Is intelligent design a plausible theory?

[antunesaa]

I entirely agree with you but “plausible” suggests superficiality. A plausible explanation is often offered by criminals! Why not simply say “intelligent design is the best explanation” - which challenges the sceptic to produce a better explanation. If none is forthcoming he is in a very weak position. Any explanation is better than none, provided it is intelligible, consistent and fertile. .

You also need it to be falsifiable, and the scientist won’t let you get away with that.

 

[Touchstone]

You also need it to be falsifiable, and the scientist won’t let you get away with that.

Yes!

removes hat, bows

-TS

 

[TruthisBeauty7]

Atheists worship Infinite time and we worship an infinite God, they are alot closer to getting right then we think I believe.

Carry on,
God bless

 

[tonyrey]

You also need it to be falsifiable, and the scientist won’t let you get away with that.

The intelligible design theory is falsifiable in various ways:

1. By a calculation showing that there is a high probability that life emerged
   fortuitously.
2. By a detailed blueprint of a feasible world in which there are far fewer accidents,
   deformities, diseases and disasters.
3. By neurological research which demonstrates conclusively that free will and human
   responsibility do not exist.
4. By logical analysis which shows that the theory of intelligible design is inconsistent
   or incoherent.
5. By the invention of a robot which is conscious, autonomous and intellectually
   superior to human beings.

There are no doubt other ways but they should suffice for the moment.

 

[reggieM]

The intelligible design theory is falsifiable in various ways:

1. By a calculation showing that there is a high probability that life emerged
   fortuitously.
2. By a detailed blueprint of a feasible world in which there are far fewer accidents,
   deformities, diseases and disasters.
3. By neurological research which demonstrates conclusively that free will and human
   responsibility do not exist.
4. By logical analysis which shows that the theory of intelligible design is inconsistent
   or incoherent.
5. By the invention of a robot which is conscious, autonomous and intellectually
   superior to human beings.

There are no doubt other ways but they should suffice for the moment.

The question is if evolution is falsifiable. For example, if dinosaur bones were found with collagen protien in soft tissue – would that falsify the claim that those bones were 60-80 million years old? Or how about the discovery of fossils of modern-looking shore birds in rock that predates the Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird?

Those and many more things like them should falsify evolution, but evolutionists will claim that “science hasn’t yet explained” the contradictions which are evident.
Thus, evolution is not falsifiable.

 

[rossum]

The intelligible design theory is falsifiable in various ways:

1. By a calculation showing that there is a high probability that life emerged fortuitously.

No, the designer could have mimiced fortuitous emergence, much like a Jackson Pollock painting.

1. By a detailed blueprint of a feasible world in which there are far fewer accidents, deformities, diseases and disasters.

No, you are making an assumption about what sort of world the designer would design, and ID theory says nothing about the designer. All you are doing is eliminating one particular designer, you are not eliminating all possible designers.

1. By neurological research which demonstrates conclusively that free will and human responsibility do not exist.

Again you are making an assumption about the designer, and ID theory makes no assumptions about the designer.

1. By logical analysis which shows that the theory of intelligible design is inconsistent or incoherent.

Here I agree, this is possible.

1. By the invention of a robot which is conscious, autonomous and intellectually superior to human beings.

Again you are assuming something about the designer. This cannot disprove ID theory, which assumes nothing about the designer.

There are no doubt other ways but they should suffice for the moment.

1. Give a specification for something that could not have been designed. Bear in mind that the designer can mimic chance or regularity if he/she/it/they so wish.

rossum

 

[JDaniel]

No, the designer could have mimiced fortuitous emergence, much like a Jackson Pollock painting.

No, you are making an assumption about what sort of world the designer would design, and ID theory says nothing about the designer. All you are doing is eliminating one particular designer, you are not eliminating all possible designers.

Again you are making an assumption about the designer, and ID theory makes no assumptions about the designer.

Here I agree, this is possible.

Again you are assuming something about the designer. This cannot disprove ID theory, which assumes nothing about the designer.

1. Give a specification for something that could not have been designed. Bear in mind that the designer can mimic chance or regularity if he/she/it/they so wish.

rossum

Hi, rossum:

But, wouldn’t your answers to #2, #3, #5, and #6 assume that an intelligent creator would not leave something of himself “behind” in his creation? If a painter paints all of his/her paintings in pastel colors, could not one presuppose, at some later date, that this painter had a predilection for pastels? Thus, ID Theory could, in fact, have made some assumptions about the creator.

jd

 

[antunesaa]

The intelligible design theory is falsifiable in various ways:

1. By a calculation showing that there is a high probability that life emerged
   fortuitously.
2. By a detailed blueprint of a feasible world in which there are far fewer accidents,
   deformities, diseases and disasters.
3. By neurological research which demonstrates conclusively that free will and human
   responsibility do not exist.
4. By logical analysis which shows that the theory of intelligible design is inconsistent
   or incoherent.
5. By the invention of a robot which is conscious, autonomous and intellectually
   superior to human beings.

There are no doubt other ways but they should suffice for the moment.

Point 1 is good. Abstracting from speculative cosmological theories, so far is false.

