>I wish an ID like Paul Nelson would comment on the protein folding problem
>that I mentioned a couple of days ago. It seems to me that modern science
>(from an ID point of view), has failed miserably to explain how the protein
>folds into the proper shape within about 2 seconds. Modern computers would
>take 10^127 years to fold a small protein. Is this evidence of intelligent
>design? When modern science fails to explain the chemical origin of life it
>is taken as evidence that God must have done it.
On the Dembski/Meyer/Nelson view of design inferences, the insufficiency of natural
causes is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for inferring design.
Suppose we find John Doe dead in his seedy hotel room. Doesn't look like a heart
attack. Doesn't look like a stroke. Doesn't look like any natural cause we can
assign.
Does that alone provide grounds for inferring foul play (design)? Not at all.
That we've ruled out (at least provisionally) natural causes means only that a path
has been cleared to move on to design, as an empirical possibility. But we've got
a lot more work to do before we can reasonably infer intelligent causation.
Furthermore, Glenn, I think you're missing the point of John Casti's use of this
example.
Proteins fold. That's a fact. The problem lies not with proteins folding --
organisms do that with aplomb -- but with our *theories* about protein folding.
I fully expect the theoretical problem of protein folding to be solved, because
there exists an observational reality right in front of us: proteins fold.
Do organisms arise de novo from non-living constituents?
There's another unsolved problem, but one conspicuously lacking any observations
to explain. Protein folding is an empirical reality seeking a theory.
Abiogenesis, on the other hand, is a theory seeking an empirical reality.
Paul Nelson