Evolution and Intelligent Design

[RickD]

Here's an article I just found on the home site. I think it's relevant to this topic:http://godandscience.org/evolution/scie ... igins.html

[Ivellious]

The review of that book is interesting if nothing else because apparently now the Discovery Institute has no issues pushing creationism as their "theory" of choice, as opposed to the "Intelligent Design" pseudonym. Kind of interesting when the only collection of Intelligent Design proponents, who claim repeatedly that ID has no religious basis, decides to openly push creationism. I mean, ever since the wedge document and the whole Of Pandas and People thing, anyone can see that the Discovery Institute and other ID proponents just uses ID as a substitute for creationism, but now they apparently don't even want to hide it for whatever reason.

Of course, it is possible that they are just trying to advertise to a greater audience by using Christian terminology, but that seems a little strange for a group that has avoided publicly siding with any religious group, at least not outwardly.

[KBCid]

Board of Directors Mission:
The mission of Discovery Institute is to advance a culture of purpose, creativity and innovation.
Program:
Discovery Institute is an inter-disciplinary community of scholars and policy advocates dedicated to the reinvigoration of traditional Western principles and institutions and the worldview from which they issued. Discovery Institute has a special concern for the role that science and technology play in our culture and how they can advance free markets, illuminate public policy and support the theistic foundations of the West.
...Our program on Religion and Civic Life defends the continuing relevance of traditional religious faith to public life within a pluralistic democracy. Specifically, it seeks to defend the importance of Judeo-Christian conceptions of the rule of law, the nature of man and the necessity of limiting the power of government. Thus, it also seeks to protect religious liberty, including its public expression in pluralistic democracies. http://www.discovery.org/about.php

The DI has and will continue to promote the concept of intelligent design which is expressed in nearly every religion. Their position has always been that we can't scientifically define any one religions designer as the 'one' and that it is not the point of the scientific research they are performing. They are specifically seeking to define the evidence left behind by the action of intelligent agency, essentially providing a specifiable causation criteria for specific effects.

Seti has formed some criteria for the detection of intelligent agency and not one of their positions deals with who the intelligence would be. Why do you suppose that might be? Would it be supposed that if they announced one day that they had found signs of intelligent life that they would be unscientific if they couldn't define who the intelligence was? If we found evidence of intelligent agency on mars based on structures found there would that also be unscientific if they couldn't define the designer?

We currently find many objects in the fossil layers that we can't exactly define a specific designer for, does this make it pseudo-scientific until they define the designer? The argument against a scientific discipline for not providing every bit of truth about something is an error in logic. We know gravity is functioning but we don't know how or why and yet it is still an acceptable part of the scientific method to determine what truths we can determine based on observable evidences.

[Zionist]

intelligent design offers the best explanation of the origin of life. other scientific theories do not answer adequately or explain the origins of life and the complexity of life the way ID does. i know some of you may disagree with this or may even say ID is not scientific because it is not observable but i beg to differ. if ID is not scientific than neither is a lot of scientific theories out there such as but not limited to evolution because many theories are not observable either therefore if ID is scrutinized on this premise than other scientific theories must also be scrutinized under the same premise.

[Ivellious]

ID explains the origins of life and of the diversity of life by saying "poof, it happened, so deal with it, end of story." Never mind that it is not observable, that's irrelevant. It's not falsifiable and it shuts off all doors of scientific exploration by saying "we don't have to answer those questions like other scientists." ID intends to re-write the rules of scientific exploration just to fit their theory in. In the words of Michael Behe, astrology is also scientific under the new rules required to make ID scientific. That says all you should need.

[Zionist]

ID doesn't just say poof it all existed. that's your assumption/insertion and a bad one at that. you have a problem a serious one with God obviously to say such but nonetheless ID does not state that at all. if that's the case than anything we create just gets poofed into existence according to ID and ID does not hold to that. it holds that life is so complex that other methods of explanation don't truly explain the origins of life nor it's complexity in much the same way anything we create has been intelligently designed hence if there is a design there must be a designer. you don't have to like it but it is part of science whether you like it or not. i will pray for you Ivellious and hopefully one day you'll allow God to open your eyes.

