You have missed the point. All the “information” that you speak of is, in principle, no different than an arrangement of heads and tails on coins. The only differences? There are only two possible states for a coin, heads and tails. There are 4 “letters” in the biological “alphabet”, namely the 4 DNA bases.

I think we are never going to agree, since your assumptions and mine are different. You assume that there’s more to life than the proper arrangement of chemical constituents, and I assume that there’s nothing magical about life; it arises BECAUSE of that arrangement of chemicals.

Consider a final thought experiment. Suppose that the complete genome of a representative human is determined. Suppose you have the ability to arrange DNA nucleotides in whatever order you care to. Now assume that you arrange a sequence of DNA nucleotides in a sequence that’s equivalent to the human genome that you determined. My contention is that, in principal, you now have the ability, with some SERIOUS bioengineering, to create a human being genetically identical to the one whose genome you determined.

We do not take a leap of faith when we look at the evidence for evolution. We see the evidence, we seek an explanation, and evolution is it. If you have evidence for your alternative, please present it. If it’s valid evidence, it will get a hearing in the scientific community. Remember, in order to count as evidence, there must be something that would be evidence AGAINST your alternative. If every possible observation would support your alternative explanation, then you can’t possibly provide evidence in support of it.

Before you accuse the scientific community of not following this guideline, let me give you some examples of observations that WOULD falsify our current understanding of evolution.

1. Finding a form of life that did not use the same DNA code as what we observe. Each triplet of DNA bases encodes a specific amino acid. In principle, there’s no reason that life MUST use this specific code. A different code could work just as well. Also, it’s a non-overlapping triplet code. Different features, such as an overlapping code could possibly be successfully implemented into life. No such alternative DNA codes have ever been observed.

2. Even more fundamental: life that does not use nucleic acids as its informational storage medium would falsify the notion of common descent. There’s nothing in principle special about DNA; another molecule could conceivably be the hereditary material. Of course, all life discovered to date utilizes nucleic acids as hereditary material.

3. Finding a fossil of a modern rabbit that’s reliably dated to the precambrian era would not necessarily falsify common descent, but it would basically throw ALL current phylogenetic trees right out the window.

4. Similarly, the current phylogentic trees would be falsified by the finding of a fossil that shows evidence of both bird-like and mammal like features. That’s because the avian and reptilian lineages diverged before the mammalian and reptilian lineages did. There should be no common ancestor of birds and mammals that is not also a common ancestor of reptiles.

5. There are certain viruses that have infected reproductive cells in the past and left their DNA in future generations of organisms. DNA sequencing has recognized these insertions in a variety of organisms. The DNA of all primates, for instance, have some of these insertions in common. If a given insertion were found to occur in gorilla and human DNA, but not in chimpanzee DNA, that would falsify current theories of primate evolution. To date, all insertions found in gorillas and humans also occur in chimpanzees. The reverse is not true. There are insertions found in only human DNA and ones found in humans and chimps, but not gorillas. This is exactly as would be expected if the chimps and humans had a common ancestor that existed after the gorilla lineage had split off.

Your turn now. What observation could possibly make you give up your belief in the design of life? I’m not asking you to give up your beliefs. Just tell me what you (meaning a collective you, not you personally) could observe that would make you give up ID.

Those things looking like a little dot in between lots of alphabetic glyphs? They indicate the end of sentences. If they are not complete sentences, then you’d better take it up with the author. Since the line “Posted by” contains the name of the person who posted post number 55, that author would be one Greg Laden.

This Greg Laden in post #55 said “If true”.

Someone also posting under the name Greg Laden in post #58 posted “I didn’t say it”.

Now, either that post #55 was quoting someone else, there are more than one Greg Laden here, or you’re terminally stupid. You may feel free to include what you believe to be the cause for your confusion about whether you said “If true”.

And if you don’t think they are complete sentences, then you need to talk to yourself about your sentence construction.

Make yourself clear. You get one comment to do that.

Begin.

“55
…
If true. So far that’s unsubstantiated and post hoc. Papers in science are almost always crappy presentations anyway.

Posted by: Greg Laden Author Profile Page | October 7, 2011 8:05 AM”

Now it may be that you were quoting someone and the origin of that disappeared. In which case this is simple confusion between us.

If you weren’t quoting someone else, then that was you.

Take your meds, honey. You’re losing it.

I don’t really get your point. If you’re quibbling about a probablity of 1/1E30 vs 1/1E80, fine, then add 166 more coins to my example, and the probabilities work out the same. Further, you are begging the question. You state my example is irrelevant because there’s no purpose in the arrangement of coins, but that there is in life. However, that’s the question at hand: is there a purpose in life? You can’t just assume that there is and point to features of life as evidence of that purpose. You must, if you want ID to be scientific, look objectively at the evidence and find some evidence that is consistent with purpose and inconsistent with lack of purpose. My coin example is meant to show that such evidence CANNOT exist, so ID cannot be considered scientific. If I am wrong, then please tell me what evidence is INCONSISTENT with design. If you can’t tell me what observation would lead you to conclude that life is not designed, then design is not a scientific hypothesis.

As for my other example, you have completely missed my point. I am quite aware of what an IC system is. It is a system in which removal of any component renders the system non-functional. I am also quite aware that some biological systems are irreducibly complex. The claim has been made that it is IMPOSSIBLE for such an IC system to result from evolution. My example is meant solely to refute that claim. If you claim that this isn’t the claim made by ID, then fine, but you cannot then use IC systems as evidence for ID.

My example shows that IC systems CAN evolve. I am not an evolutionary biologist or a microbiologist (or a biologist of any stripe) so I cannot say from my own knowledge whether any biological systems that are IC ACTUALLY evolved in that way. My example does refute the ID claim, however, that evolution of such systems is not possible.