circular reasoning in ID, much less its subtopic here, likely explains ID's appeal to you. If you cannot admit to the most basic of logical conundrums facing ID in it's battle for legitimacy, then how are we to take your arguments and the reasoning underpinning them seriously? Not many here are willing to have re-argue and re-establish every point of logic that the ID leading proponents have ignored and hope they're not caught on. FeloniousMonk 21:20, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

WP:AGF I keep repeating myself, and I keep praying you folks will listen.--Tznkai 15:14, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

But the designer appears designed himself; he's intelligent. That's your own personal leap of faith. No one ever said that intelligence itself requires design. And what does this have to do with bikes? Who said that because the bike was designed, therefore the human that designed the bike was himself designed? Richard Dawkins would probably agree with me on the bikes and say something like, "Yes, this bike was designed, but the human was not... just look at his funny appendix." FM, you're inventing an infinite design regression out of thin air. David Bergan 22:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Your bike analogy is common to ID, and as I said before below, it's a weak analogy. Whether it uses watches, computers or bikes, it's flawed. Life is not a bicycle, nor a watch, nor a computer. The analogy is a form of bait-and-switch. As far as an infinite regression, you're missing the essential logic of your own position. Ask yourself this: Can you still have intelligent design when you do not have an intelligent designer? Logically, no. Since intelligent design demands an intelligent designer, you are left with the problem of where did the designer come from. The question remains in spite of your claims and those of ID proponents that the question is not material. And neither science nor I regard 'X explains everything and that X requires no explanation' as sufficient even for a hypothesis to be taken seriously. Any reasoning given that the origin of the intelligent designer needs no explanation will be completely incoherent. FeloniousMonk 23:49, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Back to the topic at hand, ID proponents claim to have a criteria for establishing design. Behe in Darwin's Black Box states it thusly:

"Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components."

The problem with this reasoning is that it is based on a weak analogy and it assumes that complexity (the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function) implies design. The analogy it rests on is flawed because there are plenty of examples of complexity that are not the result of design, snowflakes, mineral crystals, organic compounds, etc. which also serve to disprove the second objection, that complexity implies design. In fact, complexity does not imply design nor a designer; indeed, simplicity is a design goal in most designs, or at least the better ones ;-) FeloniousMonk 22:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Back to the topic at hand Umm... the topic at hand was bikes... not cilium. David Bergan 22:54, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the topic is what would be a valid criteria for establishing design. Your analogy of the bicycle is sounding more and more like a Chewbacca defence. FeloniousMonk 23:49, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

And anyone who labels something as the Chewbacca defence basically is admitting that they aren't capable of understanding the argument, therefore it must be completely illogical and irrelevant. David Bergan 14:33, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

WP:AGF. And can someone stop this back and forth and answer my very simple question?--Tznkai 15:02, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

If everyone can stop trying to point out flaws in David's bike example before he actually presents it; that would help move the discussion forward. Tznkai, I missed the question, what's up? :"D - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 06:30, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Tznkai's question was "Is it scientific to attribute an event A, to cause B, where cause B was deliberate designed, with some sort of intelligent intent?" Found in the first comment of the section "Enough is Enough" David Bergan 15:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Not sure if I understand the question fully; but I would say only if its reasonable (and evidence to this effect) that it could only happen with intelligent intent. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 08:38, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm new at this, so I hope I'm not intruding. I'm trying to get a grip on the point of the examples that dbergen is making. I will agree that if I saw a bike...based on my experience, I would conclude that it had been designed and built by humans i.e. intelligent design. However, while I would assume that the cup of water would freeze at 0 C. Are you suggesting that I might conclude that water had been designed to freeze at that temperature?

Intent, and how it relates to ID

For anyone like DBergen who doubts that intelligent design arguments are not carefully crafted to intentionally avoid attributing "design" to God, I suggest they explain to us how these quotes do not advocate ID proponents carefully couching their position:

"Intelligent Design is an intellectual movement, and the Wedge strategy stops working when we are seen as just another way of packaging the Christian evangelical message. ... The evangelists do what they do very well, and I hope our work opens up for them some doors that have been closed." - Phillip Johnson. "Keeping the Darwinists Honest", an interview with Phillip Johnson. In Citizen Magazine. April 1999.
"So the question is: "How to win?" That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the "wedge" strategy: "Stick with the most important thing"—the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, "Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?" and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do." Phillip Johnson. Touchstone Magazine. June 2002
"...the first thing that has to be done is to get the Bible out of the discussion. ...This is not to say that the biblical issues are unimportant; the point is rather that the time to address them will be after we have separated materialist prejudice from scientific fact." Phillip Johnson. "The Wedge", Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity. July/August 1999.

It's clear by these quotes from the "father of ID" that this is a call to obfuscate, that ID is a veneer over a certain theological message, and that ID proponents are calculating in their efforts to hide the ball. FeloniousMonk 23:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

You are relying on only Johnson quotes to basically smear all of the major ID proponents by calling him the "father of ID"... In effect building this image that Behe and Dembski are lackeys with PhDs doing his bidding while he masterminds the grand political scheme. I won't deny that the other proponents listed are Christians... but you can't take only Johnson quotes and say that all the proponents are trying to "carefully craft", "intentionally avoid", and "obfuscate". Especially when Dembski says that ID is logically unable to investigate the identity of a designer. Therefore such comments, belong on the Phillip Johnson page, if they belong anywhere at all.

Moreover, all these adjectives when read at face value are blatantly POV. Taking the adjectives off make it sound much more like a writing of the facts without slant. But maybe you want the article to sound slanted... David Bergan 14:21, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

WP:AGF (No, I don't get tired of repeating myself.)--Tznkai 14:45, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

My apologies FeloniousMonk. Sorry if my comments toward you were taken as offensive. Thank you, Tznkai, for pointing out my abuse. I do think there is a POV issue in this section, but I shouldn't assume that FM is here to push an anti-ID agenda. David Bergan 15:08, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, apology accepted. Nor did I assumed you were here to grind an ID ideological ax. I am here to write a complete, factual, well-supported ID article. Over the last ten years I have read nearly all of the major works of ID proponents, including Dembski. Their own words are unequivocal and unambiguous: To the public they present ID as a valid and purely scientific endeavor. But amongst themselves and their Christian creationist funders and constituency, they present ID not as a bona fide line of scientific inquiry, but as a vehicle for promoting the Christian faith. They intentionally obfuscate their methods and agenda in arguing ID. I have literally dozens of their books, magazines and links to same online that demonstrate and support this. This is not a manufactured criticism, but one that is well documented, widely made, and not going to go away. FeloniousMonk 16:06, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I once wrote a paper for a class about Creation Science (I realize this is about Intelligent Design, but it does relate). One of the books I had access to was a textbook designed for actual use in class. This book made it clear that it was not an intent to promote the Bible or Christianity (although it constantly mentioned them) and slammed non-Christian creation stories as "evolution" (I studied relgion in college for six years, those stories are not evolution). The book was clearly an attempt to get Christianity in the public schools. The only people then I knew that supported creation science were conservative Christians, and that's the only group I see supporting intelligent design. I cannot see any difference between the promotion of creation science and intelligent design. They're purpose is both the same. Rt66lt, August 2, 2005

NYtimes, Catholic Church

Did anyone see the recent op-eds and articles in the NYTimes by the Austrian Bishop about design inference? Apparently the Discovery Institute's talking points have found their way into the hands of cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. Joshuaschroeder 11:47, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Nope. got a permalink for us?--Tznkai 15:09, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

You may need an account for this: [3]

Glanced over it. Depressing, but notable. We'll probably find a way to roll it into the article or just as an external link. Thanks for your help--Tznkai 02:55, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Here is the op-ed in question, for future reference: [4] Joshuaschroeder 04:59, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Enough is Enough.

Alright. I havn't been completly keeping up, but the previous few sections have degenerated into a back and forth argument and is slipping into personal attack zones. I move we archive and move on. Now can we establish a yes or no question here: Is it scientific to attribute an event A, to cause B, where cause B was deliberate designed, with some sort of intelligent intent? Don't answer the questions beyond that, just let us come to an agreement if that basic precept of so called signs of intelligence is scientific, philosphical, or nonsense. Leave the supernatural outside of the discussion for a bit, we're not here to counter the DI, we're here to write an article.

