Talk:Intelligent design/Archive 21A

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Recap

Concerning Wade A. Tisthammer's suggestion that the article incorrectly claims that ID must (by its own reasoning) imply a Irreducibly Complex designer.

Let's recap something here from the discussion on this page: Please stop claiming that your "request was denied." Here is the order of events as I have seen it (massively paraphrased):

  1. Wade asks "where did you get this idea?"
  2. Several editors post cites from Dembski, Behe, Dennett, Dawkins.
  3. Wade complains that the precise wording doesn't exist in the cites.
  4. Wade repeats his questions, adding "My request was denied."
Here is the order of events if your request had actually been denied:
  1. Wade asks "where did you get this idea?"
  2. Several editors post responses saying Wade doesn't matter, and they refuse to discuss the matter.

Now, if you want a quote, which involves the precise wording, go to WikiQuote. This is Wikipedia, where summary is by and large the method used. I currently am trying very hard to have a productive discourse with you regarding Irreducible complexity, which has several definitions which contradict each other. If we ever get anywhere, we may have something of value to add to this article, or the Irreducible complexity article, or both. It may even transpire that we will find that the sentence you have such difficulty accepting is inaccurate, based on the definition of IC. But, you spend more of your time making a vaugue and innacurate general accusation against the editors on this page at large, that your "request was denied." Please cease. This horse is past dead, it is bones. Stop beating it. KillerChihuahua 00:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Let's first get it straight what my request actually was. The argument: the intelligent designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. My request: please give a citation of a prominent ID opponent who makes this argument (to ensure that this argument is not original research. My request was denied. There were no citations given to meet my request. Let's take one of the provided citations as an example:
"If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot."
If the phrasing were "Critics argue that the designer must itself be complex" I would have no objection. But this isn't the argument under discussion. The argument is "by Intelligent Design's own reasoning, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex." And the citation here doesn't contain that argument under discussion. The citation does not even mention irreducible complexity, nor does it claim that the designer must be irreducibly complex, nor does it say that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning, nor does it even say that the designer has to have any kind of complexity by intelligent design's own reasoning. This citation does not meet my request of a prominent ID adherent claiming that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. Is it clear now that my request was denied? --Wade A. Tisthammer 00:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Wade,

KC raises very good points, logical ones even, ones that need no bleeding citations. As for the reply to her points I say, "Yawn".

Jim62sch 01:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Wade, stating a series of very specific and ridiculously narrow set of criteria for a cite and then claiming that since the cites offered don't meet your criteria is proof that your request was "denied" is a very good example of a setup. Your request for cites was not "denied" - your criteria for what you will accept is absurd. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua 01:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
One of my criteria was that the citation actually contain the argument I suspect was original research. Do you find this to be a "ridiculously narrow" requirement? If so, I would like to see a good explanation why. Was my request for a prominent ID opponent making the argument "ridiculously narrow" given what I said above regarding Wikipedia policy? I would like to see a good explanation why. Why is my request for a leading ID opponent who makes the argument (to ensure the argument is not original research) absurd? I would like to see a good explanation why. --Wade A. Tisthammer 04:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Not to mention out of step with WP:V and WP:RS, which provide the only criteria editors need to meet. FeloniousMonk 01:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I would like to see a good explanation why you think my request was out of step with WP:V and WP:RS. Felonious, earlier you said my idea of a suitable citation in line with Wikipedia policy. When I asked for an explanation you refused to give any. With all due respect, I think some sort of explanation is needed in accusations like these. BTW, that's not the only criteria editors need to meet methinks. There also appears to be some criteria listed in here (see above where I cited them). --Wade A. Tisthammer 04:16, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I think KC explains the issue to you above accurately and sufficiently as to why your personal criteria for what constitutes acceptable evidence is not getting much traction. I merely pointed out that there are established policies and guidelines at Wikipedia for what constitutes sufficient support that the rest of us do our best to adhere to. I've never meant to say your idea of what is a suitable citation in line with Wikipedia policy. If it read that way, it was one of my many typos. It has always been my position that from what I've seen your personal idea of what are adequate supporting citations has always been out of step with Wikipedia's policies and something that needs to change. Also, please don't split up other's comments by replying to each out of order, it makes it very difficult to follow a thread. FeloniousMonk 04:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Felonious, neither you nor KC has given me any explanation why my criteria are "ridiculously narrow" especially after what I cited regarding Wikipedia policy above. You said that my "personal idea of what are adequate supporting citations has always been out of step with Wikipedia's policies" and again I'd like to see some explanation why. I don't think you can make accusations like this without justification and without explanation, particularly regarding my citation of Wikipedia policy above to support the reasonableness of my request for the citations. --Wade A. Tisthammer 04:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  1. You insist that there be a single cite which must use the precise words "irreducibly complex" rejecting out of hand any cite which is clearly speaking of the ID concept of IC if it does not use the precise words you chose
  2. You insist that the cite must be from a "leading ID opponent" which is against WP policy even if you defined who you'd accept (and since you haven't accepted Dawkins I don't know who you'd think qualified)
  3. You ignore that most scientists aren't ID "opponents", considering the issue to be a matter of sense vs. nonsense, not two competing "theories"
  4. You ignore that no "leading ID opponent" uses the term "irreducibly complex" except to dismiss it as "nonsense"

All of which adds up to: scientists avoid the term "irreducibly complex", since that is an ID proponent term, not an ID opponent term, thus your very narrow and unreasonable requirements ensure that it will be virtually impossible to find a cite which satisfies you. If that were not enough, you don't specify what you mean by "leading ID opponent" which probably isn't germaine anyway as WP policy is authoritative sources, period. Not proponents or opponents of any fad whatsoever. Dennett throroughly debunks the idea of a designer, but he refers to any supernatural explanation as a "skyhook" which I am going to guess would be rejected by you because "the word 'designer' wasn't even mentioned!" completely ignoring that it is clear what Dennett is talking about. In spite of your near-constant mention of WP:CITE, it nowhere states that citations must use the precise language of an opinion they consider to be idiotic nonsense. That is like trying to find a quote from Gandhi with a specific "hate phrase" - he spoke against hate and violence, and rarely used their phrases.

Does this clarify anything for you at all? KillerChihuahua 10:52, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Partially. I'd be interested in knowing why you don't think accuracy is important. The argument says that the designer must possess a specific kind of complexity. There is a significant difference between the designer being irreducibly complex and the designer merely being complex, especially as it applies to this argument. (Remember, if you changed the viewpoint to "Critics argue that the designer must be complex" I would have no objection.) So it's perfectly acceptable that the citation say that the designer possess this kind of complexity. Let me give you an example. Suppose I put forth a claim that a certain leaf is purple. You grant that the leaf exists but ask for a citation regarding this specific color. But the citation I provide merely says that the leaf has a color. This would not be an acceptable citation because it doesn't address the matter at hand. If you don't think that precision and accuracy is important here, would you object to changing the argument from "the designer must be irreducibly complex" to "the designer must be complex"? I suspect you would object, because you yourself believe the "precise words" (i.e. the kind of complexity being referred to) is important. Let's not get hypocritical.
You claimed that my request from a leading ID opponent is against WP. It appears I must go over the issue yet again. The claim: that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. The Wikipedia entry states “critics argue” this. Do they? Is this viewpoint a majority, significant minority, or extremely small minority? Looking at Wikipedia policy
  • If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
  • If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
  • If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.
My request was simple: a citation of any prominent ID adherent who makes this argument to show that the argument is not original research (I doubt one would find it in commonly accepted reference texts, but this would be acceptable too I suppose). This request has been repeatedly denied. Not one of the proposed citations met my request; not one of them consisted of a leading ID opponent claiming that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. Indeed, many of the citations didn't even mention irreducible complexity! One cannot just throw citations willy-nilly and claim the problem of finding a suitable citation has been solved. The citations have to be relevant to the matter at hand. Given Wikipedia policy above, I would like you explain why my request is "unreasonable" and "narrow."
Dawkins does qualify as a prominent ID opponent, unfortunately the citation never mentioned the argument under discussion. Dawkins doesn't even mention irreducible complexity, doesn't say that the designer has to be irreducibly complex, doesn't say that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning or even say that the designer has to have any kind of complexity by intelligent design's own reasoning. This goes far beyond not having the "precise words," it doesn't even remotely paraphrase the claim under discussion.
The next item on the list said that most scientists aren't ID opponents. Is this true? I was aware that most scientists are currently against ID. I do not believe that ID has gained majority acceptance yet.
Many prominent ID opponents use the term "irreducibly complex" particularly when attacking ID (as the anti-ID argument under discussion certainly does). Yet you cannot provide a single citation of any prominent ID opponent claiming that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. Doesn't this suggest that the claim might indeed be original research? And even if you don't think so, note that you're still required to provide a citation if you want this viewpoint to stay in the Wikipedia entry. --Wade A. Tisthammer 20:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes, rhetoric is best understood by reading between the lines rather than by looking for definitive statements.

Jim62sch 01:13, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Subheader

Wade, I for one would really appreciate it if you would stop mis-characterizing your refusal to accept any offered cites, or quotes, offered as basis for content as "This request was denied." KillerChihuahua 19:27, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
KillerChihuahua, let's recap what my request actually was. I requested a citation of a leading ID opponent making the argument (that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning). This request was, I think, quite reasonable (see above regarding Wikipedia policy). Yet this request was denied. Citations were given, but none of them were of a prominent ID opponent making the argument; e.g. claiming the designer was complex but not even mentioning irreducible complexity, nor claiming that the designer had to be irreducibly complex, nor claiming that the designer had to be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. I for one would really appreciate my request being granted instead of people pretending it was. Otherwise, I think I am quite accurate in claiming that "This request was denied." --Wade A. Tisthammer 19:44, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Are you suggesting a lifeform could have evolved to a point where it would be capable of designing irreducibly complex structures, while still being reducibly complex itself?
Alternatively, are you suggesting a supernatural entity might not abide by natural laws, and thus be neither complex nor simple? -- Ec5618 20:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Both are possibilities. Humans are not irreducibly complex, for instance, since they can survive without an appendix (though it is disputed whether or not certain components in the human body, e.g. blood-clotting, are irreducibly complex; yet Behe himself says that perhaps the designers are life forms very different from our own, not requiring irreducibly complex structures to sustain their existence in page 249 of Darwin's Black Box). So if human-like entities were to create an irreducibly complex system (say, a mousetrap) this would be a counterexample of a reducibly complex designer creating an irreducibly complex structure. --Wade A. Tisthammer 20:17, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Behe applies his IC argument to biological structures, not entire organisms. Any reasoning that flows from from applying it to entire organisims is original research. FeloniousMonk 20:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Really? Then the argument "by intelligent design's own reasoning, designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex" is original research and should be removed. Or if you meant that "by intelligent design's own reasoning..." the designer must possess irreducibly complex biological structures, then would it be prudent to point out that Behe--the leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity himself--claims it's possible for the designer to not require irreducibly complex structures to sustain it (in page 249 in Darwin's Black Box)? Note that I can cite Behe, so this is not original research, whereas you have absolutely no citations of a leading ID opponent making such arguments, despite my repeated requests. --Wade A. Tisthammer 21:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Stay with me here. We don't need this. -- Ec5618 21:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps you're right Ec. --Wade A. Tisthammer 21:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Whether or not humans are irriducibly complex is not relevant. Your basic point is then that a reducibly complex structure might be capable of producing irreducible complexity.
This might technically be true. Obviously, if irreducible complexity is fundamentally unprovable (and no-one has yet been able to create or suggest a scientific way to test IC) this assertion is fundamentally unprovable as well.
Still, you may have a point. Guys?
If IC could exist, which is the basic premice of this article, then, even if we assume humans are not IC, it must be conceivable that we might be able to construct an IC object or system. Which would invalidate the claim that 'the designer of a IC system must be IC itself'. -- Ec5618 21:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
My basic point is that it might be possible for an organism who does not possess irreducibly complex biological structures to create something irreducibly complex (as Behe himself admits in Darwin's Black Box). It isn't the case that IC is untestable. Indeed, many ID opponents even say that IC has failed such tests. If you want to prove that a given system is not IC, simply point to a component that can be removed that doesn't stop the system from functioning (some claim this has been done with the blood-cascade).
I've seen some anti-creationists make a similar mistake (to the ire of other anti-creationists) claiming that creationism is untestable and non-falsifiable, whereas other anti-creationists enthusiastically claim that the creationism is not only testable but fails empirical tests miserably, having mountains of evidence against their claims (regarding the age of the Earth etc.). Claiming that a theory is untestable robs one the power to attack it with evidence. One cannot consistently claim that the theory is both non-falsifiable and has been refuted with evidence. We certainly don’t want to have the inconsistent attitude of “The claims of intelligent design theory are untestable and not falsifiable. Coming up next, demonstrating the falsehood of intelligent design theory’s claims.” (Come to think of it, that kind of inconsistency seems present in the Wikipedia entry.) --Wade A. Tisthammer 21:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Strictly speaking that's true, in the interests of thoroughness though consider that Dembski refers to an "irreducible core" of a "functionally integrated system." - which unless I'm misunderstanding this can be read to mean that any integrated system which contains a "core" which meets Behe's "irreducibly complex" description, then that system can be (loosely) considered irreducibly complex, or at least irreducibly complex-related. In other words, if you take out the appendix the person can function, but what about the blood clotting factors? They are one of Behe's "irreducibly complex" examples, are they not? So since a human requires blood clotting factors to function, then the human is an "irreducibly complex system" per Dembski. Or is this a misunderstanding on my part, or is Dembski's description irrelevant? KillerChihuahua 21:37, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
It's difficult for me to tell without seeing Dembski's quote. But I can give you one piece of advice: when it comes to ID and irreducible complexity, I think it's best to stick with what the leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity himself says. We're more likely to get the actual views from the horse's mouth (even IDers can misunderstand fellow IDers). And again, it should be noted that even Behe claims it’s possible for the designer not to possess irreducibly complex structures to sustain it (page 249 of Darwin’s Black Box). --Wade A. Tisthammer 21:43, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Here: [1] KillerChihuahua 21:54, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
See especially the paragraph which begins "A functional system is irreducibly complex if it contains a multipart subsystem (i.e., a set of two or more interrelated parts) that cannot be simplified without destroying the system’s basic function." KillerChihuahua 21:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Hmm, I suppose it depends on what Dembski means by "simplifies." If by that he means the simple removal of a part (as he apparently defines it elsewhere, e.g. here) his description would match Behe's, otherwise (as does appear to be the case with the later text) I suspect not. Given the other text, it seems that humans are not irreducibly complex, since it is possible to design a simpler organism that performs the survival function. --Wade A. Tisthammer 22:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Addendum: in other cases the article seems to switch back to Behe's definition then forward to Dembski’s, so now I'm uncertain. Still, it may be worthwhile reading it, particularly the "argument from irreducible complexity" as it may allow people to better understand the actual ID position (Dembski clears up some misunderstandings). It also mentions how ID could be refuted. --Wade A. Tisthammer 22:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The actual ID position shifts like snow drifts in a swirling wind. It would be much easier to take ID seriously, or at least be able to stomach it, if it didn't reinvent itself every five minutes.

