The proponents of intelligent design spend a lot of time pointing out the supposed problems with the theory of evolution. This has left me, for one, a bit hazy about exactly what their own theory says. Does anyone know what exactly it covers, whether it is falsifiable and, if so, what the test to prove it wrong is, exactly?
Their theory says that at some point, sometime, somewhare, something happend which cannot in any reasonable proability be explained by gradual accumulation of genetic changes propagated through a process of genetic drift and natural selection and sexual recombination. By a process of false dichotomy a guiding intelligence is inferred.Originally Posted by Mulder
Neither the hypothesis nor the antithesis have been falsified. Many candidates have been put forward for things that Mr Science Schmience Smarty Pants Biologist hasn't explained. Sometimes because they haven't tried to explain it but are working on in, sometimes because they have increasingly sophisticated plausible evolutionary pathways that the person they're explaining to refuses to make the effort to understand.
The hypothesis may be falsified by rigorously accoutning for every geneitic event in the last 3 to 4 billion years. The antithesis may be falsified by discovering any number of evolved features evolution says would be impossible.
Argument also goes that 99.9% of mutations are deleterious, thus the number of mutations required to evolve from a single cell organism to a horse is 1001,000,000, and is thus inconceivable even allowing for the billions of years supposed by scientists (though shown incorrect by the bible). Where precisely this calculation comes from I am unclear.
The argument is taken by some to argue that evolution is OK so long as there was a guiding hand (god) to give it some direction, as left to its own devices mutation and natural selection could not explain the complexity of life (god of the gaps).
There's a lengthy discussion here, including the question of testability:
http://www.talkorigins.org/design/faqs/nfl/
It's also worth keeping an eye on The Panda's Thumb. It reports developments on evolutionary biology and the fight against creationism\ID, it's style is can get a little technical but it's generally understandable.
As an added bonusyou can see many of the 'arguments' used by the creationists and watch them get ripped to shreds in the threads
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