[Ivellious]

Right. But in other areas of science (and by that I mean all of them), scientists strive to discover the how, the why, the when, the where, the what-is-doing-it...ID addresses none of these issues, not even a little bit. When I just say "poof, it happened" I mean that, according to ID proponents, their theory is just that someone did it. It is valid within the scope of ID that God poofed life onto Earth, that aliens seeded our planet, or that a giant space dragon pooped out humans while roaming the galaxy. There is no distinction. And yes, it is bad science to create a theory that intentionally stops before having to answer any questions, or a theory that simply cannot explore any further than "it happened." When science starts saying it doesn't have to answer any questions, or that it is simply not necessary to ask questions, then science stops working, and we learn nothing.

[Zionist]

watch this video ivellious it is very informative and will show that ID isn't like you are exaggerating it to be. we can reason and debate without using over the top and over exaggerated comments right? so plz keep it civil and well mannered. you don't agree with ID and that's fine i don't agree with evolution so no sense in inserting comments that will not amount to anything except defensive and argumentative responses which helps nobody.
http://youtu.be/NbluTDb1Nfs

[KBCid]

Right. But in other areas of science (and by that I mean all of them), scientists strive to discover the how, the why, the when, the where, the what-is-doing-it...ID addresses none of these issues, not even a little bit. When I just say "poof, it happened" I mean that, according to ID proponents, their theory is just that someone did it.

So essentially what your saying is that it is pseudo science when scientists state that The Antikythera mechanism is intelligently designed because they don't know who made it nor can they explian how it was made. Their view that it must be designed is flawed by your understanding. apparently it just poofed into existence by ID standards. lololol

The historical facts about this technology are that;
The construction has been dated to the early 1st century BC. Technological artifacts approaching its complexity and workmanship did not appear again until the 14th century A.D., when mechanical astronomical clocks began to be built in Western Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

So the observable facts are that technology of this type were never seen historically until about 15 centuries after the date of this mechanism having occured therefore this must be a natural occurance. A chance happening. Maybe it fell from outerspace. The fact still remains that there is no evidence from history that man made anything of this complexity and since we can't empirically point to a designer by name then it is all unscientific drivel to assert that it was formed by ID.

[Ivellious]

I don't even see how this is a valid example. First of all, upon its discovery and ever since, historians/archaeologists have indeed been seeking answers to who created this piece, its origins, its purpose, how it was made, etc...A stark contrast to ID. If we used the same concepts as biological ID, the archaeologists would have looked at it and said "Someone made it!" and then tossed it aside. So, it is key that scientifically, people have done research on the device.

Also, it's not like we know nothing about it. It is inscribed in Greek and found near Greece, and dated to an era where Greeks lived in that area...It is also clearly a piece used in astronomy, which the Greeks were experts at before many other civilizations.

So again, where is the similarity here? ID starts with a presupposition that questions of who, how, why, and so on are irrelevant and are not necessary to even attempt to answer. In this case, those questions have indeed been researched (because in science they ARE important regardless of the field) and to this point, there is not a clear understanding of every possible question. It's not a matter of "we don't have all the answers", as it is in the case of the Antikythera; rather, ID has the issue of "the answers to the questions are irrelevant."

Also, it's important to note that this is an isolated question. It's not like we know nothing about the entire Greek civilization and are basing our history of them on this one piece. ID intends to rewrite scientific knowledge without even attempting to answer scientific questions about anything.

[bippy123]

So the observable facts are that technology of this type were never seen historically until about 15 centuries after the date of this mechanism having occured therefore this must be a natural occurance. A chance happening. Maybe it fell from outerspace. The fact still remains that there is no evidence from history that man made anything of this complexity and since we can't empirically point to a designer by name then it is all unscientific drivel to assert that it was formed by ID.

KBC this is the problem with anti ID people. They dont understand that ID doesnt claim to point to a designer by name, but to intelligent design.

[Ivellious]

No, the problem with ID is that it claims almost nothing, and what it does claim is vague at best. Sure, I agree that ID doesn't claim to identify the designer (though it should be able to explore it). It also leaves no room for how things were designed, why they were deigned that way, when they were designed, why there is no designing today, why the design happened over millions of years, and so on and so forth. It does not define any rules, any laws, and is open to literally any interpretation you can think of because it has no claims except for vague, underdeveloped concepts rooted in creationism. It would be like if physicists just came out and said "things happen around us seem to be governed by rules...but it's not important to understand them or explore the ramifications because it's only important to know it happens."

