What is ID?

[angel]

Hello to everybody...I'm new here on board.

Is there here any supporter of Intelligent Design?
Can you summarize what does ID claim?

Thank you

[Kurieuo]

ID claims certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause. These observed features may include a language, and especially exhibit irreducible and complex information content, which it is claimed is best explained by an intelligent cause.

IDists do not claim evolution is wrong, but claim like many other evolutionists (e.g., Eldredge and Gould) and many scientists, that Darwin's proposed form of evolution based upon natural selection and random mutation is unable to account for the observed complexities within life.

I would recommend reading over the FAQs at the Discovery.org to get your information straight as many on both sides do not understand what ID is, and I really do not make light of people who push or repeat propaganda on this board (for example, the garbage often stated in the media about ID being Creationism).

Furthermore I'd recommend watching the following two online videos someone provided earlier in another thread on this board:
Part 1 - http://www.kaneva.com/checkout/stream.a ... 536&free=1
Part 2 - http://www.kaneva.com/checkout/stream.a ... 538&free=0

Kurieuo

[Canuckster1127]

Hello to everybody...I'm new here on board.

Is there here any supporter of Intelligent Design?
Can you summarize what does ID claim?

Thank you

Kurieou's answer is pretty spot on and Discovery Institute is the nexus of the movement.

To put it succinctly, ID is the belief that natural selection in and of itself is insufficient to explain the complexity of life and in particular to explain certain elements which are claimed to demonstrate irreducible complexity. The classic example of this is the flagellum in single cell animals which are said to bring several elements together that logically would not have had any benefit apart from each other. Therefore, this is primary evidence of an intelligent designer.

The identity of such a designer is not speculated upon further.

Philosophically, within the US, the movement has risen in response to certain court rulings which have ruled that creationism is religion and as such cannot be taught in schools. While most Intelligent Design proponents are creationists, not all creationists accept Intelligent Design as a movement.

Intelligent Design as a movement in the US is broadly enough defined that it can and does welcome Theists from other religious traditions. When you look at the major propenents, they are pretty much Christian creationists, although Old Earth Creationists are more in the forefront here in general.

Books by Philip Johnson and Michael Behe are representative of much of what they are promoting.

There's a thread up regarding Creationist HiJacking Intelligent Design in the recent Dover School Decision that is very illuminating that is worth reading. Make sure you read the article.

I support Intelligent Design as a philosophy. I'm not as convinced that the practical strategy being employed will be productive.

[Tim S]

Greetings!
First time poster here.
I concur with the statements expressed so far, but I would like to add that the main proponents of ID (e.g.- Discovery Institute) are scientists, and that they are committed to science in the accepted, conventional sense. They find themselves at odds with the general scientific community because of the implications of reversing the paradigm that so much of society clings to. It may be a long difficult process, but I feel that there may be many scientists who are "on the fence" and that they may be very wary of sticking their necks out. The attacks on ID scientists have been vicious and are reminiscent of of the Galileo drama of a few centuries ago. As technology progresses, Darwin's theory will be chipped away until it falls. It is becoming more and more apparent that there is no such thing as a "simple" cell and that Life cannot possibly have arisen without intervention by an intelligent agent. ID does not specify what or who that agent is.

A good book that deals with Earth and its place in the universe is "The Privileged Planet", by Guillermo Gonzales.

[angel]

Thanx guys.
I went through the material you suggested and some more.

Let me check if I've got it straight:
-ID claims that there are things which cannot be (and not simply "are best") explained by natural causes. For such things coming to exist one needs an intelligent designer to produce them.

-ID claims that life is one of such things.

-There are intrinsic features of such things which at the same time characterize them and show that they cannot emerge without a designer: Irreducible Complexity (IC) and Complex Specified Information (CSI). Things which share these features (and life among them) need an intelligent designer to be produced.

-ID is not concerned with what the designer is

-ID are not creationists

Do you think this portrays ID fairly?


Besides, I have a number of questions which grew in my mind searching for material about ID.

- I accept ID's right to claim they are not creationists (despite it seems the Dover Court sentenced differently). So I think it is fair to discuss ID as a scientific theory leaving out religious issues. On the contrary whether they are science I believe is something scientists should decide. I checked the scientific production of some of the people involved and
I have to say that they have very few papers on journals not related to ID. Just to mention one Dembski has four papers all of them with quite bad reviews... Anyway...

- To your knowledge, does ID accept that gorillas and humans share a common ancestor?
I am a bit confused about this point since I read positive and negative answers all by people calling themselves ID supporters.

