Pericles,
Just so you know, your full quote was originally in my response, but the 350 word limit forced me to cut it down. As it stands, my point remains the same. In the context of the discussion with Peter, there was no problem in arguing the way I argued. You failed to consider the author's intent and audience of the post, and so your comments are really addressing your own misintrepretation, not my point.

"In other words, ID is evidenced by a lack of evidence on how DNA might exist without ID."

Rubbish. Known designed objects show high specified complexity and irreducible complexity, and no known non-designed objects show high specified complexity and irreducible complexity. As such, it is a simple positive inference based on evidence, not lack thereof, that can detect design.

Spendocrat
"Evolution is the only theory regarding the origins of life that is falsifiable. There have been countless tests, any one of which could prove evolution false. The results, time and time again, verify evolutionary theory."

Nonsense. Name 3 tests that have been done that could of proven evolution false.

"If you accept micro-evolution you must accept macro-evolution, because they are the same process and no one has ever provided a decent reason why change should stop at the boundary of the species. The boundary doesn’t exist, it’s just a concept."

More nonsense. Limits have been observed time and time again. Darwin's finches, with their beak size changes, oscillate around a mean. There has been no experimental observation that supports the notion that the process has no limits. There has been observations to support it does have limits.

Xena
"ID is such a dead end - imagine if Louis Pasteur looked at his petri dish and thought what a mystery lies here, must be god..."
How ironic you talk of Pasteur, as he was the one who experimentally showed that life does not come from non-life. This finding has never been contravened. As such, the scientific thing to do is assume that natural law and chance are insufficent to explain the origin of life.

Now Grey, just saying "rubbish" and "nonsense" isn't going to cut any ice here.

"Known designed objects show high specified complexity and irreducible complexity, and no known non-designed objects show high specified complexity and irreducible complexity. As such, it is a simple positive inference based on evidence, not lack thereof, that can detect design."

What you have done here - and you know it - is to introduce some terms that have no clear definition, and to proceed to use them in a manner that supports your argument. Once again, using your premise as a self-defining proof. Same old same old.

The lack of definition in "irreducible complexity" is well known and understood, but it might be worth going over briefly here. Michael Behe described IC thus in his book "Darwin's Black Box"

"By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning."

The key furphy here is what, exactly, constitutes a "system". Dunkelberg's summary is still the neatest:

"How do we decide when the term IC applies? Organisms don't come with parts, functions and systems labeled, nor are 'part', 'system' and 'function' technical terms in biology. They are terms of convenience. We might say, for instance, that the function of a leg is to walk, and call legs walking systems. But what are the parts? If we divide a leg into three major parts, removal of any part results in loss of the function. Thus legs are IC. On the other hand, if we count each bone as a part then several parts, even a whole toe, may be removed and we still have a walking system."

Irreducible complexity is simply another Wookie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_Defense

Grey said: "Known designed objects show high specified complexity and irreducible complexity",

Well im assuming the pencil im chewing is a designed object, but I’d hardly call that complex.

Actually im willing to bet out of all the 'known designed objects'(we primates produce most of them) their common property, regardless of complexity, is that this complexity is completely reducible.

Being someone who makes their living from design, I would suggest that simplicity and elegance is a virtuous principal of good design (have a look at an ipod some time, now that’s design). And secondly that design is in itself a process of reduction, whereby the endless possibilities are slowly (incredibly so in the case of architecture) reduced to a physical object.

Now compare that to the chaotic mess (wonderful as it is) of failed species, extinctions, favourable and unfavourable mutations and constant competition (natural selection anyone?) that makes up the constantly fluctuating biosphere of this planet.

Grey, you do your argument no favours to suggest that all designed objects are complex, and all non designed objects are not, thereby saying since life is complex it is evidence that it must be designed. Such a statement is clearly illogical and in fact has moved no further towards evidence than, as pericles put it "ID is evidenced by a lack of evidence on how DNA might exist without ID", or even more simply again "the god of the gaps". as usual we are going around in circles.

I guess you would say that 'mans creations are a pale imitation of gods', or something to that effect, but I would suggest that this is also problematic for your idea since you are clearly basing your 'evidence of design' as you said it, on a positive inference of a correlation between what you observe as being characteristic of man made (known design, which I have already suggested is problematic) and a godly designer.

"Known designed objects show high specified complexity and irreducible complexity, and no known non-designed objects show high specified complexity and irreducible complexity."
You mean other than biological objects? I'm serious, well sort of. I know you don't accept those as non-designed, but the theory evolution easily explains "high specified complexity and irreducible complexity", Pericles' point on the meaning of IC notwithstanding.

Complexity in evolved forms is almost inevitable; it's what happens when new things get added to old things. The things that form part of a biological process will evolve just like anything else and that will mean that they will adapt themselves to the features of the process. The different parts of the biological process will evolve together, adapting to each other or in other words, becoming more specific.

Irreducible complexity, when defined as above, is just that parts in their (current) form are interdependent. The main ID argument here is then that no individual component could have evolved individually, so it must have been designed. This is an obvious false dichotomy, and reveals a serious misunderstanding about how evolution works; the simple explanation is that the components evolved together over time or from an earlier version of the system where parts were not so closely dependent. If the total incapability of a certain system to have evolved could be shown then that would be fine, but it has never been done and the fact that these complex structures grow up from small groups of cells into will make that very unlikely.

I would like to remind posters again that evolution is not abiogenesis. Evolution is not about the creation of life, it is about the development of species. Evolution fits perfectly with God putting the first cell on Earth and then letting it evolve.

As much as this discussion about evolution is interesting the point of my article was not essentially about creationism versus evolution. It is obvious that I am on the side of evolution and I think that the arguments marshaled on its side have been rather good. However, the main point is about theological methodology. Do we argue from below, that is from the impossibility of evolution, the historical fact of miracles, the bodily resurrection of Jesus to God or do we favor a theology from above in which we accept the Christian story of God making His move towards us? Our scientific orientation would favor the former, where is the historical evidence? It is my view that theologians who take this path (Pannenburg) end up with a stilted theology that is dependent upon un provable historical fact. What happens to this theology if the bones of Jesus are discovered? In the same way IT does it’s theology from below and is likewise contingent on the vagaries of science. In opposition to this Karl Barth accepted the bible as proclamation and did not rely on historical fact (other than the existence of the man Jesus) to bolster his view. Scripture was accepted on its own terms in a way that we would now call “post modern”. He did not feel the need to deal with Darwin in his doctrine of creation because he felt that the science of evolution had nothing to do with the creative word of God. It is obvious that this is the better path, the first quest for the historical Jesus did not help theology and the second quest, now underway, will fail as well. The desire for evidence is post Enlightenment thinking applied to an inappropriate subject. The objectivity of theology is that object presented to us in scripture. That is why I have insisted on using not scientific language to make my point but the language of the church.

Getting back to the main thread, teaching ID in Biology...
Given that a theory is "A coherent statement or set of statements that attempts to explain observed phenomena, and which has testable implications." Wikipedia. I'm just wondering when the teachers start talking about ID what are they going to propose for some tests? And how will god be used to explain the observable facts of evolution? When the kiddies point out that whoever designed the human eye really botched it up by designing it back to front when they could have used better designs seen in other creatures what is the answer? When they ask about the many flaws in human anatomy what is the answer going to be? "God made it so"? And if the defence is "man used to be perfect but fell from grace" what are you going to show for evidence of the perfect man from Adam's time?