[Pierson5]

I have referenced a ton of papers that show a huge variety of the aspects of the system which I am discussing.

As others have pointed out, the papers you cited are either of people building things or of authors whose conclusion is completely different than the one you are suggesting.

Do you understand what 3 dimensional spatial positioning is? Do you understand what temporal control is? Do you understand what a system is? Now read this reference I gave in the other thread;

Remaining Mysteries of the Cytoplasm
Timothy J. Mitchison+ Affiliations
Department of Systems Biology, Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115

....
http://www.molbiolcell.org/content/21/22/3811.full

Note that these researchers are just beginning to look at the system of spatial organisation that controls the spatially complex behavior of cellular components. It is quite a coincidence that an engineer such as myself who has been specifically dealing with spatial control of matter should be studying this very subject of lifes spatial control systems which at this point in time for most researhers is a great mystery to them.

How it is sensed is a major unsolved problem with broad implications for cell growth and behavior.

This is exactly the issue I have with your "evidence." You are taking a small, specific aspect of biology not completely understood and claiming it as evidence for design. The citation you gave says NOTHING about ID in the regards of this discussion. Your whole argument is just a rehashed version of Paley's watchmaker argument. Just as Behe used the flagellum (motor), you are using the same argument with 3 dimensional spatial organization. Paley's argument is flawed, Behe's argument was flawed and yours is flawed for the same reasons.

The question I asked was specifically about the so called research you and your colleagues are currently doing. As you said above, you have presented your ideas to your colleagues and they are implementing it. Why not give us a run down of the type of experiments they are doing to test your hypothesis?

As I already said I am locating the existing 'so called' research that has already been done and my engineering colleagues are looking at possible ways to test and define all the various links that temporally and spatially control the replication of organisms.

So, your "research" is looking up other people's research to look for any reference to 3D spatial control? ... EDIT: Just saw Ivellious' post

When I was asking if you presented your ideas to your colleagues, I meant the biology department. And just so we're clear, you don't have any type of experiments to test your hypothesis?

Here is one of those reference I gave that you choose to overlook because someone else said it isn't relevant;

Engineering the cell: Mechanical engineering goes biological
Department of Mechanical Engineering
The Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME), long the cradle of the automotive industry's leading engineers, is joining the life sciences revolution in a big ...
http://ur.umich.edu/0102/Oct28_02/13.shtml
...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16453157
...

Replication is that simple little thing most everyone understands as the reproduction of material form. You do understand that in order to replicate material form it requires both spatial and temporal control of matter right?

I'm not disagreeing with you that it is a requirement, and it does happen. I don't see how you go from:

1. Here is a requirement
2. We don't understand it
3. People build stuff similar
4. Therefore design

I also agree with what others have said before. The citations you provide are not relevant. They do not come to the same conclusions you do. None of these papers address what our current discussion entails. One citation is discussion engineering of viable tissue and says nothing about ID in the sense you are promoting.

I haven't heard anyone use irreducible complexity in a while. From what I have seen, the Discovery Institute doesn't use that one anymore.

You have obviously not been listening then; ....

Cheese and Rice! Did you even look at the criticisms in the exact same wiki article you linked to me? I highly suggest you watch the Dover trial, or at least read the transcripts.

And what does the Dover trial have to do with the irreducible complexity of the 3 dimensional spatiotemporal control system?

As I said above, your reasoning is flawed for the exact same reasons Behe's was flawed. Every argument you have brought up was discussed and shown to be fallacious 7 years ago in the trial. "ID doesn't claim to know who the designer is," "Science is based on naturalistic philosophy and is flawed," "Flagellum (or in your case 3D spatiotemporal control systems) are evidence of design for "X" reasons." You can read the arguments in the transcripts, they are very relevant. These excerpts are from Day 1 and give a small summery of some of the things that are discussed in the trial.

