Evolution questions from my creationist friend

[Coito ergo sum]

Whenever I heard someone challenge evolution I ask them what other sciences they don't believe in. Do they post derogatory comments about Babbage on the Internet?

I don't mind if people challenge evolution. What bothers me is when they do so from ignorance - either they misstate what evolution is, or they make spurious claims like "there are no transitional fossils..." etc.

But, if they challenge evolution by saying that based on what they know they are unpersuaded, we can then look at what they know and see if we can persuade them.

I don't expect, or want, anyone to "believe in" evolution. All I would hope is that people try to "understand" it. Once they do that, they'll invariably accept it as a damn good theory, which is all they need to do.

I meant challenge as in "I don't believe it", not "I'm uncertain about it."

Well, anytime someone says "I do believe in" or "I don't believe in" a scientific theory I cringe. They aren't to be "believed in." They are to be understood. I think that's where the religiosos go wrong - they think that science promises them irrefutable, unfalsifiable proof. It doesn't. They want that irrefutable, unfalsifiable prooff, which is why they latch onto books that they claim are "unerring" and principles they claim are "immutable." Science is full of erring and is very mutable. All scientific knowledge is provisional and subject to being falsified. I tell people that's exactly why it's science, and religion is not. That's exactly why you don't "believe in" science. You just try to understand it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm totally uncertain about string theory, it is SO over my head.

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm totally uncertain about string theory, it is SO over my head.

Everyone is uncertain about string theory, including string theorists.

[Gallstones]

The theory is quite simple: Intelligence unknown to us may have, sometime, or from time to time in the deep past of Earth's history, deliberately manipulated DNA of organisms on earth in order to guide evolution down particular and intentional pathways.

Examine away.

That's not a theory, in fact it barely even qualifies as a hypothesis.

WhatEVER....

He's right.

IMO, when one holds forth on a topic it is incumbent upon them to know the terminology and use it correctly; if they want to appear to know what they are talking about.

So, yeah.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm totally uncertain about string theory, it is SO over my head.

Everyone is uncertain about string theory, including string theorists.

I iz in the company of genuses.

[Seth]

Who has presumed that the design of organisms,or the genesis of life on this planet, could not possibly have been done by intelligent beings? We know we can create artificial life. We know there are other planets in the universe. We know there may be life on those planets. If there is intelligent life here, there may be intelligent life there. Scientists are seriously talking about "terraforming" worlds like Mars, etc. - so, if you call that "intelligent design" (we are intelligent - terraforming is design) then we have intelligent design.

Well, it certainly seems that the vast majority of people I've encountered in this and other like fora can't integrate the facts as well as you have and admit that intelligent design is both a fact and a scientific proposition. You're one of the very few who has had the courage to go ahead and admit the obvious truths I've been stating for years now.

But, of course, that's not what ID proponents like Behe and the Discovery Institute are selling.

Who cares what a bunch of creationists in wolf's clothing are purveying? Why do we allow them to set the agenda and control the conversation? More importantly, why do legitimate scientists make themselves look like fools and play into the hands of creationists by denying that intelligent design exists, or that it could exist elsewhere, or that it could have existed at some other time? Science marginalizes itself in the eyes of the public when it makes broad knee-jerk statements about "intelligent design" that fail to very carefully distinguish and identify exactly what flavor of "ID" they are dissing. By allowing the DI and other creationists to misappropriate the term for their own nefarious purposes, objectors lose both the teachable moment and grant credibility to creationists they don't deserve and shouldn't have.

What people are talking about when they talk about "ID" is not whether it's possible that life on this planet was seeded by some extraterrestrial life.

Indeed. But just because they are guilty of fuzzy thinking doesn't mean I'm obliged to excuse them.

It's not about you. When I and most others refer to "ID" we are referring to the prevailing view of what ID is - that espouse by the "great thinkers" like Behe and the Discovery Institute. We are not obliged to go with your definition.

In case you haven't noticed, that's exactly what I'm probing at like a dentist scraping an infection out of a decaying tooth. You are granting legitimacy to the creationists by allowing them to control the terminology of the debate. What Behe and his cohorts are purveying is NOT INTELLIGENT DESIGN. The judge in Kitzmiller was pretty clear about that. They were purveying creationism "dressed up" and "repackaged' as "intelligent design."

When you dis the entire concept of intelligent design, which you have just admitted is both plausible and a scientific question, when what you mean to dis is Discovery Institute-style repackaged creationism that misuses science and misappropriates an entire sphere of scientific investigation, you not only damage the reputation of science, but you make the DI loons look like they are making a rational argument.

The point I keep trying to get across is that "intelligent design" and "Behe/Discovery Institute Pseudo-Intelligent Creationism" are NOT THE SAME THING, nor should they be acknowledged as the same thing, even by allowing them to co-opt a perfectly legitimate term that has substantial and important scientific meaning and purpose.

If science, and atheism want to maintain objectivity and credibility in the debate about intelligent design, then they have to refuse to allow the creationists to define the terms of the debate. They must retake the scientific field and label the pseudo-intelligent creationist arguments properly and show them for what they are, without granting them the implicit credibility of allowing them to use the term "intelligent design."

Suffice to say, nobody that I've ever seen posting here or on RDF ever said that aliens couldn't do the equivalent of terraforming on a planet, including but not limited to Earth. Of course, there is no evidence that such an event happened. But, nobody - not Dawkins, not any of the "new atheists" - not any scientist I've ever heard of "presumes" it's not "possible." Quite the opposite - it's presumed to be possible.

Then quit saying it isn't. In the minds of the un-anointed non-scientific public, when some scientist says "intelligent design is a fraud" they look at the facts, as I have so often laid out, that "intelligent design" factually exists and they roll their eyes at the scientists and turn away because that is obviously a false statement. The failure is the fault of science for not being very, very careful in using precise terminology in arguments against creationists so that the distinction is always made between actual "intelligent design" science, which does exist and is both real and a legitimate field of scientific inquiry, and pseudo-ID creationism as purveyed by the DI. Image is important, and so is precision in the use of language.

When you say "ID is nonsense" without carefully describing WHAT FLAVOR of the various ID arguments you are referring to, you lose credibility. And that's pretty much all I've been saying all along, for at least three years now.