- ID is not concerned with the designer. Ok. However, I think it would be obvious to assume the designer they are talking about is not simply a biological intelligence (if it were then one should look for a higher designer for it and be caught in circular reasoning).
So I assume we are talking about some sort of infinitely complex intelligence which is not supported by a specific biological life form and for some reason does not required to have been created. Am I correct?

- I am not aware a non-biological intelligence has ever been observed (personally I believe also biological intelligence is far from being clearly established! ) So ID is assuming something which is completely different from anything ever observed by science and call it for a cause of life.
Wouldn't it be the same (or simpler) if I assume that life is caused by a natural force which has never been observed if not through its effects, which by its nature creates CSI, and has nothing to do with intelligence?
Both the notions are just assumed by their effect without further evidences. So why should I prefer ID?

- Finally, I more or less understand IC (despite I hardly agree that it is a strong argument, since it relies on the notion of functionality which is the same notion which creationists often challenge when discussing vestigial organs). In both cases things may have a function which is far different from what one expects and far from being evident. The fact that an eye stop functioning as an eye doesn't mean it would have no function at all...

The CSI notion is far more obscure to me. Can anyone of you explain it to me in more detail? It seems to me that ID consider it quite important.

[Byblos]

Thanx guys.
I went through the material you suggested and some more.

Let me check if I've got it straight:
-ID claims that there are things which cannot be (and not simply "are best") explained by natural causes. For such things coming to exist one needs an intelligent designer to produce them.

-ID claims that life is one of such things.

-There are intrinsic features of such things which at the same time characterize them and show that they cannot emerge without a designer: Irreducible Complexity (IC) and Complex Specified Information (CSI). Things which share these features (and life among them) need an intelligent designer to be produced.

-ID is not concerned with what the designer is

-ID are not creationists

Do you think this portrays ID fairly?


Besides, I have a number of questions which grew in my mind searching for material about ID.

- I accept ID's right to claim they are not creationists (despite it seems the Dover Court sentenced differently). So I think it is fair to discuss ID as a scientific theory leaving out religious issues. On the contrary whether they are science I believe is something scientists should decide. I checked the scientific production of some of the people involved and
I have to say that they have very few papers on journals not related to ID. Just to mention one Dembski has four papers all of them with quite bad reviews... Anyway...

- To your knowledge, does ID accept that gorillas and humans share a common ancestor?
I am a bit confused about this point since I read positive and negative answers all by people calling themselves ID supporters.

- ID is not concerned with the designer. Ok. However, I think it would be obvious to assume the designer they are talking about is not simply a biological intelligence (if it were then one should look for a higher designer for it and be caught in circular reasoning).
So I assume we are talking about some sort of infinitely complex intelligence which is not supported by a specific biological life form and for some reason does not required to have been created. Am I correct?

- I am not aware a non-biological intelligence has ever been observed (personally I believe also biological intelligence is far from being clearly established! ) So ID is assuming something which is completely different from anything ever observed by science and call it for a cause of life.
Wouldn't it be the same (or simpler) if I assume that life is caused by a natural force which has never been observed if not through its effects, which by its nature creates CSI, and has nothing to do with intelligence?
Both the notions are just assumed by their effect without further evidences. So why should I prefer ID?

- Finally, I more or less understand IC (despite I hardly agree that it is a strong argument, since it relies on the notion of functionality which is the same notion which creationists often challenge when discussing vestigial organs). In both cases things may have a function which is far different from what one expects and far from being evident. The fact that an eye stop functioning as an eye doesn't mean it would have no function at all...

The CSI notion is far more obscure to me. Can anyone of you explain it to me in more detail? It seems to me that ID consider it quite important.

I will paraphrase a bit and say you would be correct in saying that ID requires a leap of faith and, as such, you are justified in questioning why ID and not evolution. In my limited understanding of the subject, however, ID is as a much a movement that counters evolution's need for an equal, if not greater, leap of faith in macroevolution as ID does in an intelligent designer. In other words, the question should not be ' why ID?', the question should be 'why not ID?', considering evolution's dependence on a leap of faith. Why is one taught as fact when no fact is observed either naturally (in the fossil record) or experimentally, and the other cannot be taught as fact when intelligence is plainly and clearly observed everywhere around us? ID is specifically trying to address this double-standard.

[Kurieuo]

ID claims that there are things which cannot be (and not simply "are best") explained by natural causes. For such things coming to exist one needs an intelligent designer to produce them.

