Deuc – An appeal to authority is only invalid if the authority being appealed to is not an expert in the field or if they are biased. (plus a few other minor reasons) That Hume is a hostile witness means that an appeal to his expert opinion is not fallacious. That ape-brain giving you trouble again? http://www.fallacyfiles.org/authorit.html

On virtual particles, wow…so now you think the first and second laws of thermodynamics don’t apply either. Why are you trying to destroy science? That you try and change the meaning of nothing to something is more evidence of the lack of quality in your argument.

Re: Assertions. Once again you are trying to shift the burden of proof. Why should I have to give more support for my disagreements with your positions than you do for your position. The burden of proof is on you. If you don’t want to support things, then really your points are worthless.

Re: IC, yes, I said that evolution has not been shown to create IC via observation or experimentation. This is because your claim was that evolution does show it is possible to generate IC. You are unable to support this statement with any observation or experimental evidence.

Re Induction: I did leave out the middle step of how we determine designed objects in other areas by IC. This was mostly due to the 350 word limit and that it is implied by my comments. Different characteristics don’t matter much here as they haven’t been shown to relate to the characteristic(IC) being looked at.

Alchemist: Your comments are self-refuting. If everyone has a right to believe what they want, then this includes beliefs about forcing their beliefs on others. This means your comments cannot be correct. Yet still it seems as if you want to force your beliefs (about understanding) on others, the very thing that you object against.

Pericles: Color me dense, but I do not understand your point. Can you rephrase or expand to explain it more as I don’t see a problem with what I have said or the reports summary?

>>Color me dense, but I do not understand your point. Can you rephrase or expand to explain it more as I don’t see a problem with what I have said or the reports summary? <<

Grey, let me try just one last time.

You said: "over 80% of the american population believe that ID is correct"

When asked to provide your source, you said "check the gallup poll of October 13"

There was not a relevant poll on that day, but there was a release from their news service, and I assume this is what you meant.

In that report, a Sept 8-11 poll was referred to, that asked the question "Which of the following statements comes closest to your views on the origin and development of human beings". In the column "Evolved, God Guided" was the figure 31%. The other answers allowed were "Evolved, God had no part" and "God created man exactly how Bible describes it".

The difference is 49 percentage points. That is, you inflated the proportion of US citizens who "believe that ID is correct" by 158%. You have had ample time to revisit your source, but instead assumed that no-one would bother to check.

I may be robinson crusoe on this, but to me, this spells intellectual dishonesty. The reason I take it seriously is that there are others who might think "well, 80% eh, that's pretty convincing", totally unaware that the figure is specious, provided cynically by someone so unsure of their ground that they need to resort to fiction.

Is that perhaps a little clearer? What "color" are you now?

DavidLatimer:”If anyone wants to verify misquoting, use the FIND command and type “lower apes”, where Grey misquotes and Big Al responds thinking it’s a real quote. Can anyone verify Grey’s misquote allegations?”
I gave a commonly used concrete example for your general comment “The clearest example of ongoing testing is the various genome projects. These continue to show that DNA is modified along established branches of the evolutionary tree and doesn’t jump across branches. Prior to our understanding of DNA, similar work was done looking at the migration of species across island chains, however genome evidence provides much stronger and measurable support for a common ancestor.”

Have I misrepresented your point with my example? Are you not assuming that DNA similarity implies common ancestry? If I have misrepresented your statement please explain how.

Grey:“I have never claimed that nobody else is properly arguing” denies Grey (27/10).

DL: Really? What about “You need to actually make an argument” and “make an argument for your position” “you have no given any refutation” “continuing with assertions but not arguments” “unsupported accusations”

The key words here are ‘nobody else’. I certainly suggested that some people were not providing arguments for their assertions. This does not mean that I said nobody else was doing it.

