Meyer’s predictions:
(1) High information content machine-like irreducibly complex structures will be found. – STATUS: “Irreducible complexity” is in the eye of the beholder. In any given instance, you can make a case for it and a case against it.
(2) Forms will be found in the fossil record that appear suddenly and without any precursors. – STATUS: This is inherent to examining the fossil record, which is necessarily incomplete, due to the difficulty and rarity of significant new finds. Also, the point is equally a prediction of some non-Darwinian evolutionary theories. Thus the point, even if true, resolves nothing in favor of ID.
(3) Genes and functional parts will be re-used in different unrelated organisms. – STATUS: This is inherent to genetics and again predicted by evolutionary theory, as retroviruses carry genetic segments across species.
(4) The genetic code will NOT contain much discarded genetic baggage code or functionless “junk DNA”. – STATUS: Disproven. The genetic code is famous for its long stretches of “junk DNA” – DNA whose patterns, presence, and relative (not total, but relative) uselessness are best explained by evolution and of a kind that any human designing a cell or species “from scratch” would leave out.

Anyway… Minnesotans for Global Warming have a great new video:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/12/025064.php

Enjoy!

ILC, my knowledge of cell biology is limited. I don’t doubt what you are saying here. What I meant though was when cells first came into being, there was no one to make the conditions 100% ideal for cell formulation. In that sense, I don’t believe that scientists said that the first cells “just happened.” However, perhaps I’m wrong about that as well.

Ashpenaz, I think you are trying to make a point here. If you are saying that if some natural random process such as evolution lead to humans, then similar random processes such as building Stonehenge are just as likely (or unlikely) to occur as Stonehenge being developed by erosion. Therefore, the only way a structure such as Stonehenge (as well as any construction today) could have happened is if humans came about through some Intelligent Design. I don’t buy it.

Here is a list of Meyer’s predictions based on ID in cells:

Table 1. Predictions of Design:
(1) High information content machine-like irreducibly complex structures will be found.
(2) Forms will be found in the fossil record that appear suddenly and without any precursors.
(3) Genes and functional parts will be re-used in different unrelated organisms.
(4) The genetic code will NOT contain much discarded genetic baggage code or functionless “junk DNA”.

Even if there is still overwhelming evidence that manmade GW is happening, these scientists blew it…

Just to make it precise, my view is:
- There is global warming.
- Whether it’s man-made is another question, and a doubtful one.
- Even if it’s man-made: eco-socialism cannot possibly be the right answer.

No, Pat. These scientists didn’t “blow it.” They accepted millions of dollars in public grant money and engaged in a deliberate fraud, passing off their “scientific conclusions” as indisputable fact and suppressing dissent. These are not minor players in the climate science community–their “work” is the underlying basis for the efforts being made by international organizations to suppress American sovereignty and the basis for efforts being made by our own Congress to saddle our crippled economy with destructive regulations and to redistribute American wealth. (Not to mention the basis for Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth.) The credibility of the ClimateGate scientists CANNOT be restored. They’re done. And the only way that the credibility of the rest of the climate science “community” can be saved is for its members to unequivocally and unanimously condemn the ClimateGate scientists, purge them from their ranks, and actively support harsh criminal and/or civil consequences for their transgressions. It already appears, however, that they will choose politics over science because Phil Jones has not been summarily fired, but instead has merely “stepped aside” to allow the investigation at Penn State to go forward. Translation: the “investigation” will be a whitewash, designed to exonerate the offenders and their politically-motivated assault on science.

Faith is called “faith” for a reason. It isn’t knowledge. If we could see Jesus’ Resurrection on video, then it wouldn’t faith; faith would be quite unnecessary. Kierkegaard talked, rightly, about what I call the a-rationality of faith; that it is something outside rationality, a leap that the believer makes with fear and trembling. Some among the religious know enough to spout Kierkegaard when it suits them, yet in other contexts they want to justify their faith as a form of knowledge – as, for example, something validated by science.

And I don’t ever recall a scientist saying that a cell “just happened.” I believe one theory is a bunch of organic molecules (of which there are plenty) got together, and somehow organized.

Pat, take an intro class or two sometime in cell biology. The “somehow” of how and why organic polymers assemble themselves in liquid media (water) is fascinating. And it involves the science of chemistry, with a brief digression into entropy theory (physics); but you needn’t go beyond high school chemistry and physics to get the picture. It’s amazing, regardless of one’s form of religion.

“scientists recreated natural conditions”–do you see the contradictions in that phrase?

Nope.

those conditions can’t exist unless some*one* creates them

Emphasis added, to highlight the question-begging. (Forcing a particular answer by assuming it to begin with.) It would be more accurate to say that some*thing* creates conditions for life and for the self-assembly of the various organic polymers it involves; and that something may or may not be automatic and impersonal, or may or may not believe / proclaim a particular religion.

The Universe itself is one giant, continual creative process, Ash. Now is that creative process God? If so, what kind of God? And how much intention is required for the Universe’s creative process, and what is the mechanism by which it is implemented? Those are all perfectly fair questions – and they are questions for philosophy / religion to answer. Unless they yield testable predictions, they simply aren’t scientific questions.

As to Meyer’s predictions, you might, I don’t know, skim through the book? Look at his little video?

This is a blog discussion, Ash. When I’ve been in the same situation in the past – that is, wanting to quote a book or video – I’ve kindly transcribed / provided quotations from said book or video. Golly, you think that’s a possibility?

I think it’s probably insane to believe that Stonehenge is a natural outcropping, just as it is insane to think a cell “just happened.”

Well, let’s put it this way.

- Stonehenges don’t happen in nature.
- Whereas cells happen in nature all the time. Your own body has at least 1,000,000,000,000 of them. Imagine that.

It would indeed be insane to believe Stonehenge is natural. While for cells, the reverse is true: It would be insane if anyone seriously believed that cells aren’t natural. The real question is: what is involved in “natural”? How much of “natural” shows the hand of what designer, having what specific nature, characteristics and purposes? Intellectually honest people answer those questions with philosophy or religion. They don’t try to dress up their answers as an altogether different tool – actually quite a specialized and limited tool, a surprisingly poor choice for the scope of the questions involved – namely, as science.

As a possible analogy, my belief is that OJ Simpson murdered his ex-wife and companion. The fact that the LAPD made some sloppy analysis, with the suggested planting of evidence, didn’t change the fact there was plenty of clear evidence leading to his conviction. However, the bad mistakes did have enough people question all the evidence.

That’s exactly what COULD be happening here. Even if there is still overwhelming evidence that manmade GW is happening, these scientists blew it, and it’s going to take time to get their credibility back. You would think that if things will be bad as they suggest, they would have done everything in their power to not undermine their own credibility.

Ashpenaz, I agree with both. Stonehenge obviously was created by humans. I think that’s a fairly safe assumption. Since no one alive today actually witnessed it, I suppose that there is that very slightest possibility that humans did not create it.

And I don’t ever recall a scientist saying that a cell “just happened.” I believe one theory is a bunch of organic molecules (of which there are plenty) got together, and somehow organized. And gradually, over time, one-celled organisms developed with various stages of prototypes leading to it.

Evolution is a fact. What is not a fact is the various details, such as when humans diverged from other great apes from a common ancestor, or exactly how life did begin. God may have done all this. But the question is still how this all happened.

As to Meyer’s predictions, you might, I don’t know, skim through the book? Look at his little video?

I think it’s probably insane to believe that Stonehenge is a natural outcropping, just as it is insane to think a cell “just happened.”