I stay a bit confused by it when you jump between the statements that ID is both non-falsifiable and falsified.
Specific claims of ID (which are actually just negative arguments against evolution) have been falsified. The central tenet of ID (that life has been designed by an intelligent agent) is unfalsifiable.
* Natural selection gave us the vastly differing forms of life we find on Earth today.
That's a pretty broad item, but it can surely be falsified. If natural selection is shown to not cause the small changes in organisms over time that we can observe, then it's falsified. If the envisioned micro/macro-evolutionary boundary (whatever that is) is shown to exist, that would do it. If spontaneous generation of complex organisms is observed...
* Evolution happened by a process that was unguided, blind, and had no result in mind.
Easy, just show evidence of a guiding force that influences the mechanisms of evolution.
* The fossil record would match neo-Darwinian expectations. It is incomplete due to many potential reasons-- none of which can be tested.
Yet this could be easily falsified by finding, say, a bird older than the first fish, or a mammal older than amphibians. Sure, the record is incomplete, but what we do have matches up quite well.
* Similarity means kinship, and thus if we find similarity in the fossil record, that means "transitional fossils".
This could be falsified by looking at living animals today that achieve the same level similarity. If genetic analysis rules out kinship, this one's falsified.
We won't even get into the fact that the entire theory is untestable as implemented and treated-- in that it is considered scientific truth with no need to test it.
The reason for that treatment is that it has already passed over 100 years of testing. That doesn't mean it can't still be tested, just that no one is wasting valuable research time on questions that have already been answered.
Give us some detail, and please make it detail that accounts for the huge gaps that have to be overcome simultaneously. Like, the addition of working clotting and unclotting enzymes at the same time, so that you don't kill the organism with clotted blood in the system that can't unclot, or unclotted blood that makes the organism bleed to death.
An understanding of the development of the clotting system reveals that your silmultaneous requirement isn't required at all. That happens when you start with a current complex system and try to work backward (as Behe does). If you start from the beginning, you see that the primitive clotting system would have developed in an animal with low blood pressure and minimal blood flow. The clotting triggers would be much less sensitive than what we have, and therefore the clotting ability wouldn't be strong enough to endanger the animal, but would still confer an advantage.
As the clotting triggers got stronger, then selective pressure for a clot-dissolving system would increase. The end result is a system where both are required, but the strength of the clotting cascade would never have progressed without the development of the complementary system.
Again, I'm confused, because you seem to chide Behe for "waving off" acceptable responses while also claiming that acceptable responses are impossible to give.
Your use of the word "acceptable" is confusing here. The responses he ignores are "acceptable" to the just about everyone in the scientific community. Behe's version of "acceptable" is unreasonable. Scientists have provided *possible* pathways for the evolution of his IC systems, based on genetic data, chemical similarities, etc. He will accept nothing less than the ACTUAL pathway, it seems.
It's funny that you so often accuse me of making irrelevant analogies. So, now it's OK for me to use the design analogy for biological output?
I'm not sure I understand your response here. My analogy was purely about what level of evidence is acceptable. We don't know exactly how the clotting cascade progressed, just as we don't know exactly who put the Parthenon together. However, we do have evidence that makes us reasonbly certain that evolutionary processes explain the development of the clotting system, just as we're reasonably certain that the Greeks constructed the Parthenon.
You've said that my use of [chance] in discussion is "ID boilerplate". Either it is or isn't.
Your characterization of evolution as a purely "chance" process is incomplete and misleading, and a common Creationist tactic. Chance plays a part, to be sure, but there's far more to it.
I'm saying chance and design are the two known causes in play. Feel free to propose another. Note that without a designer, even natural "law" and order inevitably fall back to chance. But again, feel free to propose another cause in play.
You're expanding the playing field again, trying to make this a "worldview" discussion. The chance in evolution is very strictly confined. When you drag in the source of natural laws, you've crossed over into religion.
I think this is why Jones called this a "contrived" dualism. The chance in evolution is limited to certain processes. Design could be another explanation for the results, but so could other things, like necessity or proximity.
I think you're reading a lot into my reasons for distrusting neo-Darwinism. I can honestly say that it has little to do with religious preferences.
And yet you are fond of citing the "worldview" leanings of scientists to explain their views?
Design is apparent. Neo-Darwinian evolution is full of "just-so" explanations-- many explaining away a lack of evidence that should be there if it is true, evidences that the founder claimed would turn up if true, and evidences that the founders claimed would greatly harm the theory if they didn't turn up. Much of the evidence used FOR it has been proven fraudulent, thus damaging the credibility of many in the community-- especially considering that a lot of the fraudulent evidence has been circulated and used (even in textbooks) since being shown incorrect and/or fraudulent.
Wow, that's quite the laundry list of Creationist claims you've got there. I like the use of "many", "much", "a lot" to describe isolated cases that the scientific community, itself, discovered and corrected as part of the normal processes that brought us our current understanding.
It hasn't made its case strong enough to overturn what is "apparent".
So a gut feeling that something is "apparent" is stronger evidence to you than the mountains of diverse data accumulated to date? If so, then we may never be able to reconcile our definitions of science.
Further, it can't explain the ultimate causes, such as life's existence in the first place.
It was never intended to do that. Would you throw out a recipe for meat loaf that doesn't explain how to get a package of ground beef? Why must you constantly move those goalposts?
