Evolutionary Theory it seems, like ID, begs the question..

[Gman]

Actually, yes it does. I'm not saying it's a fact or proven, as nothing in science truly is, but it is an explanation of what could have brought life to where it is today. If you want to forget that science has accepted all the current evidence for evolution, go ahead.

Do you even know what science is? Science tries to document the factual character of the natural world and develop theories that coordinate and explain these facts.. The burden of proof is put forth on the person with the hypothesis. Where is the empirical evidence for your hypothesis on macro-evolution?

Show me, please. You are right, archaeology/anthropology (arch. just being a subfield of anth.) sometimes tries to determine whether something was man-made or naturally occurring. SETI attempts to decipher written messages in space. But ID as it is being discussed here is completely separate from that...it is trying to explain the origins of species, not based on examples of man-made things, but on no basis. ID has nothing to cross-reference with, no standard by which it can define "designed." You cannot apply the same concepts because the difference between man-made and naturally occurring can be judged on previous examples, while the supernatural cannot.

You have no idea what you are talking about.. Your religious belief of evolution is also trying to explain origins also.. So how can the natural world be explained and understood only in natural terms? If so, then we must have some indication that it is possible. As an example if one was to look at the brain, how would one conclude that there was consciousness? If you looked at a chemical process in the brain could you find what someone said that day or a book that they might have read? It doesn’t mean that we don’t know anything about it but if you are locked into the natural explanations as the only body of knowledge and the correspondence to it as the only reality, then you are making yourself your own reality.

Science is not in the business of ultimate explanations. That’s not what it does.. It works on specific things, it advances theories, but it never makes a claim about everything. People make the claims. People that are committed to Darwin’s theory in advance lose sight of the difference between the theory and the facts and hence they present it as unquestionably true.

Unfortunately it can't.

OK. Define CSI. Otherwise you are studying and judging something arbitrarily. That's not science.

Likewise your religion cannot explain origins.. You are studying and judging something arbitrarily. That's not science either.

Same problem. You can say anything is complex. The carbon arrangement in diamonds is complex to me and specific to diamonds. Is that CSI?

Where is your proof to say that carbon arrangement in diamonds is not complex or originated from nothing?

Can you please provide an experiment that tests for CSI? To my knowledge, ID has yet to provide any such data to support itself, instead expending all its energy trying to bash evolution and claim to provide the answers. When somebody can actually give some scientific data and research to the table, then I'll listen.

Can you please provide an experiment that tests macro-evolution? Can you demonstrate that in a lab for us? I'll even give you 4 million years...

Good. Then if it's not science, and you agree it can't be scientific, and you don't want to get rid of evolution, then stop trying to drive your wedge into science classrooms and force it ID on students. I'm fine with ID and all other religious views sticking in social studies class.

Oh.. Well I'm actually for teaching evolution in the classrooms. Just that it can't explain everything and has faults.

But as a religion.. Evolution can be philosophical as well and can be used for the atheists religion too.

[Gman]

The principles in the scientific use of ID (archeology, anthropology, forensics and SETI) depend on the comparison of natural and artificial effects. How does one apply these principles to nature itself? Could someone at least provide a reference to a paper detailing the application of this method in practice?

If evolutionary science, particularly macro-evolution, could produce anything scientific without all its philosophical mumbo jumbo I'm all ears too.. Problem is is that it can't. And technically it can't be tested either.

Rich has given some of the tests on ID here..

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/ ... esign.html

[Bill McEnaney]

"First" means "most fundamental" when St. Thomas Aquinas argues that the universe has a first cause. He even says that no philosophical argument could prove that the universe began to exist. But for him, even if God and the universe have always coexisted, God would still be its cause because it, the universe, would still depend on Him to keep it existing. God would be the uncaused cause who existed by His own nature. Maybe Dawkins would tell me that there might be a most fundamental alien or an unseeded seeder.

[sandy_mcd]

The principles in the scientific use of ID (archeology, anthropology, forensics and SETI) depend on the comparison of natural and artificial effects. How does one apply these principles to nature itself? Could someone at least provide a reference to a paper detailing the application of this method in practice?

If evolutionary science, particularly macro-evolution, could produce anything scientific without all its philosophical mumbo jumbo I'm all ears too.. Problem is is that it can't. And technically it can't be tested either.

Rich has given some of the tests on ID here..

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/ ... esign.html

Thanks for the link Gman. But this is exactly, precisely what I have been saying:

The claim has been made that ID has no place in science and is never used in the study of science. This is not true. In fact, all of the following areas of science use evidence of ID as the major or sole means of study. Even though the designer is not a supernatural agent, but intelligent humans, the principles involved in studying these areas of science can be applied to the study of supernatural ID.

Archeology: Is that rock formation natural or due to intelligent design?
Anthropology: Do sharp, pointed rocks occur naturally or are they designed by intelligent beings?
Forensics: Intelligent cause of death or natural circumstances?
SETI: Are those radio signals natural or caused by intelligent beings?

And how do we determine "natural or designed?

ID is already used in many areas of science. In archeology, we know that stones don't naturally occur in square shapes piled on top of each other. They show signs of intelligent design (although the designer is not supernatural). A recent example is an underwater rock formation off the coast of Cuba. According to the discoverers, the formation consist of smooth, geometrically shaped, granite-like rocks that are laid out in structures resembling pyramids, roads and other structures at more than 2,000 feet in a 7-3/4 mile-square area. How does it exhibit intelligent design? Natural formations of rocks do not have geometric shapes arranged in recognizable structures.

Likewise, rocks do not naturally have pointed ends with patterns of chips along the sides. This pattern is extremely unlikely through natural processes, so we say that it exhibits intelligent design. In the science of forensics, scientists examine patterns of trauma, for example, to determine if it has a natural or intelligent cause. ID is already used in many areas of science.

So scientists determine natural or designed of a test subject by comparing it with what it is known nature does and what man does. Which brings me right back to my earlier question. What do we use for "natural" and "designed" references when we question whether nature is designed?