SpecialFrog said:
Is intelligent design merely an "argument from ignorance?"
http://elshamah.heavenforum.org/t1720-is-intelligent-design-merely-an-argument-from-ignorance?highlight=ignorance
God of the gaps
is a comfortable way to try to criticize and reject a argument and avoid to address actually the issues raised. Atheists resort to it all the time, even when a robust case is made, with clear and detailed observation , and logical inference and conclusion.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/01/why_intelligent068151.html
" In all of our experience of cause and effect, we know that complex and sequence-specific information, when it is traced back to its source, uniformly originates with an intelligent cause. Therefore, when we find complex and sequence-specific digital information encoded in the hereditary molecules of DNA and RNA, the most plausible candidate explanation -- given what we do know about the nature of information -- is that it also originated with a source of intelligent agency.
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1186
Is intelligent design merely an "argument from ignorance?"
No. Some critics have misunderstood intelligent design and claimed that it is merely claims that because we can't figure out how some biological structures could have arisen, therefore they were probably designed. The argument for design is not like this. In reality, the argument notes that intelligent design theory is a sufficient causal explanation for the origin of specified (or irreducibly) complex information, and thus argues from positive predictions of design. The lack of detailed step-by-step evolutionary explanations for the origin of irreducible complexity is the result of the fact that irreducible complexity is fundamentally not evolvable by Darwinian evolution.
Misrepresenting the Definition of Intelligent Design
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/11/misrepresenting_the_definition028051.html
Behe at the Dover trial : (Day 10 AM Testimony, p. 110.)
"This argument for design is an entirely positive argument. This is how we recognize design by the purposeful arrangement of parts."
Behe also made this clear in the afterward to Darwin's Black Box:
rreducibly complex systems such as mousetraps and flagella serve both as negative arguments against gradualistic explanations like Darwin's and as positive arguments for design. The negative argument is that such interactive systems resist explanation by the tiny steps that a Darwinian path would be expected to take. The positive argument is that their parts appear arranged to serve a purpose, which is exactly how we detect design. (Darwin's Black Box, pp. 263-264 (2006).)
Scott Minnich and Stephen Meyer also explain the positive argument for design:
Molecular machines display a key signature or hallmark of design, namely, irreducible complexity. In all irreducibly complex systems in which the cause of the system is known by experience or observation, intelligent design or engineering played a role the origin of the system ... in any other context we would immediately recognize such systems as the product of very intelligent engineering. Although some may argue this is a merely an argument from ignorance, we regard it as an inference to the best explanation, given what we know about the powers of intelligent as opposed to strictly natural or material causes. ("Genetic analysis of coordinate flagellar and type III regulatory circuits in pathogenic Bacteria," in Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Design & Nature, Rhodes Greece (2004).)
This specified complexity, also called complex and specified information (CSI), is a tell-tale indicator that intelligence was at work. Meyer explains why this makes for a positive -- not negative -- argument for design:
by invoking design to explain the origin of new biological information, contemporary design theorists are not positing an arbitrary explanatory element unmotivated by a consideration of the evidence. Instead, they are positing an entity possessing precisely the attributes and causal powers that the phenomenon in question requires as a condition of its production and explanation. (Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, Vol. 117(2):213-239 (2004).)