It doesn't seem like we're getting anywhere, does it?
I stay a bit confused by it when you jump between the statements that ID is both non-falsifiable and falsified.
Specific claims of ID (which are actually just negative arguments against evolution) have been falsified. The central tenet of ID (that life has been designed by an intelligent agent) is unfalsifiable.
* Natural selection gave us the vastly differing forms of life we find on Earth today.
That's a pretty broad item, but it can surely be falsified. If natural selection is shown to not cause the small changes in organisms over time that we can observe, then it's falsified. If the envisioned micro/macro-evolutionary boundary (whatever that is) is shown to exist, that would do it. If spontaneous generation of complex organisms is observed...
* Evolution happened by a process that was unguided, blind, and had no result in mind.
Easy, just show evidence of a guiding force that influences the mechanisms of evolution.
* The fossil record would match neo-Darwinian expectations. It is incomplete due to many potential reasons-- none of which can be tested.
Yet this could be easily falsified by finding, say, a bird older than the first fish, or a mammal older than amphibians. Sure, the record is incomplete, but what we do have matches up quite well.
* Similarity means kinship, and thus if we find similarity in the fossil record, that means "transitional fossils".
This could be falsified by looking at living animals today that achieve the same level similarity. If genetic analysis rules out kinship, this one's falsified.
We won't even get into the fact that the entire theory is untestable as implemented and treated-- in that it is considered scientific truth with no need to test it.
The reason for that treatment is that it has already passed over 100 years of testing. That doesn't mean it can't still be tested, just that no one is wasting valuable research time on questions that have already been answered.
Give us some detail, and please make it detail that accounts for the huge gaps that have to be overcome simultaneously. Like, the addition of working clotting and unclotting enzymes at the same time, so that you don't kill the organism with clotted blood in the system that can't unclot, or unclotted blood that makes the organism bleed to death.
An understanding of the development of the clotting system reveals that your silmultaneous requirement isn't required at all. That happens when you start with a current complex system and try to work backward (as Behe does). If you start from the beginning, you see that the primitive clotting system would have developed in an animal with low blood pressure and minimal blood flow. The clotting triggers would be much less sensitive than what we have, and therefore the clotting ability wouldn't be strong enough to endanger the animal, but would still confer an advantage.
As the clotting triggers got stronger, then selective pressure for a clot-dissolving system would increase. The end result is a system where both are required, but the strength of the clotting cascade would never have progressed without the development of the complementary system.
Again, I'm confused, because you seem to chide Behe for "waving off" acceptable responses while also claiming that acceptable responses are impossible to give.
Your use of the word "acceptable" is confusing here. The responses he ignores are "acceptable" to the just about everyone in the scientific community. Behe's version of "acceptable" is unreasonable. Scientists have provided *possible* pathways for the evolution of his IC systems, based on genetic data, chemical similarities, etc. He will accept nothing less than the ACTUAL pathway, it seems.
It's funny that you so often accuse me of making irrelevant analogies. So, now it's OK for me to use the design analogy for biological output?
I'm not sure I understand your response here. My analogy was purely about what level of evidence is acceptable. We don't know exactly how the clotting cascade progressed, just as we don't know exactly who put the Parthenon together. However, we do have evidence that makes us reasonbly certain that evolutionary processes explain the development of the clotting system, just as we're reasonably certain that the Greeks constructed the Parthenon.
You've said that my use of [chance] in discussion is "ID boilerplate". Either it is or isn't.
Your characterization of evolution as a purely "chance" process is incomplete and misleading, and a common Creationist tactic. Chance plays a part, to be sure, but there's far more to it.
I'm saying chance and design are the two known causes in play. Feel free to propose another. Note that without a designer, even natural "law" and order inevitably fall back to chance. But again, feel free to propose another cause in play.
You're expanding the playing field again, trying to make this a "worldview" discussion. The chance in evolution is very strictly confined. When you drag in the source of natural laws, you've crossed over into religion.
I think this is why Jones called this a "contrived" dualism. The chance in evolution is limited to certain processes. Design could be another explanation for the results, but so could other things, like necessity or proximity.
I think you're reading a lot into my reasons for distrusting neo-Darwinism. I can honestly say that it has little to do with religious preferences.
And yet you are fond of citing the "worldview" leanings of scientists to explain their views?
Design is apparent. Neo-Darwinian evolution is full of "just-so" explanations-- many explaining away a lack of evidence that should be there if it is true, evidences that the founder claimed would turn up if true, and evidences that the founders claimed would greatly harm the theory if they didn't turn up. Much of the evidence used FOR it has been proven fraudulent, thus damaging the credibility of many in the community-- especially considering that a lot of the fraudulent evidence has been circulated and used (even in textbooks) since being shown incorrect and/or fraudulent.
Wow, that's quite the laundry list of Creationist claims you've got there. I like the use of "many", "much", "a lot" to describe isolated cases that the scientific community, itself, discovered and corrected as part of the normal processes that brought us our current understanding.
It hasn't made its case strong enough to overturn what is "apparent".
So a gut feeling that something is "apparent" is stronger evidence to you than the mountains of diverse data accumulated to date? If so, then we may never be able to reconcile our definitions of science.
Further, it can't explain the ultimate causes, such as life's existence in the first place.
It was never intended to do that. Would you throw out a recipe for meat loaf that doesn't explain how to get a package of ground beef? Why must you constantly move those goalposts?