If intelligence can be detected in such cases, then so can it be detected in the complexity of life itself.
In all of those cases, there's a mechanism. The ID folks don't seem to have a mechanism, probably because if they actually described the scenario they were thinking of, it would look a whole lot like biblical creationism, which wouldn't fly in public schools. If they can come up with a testable mechanism and actually describe what they're looking for, then I'll gladly call it science. Until then, it's just hand waving.
Well, I have to differ there. At the point of determining the perpetrator in a murder case, the act has already been committed. The mechanism (whatever it were) existed and acted in the past. Both Darwinism and ID make historical inferences and they both either live or die by the same requirements you place on what is valid historical science.
Also, the entire SETI project seems to be considered 'valid' science by most Darwinists, however, it would most surely be a violation of the exact same demarcation criteria used to exclude ID.
Not really. SETI is a classification exercise. They know the set of known natural signals and they know what artificially produced signals generally look like because we create signals ourselves. There is no such analogous information with ID. What does a designed organism look like vs an undesigned one? You need some sort of known data set to figure out whether your classifier works, and biological ID doesn't have one without begging the question.
What's interesting to me is that, for all their mathematical bluster about the "science of design" and "specified complexity" they've never been able to calculate the amount of "specified complexity" in a string or even outline methods to determine whether something is actually designed. If you actually have some sort of mathematical filter that detects design, we should be able to test it by having a set of patterns generated, some by design and some by chance, and running them through the filter. That's how you'd normally test your classification algorithm. For some reason, the ID camp hasn't bothered to do this. At all.
For the proponents of ID, this is more of a philosophical or theoretical debate at this point than anything. I agree that it would be nice for them to do such things and I totally expect that those will come forth (even if I am the one to do so). But, this is all very much in the 'theoretical' realm at this point. And, that isn't entirely fruitless either because theories can be supported or disproved in the abstract sense. I think though, if you study information science in more detail, you'd see that these sorts of things already exist (in for instance cryptography). How does the NSA know when it has intercepted a communication and not just random garbage? Also, the ID group has done some work with the anthropic design principle that shows the probability of the universe coming into existence by random chance to be so low that it is for all intents an purposes--impossible.
No one is saying that the intelligence has to exist outside time and space (it is entirely possible that it could have been intelligent 'aliens'-- see panspermia.
That's fine. Propose something. Who are the aliens, and how did they do it? What kind of objectively measurable test would you use to determine whether your hypothesis makes sense? I'll be the first one to admit that you have a scientifically valid question when you can say, "I hypothesize that life's complexity was introduced by X. If that's true, we would expect to see Y. I'll go look for Y and test my hypothesis." So far, ID has been nothing more than a rehash of old creationist canards against evolution combined with some mathematical bluster that hasn't actually amounted to anything testable. There's no theory or even any fr
The non-materialistic cause you are looking for is the 'mind' a.k.a. intelligence. In several other fields of science (forensics comes to mind) it is assumed that you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt (in a court of law for instance) certain historical causes for acts (e.g. murder). If intelligence can be detected in such cases, then so can it be detected in the complexity of life itself. Also, the entire SETI project seems to be considered 'valid' science by most Darwinists, however, it would most surely be a violation of the exact same demarcation criteria used to exclude ID.
This leaves aside the issue of demarcation for a moment. Most philosophers of science have moved beyond the issue of demarcation as no such criteria can stand up to reasonable intellectual challenge. It's quite possible in each case to expose that a given criterion is either too restrictive or inconsistent with known empirical data.
And, this is not about divine intervention. No one is saying that the intelligence has to exist outside time and space (it is entirely possible that it could have been intelligent 'aliens'-- see panspermia.
Circular reasoning never stopped Darwinists--
"the use of methodological rules to protected Darwinism from theoretical challenge has produced a situation in which Darwinist claims must be regarded as little more than tautologies expressing the deductive consequences of methodological naturalism."
"behind every double standard lies a single hidden agenda"
Must scientific origins theories limit themselves to materialistic causes?