But intelligent design is not science in its infancy, it's not science at all. You will hear from Kenneth Miller, a biologist; Kevin Padian, a paleontologist; Robert Pennock, a scientific philosopher; and Brian Alters, an expert on teaching science. They will testify about how science is practiced and taught, why evolution is overwhelmingly accepted as a scientific theory, and why intelligent design has no validity as a scientific concept. There is no data or laboratory work demonstrating intelligent design. It is not a testable hypothesis. It misrepresents established scientific knowledge. Let's be perfectly clear, there is no controversy in the scientific community about the soundness of evolution and that intelligent design is not a scientific topic at all.
Intelligent design has arguments with fancy names like "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity," but these arguments are not a positive case for intelligent design, just negative attacks on evolution. And even those arguments have not been advanced in the way that real working scientists do every day, by publishing original data in peer-reviewed scientific journals. In fact, intelligent design admits that it is not science at all unless science is completely redefined to include the supernatural.

Defendants:

Defendants' expert will show this Court that intelligent design theory, IDT, is science, a theory that's advanced in terms of empirical evidence and technical knowledge proper to scientific and academic specialties. It is not religion. This expert testimony will also demonstrate that making students aware of gaps and problems in evolutionary theory is good science education. It's good liberal education.
Finally, Dr. Warren Nord will testify for the defendants. Dr. Nord is a professor in the philosophy of education and philosophy of religion at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Nord will testify that intelligent design theory is not religion. He will explain that efforts to exclude intelligent design theory from science based on so-called methodological naturalism actually result from a philosophical naturalism which is, itself, a nonscientific principle.

By definition a stone archway is "irreducibly complex."

Really? So you think a stone archway is the equivalent of a 3 dimensional spatiotemporal control system? Have you ever seen a stone archway replicate itself?

Behe's famous mouse trap example doesn't replicate itself. I was pointing out by definition the archway is irreducibly complex. If you take a stone away, it falls apart.

Couldn't I use this same argument against your "evidence" for ID? Have you ever seen something built by humans that has 3 dimensional spatiotemporal control systems and was also able to replicate itself with slight modifications?

The mouse trap and flagellum, yeah, those are new... You say I haven't been listening, these arguments were brought up and destroyed at the Dover trial. That was 7 years ago! You haven't been listening if you aren't familiar with the literature against it. I gave you VERY lengthy publications explaining the evolution of the eye and flagellum, to which you didn't have much to say. Your argument for intelligent design is fallacious. You can provide as many citations as you'd like of people building lenses (eyes) or motors (flagellum) or 3 dimensional forms. This is not evidence for design in biology!

The mouse trap and the flagellum which have volumes of arguments from both sides are not what I am promoting. Even if you had or have in actuality refuted those particular systems they have nothing to do with the irreducibly complex spatiotemporal control system I'm discussing. Your argument shows how little you really understand both the arguement for irreducible complexity and how little you understand about 'how' your critics believe they have rebutted it.

If these arguments are not what you are promoting, why did you provide the link!? Perhaps stop citing articles and papers that have nothing to do with what you are promoting and we won't have these misunderstandings....

You see Pearson if you had payed attention to my assertion you would have discerned the difference between Behe's proposed systems and the system that I am discussing. Behe's proposed irreducibly complex systems are supposedly debunked by the believed possibility of the evolutionary mechanism to evolve them. My system on the other hand has to occur before evolution can operate.

Let me repeat that so you don't accidently miss it "My system on the other hand has to occur before evolution can operate." I gave you this information along the way in this thread when I stated "no replication, no evolution".
I will reword this another way in case you may have a faulty understanding of what I just said. In order for irreducible complexity to even theoretically be rebutted it requires the assertion of an operating evolutionary system and that system requires some very specific things in order to operate...

Do you see the 'things' that are required for evolution to occur? I would say that alleles are a prerequisite to evolutionary operation.
I would further state that another important prerequisite is generation (replication), Definitely can't have generations without replication.
Remember what I said "no replication, no evolution" So, since an irreducibly complex 3 dimensional spatiotemporal control system is required for replication of 3 dimensional form and evolution doesn't exist until the system of replication is operational you have no imaginable mechanism to overcome the irreducible complexity point of my assertion.

"My system on the other hand has to occur before evolution can operate."