As for refuting ID, I think most of us have figured that out: one cannot introduce a non-provable entity into a scientific argument. Sorry, but it really is that simple.

Jim62sch 02:50, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

This is all besides the point. We don't have to work out whether humans are IC or not, or whether a non-irreducibly complex designer is possible or not (although validating the latter as a theoretical possibility may help to show the difference between the complexity and IC and thus resolve this impass).

Rightly or wrongly ID sees a critical difference between complexity and irreducible complexity (which is the crux of ID), and does not deny the possibility of non-irreducibly complex evolution. The statement under question in the article misleads the reader into believing that critics argue that by ID's own reasoning, a designer must be irreducibly complex. Certainly, so far we have not seen a citation to that effect. This is an objection to the italicised concepts and thus needs a citation including those concepts, or the statement should be changed to "Critics argue that a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be complex". That's all we're asking for! ant 04:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Removing my own sarcasm. KillerChihuahua 11:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Actully, KC, I didn't find it sarcastic at all, it is factually accurate and is a good proposal("...If you and Wade still aren't satisfied with the quotes, can we replace it with "Critics argue that a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be complex. According to Intelligent design, that designer could have evolved in Darwinian fashion, with no designer at all needed." ") The article itself already states in another place that ID allows for Raelian ideas that aliens developed life on this planet. I think it's great, and am sure it satisfies Wade's objections as to original research, so go ahead. ant 13:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Where does an ID proponent explicitly (and seriously) say that the designer evolved through a Darwinian process? (Behe, in addition to claiming astrology was science, has recently claimed that it could be time travellers). If not, that is original research by you. All the IDists've said is that the designer has "a different type of complexity", plus the usual handwaving. They won't do this of course since claiming that God is attributal to a process that they've disparaged and don't like for its supposed moral implications is blasphemy. Jay Richards and Guillamo Gonzalez came up with:
A final common objection is: Who designed the designer? This is generally offered as a knockdown argument sure to stop design theorists in their tracks. But if taken seriously, it would have Alice-in-Wonderland consequences. For example, Stonehenge looks like someone built it, but who built the builder? And what about the unknown author of the Gilgamesh epic? Who authored the author? We don't know. Should we, therefore, refuse to infer design?
umm, logic or handwaving? — Dunc|☺ 14:08, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me like waving a dead chicken. Eventually, I'll figure out the reference to Alice in Wonderland, non sequitur that it is. (I might need chemical help, though). 

The example offered by Richards' and Gonzalez' does manage to point out what I've said all along (see other posts) about ID, religion and anthropomorphosis. "If I build, than I must've been built (by something)." However, from a logical standpoint this assertion is false as there is no reason to assume a designer. The best one could do logically is to assert that “I might have been built”. However, “might” does not magically mutate into “must” or “could not have been”.

Jim62sch 00:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Religious views on ID

Vatican official astronomer sayd ID is not science and does not belong in science classrooms http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051118.wvati1118/BNStory/International/

and a version which doesn't require paying $16.00 to access: Yahoo news or ABC news KillerChihuahua 14:20, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Irreducibly complex

I still have not located the article (still looking, though) where I saw at least 4 different definitions of IC given by Behe and Dembski. However, I have located these, which may help:

Which at any rate shows there is some modification of, and disagreement of, the definition of IC. KillerChihuahua 13:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but largely needs to be fenced off into the irreducible complexity page which apart from not being good on the definitions, includes examples that Behe doesn't think are IC, but which Gish (etc) do. — Dunc|☺ 14:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Good point, I was looking for a ref I mentioned to Wade, but they might want this over at the IC page... taking it there now. KillerChihuahua 14:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Irreducible complexity of elementary particles

Are there any articles on the irreducible complexity of quarks, photons etc.? Can some ID supporter provide me with a link? --ChadThomson 04:41, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Why does an article on quarks, leptons, W-bosons, muons, etc., need to be provided by an ID supporter? In any case, as I point out in my almost completed essay, no one has put theoretical physics into the same boat as evolution yet.

If you really want to learn about sub-subatomic particles (of which a photon is not one), I would suggest that you avail yourself of A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell (both by Stephen Hawking), Hyperspace and Parallel Worlds (both by Michio Kaku) and The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

Jim62sch 11:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't recall saying that photons are sub-atomic particles. I hope no one thought "Gee Chad is stupid; he thinks photons are sub-atomic particles. Way to go Jim!"
I'm really hoping this essay is NPOV. I'm assuming what you meant by people "stupefying" their brains with ID was that the idea is stupid. I don't think that's too NPOV and I hope such childish antics aren'tisn't even hinted at in the essay. What's truly stupefying is that you don't seem to know what "stupefy" means. Can someone really "stupefy" their brain? Well you've stupefied mine. --ChadThomson 11:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
Chad, what does any of this have to do with improving the ID article? Please take your physics questions to a library or a physics forum. This page is for discussion related to improving the article. Further, your making personal attacks against people who offer useful answers (the books Jim62sch mentioned are all very good) is not only not productive, it is trolling. KillerChihuahua 12:12, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Chad,

KC raises very good points. Additionally, your continuing belligerence and regurgitation of previous posts is becoming quite tiresome. And yes, my good man, I know what stupefy means; in fact, its oldest meaning is "to make stupid", thus a reflexive use of the word presents no problems syntactically or logically. While you're at the library looking up the physics books I mentioned, check out the OED.

In any case, KC is correct, the purpose here is to discuss ID, and to look at the article carefully and skeptically, i.e., in the best tradition of science. And that is precisely what my essay does. (Whether or not you find any of it to be "childish" is of no concern as methinks thou art the wrong person to be the arbiter of what constitutes childishness.) In any case, the essay provides a very straight-forward and logical progression in getting to its main points. In fact, one might even say that it evolves with each paragraph.

Jim62sch 12:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Jim, when you say no one has put theoretical physics into the same boat as evolution yet, aren't you forgetting about Behe's enthusiasm for the big bang, and of course the theory of Intelligent Falling...dave souza 20:01, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Dave,

You have a point. I should instead have noted that the general populace (or at least that small portion believing in ID) hasn't put it in the same boat, probably because it poses no threat. Evolution is seen as bringing a de facto death to the divine spirit that allegedly lurks in humans, but the big bang is safe. This is likely to change when people realize that the current inflationary trend in the universe calls for a death of life by the Big Cold (my term, no one needs to look it up or seek citations). Of course, the Earth will have been incinerated by the sun long before that, but somehow an absolute end always scares the fecal matter out of people.

As for IF, I always feel as if I'm being crushed by an unseen force.  :)

Jim62sch 00:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

<HUMOR>silly people - IF and FSM are myths! The truth is out there if you only seek!</HUMOR> KillerChihuahua 00:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

ID and evolution

What scientific theory or theories is intelligent design in opposition to? And what topic does intelligent design make an argument about?

I thought that ID examined the topic of evolution, specifically "biological evolution" (which redirects to Evolution). I wonder why, then, FM would revert my change to the intro? Uncle Ed 00:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Ostensibly, ID seeks to disprove the modern evolutionary synthesis, what ID proponents term "Darwinism", and to prove design. The subtext of ID is to unseat materalism. FeloniousMonk 00:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with all 3 parts of that, FM. I just don't understand why you'd revert my intro change. (More below). Uncle Ed 00:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Because it was incorrect - ID posits no "approach to biological evolution" - ID is already accurately and sufficiently described in the intro using it's own terms. Lastly because your change flouted the longstanding definition reached by consensus. FeloniousMonk 00:57, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

In the words of Steven Weinberg, a Nobel Prize winning physicist and renowned atheist, a man whom ID-ists like to note once said that he "admired" Phillip Johnson (an ID founding father (designer?)), “Even though their arguments did not invoke religion, I think we all know what's behind these arguments. They're trying to protect religious beliefs from contradiction by science. They used to do it by prohibiting teachers from teaching evolution at all; then they wanted to teach intelligent design as an alternative theory; now they want the supposed "weaknesses" in evolution pointed out. But it's all the same program -- it's all an attempt to let religious ideas determine what is taught in science courses.”

Jim62sch 00:33, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Jim, that sounds about right, too. And if what my co-religionist Jon Wells says is any guide, there is a hefty battle preparing between religion and science.
But I don't agree with Wells just because he's in the same church as me. There are factions, sad to say, even in a church with less than 6,000 adult members in the U.S.
My approach is different from his: I believe in science and in religion equally. I'm looking for what they both say that is true. Religion has been around a long time, but that's no guarantee that any particular doctrine is correct. Science, well except for chemistry and physics, it's barely out of its infancy: look at medicine, only 150 years ago there was no germ theory of disease. And climate science was teaching a new ice age not 40 years ago, only to turn around and preach global warming.
Anyway, now that you know what POV I endorse, the question before us is how we can cooperate to craft unbiased, accurate articles about the encounter between religious believers and scientists / science supporters.
I want the ID article to express precisely what the differences are between Intelligent Design and the most common scientific theories about biological evolution. Some ID proponents say that "guidance" and "evolution" are incompatible; some "evolution" supporters say that evolution is an "unguided, unplanned process" which nevertheless is compatible with mainstream religious views. Is all this accurate? Uncle Ed 01:04, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, I would say the article the differences are between ID and evolution sufficiently already. FeloniousMonk 01:08, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
It would be nice for ID proponents to actually SAY what ID is, instead of just incredulity arguments against evolution. AFAIK, ID makes no positive explanations regarding the biodiversity of life on Earth. Why do we find a biostratified fossil layer? Why is there a nested hierarchy of species? Why are there homologies? Why are there a limited number of phylogenetic trees based on comparative analyses of comparative morphologies, genetics and the aformentioned fossil layer? A theory requires more than saying that we can apply explanatory filters that can "reliably" point toward intelligence. You have to say HOW that intelligence works in the place of variation and natural selection. --JPotter 17:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Revert explanation

The intro was changed to say "Intelligent Design (ID) is an approach to biological evolution which argues...", which I reverted. I'm not certain how ID could be construed as an approach to biological evolution, since as I understand it it seeks to refute it. Regardless if someone believes in scientific explanations, religious explanations, or both, that doesn't make sense to me. Thoughts? — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I reverted Ed's mistaken description once too. FeloniousMonk 00:16, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you reverted the description. ID seeks not to expand upon biological evolution but to bury it.

Jim62sch 00:28, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, the "approach" they take to evolution is that, while the "facts" of evolution might be correct (in that new forms of life gradually appeared), the "theory" of evolution as being guided only by natural selection is unsatisfying.
I think the destruction that Wells and company have in mind is the notion of unguided evolution, i.e., evolution not guided by God. Isn't their argument something like (1) evolution requires intelligent guidance; (2) only a near-omnipotent supernatural being could have guided evolution; therefore (3) evolutionary materialism is impossible, and God must exist?
Not that I'm asking WP to endorse this argument: far from it, this is textbook example of a Wikipedia:POV. But recall that NPOV requires clear, accurate and fair descriptions of all significants POVs relevant to a controversial topic. Uncle Ed 03:11, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I applaud. This article seems to have been written by people with an anti-ID point-of-view. There is no objectivity. They seem to have not read about ID from actual ID materials (but rather from anti-ID materials and the press), hence the assertation that ID's goal is to "bury" evolution. --ChadThomson 07:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
There's no shortage of evidence that a goal of ID is to unseat evolution:
"The social consequences of materialism have been devastating. As symptoms, those consequences are certainly worth treating. However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism. This is precisely our strategy. If we view the predominant materialistic science as a giant tree, our strategy is intended to function as a "wedge" that, while relatively small, can split the trunk when applied at its weakest points. The very beginning of this strategy, the "thin edge of the wedge," was Phillip ]ohnson's critique of Darwinism begun in 1991 in Darwinism on Trial, and continued in Reason in the Balance and Defeatng Darwinism by Opening Minds. Michael Behe's highly successful Darwin's Black Box followed Johnson's work. We are building on this momentum, broadening the wedge with a positive scientific alternative to materialistic scientific theories, which has come to be called the theory of intelligent design (ID). Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."[2]
That's just one of many quotes from the leading ID proponents. The assertion that ID's goal to unseat evolution is exceptionally well-supported. FeloniousMonk 17:49, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm telling you guys, you are treating it as a movement here not as a concept. You always talk about "their approach" and what "they seek to do" and "their goals," "their argument" if you can't separate the concept from the proponents how can you possibly write objectively about the concept? Obviously they are not separate in your heads. --Ben 19:33, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

In fairness, it is a movement. And a concept. Regards, Ben Aveling 19:50, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

True, it is a movement, but there's a separate article for that. This article is about the assertion itself. I do think that if the idea stinks scientifically it will die on its own merits or lack of thereof, there's no need to attack it indirectly by attacking the movement in the same page; and if a bad movement has a valid idea, it is neutral and fair to let the idea stand on its own merits but expose the movement for what it is. By all means nail the IDers for promoting creationism if that's their game, but at least review the concepts of ID on its own merits.

Secondly, I agree with FeloniousMonk and Jim, ID and the theory of evolution are antithetical explanations of the development of life, therefore ID cannot be an approach to evolution.