I recall a blurb from Dawkins wherein he mentions this possibility. That's not what "ID" is.

Isn't it? As I've said, Atheists commonly conflate the term "Intelligent Design" with a specific set of arguments made by creationists in an attempt to justify injecting creationism into the public schools. The Kitzmiller v. Dover version of "ID" is just one particularly inept and deliberately mendacious iteration of the general concept of "intelligent design" (non-capitalized) that has been co-opted by both creationists and atheists as a battle cry for both sides.

When I use the term "ID" I mean the Behe/Discovery Institute variety. The hypothesis that intelligent aliens could terraform a planet and seed it with life is what you're calling "ID" but it is not what that word means in common English usage.

Why do you insist on allowing a bunch of creationist loons to control the language of the debate?

Thus, any invocation of the word combination "intelligent design," regardless of the actual context or scientific validity behind the utterance, is first knee-jerk conflated with the Dover crew and then excoriated and rejected out of hand, without any serious consideration whatsoever, merely because it might suggest something other than purely "naturalistic" processes in the evolution of life on this planet or the creation of our universe.

Nobody here has suggested that intelligent aliens couldn't have seeded the Earth with life, and/or terraformed it, or whatever.

I disagree. When I suggest that aliens from another universe may have done so, and may have manipulated DNA on the planet in the deep past, the rejection is all but universal and immediate. I suspect this is not because it's not scientifically plausible, but rather because it cuts too close to the claims of Behe and the DI creationists for people's comfort, so they reject it as instinctively as they jerk their hand away from a hot stove, and are unwilling to examine the margins of the debate because it risks bringing them somewhere near the arguments that creationists make, and they don't want to be anywhere close, lest the contagion spread. There appears to be this deep-seated aversion to agreeing with anything any creationist might say, no matter how much basis there might be in science for such a claim, merely on the principle that any such agreement grants unwarranted legitimacy to creationism, and it's better to deny everything, even where there might be some actual factual agreement between science and creationism, than it is to come within spitting distance of Behe.

But that doesn't damage the creationists nearly as much as it damages the credibility of scientists in the eyes of the general public, who see the refusal of science to be objective and dispassionate about the debate as weakness in the scientific arguments.

To the average Joe, which sounds more credible:

"Behe and the Discovery Institute are a bunch of ignorant religious loons who are falsely proposing intelligent design as a scientific field of investigation. They are simply ignorant creationists trying to inject creationism into the schools!"

or:

"Behe and the Discovery Institute appear to be misusing and conflating legitimate scientific ideas and theories in order to advance religious creationism by masking it in science and calling it "Intelligent Design" and "Irreducible Complexity."

Both the notion that intelligent design may be responsible for the evolution of living organisms on this planet, and the notion that certain biological functions are irreducibly complex are legitimate scientific questions. Where the Discovery Institute goes badly awry is when it attempts to misuse legitimate scientific inquiry to mask what the court, in the Kitzmiller decision referred to as "repackaged creationism" so that the inherently religious concept of creationism can be improperly inserted into school science curricula. This attempt was rightfully and properly rejected by the Kitzmiller judge based on the evidence and testimony of the Dover School Board officials, who said in no uncertain terms in emails and letters among themselves that came to light at trial, that their intent was to restore religious creationism as a legitimate part of school science curricula.

However, it's important to note that the generic notion that intelligent design of living organisms does, can or has existed in our universe, and potentially other universes as well, if they exist, is both a proven scientific fact and a valid scientific hypothesis. We know this because we know that humans can modify the genetic structure of living organisms, thereby creating entirely new and unique organisms, and because we are on the cusp of being able to artificially create living cells in the laboratory. These facts prove that intelligent design of living organisms is possible here and now, and therefore, logically, intelligent design of living organisms was likewise possible in the past, or in other places, although we currently have no evidence that this is the case before us.

It is also important to note that the debate about irreducible complexity is also, in and of itself, a completely legitimate scientific debate. The proposition is a valid scientific question that may be investigated and confirmed and can be falsified, so it's a legitimate field of inquiry. At the moment, the irreducible complexity arguments offered by the Discovery Institute are not strong, and the claims have been carefully examined and discussed and subjected to rigorous peer review and have largely been rejected as unsound.

But, as scientists, we welcome such inquiries and hypotheses as completely legitimate forms of scientific inquiry and investigation, and any well-constructed scientific hypothesis will always be given due and respectful consideration, irrespective of the source or the evident political agenda of its proponents, because science is objective and cares nothing for politics, it cares only for verifiable truths.

As rational, well-formed hypotheses involving the question of the intelligent design of living organisms on this planet, or indeed the origins of life on this planet or others, and even as cosmological hypotheses about the origin and design of the fundamental physics of our universe, or others, through intelligent design come before the scientific community, they will be investigated and discussed with due regard and respect for their strengths as scientific arguments and with an acknowledgment that science is neither omniscient nor infallible, and every scientific hypothesis is subject to examination and revision when new evidence appears.

Science rejects no well-formed and rational scientific hypothesis based only on its source or author, for that would be to engage in personal bias and subjective analysis, and science is about lack of bias and objective review.

But this also means that all such hypotheses will be subject to rigorous scientific review and analysis, and no favor will be granted to any hypothesis because of it's source or author either."

Which of those two statements sounds more scientifically objective and credible to the non-scientist, would you say?

As we can see from this discussion, and others here, it doesn't matter how sound the reasoning and logical inference I make are regarding the potential for intelligent design of organisms on this planet, the whole idea is simply rejected with all the reason and thought of a Muslim extremist rejecting anything that deviates from his Imam's version of the Qu'ran. It's positively medieval how mindlessly Atheists reject even the hint of a suggestion that superior intelligence might have been involved our universe.

What is it that you have persuasively argued? That it's possible to terraform a world? That complex chemicals could possibly be engineered into life forms? Everyone acknowledges that possibility. What they don't acknowledge is "ID," which in common English usage is not that.

And therein is the problem.

Reason would dictate that the scientific response to my assertion of the possibility of intelligent design or manipulation of genes in our deep past be "Interesting hypothesis, and certainly possible, but we have, as yet, no confirmatory evidence of such intelligent involvement, although such evidence may turn up eventually, and we probably ought to keep a weather eye out for such evidence, just in case, so we won't miss it if it does show up."