Citation? And here we have a false premise. You are assuming that evolution could not have produced this system (just as Behe assumed his flagellum could not have evolved). You are assuming that because we currently do not understand it completely, it could not have come about through evolution. This may be relevant:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21683595
CONCLUSIONS:
The genetic separability of spatial and temporal control modules in Caulobacter reflects their evolutionary history. DnaA is the central component of an ancient and phylogenetically widespread circuit that governs replication periodicity in Caulobacter and most other bacteria. By contrast, CtrA, which is found only in the asymmetrically dividing α-proteobacteria, was integrated later in evolution to enforce replicative asymmetry on daughter cells.

An explanation is not proof. It is a hypothesis. And simply offering an explanation does not make it true. This is the problem that is lost on evolution. If I ask you what is the function of an eye, you can explain it. Yet, evolution and NS are not thinking entities that would know the need of an eye in the human body. It can't look forward and predict that an eye will be necessary.

The "explanation" is the product of research, testing and confirmed predictions of evolutionary theory. Sure evolution and NS do not look forward/have a goal/predict the need for an eye. I don't see how that's an argument against evolution... By all means, read through the publication and tell me exactly what part of it you think is wrong:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... iICi9EKigQ

Further There are millions of things that are irreducably complex, and things that function. Not just the flagellum. In fact, when we speak of say the appendix, we speak of it regarding its original function. Yet some how Darwinist can't see the forrest for the trees. Go ahead, account for function. You can't. Function can only be seen as an accident of mindless, undirected processes. And if you can't see how utterly ludicrous that proposition is, then you are only demonstrating that you suppress the truth to embrace the absurd.

Not quite sure what your point is in this statement.

The trial proves nothing, unless you really want to propose that the court of law is where science should be regulated. Oh what tangled webs we weave. Remember OJ was found innocent in criminal court. To hear someone, who on one hand says, "Science, blah, blah, blah, science!!" And then on the other actually proposes that the courts can "prove" something scientifically. Crazy. Repent of this nonsense.

This is a false analogy. The two have nothing in common. I agree, what is science should not be decided by the courts. What is science and what is taught in schools should be decided by scientists. So, why does the Discovery Institute (instead of doing actual research, despite the millions of dollars of funding) go straight to the school board instead of the scientific community? If an astrology institute wanted astrology taught in school alongside astronomy, pointing out the "gaps" in astronomy, you would agree with me that they should be taken to court. Where there are rules and standards for logic and evidence, ID failed miserably. Regardless, why don't you go ahead and read the Judges decision and tell me where you think he was wrong in his conclusion: http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller ... er_342.pdf

I don't know how you came to that conclusion... The similarities in the lines of reasoning are very easy to see, which I was trying to point out. Apply your line of reasoning to other aspects not accepted by the scientific community. For example:

You could post all the scientific information in the world for Ancient Alien Theory and it will never be accepted into certain so called "scientific communities." Why? Becuase they think it's just another form of pseudo science. Therefore it will never be accepted. Ever. Automatically it has to be rejected.... By default.

Or, here is an idea, it's not accepted because the "evidence" has no merit?

Like I said it doesn't matter about the evidence.

It doesn't matter about the evidence.

It does. When the designer (supernatural or not) interacts with the physical world, you can test for it. I gave you a test for ID that would support this. Why don't intelligent design proponents just do the research? If the hypothesis is solid, the evidence should fall into place.

The discovery institute has 10s of millions of dollars at their disposal (http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2 ... f104-9.pdf and http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2 ... 4043-9.pdf), and have churned out, 3? peer reviewed articles over 16 years. 2006 - 2009 they receive >$4 million dollars a year. Let's suppose this trend continued in the previous years and years to come. It would equate to >60 million dollars. All that money and only a few publications? Let's put this in perspective.

Let's take a look at the Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences (BGES) of Cleveland State University. At an average budget of about 2.2 million dollars a year (http://library.csuohio.edu/csu/budget/09budgetpt1.pdf), HALF of the discovery institute. Not to mention, not all of which is going to the biology department. It's a university, much of the budget is spent on education. From 2004 - 2009 they published 88 papers, all of which are in the field of BIOLOGY, spending 13.5 million dollars in the process. We also aren't counting proceedings, publications in geology or environmental studies. This doesn't seem strange to you at all!?

I gave you a link to a test you yourself could perform. Its simple, find a gene without an evolutionary heritage. The genomes of about 180 life forms have been sequenced containing maybe a million genes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkED8cWRu4Q). I'll wait...