I understand what you mean by evolution in your context, Uncle Ed, that life appeared in increasingly complex stages. However, it confuses the term evolution to use it in this way, since it also embodies the concept that each stage actively transformed (evolved) into the next stage, whereas ID implies that in one or more areas passive external modification occurred and has nothing to say on the 'evolving' aspects. ant 02:48, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

FM, you don't seriously think that quote is talking about evolution? It's talking about materialistic naturalism. Materialistic naturalism is the Evolution movement, so to speak. It's not evolution. As for Ant, first of all, ID doesn't imply passive external modification, but rather active (hence design). Moreover, if I say, my opinion of the world around me is constantly "evolving", it doesn't mean that the process is completely internal to me with no outside influence. Of course, it's very handy to say that evolution in the biological sense intrinsically excludes outside influence, but I'm sure that you'll have trouble providing a peer-reviewed article that says this. This definition of evolution has only arisen in conflicts between people who believe in a creator and people who don't. In the scientific community it just would never come up. So I disagree, bare-bones evolution can accomodate ID. But I must say that the ID movement and the Evolution movement are mutually exclusive on most points. --ChadThomson 05:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Fair correction, I was unclear and incorrect, thank you. ant 13:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

"Materialistic naturalism"? Reminds me of the videos I've seen of the old days when the "Evil Empire" controlled a large portion of Europe, when Materialistic Atheistic Red Fascistic Communism" was the bugaboo of civilized society. It's one of those terms like "Tax-and-spend Liberal" that have no value other than to try to demean the philosophy the are attacking.

Anyway, would you care to provide an example of what "non-materialistic naturalism" might be? After all, I'm guessing that you're into Manichaean dichotomies, so I'd be very interested in your answer.

Jim62sch 00:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Aristotle, for one, held to a non-materialistic naturalism. Materialism is the metaphysical assertion that all of reality consists of mere matter. Naturalism is a system of thought that says all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes. The modern uses of the terms do overlap somewhat, but are often found used together, and are commonly accepted by both materialists and non-materialists. SanchoPanza 22:27, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

While you are correct regarding Aristotle, the ID/religious definition of "Materialistic Naturalism" is unrelated to Aristotle.

Jim62sch 01:20, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't aware there was an ID/religious definition of materialistic naturalism. How are they using the phrase differently? SanchoPanza 02:07, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Let's just say that materialistic receives heightened emphasis and is meant to be synonymous with atheism. That's essentially the point of the religious anti-evolutionist's progression: Evolution = Darwinism = Materialistic Naturalism = Atheism. Think of it as being used in the same manner as the ever-popular "Bleeding Heart Liberal" tag. The purpose for using the phrase is not to strive for accuracy, but to attempt to tear down the arguments of a discipline, group or person.

Jim62sch 10:51, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Essay: In Principio Creavit Homo Deos -- Pt I

See personal essay at User:Jim62sch/essay01

This is wonderful, and obviously a great deal of work. I hope you don't take it amiss if I suggest that it might be better placed on your talk page, or a sub of your talk page, rather than on the Intelligent design talk page. KillerChihuahua 01:59, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. :) If I had a talk page, I'd put it there. I haven't had the time to set up a page (or even a bio).

Jim62sch 02:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Are we allowed to edit it, to fix spelling/syntax and or factual errors? -- Ec5618 09:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District_trial_documents

12 As Professor Behe testified, there are no
13 peer-reviewed articles in science journals reporting
14 original research or data that argue for intelligent
15 design. By contrast, Kevin Padian, by himself, has
16 written more than a hundred peer-reviewed scientific
17 articles.
18 Professor Behe's only response to the
19 intelligent design movement's lack of production was
20 repeated references to his own book, Darwin's Black
21 Box. He was surprised to find out that one of his
22 purported peer-reviewers wrote an article that
23 revealed he had not even read the book.

Closing statements (Pg. 47) - RoyBoy 800 18:20, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Watchmaker Analogy

In what way is pointing out that ID is a continuation of the exact same pro-creation argument going back to the Romans a major change? I think it is a major and important point for the context of the page. And when did 2 people become "consensus", particularly when 2 people support the change (myself and Johann Wolfgang)?213.78.235.176

It's a perfectly acceptable point to be made in the article, just not in the intro, that's all. The intro is where the term/concept is defined and the two viewpoints outlined. The historical background of the argument is better placed in the "Origins of the concept" section IMO. I see that it's not mentioned there, so congrats on adding something new to the article. FeloniousMonk 02:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I would agree that it makes the intro long, but I do think it's a good place for it given that the Watchmaker Analogy is so well known and can form a "hook" for people recognise the issues quickly, which surely is part of the idea of an introduction? 213.78.235.176 02:45, 30 november 2005 (UTC)
I didn't consider using it as "hook," which is an interesting thought. But I think for an encyclopedic article we should stick to the guidelines for intros, one of which says an intro should be "a concise paragraph defining the topic at hand and mentioning the most important points. The reader should be able to get a good overview by only reading this first paragraph." As good of a point as yours is, it's not one of the most important or central to understanding ID, I think. What ID is, how proponents define it and what they say it does, and how the scientific community receives it are the necessary bits in the intro, at least in my view. Others are sure to disagree... FeloniousMonk 02:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay, try that. I'm off to bed so if you don't like it you'll have to fix it yourself! 213.78.235.176 03:28 30 Nov 2005 (UTC)
Did someone else add 213.78.235.176's Watchmaker Analogy content to the article? I thought I saw it. If not, I will. FeloniousMonk 18:52, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, .176 did it - see [[3]] edit titled " 03:24, 30 November 2005 213.78.235.176 (?Origins of the concept - More discussion of ID's context) " KillerChihuahua 18:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

general design theory

People consciously design such things as houses, chairs, meals, gardens, etc. I hoped that this "intelligent design" thing would help me do a better job designing things. I hoped it would somehow be related to the "design science" Buckminster Fuller talked about. Perhaps by describing some way of inspecting a chair (or other designed object) and finding out whether it was intelligently designed, or simply slapped together without much thought. I would find this useful even if it gave nonsensical results for non-designed objects.

The current article claims

The scientific method is based on a methodological assumption of philosophical naturalism to study and explain the natural world,

which seems to imply that the scientific method cannot be used to "study and explain" unnatural objects such as chairs and rockets.

Well, OK, that's fine -- I can study and explain those things under the heading of "engineering" and "crafts" and "art". Does this really lead to the conclusion that "analyzing how chairs are designed" is "unscientific", although "artistic"? --DavidCary 04:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

"The scientific explanation" as quoted was no doubt written as it was because we are discussing the natural world, not chairs and rockets. Ever heard of Rocket Science?

Jim62sch 00:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Addendum: Engineering degrees are Bachelors of Science, so anything involving engineering in the context mentioned by David Carey is considered a science.

Jim62sch 22:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Repeated objections and ignoring of consensus

Guettarda asked a very relevant question[4] here earlier with "Regarding the whole "original research" thing, citations were offered, but were either not acknowledged or dismissed... What are we supposed to do with people who ask questions, and when the questions are answered just repeat the question?" I think today, not mention the last three weeks, prove that this is pressing question here. The talk page is dominated by repeated objections from several who constantly reject all answers and evidence as insufficient. Several weeks ago, there was consensus that such behavior was likely not and good faith and was disruptive. The question still stands and I'll put it to you now: What are we supposed to do with people who ask questions, and when the questions are answered just repeat the question? FeloniousMonk 05:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I have an answer: provide relevant citations. For instance, if an individual suspects an argument to be original research, cite a prominent adherent who uses that argument. If such a citation cannot be provided, admit this.
Of course, if one for whatever reason just doesn't want to provide such a citation even after the individual cites relevant Wikipedia policy, there is the option of not bringing up the topic again. To bring up the topic again invites rebuttals. --Wade A. Tisthammer 06:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, I didn't mention any names, yet you assume it is you I'm referring to. I wonder why that is? Your response only compounds my point. Please respect consensus and stop raising tendentious and specious objections incessantly. FeloniousMonk 07:06, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
FM, Wade did not say that he assumed you were referring to him. --ChadThomson 08:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
FM, this is bullying ant 11:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
No ant, the correct way to express this is to say "FM, you are making me feel bullied". Play the ball, not the man. Guettarda 14:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Exactly how is trying to resolve ongoing, long term disruptive behavior by asking for the opinions of others bullying? FeloniousMonk 16:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Felonious, I have another possible solution. Would you consent to mediation? I would like to try that before I resort to arbitration. --Wade A. Tisthammer 21:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Wade, take a look at the process as outlined on WP:DR.
Quite frankly, were you to "resort to arbitration" your request would be rejected as you have not attempted to resolve this via other means. Rfc comes before arbitration, and almost always before Mediation. KillerChihuahua 21:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Hence my request for mediation before I resorted to arbitration. If you wish we can do an Rfc first. I have no experience in doing an Rfc, but I'll see what I can do. --Wade A. Tisthammer 21:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I advise you not act in haste. I don't advise you go for an Rfc, either. KillerChihuahua 21:51, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Then with all due respect, what do you advise? We've been discussing the issue in the talk pages for a while now. --Wade A. Tisthammer 22:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Wade, your basic point is still that a reducibly complex structure might be capable of producing irreducible complexity.
This might technically be true. If IC could exist, which is one of the basic premices of this article, then, even if we assume humans are not IC, it must be conceivable that we might be able to construct an IC object or system. Which would invalidate the claim that 'the designer of a IC system must be IC itself'.
Also, if intelligent life could design new life, that life would be intelligently designed, without the need for supernatural intervention. Therefore, intelligent design needn't require a supernatural entity, though the ID movement (and perhaps capitalised ID) clearly strictly believes in a supernatural cause.
Still, even though this article deals with ID (caps), it refers to IC (still a vague concept, to my knowledge, though it was conceived of by a ID proponent). IC suggests, in my interpretation, that specific complex structures could come into being only through intelligence; they could never form through natural selection. It also suggests tests can be devised to distinguish between IC structures and complex structures.
If we treat IC as a vague concept, it does not strictly require the intervention of a supernatural entity. If we treat IC as a specific, (testable?) concept, as specifically proposed by Behe, then the concept may be inherently linked to Behe's interpretation of ID, and to supernatural entities as well.
Still, I'd like to see:
  1. Behe suggesting IC requires a supernatural entity.
  2. the difference between the vague concept and the specific concept clarified.
Am I missing something? Please assume I have seen none of the quotes shown to Wade. -- Ec5618 11:15, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
1 is inherent in the idea: the so-called designer's only purpose within the theory is to explain the creation of the natural world and must therefore be super-natural, unless it is assumed that he/she/it has evolved in some way which is a rather unreasonable position from which to argue that the real world is too complex to have evolved. But then, the whole idea is unreasonable in the literal sense of the word and I'm sure that someone as mealy-mouthed as Bahe would have carefully avoided pointing this out to the fools that listen to him. ID IS simply the assertion that god(s) exist; not mentioning the gods does not change this central point. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and tastes like a duck...213.78.235.176(forgot to sign it, sorry)
That last post was from 213.78.235.176 who is violating wikiquette by not signing his comments. Also, he called me a fool. So there you have it. This may shed light on his credibility. --ChadThomson 12:14, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
If you accept foolish arguments then what does that make you? Let's call a spade a spade here. Anyway, I was not specifically referring to you. 213.78.235.176
Please use the "unsigned" tag, Chad, ok? I forget myself occasionally. Its not "ignoring Wikiquette" to forget to sign. KillerChihuahua 12:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Mr. IP address I would request that you keep your thoughts on the intelligence of contributors to yourself. It would raise your credibility and might help people to listen to what you say. Generally speaking, I think anyone who believes in God would feel insulted by what you wrote. Insults only alienate, we are trying to arrive at consensus. And also, do the wikipedia community a favour, sign up! As for KC, if you saw an unsigned post saying that you were a fool, what would your reaction be? --ChadThomson 12:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Why would anyone who believes in a god or gods be insulted by what "Mr. IP Adress" said? Aren't true believers supposed to be able to rise above all that? "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." Did you forget that one?

Jim62sch 00:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)