Now, Dbergan and I discussed earlier that the meaning of "Intelligent Design" seems to be in this wonderful gray zone. As in, there is a useful definition that we use for this article, and there is the understanding we all have of it. That was the point of the earlier section of "Some Divergent Ideas". I'd like to get that hammered out, so we can prevent arguments like the ones we're having. When I read this article the first time, I was rather confused. It took me a few weeks of slumming through the discussion pages to finally figure out what was going on, and not without a few confusing and embaressing moments along the way. Analysis happens to be one of my strong points, so I think saying that casual readers may also get confused is not innacurate. ID has been portrayed as theistic evolution, anti-darwinism, anti-aiethism, science free of dogma, and a whole lot of other things. Lets filter out what is what, and let the readers know. I see no problem with having this article focus on the same topic it has, the ID produced by dembski, behe, and johnson and the DI, as long as we inform the readers exactly what it is we are and are not talking about.--Tznkai 14:55, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

~~Leaving the organic junk aside for now, I think inorganic ID is clearly based on empirical principles... and therefore scientific. David Bergan 15:04, 12 July 2005 (UTC)~~

Can you restate that without using ID? I just want to make it explicietly clear what we're talking about--Tznkai 15:11, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Is it scientific to attribute an event A, to cause B, where cause B was deliberate designed, with some sort of intelligent intent? Yes. If you always connect event A with intelligent cause B, then it is empirically sound (ie. scientific) to say that B causes A. David Bergan 15:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Any truly observable, testable cause will be natural by definition and hence it would be subject to scientific scrutiny. If it is observable and subjectable to repeatable tests, then it's scientific.

But unfortunately, the ID conjecture has yet to produce any observable, testable cause. That's a major flaw in all ID conjecture; any intelligent designer capable of the task imputed will be supernatural by definition. Which brings us to that "wonderful gray zone" ID exists in. It is not by accident, but by design as the cites I've provided clearly demonstrate. So by insisting the issue of supernatural remain outside the question, you again present us here a contrived question that has no useful relation to actual ID.

When you say "we're not here to counter the DI," I assume that you're addressing me. While I agree that we're not here to counter the DI, and that we're here to write an article, I must add that we're not here to do the DI's work for them either. Since analysis happens to be one of your strong points as you say, you'll agree that if the leading ID proponents carefully cultivate ambiguity around ID to mask their intentions, such a fact is material to the topic of ID and necessary for a complete article. FeloniousMonk 15:52, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't disagree. The readers have to be informed however, that their definitions of "design" "intelligence" and "intelligent design" may be divergent to how the article uses it. I'm not addressing you, I'm addressing a lot of people by the way. Anyway, but your first statement, I assume that you agree that finding the sign of an intelligent designer for standard uncontroversial object A, is perfectly emperical?--Tznkai 16:00, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Empirical evidence is evidence derived from direct observation and sense experience. So if your question is talking about the only objects that are known to have "designed" i.e.: man-made objects, then yes it meets the standard for empirical evidence. If we are talking about life, nature, the universe, then no, it does not meet the standard for empirical evidence. That's why this analogy and any other such analogy that ID is founded on falls apart; Life, nature, etc. and not comparable to any actual designed objects. FeloniousMonk 16:51, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Thats what the clause "standard uncontroversial object" implied. Ok, we're getting somewhere. Now, as I understand it, it isn't under contest that finding a supernatural causation will always breach empiricism. If I'm wrong, please inform me. Second, for our "standard uncontroversial object" does specified complexity or irreducable complexity hold any water? Remember, just keeping in line with our inorganic, manmade, unimportant and uncontroversial device.--Tznkai 17:14, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

By definition, any "supernatural" cause that is actually found would cease to be supernatural now, wouldn't it? That's the real brilliance of the ID conjectures; it gets all this very tangible consideration and credibility while undermining that of science without ever having to make verifiable, testable hypothesis. And when called on not doing so, ID proponents can then gnash their teeth and yammer about "dogmatic Darwinists and scientific naturalists" misrepresenting intelligent design at every step, charging that its critique of Darwinism (and naturalistic theories of evolution more generally) is utterly misguided and groundless." [5]

The mainstream scientists who've critiqued irreducible complexity and specified complexity have found both concepts to be wanting to the point that they are not used as hermeneutics within science. Indeed, they are promulgated almost exclusively by ID proponents. Neither irreducible complexity or specified complexity are common or useful hermeneutics here except as background on the claims of ID proponents. FeloniousMonk 19:13, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

FM? Can you pretend for about thirty seconds that I'm asking a simple question with a simple answer, because I want to know?

Do the ideas of specified complexity and irreducable complexity have any value when determining an intelligent designer when not referring to organics. When it is used to refer to a bike, and only a bike. Its a yes or no question.--Tznkai 19:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

No, neither specified complexity nor irreducible complexity have any value for determining an intelligent designer for indisputably designed and manufactured things, i.e.; man-made objects. Both are built on flimsy premises and neither can return a meaningful statement such as the identify the designer, or his nature, method, etc. Used as they are presented, they are ultimately vacuous. FeloniousMonk 00:02, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Is it scientific to attribute an event A, to cause B, where cause B was deliberate designed, with some sort of intelligent intent? Don't answer the questions beyond that

Well, the problem with not answering beyond that is that your example is completely rigged. There are several major fundamental problems here. FuelWagon 17:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree it's rigged. I pointed that out too. This is a theme I'm finding. FeloniousMonk 19:14, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

It isn't rigged, because I don't want anymore information beyond that. You're sounding a great deal like a conspiracy theorist, I am NOT OUT TO GET YOU. I am not here to disagree, or sabotage the article. WP:AGF!! I am asking the question because I honestly not sure of the answer. Sheesh.--Tznkai 19:31, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

First, you completely fail to mention the fact that the intelligence behind ID is quite literally not of this earth. Natural science might look at a honeycomb, see it is built by bees, and then find an odd looking fossilized honeycomb, and theorize that it was made by odd looking bees. That is fundamentally different than saying it was made by something not of this earth. ID has at its core the notion that something OUTSIDE the system we can observe is at cause here. This is not science in any sense of the word, it is mythology. When Paul Bunyan was having a wrestling match with babe his blue ox, they kicked up so much dirt they created the great lakes. No evidence of paul and his ox remain. i mean, really. FuelWagon 17:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Second, natural science takes an approach to knowledge that nothing is known scientific law unless it is irrefutable. Theories must have heavy supporting empirical data to back it up. ID turns this on its head and does an end run around knowledge and plays games with "probabilities". If no one can say how flagella on bacteria could have formed naturally, how in the hell can ID proponents come up with any sort of mathematically accurate PROBABILITY of flagella naturally forming on bacteria? If you don't understand it, you can't do statistics on it. ID jumps right over that hurdle and takes anything that doesn't have a complete, detailed, natural explanation and jams in their own statistics that say "well, it's so improbable for this to happen, that someone MUST have designed it". This is such a perversion of science. You can't assign probabilities to something you don't understand. ID is just making up their numbers. FuelWagon 17:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Finally, your example has A->B, where B was deliberate design. that's all well and good for a rigged example, except that with respect to life on earth, "B" is unknown. Your A->B example might qualify as forensic science, if "A" were a dead body and "B" were a bullet in the heart. You see a bunch of dead bodies with bullets through the heart, the next time you see a body with a bullet through the heart, you can probably figure that's what killed him. You don't have that with life on earth. You have ONE scenario, "A", and you have no other cases to observe or test. So, in that sense, A->B is not scientific if you've never actually observed "B". (btw, B is teh intelligent designer, which has NEVER been observed). So, in that sense, no, it isn't science. FuelWagon 17:12, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

FuelWagon, I am not trying to defend ID here. You're going far up and beyond what I'm asking, implying, or doing. I never said anything about not of this earth, or whatever. I'm really not understanding why you seem to feel the urge to jump down someone's throat for asking a question. Whether or not thats what you intend, its certainly what you're doing. Easly enough to scare newbies to this article off. Remember, not everyone who believes in ID has an agenda, some are misinformed, not everyone who questions the logic, has an agneda, some are misinformed, not everyone here who asks questions, has an agenda, some are misinformed. Just humor me and play ball for a little.--Tznkai 17:18, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

OK. Since finding a designer is not inherently unscientific, did any of the ID theorists/proponents actually add anything new? Or did they just apply the same principle to life, the universe and everything else? I find it hard to believe that Dembski was the first to theorize that its possible to point at something and say "thats designed", although his mathamatical model is new.--Tznkai 17:54, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

"Since finding a designer is not inherently unscientific"

More accurately put as: Concluding a natural designer for designed items is not inherently unscientific. It is only scientific to posit a designer as if the designer is naturalistic and the evidence of design is indisputably designed.