Pound for pound the advocates for Darwinism have way more money at their disposal than the ID advocates. So your point is moot... Also you are assuming that only universities can produce papers on biology, so your point is also biased..

I will try to state my point again. You will find bias AND philosophy in both the Darwin and ID camps... BOTH are guilty of it.. It cannot be escaped.

\

What? It's a direct comparison of a common research institution with another. One produces a vast amount of publications in the field of Biology using a minimum of funding, while the other (DI) CLEARLY does not. I was not lumping together every publication done by every institution for evolution and never claimed anything about universities being the only ones who can produce biology papers. How did you come to that conclusion? The comparison I provided is very cut and dry....

Either you accept paternity testing as a legitimate method of determining relatedness

Please explain to me why you accept paternity testing as a legitimate scientific method for determining relatedness, but when applied to other living organisms it is not. I'm sure you can provide plenty of "arguments" about homology.

This argument wasn't direct at me but I do have something to say about it. I will first make sure everyone understands what a paternity test involves;

Paternity testing
Special locations (called loci) in human DNA display predictable inheritance patterns that could be used to determine biological relationships....
http://www.dnacenter.com/science-techno ... ience.html

Do you understand why Paternity testing uses 16 STR markers to form a legitimate method of determining relatedness? why not just use 1 STR marker?

The more markers used, the less likely the similarities are to be caused by chance.

Legitimacy of this method of determining relatedness is not as straight forward as some assume;
...
http://www.bioforensics.com/articles/ch ... pion1.html

The bottom line for an assumption of relatedness is considered logically and rationally realistic when you can show enough separate genetic points (STR's) from two people that are the same.

The legitimacy of this method is VERY straight forward. The article you cited is warning lawyers and other scientists about individual cases that could have involved bias.

The criminal justice system presently does a poor job of distinguishing unassailably powerful DNA evidence from weak, misleading DNA evidence. The fault for that serious lapse lies partly with those defense lawyers who fail to evaluate the DNA evidence adequately in their cases. This article describes the steps that a defense lawyer should take in cases that turn on DNA evidence in order to ascertain whether and how this evidence should be challenged.

Now, if you are claiming that 97% of scientists who accept evolution are mistaken in their evaluation of this sort of evidence, we now have a testable claim!! Feel free to re-evaluate the methods used by evolutionary/molecular/geneticists and other scientists and prove them wrong.

thus homology = relatedness. OR, homology =/= relatedness,

Homology which describes the condition of being homologous or the similarity of position or structure is not defined by 16 separate genetic markers to provide a reasonable assumption of relatedness. Homology therefore is not the equivalent of a paternity test. It does not have the same logical or rational power that a paternity test gives based on 16 genetic markers.

The genetic markers are based on the differences in the DNA sequences. DNA is the bases of heredity and, I can't tell if you agree, the number of shared markers is a good measure of relatedness (accepted by courts of law and the scientific community).

There are a variety of ways to test for distinctive variations in DNA.

Older (but still used) Models:
1. Microsatellites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsatellite
2. RFLP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictio ... lymorphism

Modern:
3. AFLP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplified_ ... lymorphism
4. Pyrosequencing, Microarrays, real-time PCR, bead arrays, whole genome etc...

Comparing two people's genetic variations determines heredity. Biologists use the same process for classifying populations of organisms. This is known as phylogenetics, and wouldn't you know it, matches up perfectly with common characteristics, biogeography and the fossil record (among others, see pg 1). So, if two organisms have the same genetic variations/markers in the same location (#3 on your definition of homologous), I fail to see the false analogy there... Maybe I'm missing something?

in which case, here is a scientific test you can do to support ID: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkED8cWRu4Q

The challenge of this video to the DI is to "find a gene without an evolutionary heritage" that can be tested by the homology rationale and specific or unique function. This is a red herring attack since all current life did come from an ancestor. Therefore all their genes come from a replication event.

The Discovery Institute does not deny that there is inheritance.

If life is the product of intelligent design then each of the various types of life will exhibit the same basic toolset that makes life continue to exist since it has the same basic form of coding. This is why we find so many cases of what evo's consider 'convergent evolution';

Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution

We know from experience with intelligent designers that they use the same things in different ways and in different structures for various reasons so it is not beyond reason to infer that similarities found among a variety of life forms could have a common designer.

