1. The complex inner workings of a watch necessitate an intelligent designer.
2. As with a watch, the complexity of X (a particular organ or organism, the structure of the solar system, life, the entire universe) necessitates a designer.

Step 1 relies on our knowledge of the watch and how it was designed and created. Step 2 relies on our ignorance of X and how (or even if) it was designed and created. The idea is that we should explain what we don’t know in terms of what we do know, and since we know that the watch was designed, we should be able to explain what we don’t know about X as the product of design as well.

I’m not here today to argue the merits of this. Rather I wanted to point out the simple fact that such arguments will never go away.

“But Venture,” I hear you say, “as we learn more we’ll be better able to explain X as a result of natural processes, thereby chipping away at this argument!” There is one glaring problem with that view. History has shown us that the more we come to know, the more we also come to know how much we don’t know. It’s not that ignorance increases along with knowledge but that our awareness of our ignorance increases. The sophistication of the Intelligent Design arguments are a testament to that. Scientists such as Michael Behe use our ignorance to great effect by providing very detailed explanations of exactly what it is that we don’t yet understand and making a design inference from that.

The fact is that the design inference will never go away because it relies on our knowledge of one thing to explain our ignorance of another thing, and as science progresses we will always become more and more aware of both.

I would like to offer the following hypothesis: The universe was rigged. It was designed for discovery (a thesis put forward in The Privileged Planet), but also designed in such a way that there would always be an escape clause in the contract for those who are committed, for whatever reason, to reject the obvious.

This is such an amazing hypothesis because it is necessarily and provably true. Any evidence that the universe is designed obviously supports it since “It was designed for discovery…”. On the other hand, lacking that evidence, or any evidence that it was not designed also supports it since such evidence (or lack thereof) is the “escape clause” that is hypothesized. So you see all evidence either for or against the hypothesis as well as a complete lack of evidence all end up proving the same thing: that this hypothesis is true.

Don’t think about it too much. Your head might explode.

Looked at in this way, there are a couple of questions which seem to lie at the heart of the debate. First, can such a fact ever truly be established with sufficient certainty? Second, assuming that it can, has it been established? Most debates/arguments seem to revolve around one or the other of these questions.

Then recently I found this video floating around the blogofractal and it reminded me of why I loved those original videos.

Aron has the rare ability to explain things with such clarity that thereafter you can’t help but think that it’s just obvious. For example, Nick Matzke over at Panda’s Thumb said this about this particular video:

Everyone liked the immune system cross of Behe during the Kitzmiller case, but Aron-Ra has got the point so well he gets all the way down to the 3^rd- and 4^th-level emergency backup-backup excuse arguments Behe brings out to attempt to explain why his statements about the failure of the peer-reviewed literature were not refuted. And all in just a few minutes.

Then one day I was simply banned. Mid-debate, of course. In the end it was a good thing, because I tend to obsess over things, and frankly I had obsessed over ID for far too long. However, I still check in every once in awhile and it’s fun sometimes to write up comments that I’ll never actually be able to post. I always just delete them, even though I could post them here if I felt like doing so.

The problem is that there just isn’t the same level of debate that there was when I used to post there. When I first started commenting on that site there were ID folks lamenting and anti-ID folks praising the new more lenient moderation policies that had come into being since Dembski had moved on. Not knowing anything about that I just jumped right in and starting commenting and frankly it was quite stimulating. I had to learn so much about both ID and evolution just to be able to keep up with many of the debates. I would literally spend hours researching and crafting a comment for the greatest effect, much like I don’t do here on my blog.

Then one day I noticed some posts that were authored by Dembski himself and slowly things began to change. Over time I noticed that many of the anti-ID regulars were no longer posting. Sometimes I would see a comment here or there asking why someone was being moderated, and soon after I’d never see another comment by that person. More often a regular would simply disappear. It was a slow enough process that I didn’t notice much difference at first, but eventually most of the dissenters were gone. And then one day so was I.

Looking back I think I was commenting during a kind of golden age of UD debate if such a thing could be said to have ever existed. The moderation policy was still heavily weighted against non-IDists, but as long as you were absolutely respectful at all times you were allowed to make your point. (Of course, if you were pro-ID you could be as disrespectful and rude as you wanted without consequence, but what are you gonna do…it’s their site).

Now there is almost no real debate. It has truly become an echo chamber, and it shows in the pure inanity of the comments that are there now. Ridiculously definitive statements are thrown around almost without dissent, and are more often than not simply reinforced by other commenters. Of course, those kinds of comments were always there, but they used to fade into the background as people who actually knew what they were talking about would debate this or that point. It’s clear that most of the commenters over at UD don’t actually know or understand what ID is actually about. All they know is that it’s a way to believe in God while still claiming scientific validity.

It’s really quite sad to see. I enjoyed UD, but I don’t think I’d want to go back now, even if I could.

• Obama Team Continues Effort to Isolate Fox News – Of course Obama isn’t saying anything that isn’t known by pretty much everyone anyway. However, I’m not sure if this is the way to handle it. First pass impression is that this will backfire. However, what are the alternatives? Simply ignore it? Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll give it some thought and get back to you.
• Intelligent Alien Intervention Institute – A very good spoof on ID and their quest to work their way into the US schools.
• Futurity – I heard about this site from an NPR story. I’m not sure exactly what to make of it yet. So far it seems great. However, since the stories are direct from the sources, rather than being vetted by a professional Science journalist (a dying breed), they may not be as accurate as one would like. I’m keeping an eye on this one, and I may be making posts about stories found here soon.
• New view reveals how DNA fits into cell – I want to make a post about fractals soon, and I think this might be a good jumping off point.