Wells made the first modern ID arguments, Dembski only built on them and added to them. Well's work was influenced by Paley's argument, which in turn was influenced by Aquinas, and so on. Thus, ID proponents have added little that is new other then a repackaging of familiar reasoning in modern scientific terms. Any designer responsible for the origin life will be supernatural by necessity. For this reason and others I've presented it's no stretch to show that ID is a continuation of creationism. FeloniousMonk 19:35, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

"Concluding a natural designer for designed items is not inherently unscientific. It is only scientific to posit a designer as if the designer is naturalistic and the evidence of design is indisputably designed."

Before Dembski, did anyone try to create a mathematical criterion for this? And for that matter, what is the scientific criterion for finding a natural designer?--Tznkai 19:42, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Sort of. Dembski mentions them in The Design Inference. He talks about Cicero concluding that no great literary work could be the result of random letter-drawing. And something similar from LaPlace. Then in the 20th century Emile Borel (I think that's his name) made some sort of mathematical requirement that anything with a random probability of 1/(10 to the 50th) would never happen on its own given the time and space of the universe. Then Dembski updated that with his own calculation of 1/(10 to the 150th) based on the Plank moment, age of the universe, its size, etc. (I could look it up if you're interested... or send you a copy of The Design Revolution if you email me your address.)

The main new thing about Dembski is the difference between complexity and specified complexity. Take a coin and flip it 10,000 times and write down the pattern. That sequence has a probability beyond 10^-150 and thus should be impossible. Yet it happened. Borel doesn't take this into consideration. Dembski's new insight is requiring that the sequence be specified in advance. If before the flipping you say, "I am hoping to get 10,000 heads in a row" you'll never get it (provided you have an honest coin). If before the flipping you say, "I am hoping to get this particular sequence of 10,000 H's and T's" (which could be the last 10,000 flips you wrote down) you'll never get it (again). Analogously (and I know that at least 2 editors here loathe my analogies), the difference is like an archer hitting 10,000 bulls-eyes on 10,000 different targets, versus an archer shooting 10,000 arrows randomly and THEN painting bulls-eyes around the places the arrows land.

So the intuition that there is a way to tell if something's designed goes back to Cicero or Plato... Dembski et al is trying to cash it out in terms of specific empirically knowable signs of intelligence. Lots of philosophers talked about "Object X seems to be designed." Our boys are stepping up the conversation to "Empirically, we know object X is designed." David Bergan 20:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I think you misundstand Dembski's work... he's never offered a mathematical model or criterion for a designer that is naturalistic that addressed evidence that is indisputably designed. Have read any of his work? FeloniousMonk 19:54, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, Dembski defined a probablilty bound for intelligent causation, i got momentarily confused. What exactly are his criterion for determining intelligent causation? --Tznkai

Dembski's primary claim is that specified complexity is a reliable marker of intelligent design. Dembksi criterion for qualifying as sufficiently complex and specified is if something has only a small probability of occurring, hence it must be designed. The problem with Dembski's specified complexity, other than the obviously subjective nature of what is actually probable, is that Dembski conflates his terms. Biologists Orgel and Davies coined the term 'specified complexity' in 1973 for that which distinguishes living organisms from non-living objects, and physicist Paul Davies used the term in a similar way. Dembski re-coined the term for a rescaled measure of improbability, something quite different. Dembski also conflates the word 'complex'; if an object has only a small probability of occurring, Dembski labels it "complex", regardless of whether it is simple or complex in the usual sense of the words. So Dembski conflates his own usage of the term "specified complexity" with that of Orgel and Davies, although they are quite different. Most biologists would agree that living organisms exhibit specified complexity in the sense of Orgel and Davies. They do not agree that living organisms exhibit specified complexity in Dembski's sense, since they would not accept that he has given compelling reasons to think that any biological structure could not have evolved naturally. FeloniousMonk 20:22, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Proposed direction for this article

Using my own LGM rules and WP:NPOV and WP:NOT as guidelines, I can safely determine what this article should not be.

An apologetic for ID
An attack on the scientific method
An exhaustive collection of crticisms.
A foil to the Discovery Institute's agenda.
A defence of the sceintific method

Whether by design or conicidence, this article has been pushed in those various directions many times. I will not name names, I will just leave that as an observation.

Things this article must be:

Informative
Within context
accurate and comprehensive
readable

The frequent editors here (us, especially Dbergan, FelonousMonk, FuelWagon, myself and Ghost, sorry if I forgot anyone) have a bais we all share and we are all forgetting: we know more than the average reader. We have more context. Not every reader will have any idea what the bicycle analogy is, and what it has to do wit hthe price of tea in China. We need to remember that, and put things in context.

Things that I think are missing:

Clarifcation of what ID is and Is not, and common misunderstandings. (Theistic Evolution is a personal favorite)
A clear organization.

How I think this should be fixed:

Massive reorginzation:

Introduction: What is ID, who made it, who said what, is it science, what ID are we talking about, what might you actually be looking for. Important to note that ID is not commonly accepted by the public at large or the scientific community 1 paragraph, maybe two

History of ID How did it come about. Longish 3 paragraph section, we can point out motivations here.

Break into the ID movement here.

What is ID in detail

Point by point defence and criticsm: ID is not a stable accepted theory, it is under heavy context. This isn't POV, this is accuracy, so long as we justify doing so in the introduction. Be sure to represent both sides fairly, refrences are good, paraphrasing is also good (because of length and clairty)

NO ADDITIONAL CRITICSMS. Everything said currently in this section should be in another section. The section gives the apperance of POV, and is stylisticly, to me anyway, abhorrent.

Modern developments: Current events in ID.

I havn't made all the subpoints here, but I think this is a better organization. Thanks for reading, feel free to discuss.

Declaration of Agenda/POV: I am a future educator. I have no desire to teach ID in my science classes, but perhaps in my social studies class. I don't give a rats ass about the Discovery Institute, but I suspect I wouldn't like them much. I want a comprehensive and accurate article so the average reader will be able to walk away with the facts. I think the fact is that ID (as a whole) is politically motivated, and is very bad science.--Tznkai 15:30, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

While trying to avoid being or appearing contrarian, I have to say I more than somewhat disagree with your assessment, method, and proposal. For your assessment, the article is the most complete and concise it been in the year or so I've been looking at it, perhaps ever. There's always room for improvement of course, but as it stands, it's largely factual and complete. Regarding method, I'm sure you'll understand that none of the other editors here are required to follow or even defer to your personal LGM rules. As a matter of course I abjure parallel policy. As for your proposal, considering the current better-than-ever state of the article, I'm inclined to not get into a massive re-org without first seeing a stronger case made for why one is necessary. Lastly, a point that needs to be made, since you repeatedly say you're not interested in the Discovery Institute and have tended to minimize their role in ID in your writing here and in the article. ID as a concept and as a movement arose out of and has been driven by largely one group; the Discovery Institute. As a fact, it's not even in in dispute. That the DI has a anti- science orthodoxy, anti-evolution, pro-Christian creationism agenda is also a material fact. As is that almost all promotion of ID is guided by the DI. So ID conjecture cannot be divorced from the Discovery Institute any more than the Catechism of the Catholic Church can be divorced from the Vatican. Each colors and directs the other. These facts are necessary for a thorough understanding of intelligent design and a thorough intelligent design article. FeloniousMonk 16:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

No one is required to follow my personal LGM rules at all, those are just ways I describe my personal editing prefrences. I suppose I didn't make this clear enough above, so I will state it here: I have NO PROBLEM with the content of this article. It is pretty fantastic. My problem is with the organization and the missing context. I understand your perspective that this article has improved rapidly over the last year. However, being new, my perspective is that its been rapdily improving, and it can still do so. As this article stands, it provides lenghty criticism, without explaining why. It talks about the Discovery Institute, without explaining why. My LGM rule was derived from an english teacher of mine, wh ofirst used it, it reduces to this: Context, context, context.

