This is a Very Brief Sketch of the Current State of Affairs in ID

The subject of ID has fascinated me for years, because of its attack on the so-called "settled science" of Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism, and because of the detailed evidence ID puts forth to buttress claims for discovery of intelligently designed things in our universe. If what ID discovers invalidates methodological materialism so much the better for us all! Hence, I have kept an eye on developments in this segment of science.

A number of critics of Intelligent Design have rejected this effort as interfering with their thrust to discredit Darwinian evolution. These critics believe that injecting what they see as yet another theory of evolution that is incomplete and certainly not as comprehensive as Darwinian Evolution Theory, or DE, to be simply off target and a waste of intellectual energy. I would place Dr. Jerry Fodor in this category. Other critics have a different view, that of welcoming any attacks on DE, especially if they are as scientifically valid, as key ID proponents believe, and that make a serious contribution to the understanding of macro and micro evolutionary biology, or biology per se, while discrediting Darwinian Evolution Theory.

These critics look to ID as merely a tool of discovery of some new and important phenomena and relationships to add to the general knowledge, and not a new theory of biological everything. Their view is that if it is good science, it should be supported for where it leads, and if the stronghold of DE is breached, so much the better, since natural selection and random genetic mutation over complex organisms as in DE is the main target. The ID community has been jumping into the conceptual breaches of DE almost from its inception, notably using what they call the Wedge Approach.

What is the Wedge Approach as used by many Intelligent Design adherents today? As I understand the wedge approach, it is meant to divide strong Darwinian Evolution Theory adherents, on the one hand, from those who are beginning to doubt DE; and on the other hand, to divide those who believe ID is merely unscientific Creationism, from those who believe ID does not champion Creationism at all, and is actually quite scientific in nature and useful. It is shameful in my opinion that many in the scientific community actively and deliberately misrepresent the factual statements of ID'ers in order to defend their bastion—DE.

This approach, then, is meant to stress marginal DE advocates by showing the deficiencies of random genetic mutation and natural selection. It is also intended to establish a hard Their honest approach thus says "We don't know who, what, when why or how the universe, man and life has been created and evolved, but we are chipping away at a few aspects of the question."

There has been no secret about this approach. It was well-documented by Phillip Johnson in several of his books years ago, so there should be no surprise to it for anyone that has kept up.

The attack on DE by ID adherents (and others as well) is being carried out on both the macro and micro levels of evolutionary biology. From the macro level, it has been demonstrated that none of the proposed hierarchies of evolving species have any true, unfettered, fundamental organizing principles—not, morphology, not DNA, and not genomes, for instance. They are all in startup trouble beginning at the Pre-Cambrian Period, the demonstrations of a few valid common descent chains notwithstanding.

A more telling factor is that the billions of years that DE evolution supposedly required for random mutations and natural selection to work has been severely reduced by the Cambrian Period: Earliest time division of the Paleozoic Era, extending from 541 to 485.4 million years ago, to the point that it is mathematically impossible for random mutation/natural selection to have worked at all beyond single trivial steps, let alone the millions and millions of steps between the cell and a human being. That is, except for trivial adaptations entirely within species. It is a fact that all species breed true: horses come from horses; dogs come from dogs, etc.

It has been pointed out that mutation/natural selection cannot create new biological information. Just how speciation takes place without the generation of new biological information is an unknown. However, it is true that single mutations of lower cellular structures do occur, just not at the scale of eukaryotes. The vast majority of mutations are fatal, not constructive.

Further, one of the standard retorts of DE adherents is that DE predicts what will be discovered in the so-called gaps in the fossil records. So the current lack of fossil proof, which many important DE’ers now acknowledge, will be taken care of in due course. Thus, DE’ers have exercised their DE faith that all the gaps in their theory will be filled by scientific efforts, just as the ID’ers have been accused of having faith in their God of the Gaps theory.

The ID’ers, on the other hand, have firmly divorced themselves from the Creationist label by demonstrating that they looking for sure signs of design, but not trying to identify the designer at all. No longer are they in the position of supporting a God of the Gaps.

Their tests to detect design have evolved around common sense identification of unnatural material things, the Dembski mathematical elimination or Explanatory Filter test, and the Behe “irreducible complexity” test, among others. When applied to such systems as the bacterial flagellum the tests clearly leave us with the question: “If this is not an example of intelligent design, and it is mathematically impossible for it to have evolved by mutation/natural selection, then what could possibly be the answer?” The ID’ers of today do not inject God as the answer into this situation. Notable scientists have attempted to puncture the irreducible complexity theory of Behe, and to my knowledge they have not succeeded and published an acceptable, unchallenged refutation.

