Friday, February 05, 2010

A Test for Intelligent Design

Intelligent design advocates claim over and over again that their pseudoscience is just "the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence". They claim to have a mathematically-rigorous way to detect design. Oddly enough, however, they have been unable to apply their methods to anything outside toy examples.

Wesley Elsberry and I posed eight challenges to intelligent design advocates in 2003. Now, almost seven years later, none of those challenges have been met.

Well, here's another opportunity for ID to prove its worth. The Cygnus bubble is a very unusual configuration discovered in July 2008. Although some think it is a nebula, others have suggested it is a Dyson sphere, proposed hallmark of an advanced civilization. Resolving this question is precisely what ID claims to be able to do.

So, how about it, intelligent design advocates? Let's have your answer, including full calculations.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has anyone ever given an example of something which is not intelligently designed?

Even an example of an unreal, hypothetical, abstract, or impossible object?

Tom S.

Anonymous said...

Tom S. what, like a rock?

Bill said...

How about a cubic pink?

Unknown said...

My ex-brother in law?

Bayesian Bouffant, FCD said...

Tom S. what, like a rock?

That examples fails for those who believe the entire universe was created by a sky fairy.

Blake Stacey said...

Windows Vista?

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace?

Anonymous said...

Paley's "Natural Theology" compares a rock with a watch, which seems to suggest that a rock is not designed. But, as BB points out, standard belief in creation says that all things are created. (Whether created is the same as designed ... well, I won't get into that.)
So it seems that the only things which we could take as examples of things that aren't designed would be unreal things.
But isn't every unreal thing that we can talk about something that is designed? Designed by human imagination? Whether a unicorn or a flat earth or a Penrose triangle?

Tom S.

Paul Nelson said...

We need to locate the galaxy-sized birthday party where very VERY large bottles of this were being given out as party favors.

Bayesian Bouffant, FCD said...

Has anyone ever given an example of something which is not intelligently designed?

Even an example of an unreal, hypothetical, abstract, or impossible object?


God. It fits all your adjectives, and proponents insist He does not have a designer.

Anonymous said...

To: Bayesian Bouffant, FCD

Excellent.

Thank you.

Tom S.

Miranda said...

God is impossible?

Anonymous said...

Miranda said...
God is impossible?


I had suggested that impossible things are always designed.

Tom S.