I am in no way proposing to remove Discovery Institute from the article. Rather, I'd prefer if we provide them within the proper context. I feel, as the article stands, it lacks coherency, partially because we've been moving parts around. We, the editors, understand what says what and why, but the readers may not. I'm afraid the article will be confusing to virgin eyes, and we have been criticized several times in the time I've been editing here for intense POV one way or the other, Aside from inherent stances, I think that part of it is because the information exists, but isn't coherent enough. I think better organization will fix that.--Tznkai 16:45, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I see no justification for a complete rewrite. I don't know why you keep bringing the idea up. Context can be inserted where needed without throwing the whole thing in a blender. FuelWagon 16:50, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Not really a rewrite, a reorganization. I'd like to change the section headings to something (IMO) more readable, change the introductory and final sentances to make transition sentances, then copy paste the rest. When did Ibring it up before?--Tznkai 17:11, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

You hinted at it here FuelWagon 17:18, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

That diff is your edit, and that section I think I propsed an addition to the introduction, possibly a rewrite of the intro. How did the article fit in?--Tznkai 17:35, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. Let's start answering those questions:

What is ID? A theory that says we can empirically know that an object (organic or inorganic) is designed by examining the object's physical properties. Certain physical properties have only been observed to be caused by intelligent beings, therefore we inductively know that whenever we see those properties, there was an intelligent cause. David Bergan 17:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll have to disagree with you here. Thats part of ID, certainly, but what most people will associate ID with is a competing theory with Evolution. ID is an extrapolation of finding design in man made objects and taking it to very basic times, (aborgenesis). We can't remove the context of the evolution-creationism controversy here, even if you and I prefer the limited ID ideas.--Tznkai 17:23, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Good point. Here is how I see it. Intelligent design is as I described it above (Dembski's definitions agree, and I can cite many), but by far the bulk of the discussion/research is in regards to evolution. I'm not trying to remove the controversy, just trying to say that no one is using that as part of the definition. The over-riding principle applies to all objects, but all the interesting research is trying to figure out if it applies to life. So I would keep the definition as I wrote it, but make sure the sentence right after it is something like: "The vast majority of ID's consideration is in regards to biological organisms, questioning whether or not natural selection alone can explain the existence of life and its diversity." David Bergan 18:08, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Or possibly "ID has since become about applying that principle to life and the universe, seeing if natural selection and randomness is an adequate explanation." or some such. Felonous Monk would probably be able to give us the horse's mouth answer as far as what the Discovery Institute thinks ID is.--Tznkai 18:29, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Who made it? There are some historical roots that go back to Plato in the teleological argument, but ID in its current fashion was born out of controversy with the theory of evolution. The Pandas book, and Phillip Johnson had influence... but by far Behe's book Darwin's Black Box did the most in terms of starting a movement. Darwin's Black Box was the first to offer a sign of intelligence (irreducible complexity) which was the first positive step. The books beforehand (Darwin on Trial, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis) were exclusively negative - they only picked at perceived holes in evolutionary theory rather than constructing a way to systematically recognize design. David Bergan 17:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

What ID is not It is not attached to any specific religion or belief, and therefore it is not scientific creationism (although creationist arguments were a motivating factor for the main design theorists). It does not make claims about the age of the Earth/universe. It does not dispute that natural selection (and other evolutionary components) do operate on the populations of species (ala Darwin's finches, bacteria resistence, etc.). However, many design theorists think that parts of living organisms show signs of intelligence (irreducible complexity, information mechanisms), and thus these parts could not be produced by natural selection alone. ID also does not claim that any object is optimally designed. Whether or not the human eye has flaws is irrelevant. Things can have flaws and still be designed. My Pontiac Bonneville was designed even though it is inferior to a Lambourghini. David Bergan 17:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I was more concerned with diffrent defintions of ID, the 'limited' one you're talking about, theistic evolution, the movement, etc.--Tznkai 17:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I disagee about removing the additional critisism section. not all appropriate criticisms fit elsewhere, since ID avoids talking about these issues due to the fact that they have no argument against them. IreverentReverend 17:28, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Thought about for a little bit, and I sort of agree. I think the majority of so called "additional criticisms" can be rolled into other sections (argument from ignorance, what designed the designer, Hypothesis of the designer) I think are all better served in a diffrent section. I havn't girued out what to do with Peer review yet though. Still, we could use a better section title than "additional criticisms"--Tznkai 17:32, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced your proposed re-org is necessary or organizes the information most logically. FeloniousMonk 20:03, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. 17:38, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Sign your post please if you want it to count toward consensus. FeloniousMonk 20:03, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Additional Criticisms

in case you havn't figured it out yet, I like keeping discussions well organized.

Anyway. I'd like to roll as much of the additional criticsms section into other sections as possible:--Tznkai 17:48, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Scientific peer review

Can't figure out where else to put this, so it can stay.--Tznkai 17:48, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Hypotheses about the designer

I'm sure this can be reduced to a single sentance along the lines of "Intelligent Design proponeents have never given a coherent picture of who the designer of life is, making it difficult to falsephy. (I can't spell!)--Tznkai 17:48, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

"What designed the designer?"

I think this is fine under irredducable complexity (which is, I udnerstand it, complexity which requires a designer, which is inherently irreducably complex)--Tznkai 17:48, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Argument from ignorance

I think this goes to specified complexity (at the very least, using specified complexity to assume a god is an argument from ignorance)--Tznkai 17:48, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Myself and several others here are not yet convinced that a re-org is necessary, or that your proposed org is the correct one. Consensus should be reached first. FeloniousMonk 19:59, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Uh. Its only been a matter of hours since I put up the proposal, and whether we do a large reorignization or not, there is always improvements that can be made. I am not required to ask permission here before I make changes, I am doing it to get input and as a courtesy. Don't misunderstand.--Tznkai 20:06, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it needs it. It still comes off as biased (note, I am using bias and POV differently than standardly) and could use a lot of polish. While it does a decent job of NPOV, it still allowes ID to come out better sounding than it really is, due to its bias, namely ignoring anti-ID information and not presenting a whole picture. what is their is fairly nuetral, if a BIT more pro-ID than it should. It is the ommissions that flaw the article. Reworking completly allows for some of this to be corrected. IreverentReverend 22:06, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

My two cents: This would be a good place for mentioning that ID is not a scientific theory, that's why it doesn't get reviewed in scientific journals. See theory or Scientific Laws, Hypotheses, and Theories --KillerChihuahua 21:05, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Dembski's quotes & recent related reversions

DB claims his reversion [6] is justified by the the context of Dembski's quote; he claims Dembski is defining theism in the quote. But the entire passage for the quote actually shows something quite different:

"Naturalism is the view that the physical world is a self-contained system that
works by blind, unbroken natural laws. Naturalism doesn’t come right out and say there’s nothing beyond nature. Rather, it says that nothing beyond nature could have any conceivable relevance to what happens in nature. Naturalism’s answer to theism is not atheism but ben ign neglect. People are welcome to believe in God, though not a God who makes a difference in the natural order. Theism (whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim) holds that God by wisdom created the world. The origin of the world and its subsequent ordering thus results from the designing activity of an intelligent agent—God. Naturalism, on the other hand, allows no place for intelligent agency except at the end of a blind, purposeless material process. Within naturalism, any intelligence is an evolved intelligence. Moreover, the evolutionary process by which any such intelligence developed is itself blind and purposeless. As a consequence, naturalism makes intelligence not a basic creative force within nature but an evolutionary byproduct. In particular, humans (the natural objects best known to exhibit intelligence) are not the crown of creation, not the carefully designed outcome of a purposeful creator, and certainly not creatures made in the image of a benevolent God. Rather, humans are an accident of natural history. Naturalism is clearly a temptation for science, and indeed many scientists have succumbed to that temptation. The temptation of naturalism is a neat and tidy world in which everything is completely understandable in terms of well-defined rules or mechanisms characterized by natural laws. As a consequence, naturalism holds out the hope that science will provide a theory of everything. Certainly this hope remains unfulfilled. The scandal of intelligent design is that it goes further, contending that this hope is unfulfillable. It therefore offends the hubris of naturalism. It says that intelligence is a fundamental aspect to the world and that any attempt to reduce intelligence to natural mechanisms cannot succeed. Naturalism wants nature to be an open book. But intelligences are not open books; they are writers of books, creators of novel
information. They are free agents, and they can violate our fondest expectations."[7], pages 8&9.