Many people in science are reluctant to accept the idea that it is actually intelligent design that is at work, for that might mean that the next step would be a religious or transcendental interpretation that is unacceptable to them. Unlike true scientists, they are not going where the data takes them, but are ignoring it, because one of the possible outcomes does not fit into their preconceived notions of how things should be for methodological naturalism and ultimately their atheism to hold. Thus, they still attack ID Theory ferociously, using somewhat specious definitions of what science is, and is not, in order to exclude ID from consideration.

So, the attack on ID immediately revolves around the definition of science, which the methodological naturalists or atheistic materialists claim to be the study of natural phenomena, and that only. Philosophers of science, however, totally reject this definition, and, as a matter of fact, reject the current attempts at defining science canonically at all as being woefully incomplete and exclusive of what they believe science to be. They cite the existence of immaterial entities such as numbers to extend the universe of possibilities beyond the material, thereby negating methodological naturalism totally.

Further, they state that there is no fine line that can be drawn between what is science and what is not science, because no definition can bridge the problems of necessity and sufficiency adequately, without leaving some number of activities on the wrong side of the line that otherwise measure up to being true science. Not the least of which are most of the scientific investigations of the past 100 years or more, which is ridiculous. Of the ten or fifteen most revered scientists of the past century, at least nine of them are avowed theists, including Einstein, but that most certainly does not invalidate their work.

These philosophers of science are dismissive of other scientists in various disciplines who state that ID is not science, because they are way out of their area of specialty, and are pontificating on things for which they have no proper foundation in scientific philosophy.

Science Philosopher J. P. Moreland states that; “There is no set of necessary and sufficient conditions by which to define science.” He does agree, however, that there are useful rules of thumb that can help to clarify what science is. He believes that the application of the methods and tools of science in ID Theory can be accepted, then, as being within the purview of science.

But what of the usual tests of good science practice? The utility of a theory can be demonstrated by its ability to explain phenomena, and by its ability to predict further aspects of phenomena. Does ID Theory demonstrate these capabilities? The answer is yes.

ID Theory provides an excellent explanation of some observed phenomena that other approaches have not equaled. It is a theory that generates not only explanations, but also testable results, either positive or negative, as has been shown in the cases of the bacterial flagellum and blood clotting mechanisms, among others. The attempts at refuting these two examples have all failed as of this writing. To my amazement, several Darwinists make claims that these examples have been refuted, and continue to use the claims after their claims have been fully debunked! This is most unscientific behavior!

The argument rages on, with each side--pro and contra ID Theory--taking hard hits and then recovering to throw their own punches back: a “How could you possibly believe in ID?” from the DE’ers, and a plea from the ID’ers to “Please look with scientific objectivity at the solid evidence we have submitted!”

It is a show with an Intelligent Design David facing a Darwin Evolutionary Theory Goliath!

References:
1. Darwin Doubts, Stephen Meyer, 2012
2. Intelligent Design 101, H. Wayne House, General Editor, Kregel Publications, 2008
3. Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer, 2012 (This is an extraordinary book!)
4. The Edge of Evolution, Michael Behe, Free Press, 2007.
5. Intelligent Design, William Dembski, InterVarsity Press, 1999.
6. Doubts about Darwin, Thomas Woodward, Baker Books, 2003.
7. Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson, InterVarsity Press, 1993.

This is a Very Brief Sketch of the Current State of Affairs in ID

The subject of ID has fascinated me for years, because of its attack on the so-called "settled science" of Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism, and because of the detailed evidence ID puts forth to buttress claims for discovery of intelligently designed things in our universe. If what ID discovers invalidates methodological materialism so much the better for us all! Hence, I have kept an eye on developments in this segment of science.

A number of critics of Intelligent Design have rejected this effort as interfering with their thrust to discredit Darwinian evolution. These critics believe that injecting what they see as yet another theory of evolution that is incomplete and certainly not as comprehensive as Darwinian Evolution Theory, or DE, to be simply off target and a waste of intellectual energy. I would place Dr. Jerry Fodor in this category. Other critics have a different view, that of welcoming any attacks on DE, especially if they are as scientifically valid, as key ID proponents believe, and that make a serious contribution to the understanding of macro and micro evolutionary biology, or biology per se, while discrediting Darwinian Evolution Theory.