Point 2 also would be almost ok, but so far has not been done. Still, you are assuming a Christian God, a source of Beauty and Goodness. What if the designer just doesn’t care about what we call Beauty and Goodness?

Point 3: this I don’t follow. Suppose an intelligent designer just wanted clock-like beings that were dispossessed of free will or responsibility. Then discovering the absence of free will would not preclude an ID. Of course a paraddox applies here: if you are an automaton, how can you prove you are one to yourself? So I think this leads nowhere.

Point 4 is also ok. Some people are convinced that this has been done. I am no fan or specialist of ID but it seems that there are intelligent people in the ID field so it would be strange if a theory they put forward was flawed, especially given that they have a tremendous degree of freedom: positing the existence of an Intelligent Designer.

Point 6 doesn’t seem powerful enough to preclude an ID.

I think that point 1 is the most powerful test.

 

[JDaniel]

Hi, rossum:

But, wouldn’t your answers to #2, #3, #5, and #6 assume that an intelligent creator would not leave something of himself “behind” in his creation? If a painter paints all of his/her paintings in pastel colors, could not one presuppose, at some later date, that this painter had a predilection for pastels? Thus, ID Theory could, in fact, have made some assumptions about the creator.

jd

Hey! What happened to #5?

jd

 

[reggieM]

ID makes the assumption that the Intelligence that may be evident in nature is analogous to human intelligence and that it can be recognized as something distinct from random chance.

With that as the first premise, then ID can be falsified for the reasons given. If the Intelligence produces things which appear to be the result of unintelligent processes – then ID is falsified, even though an Intelligence actually is present in nature.

So, ID does make some assumptions about the nature of the Designer.

It’s the same as SETI research – it assumes that ET communication will be analogous to human.

 

[rossum]

Hi, rossum:

But, wouldn’t your answers to #2, #3, #5, and #6 assume that an intelligent creator would not leave something of himself “behind” in his creation? If a painter paints all of his/her paintings in pastel colors, could not one presuppose, at some later date, that this painter had a predilection for pastels? Thus, ID Theory could, in fact, have made some assumptions about the creator.

jd

ID asserts that design is detectable in living organisms, but says nothing beyond that about the designer:Designer

An intelligent agent that arranges material structures to accomplish a purpose. Whether this agent is personal or impersonal, conscious or unconscious, part of nature or beyond nature are live possibilities within the theory of intelligent design. In particular, the designer need not be a creator.

Source: www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Designer
In order to falsify ID you need to be able to falsify all possible designers, not just a subset of designers.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

An intelligent agent that arranges material structures to accomplish a purpose. Whether this agent is personal or impersonal, conscious or unconscious, part of nature or beyond nature are live possibilities within the theory of intelligent design. In particular, the designer need not be a creator.

If it can be shown that unintelligent processes can produce what “appears to be designed” in nature, then ID is falsified. Additionally, if it can be shown that material structures in nature are “not arranged to accomplish a purpose” then ID is falsifed that way. ID does not seek to identify a particular designer, but to give evidence of Intelligence at work in nature.

Again, if SETI finds something that they think is intelligent communication from space – that can be falsified without having to identify every possible extra-terrestrial intelligence at work. SETI proposes that communication will be something recognizable by humans.

The same is true of ID.

 

[rossum]

If it can be shown that unintelligent processes can produce what “appears to be designed” in nature, then ID is falsified.

No, all that a possible unintelligent process shows is that it may not have been designed, not that it can not have been designed. An intelligent designer may mimic a natural process:When the Explanatory Filter fails to detect design in a thing, can we be sure no intelligent cause underlies it? The answer to this question is No. For determining that something is not designed, the Explanatory Filter is not a reliable criterion. False negatives are a problem for the Explanatory Filter. This problem of false negatives, however, is endemic to detecting intelligent causes. One difficulty is that intelligent causes can mimic law and chance, thereby rendering their actions indistinguishable from these unintelligent causes. It takes an intelligent cause to know an intelligent cause, but if we don’t know enough, we’ll miss it.

Source: Dembski, The Explanatory Filter

Additionally, if it can be shown that material structures in nature are “not arranged to accomplish a purpose” then ID is falsifed that way. ID does not seek to identify a particular designer, but to give evidence of Intelligence at work in nature.

That might be possible, however it requires that we eliminate all possible purposes, not merely purposes of which we are aware. The designer’s purpose may not be obvious to us humans. How would you propose to eliminate all possible purposes?

Again, if SETI finds something that they think is intelligent communication from space – that can be falsified without having to identify every possible extra-terrestrial intelligence at work. SETI proposes that communication will be something recognizable by humans.

The same is true of ID.

Here I disagree, there is no requirement that the designer is recognisable to humans. I agree that we are unlikely to detect such a designer, but that does not mean that such a designer cannot exist.

rossum

 

[tonyrey]

I agree that we are unlikely to detect such a designer, but that does not mean that such a designer cannot exist. rossum

Purposeless design is an unintelligible concept. If there is design the nature of reality, as we know it, must have some bearing on the purpose(s) of design.

