No I didn’t. ID doesn’t mean GMOs. Does it. And we can detect them. Can’t we.
ID does mean detecting GMOs, forensics, network intrusion detection, etc. And yes, it works, quite well.
That doesn’t work unless the Origins of Species is largely correct. Is that the position that is being argued? Or is it just in need of a few small modifications? I ask that sincerely. Rather simplistic question,but would bring clarity.
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To unpack my last two abrupt comments.
When we talk about ID, there are various facets we can be addressing, just like people can mean various things when they say ‘evolution’.
These facets are:
- Main people involved
- Fundamental questions asked
- Methodology for answering questions in #2
- Arguments made using #3
In our discussions, we tend to mix up these various facets, e.g. when discussing common descent we are mixing up #1 and #2, confusing the fundamental questions asked which are orthogonal to common descent with what particular individuals involved might personally believe.
Likewise, when discussing whether ID works, we are confusing #3 and #4. I am talking about #3 when I say ID works, because the explanatory filter has widespread use outside of biological history. However, I do not have the expertise to evaluate much of #4 due to my lack of biological knowledge.
Hopefully this makes the discussion clearer.
I’m not entirely sure as to which of my posts you refer, but in general, my point in this thread is not that Origin of Species is largely correct, but that “evolution” as a term in a mainstream biological context communicates a set of concepts, only part of which derives from Darwin, which has a common understanding. If the reader understands what the writer intends to convey, there is no need to alter the term. This works, because there is little dispute that in secular academia, the gist of Origin of Species is viewed as largely correct as far as it goes with the limitations of the time.
Now ID asserts that Darwin, even with the updates from modern population genetics, is not a sufficient explanation for earth’s biosphere, even if common descent, which infers evolution, is allowed. In that view, “evolution” is then a general term which requires further specification to clarify the author’s position, and indeed “evolution” does have broader usage both in wider English and science, particularly astronomy. So is this a justified perspective?
Well, as I have stated, people are free to use technical language, pejorative language, informal language, confrontational language, or purple language, as they wish. Expect others to respond favorably or otherwise based on their own expectations and associations. Others are as free to react as the writer is free to write. And as has been extensively posted above, they will react to Darwinism or Darwinian evolution because they view it, correctly in most cases, as either loaded or anachronistic or both. It was pointed out that a simple search on the AiG website turns up extensive examples which fulfill the worst expectations in this regard (try it), and their writings are pretty typical of creationist sites in this regard, so the well has been poisoned.
ID has made some contributions to the vocabulary of the origins debate that I think are quite valuable, especially “irreducible complexity”. Not that I agree there is, in principle, any to be found, but the term conveys a clear and significant meaning, and does not sidetrack from the essence of the discussion. Darwinism, on the other hand, is generally misappropriated and muddles the conversation. Even with good intentions on both sides, I genuinely am often uncertain of the sense the author intends.
Link to your definition source for that.
Mine says ‘Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God’.
What’s the scientific answer to that question, rather than a pseudoscientific answer?
Concur… I have no doubt that many if not most ID proponents doubt and critique the idea of common descent. Though when they do, they usually describe the particular idea they are critiquing by the words “common descent”. The idea that they are being coy, secretly hiding their doubt about common descent under code words like “Macroevolution” I find ridiculous. The term “Common descent” and critique of it is all over Evolutionnews.org, as are their distinctions and qualifications between that idea (which they quite openly acknowledge many though not all of them disagree with) and the mutation/natural selection mechanism (which it is made quite clear by definition they all disagree with). There is an entire section of the “theistic evolution” book dedicated to “ The Case against Universal Common Descent and for a Unique Human Origin“… So I don’t see Those that doubt common descent failing to be upfront about their doubt and resorting to code words like “Macroevolution”, nor can I see how lay people would miss their doubts about common descent. Plastering it large letters as the subject of an entire section of their book isn’t clear enough?
But this idea, while admittedly related, is simply an entirely different concept than the mechanism of mutation/natural selection and its unguided ability to achieve sophisticated biological marvels. That’s why that critique is in a distinct and separate section in the “theistic evolution” book after all. (“The Failure of Neo Darwinism“), and this is the point which all, not just many or most, ID proponents critique. If I wanted to critique “common descent”, I would say I was critiquing “common descent.” But the suggestion that I use “common descent“ to describe what I am critiquing, when I am clearly not critiquing it, is singularly unhelpful.
But the idea that ID proponents are keeping some kind of “dirty secret” by somehow hiding their doubt or critique of common descent is laughable. If they want to hide it better, they might have refrained from publishing books wherein “ The Case against Universal Common Descent“ is a major section heading with multiple articles critiquing the idea.
You misunderstand. I am saying lay people miss the idea that Behe is fine with common descent, not that they are “being coy” about doubting it. I know many people who were shocked when they found out that any people associated with ID were not ideologically opposed to biological evolution. If you say that main thrust of ID research is all about detecting design and nothing to do with contesting evolution, fine, but that is clearly not the rhetorical focus of the lay-level propaganda which spends inordinate amounts of time “doubting and critiquing” evolutionary theory.