Viewed in full Dembski is using theism as a justification for excoriating naturalism for being atheistic... the old evil atheist conspiracy argument. Now DB would have us believe Dembski's own Christianity is something akin to a coincidence and a non sequitur in this case. Nothing could be further from the truth, Dembski not only makes the case that his religion is concordant with ID, but preferable to actual science:

"Within naturalism, any intelligence is an evolved intelligence. Moreover, the evolutionary process by which any such intelligence developed is itself blind and purposeless. As a consequence, naturalism makes intelligence not a basic creative force within nature but an evolutionary byproduct. In particular, humans (the natural objects best known to exhibit intelligence) are not the crown of creation, not the carefully designed outcome of a purposeful creator, and certainly not creatures made in the image of a benevolent God. Rather, humans are an accident of natural history."[8], page 9.

Further, DB has insisted that Dembski's words ("Intelligent Design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God") to Church & State Magazine be attributed as a "personal belief." Considering that Dembski's preface to his book The Design Revolution quoted above is very personal polemic not just advocating ID while impugning science but does so while touting theism, and that Church & State Magazine is a nationally distributed publication intended for public consumption, I don't see there's a distinction between context. DB argues for context in one case and ignores it when it's inconvenient. I've literally dozens of other quotes from Dembski stating that God is the designer, ID opens the door for the Christian God as creator to be taught in science classrooms, etc., ad nauseum. Will it take working every one of these into the article before the Dembski apologists admit that Dembski advocates for specified complexity out of one side of his mount while touting God as the designer with the other? FeloniousMonk 22:59, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

In no way do I object to your information. I fully agree that Dembski is a Christian and that his personal beliefs are that ID opens the door for Christianity. However, I also can provide dozens of quotes where Dembski says that ID itself is free from religious affiliation and that if ID of biological life were proven it would be up to each individual to interpret for himself (or herself) who or what the designer is.

The quotes you provide might be relevent to ID the movement, but not ID the theory. Consider the lines immediately before your quotes and the context it puts the theism/naturalism debate in:

Simply put, intelligent design is the science that studies signs of intelligence. Stated this way,
intelligent design seems straightforward and unproblematic. Yet depending on where the intelligence makes itself evident, one may encounter fierce resistance to intelligent design. Archeologists attributing intelligent design to arrowheads or burial mounds is not controversial. But biologists attributing intelligent design to biological structures raises tremendous anxiety,
not only in the scientific community but in the broader culture. Why is that?

C. S. Lewis, in his book Miracles, correctly placed the blame on naturalism. According to
Lewis, naturalism is a toxin that pervades the air we breathe and an infection that has worked its
way into our bones.

And once more for emphasis: Simply put, intelligent design is the science that studies signs of intelligence.

Everything you quoted thus is in response to the cultural/political debate, where Dembski flies his flag for theism. But we all knew that his personal belief was theism. So in the preface of his book he took a step aside from ID theory and wrote a few paragraphs of theistic apology. That in no way commits ID theory to theism. He even says as much DIRECTLY 4 pages later (page 12-13):

Intelligent design is not an evangelical Christian thing, or a generically Christian thing, or even a generically theistic thing. Anyone willing to set aside naturalistic prejudices and consider the possibility of evidence
for intelligence in the natural world is a friend of intelligent design. In my experience such friends have included Buddhists, Hindus, New Age thinkers, Jungians, parapsychologists,
vitalists, Platonists, and honest agnostics, to name but a few.

It really isn't that hard to seperate Dembski's personal beliefs from his definitions of ID. David Bergan 15:16, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The above sentence is a very strange case indeed. Dembski may be careful in his wording of ID's definitions but that doesn't mean that his personal beliefs are "seperate" from his definition of ID. He has stated as much saying that ID has the potential to serve as a powerful evangelical tool. If his personal beliefs were separate from the definitions this wouldn't be the case. Joshuaschroeder 16:06, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

There are two things going on: (1) Dembski contributes towards the theory of ID, which is theologically mute. And (2) Dembski considers ID to be reaffirming to his particular beliefs. Scientists publically apply their research to their personal beliefs all the time. Consider Richard Dawkins. (1) Dawkins contributes towards the theory of evolution, which can be interpretted for many different theological purposes (ie. Process Theology) or none at all. And (2) Dawkins considers evolution to be reaffirming for his atheism, and writes long books about this. But that doesn't mean that evolution itself is atheistic. Some evolutionary biologists are Christians. Some are deists.

And this is relevant to the ID article... you don't find Dawkins's (anti-)religous beliefs on the evolution article, but you do on the Dawkins page. Just for us to consider. David Bergan 16:29, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't find that reasoning compelling. You don't find Dawkins's polemics on the evolution article because he is not central to evolution research and his personal views are irrelevent. But in ID research, Dembski is an outspoken central player who makes his personal religious views and polemics justifying it part and parcel of his reasoning; see the quotes below, read the preface and first few chapters of his book The Design Revolution [9]. And Dembski's own words show that his personal religious beliefs are driving his participation in the ID movement, not an irrelevant side note:

"My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ." William Dembski. Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1999. p 206.

"If we take seriously the word-flesh Christology of Chalcedon (i.e. the doctrine that Christ is fully human and fully divine) and view Christ as the telos toward which God is drawing the whole of creation, then any view of the sciences that leaves Christ out of the picture must be seen as fundamentally deficient." William Dembski. Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1999.

"The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ," Dembski said. "And if there's anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ [and] the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view.... It's important that we understand the world. God has created it; Jesus is incarnate in the world." William Dembski. National Religious Broadcasters, 2000

"The world is a mirror representing the divine life. The mechanical philosophy was ever blind to this fact. Intelligent design, on the other hand, readily embraces the sacramental nature of physical reality. Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." - William Dembski. (A., Kushiner, James M., editors). Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design, Brazos Press, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2001.

"Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners do not have a clue about him." William Dembski. Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1999. p. 210

DB, you're the one who insisted on inserting numerous Dembski quotes in the article, particularly in the religious subsection as a refutation that ID proponents are motivated by religious fervor. The problem is, you chose one of the most outspokenly religious ID proponents next to Johnson. Your selected quotes imply a very different thing than the fact that Dembski is outspokenly religious and views ID as a means to an end not an end in and of itself. My quotes are meant to correct and balance that selective use of quotes. The article would tangibly benefit if neither set of quotes appeared but in their place refs to footnotes. But since you inserted your Dembski quotes first I've chosen not to delete them but to correct them with some context; please show me the same respect. Experience has now taught me that your are unlikely to view this evidence I present objectively, so I don't expect this to convince you. But others do and will find it compelling. And so I must insist that you cease your incessant reverting and stop this specious defense of Dembski. We are all here to write an accurate and complete article, right? FeloniousMonk 17:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we are here to write an accurate and complete article. Is it relevant to mention any of the design theorists' personal religious beliefs in an article about the concept of intelligent design? David Bergan 19:40, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

You'll find the answer to your question in Dembski's quotes above. FeloniousMonk 19:56, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

More relevance in movement article, but still can be mentioned in main. Not a question of IF, but of how much. I'm on psedowiki break, so everyone play nice while I'm gone. Without me it should be easy! >.>--Tznkai 20:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm really stupid. Can you explain to me in simple concepts and tiny words why we are putting religious motivation in the ID article? Isaac Newton was religiously motivated when he went to study physics, but that's not in the physics article. But you can probably find his religious beliefs in the Newton article. David Bergan 20:07, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Direct and significant causal relationship. I think its fair to say that much of ID was deliberatly constructed because of religious beliefs, not "inspired" by them in the case of Newton.--Tznkai 20:09, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

TZ's got it. Temporarily ignoring the point that leading proponents are concurrently pushing a larger agenda to gradually alter the legal and social landscape in the US, many ID proponents, Dembski being one, make their religious pov central to their arguments. Consider: "My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ." and "Christ is indispensable to any scientific theory, even if its practitioners do not have a clue about him." Can Dembski be any more explicit about his religion driving his ID research/advocacy? And consider the title of his book from which these quotes are drawn: "Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology" (emphasis added). Approaching it another way, there are at least 31 instances of "God" in Dembski's The Design Revolution, a book putatively about the nominally secular topic intelligent design. FeloniousMonk 21:12, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for your arguments. I am convinced... religious motivation should be mentioned. Now, is there any legitimacy to Dembski's claim that ID theory has no logical grounds for guessing at the identity/method of the designer? Or is that a total smokescreen? David Bergan 21:28, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The claim appears to be pandering, but the motivation is vague at best. Dembski and other ID "theorists" are carefully trying to avoid the pitfalls associated with the earlier creation science endeavor, abandoned because the Supreme Court ruled the "theory" religious belief that should not be promoted by governmental bodies. They have said as much in books, articles, and interviews on the subject (though Dembski is not as aware as Johnson of the history of creationism). I don't think that the claim is a smokescreen because it is clear that IDers really believe that ID is the future of science, but it is more an admission of ignorance on the subject. The idea is that if enough "scientific research" were done in the ID field science would eventually discover the Christian God. Dembski has said as much. Joshuaschroeder 00:32, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Criticisms of CSI: original research?