These critics look to ID as merely a tool of discovery of some new and important phenomena and relationships to add to the general knowledge, and not a new theory of biological everything. Their view is that if it is good science, it should be supported for where it leads, and if the stronghold of DE is breached, so much the better, since natural selection and random genetic mutation over complex organisms as in DE is the main target. The ID community has been jumping into the conceptual breaches of DE almost from its inception, notably using what they call the Wedge Approach.

What is the Wedge Approach as used by many Intelligent Design adherents today? As I understand the wedge approach, it is meant to divide strong Darwinian Evolution Theory adherents, on the one hand, from those who are beginning to doubt DE; and on the other hand, to divide those who believe ID is merely unscientific Creationism, from those who believe ID does not champion Creationism at all, and is actually quite scientific in nature and useful. It is shameful in my opinion that many in the scientific community actively and deliberately misrepresent the factual statements of ID'ers in order to defend their bastion—DE.

This approach, then, is meant to stress marginal DE advocates by showing the deficiencies of random genetic mutation and natural selection. It is also intended to establish a hard decoupling of ID Theory itself from the stigma of Biblical Creationism. Their honest approach thus says "We don't know who, what, when why or how the universe, man and life has been created and evolved, but we are chipping away at a few aspects of the question."

There has been no secret about this approach. It was well-documented by Phillip Johnson in several of his books years ago, so there should be no surprise to it for anyone that has kept up.

The attack on DE by ID adherents (and others as well) is being carried out on both the macro and micro levels of evolutionary biology. From the macro level, it has been demonstrated that none of the proposed hierarchies of evolving species have any true, unfettered, fundamental organizing principles—not, morphology, not DNA, and not genomes, for instance. They are all in startup trouble beginning at the Pre-Cambrian Period, the demonstrations of a few valid common descent chains notwithstanding.

A more telling factor is that the billions of years that DE evolution supposedly required for random mutations and natural selection to work has been severely reduced by the Cambrian Period: Earliest time division of the Paleozoic Era, extending from 541 to 485.4 million years ago, to the point that it is mathematically impossible for random mutation/natural selection to have worked at all beyond single trivial steps, let alone the millions and millions of steps between the cell and a human being. That is, except for trivial adaptations entirely within species. It is a fact that all species breed true: horses come from horses; dogs come from dogs, etc.

It has been pointed out that mutation/natural selection cannot create new biological information. Just how speciation takes place without the generation of new biological information is an unknown. However, it is true that single mutations of lower cellular structures do occur, just not at the scale of eukaryotes. The vast majority of mutations are fatal, not constructive.

Further, one of the standard retorts of DE adherents is that DE predicts what will be discovered in the so-called gaps in the fossil records. So the current lack of fossil proof, which many important DE’ers now acknowledge, will be taken care of in due course. Thus, DE’ers have exercised their DE faith that all the gaps in their theory will be filled by scientific efforts, just as the ID’ers have been accused of having faith in their God of the Gaps theory.

The ID’ers, on the other hand, have firmly divorced themselves from the Creationist label by demonstrating that they looking for sure signs of design, but not trying to identify the designer at all. No longer are they in the position of supporting a God of the Gaps.

Their tests to detect design have evolved around common sense identification of unnatural material things, the Dembski mathematical elimination or Explanatory Filter test, and the Behe “irreducible complexity” test, among others. When applied to such systems as the bacterial flagellum the tests clearly leave us with the question: “If this is not an example of intelligent design, and it is mathematically impossible for it to have evolved by mutation/natural selection, then what could possibly be the answer?” The ID’ers of today do not inject God as the answer into this situation. Notable scientists have attempted to puncture the irreducible complexity theory of Behe, and to my knowledge they have not succeeded and published an acceptable, unchallenged refutation.

Many people in science are reluctant to accept the idea that it is actually intelligent design that is at work, for that might mean that the next step would be a religious or transcendental interpretation that is unacceptable to them. Unlike true scientists, they are not going where the data takes them, but are ignoring it, because one of the possible outcomes does not fit into their preconceived notions of how things should be for methodological naturalism and ultimately their atheism to hold. Thus, they still attack ID Theory ferociously, using somewhat specious definitions of what science is, and is not, in order to exclude ID from consideration.