I still didn't specifically say *you* were a fool, just that anyone that accepts the argument "I don't understand this, therefore god(s) must exist", which is what ID boils down to, is foolish. Also, I have no problem with insulting people who believe in God just as they have no problem insulting athiests. Rational argument is the only credibility I need and the snide remarks are thrown in here for free, since I can't use them in the article itself! As to signing up, I do not live somewhere where I would be happy to use my real name (broken legs and worse could arise from the edits I did to the article on Elizabeth the First - I'm not joking) so an IP address seems as good a pseudonym as any. 213.78.235.176 12:41 30 November 2005
Ok Mr. IP address, I understand. First of all, that's not what ID boils down to. READ ID LITERATURE E.G. DARWIN ON TRIAL. You haven't done that. It has nothing to do with understanding anything. (One of) the argument(s) (true or not) is that some biological structures are too complex to be explained wholly by natural selection. It's not that "we don't understand how that evolved". Of course you'll deny this, but you are not credible for one of two reasons: 1. You have never read the relevant literature by IDists themselves, or 2. You forgot what you read. This whole article is a blatant critique of ID. It should be retitled "Criticisms of Intelligent Design". You are going right along with it.
Secondly, you may have been thinking about people that say "I don't understand this, therefore god(s) must exist" in your post regarding fools , but it certainly appears you were referring to people who listen to that "mealy-mouthed Bahe [sic]". You weren't "specifically" referring to me? Well pretend I see an African American and I say "Blacks are stupid idiots and should be killed." When he says "that's rather hateful", would it be logical for me to say "Well, uh, um, sorry, but, uh, I wasn't referring specifically to you."? That's just ridiculous. And by the way, no one knows killerchihuahua's real name, but it's much easier to communicate with her because she isn't a number. --chad 13:06, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
First of all, that's not what ID boils down to. Yes it is. The whole argument relies and uses examples of systems which the pro-ID side claim to be "irreducibly complex". Over the centuries this argument has been used again and again and every time the examples have later been shown to be reducible, including most, if not all, of Behe's. Since this has happened so often it is clear that the only thing the examples have ever actually had in common is that they were touted because they were not understood at the time; once they were understood they fell by the way side. Therefore the ID argument has been shown many times to be caused by a lack of understanding rather than any actual characteristic of the universe as a whole. As to insulting people, ID insults everyone - the people who believe such a silly idea and those who spend their time in genuine pursuit of knowledge. 213.78.235.176
You are right about the article being a critique and I feel it is rife with POV which I tried to avoid in my edits, but it is difficult to not write what sounds like POV about what is clearly and obviously a myth which has been disproved over and over and over again. It would be regarded as very POV to say that in the article yet it is the case. The flaw in "noPOV" is that it takes the stance that there is no such thing as fallacy – no idea no matter how cockeyed has no supporters and WP tries not to offend anyone. Yet ID has no more evidence or validity than Holocaust Denial, and I can't see that being defended from the nPOV standpoint. Such are the dangers of political correctness, I guess. 213.78.235.176
No ID argument holds any water in any shape or form and never has. Behe is probably just in it for the money – maybe not but I'd like to think so – but his work is damaging the education of children around the world and as such is a threat to civilised society. We have spent a lot of time and effort to not live in a world of superstition and ignorance and if you don't like the fact that I and others will not stand idly by while someone moves us back on that track in order to sell some books and gain some notoriety then tough luck. 213.78.235.176
This is a deeply important issue. But, I'm happy to have that debate here rather than have revision wars on the article itself. Why not do some editing yourself? Put in the examples of ID arguments which do not boil down to filling gaps in knowledge with magic-pixies, explain why the designer of the entire universe and every living thing should not be interpreted as a supernatural being, tell people why blind spots and excruciating toothache are intelligent designs and not problems we're lumbered with due to the unguided nature of life on Earth. Demonstrate for the reading public why diseases and old age are good ideas which show the hand of a designer. The article text is open to all and I for one would not let it be be just reverted out again (time permitting, offer only applies when awake or caring, this is not a proposal of marrage). 213.78.235.176
And finally: being black or white is not something one does from choice and is not therefore open to critisism in the way that following an empty and futile cause which harms others is. 213.78.235.176 30 November 2005 15:36 (UTC)
Ec, thanks for being so constructive! While I agree with your summary of these issues within the arguments pro- and anti-ID around this point, these are explanatory background and not the editorial point being addressed. However, I'll address them first:
" 1. Behe suggesting IC requires a supernatural entity."
In the pursuance of this topic Wade has supplied a citation by Behe which specifically states that the designer need not be irreducibly complex.
(Note here I believe Behe is speaking of the logical conclusions inherent in the concept itself. In contrast to the more open logical possibilities of the concept itself, he also apparently personally prefers the possibility that the designer is supernatural, as that logical possibility makes the most sense to him. This personal preference of one of the concept's possibilities in no way limits the logical possibilities.)
Note also that Darwinists believe in an undesigned designer which creates irreducibly complex objects: man.
" 2. the difference between the vague concept and the specific concept clarified."
I don't think there are two kinds of IC, a specific IC which logically requires a supernatural element and a vague IC which does not. The essential concept of IC as I understand it is that some existing complex structures have no feasible path of development by chance or physical laws which allows them to remain functional along the way (and therefoe could not for example be naturally selected for).
It is a logical corollary of this concept that not all complex structures are IC, i.e. that some can evolve, and directly inferrable from that that there may logically be evolutionary pathways which can produce intelligent life avoiding irreducible complexity all along the way.
In short, while the concept of IC implies a designer, and obviously a complex one at that, the converse that a designer must be IC is not logically inferrable.
Going back to Wade's point it is simply that the article's statement "Critics have argued that by Intelligent Design's own reasoning, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex" appears to be original research, and if so should, I gather, be modified to something like "Critics have argued that [] a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be [] complex"
In order to show that it is not original research, a citation has been requested which shows this argument being made by a leading ID opponent as per policy. The citation should conclude that the ID must be irreducibly complex, not just complex, and also attribute the argument as to being by ID's own reasoning or words to that effect.
Many citations have been offered, all of which fail one or more of these points.
It's a pity that this request should have generated so much resistance. While I'm sure it occurred unintentionally by both sides due to a misunderstanding of Wade's point, I still feel that Wade deserves an apology for being accused of wasting time on it as his motivation has been somewhat maligned through the process. ant 13:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Wade's point is specious on it's face. As has been explained to you and Wade many, many times in the past, the article says clearly ID's reasoning, not Behe's. Demanding a cite for Behe having said it is a non sequitur, and one being used in a transparent attempt to bowdlerize the article in my opinion.
One more time for your benefit, The premise of all ID is that complexity implies design. All ID reasoning goes on to assert that a certain sort of complexity, what they call Irreducible Complexity, requires a designer to occur. This is widely recognized as one of ID's central tenets.
Now you can claim as Wade has that Behe says irreducible complexity does not necessarily require a designer. But reading the entire book and not one select quote, what Behe actually argues is that though he cannot exclude irreducible complexity arising without a designer, he believes he's shown that it is it so remote and improbable that a designer is the only reasonable conclusion. Read Darwin's Black Box.
You can try to argue that the statement "by Intelligent Design's own reasoning, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex" is original research as ant does here. But in so doing ant ignores the fundamental assumptions of ID: that complexity implies design, and that a designer is needed for every irreducibly complex object. By arguing it's original research, ant is arguing for a logical contradiction. Now if ant is arguing that complexity does not imply design, and that a designer is not needed for every irreducibly complex object, then Behe's out of job, and we can all go home.
In the end, it's obvious to those here well read on the topic and studying it for more than a few years that the real original research is the specious objection that 1) a claim about "ID's reasoning" requires a cite from Behe, 2) and the notion that complexity does not imply design, and that a designer is not needed for every irreducibly complex object by that reasoning.
This hopefully is the last time I have to explain this to ant and Wade. FeloniousMonk 16:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Felonious, you are distracting from the issue, and you are also confusing the tenets of ID with reverse logic.
  1. The statement starts with "Critics have argued that ...", not "ID argues that..." therefore we need the critic who did so, not the ID proponent. Not that it makes much difference, because:
  2. Behe's tenet that irreducible complexity implies a designer is not the same thing in reverse, that the designer must be irreducibly complex! Behe specifically states the opposite, that the designer need not be IC!
Your quote here completely misses the point which needs to be addressed:
"... what Behe actually argues is that though he cannot exclude irreducible complexity arising without a designer, he believes he's shown that it is so remote and improbable that a designer is the only reasonable conclusion"
Yes, yes, IC implies Designer. Agreed, quote then that ID argues that IC implies a designer.
But to answer Wade's objection you need a citation from a leading opponent stating the reverse, that by ID's own reasoning, Designer must be IC.
Do you see it is the other way around? So please stop assuming the IC=>Designer logic justifies the statement in question, and find the citation by a leading ID opponent for the question at hand: Designer itself must be IC.
You say hopefully this is the last time you have to explain this, but with all due respect it is your own lack of understanding which is preventing the consensus. ant 18:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
It's a common argument that turns up in many places - attributing it to a single critic is misleading. And, as I pointed out below, that argument is also dealt with in a separate Wikipedia article. It's highly misleading for you to suggest that "it is your own [FM's] lack of understanding which is preventing the consensus. Guettarda 18:18, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
<"you need a citation from a leading opponent stating the reverse, that by ID's own reasoning, Designer must be IC" ... "please stop assuming the IC=>Designer logic justifies the statement in question, and find the citation by a leading ID opponent for the question at hand: Designer itself must be IC.">
Again, we already have a cite that covers that, number 61: Richard Dawkins: "If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot." And Richard Dawkins is a prominent ID critic, BTW.
<"with all due respect it is your own lack of understanding which is preventing the consensus">
Hmmm, two weeks ago ant also wrote here "I've spent no more than an hour or two reading the web about ID for the first time ever" [5]. In contrast, I've been studying ID specifically since it first appeared, over 13 years ago. I own and have read every major book from every significant ID proponent, along with their articles and have attended many of their lectures. I've also read every significant book and article on the topic. I'll let others judge who may have a lack of understanding. FeloniousMonk 18:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Hint: the citation needs to mention the word 'irreducible'. Strike.
As to your ad hominem attack, if I, after so short a time, can show you a fault in your reasoning, that's plain embarrassing to yourself. Let's leave the man out of it and argue the point.
Find a citation by a leading ID opponent as per policy arguing along the lines that by ID's own reasoning the designer must be irreducibly complex. Just one, any one will do. Or simply change the text to remove 'by ID's own reasoning' and 'irreducibly'.
FM, this is really basic. ant 19:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Felonious, you can read many books written by intelligent design adherents and still not understand it. How? You can badly misconstrue what they're saying. Here's a book I recommend: The Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate by Del Ratzsch. Evolutionists have frequently misunderstood their opponents (not surprisingly, the misconstrued position is often much easier to attack than the real thing); though to be fair creationists have also been guilty of this. You yourself appear to be guilty of this as well. For instance, you have come with the impression of a "fundamental assumption" of ID that does not appear to exist. You have claimed that "a designer is needed for every irreducibly complex object" and have not backed down from this assumption even when I cited the leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity who flatly contradicted this alleged assumption. You have also proposed an argument that is clearly non sequitur. Suppose ID claims that an IC system requires design. It doesn't logically follow that the designer must therefore be irreducibly complex. It is logically possible for the designer to have a different kind of complexity (e.g. a non-irreducibly complex human building a mousetrap; since humans can survive without an appendix). You have also proposed citations claiming to support the argument "by Intelligent Design's own reasoning, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be irreducibly complex" that do not even mention irreducible complexity, much less claim that the designer is irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning.


Consensus has been that we already have a citation that sufficiently supports the content, incessant, disruptive objections notwithstanding. Despite the many opportunities given, you and Wade have failed to make the case that the cite is insufficient. Continuing to argue this over and over ignores consensus and has gone beyond disruptive. You both need to accept consensus and drop the issue, and find some other way to contribute to Wikipedia other than repeatedly disrupting this page. FeloniousMonk 19:27, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Pretending I haven't made the case that the citations are insufficient doesn't make it go away. But let's go over one of my cases against the provided citations again just for kicks. The claim: that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. The Wikipedia entry states “critics argue” this. Do they? Is this viewpoint a majority, significant minority, or extremely small minority? Looking at Wikipedia policy
  • If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
  • If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
  • If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.
My request was simple: a citation of any prominent ID adherent who makes this argument to show that the argument is not original research (I doubt one would find it in commonly accepted reference texts, but this would be acceptable too I suppose). This request has been repeatedly denied. Not one of the proposed citations met my request; not one of them consisted of a leading ID opponent claiming that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. Indeed, many of the citations didn't even mention irreducible complexity! One cannot just throw citations willy-nilly and claim the problem of finding a suitable citation has been solved. The citations have to be relevant to the matter at hand.
To use an example, let's take this quote:
"If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot."
If the wording was "Critics argue that the designer must itself be complex" I would have no objection. But we are dealing with the claim that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning. The citation above doesn't even mention irreducible complexity, doesn't say that the designer has to be irreducibly complex, doesn't say that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning or even say that the designer has to have any kind of complexity by intelligent design's own reasoning.
None of the proposed citations consist of a leading ID opponent making the argument (that the designer must be irreducibly complex by intelligent design's own reasoning). One cannot vote to pretend otherwise. But for the moment, let's pretend that consensus trumps Wikipedia policy regarding original research and citing your sources. Apart from mediation, one still has the option of not bringing up the topic again. Notice that most of my posts here regarding the argument ("by intelligent design's own reasoning...") are in response to other people who have brought up the subject somehow. If you don't want trouble, don't ask for it. --Wade A. Tisthammer 19:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


FM, you are being appalingly disruptive. You have blatantly ignored my logical argument and reasonable request above by appealing to 'consensus'. You have wasted weeks with this tactic.
You cannot condone original research with even a full, let alone a near, consensus.
Find a citation by a leading ID opponent as per policy arguing along the lines that by ID's own reasoning the designer must be irreducibly complex. Any one will do. Put your best one up here now. Or we must change the text to remove 'by ID's own reasoning' and 'irreducibly'.
At the very least stop misdirecting the discussion. ant 20:04, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
ID claims that there is a certain level of complexity which can only arise through the intervention of a creator. If the creator is not itself beyond that point then by definiton anything that s/he creates has in fact been created by non-complex processes internal to the creator and therefore can not be complex enough to require a creator since all the processes that led to it were reducible; thus complex systems imply non-complexity. This is an internal contradiction QED. The alternative, for bonus points, is that the creator is at or beyond that point of complexity. In this case s/he must have, by the axioms of ID, have been created. This leads to infinite regression and thus is devoid of information content. Does that help? 213.78.235.176 21:26 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Not level of complexity! Type of!!
Look at people producing a computer. The computer is an example of irreducible complexity, i.e. there is no step-wise always-functional naturally-selected pathway by which it could feasibly have evolved without a designer. Now, as per Darwinists, the people themselves have evolved without a designer. They are very complex, but not irreducibly complex, because there is a feasible step-wise always-functional naturally-selectable pathway of evolution in their ancestry.
Ok? So, the people are more complex than the computer, but the computer is the only one that is irreducibly complex and designed. The designers are undesigned. This is what is meant by irreducible complexity, and it is a lot different to plain complexity. That's why they don't speak of levels of complexity as you just did. There's no point in that argument, as you pointed out. That's why I'm saying that we all need to have a good understanding of ID from the minority view when editing this article. ant 22:18, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
The type of complexity you are talking about is an artifact of current knowledge (either yours specifically or mankind's in general). You see computers as reducible whereas I, as a programmer of 27 years experience who has actually made computing circuits in silicon, know that they are actually reducible and that during their long process of evolution by unnatural selection not a single component we use today in computers was pre-ordained by its indispensability. This is why over the centuries the examples put forward for ID have changed, they are simply illusions caused by the current location of the "boundary between knowledge and ignorance" . 213.78.235.176
And, of course, computers did evolve in the real world and we call them brains. They show a full spectrum of complexity from little bundles of nerves up to huge whale neocortexes and almost all display a large degree of resiliance and redundancy. 213.78.235.176 213.78.235.176 23:55 30 November 2005
I don't think it's an internal contradiction. Suppose for instance that humans were not intelligently designed but are the product of undirected evolution. Humans can create metallic robots with computer brains. Sometime later the human race becomes extinct but the robots survive. Aliens discover the robots (yes, I know I ripped this off of the movie Artificial Intelligence). Does the fact that the designer (humans) evolved naturally make a design inference for robots illegitimate? Does the fact that the designer evolved mean that natural processes are reasonably sufficient for creating robots? No it does not. --Wade A. Tisthammer 22:21, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
If the creator (the humans in this case) are reducible then there is by definition no need for their functions to be carried out by a special package labeled "human". If that is the assumption (and it was what I was debating) then the robots could have been naturally created by those functions occurring without the input of the humans. Thus, a reducable creator can not be proven by the existance of any other object and the argument comes down to (im)probabilities and one man's improbable is another's "why not?" In other words, for ID to be proof of a creator then the creator in question must be non-reducable or we must have an objective standard for "improbable". Such a standard can only be attained by perfect knowledge of the universe, which we are somewhat short of at the moment! 213.78.235.176
However, a non-reducible creator introduces the sigularity of the creator's creator's creator...ad infinitum. These two facts combined with the history of ID-type arguments being knocked down by progress in science for centuries leads me to apply Occam's Razor and confidently state that there is no need to introduce the ID version of a creator and that any creator at all is probably the result of the ignorance illusion I refered to above. 213.78.235.176 23:55 30 November 2005
You're not thinking clearly, in that you keep switching between the basis of ID's own reasoning (in which there is such a thing as irreducibly complexity) and the irreconcilable view that there is no such type of irreducible complexity which requires a designer. You've just switched to the latter view in order to 'disprove' ID by an infinite regression purportedly using its own reasoning. But your point depends not on ID's own reasoning but on contrary thinking. My example is valid and your logic does not hold if the argument is based on ID's own reasoning, i.e.: given that there is such a thing as irreducible complexity, it is clear the designer need not be IC. (Simply substitute an IC object for the computer in my example).
Argue that there is no IC if you like - but if you want to base an argument on IC it does not follow that a designer of IC objects must be IC.
Out. ant 04:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm discussing both points but to be clear, here's specifically what I'm saying about the reducible creator idea: Such a creator can not be distinguished from natural actions by what it has created since by definition (of reducible complexity) none of the sub-actions involved in that creation can require the existence a creator to carry them out (otherwise the creator would have been non-reducible at least in regards to this particular creative function). Therefore, accepting the possibility of a reducible creator is to also admit that natural forces could have produced the same result. So an ID theory in which the creator is reducible invalidates even non-reducible creations as proof of a creator by internal logic rather than external argument. 213.78.235.176
My argument as to why this is is that the perception of (biological) IC is simply an illusion caused by imperfect knowledge and there is actually no such thing. However, that is not internal to ID, that just seems common sense from looking at history. 213.78.235.176 11:30 1 December 2005