Who is suggesting that such a possibility doesn't exist?

That's not a cogent response to my statement. I'm suggesting that the common response boils down to "you're full of shit."

Why, I ponder, is this sort of rational, reasonable, scientific attitude almost never heard among the Atheist "intelligentsia" on these fora?

Because there is no evidence for it, and there is not much to say about it.

Then THAT should be the response. But it's not. Most often in response to any such suggestion, the atheist zealots start burning Behe in effigy immediately and the person making the statement is excoriated, insulted, ridiculed and otherwise abused. That's a radical response based on non-objective antipathy and hatred, not a rational, reasoned, scientific response to such assertions. See above for the sort of response that ought to be routine.

All we can say is that it's possible. Nobody knows anything about who, what, where, when, why or how - and nobody even has any details of any kind. It's just speculation. Why do you insist that I or anyone else must spend our time speculating on matters you're interested in?

I don't. This debate is not even about the scientific questions involved, it's about the PERCEPTIONS that participants here give when they "discuss" the issue, and that perception is almost universally that of being intolerant, knee-jerk, disrespectful jerks and major assholes to anyone who even broaches the subject. That's not how one wins converts from creationism to science, now is it?

The OP forwarded some questions from the "friend" of a member who had legitimate questions about the subject of evolution. Rather than provide the member with useful information in a form that is persuasive and respectful, that might help him to actually educate his friend and turn him away from ignorance, little is found but ridicule, derision, insult and opprobrium for being so stupid and ignorant as to not know the obvious truths of science without having to be told them.

It was yet another demonstration of the lack of reason and tolerance on the part of members here when it comes to informing the ill-informed about scientific truth. Were I the OP, I'd be pissed because nobody but me showed even the slightest interest in actually giving him useful information he could present to HIS FRIEND, whom I doubt he wishes to stand before and hurl abuse, ridicule and derision merely because a bunch of arrogant, intolerant twits here can't be bothered to be respectful and helpful.

Nobody, including Dawkins, thinks it's impossible for people to design life forms, or for terraforming of a planet to be possible. That would be "intelligent design" of a different sort, however, than that which "ID" is talking about.

See, you're doing it again. "ID" is not just one thing, or one specific train of thought, and it's narrow-minded to be non-specific about rejecting "intelligent design" by thoughtlessly conflating it with the Dover School Board version of "ID."

I'm defining terms.

Nobody calls the creation of artificial life forms, or the terraforming of planets, "ID." Well, except you, apparently.

What is the use of intelligence and technology to create life forms or change the course of evolution if it is not "intelligent design?"

For example, there is nothing unscientific about suggesting that a bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex. It's a valid scientific hypothesis that has not been conclusively disproven through experimentation.

The bacterium flagellum has not been proven to be irreducibly complex through experimentation. There is an explanation for the evolution of the bacterium flagellum. Almost nothing in science is "conclusively disproven."

Right. Moreover, the hypothesis that the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex is a valid scientific hypothesis, even if it has not been supported by experimentation. The point is that the hypothesis is not inherently religious and non-scientific in nature, even though it may have been propounded by persons who themselves are attempting to use it as a smokescreen to inject creationism, which IS inherently religious, into the schools.

There are, as has been shown here, competing theories about how the flagellum might have evolved, but like any scientific dispute, each side now has opportunity to support their theory with research and evidence. The key point being that the proposition of irreducible complexity is NOT inherently a theistic concept.

That's true. It's not "inherently a theistic concept." I'd agree with that.

Thanks. That's all I'm saying. We must be CAREFUL to give legitimate scientific hypotheses their due, even if they are weak hypotheses, and we must NOT reject a valid hypothesis simply because of its proponent or author and their political or religious affiliations or intentions. Science should not succumb to political correctness or ideological bias, it must remain objective at all times if it is to retain credibility among the general public.

It may have at it's core the assertion that the bacterial flagellum, being irreducibly complex, cannot have occurred without intelligent intervention or design, but neither is THAT assertion inherently theistic, as I have pointed out.

So? Who is claiming that it is an "inherently theistic" concept?

Nearly everybody I've ever had this debate with, to all appearances. If they hold the same opinions that you do, they rarely if ever say so. Mostly they just engage in derision, ridicule, insult and evasion.

The fact is that the argument that intelligent design could be responsible for any number of things, from the constants of physics to the design of the bacterial flagellum is an entirely scientific argument.

Could be? Sure. Could be.

That, of course, tells us nothing. Magic could be responsible for any number of things, too.

Yup, and "any sufficiently advanced technology will have the appearance of magic." Arthur C. Clarke

So, when science dismisses something as "magic" without investigating it, who's the fool?

[Thinking Aloud]

I'm pretty sure they invented the term "Intelligent Design". So whether or not we want to "let them set the agenda", they coined the phrase specifically for their dressed up Creationism, and that's what everyone understands "Intelligent Design" to mean. I don't think anyone is denying the hypothesis that some non-divine intelligence may have interfered in the development of life sometime in the past, but that's simply not what the vast majority of people understand the phrase to mean.

Sadly the phrase "Intelligent Design" is out there, and has connotations that are well understood by everyone discussing it. It means, to all intents and purposes, "Divine Intervention" or "Creationism" as far as any mainstream discussion is concerned. We can be pedantic as much as we like, but that isn't going to change things. Yes "Intelligent Design" is a perfectly good phrase to cover the hypothesis you've addressed, but sadly it's been hijacked and now means something else, much as the word "gay" has been hijacked for other purposes, and now stands more commonly used to mean "homosexual" than "happy".

[Seth]

I'm pretty sure they invented the term "Intelligent Design". So whether or not we want to "let them set the agenda", they coined the phrase specifically for their dressed up Creationism, and that's what everyone understands "Intelligent Design" to mean. I don't think anyone is denying the hypothesis that some non-divine intelligence may have interfered in the development of life sometime in the past, but that's simply not what the vast majority of people understand the phrase to mean.