So, the attack on ID immediately revolves around the definition of science, which the methodological naturalists or atheistic materialists claim to be the study of natural phenomena, and that only. Philosophers of science, however, totally reject this definition, and, as a matter of fact, reject the current attempts at defining science canonically at all as being woefully incomplete and exclusive of what they believe science to be. They cite the existence of immaterial entities such as numbers to extend the universe of possibilities beyond the material, thereby negating methodological naturalism totally.

Further, they state that there is no fine line that can be drawn between what is science and what is not science, because no definition can bridge the problems of necessity and sufficiency adequately, without leaving some number of activities on the wrong side of the line that otherwise measure up to being true science. Not the least of which are most of the scientific investigations of the past 100 years or more, which is ridiculous. Of the ten or fifteen most revered scientists of the past century, at least nine of them are avowed theists, including Einstein, but that most certainly does not invalidate their work.

These philosophers of science are dismissive of other scientists in various disciplines who state that ID is not science, because they are way out of their area of specialty, and are pontificating on things for which they have no proper foundation in scientific philosophy.

Science Philosopher J. P. Moreland states that; “There is no set of necessary and sufficient conditions by which to define science.” He does agree, however, that there are useful rules of thumb that can help to clarify what science is. He believes that the application of the methods and tools of science in ID Theory can be accepted, then, as being within the purview of science.

But what of the usual tests of good science practice? The utility of a theory can be demonstrated by its ability to explain phenomena, and by its ability to predict further aspects of phenomena. Does ID Theory demonstrate these capabilities? The answer is yes.

ID Theory provides an excellent explanation of some observed phenomena that other approaches have not equaled. It is a theory that generates not only explanations, but also testable results, either positive or negative, as has been shown in the cases of the bacterial flagellum and blood clotting mechanisms, among others. The attempts at refuting these two examples have all failed as of this writing. To my amazement, several Darwinists make claims that these examples have been refuted, and continue to use the claims after their claims have been fully debunked! This is most unscientific behavior!

The argument rages on, with each side--pro and contra ID Theory--taking hard hits and then recovering to throw their own punches back: a “How could you possibly believe in ID?” from the DE’ers, and a plea from the ID’ers to “Please look with scientific objectivity at the solid evidence we have submitted!”

It is a show with an Intelligent Design David facing a Darwin Evolutionary Theory Goliath!

References:
1. Darwin Doubts, Stephen Meyer, 2012
2. Intelligent Design 101, H. Wayne House, General Editor, Kregel Publications, 2008
3. Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer, 2012 (This is an extraordinary book!)
4. The Edge of Evolution, Michael Behe, Free Press, 2007.
5. Intelligent Design, William Dembski, InterVarsity Press, 1999.
6. Doubts about Darwin, Thomas Woodward, Baker Books, 2003.
7. Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson, InterVarsity Press, 1993.

It is obvious that you are of the old school of DE and quite set in your thinking. You don't read carefully either. Clearly, the current ID movement has simply searched for evidence of design, and has not attempted to seek the designer. Hence your criticism falls rather short. Further, your anti-ID position is not supported by the facts.

If you are challenging ID, then you must have a refutation of Dembski's Explanatory Filter and Behe's Irreducible Complexity tenets. I would love to see you try, otherwise, your remarks are simply those of a terribly biased fool, and definitely not a true scientist. So put up or shut up.

The passionate defense of neo-Darwinian evolution seems to me to most unscientific, it violates the second law of thermodynamics, and it appears that the most passionate of the defenders are atheists, and want scientific materialism to prevail. Further, there is no valid explanation for the massive generation of animal forms in the Cambrian period that have no precursor forms of record, including humans, and Punctuated Equilibrium just doesn't cut it.
That is a quite normal sequence of events in the scientific community, made terribly ugly ultimately by the need of many to defend their atheism. The first commenter above is definitely from that school of thought.

What Do you thing is the most plausible explanation for the creation of the universe? The theory or the myth?

The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution. The model describes how the universe expanded from a very high-density and high-temperature state, and offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), large scale structure and Hubble's law. If the known laws of physics are extrapolated to the highest density regime, the result is a singularity which is typically associated with the Big Bang. Physicists are undecided whether this means the universe began from a singularity, or that current knowledge is insufficient to describe the universe at that time. Detailed measurements of the expansion rate of the universe place the Big Bang at around 13.8 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the universe. After the initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity in halos of dark matter, eventually forming the stars and galaxies visible today.


