Simple question for the ID proponents

Mallon said:

So, just so we're clear, here's what I understand of your position:

1) You think Intelligent Design, defined largely by the identification of irreducibly complex systems, is falsifiable.
2) Because of this, you also see ID as a valid field of science.
3) Even if irreducibly complex systems could be accounted for via evolutionary exaptation, you would still continue to believe in an Intelligent Designer (i.e., God).

Am I wrong in my understanding? If not, how in the world is Intelligent Design falsifiable if you continue to subscribe to the notion of an intelligent designer even after irreducibly complex systems have been simplified/reduced? Unless I am gravely mistaken in my understanding of your position, it strikes me that anyone who believes this is a might bit inconsistent, no?

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Intelligent design isn't the theory that there is an intelligent designer. It is the theory that it is possible to prove scientifically that a designer has acted supernaturally. Surely you believe there is an intelligent designer?

Markus6 said:

Intelligent design isn't the theory that there is an intelligent designer. It is the theory that it is possible to prove scientifically that a designer has acted supernaturally. Surely you believe there is an intelligent designer?

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Thank you.

I don't even think it is necessarily anti-evolution.

Markus6 said:

We have a concept of what is irreducibly complex. We apply that concept to identify a number of irreducibly complex systems. Surely if we then reduce ONE example of irreducible complexity that means our entire concept of what is irreducibly complex is wrong? You could then come up with a new concept that doesn't include the reducable as irreducible but to cling to the old concept and say you have to reduce EVERY example before the concept has been disproven is clearly wrong. If you can't come up with a new concept then call them what they are - currently unexplained systems as opposed to theoretically unexplainable.

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All true. One elaboration, however. Each new acheivement is solving an area of complexity seems generally to open up a new area with even greater complexity than what was just solved. For example, we think we get to the bottom of things with the subatomic particles, but then we end up talking about multiverses. Similarly, the cell seems only to get more complex, not less.

Mallon said:

So, just so we're clear, here's what I understand of your position:

1) You think Intelligent Design, defined largely by the identification of irreducibly complex systems, is falsifiable.
2) Because of this, you also see ID as a valid field of science.
3) Even if irreducibly complex systems could be accounted for via evolutionary exaptation, you would still continue to believe in an Intelligent Designer (i.e., God).

Am I wrong in my understanding? If not, how in the world is Intelligent Design falsifiable if you continue to subscribe to the notion of an intelligent designer even after irreducibly complex systems have been simplified/reduced? Unless I am gravely mistaken in my understanding of your position, it strikes me that anyone who believes this is a might bit inconsistent, no?

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I think you pretty much have what I am saying, except I just don't see you spin on it at all.

I have no idea how you get there. If you are going to assume than any theism is necessarily off-limits, then you have taken your notion of what "falsifiable" means and adjusted it to fit your agenda.

If one could reduce the irreducibly complex, one would seem to start having a knowledge that approaches the knowledge of God. It hardly seems fair for science to generally define a notion of inquiry (falsifiability) but find it to be invalid just because it leads to God. We have tried to state this time and again that, indeed, scientific methods do lead to the mystery of God and there isn't a way to exclude him.

For example, one could examine by historical science the evidence for the resurrection. That conclusion is one that most TEs agree upon.

But, just because falsifiability is hard doesnt mean that the something isnt science. It means its really hard science, adn maybe too hard for us. Then what science can do is study why it is to hard, what the boundaries of knowledge are and why that points to something God like, but preferably to YHWH Himself. This is not the same as having a seance over your petri dish or doing some other Gurdijeff-like crap and pass it off as science, all of which represents stuff excluded by an appropriate boundary.

Markus6 said:

Intelligent design isn't the theory that there is an intelligent designer. It is the theory that it is possible to prove scientifically that a designer has acted supernaturally. Surely you believe there is an intelligent designer?

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Interesting. So why can't there be a science of what seems to be beyond us, or a study of what the limit of science is?

And how about psychology. That is considered a science, despite the fact that it is also susceptible to the worst abuses of charlatans. That entire science has enormous problems with insoluble problems and theoretical boundaries. ANd they used to drill people's heads!

Markus6 said:

Intelligent design isn't the theory that there is an intelligent designer. It is the theory that it is possible to prove scientifically that a designer has acted supernaturally. Surely you believe there is an intelligent designer?

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It is more the idea that it is possible to show there is an intelligent designer, because their intelligent designer wouldn't use evolution.

busterdog said:

Interesting. So why can't there be a science of what seems to be beyond us, or a study of what the limit of science is?

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Well studying what seems to be beyond us is what science does. If it didn't seem beyond us we wouldn't have to study it.

Philosophy of science addresses some of the limits of science but the act a doing science can also show limits. For example the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (if we know the position of the particle we can't know it's momentum) and the fact that no information passes the event horizon of a black hole (so we can't know what came before the big bang). Those are theoretical limits to science, discovered by science.