Predictions of intelligent design
From ResearchID.org
Predictions listed here are based on design and teleology, which almost always go hand-in-hand. The major headings are the observation. These predictions are not a complete departure from the methods and assumptions of science currently being used.
Here are a few questions to consider when approaching this topic:
- What do you see as the heuristic value of intelligent design?
- What kind of implications do you see when following the heuristic that there are teleological aspects to the origin and unfolding of phenomena in the universe?
- What kind of predictions do you see when following the heuristic that there are teleological aspects to the origin and unfolding of phenomena in the universe?
- How do you see those implications and predictions being tested?
These questions require new ways of looking at the existing evidence, new ways of seeking pathways to new research, and new means of testing hypotheses.
Please note: These predictions are theoretical proposals for brainstorming research ideas. These are highly speculative and have not gone through any research or testing yet.
Contents |
Developing predictions
It is important that any confirmed predictions claimed as evidence for ID not be easily accessible to atelic evolutionary biology in the form of random chance, blind natural forces, or their cooperation. As such, it is necessary to discuss possible Evolutionary Explanations for these predictions.
Design Analogues
- If intelligence is an intrinsic aspect of nature, more design analogues will be found.
- More examples of isomorphic instantiation will be discovered.
- The technological successes of Biomimicry will continue.
Artificiality and context
- Designed phenomena will be found in environments where order and organization are not likely to arise by random or unifunctional natural means.
- Perhaps life will be found where the habitat is hostile to the emergence of life, or the environment is generally sterile to biological life.
Function
- Much so-called “junk DNA” will turn out to perform valuable functions. See Decoding DNA, Nucleosome code, Pyknons, Fractal Genomics, and design, law, and chance for more on this.
- Natural structures will be found that contain many parts arranged in intricate patterns that perform a specific function (e.g. complex and specified information).
- In general, vestigial organs (sic) will yield some function for the organism. See design, law, and chance for more on this.
- The correlation between habitability and discovery will strengthen. See Privileged Planet for more on this.
Information infusion and/or Front-loading
- Informational structures beyond the inherent abilities of blind natural forces and random chance will be found.
- (One of the only ways to gain greater understanding of the abilities of chance and forces is to study them and test their limits. This prediction is one of the many reasons that research into contingency and forces, including natural selection and random mutation, is absolutely and indispensably necessary in the design paradigm.)
- Forms containing large amounts of novel information will appear in the fossil record suddenly and without similar precursors.
Order vs. Organization
ID will bring more clarity to nature's abilities to yield order and organization.
Purpose
Step one of the design process. Problems must be defined by setting goals and purposes before they can be solved. What is meant by "defining problems" is that specific purposeful goals and requirements for any particular accurate and precise design need to be set by a designer. The more specific the goals and requirement, the more complex, accurate, and precise the design will be. The intelligence characteristic called "volition" is required to define problems. Volition shall be defined as the ability to make the choices and decisions required to act, or not to act, to both define problems, as well as, to choose to solve problems.
An example of why problems need to be defined can be seen by setting opposing requirements for two different designs. One design may require river water to go down hill to generate power through a dam. On the other hand, a second design may require river water to be forced uphill to irrigate a farm field. This demonstrates that two opposing requirements can create two opposing problems. There is always an infinite number of possible problems that can be defined. It is only intelligent agents that can use volition to set problem requirements (problem definition) before any design purposes and goals can be performed to solve problems. This is why natural undirected processes cannot solve problems, because the problem must first be defined by choosing from an infinite set of possibilities by intelligent agents.
According to Darwin natural selection produced apparent design which was mistook for true design. Therefore, these issues need to be examined from the origin of life (OOL) perspective because this prevents the circular reasoning of ID critics.
Many levels of intricate, hierarchical, coordinated layers of predictive behavior (foresight), volition, and imagination (We call all of this deep thinking) is required to even conceive of the interdependent accurate and precise coordinated systems required in the first living cell.
Can chance define (or frame) problems by choosing from an infinite set of possibilities or is volition of an intelligent agent needed?
Plan
Step two of the design process.
- Convergence will occur routinely. That is, genes and other functional parts will be re-used in different and unrelated organisms.
Execution
Step three of the design process.
Realization
Step four of the design process.
Lurking variables
Many of the current methods used in the study of complex phenomena only take into account chance and law. These anti-teleological approaches constantly face frustration and are forced to admit virtual agnosticism with regard to much of the complexity in nature, like the origin of life. If design is intrinsic to nature, but it is not being considered, it is a lurking variable. The inclusion of design as a variable in research could lead to new discoveries that were previously unattainable because the anti-teleological bias obscured potential predictions, explanations, and solutions that are dependent on design-theoretic investigation.
Conceptualization and Actualization
Because of the processes inherent to designing, the concept of ID will have to be explored before the actualized design can be explored.
Potential Predictions
Choice/directed contingency
Complexity
Living cells are made of mostly all proteins. There are two possible different types of protein production designs:
A. Specialized
B. General purpose
Specialized protein production machines would obviously require an enourmous amount of specialized protein hardware that would have all had to come together by natural undirected processes. This is type type that should be expected if the first replicator were formed by natural undirected processes.
However, the general purpose programmable protein production machines that are actually there today is far more compact. But wouldn't these systems require planning using many levels of extrapolative behavior to insure the versatility needed to generate all of the hundreds (?) of different proteins required by the first replicating cell?
Goals
External links
- The Theory of Intelligent Design in the view of Casey Luskin
- Is Intelligent Design Testable? A Response to Eugenie Scott] by William Dembski
- Intelligent Design is Empirically Testable and Makes Predictions
- FAQ: Does intelligent design make predictions? Is it testable?
- Two Prediction Sets and Their Consequences for Applying Intelligent Design Theories
- A Response to Paul Laddis By Tristan Abbey @ IDURC (contains some interesting predictions)
- Can Intelligent Design (ID) be a Testable, Scientific Theory?
- Nine predictions, if Intelligent Design is true by Denyse O'Leary
Blogging about ID predictions
- Harvard Origin of Life Project: An ID Prediction at UncommonDescent.com
- Harvard’s origin of life project: Taking intelligent design seriously - sure, but what follows? at UncommonDescent.com
- Predictions of Privileged Planet by Joe G at Intelligent Reasoning