The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

This is a Very Brief Sketch of the Current State of Affairs in ID

The subject of ID has fascinated me for years, because of its attack on the so-called "settled science" of Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism, and because of the detailed evidence ID puts forth to buttress claims for discovery of intelligently designed things in our universe. If what ID discovers invalidates methodological materialism so much the better for us all! Hence, I have kept an eye on developments in this segment of science.

A number of critics of Intelligent Design have rejected this effort as interfering with their thrust to discredit Darwinian evolution. These critics believe that injecting what they see as yet another theory of evolution that is incomplete and certainly not as comprehensive as Darwinian Evolution Theory, or DE, to be simply off target and a waste of intellectual energy. I would place Dr. Jerry Fodor in this category. Other critics have a different view, that of welcoming any attacks on DE, especially if they are as scientifically valid, as key ID proponents believe, and that make a serious contribution to the understanding of macro and micro evolutionary biology, or biology per se, while discrediting Darwinian Evolution Theory.

ID Theory provides an excellent explanation of some observed phenomena that other approaches have not equaled. It is a theory that generates not only explanations, but also testable results, either positive or negative, as has been shown in the cases of the bacterial flagellum and blood clotting mechanisms, among others.


These critics look to ID as merely a tool of discovery of some new and important phenomena and relationships to add to the general knowledge, and not a new theory of biological everything. Their view is that if it is good science, it should be supported for where it leads, and if the stronghold of DE is breached, so much the better, since natural selection and random genetic mutation over complex organisms as in DE is the main target. The ID community has been jumping into the conceptual breaches of DE almost from its inception, notably using what they call the Wedge Approach.

What is the Wedge Approach as used by many Intelligent Design adherents today? As I understand the wedge approach, it is meant to divide strong Darwinian Evolution Theory adherents, on the one hand, from those who are beginning to doubt DE; and on the other hand, to divide those who believe ID is merely unscientific Creationism, from those who believe ID does not champion Creationism at all, and is actually quite scientific in nature and useful. It is shameful in my opinion that many in the scientific community actively and deliberately misrepresent the factual statements of ID'ers in order to defend their bastion—DE.

This approach, then, is meant to stress marginal DE advocates by showing the deficiencies of random genetic mutation and natural selection. It is also intended to establish a hard decoupling of ID Theory itself from the stigma of Biblical Creationism. Their honest approach thus says "We don't know who, what, when why or how the universe, man and life has been created and evolved, but we are chipping away at a few aspects of the question."

There has been no secret about this approach. It was well-documented by Phillip Johnson in several of his books years ago, so there should be no surprise to it for anyone that has kept up.

The attack on DE by ID adherents (and others as well) is being carried out on both the macro and micro levels of evolutionary biology. From the macro level, it has been demonstrated that none of the proposed hierarchies of evolving species have any true, unfettered, fundamental organizing principles—not, morphology, not DNA, and not genomes, for instance. They are all in startup trouble beginning at the Pre-Cambrian Period, the demonstrations of a few valid common descent chains notwithstanding.

A more telling factor is that the billions of years that DE evolution supposedly required for random mutations and natural selection to work has been severely reduced by the Cambrian Period: Earliest time division of the Paleozoic Era, extending from 541 to 485.4 million years ago, to the point that it is mathematically impossible for random mutation/natural selection to have worked at all beyond single trivial steps, let alone the millions and millions of steps between the cell and a human being. That is, except for trivial adaptations entirely within species. It is a fact that all species breed true: horses come from horses; dogs come from dogs, etc.

It has been pointed out that mutation/natural selection cannot create new biological information. Just how speciation takes place without the generation of new biological information is an unknown. However, it is true that single mutations of lower cellular structures do occur, just not at the scale of eukaryotes. The vast majority of mutations are fatal, not constructive.

Further, one of the standard retorts of DE adherents is that DE predicts what will be discovered in the so-called gaps in the fossil records. So the current lack of fossil proof, which many important DE’ers now acknowledge, will be taken care of in due course. Thus, DE’ers have exercised their DE faith that all the gaps in their theory will be filled by scientific efforts, just as the ID’ers have been accused of having faith in their God of the Gaps theory.

The ID’ers, on the other hand, have firmly divorced themselves from the Creationist label by demonstrating that they looking for sure signs of design, but not trying to identify the designer at all. No longer are they in the position of supporting a God of the Gaps.