Definately not, and this is a common strawman setup by those against ID. What ID would say though is that Darwinian evolution is perhaps the best natural explanation we have, yet this natural explanation is inadequate to account for the complexities we see.

-There are intrinsic features of such things which at the same time characterize them and show that they cannot emerge without a designer: Irreducible Complexity (IC) and Complex Specified Information (CSI). Things which share these features (and life among them) need an intelligent designer to be produced.

It would be more put that things exhibiting IC and specified complexity are more plausibly explained by designer. For the latter, information (which is meaningful) is highly unlikely to come from randomness, and certainly the structure and language itself by which information is written needs an explanation (e.g., DNA). I believe Meyer in that video presentation above said something along the lines of that we don't just see "matter" and "energy" in the universe, but that we observe another property throughout the universe—information. So if this information exists, then how did it come to be?

-ID is not concerned with what the designer is

ID as science is not. Yet, we as people want to know and thus such questions can be carried into philosophy and theology.

Do you think this portrays ID fairly?

Better than most I've seen, but I've corrected what I felt were misconceptions.

- To your knowledge, does ID accept that gorillas and humans share a common ancestor? I am a bit confused about this point since I read positive and negative answers all by people calling themselves ID supporters.

Michael Behe accepts common ancestry. ID does not rule out common ancestry at all. Anyone who says otherwise are likely mixing their creationist beliefs with ID. To understand ID one must go to its root, and not people who only have second hand or misinformed knowledge. You can't get more core than Behe since he along with Meyer and a few others are the root.

- ID is not concerned with the designer. Ok. However, I think it would be obvious to assume the designer they are talking about is not simply a biological intelligence (if it were then one should look for a higher designer for it and be caught in circular reasoning).
So I assume we are talking about some sort of infinitely complex intelligence which is not supported by a specific biological life form and for some reason does not required to have been created. Am I correct?

Since ID is not concerned with the designer this question need not be answered. Therefore, talk about the designer including assumptions about who or what it is would be best left to philosophers and theologians.

Does one need to know who the designer is before they can realise something is designed? No. To say otherwise is based upon what I'd consider to be unsound logic. CSI can often detect whether an intelligence was at play within a crime scene without knowing who was responsible. There is no logical restraint which says one must first know who the designer is before signs of intelligence can be detected. And if looking for and testing for signs of intelligence is not science, then where does it belong?

The CSI notion is far more obscure to me. Can anyone of you explain it to me in more detail? It seems to me that ID consider it quite important.

Not sure whether you mean Specified Complexity, but this essentially means the information is meaningful. For example, throw down scrabble tiles and you expect to see a random array of lettered tiles on the ground. If on the other hand you come into the room and see them arranged into a sentence such as "LOOK BEHIND YOU", then this is a specific arrangement of letters. Therefore you have specified information. As such you may therefore reasonably conclude someone specially arranged them (although you may not know who!) and perhaps even look behind you. For more information I'd recommend reading over http://www.arn.org/idfaq/How%20can%20yo ... signed.htm which deals with specified complexity.

Crime Scene Investigation (CSI). Investigators go to a crime scene and look for signs of intelligence at play. They may take things back to the lab for testing, and looking for pieces of information suggestive of intelligence. If it is deduced intelligence was at play within a crime, it is up to detective work to use the scientific facts gathered to try pin down who committed the crime. ID will often use CSI as being analogous to itself.

Kurieuo

[sandy_mcd]

Complex Specified Information (CSI).

It would be more put that things exhibiting IC and Specified Complexity are more plausibly explained by designer. ...
Crime Scene Investigation (CSI).

Dembski defines CSI

Information can be specified. Information can be complex. Information can be both complex and specified. Information that is both complex and specified I call "complex specified information," or CSI for short.

Is this just a confusion over terminology or is there a difference between Specified Complexity and "complex specified information" ?

[Kurieuo]

Ahh k. Dembski coined the term specified complexity, and I've heard it also referred to as complex specified information and various other forms, although I considered "specified complexity" the main form. I never knew it had been abbreviated as CSI, and perhaps as a matter of personal taste gravitate away from such an abbreviation since it condures up something else in my mind (i.e., Crime Scene Investigation).

Kurieuo

[angel]

Kurieuo:
Definately not. [...]
What ID would say though is that Darwinian evolution is perhaps the best natural explanation we have, yet this natural explanation is inadequate to account for the complexities we see.