As I have said in the past, this isn't something that needs to be hashed out here - it's dealt with in a lot more detail at Teleological_argument#Objections_and_counter-argument. Why fight about it here, where it's given only passing mention, and ignore it there? Guettarda 14:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Because this is the article we're talking about? 213.78.235.176 15:37 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Teleological argument is related, but not the same. FeloniousMonk 16:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

With regard to the charge of "original research" being made by some here, I have recently received a paper by Elliott Sober, philosopher of science at the University of Wisconsin, that makes exactly the argument that ID critics have been making here. Dr. Sober has given me permission to circulate the abstract. The paper has been submitted to the scholarly journal Faith and Philosophy.

Intelligent Design Theory and the Supernatural – The “God or ET” Reply
Elliott Sober
Abstract: When proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) theory deny that their theory is religious, the minimalistic theory they have in mind (the mini-ID theory) is the claim that the complex adaptations found in nature were made by one or more intelligent designers. The denial that this theory is religious rests on the fact that the identity of the designer remains unspecified; a supernatural God or a team of extraterrestrials could have done the designing. The present paper attempts to show that this reply underestimates the commitments of the mini-ID Theory. The mini-ID theory, when supplemented with the well-established scientific thesis that the universe is finitely old and the thesis that causes in nature precede their effects, entails the existence of a supernatural intelligent designer. It is further argued that scientific theories, such as the Darwinian theory of evolution, are neutral on the question of whether supernatural designers exist.

Bill Jefferys 19:07, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Suggested compromise

I like Ant's proposal supplied somewhere back up there, with some clarification thus: "Critics argue that from their understanding of the ID argument, a designer capable of creating irreducible complexity must also be complex. Intelligent design proponents acknowledge this argument[footnote] and consider it possible, though implausible, that the designer could have evolved in Darwinian fashion, with no designer at all needed. Critics then say: if the designer could have evolved, why not the allegedly irreducible complexity?, while noting the ID preference for a supernatural explanation."
[footnote] to cite Reply to My Critics where Behe argues that human "intelligence depends critically on physical structures in the brain which are irreducibly complex.. [so similarly] it may be that all possible natural designers require irreducibly complex structures which themselves were designed. If so, then at some point a supernatural designer must get into the picture." [it is] "implausible... that the original intelligent agent is a natural entity" (please check exact quote)
Everybody happy? ...dave souza 21:59, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It seems reasonable. I would accept it. Unfortunately, I doubt you'll find many anti-ID adherents (e.g. FeloniousMonk) who will be willing to accept the compromise. --Wade A. Tisthammer 22:13, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

No. It's too weaselly and misrepresents what they think. The IDists don't seriously think that God evolved through a Darwinian process. They do not take seriously that it's space aliens, time travellers. When they're pretending to be scientific they might mention this, but it's all nudge-nudge, wink-wink we know who the designer is.
There's a difference between attacking the theory and attacking the adherent. The theory does not include theism any more than the finite age of the universe does. Newton may have believed he was “thinking God’s thoughts after him” but that doesn’t make Newtonian mechanics religious because atheists can still think of alternate reasons why the universe consistently operates in mathematical patterns. Additionally, how does it misrepresent what ID adherents think? Dave's compromise explicitly mentions that ID adherents "consider it possible, though implausible, that the designer could have evolved in Darwinian fashion."

Here is a defence of the argument from recently by Jay W. Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez [6]:

A final common objection is: Who designed the designer? This is generally offered as a knockdown argument sure to stop design theorists in their tracks. But if taken seriously, it would have Alice-in-Wonderland consequences. For example, Stonehenge looks like someone built it, but who built the builder? And what about the unknown author of the Gilgamesh epic? Who authored the author? We don't know. Should we, therefore, refuse to infer design?
Of course not. We can detect design without knowing the origin of the designer. ID will stand or fall on the evidence of nature, not from red herrings and question-begging attempts to dismiss it by definition.

A serious argument or more handwaving? — Dunc|☺ 22:23, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

It strikes me as serious. Suppose for instance we find robots on Pluto. The mere fact that we don't know anything about the identity/origins of the designer does not in the least make a design inference illegitimate here. --Wade A. Tisthammer 22:33, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
There is of course a difference between asking who made the robots (which assumes that the answer isn't mommy robots and daddy robots) and postulating a being for which the question "what was its creator" is not applicable. There is a very important difference between this "superlative creator" and just another previous generation, and that difference is specifically the question of origin. Richards and Gonzalez's quote seeks to shield this difference from view with "handwaving" but it is germaine to the issue of what exactly constitutes the ID theory's creator. In real science the place of this final creator is currently occupied by questions of the origins of the universe itself which is a mystery but introducing a creator of the universe simply pushes the question back one step and adds no information. People who would like to deny the right to ask for that step to be taken need to say what it is that makes their final creator special in respect of origins. 213.78.235.176 00:15 1 December 2005
I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. The robot scenario seems to prove quite well that just because we don't know of the origins/identity of the designer doesn't make a design inference illegitimate. It seems little more than special pleading to say that a design inference is somehow illegitimate in principle with biological structures, merely because we cannot discern the identity/origins of the designer. Are you saying that, what makes the a design inference illegitimate, is if the designer is uncaused? At least when it comes to biology, we cannot discern scientifically if the designer was uncaused. With ID and the universe you may have a point, however. I've been skeptical of the validity of ID and the universe as a genuinely scientific theory, though it may have some important consequences for philosophy. --Wade A. Tisthammer 03:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The difficulty here is that there are two types of IC which are regularly conflated: instant-IC which appears in a local and singular way, such as when a person puts a house of cards together, and evolved-IC such as a modern computer processor which does exhibit IC but only as the end result of years of development where the features which are IC today were previously independant of each other (or missing altogether) and in every case were not required to become irreducible in order to form a working processor. This evolved IC is a very different thing from the former: two boulders which have jammed together to form a rock-arch are not the same type of evidence for a designer as the St Louis Arch.
Let's be honest here – ID is not concerned with proving that a chair had a carpenter, it is really concerned with whether or not our biological systems have a designer (which is why the above quote just handwaving, it is trying to distract from the real objective here, replace Stonehenge with chairs), and that is very much the second type of complexity as we see when we turn to the fossil record. You say that in biology we can not discern if a designer was uncaused and that's true, but we can certainly discern if an organism is the result of development over time without need of recourse to a creator. In the evolution of humans, where is the gap at which a creator had to step in to explain the next step? For that matter, where in the whale's evolution do we see evidence of intelligence, with those silly little back legs which don't even poke out of the animals' sides anymore?
The robots example is also slightly dangerous because it appeals to our biological predudice: we assume a-priori that a "robot" does not have a mummy and a daddy and did not evolve, we assume that it has instant IC like the house of cards. Is that assumption always going to hold, even on Pluto? I don't know that our understanding of the universe is so complete that we could rule out even such alien evolution. 213.78.235.176 12:16 1 December 2005

I think the suggested text fits the citations well. We all know who IDists really think the designer is, but we're not arguing that here - that's movement. We're presenting the theory and it's theoretical possiblities here. Preferences by the IDists of one possiblity doesn't cancel the others, and the theory must be judged as presented. By all means attack them for the Trojan Horse technique, but the horse itself is something else. ant 23:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

The problem was the proposed language did not address the fundamental points made by Dawkins and other critics: that applying ID's logic consistently to it's own claims results in a logical paradox and infinite regression. Any language that ignored these points itself missed the point. The proposal was OTBE anyway almost as soon as it was made. FeloniousMonk 00:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Robots on Pluto? At some point reason went seriously missing from this discussion.

Jim62sch 01:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

It does not result in a logical paradox and infinite regression because the designer need not be IC! Darwinists prove that: evolved man (complex but not IC) produces IC object (eg a watch). Can you hang on to that or refute it please? ant 04:09, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Resolution to Wade's & Ant's objections (hopefully)

I've edited the passage to question to remove the word "irreducibly" from all references to complexity in favor of relying on direct quotes from Dawkins, who make a much stronger point anyway.

Behe and his irreduciable complexity are completely out of the section now, and all points are properly attributed to substantial supporting citations. I hope Wade and Ant find this acceptable and now will move on to contributing to the project in a more constructive fashion. FeloniousMonk 23:00, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Better, since by quoting Dawkins you irrefutably remove the possibility of original research at least when it comes to that claim. But "the fundamental assumption of Intelligent Design that every irreducibly complex object requires a designer" still remains. Are you going to delete that as well? --Wade A. Tisthammer 23:20, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Are you joking? This is a serious question. KillerChihuahua 23:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
No, I am not joking. The argument that "by intelligent design's own reasoning..." has finally been removed. Why should it be unreasonable for me to have the alleged “fundamental assumption” removed as well, given its apparent nonexistence? --Wade A. Tisthammer 23:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
That every irreducibly complex object requires a designer is a fundamental assumption in ID is well established and widely accepted:
  • "The argument from IC to ID is simply: 1. IC things cannot evolve 2. If it can't have evolved it must have been designed" ... " Behe's argument that IC cannot evolve is central to ID, so it deserves our attention. His method is to divide evolution into what he calls 'direct', which he defines in a special way, and 'indirect' (everything else). He finds that direct evolution of IC is logically impossible, and indirect evolution of IC is too improbable." --Pete Dunkelberg. Irreducible Complexity Demystified [7]
We could present it as an attribution, but as for deleting it, that would misrepresent what ID says IC does. FeloniousMonk 23:42, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
No, the "fundamental assumption" is what more likely misrepresents what ID says and does. Felonious, the quote you offered is from a hearsay source (as I pointed out earlier). And if you don't think evolutionists can mischaracterize their opponents, I invite you to read Battle of Beginnings. If ID really contains this as the fundamental assumption, you should be able to find it within the ID literature itself. Can you do that? And about my citation of Behe (the leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity) who flatly contradicts this alleged assumption? Isn't this good enough evidence that the alleged fundamental assumption should be removed if you have nothing better than hearsay and conjecture? --Wade A. Tisthammer 00:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
A 'hearsay source'? You'd better read WP:RS and rethink that objection. Dunkelberg is what is called a 'secondary source.' Dunkelberg is widely recognized critic of ID. His writing cites primary sources. As a recognized 'secondary source' citing what he writes here is perfectly acceptable according to WP:RS Evaluating_secondary sources.
Please stop moving the target and applying your own rules here. We've tried to accomodate you many times, and you're never satisfied with the compromises.
To summarize, according to Wikipedia's guidlines, WP:RS, Dunkelberg's "Irreducible Complexity Demystified" [8] is a perfectly acceptable source that supports exactly what the passage states. FeloniousMonk 01:00, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Felonious, you better read Battle of Beginnings: Why Neither-Side is Winning the Creation-Evolution Debate and rethink your objection if you think hearsay is admissible, reliable evidence. Evolutionists have frequently misconstrued the opposition in controversial debates like these (similarly, creationists have misconstrued evolution). Again, if this assumption really exists in ID, if it is not a straw man, you should be able to find in the ID literature. --Wade A. Tisthammer 03:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I wasn't sure, you started off with "remove this" instead of asking for a cite - which I'll be candid, a cite for the assertion that the central keystone to ID is that Irreducibly complex objects require a designer is, to me, odd coming from someone who reads the DI site. Let's back up a little - what precisely do you think in the new statement is not fully substantiated in the cites? KillerChihuahua 23:57, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Agree with FM and KC. I myself was a little wary of the "IC designer" part in the article, though for different reasons, but FeloniousMonk has offered a good compromise. As for the "fundamental assumption" quote - in the past I think Wade has brought up that IC is primarily Behe's baby and isn't the fundamental assumption of all IDists, but since Dembski also deals with it in his newer research, I think Wade's argument falls through. IC being the fundamental assumption of ID isn't original research - it is in fact by and large what their whole argument hinges on now that Dembski has tied his idea of SC to Behe's IC. There are citations given for this fundamental importance of IC - FM includes one in his comment, I linked to more evidence. No objective person is going to be removing this anytime soon. -Parallel or Together ? 00:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Even in his eariler books Dembski invokes IC. In No Free Lunch, he claims irreducible complexity constitutes a particular instance of specified complexity. FeloniousMonk 00:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Dembski may involve irreducible complexity in some of his articles, but he does not (as far as I know) say that it is the fundamental assumption of ID that all irreducibly complex objects require a designer. Note that in many articles, Dembski and other ID adherents argue for design using e.g. complex specified information and the explanatory filter--all without even mentioning irreducible complexity. Behe himself discusses the origins of life without appealing to irreducible complexity in Darwin's Black Box. Whatever the fundamental assumption of intelligent design might be, it does not appear to necessarily involve irreducible complexity. --Wade A. Tisthammer 00:44, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Note: I am not disputing the fact that irreducible complexity is a major part of the ID movement. However, what I’m talking about is the fundamental assumption of ID that all irreducibly complex objects require a designer. This is very different from merely claiming that IC is a major part of the ID theory. For one thing, this "fundamental assumption" is flatly contradicted by the leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity himself (Michael Behe). --Wade A. Tisthammer 00:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Try Dembski as a source: [9] KillerChihuahua 01:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The full Dembski quote: "Intelligent Design is a theory of biological origins and development. Its fundamental claim is that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology, and that these causes are empirically detectable." --William Dembski, Intelligent Design, Downer’s Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity, 1999, p. 106 Available here [10]
That pretty much seals it for that objection. I'll be adding this to the article. FeloniousMonk 01:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I hate to break it to you, as if you didn't already know, but Wade will refuse this citation as well. He will argue that he doesn't use the word irredicibly in front of complex, so that this quote is no good. Of course, Wade argued against the sentence that just read "complex" initially, after which you changed it to say irreducibly complex and this whole mess got started... maybe we could go back to the orginial version that said that a designer was needed for every complex object. This (1) is backed up by this Dembski quote and (2) leaves open the possibility to mean either IC or SC depending on the ID proponent. People who want to read up on IC or SC can (gasp) check out the links that are copiously cited in the article from both sides of the "debate." Wade would no longer have any serious objections, I assume. Unless he wants to say Dembski isn't a reliable source either... -Parallel or Together ? 01:31, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The original version of the claim (that a designer is needed for every complex object) is demonstrably false, as I pointed out earlier. This belief is not backed up by the Dembski quote, because he doesn't say that every complex object is designed, only that some (e.g. the information-rich structures of biology) are. Indeed, I was able to provide citations proving that Dembski does not believe that every complex entity is designed (read the whole thing to learn more). I think we should all be careful about not creating straw men. Note how easy it is to misconstrue the opposition here. A straw man was created very easily and unintentionally. That is why I find hearsay inadmissible in controversies like these. And that is why I have requested we get “the fundamental assumption” of ID straight from the horse’s mouth. --Wade A. Tisthammer 03:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The Dembski quote does not establish that the fundamental assumption of ID is that every irreducibly complex object requires design. And why have you ignored my citation of Behe, the leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity?