Their tests to detect design have evolved around common sense identification of unnatural material things, the Dembski mathematical elimination or Explanatory Filter test, and the Behe “irreducible complexity” test, among others. When applied to such systems as the bacterial flagellum the tests clearly leave us with the question: “If this is not an example of intelligent design, and it is mathematically impossible for it to have evolved by mutation/natural selection, then what could possibly be the answer?” The ID’ers of today do not inject God as the answer into this situation. Notable scientists have attempted to puncture the irreducible complexity theory of Behe, and to my knowledge they have not succeeded and published an acceptable, unchallenged refutation.

Many people in science are reluctant to accept the idea that it is actually intelligent design that is at work, for that might mean that the next step would be a religious or transcendental interpretation that is unacceptable to them. Unlike true scientists, they are not going where the data takes them, but are ignoring it, because one of the possible outcomes does not fit into their preconceived notions of how things should be for methodological naturalism and ultimately their atheism to hold. Thus, they still attack ID Theory ferociously, using somewhat specious definitions of what science is, and is not, in order to exclude ID from consideration.

So, the attack on ID immediately revolves around the definition of science, which the methodological naturalists or atheistic materialists claim to be the study of natural phenomena, and that only. Philosophers of science, however, totally reject this definition, and, as a matter of fact, reject the current attempts at defining science canonically at all as being woefully incomplete and exclusive of what they believe science to be. They cite the existence of immaterial entities such as numbers to extend the universe of possibilities beyond the material, thereby negating methodological naturalism totally.

Further, they state that there is no fine line that can be drawn between what is science and what is not science, because no definition can bridge the problems of necessity and sufficiency adequately, without leaving some number of activities on the wrong side of the line that otherwise measure up to being true science. Not the least of which are most of the scientific investigations of the past 100 years or more, which is ridiculous. Of the ten or fifteen most revered scientists of the past century, at least nine of them are avowed theists, including Einstein, but that most certainly does not invalidate their work.

These philosophers of science are dismissive of other scientists in various disciplines who state that ID is not science, because they are way out of their area of specialty, and are pontificating on things for which they have no proper foundation in scientific philosophy.

Science Philosopher J. P. Moreland states that; “There is no set of necessary and sufficient conditions by which to define science.” He does agree, however, that there are useful rules of thumb that can help to clarify what science is. He believes that the application of the methods and tools of science in ID Theory can be accepted, then, as being within the purview of science.

But what of the usual tests of good science practice? The utility of a theory can be demonstrated by its ability to explain phenomena, and by its ability to predict further aspects of phenomena. Does ID Theory demonstrate these capabilities? The answer is yes.

ID Theory provides an excellent explanation of some observed phenomena that other approaches have not equaled. It is a theory that generates not only explanations, but also testable results, either positive or negative, as has been shown in the cases of the bacterial flagellum and blood clotting mechanisms, among others. The attempts at refuting these two examples have all failed as of this writing. To my amazement, several Darwinists make claims that these examples have been refuted, and continue to use the claims after their claims have been fully debunked! This is most unscientific behavior!

The argument rages on, with each side--pro and contra ID Theory--taking hard hits and then recovering to throw their own punches back: a “How could you possibly believe in ID?” from the DE’ers, and a plea from the ID’ers to “Please look with scientific objectivity at the solid evidence we have submitted!”

It is a show with an Intelligent Design David facing a Darwin Evolutionary Theory Goliath!

References:
1. Darwin Doubts, Stephen Meyer, 2012
2. Intelligent Design 101, H. Wayne House, General Editor, Kregel Publications, 2008
3. Signature in the Cell, Stephen Meyer, 2012 (This is an extraordinary book!)
4. The Edge of Evolution, Michael Behe, Free Press, 2007.
5. Intelligent Design, William Dembski, InterVarsity Press, 1999.
6. Doubts about Darwin, Thomas Woodward, Baker Books, 2003.
7. Darwin on Trial, Phillip Johnson, InterVarsity Press, 1993.

It is obvious that you are of the old school of DE and quite set in your thinking. You don't read carefully either. Clearly, the current ID movement has simply searched for evidence of design, and has not attempted to seek the designer. Hence your criticism falls rather short. Further, your anti-ID position is not supported by the facts.

If you are challenging ID, then you must have a refutation of Dembski's Explanatory Filter and Behe's Irreducible Complexity tenets. I would love to see you try, otherwise, your remarks are simply those of a terribly biased fool, and definitely not a true scientist. So put up or shut up.