It seems to me we are saying the same thing. You say ID claims that (any) natural explanation is inadequate, which is exactly what I meant by "cannot be explained".
I simply don't consider an inadequate explanation to be an explanation.

After all Canuckster1127 (who claimed to be an ID supporter, at least philosophically speaking) said

ID is the belief that natural selection in and of itself is insufficient to
explain the complexity of life.

I look around and I found the source from which you pasted the description of ID (Dembski) as well as some other stuff. It seems to me they acknowledge the natural explanations just to say readily after that such natural explanations are inadequate.
Unfortunately I could not find any clue about the motivation leading them to claim they are inadequate.
Can someone tell me why natural causes cannot (or if you prefer are inadequate to) explain emergence of CSI and IC?
Not to mention why ID should be considered a better explanation than the natural!

Kurieuo:
ID does not rule out common ancestry at all.

That reminds me of another discussion I had in the past.
I asked if ID accepts common ancestor and you replied that ID does not rule out common ancestry.
Unfortunately that is not what I asked.
Are you claiming that there is no shared ID position about common ancestor?
Something like "ID is compatible but remains agnostic about the common ancestor"?

Since ID is not concerned with the designer this question need not be answered.
Therefore, talk about the designer including assumptions about who or what it is would be best left to philosophers and theologians.

Well ok. I ask it to philosophers and theologians.
(theologians? why theologians? I understood that the designer had nothing to do with God!)

As maybe I told you I'm collecting informations for a project which was assigned to me.
It is required to be a rational project. I cannot write ID is claiming that life needs a designer to be explained but at the same time it rejects any question about the designer.
I can understand ID does not want to identify the designer with Christian God but it is taking a strong position about some characteristics of such a designer (it is intelligent in the first place!)
I don't think I asked any quality of the designer which is not already included in ID arguments.

Kurieuo:
Does one need to know who the designer is before they can realise something is designed? No.

I did not ask "who the designer is". But if one claims that the designer created something which needs intelligence to be created, one is claiming that the designer is intelligent, am I wrong?
Any comment?

sandy_mcd quoting Dembski:
Information can be specified. Information can be complex. Information can be both complex and specified. Information that is both complex and specified I call "complex specified information," or CSI for short.

I already saw this definition around. I do not understand it. What does it mean specified?
Complex? Can it be measured? It seems to me it must be if one looks at the arguments that follows.
What is the relation between CSI and Kolmogorov complexity? They seem extremely closed though I know Kolmogorov complexity cannot be computed.



I seems to me none of you consider the points:

- Wouldn't it be the same (or simpler) if I assume that life is caused by a natural ZForce which has never been observed if not through its effects, which by its nature creates CSI, and has nothing to do with intelligence?
Both the notions are just assumed by their effect without further evidences.
So why should I prefer ID to ZForce?


- The fact that an eye stop functioning as an eye doesn't mean it would have no function at all... This destroyes the IC's argument.

I believe these are trivial arguments I should be ready to answer.

[Kurieuo]

I see no need to go further, and am not here to debate ID which would be best done on another board. I feel I have provided enough information for an indifferent observer to satisfy your original question about what ID is, and so unless there are others who have questions I am content to leave you with the preconceptions you have against ID for I see nothing I say here would change them.

Kurieuo

[angel]

Excuse me?
Have I preconceptions about ID?

I suppose there are others who can contribute positively to my project.

[Kurieuo]

Yes, that is my impression from your responses. Not that I think there is necessarily anything wrong with that (???), but I think I have written a great deal and provided links to resources which would lead an inquirer of ID to understand it from its root.

"Already know you that which you need..." -Yoda

Kurieuo

[Canuckster1127]

Angel,

I speak for myself, not the ID movement. My support of ID is as a philosophical approach.

There are basically 2 schools of apologetics when it comes to a defense of creationism and there can be (and usually is) an overlap.

The first is often referred to as presuppositional. In effect the presuppositional approach to apologetics says that in order to understand revealed truth you have to presuppose its inspiration, accuracy and once past that act of faith and acceptance, it will make sense and be consistent internally.

A classic line that demonstrates this is a quote by CS Lewis who said in effect (paraphrasing from memory here) "I believe in the Sun, not because I can see it, but because by it I see everything else."

The other camp, effectively states that in order to come to understanding you can to build a case for making that leap referenced above and that it is in effect "an informed" leap of faith.

My opinion follows and I suspect it will not be popular with all supporters of Intelligent Design as a movement. What Intelligent Design is attempting to do is a response to recent social, legal and educational developments within the United States.