Any evidence of design is evidence of a designer because the concept of designer-less design is also unintelligible. The likelihood of detecting a designer depends on the criteria by which you assess the probability of design. If, for example, there is evidence of benevolent design it is reasonable to believe the designer has communicated with human beings.

 

[rossum]

Purposeless design is an unintelligible concept. If there is design the nature of reality, as we know it, must have some bearing on the purpose(s) of design.

Agreed. However there is no requirement that the purpose of the design is accessible to humans. Perhaps the purpose of the designers is to arglefnarz their thrumbles, but such a purpose is invisible to us humans,

ID has so reduced the properties of the designer that it is extremely difficult to determine that such a designer cannot exist. Hence the problem that ID has with falsifiability.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

Here I disagree, there is no requirement that the designer is recognisable to humans. I agree that we are unlikely to detect such a designer, but that does not mean that such a designer cannot exist.

rossum

I don’t think ID is testing for the kind of designer, but just that design which can only be created by intelligence exists. They’re testing for the design, which points to the designer.

Again, I didn’t say that “the designer must be recognizable to humans”. On the contrary – in the SETI example I gave, the researchers do not have to recognize or identify who the Extraterrestrial “communicator” is. They merely show (first) that there is intelligent communication.

SETI is falsified in practice on a daily basis. Sonic codes are evaluated. If there’s no sign of intelligence, then the results are null.

If SETI did find what they thought was produced by intelligence, then tests would try to show that it was produced by natural, non-intelligent causes. If that failed, then the evidence would support Intelligence.

Again, ID does not need to identify the designer. It’s looking at the code – like SETI. It’s looking for design which is most likely not produced by natural causes and the best explanation for such is the product of Intelligence (by analogy we see the results of human intelligence as a model).

 

[tonyrey]

Agreed. However there is no requirement that the purpose of the design is accessible to humans. Perhaps the purpose of the designers is to arglefnarz their thrumbles, but such a purpose is invisible to us humans,

ID has so reduced the properties of the designer that it is extremely difficult to determine that such a designer cannot exist. Hence the problem that ID has with falsifiability.
rossum

Most proponents of ID confine themselves to Design without even considering the Designer. This is a mistake because it is a vacuous explanation if it makes no reference to the nature of the Designer and the purpose of the Design. It amounts to saying:
“We know there’s Design but we’ve no idea what it’s for or what designed it!”

There are two things we know for certain:

1. If there is Design the Designer must be intelligent and purposeful.
2. If there is Design Design must be linked to what happens in the universe.

Taken in conjunction with evidence for Design and the fact that intelligent, purposeful beings exist in this universe Design becomes an incomparably more powerful than explanation than non-Design. The latter has to deal with the formidable problem of how intelligent, purposeful beings have emerged from things which lack intelligence and purpose…

 

[reggieM]

Taken in conjunction with evidence for Design and the fact that intelligent, purposeful beings exist in this universe Design becomes an incomparably more powerful than explanation than non-Design. The latter has to deal with the formidable problem of how intelligent, purposeful beings have emerged from things which lack intelligence and purpose…

Non-design has to deal with things that do not fit into the defined evolutionary mechanisms. This is done by referring to self-organization, convergent evolution or parallel evolution, lateral gene transfers, replication errors … and more ideas like that which will emerge.

 

[rossum]

I don’t think ID is testing for the kind of designer, but just that design which can only be created by intelligence exists. They’re testing for the design, which points to the designer.

ID claims to be able to detect the presence of design without specifying any attributes of the designer(s). If ID’s claims are correct then they should be able to detect design by any sort of designer.

SETI is falsified in practice on a daily basis. Sonic codes are evaluated. If there’s no sign of intelligence, then the results are null.

That is not correct. SETI researchers are not looking for “signs of intelligence”, they are looking for narrowband signals. SETI researchers make an assumption about their designers - that they will use narrowband signals, just as we do. There is also the knowledge that there are no known natural sources of narrowband signals. The detection of intelligence is contingent, not direct.

If SETI did find what they thought was produced by intelligence, then tests would try to show that it was produced by natural, non-intelligent causes. If that failed, then the evidence would support Intelligence.

That is correct. When the first pulsars were discovered, one of the possible explanations for the extremely regular siganls was the LGM hypothesis - Little Green Men. It was considered and rejected in favour of the rotating neutron star hypothesis.

This episode incidentally shows that scientists are not intrinsically biased against design explanations.

rossum

 

[rossum]

Most proponents of ID confine themselves to Design without even considering the Designer. This is a mistake because it is a vacuous explanation if it makes no reference to the nature of the Designer and the purpose of the Design. It amounts to saying:
“We know there’s Design but we’ve no idea what it’s for or what designed it!”

I think that you are forgetting the political purpose of ID. In order to have any chance at all of being taught in science classes in American public schools, all religous content has to be removed from ID. Hence the designer has been stripped of all attributes in order to distance the designer as far as possible from God. Thus allowing the ID lawyers to make a reasonable case in court while at the same time allowing the ID proponents to get their political support from Christians.

ID is primarily a political movement with a bit of science tacked on. It lacks credibility with scientists because it is obvious that the political side is much more important than the scientific side.

rossum