KC and FM: sheer brilliance. Many thanks!

Jim62sch 01:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I've also reworded the passage from: "the fundamental assumption of Intelligent Design that a designer is needed for every irreducibly complex object" to: "the fundamental assumption of Intelligent Design that certain types of complex objects, generally those held to be irreducibly complex and/or specifically complex, require a designer."
That should satisfy Wade's latest objection and still carry the gist of the objection. FeloniousMonk 01:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, at least we've gotten rid of the straw man here. But now we have the claim:
At the same time, the postulation of the existence of even a single uncaused causer in the Universe contradicts the fundamental assumption of Intelligent Design that certain types of complex objects, generally those held to be irreducibly complex and/or specifically complex, require a designer
Is this argument original research? Or to the very least, can you explain why an uncaused designer contradicts this claim of ID? Since ID does not claim that all complex entities require a designer (thanks to the death of the straw man), there is no way of knowing if the designer needs to have been intelligently caused (without knowing the physical makeup of the designer). I don't think you can claim a contradiction anymore even if original research were admissible. --Wade A. Tisthammer 03:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Wade - do you know what original research is? I get the impression from your comments that you don't. Guettarda 03:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I've often thought of the same thing for Felonious, given some of his earlier objections against me (for example, in one instance I did some research of my own making--which I combed from sources and provided plenty of citations; Felonious subsequently accused me of original research in this instance). Anyway, from what I understand original research entails (among other things) you cannot just make up arguments against a theory you don't like. Citations are needed for such things. --Wade A. Tisthammer 03:50, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
And citations have been provided. Many of them. However, you don't need to provide citations for "common knowledge" - since this idea is the subject of another Wikipedia article, it's pretty close to "common knowledge". So how does references + coverage in separate WP article = OR? Guettarda 04:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Just for those who are wondering, according to Wikipedia's original research policy, the phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication. In other words, most of the ID literature is "orginial research." Not meant to be a justification, just an observation. However, on a more serious note, unless Wade is enacting a subtle parody on ID proponents constantly shifting their arguments when their original points are refuted by the scientific community, I suggest that we find more constructive ways to fix the article. It can always be better, but I don't feel that bickering over this point, especially now that we have been at it for a while, is helping the article much. It is more like a pissing contest. The article has been dealt changed to deal with Wade's original complaints, and if there are other problems with the article then we should find them and fix them before going right back to what amounts to the same point, more or less. When we have dealt with some other issues, we can come back to this if Wade or others desire. Any thoughts? Anyone else want to take a break from attempting to destroy/maintain the "who designed the designer" section? -Parallel or Together ? 04:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I do not believe this argument is common knowledge. See above what I said about the alleged contradiction. Given the new "fundamental assumption" the argument even seems non sequitur. --Wade A. Tisthammer 05:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you FM for the edit. I think we should also point out here that Wade was not being disruptive at all as he had a valid point and a sincere motivation in bringing the error to everyone's attention. It's simply that a lack of understanding of the actual ID position prevented the point being understood for so long, and he has done the article a service for accuracy. ant 04:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Can we change 'requires' to 'implies', since ID states that increasing ISC increases the odds of a designer, rather than having certainty? ant 04:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

FM, with all due respect, the new re-write is too convoluted and weasely. Next you're going to change it to "Some people think (3 footnotes) that design might imply a designer (4 more footnotes), and this might possibly be taken to be a fairly important part of the Intelligent design argument, but we're not absolutely sure and Wade doesn't think so at all." Please remember - while its important to respect the input of all editors, this article is "Intelligent design" not "Intelligent design full of weasel-words so Wade won't object." The fundamental argument of ID is that design means a designer, and that should stay in. Put it back to "the fundamental assumption of Intelligent Design that a designer is needed for every irreducibly complex object." We're not saying every irreducibly complex object requires a supernatural designer, but anyone who has read Behe and Dembski knows the entire ID argument rests on their presumption that certain complex objects are proof of design, and that's their whole basis. Without that the whole thing falls apart. Now that Dembski has thrown in his lot on the side of IC, there can be no rational objection to this phrasing. Rewriting the whole article to satisfy one POV is not a good idea. KillerChihuahua 12:30, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
After reading KC's point I agree. The sentence is too long and clumsy. However, accuracy is vital, and KC's suggestion is not quite accurate, for two reasons:
  1. The ID position appears to [attempt to] use the statistical science concept of statistical proof, where the odds are [claimed to be] so significantly high that scientifically speaking it can be taken as reliable. This is not the same thing as certainty or absolute proof. Thus ID acknowledges that it may be possible for an IC object to be undesigned - it is just so unlikely, that a designer is implied. However, when one looks at the entire array of known IC objects, while not every object might require a designer, as a whole group the cumulative 'statistical proofs', for all practical purposes, do.
  2. As Wade pointed out, it is IC and/or SC. Not apparently major issue but we should nevertheless be accurate in case.
So if we're going to present the fundamental claim of ID here at all then I'd like to suggest something along the following lines:
"contradicts the fundamental assumption of Intelligent Design that a range of certain types of complex objects implies a designer"
On the other hand, this kind of destroys the critique somewhat, so perhaps it'd be better to go with a critic's quote. ant 14:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
KC, you seem to forget the reason why I wanted "the fundamental assumption of Intelligent Design that a designer is needed for every irreducibly complex object" removed to begin with; this "fundamental assumption" does not appear to exist. The leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity himself flatly contradicts this assumption, and although Dembski sometimes involves irreducible complexity in some of his articles, but he does not (as far as I know) say that it is the fundamental assumption of ID that all irreducibly complex objects require a designer. Note that in many articles, Dembski and other ID adherents argue for design using e.g. complex specified information and the explanatory filter--all without even mentioning irreducible complexity. So while IC may be an important part of intelligent design theory in many cases, it does not appear to be the fundamental assumption (something closer to a fundamental assumption would be the idea that intelligent design is empirically detectable). So far, none of the Dembski citations provided so much as mention this alleged fundamental assumption. Can anyone provide any real evidence at all that this "fundamental assumption" actually exists in ID? And what about my citation of Behe (the leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity) flatly contradicting this claim? Doesn't that suggest that this "fundamental assumption" regarding irreducible complexity might be a straw man? --Wade A. Tisthammer 20:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Nope. KillerChihuahua 21:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
May I ask why? Behe is the leading ID proponent of irreducible complexity. One cannot, for instance, ignore the fact that Behe flatly contradicts the alleged "fundamental assumption" of ID regarding irreducible complexity merely because of wishful thinking on the part of some anti-ID adherents. So do you have any real evidence at all that this fundamental assumption actually exists in ID as opposed to being a straw man? If so would you care to present it here? --Wade A. Tisthammer 22:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Because other statements he and Dembski make contradict it. Your use of Behe's quote is selective. FeloniousMonk 23:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
By all means, provide any Behe statement that contradicts it (same with Dembski). But I suspect you have none. For instance, let's look at one of the statements provided:
Intelligent Design is a theory of biological origins and development. Its fundamental claim is that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology, and that these causes are empirically detectable
Dembski doesn't even mention irreducible complexity here, much less claim that the fundamental assumption of ID is that all irreducibly complex objects are designed. This is something of a moot point though, since the Wikipedia entry removed the fundamental assumption and replaced with another, more accurate fundamental claim (which, as I explained earlier, renders the "contradiction" argument a bit non sequitur--BTW what about the original research issue I mentioned earlier?). --Wade A. Tisthammer 23:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
What about it? KillerChihuahua 23:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Supernatural causes (i.e., an itelligent designer) cannot be detected emprically, they can only be inferred via a belief in the supernatural.

Jim62sch 00:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't original research still against Wikipedia policy? One is not permitted to make up arguments against a theory one doesn't like in a Wikipedia entry, especially non sequitur ones. "Who designed the designer" is of course a popular criticism and should be mentioned, but original research should not be included. --Wade A. Tisthammer 23:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Yep, still against policy. Good thing there isn't any OR in the article Intelligent design or we'd have to add a footnote or two. KillerChihuahua 00:05, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

KC,

Not to be critical, but you seem to have forgotten to add the word "hundred" after "a footnote or two".

Jim62sch 01:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed articles

Guettarda: before, reverting, look at the content of my edit, and the reference. Read the reference. Then, objectively, decide whether it should be reverted. I took the info for my edit directly from the DI website. I actually was just browsing when I found the list of peer-reviewed articles referencing ID, and recalled that the article said there are none. So I corrected the false info in the article. Note, that none of Behe's articles are in the list, so he likely meant that none of his articles were peer-reviewed. --chad 06:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I read it, and Guettarda was right to revert your addition. It was factually incorrect. No ID publication has been validly published in any peer reviewed scientific publications, despite what the DI claims. The only one that was has been retracted by the journal that published it, which stated that "contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by an associate editor." Their statement also added that "there is no credible scientific evidence supporting ID as a testable hypothesis to explain the origin of organic diversity." FeloniousMonk 06:36, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, let's change it to DI claims that ID-supportive articles were published in peer-reviewed journals. --chad 06:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Here's the link to Behe's testimony [11], and a recap of it [12]. FeloniousMonk 06:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I'll have to heavily edit my edit now :-) --chad 07:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Yep, welcome to wikipedia, where rewrites are rewritten, edits are edited, and criticisms are criticised... ;-) FeloniousMonk 07:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
How's that FM? --chad 07:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
FM, that's how! :"D RoyBoy 800 07:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The DI website isn't under oath. - RoyBoy 800 07:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Obviously, RoyBoy! But Behe was saying there are no peer-reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred. That is not to say that ID was never discussed in a quasi-positive light in a peer-reviewed article. The DI website provides a list of articles that do just that. I think the edit is fair. It makes the whole peer-review issue more objective without (horrors!) adding to the credibility of ID, which seems to be in line with the apparent central goal of the article.--chad 07:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Quite, and I haven't reverted your tweaks; but I'm unsure how ID being "discussed in a quasi-positive light" qualifies as "Scientific peer review" as the header implies science is being reviewed; and indeed what was the result/response (conclusion?) in those publications of argument(s) for ID as a theory? - RoyBoy 800 08:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I think you may have misunderstood. I don't think I said that a peer-review is a "discussion in a quasi-positive light", I said the articles which have been peer-reviewed and published in mainstream journals discussed ID in a quasi-positive light. Peer-review doesn't involve a response to an article such as "your article is true" or "your article is false". Peer-review is a editing of the text by experts to determine if the article was accurate in its portrayal of the facts being discussed, and if the questions it asks are relevant. The result/response (conclusion) was, "yes, we'll publish your article in Journal X. So to say it backwards,the articles were published in a scientific journal, the pre-requisite for publication in a scientific journal is peer-review. --chad 08:45, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmmmm. Peer review is far (far) more like a response to your article than an editing of the text. Peer-reviewers never (in my experience) edit your text. They may suggest ways in which it can be improved, or point out holes in it. But editing is out of the question. And peer-reviews often end up with statements akin to "your article is true" or "your article is false" (though rarely as black-and-white as that). --Plumbago 09:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay. However you want to define peer-review, the fact remains, articles referring to ID in an apparently positive light, written by ID proponents, passed peer-review, and were published in mainstream Journals, at least according to DI; and I think it would be very stupid of DI to lie on this one. If you look at the ref (no. 46 in the wp article on ID), you'll see a pretty elaborate list with descriptions of the articles themselves (with direct quotes) and the names of mainstream peer-reviwed journals where they were published. It would be very strange to concoct a hoax like this, because it would be so easy to disprove, simply by looking in said journals and seeing if the articles are really there. I think the section on peer-review is relatively unbiased now, and factually correct (of course, minor edits could be justified). --chad 09:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Is anyone suggesting a hoax? I don't think so. However, the list merits consideration (presumably done elsewhere, but here we go again ...) :
  • 4 "featured articles" (whatever that means);
  • 4 "peer-reviewed books";
  • 3 "trade books";
  • 6 "peer-reviewed articles in science journals";
  • 7 "articles in peer-reviewed science anthologies";
  • 5+ "articles in peer-reviewed science anthologies/conference proceedings"
Of these, only the 6 in science journals are worth serious consideration here (which is not to say the others aren't interesting, just to simplify the list to premier sources). Of these, one is the infamously retracted paper by Meyer, two by Denton appear to be about "natural law" rather than ID (though the DI claim these as ID), and the other three I've not had time to look at (though they've got rather technical titles that don't immediately suggest ID). I'll have a go at those later. It's hardly a stunning list for a vibrant new scientific force. Almost every scientists I know has, individually, a more impressive list than this. Not that size counts or anything ... --Plumbago 09:44, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Size may matter, but not in the case of the question: do peer-reviewed articles with pro-ID content exist in mainstream scientific journals? The answer is an undoubted yes. This wp article said that there are none (or at least appeared to say there are none). To add some objectivity and strip the article of some of it's POV I edited the section on peer-review to reflect the fact that said articles exist. Feel free to add that there are only six of them, which is less than obscure scientists such as [[insert name of one of Plumbago's buddies here]] have had published. I don't care, but whatever the case, I have made this article more factually accurate for once, and I think accuracy is something we all love. --chad 09:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I would certainly agree that there appear to be articles in science journals out there. My concern would be that of the ones I've looked at, one has been retracted and two others don't appear to be about ID (though, because they suggest non-Darwinian processes may be in operation, they are claimed as such - an old YEC trick). However, there are still three out there which look plausible. I'll try to have a read of them to see if they mention ID at all. My suspicion is that they'll allude to non-specific difficulties (note : not impossibilities) in applying evolutionary theory to particular molecular processes, and won't directly mention ID at all. However, I may find the reverse. But it would be unfair to suggest in the article that ID hasn't published a thing if it turns out that there's a proper (unretracted) reference to it out there in the scientific literature (specifically peer-reviewed journals; books/anthologies/conference proceedings/etc. don't carry as much weight in scientific circles). --Plumbago 10:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