Intelligent designers also add novel new functions to their creations. Sometimes they create something completely new. Irrelevant. It is not just similarities. This goes back to my example using the methods of paternity testing to determine relatedness. Homology is similar structures serving similar functions. Analogous structures are those with a different origin/structure/derivation that serve a similar function. For example, the wings of bats and birds are analogous structures. The bones of the flipper of a dolphin and the hand of a human are homologous structures. Convergent evolution = evidence against evolution?

In genetics, there are homologs and paralogs in gene structure. Either homology implies relatedness and paternity testing works, OR all that is wrong, in which case the experiment I provided earlier should be easy for you to conduct.

Sure, I agree that ID doesn't claim to identify the designer (though it should be able to explore it).

I disagree. The DI can be as coy as they want about not identifying the designer. Their "Wedge Strategy" was very clear when it came to the identity of the designer.

http://ncse.com/webfm_send/747

Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.

5. Spiritual & cultural renewal:

* Mainline renewal movements begin to appropriate insights from design theory, and to repudiate theologies influenced by materialism
* Major Christian denomination(s) defend(s) traditional doctrine of creation & repudiate(s)
* Darwinism Seminaries increasingly recognize & repudiate naturalistic presuppositions
* Positive uptake in public opinion polls on issues such as sexuality, abortion and belief in God

Governing Goals

*To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
*To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.

They aren't just talking about God, they specifically refer to Christianity.

[KBCid]

I don't even see how this is a valid example. First of all, upon its discovery and ever since, historians/archaeologists have indeed been seeking answers to who created this piece, its origins, its purpose, how it was made, etc...A stark contrast to ID.

We can all seek for as much information as can be revealed and I know that ID people won't overlook any type of evidence available just as I wouldn't. But, here is your rub. If there is no evidence to be found then what?. If the mechanism had no writing on it and was just found on the ocean bottom what would have been determined by science? nothing but the fact that it was intelligently designed and the possible date of its occurance. The truth is that when it was first found there was nothing but gears visible. This was enough evidence for the diver to know it was unnatural. It wasn't until after cleaning that other clues became visible. So the fact that there was further evidence to be found gave more scientific information.
Of course there are other objects found that don't have other evidences handily attached to them such as the stone spheres of Costa rica. these have been studied for quite some time and what has been scientifically determined about them?

The spheres are found on the Diquis River delta, near the Pacific coast of southern Costa Rica.
Stone-sphere sizes range from an inch to 8 feet in diameter.
At least 186 spheres have been recorded in the literature. Surely many more were destroyed and other remain undiscovered.
No local source exists for the granite; and no stone-working tools have been found near the spheres.
"The best spheres are perhaps the finest examples of precision stonecarving in the ancient world." The maximum circumference error in a 6-foot, 7-inch diametre sphere in only 0.5 inch, or 0.2%.
The spheres are often grouped, but no general system or alignment mode seems to exist.
"One very disturbing mystery emerges in examining the Diquis culture. The superb stone-carving skill necessary for the creation of the spheres was not applied to any other object." Why?
Such are the salient facts. To our regret, they tell us little about the How, Why, and perhaps Who of the spheres. (Shoemaker, Michael T.; "Strange Stone Spheres," Pursuit, 19:145, 1986.)

Everything currently 'known' about the spheres is assumed. no one knows who made them or why or even how yet a determination is made that they were formed by ID. And so far it is all pseudo science. No namable designer no evidence as to how and no evidence for them being cut from anywhere.

[sandy_mcd]

Can inteligence be detected?

Usually, but first it must be defined.

We both know that defining it specifically is a problem. However, you can't say on one hand that it can usually be detected and then on the other that it must first be defined. If it requires a specified definition before you can detect it then you have not yet detected it... ever. If it depends on definition then you cannot give anything for an example because for you it is not yet defined specifically.

And that's the problem with dealing with people who only see in black and white (figuratively). There are some colors which are difficult to assign as green or blue. Without a specific definition, it is impossible to say for certain shades. Yet most people will agree that some things are green and others blue. This is the same problem encountered with determining species; sometimes the distinction is clear, sometimes it is not. So we have established that many properties or descriptions have fuzzy boundaries; so what?