>>> If you take ID to be the idea that some protein(complexe)s can not have
>>> been evolved from earlier proteins, then that is a testable hypothesis.
>>> Stating and researching that idea was real science.
>>
>> So there's a theory, the theory has been repeatedly proven wrong,
>
> no it hasn't. All *cases* that have been put forward that should have
> shown support have in fact turned out to be in support of evolution.
> That does not prove there are none. For that to prove you need to
> examine all proteins that exist anywhere in nature.

That's like saying that to prove Newton's laws of motion, you need to 
examine every object with mass in the entire universe. This isn't how 
science works.

>> there's no particular reason to believe that it might be right in some
>> unknown case,
>
> You only say that because you 'believe' the theory and not the hypothesis.

No. I say that because there's nothing special about the disproven cases 
than suggests that they're unusual. If there was, you might have a case 
for suggesting that other examples exist which would, if discovered, 
support ID.

It's like proving that Fermat's last theorem holds for all prime numbers 
less than one million. You might well argue that the fact that these are 
*prime* numbers makes them special, and the theorem might not hold for 
composite numbers. But if you prove it for a bunch of numbers chosen at 
random, there's less room for doubt.

Of course, any scientific theory always has the possibility of being 
wrong, or at least incomplete. But based on available evidence, 
evolution looks pretty safe. (Then again, people said that about 
Newton's laws of motion. But on the first hand again, people still 
*teach* Newton's laws of motion...)

>> and yet people continue to assert the truth of this theory
>> as *fact*? Doesn't sound very rational to me...
>
> That is entirely a different matter. These people need not be the same
> as the ones that do the real research.

Fair enough.

>>> BTW would dissecting the cases brought forward by Behe at al. count as
>>> spending time on ID? Because that would be an ideal way to teach
>>> students how real science works.
>>
>> I commend the idea.
>>
>> Right along side showing how String Theory, despite looking far more
>> professional than ID, is also not [yet] science.
>
> I also disagree on that. String theory is pure maths. I tend to think
> that maths is a science.
> I would agree that string theory is not physics yet.

String theory is mathematics developed explicitly for the purpose of 
describing the real world. And yet, it does not yet make any testable 
predictions. Someday it might, but it doesn't yet.

"Science" is usually defined as "the study of provable facts about the 
real world". Mathematics would fall outside that scope.

>> (And examining why it
>> has the potential to /become/ science in a way that ID does not.)
>
> Remember that in the unlikely case they do find an example of something
> that cannot have been evolved in an autonomous way, ID becomes science.
> We might think that it is just as unlikely as someone handing over the
> telephone number of God, but it might just happen.

Point being, until that day, ID is not science.

In fact, hell, even on that day, ID won't be science. The statement that 
there exist natural systems which evolution cannot explain will be 
science. But that's not ID. ID claims that God did it. This will *never* 
be science, since it is not possible to confirm or refute it by the 
scientific method.

(Note that not being science is different from not being true.)

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