Ok, here it comes. First of all, I’m going out of my way to avoid references to certain individuals and certain commercial enterprises such as so-called ‘creationist museums’. Even I laugh at some of the claims and I am not even close to being a paleontologist.
I good place to start, is the excellent Wikipedia article on the subject referenced here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
The following quotes are noteworthy and so I will kick off the discussion.
This one statement clearly shows, and I don’t believe ID proponents dispute, that ID is an inference rather than a science. Given this I concede that it is better suited to a philosophy class than a science class, nevertheless, its chief proponents state:The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own.[18]
My commentary is, we seen many places in these forums where inferences must be made for lack of physical evidence (for example the famous claim of creationists that not a single shred of evidence supports the ability of one species to evolve into another species). While this is probably disputed, no one can deny that two well respected scientists can examine evidence and draw different conclusions when a great deal of context is missing. Other disciplines must be called upon to fill in the gaps. The whole idea of exploration and experimentation is to flesh-in the context. Can we at least agree for now that inference is a part of the process?"Proponents of intelligent design regard it as a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes. Note that intelligent design studies the effects of intelligent causes and not intelligent causes per se." In his [Dembski] view, one cannot test for the identity of influences exterior to a closed system from within, so questions concerning the identity of a designer fall outside the realm of the concept.
I think one thing overlooked in evolutionary science is, from the big bang until now, the natural likelihood of every cosmological constant being perfectly effected in such a way that the possibility for life to evolve on planet(s) is pretty slim and yet here we are discussing this. (btw the idea of life evolving on any of the other billions of planets is a scientific inference.) This is kind of my expansion of the ‘Watchmakers analogy’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy). as well as fine tuned universe ideology. Rational critique of the principle can be reviewed in the Wiki article.
Concepts for ID include:
Irreducible Complexity –
Originally proposed by Michael Behe, it now seems to be uncompelling and need not be discussed further –
Specified Complexity-Behe himself has since confessed to "sloppy prose," and that his "argument against Darwinism does not add up to a logical proof."[42] Irreducible complexity has remained a popular argument among advocates of intelligent design; however, in the Dover trial, the court held that "Professor Behe’s claim for irreducible complexity has been refuted in peer-reviewed research papers and has been rejected by the scientific community at large."[43]
This concept is disputed but not refuted in my opinion.
The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William Dembski. Dembski states that when something exhibits specified complexity (i.e., is both complex and specified, simultaneously), one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes. He provides the following examples: "A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified."[44] He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA.
Dembski defines complex specified information as anything with a less than 1 in 10150 chance of occurring by (natural) chance. Critics say that this renders the argument a tautology: Complex specified information (CSI) cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature.
Fined tuned universe –
Already discussed briefly in my commentary above. The reader is invited to read a summary of its critiques in the Wiki article cited above.
Intelligent Designer –
Ok, even though they do not necessarily claim God is the creator. We all know what they are saying. So let’s not quibble.
Finally I would like to introduce one more layer of complexity not yet latched onto by ID’ers and see what sparks fly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics
Though I have not provided direct links to hard evidence as some will quickly point out the point is the evidence is the same as that for evolution to a large extent. You have a system, you ask, “how did it get here”, you look at evidence and postulate theories.
OK – it this enough to start on?