Theories that gain acceptance in artificially constrained competitions can claim to be neither 'most probably true' nor 'most empirically adequate' but rather such theories can only be considered 'most probably or adequate among an artificially limited set of options.'
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In all of those cases, there's a mechanism. The ID folks don't seem to have a mechanism, probably because if they actually described the scenario they were thinking of, it would look a whole lot like biblical creationism, which wouldn't fly in public schools. If they can come up with a testable mechanism and actually describe what they're looking for, then I'll gladly call it science. Until then, it's just hand waving.
Well, I have to differ there. At the point of determining the perpetrator in a murder case, the act has already been committed. The mechanism (whatever it were) existed and acted in the past. Both Darwinism and ID make historical inferences and they both either live or die by the same requirements you place on what is valid historical science.
Not really. SETI is a classification exercise. They know the set of known natural signals and they know what artificially produced signals generally look like because we create signals ourselves. There is no such analogous information with ID. What does a designed organism look like vs an undesigned one? You need some sort of known data set to figure out whether your classifier works, and biological ID doesn't have one without begging the question.
What's interesting to me is that, for all their mathematical bluster about the "science of design" and "specified complexity" they've never been able to calculate the amount of "specified complexity" in a string or even outline methods to determine whether something is actually designed. If you actually have some sort of mathematical filter that detects design, we should be able to test it by having a set of patterns generated, some by design and some by chance, and running them through the filter. That's how you'd normally test your classification algorithm. For some reason, the ID camp hasn't bothered to do this. At all.
For the proponents of ID, this is more of a philosophical or theoretical debate at this point than anything. I agree that it would be nice for them to do such things and I totally expect that those will come forth (even if I am the one to do so). But, this is all very much in the 'theoretical' realm at this point. And, that isn't entirely fruitless either because theories can be supported or disproved in the abstract sense. I think though, if you study information science in more detail, you'd see that these sorts of things already exist (in for instance cryptography). How does the NSA know when it has intercepted a communication and not just random garbage? Also, the ID group has done some work with the anthropic design principle that shows the probability of the universe coming into existence by random chance to be so low that it is for all intents an purposes--impossible.
That's fine. Propose something. Who are the aliens, and how did they do it? What kind of objectively measurable test would you use to determine whether your hypothesis makes sense? I'll be the first one to admit that you have a scientifically valid question when you can say, "I hypothesize that life's complexity was introduced by X. If that's true, we would expect to see Y. I'll go look for Y and test my hypothesis." So far, ID has been nothing more than a rehash of old creationist canards against evolution combined with some mathematical bluster that hasn't actually amounted to anything testable. There's no theory or even any fr
The non-materialistic cause you are looking for is the 'mind' a.k.a. intelligence. In several other fields of science (forensics comes to mind) it is assumed that you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt (in a court of law for instance) certain historical causes for acts (e.g. murder). If intelligence can be detected in such cases, then so can it be detected in the complexity of life itself. Also, the entire SETI project seems to be considered 'valid' science by most Darwinists, however, it would most surely be a violation of the exact same demarcation criteria used to exclude ID. This leaves aside the issue of demarcation for a moment. Most philosophers of science have moved beyond the issue of demarcation as no such criteria can stand up to reasonable intellectual challenge. It's quite possible in each case to expose that a given criterion is either too restrictive or inconsistent with known empirical data. And, this is not about divine intervention. No one is saying that the intelligence has to exist outside time and space (it is entirely possible that it could have been intelligent 'aliens'-- see panspermia.
Oops. meant the use of methodological rules to protect Darwinism...
Circular reasoning never stopped Darwinists-- "the use of methodological rules to protected Darwinism from theoretical challenge has produced a situation in which Darwinist claims must be regarded as little more than tautologies expressing the deductive consequences of methodological naturalism."
"behind every double standard lies a single hidden agenda" Must scientific origins theories limit themselves to materialistic causes? Theories that gain acceptance in artificially constrained competitions can claim to be neither 'most probably true' nor 'most empirically adequate' but rather such theories can only be considered 'most probably or adequate among an artificially limited set of options.'