The interpretation of the Concept of Separation of Church and State (which I believe was primarily institutionally driven instead of philosophically driven as it is being interpreted today .... but that's another debate ...) has been such that any reference to God in the context of origins is being thrown out and banned within schools.

That means the presuppositional school of teaching, faith and understanding in this regard cannot be introduced (or rather reintroduced) into the schools.

Therefore, some smart and clever lawyers and scientists have determined that it might be an effective strategy to revert to the other school of apologetics, make the creator generic and not applicable to any one creed or world religion and build the argument in such a manner that the courts would have to allow it back in this form.

The problem, again in my opinion, is that while I think this is a good and well-intentioned approach, reasonable even, they are trying to do it in the realm of applied hard science rather than where it naturally (and properly)belongs which is in the realm of Philosophy.

The arguments of Intelligent Design, again in my opinion, in terms of the popular movement that is growing up around, are in effect, much more sophisticated, but in the end they equate to what is commonly known as the "God of the Gaps" argument, which effectively attempts to draw from inference the need for a creator, because no explanation otherwise exists. The problem of course, is that when you do this, and another explanation is found (if one is, and many time such explanations do come as science and knowledge expands) then you in effect create grounds in the minds of others for a rejection of the claimed need for the existence of an Intelligent Designer.

I think it concedes too much. I'm not threatened at all by scientific discoveries that provide explanations for the previously unknown. As I am a Christian and a firm theist, all this does to me, is reveal the methodology God employed in his creative acts. The ultimate argument of God as the prime mover or first cause will never and can never be answered by hard science, positively or negatively. It's outside the scope of its means and methods.

Unfortunately, what is happening now with Intelligent Design (again in my opinion) is that the same groups that have campaigned to see creationism incorporated into education are now jumping onto the band wagon and seeing ID as a means to an end, or a "gimmick" to try and accomplish that.

That is what happened in Dover if you followed that court case. That is why the Discovery Institute is now back-pedalling and trying to disassociate itself with the case because they see it now as a media relations problem with attempting to move forward with their carefully crafted strategy.

ID is effectively in the realm of Old Earth Creationists and philosophical thinkers. The people who are jumping on the bandwagon, in many (not all) instances are Young Earth Creationists who adopt the stance of accepting Old Earth Creationism (which is far more in line with current scientific and naturalistic thinking) but in fact they are doing so from a position of theoretical argument rather than genuine acceptance of the premises of the argument.

Unless or until ID can find a way as an official movement to differentiate themselves from those who are seeking to use them in this manner, I think there are some real problems ahead.

That's why I've stated here that I'm not opposed to ID. I am a supporter of the concepts of ID as true and reasonable and as a counter to those who claim naturalistic science can provide all the answers needed.

Where I break down is where the cause is going as a movement and I frankly think it may in the end prove counter-productive.

But that's just my opinion.

I think that probably bothers some, but I'm fine with that. I don't try to be nasty about it.

[Canuckster1127]

Kurieuo:
Definately not. [...]
What ID would say though is that Darwinian evolution is perhaps the best natural explanation we have, yet this natural explanation is inadequate to account for the complexities we see.

It seems to me we are saying the same thing. You say ID claims that (any) natural explanation is inadequate, which is exactly what I meant by "cannot be explained".
I simply don't consider an inadequate explanation to be an explanation.

After all Canuckster1127 (who claimed to be an ID supporter, at least philosophically speaking) said

ID is the belief that natural selection in and of itself is insufficient to
explain the complexity of life.

I look around and I found the source from which you pasted the description of ID (Dembski) as well as some other stuff. It seems to me they acknowledge the natural explanations just to say readily after that such natural explanations are inadequate.
Unfortunately I could not find any clue about the motivation leading them to claim they are inadequate.
Can someone tell me why natural causes cannot (or if you prefer are inadequate to) explain emergence of CSI and IC?
Not to mention why ID should be considered a better explanation than the natural!

Kurieuo:
ID does not rule out common ancestry at all.

That reminds me of another discussion I had in the past.
I asked if ID accepts common ancestor and you replied that ID does not rule out common ancestry.
Unfortunately that is not what I asked.
Are you claiming that there is no shared ID position about common ancestor?
Something like "ID is compatible but remains agnostic about the common ancestor"?

Since ID is not concerned with the designer this question need not be answered.
Therefore, talk about the designer including assumptions about who or what it is would be best left to philosophers and theologians.