In the section on criticism of specified complexity are the following sentences:

"First, specified complexity, as originally defined by Leslie Orgel, is precisely what Darwinian evolution is proposed to create. It is not enough for Dembski to take a property of living things and arbitrarily declare it to be a reliable indicator of design; he must also provide compelling reasons why no natural processes could create such a property. According to critics of ID, by taking this burden of proof on himself, that is, to prove a negative, he must show not merely that there is no explanation currently accepted, but that no such explanation is possible within the framework of genetics and natural selection."

"Dembski would need to show that a biological feature really did have an extremely low probability of occurring naturally by any means, an enormously difficult (perhaps impossible) task that would require definitively ruling out all potential theories, i

ncluding those that may not have been thought of yet."

This is exactly what Dembski attempts to do in his explanation of CSI! One might argue against his statements about what law and chance can do, or try to disprove his mathematical analysis of what their combination can do. But saying that Dembski "must provide compelling reasons why no natural processes could create" CSI is a nonsequitur.

"Further, some mathematicians have argued that Dembski's information theory is flawed, that many of his examples that he claims cannot be compressed further, in fact can be. For example, the 10 byte phrase "I love you" can be written "luv u"; or, in context, even the three bytes of "ily" will convey the same message; and the ASCII art "heart" symbol "<3" even conveys the same message in two bytes."

This argument also doesn't seem to make any sense, at least as written. To represent the phrase "I love you" by "luv u" or "ily" or "<3" is not compression. It's displacement: the reader needs more information in their mind to decode the alternate phrases.

By whose reckoning? Has someone measured how much information is needed to decode Dembski's sentence versus the other encodings? I have seen this argument published in critiques of Dembski and I haven't seen his rebuttal to it. Joshuaschroeder 11:59, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

The phrase "I love you" has a certain meaning to users of standard English. While "luv u" is the same phrase, just stylized, users of that stylized version, in practice, all already know standard English, and more. That they need to know more than just standard English is shown by the greater liklihood that a non-native speaker would not understand what's meant by "luv u". Similar and worse considerations apply to "ily" and <3. This is just my informal reckoning regarding what appeared to be an invented criticism. Googling for "specified complexity" +"I love you", etc., I haven't found refence to such a criticism, just a few mirrors of old versions of the Wikipedia article. Please supply references to the published critiques if you've got 'em.--Johnstone 02:52, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Clearly your "evaluation" of the critique is not even close to being based on anything more than your own feelings about "standard" and what people need to "know". You haven't shown any reference that there is a "greater liklihood" that a "non-native" speaker would not understand. The criticism is found in Shallit's review which is currently not available on line as far as I can tell. Joshuaschroeder 12:28, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Here's another way of saying the same thing a bit more technically: "luv u" is simply an encoded form of the phrase "I love you". So, at the very least, you need to know the original "plaintext" for reference, plus you need to know the encoding scheme. In stating that "ily" and "<3" need to be "in context," the removed material even implied as much. Plus, it's simply not true that "luv u" and "ily" and "<3" convey the same message as the phrase "I love you". The latter has so many cultural and historical references that it conjures, whereas the others conjure up associations of "teenager" or "text message" or "cheap way of saying 'I love you'" or "suit in a deck of cards."

That was hardly the point being made since the context is required for the written word to be understood in the first case. There is just as much context required to develop the latter phrase as any of the former. Joshuaschroeder 13:12, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about that. One knows that the phrase "I love you" means that the someone is expressing their love for someone else, regardless of whether it's placed in context. But without any context at all, could one really be sure that "luv u" isn't short for "Love, Ursula" instead? "ily" could be someone's initials, or the ending of an adverb. The heart could mean "I love" (as in 'I [heart] NY') or simply "heart" or (again) "a suit in a deck of cards". If you're saying that they all need to be parts of a language to be understood, then of course you're right. But that's just an instance of a truism: Without language (used in the broad sense), nothing could be understood. That can't be used to make a valid argument!

But this is all moot now. It's agreed that the example doesn't belong.--Johnstone 00:17, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

No, there is a lot of context for the phrase "I love you", the biggest one being the English language, but also an assumption of a uniformity of emotions, a recognition of first and second person, and a sentence syntax that is agreed upon linguistically. These are all claimed to be part of the specified complexity that gives the short sentence meaning, but there is no optimization that is done that determines this particular arrangement is the one that contains the most information or least information. You claim that a person needs more information to decode "luv u" than "I love you" but provide only your own assertion to show this. Dembski falls into the same trap in Design Inference all the time. It's the old story of not being clear about your priors and assuming a uniformity of meaning (as though "I love you" can only mean one thing). The example is crude and ridiculous and Dembski's use of it is actually quite shameful. Joshuaschroeder 03:06, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

But as I clearly indicated, mine is not a formal argument, only an informal reckoning relative to material that appeared to be original research removed from the article. Take it or leave it; In the end, whether or not the material in question deserves to be in the article doesn't depend upon any arguments for or against it that I, personally, can think of on the spur of the moment, only on whether the material corresponds to an actual argument made by a non-editor, and sufficiently pertinent and important to be included, as judged by a consensus of editors.

Anyway, thanks for the reference. I suppose its the same one mentioned by FM below (the dead link)?--Johnstone 10:05, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes it is. I don't think the "I love you" point should be made in the article at all as it is oe of the worst referenced one that Dembski makes (but tends to be one that many Christians like to hear for obvious reasons). Anyway, I'm pleased that it doesn't appear in this article anymore. Joshuaschroeder 13:12, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

"The space sampled by an evolutionary process is a restricted set of the total possible genetic combinations. Only genetic sequences which result in reproducing organisms and are connectible through small deviations to other reproducing organisms are possible. This is a significantly smaller set than the total possible genetic combinations, which places significant inaccuracies in arguments which use the total possible combinations."

Dembski's argument for CSI makes reference to the "total number of specified events throughout cosmic history", not the "total possible combinations" of genomes. They are completely different, and so this argument is another nonsequitur.

All of these sentences may very well reflect "original research". They seem to be someone's arguments against their own misunderstanding of CSI. If that's not the case, and they are actual arguments made by non-editors, they desperately need references so that it can be decided if they're by individuals with suitable expertise and, if so, so that their descriptions can be (greatly) improved. I've removed them all for now since keeping them in the article in their current state would be a disservice to the readers of Wikipedia.--Johnstone 01:10, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Several of the above criticisms I recognize as being similar to Elsberry's, Shallit's, and Wilkins' criticisms of specified complexity, found here: [10] (PDF), [11] or [12]

They may not express the criticisms exactly, fully or precisely, but I don't think they are original research. Then again, it's been awhile since I've read those critiques. FeloniousMonk 04:37, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the references, especially the first. I plan to add a summarizing sentence or two to the article once I've read it. The second seems to be a dead link. I previously read the third. It's primarily a critique of Dembski's "explanatory filter". Its criticism of specified complexity doesn't seem to add anything not still in the article.--Johnstone 02:52, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

"Further, some mathematicians have argued that Dembski's information theory is flawed, that many of his examples that he claims cannot be compressed further, in fact can be. For example, the 10 byte phrase "I love you" can be written "luv u"; or, in context, even the three bytes of "ily" will convey the same message; and the ASCII art "heart" symbol "<3" even conveys the same message in two bytes.""