See http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI001_4.html basically the DI is lying. And this is easy to demonstrate by looking at the articles in question; either they like the Sternberg article got in through a trojan horse method or they're not about ID as science. And we've had this discussion before since Mark's linked back to this very page. — Dunc|☺ 10:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, that does tend to confirm my suspicions. The article needs changing to reflect this. At the moment in one paragraph it says there's papers, only for the next but one paragraph to demolish the leading contender. However, it's probably worth mentioning the DI's list - that they've so dubiously produced one is something of an indictment. --Plumbago 10:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
If those papers are mentioned at all, IMHO they belong in the movement article not the ID article. Right now all we can put in the article is that the DI falsely claims to have published peer reviewed papers on the subject of ID. That is the DI doing something false to make their position look more "scientific" which belongs in the Movement article, not here. There are no valid peer review articles on ID, so we cannot sensibly put anything about that in this article - unless it is in a criticism section, where we state that there are none. KillerChihuahua 12:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, so Talk Origins is more authoritative than DI? Talk origins doesn't give any specifics, it does describe parts of the article that can be misconstrued as pertaining to ID, DI does. And TO does not address:
M.J. Behe and D.W. Snoke, “Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein Features That Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues,” Protein Science, 13 (2004): 2651-2664.


In this article, Behe and Snoke show how difficult it is for unguided evolutionary processes to take existing protein structures and add novel proteins whose interface compatibility is such that they could combine functionally with the original proteins. By demonstrating inherent limitations to unguided evolutionary processes, this work gives indirect scientific support to intelligent design and bolsters Behe’s case for intelligent design in answer to some of his critics. [13]
Talk origins gives an example of an article on ID that has been published in a peer-reviewed journal. In all fairness, we should say that "although DI describes how these articles support ID, critics argue that they simply don't."
Something else I've found interesting is the fact that KC and Plumbago seemed to have been suspecting (hoping?) this was impossible all along, and a very small undetailed critique of the notion that the articles were supportive of ID was enough to convince them that their worst fears had not come to pass. Please, there are two sources with conflicting information, and we must ask: who is more motivated to mislead? Personally I think the outright lying that KC is apparently accusing DI of is rather a bizarre idea. I think a person, desperate to prove that it is impossible for anything supportive of ID to pass peer-review, might completely miss the points in an article that is supportive of it, especially after being confronted with a list of peer-reviewed articles (horrors!).
And more to the point, 2 questions.
1. Who is more capable of understanding ID's position? ID-ists, or their critics?
2. What, therefore is more credible?
a. An IDist giving a list of articles with descriptions showing how they support ID, for example "In this article, Behe and Snoke show how difficult it is for unguided evolutionary processes to take existing protein structures and add novel proteins whose interface compatibility is such that they could combine functionally with the original proteins. By demonstrating inherent limitations to unguided evolutionary processes, this work gives indirect scientific support to intelligent design and bolsters Behe’s case for intelligent design in answer to some of his critics.
b. or a critic saying, the article says nothing of the sort and in no way supports ID, directly or indirectly.
It is simply unfair that anti-ID-ists take any bit of support for ID say its a lie or a fallacy or ridiculous (usually with no basis) and then use it to attack ID. It seems like if I could give you a peer-reviewed journal with an article titled Intelligent design: A new scientific horizon you would deny that the journal was really peer-reviewed, or you would say that the reviewers were basically cretins, or anything, but you wouldn't accept it. You can just accept that maybe, possibly, we might be able to find an i.c. structure, maybe, there is a designer, maybe, for crying out loud, there really are articles supportive of ID in peer-reviewed journals. It's pointless to argue with you people. But in order to collaborate on making this article NPOV we have to look at what ID says about itself, and have that be the focus (with criticisms of course!). People compare ID with UFOs, look at the UFO article for a model. The purpose of the article isn't to discredit, it's to describe what people think about UFOs. Let's look at what people think and say about ID, starting with the originators, then with some critics, that would be NPOV and objective. It can never be objective if every cited argument for ID is struck down and removed from the article because somebody found a reference criticising the argument. --chad 14:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The purpose of the article is to be unbiased and accurate. I don't have time right now to post a ton of sources on the subject, but as noted above, only one article ever made it into a peer reviewed publication and it has been withdrawn. I will do this (if others have not already) as soon as I can. KillerChihuahua 14:36, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Here is one to get it started: [14] (this is about the one and only, since removed) KillerChihuahua 14:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I knew about Meyer (and Klinghoffer article) as I had done extensive research on the article for a discussion I was having with, you guessed it, a creationist about two months ago. I wrote the following last night but decided to wait for Chad's response:
And actually the word objective gives me a sudden urge to check on the objectivity of your cite. Wouldn't ya know it, I did extensive research on the situation involving S.C. Meyer and the "controversy" surrounding it; for a debate with a creationist I had a while back. [15] I particularly found comment 14932 incisive. But I digress, I look forward to your objective findings from those publications.
So I guess Chad's answer to my question of what the response was to the Meyer paper (as its the only one with any validity), is he wasn't aware of any. Dunc's link provides the answer I was looking for:
Publishing, however, is not an end in itself. Scientific ideas mean nothing unless they can withstand criticism and be built upon. (See Elsberry [2004] and Gishlick et al. [2004] for criticism of Meyer [2004].) Publishing such poor papers only hurts the cause of ID as science.
Interestingly, the link also says, "One peer-reviewed intelligent design article has now been published, albeit in a fairly minor journal that focuses on taxonomic description." This is from an anti-ID website. Is this "the infamously retracted paper by Meyer"? If so, can a citation be provided? It seems almost implausible that talk.origins wouldn't get wind of it if it were true (if so, talk.origins should be e-mailed). Additionally, other negative web pages here and here do not mention it, emphasizing my request for a citation if this indeed were the allegedly retracted paper.
There are apparently other pro-ID articles in one peer-reviewed journal, albeit that might not "count" as the journal appears to be pro-ID. --Wade A. Tisthammer 23:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
ISCID was set up by Dembski. FeloniousMonk 23:13, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Wouldn't surprise me, since Dembski is a very prominent ID adherent. Still, he's he's hardly the only member there. --Wade A. Tisthammer 23:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
And Wikipedia has ten of thousands of active members... doesn't mean I'd consider every one of them competent to speak on matters of biology. Indeed it doesn't surprise me Dembski is there, and it should hardly surprise you that as a result we can discount it as a scientific journal. - RoyBoy 800 06:15, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, there ya have it... objectivity indeed. - RoyBoy 800 17:56, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

And here's more:

Dembski: "I think at a fundamental level, in terms of what drives me in this is that I think God's glory is being robbed by these naturalistic approaches to biological evolution, creation, the origin of the world, the origin of biological complexity and diversity. When you are attributing the wonders of nature to these mindless material mechanisms, God's glory is getting robbed. [...] And so there is a cultural war here. Ultimately I want to see God get the credit for what he’s done — and he's not getting it." ("The design revolution?" TalkReason.org 2004)

Jim62sch 00:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The peer review section was accurate and factual to begin with. Meyer's article was already mentioned there and directed reader to the Sternberg peer review controversy article for more in-depth coverage. FeloniousMonk 18:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Article from a journalist/professor who attended a lecture and interviewed Behe - he did a lot of checking, read it, its full of humor and interesting info: The Minnesota Daily "Perhaps when the number of supporting publications rises to the level of “horse feces” (929) the professional community will grant ID some respect." KillerChihuahua 21:30, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Good stuff, and horse feces is up to 937 since October 11th. More publications in less than a month than ID has had since... well since ever. - RoyBoy 800 22:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Excellent. I need to fertilize my garden anyway. No matter how much my plants evolve, they still need to have fecal matter spread upon them.

Jim62sch 00:10, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Behe & Snoke article

Abstract - Gene duplication is thought to be a major source of evolutionary innovation because it allows one copy of a gene to mutate and explore genetic space while the other copy continues to fulfill the original function. Models of the process often implicitly assume that a single mutation to the duplicated gene can confer a new selectable property. Yet some protein features, such as disulfide bonds or ligand binding sites, require the participation of two or more amino acid residues, which could require several mutations. Here we model the evolution of such protein features by what we consider to be the conceptually simplest route—point mutation in duplicated genes. We show that for very large population sizes N, where at steady state in the absence of selection the population would be expected to contain one or more duplicated alleles coding for the feature, the time to fixation in the population hovers near the inverse of the point mutation rate, and varies sluggishly with the {lambda}th root of 1/N, where {lambda} is the number of nucleotide positions that must be mutated to produce the feature. At smaller population sizes, the time to fixation varies linearly with 1/N and exceeds the inverse of the point mutation rate. We conclude that, in general, to be fixed in 108 generations, the production of novel protein features that require the participation of two or more amino acid residues simply by multiple point mutations in duplicated genes would entail population sizes of no less than 109.

  • Neither the words "intelligent" nor "design" appear anywhere in the article
  • "We strongly emphasize that results bearing on the efficiency of this one pathway as a conduit for Darwinian evolution say little or nothing about the efficiency of other possible pathways. Thus, for example, the present study that examines the evolution of MR protein features by point mutation in duplicate genes does not indicate whether evolution of such features by other processes (such as recombination or insertion/deletion mutations) would be more or less efficient."
  • This is a simulation modelling paper - it's results are only as good as the equations used to produce it.
    • Lynch (Protein Science (2005), 14:2217-2225) replies to this paper:
      • "It is shown here that the conclusions of this prior work are an artifact of unwarranted biological assumptions, inappropriate mathematical modeling, and faulty logic"
      • "Although the authors claim to be evaluating whether Darwinian processes are capable of yielding new multi-residue functions, the model that they present is non- Darwinian (King and Jukes 1969). Contrary to the principles espoused by Darwin, that is, that evolution generally proceeds via functional intermediate states, Behe and Snoke consider a situation in which the intermediate steps to a new protein are neutral and involve nonfunctional products. Although non-Darwinian mechanisms play an important role in contemporary evolutionary biology, there is no logical basis to the authors’ claim that observations from a non-Darwinian model provide a test of the feasibility of Darwinian processes. Moreover, given that the authors restricted their attention to one of the most difficult pathways to an adaptive product imaginable, it comes as no surprise that their efforts did not bear much fruit."
    • Behe and Snoke reply to Lynch:
      • "We subscribe neither to triumphant views in some circles that our paper disproved Darwinism, nor to overwrought ones that it supports some grand anti-science conspiracy."
      • They also claim that some of his criticisms were misleading. It's not for me (or us) to evaluate that claim.

When it comes down to it, simulation modelling is simulation modelling. It presents an interesting "what if" scenario if you choose your parameters carefully. It creates a region of possibility, but it's only really meaningful when it can be supported by experimental or observational data. If your model fails to support the "reality" of established theory, the first question is whether your model is right. Behe & Snoke do not claim that "reality" is wrong, they simply present an interesting modelling result. Lynch rather effectively takes down their model. It remains to be seen whether Behe & Snoke pursue this further and address Lynch's concerns about model selection, etc.

For our purposes, it doesn't matter whether Behe & Snoke are right or wrong. The question is whether this paper can be considered a publication related to intelligent design. DI claims that it supports DI. Behe & Snoke make no such claims. In short, the DI summary appears to be misleading. So should you take their word on it? Guettarda 16:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Simulation Modeling is essentially a Gedanke experiment like Schrödinger’s cat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat). It proves nothing, postulates not much (and certainly nothing empirically testable or provable) and is merely, as Guettarda said, a big "what if". "What ifs" can be fun, but so can be playing solitaire.

