Wall-dog wrote:1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
Before I get into using the Scientific Method, let me first say that absolutely a single cell organism is a part of ID. In fact it is a classic example of an irreducibly complex machine.
Here we go...
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
Certainly ID satisfies the first part. Irreducibly complex machines are a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
How does one identify something as irreducibly complex? Is it not true that irreducibly complex mechanisms get their label from the fact that there is no alternative explanation?
Wall-dog wrote:2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
ID satisfies the second as well. Intelligence was used to create these machines.
Yes an in physics the experiment is geared towards testing the causal force. So in this case we need to test for the existence of an intelligence.
Wall-dog wrote:3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
This has also been achieved. This is how ID went from one irreducibly complex machine to hundreds of them.
Sorry, detecting additional instances does not test the hypothesis. All you have now are more observations. In other words, I can say I have detected a pulsar, and hypothesize that they are formed from collapsed stars. In essence you are saying that if I detect more pulsars that the case for my htpothesis has stregnthened. That simply is not the case.
Wall-dog wrote:4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
The other irreducibly complex machines have also been found. They were predicted and found.
Again this is not very scientific at all. We need to test the proposed processes we hypothesized were the source of these irreducibly complex systems.
Wall-dog wrote:3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
If you try to simplify an irreducibly complex machine, it ceases to function. In the case of a single-cell organism, it dies.
So a human being is also irreducible because if I remove the heart he dies? What about a stack of bricks if I remove one brick it collapses.
Wall-dog wrote:4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
These tests have been done many times. Guess what happens? The single cell organisms die.
I can remove a chloroplast from a blue-green algae and it doesn't die. If I remove a vacuole from a paramecium it doesn't die either. This is the criteria for irreducible complexity? How do you explain the evidence for endosymbiosis?
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultran ... iosis.html
Both mitochondria and chloroplasts can arise only from preexisting mitochondria and chloroplasts. They cannot be formed in a cell that lacks them because nuclear genes encode only some of the proteins of which they are made.
Both mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own genome and it resembles that of prokaryotes not that of the nuclear genome.
Both genomes consist of a single circular molecule of DNA.
There are no histones associated with the DNA.
Both mitochondria and chloroplasts have their own protein-synthesizing machinery, and it more closely resembles that of prokaryotes than that found in the cytoplasm of eukaryotes.
The first amino acid of their transcripts is always fMet as it is in bacteria (not methionine [Met] that is the first amino acid in eukaryotic proteins).
A number of antibiotics (e.g., streptomycin) that act by blocking protein synthesis in bacteria also block protein synthesis within mitochondria and chloroplasts. They do not interfere with protein synthesis in the cytoplasm of the eukaryotes.
Conversely, inhibitors (e.g., diphtheria toxin) of protein synthesis by eukaryotic ribosomes do not — sensibly enough — have any effect on bacterial protein synthesis nor on protein synthesis within mitochondria and chloroplasts.
The antibiotic rifampicin, which inhibits the RNA polymerase of bacteria, also inhibits the RNA polymerase within mitochondria. It has no such effect on the RNA polymerase within the eukaryotic nucleus.
Wall-dog wrote:If you want to disprove ID according to the scientific method, all you have to do is reduce an irreducibly complex machine and/or come up with an explanation for their existence that does not require intelligence.
No you need to prove the mechanisms of Irreducible complexity scientifically first.
Think about it, at this point is that something exists. Then you are attributing it's existence to something else. You don't have any evidence for the causal force, and you don't have any definitive test for the observed phenemonon.
Wall-dog wrote:If there were more than one theory for the existence of irreducibly complex machines then experiments could be devised to validate one theory at the expense of the other.
You don't need opposing theories to test something. You only need to test the mechanisms of your proposed hypothesis. SCIENCE doe not work by eliminating other theories. Occum's razor works by supporting the best experimentally backed hypothesis. Not the last man standing without a basis for support.
Wall-dog wrote:That's already been done with evolution. Experimentation has shown that evolution could not have created these machines.
Please site your source.
Wall-dog wrote:It is much, much easier to validate theories when there are other theories to validate against. It isn't IDs fault that nobody has an alternative theory.
No, it doesn't matter ID should be able to be tested on it's own merit.
Wall-dog wrote:You know what doesn't make sense? Double standards. Too many people hold ID to a higher scientific standard than other scientific theories. THAT is bunk.
No you don't understand the rigiourous standards of science. I assure that science holds itself up to very tough standards. Feel free to go to any library nearby and peruse a scientific journal to see for yourself.
You
will notice a very tentative and narrow language in the conclusions.
Attack evolution