”Grey says he cannot decline to answer an unasked question.”
Sorry David, but once again you misquote me. I said that [me] asking a question before I respond is not refusing to respond.
Perhaps you should relax and think about things a little before you overheat. You might make less mistakes then.

As for “creationists CLAIM…” There is no claim. It’s verifiable that Dr Humphrey’s predicted the field strength based on his creation based hypothesis. That you attempt to cast doubt on the truth of this by using ‘CLAIM’ is a pathetically low act and it shows just how biased you are. As for verse 14, I have no idea what you are talking about.

It is becoming more obvious that you have no interest in truth and would just prefer to enforce your own faith on others schooling.

Whether he is a hostile witness or not is irrelevant. Even if Hume was an expert, his statement could not be an exercise of his "expert opinion". As I said the first time it was a response "to those who were mistakenly taking his epistemological examination of causation as an attack on the very idea of causation"; it was not a reasoned discourse. Hume was of the view that we can't demonstrate causation, and that the only reason we perceive causes was because of our nature. He couldn't show it's logically absurd, if anything he demonstrated that it's logically valid even if actually absurd. His response was only his personal opinion and not based in reason. How is he meant to be an expert on something he concedes it is impossible to know? He can't.

Nice comeback about the virtual particles, you're certainly validating the comments of other posters. As I've said I'm no quantum physicist, from my quick look it seems to be something to do with the uncertainty principle, and the incredibly small amounts of time the particles are in existence before annihilating each other, with some saying that it does break one of the laws.

"Why should I have to give more support for my disagreements with your positions than you do for your position."
It wouldn't be more support, you haven't even stated your disagreements, my points have been posted for a week now.

"This is because your claim was that evolution does show it is possible to generate IC. You are unable to support this statement with any observation or experimental evidence."
Stop being obtuse, you know that the formation of such complexity takes too long to be demonstrated that way. And I didn't claim "evolution" shows it is possible, just that evolution can explain it.

All the things with IC that are known to be designed are recent creations or are lifeless, don't grow and are not the result of, nor capable of propagation. That restrains potential manners of producing IC, but those not known to be designed lack those limitations.

Pericles: I understand and agree that it is important to be accurate and honest in discussions and debates. That being said, I still don’t see how what I said was even remotely inaccurate.

ID is a broad concept that says “that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology” (Dembski – Intelligent Design 1999).

Please tell me in what way the statement that ‘God created man exactly how the bible describes it’ is incompatible with ID.

As such, it is completely accurate to have both the 31% who said God guided evolution, and the 53% who said God made man as per the bible as approving of the ID position.

I made no assumption that people wouldn’t check and instead hoped people would. They can see for themselves if they create a 30 day free trial account with gallup and view the report themselves here http://brain.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=19207&pg=2
My confusion is understandable as I naturally assumed I was missing something, when instead it seems that you are the one who has got it wrong.

This idea of ID seems so religious to many people. However as a scientist I have agreed with everything in this article. Science should always allow for the exploration of ideas and the discovery of new concepts. Why throw out a theory that has substantial preliminary evidence? The only reason for throwing the idea does not appear to be based on Science but always appears to be based on the religious implications that this Scientific theory can have. Hence it is actually a prejudice against religion that could want people to throw this ID theory away not genuine scientific rationality and analysis. As a scientist here is another idea of what could support ID.

Another example of ID is the nature of protein production and DNA replication within every living cell. Proteins are needed within a living cell to make the DNA replicate which leads to the cell living and replicating. Without proteins the DNA would not be able to replicate. Without proteins the cell would not be able to live and replicate. However protein production is coded from the DNA. So to produce DNA proteins are needed, however to produce proteins DNA is needed. Hence proteins and DNA have to have formed or been introduced to the cells environment at the same time. At this present time it seems impossible for the chemicals that make up DNA and the chemicals that make up proteins to be synthesised in the one environment. This leads to the scientific conclusion that a designer instead of evolutionary chance was required for proteins and DNA to come together.