Jim62sch 00:37, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Now, steady on. While the above criticisms of modelling are perfectly sound, let's not whale on modelling too much. Only by modelling something successfully can we really claim to have understood it. Observations are fine and dandy (and the cornerstone of science), but if you can't tie them together into a coherent model of the world, you're probably missing something somewhere. Of course, I say this as a modeller ...  ;) --Plumbago 10:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Plumbago -- no offense intended. I suppose if someone said something similar about computer science I'd have to get in a word or two. We must protect that which puts bread on the table.  :)

I suppose I could have said modelling using specific criteria and real-world obeservations...etc., since that was the crux of what I was saying. (See Guettarda's comment above, "if you choose your parameters carefully")

Behe's and Snoke's modelling was highly flawed, and as with anything Behe does, the modelling was designed (no pun) to achieve a pre-determined outcome.

Jim62sch 11:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

No worries. I'm just teasing really. Modelling, especially in the biological sciences, involves a fair bit of educated guesswork at times because the processes involved (and even entities involved) are typically poorly understood (at least at the level one would like). So most modellers I know are well aware of the limitations of what they do (and what they can get away with). When in doubt, use a linear function until you know better. It's no accident that one of my colleagues refers to us as "muddlers". Cheers, --Plumbago 13:35, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Fundamental Questions

Here's what I understand to be fundamental in Intelligent Design studies (pulled from mostly chapter 1 of The Design Revolution by Dembski):

1) Are there signs of intelligence? (Physical properities of any object—organic or inorganic—that necessitate design.) Design theorists say yes.
2) If so, what are they? Here design theorists work in categories. The top-level super-set sign of intelligence is specified complexity. All other signs of intelligence are a subset of SC. The most notable of these subsets is Behe's irreducible complexity. Other subset signs proposed are (1) information mechanisms (2) certain chemical compositions (ie. anything that has TNT is intelligently designed, because TNT is never found in nature without it) and (3) notable, detailed pattern matching (ie. the heads on Mt. Rushmore look like specific people)
3) Are we sure that the proposed signs necessitate design?
4) If so, the do living things have any of these signs?—ie. Is the flagellum really irreducibly complex? Is DNA actually an information-passing mechanism? Are any of the cellular compounds like TNT in that they are never found in nature except where intelligence puts them?

But the tricky part is that their study raises other philosophical questions that are left only to intuition. What is intelligence? Does it exist? If it does exist, is intelligence natural, supernatural, or both? If there's a supernatural element to intelligence, how does it interact with nature? (ie How does the soul command the body? Where is the connection? The pineal gland?) On the other hand, if there isn't a supernatural element to intelligence, how do we explain awareness? (ie "It is impossible that our rational part should be other than spiritual; and if any one maintain that we are simply matter, this would far more exclude us from the knowledge of things, there being nothing so inconceivable as to say that matter knows itself. It is impossible to imagine how it should know itself."—Pascal, Pensées)

But if you take "intelligence" in a sort of plain meaning and not dig into these vexing questions, it should be clear that there are physical properties of inorganic objects that lead us to empirically conclude that they are designed. Nobody is going to argue that even a scrap of newspaper was formed without a designer. So what is it about that scrap with ink, and any other object that is plainly designed, that announces its special origin? That is the fundamental question of intelligent design. The rest is extrapolation. David Bergan 02:38, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Newspaper, as with any "object", doesn't reproduce, hence cannot inherit information nor be subject to natural selection (also, a newspaper is not a natural object, like a rock, so through logical inference we could see it is apart from the natural world, and therefore was designed... take that a baby step further, if we know what a newspaper origins are and/or what its purpose is, like watching what other people do with it, then it becomes a no brainer). As to intelligence indeed that is an under scrutinized area in the discussion generally, but is covered pretty well IMO with this. Excellent post by the way... and if you think the article does not cover/link to these memes sufficiently, please make your case. - RoyBoy 800 06:29, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment, Roy. In short, I agree with just about everything you said. Yes it is easier to "know" that a scrap of newspaper was designed because the origin process is readily observable and its purpose is obvious. But the fundamental question for the sake of ID is still "what specifically tells us the the newspaper was designed?" It actually isn't the fact that it has a purpose... because there are other things that we confidently say are designed of which we don't know the purpose (ie. the heads on Easter Island). And it isn't the fact that we know the origin process... because there are other things that we confidently say are designed of which we don't know the origin process (ie. a Stradivarius violin). I would say that those two things certainly contribute to our confidence in asserting the newspaper was designed, but they aren't signs of intelligence themselves.
Dembski's catch-all of specified complexity of course applies. (Calculate the odds of getting the newspaper without intelligence, and if it exceeds 10^-150 then it's designed.) But it gets cumbersome because it is not at all obvious how to calculate those odds. That's where the other signs come in. For instance, one might take the chemical makeup of the paper or ink and say that these compounds are not natural. (Which would be an empiricism-based argument.) Or one could argue that since the newspaper transfers information, it is therefore designed. (Which is also an empiricism-based argument.)
My main point is that the concepts of ID are applicable to both the organic and inorganic. The physical properties that lead us to acknowledging design in the inorganic realm are the same principles that are tried with organic ones. The difference is that hardly anyone calls ID a load of bs if it focuses only on inorganic objects. In my opinion, design theorists have a shaky case on the organic stuff, but a pretty solid case on the inorganic. Even though I think their arguments are scientific (empirical) in both realms, I think biological systems have too many variables to say conclusively at this point that their structures necessitate design. David Bergan 17:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
First two times I read this you lost me, so I got drunk, played some poker tonight and re-read the above. I think I was trying to read between the lines too much; trying to give you the benefit of the doubt I guess.
No, "their" arguments are not empirical for anything. It is certainly easier to make an empirical case for man-made objects; but that's true for an ID pseudoscientist or a bright 5 year old; both of whom if they wish can apply common sense. Easter Island rocks being out of place and "facing" (I use the term loosely) the same way is evidence enough for design. The fact its a face makes it again, easy.
The reason I emphasized the context of newspapers because I conducted a thought experiment as though I had never seen a newspaper before in my life and did not know about written language. Ergo, I may need other information to make sense of a newspaper, if I suddenly encountered a lot of them. However, that in it self is pretty arrogant of me, as a newspapers dimensions (and folding) by itself would lead a "savage" (loosely again) to discern design; without the need of scientific methodologies like ink testing, which necessitates they understand the concept of written language; making the test slightly redundant. And if there are pictures in the newspaper, again easy.
As to biological systems, there is no basis with which to assert design, let alone conclusively decide on design. Biology is an exciting field of study because there is so much yet to learn... I have seen little to indicate ID is willing to wait for us to actually get a grasp of it prior to forming their opinions. - RoyBoy 800 07:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Re: "1) Are there signs of intelligence? (Physical properties of any object—organic or inorganic—that necessitate design.) Design theorists say yes." Design Theorists say yes because they want that to be the answer -- in fact Dembski has a number of quotes where he essentially admits this.
Re items 2, 3 and 4, I've said it before and I'll say it again: the concept of irreducible complexity is anthropomorphic in origin, i.e., the assumption that simply because we produce things of irreducible complexity, items in nature that are deemed by IDists to have irreducible complexity must have been designed by intelligence. There is no logical reason to assume that this is the case, and the argument itself is lacking in parsimony as one must introduce a non-provable supernatural or paranormal entity into the process.
Jim62sch 13:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Design Theorists say yes because they want that to be the answer—Are you saying that when you look at things like a iPod, a camera, a newspaper, or Santa's jalopy you don't think that they were designed? If you do think they were designed, why do you think they were? If you can answer that question, then that would affirm the existence of signs of intelligence.
the concept of irreducible complexity is anthropomorphic in origin—It could be anthropomorphic in origin, but in argument it is empirical. 100% of inorganic irreducibly complex objects (of sufficient complexity) are designed. In other words, where we know the causal history of an IC object there is a 1:1 correlation with a designer. With respect to anything organic, we don't know the causal history (nobody took pictures of the first bacterium's flagellum) but do recognize the IC similarity. David Bergan 17:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
It's been said before (and what hasn't on this page?) but I'll say it again. Without getting into the detailed theory, ID focuses on "signs of intelligence" in biological entities (usually molecular scale) that have only relatively recently come under study and about which it's doubtful that we have the full story on yet. Meanwhile, they ignore "signs of stupidity" at virtually every other level of biology. Organisms having anatomical or physiological features that are just out and out stupid (or installed back-to-front, etc.). If I've been designed, I want my money back. --Plumbago 13:56, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I touched on it a while a back. Anyone up for an Unintelligent design article? At the very least it should be redirected... which I will do now. - RoyBoy 800 16:53, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
The existing one you created for the book could be hijacked instead. Unless anyone was planning on writing a treatise on it, I reckon it could be consigned to a footnote on the page. --Plumbago 18:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Meanwhile, they ignore "signs of stupidity" at virtually every other level of biology.—That's a good point, but how much can we learn from a sign of stupidity? For instance, we think any given newspaper page is designed. But what if we read a newspaper page that is filled with inane Dr. Seuss-isms, flattery toward inept leaders like George Custer or Kim Jong Il, rants against the color of the sky, prayers to blades of grass, and recipes for bad casseroles? (This would be a college newspaper page.) It's still English newsprint, and every sane person would acknowledge that it was designed... even though it has no comparable value to, say, anything written by Shakespeare.
You seem to be saying that if you had a Cadillac and found out that the glove compartment was broken (or even just functioned in a non-intuitive way), you would go so far as to say that there was no engineer for the car.
If I've been designed, I want my money back.—Again, I have my doubts about biological/organic/human design, too. But we have to keep open-minded. What if the grand conclusion was that the designing entity was not omnipotent and/or omniscient... but instead a retarded alien? David Bergan 17:39, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
... who happened to make sure that their mistakes looked just like the product of a long series of historical "choices" that made sense at the time working with what was available. I'd still want my money back. --Plumbago 18:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Most designs are done that way. Necessity is the mother of invention; human intelligence is always improvising its resources to make things more livable or comfortable. It's not unlikely that non-human intelligences (if any exist) would be much different. David Bergan 20:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Dembski says nope, the designer can't be aliens: "The fine-tuning of the universe, about which cosmologists make such a to-do, is both complex and specified and readily yields design. So too, Michael Behe's irreducibly complex biochemical systems readily yield design. The complexity-specification criterion demonstrates that design pervades cosmology and biology. Moreover, it is a transcendent design, not reducible to the physical world. Indeed, no intelligent agent who is strictly physical could have presided over the origin of the universe or the origin of life." [16] FeloniousMonk 18:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
In terms of the fine-tuned universe aspect, that designer (if one exists) would have to be more than a retarded alien. But the designer of Earth's life (if one exists) isn't necessarily so... Nor is there substantial evidence that the suspect in the case of the universe is the suspect in the case of life. The guy who designed the wheel isn't the one who designed the car. David Bergan 20:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
That does narrow the list of possible designers down somewhat. Dembski does give his game away a bit there. Anyway, I have the feeling I won't be getting my money back. --Plumbago 18:31, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
You could always ask for a store credit, good for your next time you're back, just in case the Hindus have it right. FeloniousMonk 19:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Just curious Plumbago... how much money did you pay? Or, more to the point, how much are you asking for? David Bergan 20:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

David,

I'd answer your response to what I wrote, but I'm thinking that you're being TIC, thus rendering any response on my part unnecessary.

Jim62sch 02:28, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Why not an intelligent selector?

Something I can;t understand is why a God who marks the sparrow's fall (Matthew) can't produce species by judicious pruning like a divine gardener rather than having to pop up with another miraculous bodge every time an ecological niche changes....dave souza 20:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

That's perfectly reasonable within intelligent design. One way of designing is by selection. Humans design superior dog, horse, corn, and soybean breeds by selecting and mating. (If you recall, Darwin's book about natural selection begins its point by explaining artificial selection like this... then make the claim that nature goes about selecting fast dogs and horses in its own way: by killing the slow ones before they reproduce.) You and I design wikipedia posts by selecting latin characters. Design isn't always an engineering task, selection is a method of design, too. David Bergan 20:42, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
We'd better get started on that 'supernatural selection' article. FeloniousMonk 21:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Sure. But you need sources more notable than me, though... David Bergan 22:16, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
To the extent that ID has an argument, it's that there are features that could not be selected for by piecemeal, but instead have to be created magically all at once. When you take this away, you're left with supernatural selection, which immediately slits its own throat with Occam's razor. Alienus 01:22, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Heck, ID slit its throat with Occam's razor when it was designed and presented as science. It works fine as theology, but once it adopts the pretense of being a science -- slit, spurt, blood all over.

Besides, I'm getting really tired of the argument posed as a query, "How can you look at a flower and not see an intelligent designer?" Gee, I don't know, maybe because it isn't symmetrical?!? In fact, I can't think of one living thing on this planet that's symmetrical. Yeah, many things come close, but I want perfection from a designer. After all, if we lowly humans can design perfectly symmetrical items, I'd think a supernatural sooper-dooper designer should be able to do the same.

I feel much better now.

Jim62sch 02:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you feel better; sometimes you just gotta vent that frustration before you explode. I have to admit that I'm always befuddled when I hear arguments along the lines of "How can you look at X and deny that it was the work of God?", where X is something nice or pretty. I just don't see the connection betwee X and God, no matter how cool X is. Also, it seems like special pleading that X is chosen and not Y, where Y is something horrible. Anyhow, that was just my bit of venting. I'll shut up now. Alienus 05:39, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

See Charles Darwin#Religious views for young Darwin getting just that feeling about the nasty wasp that leaves its young to feed on live but paralysed grubs. Interesting links and comment about IC failing and IDers turning to SETI at Ars Technica, I see that we already have the SETI team refutation footnoted..dave souza 11:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

For the love of me, I still can't figure out why a supposedly "intelligent" designer make something as useless as an appendix, for example. BTW, here's more about that SETI and ID thing.--Chinfo 12:21, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Clearly, it's to test your faith. Alienus 13:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Alleged allegations

Chad, where did you find the basis for this edit [[17]]? I can find nothing which confirms this statement. KillerChihuahua 14:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)