Not sure if that in particular is salient criticism. You can't attack a concept based on its examples. Perhaps I missed the point. Either way this needs to be fixed. I'm pretty sure the majority of these critiques are not breaching WP:NOR but could use rewriting to make it more understandable. Certainly a change in definition doesn't require us to refrence a critique saying such, we just compare the before and after.--Tznkai 13:34, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

For a topic as controversial and potentially confusing as ID, I think it would be a good idea for all particular arguments and counter-arguments mentioned to have references.--Johnstone 02:52, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I am a pretty strident defender of clarity over citation. We've had this problem in the past with such articles as creationist cosmologies where certain editors insisted that every "claim" be backed up with a reference when oftentimes the references to such obvious points (such as the point about light-created-in-transit supernovae being only artifacts) cannot be found. Encyclopedia articles as a general rule do not include a footnote to every claim, fact, item, or analysis included and while it is absolutely necessary to have references while writing an article, I don't think a tight citation is required. Joshuaschroeder 13:12, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree that for widely known things, no citation is needed. But ideas and assertions that are relatively obscure to the general public should have them, especially for a controversial topic like this one. If clutter is a concern, then there should be a way of making references hidden by default. This is one of those problems that has a relatively easy technological fix. For controversial subjects, many more people will want to be able to do their own research to see if they agree with the arguments. By including references, we are making a more useful article, and one that is less likely to be subject to questionable edits and reverts. But that's just my opinion.--Johnstone 00:17, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me, but are we actually getting anywhere here? All I see in this sections are critiques and apologietics of Dembski example that we've decided is irrellevant. Or something like that. If you're still on topic discussing changes to the article, great. If not, I move to archive this and go onto more relevant things.--Tznkai 17:57, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't this page be merged with creationism?

Shouldn't this page be merged with the existing page on Creationism, with a redirect from Intelligent Design to Creationism? I mean, other than the names there is very little, if any, difference between the two concepts. Indeed, the more insightful people on both sides of the debate will readily agree that "Intelligent Design" is just a euphemism for creationism. Furthermore, both Intelligent Design and Creationism consist solely of attacks on accepted evolutionary theory with little (if anything) to replace it that's supported by real scientific research.

There are many different forms of "Intelligent Design", just there are many forms of creationism. Many in each are mutually contradictory, and the two subjects overlap to a substantial degree. Shouldn't they be merged? -- User:Karn 19 July 2005

The whole point of Intelligent Design in some sense is to provide an alternative to evolution other than creationism. This is evident from the writings of Philip Johnson. We have tried to indicate as much in the article, but as the Discovery Institute has been able to amass some fringe scientists to support their claims of this being separate from the debacles of creation science we have to include it as a separate article. The most technical arguments of the creationists have been subsumed into intelligent design. We continue to list it as a form of creationism, it's just a different kind. Joshuaschroeder 21:15, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I think they're sufficiently different. Creationism claims that the universe was created specifically by a deity. ID claims that the universe exhibits evidence that it was designed with some completely unidentified intelligence. Close, but not the same thing. In particular, Creationism does not necessarily use alleged proof of intelligent design inherent in the universe as a basis for Creationism. Of course, there is no discernable difference between the "unidentified intelligence" in ID and the vaguely defined deity of Creationism, but, technically, the ID designer could be intelligent life from another galaxy, while the Creationist deity cannot be. --Serge 21:46, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Read creationism, and you will see that this is a particular form of creationism, of which there are many kinds. Putting all of this (and it is a lot) into the creationism article would bias that article towards ID. You may want to see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Creation science. Dunc|☺ 21:54, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I read the Votes for deletion page you mentioned, and I can see both sides of the merge/keep debate. Probably the best argument for keeping things the way they are is that both the creationism and ID pages are quite long. Yet the two articles arguably cover much of the same territory; if you take the Creationism page, omit the direct Bible quotes and globally replace "God" or "Deity" with "Intelligent Designer" you get something that looks much like the ID page. Well, okay, that's a bit of an overstatement but I think you get my point. There's no question that the major proponents of Intelligent Design are highly religious, and in their less guarded moments they will freely admit that Intelligent Design is just creationism wrapped in a scientific veneer in a transparent attempt to get around an unbroken string of court decisions against them. Again, the arguments of the creationists and the IDers consist primarily of nitpicking evolution without providing any falsifiable theories to replace the basic tenets of evolution, and in this respect they are really the very same thing. --User:Karn

Unintelligent design

Copied from slashdot:

"Wave two pencils in front of a person, about 30cm apart. Then, have them cover one eye and step away slowly, while looking at one pencil tip, until they can't see other due to their blind spot.

Now, ask a squid to do the same thing.

Guess what? Squids have no blind spot, because the optic nerve and blood vessels connect to the eye without interrupting the potosensitive cells.

An intelligent designer (when hypothesizing that the designer was the same for both) would not have produced a defective eye for humans when they designed it properly the first time (only the day before).

Of course, not only humans have a blind spot; all vertbrates do. Likewise, many creatures other than squids do not suffer from blind spots-encumbered vision.

You can easily disprove intelligent design, because both "intelligent" and "design" (not to mention the other attributes of the particular designer that most folks seem to have in mind) imply certain conditions that their designs would have to exibit relative to other designs by that same author." 4.250.168.186 08:30, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Arguing that because the eye has a blind spot therefore it wasn't designed is like saying that my watch isn't designed because it has an analog display and not a digital one. Heck, we know my watch is designed even if I take the battery out and it doesn't function at all... seeing the intricate interlocking parts is sufficient, even if they aren't moving.

Something can be intelligently designed without being optimally designed. My rusty '88 Bonneville was designed even though it is inferior to a brand new Lambourghini. Moreover, I challenge User:4.250.168.186 (and the slashdot folks) to make a new eye that is better than the ones we have, blind spot and all. It is always easier to be a critic than a writer. David Bergan 14:30, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

WP:NOT

This is not the place for advocacy of any kind. This kind of critique of ID has been brought up repeatedly, and has been explained as both questionably notable, and missing the point. We are not here to discuss our own opinions on ID, but to discuss the article. This will be archived in 24 hours unless I receive objection

I object. Quoting from your own link: You can chat with folks on their user talk pages, and should resolve problems with articles on the relevant talk pages, but please do not take discussion into articles. This discussion can easily qualify as "resolving problems with the article on the talk page" rather than "advocating". Whether or not this is a valid point of view that should be represented in the article is a matter for discussion. That other editors weigh in with their opinions is part of the discussion. killing the entire thread because you call it "advocacy" is overreacting. Discussing opinions on the talk page isn't advocacy, it's how editors work stuff out, come to consensus, etc. Asking editors to answer a poll is specifcally asking them their opinion. As long as those opinions remain off the talk page, it is part of teh process. Some discussions may be more appropriate to take onto a user's individual talk page. But this is discussing something that may qualify a legitimate criticism of Intelligent Design that deserves representation in the article. FuelWagon 15:37, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I agree that I was a hasty on this point. I will instead note that this sort of criticism has been discussed to death in the archives in the short time I was here, nevermind before, and is of questionable relevance and notability. Obviously if I see a refrence, esp. in peer review, I will have no grounds to object on notability.--Tznkai 15:46, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree, this point has been discussed to death. But our new IP friend probably didn't sift through the archives before copying his remarks to this page. His intent seems to be to deep-six the entire ID movement with one remark on a wikipedia talk page (witness: You can easily disprove intelligent design), rather than actually contribute toward the article. I just wanted to point out to him that the subject is more complicated than a simple "We have blind spots, Therefore there is no intelligent designer. QED". Since the main editors have already take his argument into consideration, I agree with Tznkai's that this thread serves no purpose to shaping the current form of the article. Keep it visible for a week or two in case 4.250.168.186 comes back to see what we think of his post, but the rest of us should just move on. David Bergan 16:09, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The argument isn't perfect, but it does seem to have validity at least against the popular version of Intelligent Design. Polls indicate that the vast majority of those who believe ID describe the designer as God. At least in this context, the idea that a perfect God would create an imperfect design is, at the very least, unexplicable (god works in mysterious ways) or on the far end, irrefutable proof against that flavor of ID (perfect God creates imperfect design, poof, God is no longer perfect. ID argument crumbles.) As to the motives of 4.250.168.186 for posting this, I dont have sufficient information to form any sort of empirical judgement. In any event, the argument would seem to have some applicability. Whether or not it is insufficiently represented in the article, whether it should be in teh article, is a matter for discussion. FuelWagon 16:58, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

