I apologize to Cop and Broken, because they are going to get short shrift.  I can't respond to all three of you the way you ought to be responded to.  So, first a smidgen from Broken, who after all, mainly repeated already refuted points:

"Science concerns what is observable."

*clap*

"If you want to hypothesize an intelligent designer as a starting point, that is fine,"

And there is your break with reality, my friend.  No one here is hypothesizing an intelligent designer, so no matter how many times you want to say it, it never becomes true.  Perhaps you should consider objectively reviewing ID, because you seemed to have really missed the boat.

Let me put it even more bluntly:  ID does not hypothesize an intelligent designer as a starting point.  What's hard to understand about that?  

That would be a priori.  ID DERIVES the designer.  That's a posteriori.  AL:KJADF:LKJDF:LKJSDF:LKJDF:LKJDF:LKj l;aksdjf l;kasdjf;laksdjf

:)

"If you want to hypothesize an intelligent designer as a starting point, that is fine,"

And there is your break with reality, my friend.  No one here is hypothesizing an intelligent designer, so no matter how many times you want to say it, it never becomes true.  Perhaps you should consider objectively reviewing ID, because you seemed to have really missed the boat.

SntJohnny, I do try to be patient with your scientific ignorance and the faulty logic and misrepresentations of your arguments.

But if you are going to debate the point, at least be a little intellectually honest. ID is about an Intelligent Designer. God. It tries to skate around the issue to avoid being labeled as a religion. I am not a school board so it is OK to be honest here.

As to the idea that ID DERIVES an intelligent designer, you clearly don't even know what derivation means in any scientific sense of the word.

My dear, dear, dear Copernicus.  I had no idea that you were among the patronizing arrogant jerks THIRTY YEARS AGO that passed themselves off as scientists.  Which one are you, may I ask?

You didn't mean me to take all those generalizations about evolutionists personally?  Gosh, I must have misunderstood your intent when you warned me that my behavior could be considered "snobby" and "whiny" and then complained that I was dragging down the level of the discussion.  

"It is quite true that I am an atheist, but that is not why I want evolution theory taught in the schools."

Very well, then.  It is quite true that I am a theist, but that is not why I want ID taught in the schools.  Or do I?  Perhaps I'm just mimicing you.  Perhaps I'm just wondering why you get to have a rational reason that you get to explain but you get to just make presumptions all day long about my views without asking.

Perhaps there's a reason why the majority of theists also object to teaching IDism in science classes.  Perhaps conservative Christian George F. Will was wrong when he said:

...And the question then is: What does Intelligent Design bring to explaining the mechanism? The answer is: nothing but faith. Nothing but the postulate that -- as the current Pope said when he was a Cardinal -- unguided evolution is impossible. Well, impossible, fine. Then again it's a theological position, but not a testable  one. (Nightline 8/10/2005)

You can try all you want to marginalize evolutionists as atheists and atheist sympathizers, but the fact remains that you have a lot of Christians and a lot of conservatives that stand with the atheists on the question of whether Intelligent Design ought to be taught as a scientific theory.  Perhaps it has less to do with atheists and "patronizing arrogant jerks", but with the inability of ID proponents to mount a coherent defense of its scientific merits.

"You have invited a discussion on merits, and I heartily endorse that."

Well let's hop to it, then!  A discussion on the merits, in my opinion, will mean that YOU won't keep interjecting little comments about trying to insert 'religious doctrine' etc, etc, since any objective reader of this thread will see that the whole DANG point is whether or not ID can be considered science.  If it can, then obviously it can have a place in the science classroom, no?  If not, then not.  Staying on the topic and keeping the color commentary out will help establish that point.

If you really do heartily endorse discussion on the merits, then this should not be a problem for you.

Please rest assured that I will restrain myself as best I can.    Now, let's get back to some of the points I raised before you got so distracted by my lack of control.  

For something to qualify as a scientific theory, it must make predictions that can be tested.  For example, Einstein's theory that light consisted of particles (called photons nowadays) predicted that light would be bent by gravity waves.  This claim was verifiable, and scientists have verified it (and continue to verify it) in a variety of ways.  So his theory is considered proven by the evidence (even though a better theory may some day replace it).  

Evolution has also been scientifically validated by a wide range of observations, not the least of which is the more recent discovery of ring species.  These species show precisely how speciation takes place, and, even though not in evidence when Darwin developed his famous thesis, their existence was predictable from that thesis.  The fossil record has also been used over and over to verify the common ancestry of animal phyla.  The discovery of genes and DNA have served to confirm the low level mechanisms that control evolution.  Even major proponents of Intelligent Design--e.g. Behe and Dembski--embrace the validity of evolution theory.  It is not really in dispute as far as biologists are concerned.

