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Friday:

Critical Decision-Making: Science, Religion, and the Law Judge John E. Jones on his "intelligent design" case. 2 p.m. at Community College of Philadelphia, Student Life building, 1700 Spring Garden St. The difference between science and religion | Philly | 04/18/2011

I will be there.

Ahh, too bad. I wish I could go. I would like to challenge Judge Jones on a few points.

If it's science related, I would be more than happy to school your ass on the finer points myself.

This is Saturday BTW.

Ok, you can start with this which has several fields intertwined. There is basically a telological question of whether life is designed. Darwinism answers the question negatively. Intelligent Design answers the question affirmatively.

How is one answer non-scientific and religious while the other is completely scientific and non-religious?

They are either the same type of answer or not. Judge Jones couldn't grasp this but he was just copying and pasting his opinion from friend of the court filings anyway.

No, because they're not at all the same question. Evolution assumes stuff comes from other stuff. Since we have plenty of stuff around, and know where it comes from and where it goes, we have a real, non metaphysical system. ID assumes a designer, but has no empirical evidence of one. Show me physical evidence of a designer (patents or blueprints, a serial number, or maybe let me meet him) and maybe I'll take him more seriously than the Easter Bunny. BTW, I just ate a chocolate Easter Bunny, and it was delicious. Can you even show me a chocolate Designer? Maybe if I can eat your god, and he's yummy, I'll be more inclined to believe.

Your problem here is that's not the question. Natural selection, sexual selection, genetics, and the other methods by which organisms evolve have nothing to do at all with religion, make no claims for or against, nor have any relevance or bearing on religion. Not to mention that evolution has NOTHING to do with the origin of life. The question is whether it is legal to teach creationism, which it isn't, and that ID is just creationism under a different guise.

tsk tsk. saying (writing, rather) such things on the most holy of days, the Zombie Day. i guess good Xtians will have to just turn the other cheek.

More to the point, by nature, a "telological question" is not scientific. Geoff's inability to understand that by asking a question that has "several fields intertwined" he is getting peanut butter in his chocolate. Just as with that wonderful Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, that has both things in one wonderful snack, the peanut butter doesn't stop being peanut butter, and the chocolate doesn't stop being chocolate. Of course ID answers his "telological question" affirmatively. Ask a religious question, get a religious answer. His main error is believing science answers the question negatively. The scientific answer to his question is, "are you an idiot?"

Is it a chocolate cheek?

Because teleology is not empirical. Science relies on empirical observation. Hence teleology cannot be scientific.

"Darwinism" is not any sort of science I know of--it is rather a straw man ideology. Evolutionary theory cannot possibly be used to ask the question of design--because design is teleology--and because (again) teleology is non-empirical and hence inadmissible in the field of scientific evidence.

Think of science as sort of a trial, if it helps. There's all kinds of evidence you can marshal to make your case, but there are still guiding rules on whether said evidence is admissible or not. The ability to observe, and for multiple parties to repeatedly observe, a phenomenon is the primary guiding rule for evidence admission in the court of science.

I can't reply to every single post, but I'll make a few brief points. If you can't answer teleology scientifically, Darwinism is not scientific because it makes specific claims about the topic.

But teleology is not empirical? Archeology, forensics, and other disciplines rely on infering intelligent agency. And dare I say it, it isn't like Darwinism is based on empirical science. It's a historical science. Has anyone shown that mutations can build any sort of life from the ground up in a step-wise fashion? Not even remotely close. You can't rerun biological history. And that isn't a slam against Darwinism. It's just the nature of the beast.

And it is the Darwinists who can't distinguish between the answers and questions regarding teleology and the implication of those answers. If the implications of an answer gives support to religion, then the whole enterprise is religious. Not really. But in my experience, most Darwinists can't do philosophy well at all.

Since "Darwinism" is ideology and not sound science, I'll highlight which arguments can be thrown out by the use of misdefined inflated language. This is the equivalent of attempting to use evidence gained by torture in a civilized courtroom setting--you'll get laughed out of the trial and the defendant will always win.
But teleology is not empirical? Archeology, forensics, and other disciplines rely on infering intelligent agency. And dare I say it, it isn't like Darwinism is based on empirical science. It's a historical science. Has anyone shown that mutations can build any sort of life from the ground up in a step-wise fashion? Not even remotely close. You can't rerun biological history. And that isn't a slam against Darwinism. It's just the nature of the beast.

And it is the Darwinists who can't distinguish between the answers and questions regarding teleology and the implication of those answers. If the implications of an answer gives support to religion, then the whole enterprise is religious. Not really. But in my experience, most Darwinists can't do philosophy well at all. This leaves me with:
But teleology is not empirical? Archeology, forensics, and other disciplines rely on infering intelligent agency. "Archeology, forensics, and other disciplines rely on inferring intelligent agency" because we know who the intelligent agent is. It's people. You can't claim an intelligent agent without claiming empirical evidence--there's that phrase again--of exactly who the intelligent agent is. Teleology attempts to claim an intelligent agent without empirically--observationally--confirming the existence thereof. It is not on the same plane as "archeology, forensics, and other disciplines" because unless you can observationally confirm which agent was active in the creation process you can't claim intelligent agency. This argument, which, again, due to your insistence on using terminology that unsound, unscientific, rhetorical, and inflammatory (weren't you the one claiming to have a philosophy degree, too? You should know how important using the right language is) is the only remotely valid counterclaim you actually fielded, is false. It's the logical equivalent of saying one and one equal sheep. It's bogus. I'll say it again. This argument is bogus.

We should let SETI know this. Fortunately, they are losing their funding, at least for the time being.

You do understand the difference between a designer and a neighbor, don't you?

Neighbors design radio signals. Intelligent Design, as a general framework, is about detecting design. It doesn't claim to jump from the detection of design to the identity of the one doing the designing. That is left for philosophy or theology to work out.

But in terms of SETI, that's just applying the principles of Intelligent Design.

Dude. There are lots and lots of radio signals from space. Many occur naturally. And there is the prejudice of your argument. SETI doesn't apply the principles of intelligent design. It uses actual science. It doesn't say "Hey, there's a radio signal, it's a sign of Extraterrestrial Intelligence!" Instead, it looks for, and eliminates any other possible explanation. To date, despite finding thousands of promising signals, it has yet to find one that qualifies as being a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence. Not one. ID, on the other hand, makes an inference of a designer, but what testing does it do? Seriously, explain the rigorous empirical process ID goes through to test any evidence it finds. How much, if any, of your evidence has been tested, found lacking and discarded over time. Real science finds its mistakes and corrects them all the time. Does ID? Cite some examples, please.

I'm aware of all that and have taken it into consideration.

You are showing your ignorance of what Intelligent Design proponents have actually written. More on that after I finish quoting you.

One of the foundational books for the Intelligent Design movement is "the Design Inference" by William Dembski (btw-published by Cambridge University Press and peer reviewed, probably published before the implications were apparent to the publishers). In it, Dembski describes the process for determining whether something is designed or not. Eliminating causes and chance, etc. are all part of that. In other words, exactly what you mentioned SETI is trying to do.

So, then....it should be easy for you to cite (as I asked) numerous examples of ID correcting its errors?