It is an argument against omniscient, or highly intelligent design, or perhaps against recent intelligent design unperturbed by eons of evolution added complexity. But other than this mis-understanding, anon-IPs view is common and notable. It was probably a tactical mistake for the ID community to call it "intelligent" design rather than just design, as "intelligent" raises the whole issue of where on the intelligence scale the designer or designers fall. Of course, criticisms of design also usually assume things about purpose and attentiveness. An inattentive designer might of course have produced flawed designs. An less than omniscient designer might have had a reason to produce and evaluate alternative less flawed or unnecessarily compromised designs.--Silverback 08:09, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

It was probably a tactical mistake for the ID community to call it "intelligent" design rather than just design The intelligent in intelligent design serves to distinguish ID from two other arguments regarding design: (1) apparent design and (2) optimal design. Apparent design is something that looks designed when in fact it is not. Dawkins, for example, considers life to have the appearance of design... thus it was not intelligently designed, but only apparently designed. In one sense you can say that evolution does design things... but it certainly doesn't add intelligent input. Optimal design, on the other hand, is the question of whether or not a given object is ideal. When one argues that humans have a blind spot, they are only saying that humans seem to be less than perfectly designed. However, many many things that are less than optimal are still designed. I mean you could have a calculator built such that you needed infared glasses to read the display... and that would be less than optimal... but people would commit you to an asylum if you argued that the IR calculator was a product of mere chance and natural laws.

Intelligent design only asks if a thing is designed. It is silent on all questions about the identity, purpose, skill, or mastery of the designer. David Bergan 14:36, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps in some of its pure abstract formulations this is correct, but it is notable that most intelligent design proponents do have a designer in mind, and by proposing instances as evidence of design, also imply not only that the designer had certain capabilities, but also was available with implementations of designs at the various times and places in the past when they made their appearance.--Silverback 04:53, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

So prove it! Refrence! if this is such a notable opinion it should be easy to find a notable person who's said it!--Tznkai 08:11, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Google on "Intelligent Design by God".--Silverback 22:07, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

Its never fair to force others to do your fact checking and refrencing for you. Just because some bloggers say it, or google has people who say it, doesn't mean its sufficiently notable. Remember, peer reveiw is the golden standard.--Tznkai 04:19, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

It is fair when there is a book by that name on the first page. The number of links with that phrase add to the notability.--Silverback 05:52, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

Notability! We can argue about the relevance of criticzing an omnicient god later, first we need to establish notability!--Tznkai 17:14, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

argument that the irrelevance of junk dna reduces the net complexity of the genome

My original modification:

Critics also note that there is much redundant information in the genome, which makes its content much lower than the number of base pairs used. It is, however, becoming largely recognized that the number of base pairs that actually encode proteins do not comprise the whole of the information encoded in DNA. So-called "Junk DNA" is often comprised of incorrectly copied once-functioning encodings of proteins, but it also appears to exhibit regulatory and structural influence on the expression of nearby exons.

I note that reference to this is included in at least one other Wikipedia article Noncoding_DNA, the contents of which should either be amended or accepted in this article. Additional reference to the function of junk DNA can be found on numerous sites, and is taught in universities. A brief selection of sites that include citations from reputable universities and other publications follows:

[[13]]
[[14]]
[[15]]
[[16]]
[[17]]

For a non-internet source, you can check "genes" VII by Benjamin Lewin, [[18]]. A comment from a reviewer, who I don't know, but gives some sense of credibility: "Because of its high quality, this book will no doubt continue to be one of the canonical texts in genetics to be used now and in the future to prepare students and researchers in genetics." I know that this book is used in many universities such as Simon Fraser University as a textbook. Chapter 25 (Catalytic DNA) explains the chemical details of how Group I introns exhibit enzymatic activity and alternative splicing methods. It's worth noting that the edition of the book that I have was published in 2000, and is largely intended for instruction, so it is less likely to contain far-fetched theoretical material.

If so-called "junk DNA" does encode additional information (which has been experimentally proven in some cases by removing that junk DNA with corresponding differences in expression in the resulting animal), this doesn't prove or disprove anything with respect to Intelligent Design. It merely provides additional information with which to examine the purely numerical argument for Intelligent Design by specified complexity.

One view which supports evolution is that the effect of non-protein-coding genetic material actually provides greater strength to the evolutionary argument, by adding an entire new class of mutations which organisms can exploit to optimize their interaction with their environment. Whereas most mutations that directly affect a protein coding gene are fatal or produce radical variation, increases or decreases in the amount, form, or location of introns could provide a fine-grained balancing of production of proteins to more specifically and exactly adapt. This new class of potentially exploitable mutations is especially interesting, as it is known that mutation rates within exons and introns occur with the same frequence when measured across an equal span of base pairs (according to a Poisson distribution), however, introns comprise a greater fraction of the total genetic material than exons do, resulting in far more mutations occuring within the introns.

--User:Unknown

I recall reading about how we're finding out more and more how useful the so called junk DNA is. This I think is mainstream science, or atleast up and coming science. I think this brings into question the complexity of DNA and how relevant it is to ID more than anything else. Thoughts?--Tznkai 03:32, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

The particular argument that I was clarifying a criticism of was that the required degree of complexity to qualify as Specified Complexity is bounded, and the criticism was that DNA as a system does not meet the required degree of complexity due to redundancy within the system. Whether or not the contention that junk DNA has uses that increase the amount of complexity in DNA proves or disproves the assertion that complexity of DNA is relevant to ID, I think that within the context of the article itself, the criticism using DNA complexity is still relevant as it is an active belief that is being brought forth from both sides of the camp. "Teaching the controversy," if you will :-) If there aren't any objections in the next day or so, I'd like to reinsert my addition. Unknown 04:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

The Young and Hammock study is cited in the third and fifth links is the same study. That study and the those cited in the first link offered would qualify as emerging science, considering the number of other works that cite the studies offered, which is nearly none at this time according to both google scholar and ERIC. Reinserting the content phrased to note that 'recent developments in emerging sciences may suggest... etc.' would be appropriate here, I think. FeloniousMonk 06:37, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

My only concern with these passages is I feel we're arguing about the examples, all the while circling the real issue. We already have a lot of back and forth between each camp on the main points, nevermind individual examples.--Tznkai 17:04, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Fair point. Call it 'example creep.' FeloniousMonk 17:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Something to consider. So far, the section on Specified Complexity is discussed in an abstract mathematical format. It isn't directed toward biology, much less a specific part of biology: DNA. But then in the criticism section, we have this defense based on junk DNA, when there never was a case made that DNA is CSI. For the sake of consistency, either we need to add a case for DNA being CSI in the explanation of specified complexity, or we take out the junk DNA rebuttal. Otherwise, it just doesn't flow. David Bergan 17:45, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm against "example creep" as FM put it so I'm of the mind to remove it from the ID article. That having been said, Unknown, you should be sure to put this info in the DNA related articles.--Tznkai 21:12, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

The section on Specified Complexity includes this quote: "He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA." Checking out Specified_complexity, we find "Thus far, Dembski has made only one attempt at calculating the odds for the natural occurrence of a biological structure -- the bacterial flagellum of E. coli -- in his book, No Free Lunch." If we take the fact that Dembski has only attempted to use Specified Complexity to prove Intelligent Design once, and that sole example involved probabilistic calculations taken from the number of possible arrangements of DNA, then it seems that there is no case for CSI other than DNA. Unknown 05:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

What's your suggestion, Unknown? Are you advocating a full fleshed-out case for DNA as CSI just to keep your rebuttal in? David Bergan 14:36, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Easy on the tone David. I think if we cut this down a little and say something along the lines of "Dembski's example is DNA. While critics pointed to the redunancy in DNA, emerging sciences may suggest so called junk dna may be useful". Better prose than that obviously, but try to cut it down to a single paragraph, so we have the example, but keep the back and forth to a minimum--Tznkai 17:11, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that the CSI argument so far as it relates to ID is only connected through the DNA argument (actually proteins, in the original work, which are effectively generated from DNA in this context). Saying that the complexity of the sole example for the entire section is not actually as complex as would be required to be CSI seems like less than a minor comment. It is, in my opinion, a completely irrelevant comment in the face of the larger question which is "does Dembski's so-caled Law of Conservation of Information" actually hold, but it is also a disputable and likely incorrect comment. What could be a reasonable solution, is to remove that entire sentence about redundancy and create a detailed subsection in Specified complexity