Sadly the phrase "Intelligent Design" is out there, and has connotations that are well understood by everyone discussing it. It means, to all intents and purposes, "Divine Intervention" or "Creationism" as far as any mainstream discussion is concerned. We can be pedantic as much as we like, but that isn't going to change things. Yes "Intelligent Design" is a perfectly good phrase to cover the hypothesis you've addressed, but sadly it's been hijacked and now means something else, much as the word "gay" has been hijacked for other purposes, and now stands more commonly used to mean "homosexual" than "happy".

Should we allow that to stand, or should we challenge that misappropriation?

I say we should not only challenge it, but use every invocation of "intelligent design" as a teachable moment.

I'm not prepared to surrender the term to creationists.

[Coito ergo sum]

Who has presumed that the design of organisms,or the genesis of life on this planet, could not possibly have been done by intelligent beings? We know we can create artificial life. We know there are other planets in the universe. We know there may be life on those planets. If there is intelligent life here, there may be intelligent life there. Scientists are seriously talking about "terraforming" worlds like Mars, etc. - so, if you call that "intelligent design" (we are intelligent - terraforming is design) then we have intelligent design.

Well, it certainly seems that the vast majority of people I've encountered in this and other like fora can't integrate the facts as well as you have and admit that intelligent design is both a fact and a scientific proposition. You're one of the very few who has had the courage to go ahead and admit the obvious truths I've been stating for years now.

I doubt it. I think the idea is that what you call Intelligent Design is an unconventional use of the term. I would be willing to bet that not a single person here would "rule out" the POSSIBILITY that Earth was seeded with life. It's POSSIBLE. Is there any evidence for it now? No. All looks explainable by perfectly non-artificial, undirected means. But, frankly, we just don't know how life first arose on Earth. That's the most we can say - we don't yet know.

Even Dawkins acknowledges the POSSIBILITY of seeding life on Earth. The reason why people fight you on the use of the term "Intelligent Design" is the fact that ID proponents use this argument technique to bait-and-switch the issue. A person says, "we have intelligent design when people design cars, buildings ,and even life forms, so if alien creatures terraformed the Earth, that's Intelligent Design." And, if you accept that, then they say "see, you accept Intelligent Design" and they try to add all the baggage of that term, meaning the Behe and Discovery Institute NONSENSE - complete and utter NONSENSE that is the actual "theory of Intelligent Design," as opposed to your limited recognition of the ability of intelligent beings to design biological life. We obviously can, so if there are aliens, they might be able to, too.

[Coito ergo sum]

But, of course, that's not what ID proponents like Behe and the Discovery Institute are selling.

Who cares what a bunch of creationists in wolf's clothing are purveying?

I've never heard an ID proponent other than you couch artificial selection, terraforming and designer life forms made by humans, as "Intelligent Design." Who cares? I do - because it's Behe and Discovery Institute's definition of Intelligent Design that is the primary meaning of the term in common, modern English usage. Your definition is not. What you are calling "ID" is not "ID."

Why do we allow them to set the agenda and control the conversation? More importantly, why do legitimate scientists make themselves look like fools and play into the hands of creationists by denying that intelligent design exists, or that it could exist elsewhere, or that it could have existed at some other time?

Who does that, specifically? They deny that Intelligent Design exists, but they don't deny that people/humans can create life forms, engage in artificial selection and terraform another world (in theory, at least). Even Dawkins - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyT_AOtwHa4 (Dawkins acknowledging that an alien might design DNA and seed a planet). Then Ben Stein correctly points out that Dawkins is not against intelligent design, just certain types of designers, such as God. Well, yes. For obvious reasons. That's the point.

Science marginalizes itself in the eyes of the public when it makes broad knee-jerk statements about "intelligent design" that fail to very carefully distinguish and identify exactly what flavor of "ID" they are dissing.

[/quote]

I don't think so. Most of the public don't know anything about it, and the ID that most people are talking about is God or some Energy Being that created the universe. If you ask anyone what "Intelligent Design" is they most likely will not tell you it means "humans or other intelligent beings creating things by design." That's not what Intelligent Design is by any common definition. You're the first person I've ever heard call that intelligent Design.

Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. That doesn't mean just life on Earth - like life evolved elsewhere and that life seeded Earth. What ID means is that the universe in toto and living creatures in general, suggest an "intelligent cause." Intelligent Design is creationism stated in non-religious terms.

So, that's why you get such resistance to it. When you say "intelligent design" is legitimate, people won't take your bait, because they won't accept that the general proposition of "Intelligent Design" (i.e. neo-Creationism) is legitimate. And, rightly so. It's easy enough to just say what Dawkins said - sure, its possible that in the distant past some aliens genetically modified some life and seeded it on Earth - but, right now we haven't found any evidence of it.

[Coito ergo sum]

By allowing the DI and other creationists to misappropriate the term for their own nefarious purposes, objectors lose both the teachable moment and grant credibility to creationists they don't deserve and shouldn't have.

It's not misappropriating the term. They're the ones that invented it - or people like them. That's the primary meaning of it.

I think if you saying that you agree that the Intelligent Design as that term is used by Behe, the DI and other such douche bags is hogwash, but that you find the possibility of terraforming, planetary seeding of life, artificial selection, and designer life forms intriguing, you won't get many arguments from folks on a-religious side of the spectrum.

What people are talking about when they talk about "ID" is not whether it's possible that life on this planet was seeded by some extraterrestrial life.

Indeed. But just because they are guilty of fuzzy thinking doesn't mean I'm obliged to excuse them.

It's not about you. When I and most others refer to "ID" we are referring to the prevailing view of what ID is - that espouse by the "great thinkers" like Behe and the Discovery Institute. We are not obliged to go with your definition.

In case you haven't noticed, that's exactly what I'm probing at like a dentist scraping an infection out of a decaying tooth. You are granting legitimacy to the creationists by allowing them to control the terminology of the debate. What Behe and his cohorts are purveying is NOT INTELLIGENT DESIGN. The judge in Kitzmiller was pretty clear about that. They were purveying creationism "dressed up" and "repackaged' as "intelligent design."

That's what Intelligent Design is, neo Creationism. What you're describing is not "Intelligent Design." Intelligent Design would posit that the aliens seeding the Earth, like humans maybe one day seeding Mars or some other planet, would have had to be Intelligently Designed. They think ALL LIFE must have been intelligently designed, that's the whole point of Intelligent Design in the first place.