So, here is the question.  What testable predictions does Intelligent Design make?  How can it be repeatedly verified as a factor in evolutionary design in the same way that Darwinian evolution has been repeatedly verified?

I'd like to see Johnny (or someone else if they want to tackle it) answer the list of questions posed by dooface over in the harry's huckleberry thread. If Johnny is game, I'd like to request that everyone temporarily hold off on responses here so he can take the time to answer those questions. I realize that some of them may cover old ground, but I think taken altogether they are a fairly good series of questions. I think many of them should also be answered if any argument for design is going to be in any way viable.

Thank you.

hmmm I hadn't even noticed his post there.

I glanced at it and most of them seemed to be geared specifically to creationism, not ID.  I fail to see the relevance.  One or two of them might possibly be spoken to by ID, perhaps, but the list is geared towards Creationism.  Not ID.

The two are NOT the same.

That doesn't even make sense. If something is intelligently designed, then it is created. Design is a synonym of create. ID=Creationism. Why don't you tell me how you think they are different, and then maybe we can find better terms for you.

"So, here is the question. What testable predictions does Intelligent Design make? How can it be repeatedly verified as a factor in evolutionary design in the same way that Darwinian evolution has been repeatedly verified?"

The first problem with this is the conditions and setting.  Its undeniable that biology is where the fire fight is, but if ID is to have any applicability at all, it cannot be arbitrarily restrained only to biological systems.  Design should be reliably detectable across various platforms.

I have no objection to that.

Here is one example of a 'prediction' (I hope you read my post to Ragnar where I'm not very impressed even by 'predictions').  When you have a system that contains information critical to functioning, you can only vary that information to a limited degree or the system will cease to function or will function at a significantly decreased capacity.  

An easy way to understand this is to look at a computer program.  A computer program consists of coding that is critical to the functioning of said program.  If the code is corrupted, conceivably even minutely, the program will very likely stop functioning.

As one who has done a lot of programming, I can testify to the falsehood of that.  You can do a lot of stupid things in a program that fail to stop it from functioning.  Inserting code that does nothing at all is one example.  Coding something to perform inefficiently is another.  Human designers optimize their programs by removing such nonfunctional components and simplifying the functional components.  Evolutionary "unguided" design, as I've already noted, does not.  It keeps irrelevant messiness around, since there is no intelligent agent to remove it.  Natural evolution does not optimize designs in the way that intelligent designers do.

So, ID would predict that if DNA is really information critical to functioning, then corrupting that information will cause the object to either cease functioning or function in a significantly diminished capacity.

DNA IS information critical to functioning and corrupting said information more often than not DOES cause a collapse in function, or significantly diminished capacity to function, so this is a prediction MET.

No it isn't, because DNA replication has a lot of built-in safeguards (metaphorically speaking, "checksums") to restore the integrity of the replication process.  Mutations occur, but they are extremely rare.  Serious mutations usually result in the death of the offspring.

Down's Syndrome is believed to be a DNA flaw related to a problem with a single chromosome.  Humans can survive with Down's Syndrome, but at a significantly diminished capacity.

True, but many flaws do not result in such severe consequences.  Some result in even more severe consequences.  How does ID explain Down Syndrome?

We can re-state this in such a way as to not smuggle in design by use of the word 'information' which we always associate with a designer, by talking about 'content in precise equilibrium.'

No, "information" is not always associated with an intelligent designer.  In information theory, it is the numerical measure of uncertainty of an outcome.  That is a purely mathematical concept.  Don't confuse it with the other word senses associated with "information".  Let's avoid equivocations.

So, by analogy, consider a bunch of children's toy blocks on the ground.  If we come across a pile that is dumped on the ground we will see a haphazard pattern to it.  But if we found 10 blocks, one perched on top of the other, we would have 'blocks in equilibrium.'  Move any of the blocks even a little bit in any direction and the tower will topple.  Such assembly requires deliberate manipulation.  We could conceive of the possibility that when the blocks were dumped, one landed on on top of the other until it was 10 high, and still stands, but we know the probability is extraordinarily low.

Nonsense.  Consider natural geological formations such as balanced rocks, which can be created by wind erosion.  Such a formation might be considered improbable--to have been created by supernatural beings, for example--without knowledge of how wind erosion can cause such structures to appear, given geologic spans of time.  You can't always tell by looking at things that they occurred as a result of natural forces.  That is why primitive cultures explained so many natural phenomena in terms of supernatural intelligent agents known as "gods".  Most of us know better than to believe in every explanation that ancient cultures came up with for natural phenomena.  That's what gave rise to the "God of Gaps" phenomenon--the use of gods to explain gaps in our knowledge of natural causes.

In fact, we could measure the probability of such an event by constantly dropping bags of blocks to determine how high we can expect blocks to get 'on their own.'  The lower the average and the higher the observed tower, the greater probability estimate, and the surer of the conclusion that some agent had to step in and MANIPULATE natural laws in order to stack them.  We could, by analogy, say that this tower contains 'information,' though obviously not very much.