That’s all I really have time for at the moment. I’ll try and get back to this as soon as I am able.

• Obama Team Continues Effort to Isolate Fox News – Of course Obama isn’t saying anything that isn’t known by pretty much everyone anyway. However, I’m not sure if this is the way to handle it. First pass impression is that this will backfire. However, what are the alternatives? Simply ignore it? Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll give it some thought and get back to you.
• Intelligent Alien Intervention Institute – A very good spoof on ID and their quest to work their way into the US schools.
• Futurity – I heard about this site from an NPR story. I’m not sure exactly what to make of it yet. So far it seems great. However, since the stories are direct from the sources, rather than being vetted by a professional Science journalist (a dying breed), they may not be as accurate as one would like. I’m keeping an eye on this one, and I may be making posts about stories found here soon.
• New view reveals how DNA fits into cell – I want to make a post about fractals soon, and I think this might be a good jumping off point.

That’s all I really have time for at the moment. I’ll try and get back to this as soon as I am able.

One restricts the term to the narrowest possible definition: what is commonly referred to as Young Earth Creationism. This definition states that a theory can only be considered creationist if it relies entirely on the book of Genesis for it’s premises and conclusions. Without that key ingredient a theory must be considered something other than creationism. It’s clear that this is the definition that TC is using. According to the TC post: “Creationism begins in Genesis and argues for certain conclusions based on a certain understanding of the Scriptures.” By this definition ID is certainly not creationism because belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis is not required to believe that ID is accurate.

The other broadens the definition to include any hypothesis/theory that requires some independent act of creation to occur, whether that be the creation of the entire universe in 6 days by The Almighty, the creation of each individual species over time, or the creation of each individual beneficial mutation in our DNA. There are many theories that fall under this definition (Young Earth Creationism, Progressive or Old Earth Creationism, Day-Age Creationism, etc…). The common thread is that they each state that creation occurred, but they each differ on exactly when and where. By this definition ID is certainly creationism because it requires multiple independent acts of creation to account for the existence of “certain features of the universe and of living things” (from the Disco Tute’s FAQ).

The real argument in the end is over which definition is the more accurate one. In my personal opinion the less restrictive definition is the more accurate one since it encompasses all acts of creation, not just the literal 6 days of Genesis. That is, after all, why it’s called “creation”-ism and not “biblical-literal”-ism. On the other hand, I can understand why ID proponents try so hard to enforce the more restrictive definition. The term “creationism” has immediate and well deserved negative overtones. TC admits as much in the original post: “It is known for its persistence in seeking scientific data that fits that interpretation of Genesis, and for finding creative but irregular interpretations to help in that search. As such it has gained an unsavory scientific reputation.” It is imperative for ID to distance itself as much as possible from the term, and using the most restrictive definition possible ensures that ID is left far outside of the creationist sphere. For that reason I doubt that ID proponents will ever admit to any other definition, whether they believe it to be the better descriptor or not.

Anyway, I’m getting off track here. I spent a good deal of time addressing every point that he raised, demonstrating clearly why it was off topic or just plain wrong. I hit the submit button and……….nothing. Doh! The page timed out while I was typing my response. Fortunately I did most of the editing in a separate text file. Copy, paste, submit and………nothing. Compose a test post saying only “Testing”, hit submit and………nothing. I look back at the thread and most of my posts have been deleted. Only one remains, and that’s the one that was supposedly refuted. And of course the so called refutation remains on the page with no way for me to rebut. That’s how they work. And they claim that they are the ones being oppressed by inappropriate censorship.

I’ve given up altogether, which is what I should have done long long ago. I’m deleting all my past posts on Intelligent Design and letting the IDiots stagnate in their own echo chamber. After all, if no one says you’re wrong, then obviously you must be right, right? And if you get rid of everyone that says you’re wrong, then no one will say your wrong and you’ll be right, right?

Yeah, right.

As I’ve said before…the most critical thing for the ID movement to be doing right now is developing its own intricacies and methodologies, designing and supporting a much more intense program for conducting new empirical research — funding this through our own donations and volunteers if necessary.

Ten years from now, if we’re still talking about whether or not evolutionism is true, the movement will have been an utter failure. Instead, the topic by then needs to be why scientists working under the paradigm of Intelligent Design theory are producing new and valuable discoveries, while scientists working under the paradigm of Evolution theory are stagnating under the weight of their own assumptions.

This is absolutely brilliant, and I think that if this were to happen it would be a wonderful thing. It would be one of the greatest paradigm shifts since Einsteins Theory of Relativity, and I couldn’t imagine not wanting to be a part of it in some way.

Having said that, I (and many others I’m sure) believe that such a thing will never come to pass. From what I know of the theory there doesn’t seem to be any way to turn it into anything that’s actually useful in the way described above. The ultimate conclusion of the theory seems to be that Some Guy Did It. By what means? Don’t know, can’t know. For what purpose? Don’t know, can’t know. What does it tell us about what we’re likely to see in biology as a result? Only that we’re likely to see whatever that guy happened to have done. So what exactly has he done? We’ll have to determine that by seeing whatever we happen to see.

I truly and honestly hope that I’m wrong, because I want to be one of the people that was alive and participating when the scientific revolution came. I just don’t hold out much hope that it will actually come to pass.