Life is "too complex" or "too perfect" to have come about "by chance," and the universe is "too complex" or "too perfect" to have come about "by chance." That's Intelligent Design - that kind of nonsensical thinking. Intelligent Design is not now and never has been - "aliens might well have seeded Earth." That, flat out, is not "Intelligent Design."

When you dis the entire concept of intelligent design, which you have just admitted is both plausible and a scientific question, when what you mean to dis is Discovery Institute-style repackaged creationism that misuses science and misappropriates an entire sphere of scientific investigation, you not only damage the reputation of science, but you make the DI loons look like they are making a rational argument.

The point I keep trying to get across is that "intelligent design" and "Behe/Discovery Institute Pseudo-Intelligent Creationism" are NOT THE SAME THING, nor should they be acknowledged as the same thing, even by allowing them to co-opt a perfectly legitimate term that has substantial and important scientific meaning and purpose.

Who are the leading writers on your version of Intelligent Design? You?

Suffice to say, nobody that I've ever seen posting here or on RDF ever said that aliens couldn't do the equivalent of terraforming on a planet, including but not limited to Earth. Of course, there is no evidence that such an event happened. But, nobody - not Dawkins, not any of the "new atheists" - not any scientist I've ever heard of "presumes" it's not "possible." Quite the opposite - it's presumed to be possible.

Then quit saying it isn't. In the minds of the un-anointed non-scientific public, when some scientist says "intelligent design is a fraud" they look at the facts, as I have so often laid out, that "intelligent design" factually exists and they roll their eyes at the scientists and turn away because that is obviously a false statement.

Your imagination appears to be running wild. The un-anointed public hardly cares about the issue, and those that do think "Intelligent Designer" means the "higher power" that created the universe, not some alien from the planet Mongo who seeded the Earth with life that started evolving.

The failure is the fault of science for not being very, very careful in using precise terminology in arguments against creationists so that the distinction is always made between actual "intelligent design" science, which does exist and is both real and a legitimate field of scientific inquiry, and pseudo-ID creationism as purveyed by the DI. Image is important, and so is precision in the use of language.

Please direct me to the legitimate "intelligent design" text, that does not posit that all life in the universe must have been created.

I see your bait and switch. You change the debate - get them to admit that life on Earth could have been designed in the sense of aliens seeding the Earth, and then say "aha! you believe in Intelligent Design as a possibility." But, then the switch is that at the dawn of life in the Universe, the ID proponents think a deity-like being must have created the first life - because life is just too complex, or too perfect, or irreducibly complex, or some other such bullshit.

When you say "ID is nonsense" without carefully describing WHAT FLAVOR of the various ID arguments you are referring to, you lose credibility. And that's pretty much all I've been saying all along, for at least three years now.

I think most everyone knows what ID is in common parlance. And, it ain't what you describe. Once again - aliens seeding Earth or humans seeding or terraforming another planet, or humans designing dog breeds, or humans creating the banana by artificial selection, simply are not "Intelligent Design." Everyone knows that that stuff isn't what is meant by "I.D."

I recall a blurb from Dawkins wherein he mentions this possibility. That's not what "ID" is.

Isn't it?

No. It isn't. Not the way any proponent of the idea, except for you, has used the term, not in general parlance. Google search the word - look on wikipedia and in other online encyclopedias. The word isn't defined as you define it. You're the one who made up something new. I suspect it's because you want to create the bait-and-switch I talked about. You want to lure people into "believing in" intelligent design, and then pull the old switcheroo and claim that they must then acknowledge that the origin of life in the universe or the universe itself was a creator/designor deity thingy, or at least that the idea is "scientific" (when it isn't). You can correct me if I'm wrong about that.

As I've said, Atheists commonly conflate the term "Intelligent Design" with a specific set of arguments made by creationists in an attempt to justify injecting creationism into the public schools. The Kitzmiller v. Dover version of "ID" is just one particularly inept and deliberately mendacious iteration of the general concept of "intelligent design" (non-capitalized) that has been co-opted by both creationists and atheists as a battle cry for both sides.

It's not "conflating" the term. That's what ID is. What you're calling it, well, isn't.

When I use the term "ID" I mean the Behe/Discovery Institute variety. The hypothesis that intelligent aliens could terraform a planet and seed it with life is what you're calling "ID" but it is not what that word means in common English usage.

Why do you insist on allowing a bunch of creationist loons to control the language of the debate?

I'm just using the modern English usage of the term. Your usage is a deviant form. But, since I've previously clarified that, discarding the term, I do agree that since humans can artificially select life, can even create artificial life, and can theoretically terraform worlds, then it's possible that those things could have been done on Earth. But, there isn't any evidence of that yet. What I'm not willing to do is call that "Intelligent Design," because that's not the common definition of the term.

I know why you insist in shoe-horning the word "Intelligent Design" into the seeding/terraforming/artificial selection shoe - you want to give credibility to the term Intelligent Design. I get it.

Thus, any invocation of the word combination "intelligent design," regardless of the actual context or scientific validity behind the utterance, is first knee-jerk conflated with the Dover crew and then excoriated and rejected out of hand, without any serious consideration whatsoever, merely because it might suggest something other than purely "naturalistic" processes in the evolution of life on this planet or the creation of our universe.

Nobody here has suggested that intelligent aliens couldn't have seeded the Earth with life, and/or terraformed it, or whatever.

I disagree. When I suggest that aliens from another universe may have done so, and may have manipulated DNA on the planet in the deep past, the rejection is all but universal and immediate.

You can suggest that all you want, but at this point we don't even know that there is another universe anywhere, so for you to speculate about what is in that other universe, before there is any evidence that there are any other universes at all, seems a bit premature.

I suspect this is not because it's not scientifically plausible, but rather because it cuts too close to the claims of Behe and the DI creationists for people's comfort,

Often, they may sniff out your agenda, yes. I don't blame them.

so they reject it as instinctively as they jerk their hand away from a hot stove, and are unwilling to examine the margins of the debate because it risks bringing them somewhere near the arguments that creationists make, and they don't want to be anywhere close, lest the contagion spread. There appears to be this deep-seated aversion to agreeing with anything any creationist might say, no matter how much basis there might be in science for such a claim,

Let's be clear. You have no basis for the claim that aliens from another universe came to Earth and seeded life here. None. Is it "possible." Sure. Lots of things are possible. I may have had sex with a sexy stripper-alien from another universe a moment ago, and then had my memory of it erased with one of those Men In Black devices. But, I have no evidence of that.