Your post is not clarifying anything for me. I don’t understand the difference in your mind between common descent and macroevolution or between microevolution and Darwinian evolution. I have no idea what distinctions you think there are between those terms. Common descent usually refers to large scale evolution. Microevolution is generally thought of as something that happens by mutation and natural selection.
Fine. But over and over again it seems to me that you have expressed your skepticism about the plausibility of large scale (unguided) evolutionary change. Which is the same thing as common descent in most people’s minds.
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I recommend reading the DI’s faq on ID to find out what they think it is all about.
Is intelligent design theory incompatible with evolution?
It depends on what one means by the word “evolution.” If one simply means “change over time,” or even that living things are related by common ancestry, then there is no inherent conflict between evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory. However, the dominant theory of evolution today is neo-Darwinism, which contends that evolution is driven by natural selection acting on random mutations, an unpredictable and purposeless process that “has no discernable direction or goal, including survival of a species.” (NABT Statement on Teaching Evolution). It is this specific claim made by neo-Darwinism that intelligent design theory directly challenges
The Definition of Intelligent Design
Intelligent design refers to a scientific research program as well as a community of scientists, philosophers and other scholars who seek evidence of design in nature. The theory of intelligent design holds 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. Through the study and analysis of a system’s components, a design theorist is able to determine whether various natural structures are the product of chance, natural law, intelligent design, or some combination thereof. Such research is conducted by observing the types of information produced when intelligent agents act. Scientists then seek to find objects which have those same types of informational properties which we commonly know come from intelligence. Intelligent design has applied these scientific methods to detect design in irreducibly complex biological structures, the complex and specified information content in DNA, the life-sustaining physical architecture of the universe, and the geologically rapid origin of biological diversity in the fossil record during the Cambrian explosion approximately 530 million years ago.
I am aware of the party line. I do not find that the individuals I interact with necessarily toe that line.
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I understand the point that common descent may go hand in hand with unguided evolution for many people. But, isn’t it clear there is a distinction between the two questions?
For instance, say the fossil record and genetic data show good evidence of common descent. It still is coherent to ask if unguided evolution can do it. Alfred Russell Wallace, a contemporary of Darwin, spent a lot more time doing fieldwork, and based on his findings he concluded the evidence pointed to guided evolution with common descent.
So, even though there are ID proponents who do not accept common descent (personally I can only think of one or two) that is a distinct issue from whether evolution is guided. And, as the DI faq makes clear, the guided question is the fundamental question. And thus pointing out issues with the Darwinian scheme does not necessarily mean dismissal of common descent, as Wallace would be in the camp of non-Darwinian evolution with common descent.
Sure, I don’t think the problem is coherence, it’s communication. We are trying to get at what people understand when others use common terms. If you affirm common descent, I think most people assume you are affirming the normal “unguided” (or at least undetectable guidance) evolutionary model, not some other theoretically possible idea of guided design that is coherent with the general concept of interrelated species. Of course an individual can clarify and nuance their use of terms to their heart’s content, but the idea of common descent for most people includes implicit ideas about evolution and how evolution works. The terms themselves do not represent vague and unspecified concepts for most people.
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So it sounds like we are all at least clear where the fundamental disagreement lies?
False. What I do is not conflate the two. Science is a method, not an ontological or metaphysical worldview nor a theology.
If the most prominent advocates of Evolution also like golf does this mean the theory of evolution concludes golf is a good sport? What people do is not a reflection on what a theory says.
That would be Dawkinsian evolution.
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Right. Is that a scientific or other rational, objective, disinterested definition from a scientific or other rational, objective, disinterested source?
Yes, except for the disinterested portion. Most ID proponents like myself are very interested in the question.
Science is a method, but people with different world views use this method. Are you saying that their world views do not influence the way they use this method? Dawkins wrote that reading Darwin made him feel justified as an atheist scientist.
Science, Philosophy, and Theology are three disciplines that humans use to understand the world. Either there are three different worlds and one discipline is right and others are wrong, or they each see the world from a different perspective. If the second is true, then they are all basically right, which is important because they share common boundaries, such as the Beginning and the understanding of humanity. I chose the second position, which is not conflation, but comparison which is part of the scientific method.
Both. It also comes across as mealy-mouthed in many instances. For example, a writer at ENV will complain that “Darwinian evolution” is unable to explain ________ , and since “Darwinian evolution” is nothing but “natural selection,” all I can think is “So what?” Of course natural selection by itself is incomplete. Science has come a long way since Darwin. I spend half the article/essay trying to figure out if they’re arguing against one specific aspect of evolution, hence the modifier, or if they’re just using the term without knowing what it means. Examples of misuse don’t define a term, “irregardless” of what the dictionary might say. (Google it if you don’t get that last bit. haha)
Again, the majority of Evolutionary Creationists would agree evolution is guided, but that’s a theological overlay. It’s also incidentally why DI’s book “Theistic Evolution” is flawed from the outset. The distinct issue isn’t whether God guided evolution or by what means. It isn’t even whether God could have employed random means to achieve his desired ends. The issue is whether God the Designer’s involvement is empirically detectable. ID asserts that it is.
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