Nature is trickier than it first appears.  Humans have fallen victim to their incredulity before.  Science evolved as it became clear that natural explanations were more reliable (and interesting) than supernatural ones at explaining how things work.

Similarly, if DNA is such that a small deviation one way or another 'topples the tower' and we have conducted enough tests to measure how 'high blocks tend to stack up on their own' and determine an average, we can compare that average with our observation, and so conclude that DNA is 'information,' but this time in a way that doesn't smuggle in the thing we are investigating.

The replication of DNA contains lots of redundancies and other methods to ensure its integrity.  That's why it is so remarkably consistent at producing copies of itself.

By the way, I took some effort to turn my thought experiment into an actual experiment and filmed it, but the resulting video file was 880MB.  If you still wish to cry 'nonsense' as though coming across a tower of 10-12 free-standing children's blocks is a perfectly natural thing to expect, I will perform a shorter exercise.

My point was only that we CAN objectively come up with a measure of uncertainty, which is exactly what you pointed when trying to raise the stench of equivocation.  It was my point, and I made it first.  I defended and explained it.  In the case of the blocks it was pretty easy.

IN PRINCIPLE, therefore, ID can offer predictions.  I have given you an example of one.  We may find it a little harder to test then with children's blocks, but let's not say 'nature-diddit' and end all inquiry, shall we?

"Are you ever going to get around to answeing your own question, or are you going to attack evolution all year?"

Only three months left in the year.  That'd be fun.  

"Is ID science?"

I did answer this.  I said that there are already examples where scientists are engaged in detecting design all the time, and it IS science.  So the answer is YES.  Forensic science, archeology, anthropology, are three good examples.

"And you can't say evolution does this so ID can do this."

That is a different part of the argument.  If certain things are going to be invoked against ID that apply just the same to evolution, you can't say that evolution is science but ID is not.

"And go ahead and give your personal definition of science while you're at it, so we can have a clue of what you're talking about."

Did you read my post to you earlier on?  You didn't respond to it at all, and I'd like to see some response.  My 'definition' of science is in there.

In short:  Definitions or words are largely arbitrary, having meaning only insofar as the people using them will agree on what is meant by that word.   The agreed meaning of science has changed over the last 100 years in some important, but nuanced ways.  100 years ago, experimentation was the critical component to the scientific method, a result of the rejection of Aristotlean attitudes which did not bother to construct experiments to bring to bear to their theory constructions.

Out of respect for the fact that 'science' has become less insistent on direct experimentation, I don't know if I can insist on MY definition.  Thus, as I explained to you, I coined a new word which I think better represents what most laymen think when they hear 'science'- 'experimentalism.'

In this more demanding standard, I am not so sure that either evolution or ID could be considered 'experimentally verified,' as the things in question being debated are in the past and are events and so cannot be directly observed.  They can only be inferred, which is not the same as observed.

In the weaker, modern sense, yea, ID is science.  It begins with observing the data and attempts to create reasonable explanations for that data, preferably by doing one's best to construct experiments that can define what DID happen as opposed to what COULD HAVE happened.

And in that, let me say that that is my most critical disagreement with modern science.  If I observe 'speciation' that only might show that macro-evolution COULD HAVE happened.  My opinion is that science, at the very least, should be about what DID happen, not what COULD HAVE happened.

"We would expect to find evidence of him cleaning up his messy code, but we don't."

This is where you are making your mistake, I think.  This statement assumes constant intervention, while as far as I know, this is not something the ID people postulate.  If it were being maintained that this intervention continually occurs, like perhaps in a theistic evolutionist POV, then this argument would stand.  Some ID people might entertain such a view, but many (if not most) do not.  I do not.

Furthermore, you are assuming that the 'messy' code really is all junk code.  This is naturalism of the gaps thinking.  It may very well be that we just don't know what the code does yet.  But I think the argument is weak on its face.  If we found corresponding function to all code, you'd just trumpet the success of natural selection- indeed, as you do below.

"No it isn't ALWAYS "information critical to functioning..."

Allow me to be more clear.  DNA IS ALWAYS INFORMATION CRITICAL TO FUNCTIONING.  :)  Certain aspects of it can be tweaked, but let's face it, from a global perspective, which I was speaking from, no DNA=No Copernicus.  :)

"ID does not predict anything at all with respect to DNA mutation and natural selection. It makes the prediction that we should observe big changes that don't lead to the death of organisms"

You seem to have no problem characterizing ID however you please, even in ways that I know are baseless.  I think we need to take this to the next level.  Let's start backing up assertions like this with references.  I'll do the same with evolutionary comments (or even ID ones) if you will.  Since you have once again asserted the same thing (it makes the prediction of big changes that don't lead to the death of organisms) which simultaneiously assumes the very thing being disputed, I think its time you dig out support from the ID community.