You seem to think you have some sort of scientific basis for this "aliens from another universe" claim. Every time I talk to you about stuff like this I get the distinct impression that you have had very little in the way of a science education, at least at the college level.

merely on the principle that any such agreement grants unwarranted legitimacy to creationism, and it's better to deny everything, even where there might be some actual factual agreement between science and creationism, than it is to come within spitting distance of Behe.

There isn't any factual agreement between science and Creationism. But, here is the bait-and-switch you're running rearing it's ugly head. You are hoping to argue some "credibility" into the creationist claims - you're suggesting that there is "some actual factual agreement between science and creationism." And, there is no spitting distance between Behe and science. The guy is a tool. I read a couple of his books - childish nonsense, that can only fool someone who hasn't read

But that doesn't damage the creationists nearly as much as it damages the credibility of scientists in the eyes of the general public, who see the refusal of science to be objective and dispassionate about the debate as weakness in the scientific arguments.

I don't think that's the case. The bigger danger is that the public will fall for the bait-and-switch of categorizing "artificial selection" and "terraforming" as "Intelligent Design." They will then think that all Intelligent Design is of similarly reasonable.

Both the notion that intelligent design may be responsible for the evolution of living organisms on this planet, and the notion that certain biological functions are irreducibly complex are legitimate scientific questions.

Irreducible complexity isn't a really serious question anymore. It's just throwing darts on a dartboard now. The evolution of things like the eye or the bacterium flagellum are explained by evolution, as well as every other item alleged to be "irreducibly complex." It's not really a legitimate issue. Certainly, someone is free to write a paper on what they believe to be irreducibly complex - but, from what I've seen, these all wind up being arguments from ignorance. It's just "I don't see how it could work - so it must be irreducibly complex." Frankly, it's a very silly concept that's a waste of time to teach in school - but, if it was to be taught, it would take about five minutes.

However, it's important to note that the generic notion that intelligent design of living organisms does, can or has existed in our universe, and potentially other universes as well, if they exist, is both a proven scientific fact and a valid scientific hypothesis.

The fact that humans have designed living organisms by shaping their evolution is obvious and observable. Dog breeds. Bananas. But, the rest of what you wrote is just speculation. It's not even a hypothesis, since to be a hypothesis you have to have a way of testing it. Until then, it's dreaming. Imagination. Very fun and all, but we don't even know if there are other universes. There is some theoretical physics that postulates that possibility. But, there is no way to test it as yet.

We know this because we know that humans can modify the genetic structure of living organisms, thereby creating entirely new and unique organisms, and because we are on the cusp of being able to artificially create living cells in the laboratory. These facts prove that intelligent design of living organisms is possible here and now, and therefore, logically, intelligent design of living organisms was likewise possible in the past, or in other places, although we currently have no evidence that this is the case before us.

Yes, but again that's not "Intelligent Design." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design

It is also important to note that the debate about irreducible complexity is also, in and of itself, a completely legitimate scientific debate.

It's not, really. Name one "irreducibly complex" organism.

The proposition is a valid scientific question that may be investigated and confirmed and can be falsified, so it's a legitimate field of inquiry. At the moment, the irreducible complexity arguments offered by the Discovery Institute are not strong, and the claims have been carefully examined and discussed and subjected to rigorous peer review and have largely been rejected as unsound.

So, it seems that that aspect, you will admit, has received sufficient attention.

But, as scientists, we

We? Are you a scientist? What discipline? What's your scientific education?

welcome such inquiries and hypotheses as completely legitimate forms of scientific inquiry and investigation, and any well-constructed scientific hypothesis will always be given due and respectful consideration, irrespective of the source or the evident political agenda of its proponents, because science is objective and cares nothing for politics, it cares only for verifiable truths.

Sure.

As rational, well-formed hypotheses involving the question of the intelligent design of living organisms on this planet,

What rational ,well-formed, hypothesis is that?

or indeed the origins of life on this planet or others, and even as cosmological hypotheses about the origin and design of the fundamental physics of our universe, or others, through intelligent design come before the scientific community, they will be investigated and discussed with due regard and respect for their strengths as scientific arguments and with an acknowledgment that science is neither omniscient nor infallible, and every scientific hypothesis is subject to examination and revision when new evidence appears.

See - you really want to make this about some entity designing the universe....

Science rejects no well-formed and rational scientific hypothesis based only on its source or author, for that would be to engage in personal bias and subjective analysis, and science is about lack of bias and objective review.

Well-formed and rational. Can you give me a cite for the well-formed and rational scientific hypothesis you're referring to?

But this also means that all such hypotheses will be subject to rigorous scientific review and analysis, and no favor will be granted to any hypothesis because of it's source or author either."

People research what they want to research. If you're asking people to stop laughing at stupid ideas, well, you can't make people behave in the way that pleases you. There isn't enough time in the day for every cock-a-mamie idea that comes down the pike. If you want to research irreducible complexity or aliens from other universes, then have at it. Why do you insist that particle physicists waste their time on it?

As we can see from this discussion, and others here, it doesn't matter how sound the reasoning and logical inference I make are regarding the potential for intelligent design of organisms on this planet, the whole idea is simply rejected with all the reason and thought of a Muslim extremist rejecting anything that deviates from his Imam's version of the Qu'ran. It's positively medieval how mindlessly Atheists reject even the hint of a suggestion that superior intelligence might have been involved our universe.

What is it that you have persuasively argued? That it's possible to terraform a world? That complex chemicals could possibly be engineered into life forms? Everyone acknowledges that possibility. What they don't acknowledge is "ID," which in common English usage is not that.

And therein is the problem.

No. Therein lies the reality and the precise use of words. Far from trying to clarify meaning - you're trying to muddle. You've done it here. You WANT people to leap from genetic engineering and artificial selection to "aliens from the third universe on the left" and "energy beings from the 5th dimension."

