He asked:
>"bare generic intelligence?" What possible good is that? The reason I
>said _extremely_ is because all your predictions you would have to base
>on your "IDer." If you know nothing about a IDer, how do you expect to
>predict anything of value at all?
You form a hypothesis with all the evidence you think is relevant. Nothing
mysterious about that. Most hypotheses fail, but so what? That's what
hypotheses are for. "Bare generic intelligence" is a minimally necessary
postulate which would allow one to say -- for instance -- that a pattern of
prime numbers detected by a radio telescope may have an intelligent cause,
other than human beings.
Or that the informational content of nucleic acids may have an intelligent
cause, other than human beings. The possible existence of such an intelligence
allows one to make reasonable inferences from patterns of evidence, which,
via experience, we know to be intelligently caused.
I just don't see what the problem is here. Of course ID theorists may disagree
about the content of ID predictions. In fact, I'd *expect* them to disagree,
and then to sort out their disagreements by comparing hypotheses. That's in
large measure the agenda for the upcoming Mere Creation conference.
Thus, when you write:
>Hmm, evolution - it's a prediction of IDer defined by
>assumption A, PC - it's a prediction of IDer B, and on and on.
I say, yes, sure, ID theorists will disagree. Of course. But maybe you
expected unanimity? Does that exist in evolutionary theory? Look, this
just isn't as mysterious or opaque as you're making it out to be. Form an
ID hypothesis and throw it into the arena for discussion. That's what ID
theorists do.
About Darwin. You wrote:
>[ID] came up short in his text, but does anyone now give up their
>acceptance of ID on reading this?
Yes, if by that you mean a particular account of ID. I can't read Paley
now without thinking, *organisms have histories* -- an aspect of
biological reality almost entirely missing in the _Natural Theology_.
Paley wouldn't last a minute among the ID biologists I know, because
all of them have learned from Darwin something Paley should have
known -- namely, that organisms have histories.
In another post, you wrote:
>which doesn't show ID as wrong. It only showed that Paley's assumptions
>regarding God were wrong.
Paley's ID hypothesis was falsified. Can we agree on that?
You stated:
>You have not even answered my original question - what are
>the criteria for design?
Go to "Thinking about the Theory of Design" on the Access Research Network
web page (a link exists from the talk.origins FAQ archive, I believe: I don't
recall the ARN URL off the top of my head) for a discussion that's now a few
years old. The later chapters of Mike Behe's book propose several related
notions. See Stephen C. Meyer, "The Origin of Life and the Death of
Materialism" in _The Intercollegiate Review_ 32 (Spring 1996):24-43. See
William Dembski, "On the Very Possibility of Intelligent Design," in _The
Creation Hypothesis_, J.P. Moreland, ed., 1994. For other concepts in the same
family of ideas, do a search on the theoretical foundations of SETI signal
analysis.
Sorry but I'm not going to run a design theory tutorial for you, Tom.
When I wanted to learn about evolutionary theory, I got off my butt and
went to the library.
Lastly, you wrote:
>I want more details so you can show me that _it is_ testable. That's the
>whole point in my asking in the first place. Unfortunately, you haven't
>satisfied me.
I didn't expect to satisfy you. Maybe a few years down the road, when
the ID research community has matured and generated more publications,
I'll have higher expectations. But right now, seeing the promise in ID takes
some scientific imagination. Some creativity, if you will.
Paul Nelson
P.S. If you want to continue this discussion, contact me by e-mail.