I'll give you $5.00 for any reputable ID person (Discovery Institute, perhaps) that claims that we will observe big changes in the way you have described it.

Just because you keep saying it Cop doesn't make it true.  Let's see some references.  Game?

"You'll have to run that by me again. I saw NO testable prediction by ID from you."

Well it was there.

"I have proposed one, however--that we should observe spontaneous radical changes in the environment that cannot be accounted for by the kind of slow, incremental changes proposed in Darwinian theory. Such observations are lacking."

I hate to seize on this because it is not actually a prediction of ID, but on the other hand, you have provided a way to falsify ID, if in fact you think this is a legitimate testable prediction by which we could falsify ID.  You raise it, so you must think so.  Therefore, ID is falsifiable.  Indeed, you think its falsified, but you can't have both.  It can't be BOTH unfalsifiable AND falsified.

You can have falsified scientific theories.  But unfalsifiable theories cannot be scientific by modern conceptions.

"Siamese twins and two-headed animals do occur when something goes wrong. How does this favor your opinion that an Intelligent Agent is doing the programming? Are you suggesting that the programmer is making goofs?""

This reflects your assumption that the programming is on-going.  That is not an assumption of the general ID community.

I think we need to settle this before going further.

"Again, what makes you think that this is a point in favor of Intelligent Design?"

Once you understand that the ID people are not positing a continuing intervention, you'll begin to get it.

Think Microsoft Windows 95 without continuing patch releases.  Its now unsupported by Microsoft.  WIN 98 may have been an evolved form of 95, but Win XP, as I recall, is written from the bottom up.  The next OS they release, again is not an 'evolved' form of the preceding ones, but is from the bottom up.  The next one, in fact, I hear is not even backwards compatible (foolishness!).  Once the files are unsupported, flaws and such are allowed to persist.  Corruption to the code itself- not just junk code that doesn't actually do anything- but actual changes to the code as a result of copying errors or whatever- will not be checked.

Think of my own particular brand of ID as viewing our biological system as a great number of OS's that were created but are now unsupported without 'patches.'  The code is designed to make stable copies of itself, but external factors can overcome this on occasion, and the coding errors are allowed to persist.

I hesitate to say it because it may undermine a steady point that I make- ID does NOT require a SUPERNATURAL intelligent agent- but one way of thinking of this is the difference, perhaps in 'deism' as opposed to 'theism.'  A diest thinks God wound up the world and then left it alone.  A theist thinks that God intervenes on occasion.  At first blush, you might think that this is like me saying that this agent- whatever it is- is predicted to intervene in the ongoing coding and copying.  But that's not what I'm saying.  I'm just using this difference between 'theistic' and 'deistic' concepts to explain what I think the biological data supports.  

I don't think it supports constant intervention.  I think it supports an initial design, and then consequent corruptions, while nonetheless showing very good integrity.

"No. You said that information was always associated with a "designer"."

No, it isn't what I was saying, Copernicus.  In fact, that is the opposite of what I was saying.  You either engaging in sloppy reading, or you have an agenda.  The average person DOES always associate information with a designer, a problem that I SOLVED by showing that we can think of information WITHOUT invoking a designer.  This is the point that you are trying to make, but which I actually did make.  Go back and look, and take the blinders off first.

Having shown that it was not tautologious to speak of information, I then returned to how information in the context I was describing it would be a prediction of ID, and it WOULD NOT BE smuggling in design in the back door.

"It is a purely mathematical construct, as is uncertainty. There is no reference to any intelligent agent in these definitions."

I have to respond to this by saying NO KIDDING SHERLOCK.  Go and read what I said.  Its just ENGLISH for goodness sake.

"I'm guessing that you think you've made a point here on the basis of your (incorrect) assumption that "information" is necessarily associated with an intelligent agent. We disagree on that point."

No we don't, Copernicus. We actually agree.  I'm guessing you think you are making points by assuming (incorrectly) that I am always associating information as being necessarily associated with an intelligent agent.  Perhaps I could have been more clear in that particular statement.

However, I did not say anything about 'information theory.'  You did.  I was speaking to a general assumption, but given that the immediate context has me proceeding to show how we need not make such an assumption (which you somehow have missed), a reasonable person would probably infer that I had not making a 'necessary' assertion.  Otherwise, I'd be contradicting myself.

Did you just stop reading?  That's what I think you did.  Go back and look again.

Gonna have to stop here.

Even a theistic evolutionist might say that the guided part of evolution is done -- culminated with the development of humans.

A theistic evolutionist might say anything, but that does not translate into the claim that ID is a scientific theory.  Indeed, many theistic evolutionists (e.g. Kenneth Miller) deny that it is.