Reason would dictate that the scientific response to my assertion of the possibility of intelligent design or manipulation of genes in our deep past be "Interesting hypothesis, and certainly possible, but we have, as yet, no confirmatory evidence of such intelligent involvement, although such evidence may turn up eventually, and we probably ought to keep a weather eye out for such evidence, just in case, so we won't miss it if it does show up."

Who is suggesting that such a possibility doesn't exist?

That's not a cogent response to my statement. I'm suggesting that the common response boils down to "you're full of shit."

Quite often, you are. You've admitted that yourself when you talk about arguing positions that you really don't hold. When you do that without explicitly stating that is what you're doing at the time, then you're full of shit. And, your statement was not interrogative, so I didn't actually "respond" to it.

Why, I ponder, is this sort of rational, reasonable, scientific attitude almost never heard among the Atheist "intelligentsia" on these fora?

Because there is no evidence for it, and there is not much to say about it.

Then THAT should be the response. But it's not.

It's the response I see most often. But, you have to remember that many atheists aren't any brighter than the general population, so articulate rebuttals may not be within their baileywick. People are generally stupid.

Most often in response to any such suggestion, the atheist zealots start burning Behe in effigy immediately and the person making the statement is excoriated, insulted, ridiculed and otherwise abused. That's a radical response based on non-objective antipathy and hatred, not a rational, reasoned, scientific response to such assertions. See above for the sort of response that ought to be routine.

Well, I can't say much about the people you claim to have talked to about it, and I certainly don't know how representative those people were of scientists or persons with knowledge on whatever topic you've been discussing.

All we can say is that it's possible. Nobody knows anything about who, what, where, when, why or how - and nobody even has any details of any kind. It's just speculation. Why do you insist that I or anyone else must spend our time speculating on matters you're interested in?

I don't. This debate is not even about the scientific questions involved, it's about the PERCEPTIONS that participants here give when they "discuss" the issue, and that perception is almost universally that of being intolerant, knee-jerk, disrespectful jerks and major assholes to anyone who even broaches the subject. That's not how one wins converts from creationism to science, now is it?

They may not care about converting anyone. Frankly, I've seen more intolerance and disrespect come from the Intelligent Design folks. It's not surprising, since most of them are masking a religious agenda, and the real vitriol comes from the religious folks.

The OP forwarded some questions from the "friend" of a member who had legitimate questions about the subject of evolution. Rather than provide the member with useful information in a form that is persuasive and respectful, that might help him to actually educate his friend and turn him away from ignorance, little is found but ridicule, derision, insult and opprobrium for being so stupid and ignorant as to not know the obvious truths of science without having to be told them.

It depends how the question was asked, I suppose. Often, we on the atheist side get questions with ulterior motives and an intent to achieve a "gotcha" or nonserious attempts to ridicule us. So, many atheists can be defensive on that point, and suspicious of booby traps in arguments. You do it sometimes, and I can see what you're doing with the Intelligent Design argument - you're trying to get respect for the larger Intelligent Design concept by getting people to call "terraforming" and artificial selection "intelligent design." It's a way to rhetorically conflate different concepts into one.

It was yet another demonstration of the lack of reason and tolerance on the part of members here when it comes to informing the ill-informed about scientific truth. Were I the OP, I'd be pissed because nobody but me showed even the slightest interest in actually giving him useful information he could present to HIS FRIEND, whom I doubt he wishes to stand before and hurl abuse, ridicule and derision merely because a bunch of arrogant, intolerant twits here can't be bothered to be respectful and helpful.

Nobody, including Dawkins, thinks it's impossible for people to design life forms, or for terraforming of a planet to be possible. That would be "intelligent design" of a different sort, however, than that which "ID" is talking about.

See, you're doing it again. "ID" is not just one thing, or one specific train of thought, and it's narrow-minded to be non-specific about rejecting "intelligent design" by thoughtlessly conflating it with the Dover School Board version of "ID."

I'm defining terms.

Nobody calls the creation of artificial life forms, or the terraforming of planets, "ID." Well, except you, apparently.

What is the use of intelligence and technology to create life forms or change the course of evolution if it is not "intelligent design?"

Terraforming, artificial selection, whatever. It's whatever the technology or practice is. The term "intelligent design" has never been used in modern English usage (or even older English usage) to mean those things. And, you're the first person I have EVER heard try to shoehorn those things into "Intelligent Design."

For example, there is nothing unscientific about suggesting that a bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex. It's a valid scientific hypothesis that has not been conclusively disproven through experimentation.

The bacterium flagellum has not been proven to be irreducibly complex through experimentation. There is an explanation for the evolution of the bacterium flagellum. Almost nothing in science is "conclusively disproven."

Right. Moreover, the hypothesis that the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex is a valid scientific hypothesis, even if it has not been supported by experimentation.

So is "leaves are green" a valid scientific hypothesis. On the level of importance, however, to the issue of science, evolutionary biology, etc., it's pretty low on the totem pole. Right about where arguments about bacterial flagellum is. Bacterium flagellum deserves about as much credence as the idea that the planets are perfect spheres. Science has blown way past it.

There are, as has been shown here, competing theories about how the flagellum might have evolved, but like any scientific dispute, each side now has opportunity to support their theory with research and evidence. The key point being that the proposition of irreducible complexity is NOT inherently a theistic concept.

That's true. It's not "inherently a theistic concept." I'd agree with that.

Thanks. That's all I'm saying.[/quote]

If that's all you were saying, then this post would not be a page long. You're arguing for much more than that. Who cares that it's not "inherently a theistic concept?" Neither is the price of tea in China.

We must be CAREFUL to give legitimate scientific hypotheses their due, even if they are weak hypotheses, and we must NOT reject a valid hypothesis simply because of its proponent or author and their political or religious affiliations or intentions. Science should not succumb to political correctness or ideological bias, it must remain objective at all times if it is to retain credibility among the general public.

It may have at it's core the assertion that the bacterial flagellum, being irreducibly complex, cannot have occurred without intelligent intervention or design, but neither is THAT assertion inherently theistic, as I have pointed out.

So? Who is claiming that it is an "inherently theistic" concept?