Well ok. I ask it to philosophers and theologians.
(theologians? why theologians? I understood that the designer had nothing to do with God!)

As maybe I told you I'm collecting informations for a project which was assigned to me.
It is required to be a rational project. I cannot write ID is claiming that life needs a designer to be explained but at the same time it rejects any question about the designer.
I can understand ID does not want to identify the designer with Christian God but it is taking a strong position about some characteristics of such a designer (it is intelligent in the first place!)
I don't think I asked any quality of the designer which is not already included in ID arguments.

Kurieuo:
Does one need to know who the designer is before they can realise something is designed? No.

I did not ask "who the designer is". But if one claims that the designer created something which needs intelligence to be created, one is claiming that the designer is intelligent, am I wrong?
Any comment?

sandy_mcd quoting Dembski:
Information can be specified. Information can be complex. Information can be both complex and specified. Information that is both complex and specified I call "complex specified information," or CSI for short.

I already saw this definition around. I do not understand it. What does it mean specified?
Complex? Can it be measured? It seems to me it must be if one looks at the arguments that follows.
What is the relation between CSI and Kolmogorov complexity? They seem extremely closed though I know Kolmogorov complexity cannot be computed.



I seems to me none of you consider the points:

- Wouldn't it be the same (or simpler) if I assume that life is caused by a natural ZForce which has never been observed if not through its effects, which by its nature creates CSI, and has nothing to do with intelligence?
Both the notions are just assumed by their effect without further evidences.
So why should I prefer ID to ZForce?


- The fact that an eye stop functioning as an eye doesn't mean it would have no function at all... This destroyes the IC's argument.

I believe these are trivial arguments I should be ready to answer.

Here's my take on your questions.

ID effectively believes the universe displays implicitly evidence of purpose and design. Within the ID position you would have a variety of degrees of that believe as to whether after the "first cause" act of creation and design there were points of continued interaction. Within the Christian community (which is a subset of ID, not the whole) you have positions such as Deism, Theistic Evolution, Progressive Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Young Earth Creationism that hold to varying understandings of the extent and timing of any such involvement.

On the side of naturalism you do not have such clear divisions, but it might be fair to note that there are some variations in understanding in the evolution camp demonstrated by Gould's advocasy of the punctuated equilibrium theory to explain "sudden appearance" and the apparent paucity of expected fossil records. (A naturalistic explanation from so-called gaps, not altogether dissimilar from ID I might observe ...

In terms of the inadequacy of naturalistic means to explain Irreducible complexity the answer would obviously be that there has not been an adequate explanation to this point and there is a belief within the ID camp that any such explanation forthcoming in the future would be inadequate to explain the coming together at random of all these elements in a beneficial manner that in turn became self-replicating. At least that is my understanding and I'll be the first to admit I lack the credentials to interact effectively with those skilled in this field.

I will say, that I fear at times that this type of argument become presuppositional and circular. It feels to me like arguing for example, that if you threw a deck of 52 cards into the air, the chances of say, the 3 of hearts, landing on top of the 6 of clubs both face up, with no other cards touching them is 52 to the 51st power fruther multiplied by some astronomical figure and then arguing retrospectively that the chances of that happening are so astronimically slim that you have to accept a circular hypothosis. The point to make at some point is that even in occurances of vast potentially divergent outcomes, something has to happen brings it down to earth. When you look at it in those terms, the odds come back to 1 to 1 and then you are talking about issues such as potential recurrance and building a chain.

Note that I am a Theist. In fact I'm a Christian and further I am an Old Earth Creationist. I affirm my belief in the existence and influence of God. I fear at times, those of my persuasion are sloppy and circular in our thinking and we need to be careful how we present our arguments to not preclude the Sovereignty of God, beyond our understanding or accounting for His methods. To take a dogmatic line, where none need exist, often clouds the issue and becomes a barrier to those to see our position as tantamount to a requirement for Theistic belief.

(There's a good article here in the archives about Anthony Flew if you want to see in action some of what I'm talking about.)

Also to clarify at the end. ID would not claim in the purest sense that it is necessarily a "better explanation" than those that exist in naturalistic science/philosophy. It would simply state that it is an equally valid explanation in the context of all that is currently known (and not known.) As such it is deserving of mention as a viable alternative or at least a corallary to what is commonly taught today.

The issue again in my mind is that as such, it is better presented as philosophy or an over-arching line of thinking with which to interpret the hard data in the scientific field.

While ID has scientific elements to its presentation, ultimately it reduces to primary world view in a philosophic sense.