On 20-4-2011 0:14, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/19/2011 14:51, Alain wrote:
>> In the case of ID, you effectively need to find and test every single
>> protein, enzimes, peptides and aminoacids in existance and their
>> predecessors to find at least one that can't possibly happen naturaly.
>
> That has nothing to do with proving ID.

It does unfortunately.

> The problem is that there are an infinite number of untestable theories
> out there. In order to show *any* support at all for ID, you not only
> have to find something that didn't/couldn't evolve naturally, but you
> have to show how it *did* come from God.

Don't confuse the messenger with the message. Most advocates of ID are 
Christians, but they could be muslim, jews and polytheists or animists too.

The devilish scheme they use is playing within our rules. It is clear 
that Creationism is not science, no hypothesis, no explanatory power, no 
evidence and not testable.

So what they do is formulate something as a hypothesis that is testable. 
It doesn't matter that every protein or whatever they throw at the 
scientists will be taken to pieces and strengthen the case for 
evolution. There will always be more examples to have them refute. The 
number is finite, so it is in principle decidable and testable. Only it 
will take decades to disprove all possible claims.

There are similarities with a filibuster. It is within the rules of the 
game, and you can not prevent it without braking the whole process. Yet 
is costs lots of time. And you can always hope that before they finished 
you can think of another useless hypothesis or even better that your 
party will have taken control of education and science funding.

> Depending, of course, on what you mean by "naturally". It's entirely
> possible one might find something that could not have arisen without the
> interference of intelligent planning and forethought but which is
> nevertheless completely naturally evolved.
>
> But disproving that every single molecule of life on Earth is evolved
> does nothing zero nada towards proving what *did* happen with that
> molecule. Even *if* every single protein could not possibly have evolved
> naturally, that doesn't tell you anything about how it *did* come to be.

If you look closely at the statements of ID you will find that there is 
no reference to who or what that 'intelligent designer' is or even how 
many there are.
In practice a lot of ID advocates do not fully understand the concept 
and claim that they know the name of the designer. At that point they 
invalidate their own claim of it being a scientific hypothesis and their 
proposal will be taken out of the process.
I am always amazed by the number of stupid mistakes they make. If their 
proposals had been more intelligently designed they could have been so 
much more effective in their quest for the removal of critical thinking 
from the US.



-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

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