Nearly everybody I've ever had this debate with, to all appearances. If they hold the same opinions that you do, they rarely if ever say so. Mostly they just engage in derision, ridicule, insult and evasion.

[/quote]

No, I don't think they argue that it's "inherently theistic." They argue that it's a concept predominently held by theists. That I will agree with.


I'm too tired to go on...

[Coito ergo sum]

I'm pretty sure they invented the term "Intelligent Design". So whether or not we want to "let them set the agenda", they coined the phrase specifically for their dressed up Creationism, and that's what everyone understands "Intelligent Design" to mean. I don't think anyone is denying the hypothesis that some non-divine intelligence may have interfered in the development of life sometime in the past, but that's simply not what the vast majority of people understand the phrase to mean.

Sadly the phrase "Intelligent Design" is out there, and has connotations that are well understood by everyone discussing it. It means, to all intents and purposes, "Divine Intervention" or "Creationism" as far as any mainstream discussion is concerned. We can be pedantic as much as we like, but that isn't going to change things. Yes "Intelligent Design" is a perfectly good phrase to cover the hypothesis you've addressed, but sadly it's been hijacked and now means something else, much as the word "gay" has been hijacked for other purposes, and now stands more commonly used to mean "homosexual" than "happy".

Should we allow that to stand, or should we challenge that misappropriation?

I say we should not only challenge it, but use every invocation of "intelligent design" as a teachable moment.

I'm not prepared to surrender the term to creationists.

I think the only people who give a flying fuck about the term "Intelligent Design" are those who invented as a neo-Creationist idea, and those with an agenda similar to those inventors. Nobody called "terraforming" a form "Intelligent Design" before Intelligent Design was coined as a term, and the term is not needed now. Calling things that humans design "Intelligent Design" is just a bait-and-switch move designed to lend credence to neo-Creationism.

[MrFungus420]

Who cares what a bunch of creationists in wolf's clothing are purveying? Why do we allow them to set the agenda and control the conversation? More importantly, why do legitimate scientists make themselves look like fools and play into the hands of creationists by denying that intelligent design exists, or that it could exist elsewhere, or that it could have existed at some other time? Science marginalizes itself in the eyes of the public when it makes broad knee-jerk statements about "intelligent design" that fail to very carefully distinguish and identify exactly what flavor of "ID" they are dissing. By allowing the DI and other creationists to misappropriate the term for their own nefarious purposes, objectors lose both the teachable moment and grant credibility to creationists they don't deserve and shouldn't have.

Intelligent Design is THEIR term...it's a creationist term. It was one that they developed when it was ruled that "Creation Science" could not be taught in public schools.

Their term, their idea.

Why do you think that you get to redefine a term that is already in use and already has a meaning?

Intelligent Design IS Creationism.

If you do not mean "Creationism camouflaged with a thin veneer of pseudo-science" when you say "Intelligent Design", then you need to start using another term.

[MrFungus420]

I'm pretty sure they invented the term "Intelligent Design". So whether or not we want to "let them set the agenda", they coined the phrase specifically for their dressed up Creationism, and that's what everyone understands "Intelligent Design" to mean. I don't think anyone is denying the hypothesis that some non-divine intelligence may have interfered in the development of life sometime in the past, but that's simply not what the vast majority of people understand the phrase to mean.

Sadly the phrase "Intelligent Design" is out there, and has connotations that are well understood by everyone discussing it. It means, to all intents and purposes, "Divine Intervention" or "Creationism" as far as any mainstream discussion is concerned. We can be pedantic as much as we like, but that isn't going to change things. Yes "Intelligent Design" is a perfectly good phrase to cover the hypothesis you've addressed, but sadly it's been hijacked and now means something else, much as the word "gay" has been hijacked for other purposes, and now stands more commonly used to mean "homosexual" than "happy".

Should we allow that to stand, or should we challenge that misappropriation?

I say we should not only challenge it, but use every invocation of "intelligent design" as a teachable moment.

I'm not prepared to surrender the term to creationists.

IT'S THEIR FUCKING TERM. THEY COINED IT, THEY DEFINED IT. THERE IS NOTHING TO "SURRENDER".

[Seth]

Who has presumed that the design of organisms,or the genesis of life on this planet, could not possibly have been done by intelligent beings? We know we can create artificial life. We know there are other planets in the universe. We know there may be life on those planets. If there is intelligent life here, there may be intelligent life there. Scientists are seriously talking about "terraforming" worlds like Mars, etc. - so, if you call that "intelligent design" (we are intelligent - terraforming is design) then we have intelligent design.

Well, it certainly seems that the vast majority of people I've encountered in this and other like fora can't integrate the facts as well as you have and admit that intelligent design is both a fact and a scientific proposition. You're one of the very few who has had the courage to go ahead and admit the obvious truths I've been stating for years now.

I doubt it. I think the idea is that what you call Intelligent Design is an unconventional use of the term. I would be willing to bet that not a single person here would "rule out" the POSSIBILITY that Earth was seeded with life. It's POSSIBLE. Is there any evidence for it now? No. All looks explainable by perfectly non-artificial, undirected means. But, frankly, we just don't know how life first arose on Earth. That's the most we can say - we don't yet know.

Correct. So the intelligent design origin of life on earth hypothesis is still in play.

Even Dawkins acknowledges the POSSIBILITY of seeding life on Earth. The reason why people fight you on the use of the term "Intelligent Design" is the fact that ID proponents use this argument technique to bait-and-switch the issue. A person says, "we have intelligent design when people design cars, buildings ,and even life forms, so if alien creatures terraformed the Earth, that's Intelligent Design." And, if you accept that, then they say "see, you accept Intelligent Design" and they try to add all the baggage of that term, meaning the Behe and Discovery Institute NONSENSE - complete and utter NONSENSE that is the actual "theory of Intelligent Design," as opposed to your limited recognition of the ability of intelligent beings to design biological life. We obviously can, so if there are aliens, they might be able to, too.

I agree, that's precisely what they do. They use legitimate science as a Trojan horse for their creationist arguments.

That's no reason to discard the legitimate science of intelligent design, it's a reason to fight for accuracy and precision in usage of scientific terminology.

Abandoning the field of battle should not be an option.