From ResearchID.org

Dear Guest,

I welcome you to ResearchID.org. As a venue addressing the topic of intelligent design, this website is a definitive turn from the ordinary. Here you will not find the excitement of polemical and rhetorical debates about intelligent design. Those seeking isolation from the culture debate will find a cozy home here at ResearchID.org, where new theoretical ideas and concepts can have headroom. That is not to say we have no critics here, far from it. At ResearchID.org there is a sharp and resolute focus on the theoretical and scientific issues surrounding intelligent design, and any departure from the issues is strictly forbidden.

A Community for Researching ID
A major priority for ResearchID.org's administrative team is to provide a place where investigation of intelligent design can take place absent from the tumult of politics and social polemics that surround the issue of ID. A principle focus of this effort to escape the rhetoric is developing a fulcrum of discussion, so that all sides can speak the same language, instead of talking past each other as participants in debates about ID tend to do. This non-polemical environment can allow for accumulation of the "critical mass" that ID theorists mention when they speak of scientific research into a new idea.

ID and Science
New ideas in science have an interesting history, and ID is no different from the rest. Some parts of it are like the very successful ideas of the past, while other parts of ID are like the failures. Early in ResearchID.org 's development, one of our skeptical researchers asked me, "What mark does ID intend to leave on science?"

I stated that, "ID's mark on science is currently a heavily disputed point. If I knew the answer I would not be here. If I knew the mark was null and empty, I would be at Talk Reason. If I knew the impact was certain, I would be at town hall demanding that my school board teach it. But I am in a mid-point. The evidence seems to indicate that what we see in the universe did not come about by randomness and blind regularity."

Questions
How could science presume such notions of blindness and randomness as the dominant players in nature if the very idea of science is based on the assumption that the universe is ordered such that it can be understood by the human mind? Surely, a universe ultimately at the mercy of randomness and blindness cannot be the only assumptions of science. And they most certainly cannot be the only permissible questions. Randomness, blindness, and chance are words used in science to explain human ignorance, and as such are not sufficient explanations for scientific thought. There is more to be known, and more questions must be asked. The scientific picture of nature, which is increasingly ordered and informational by the second, does not bespeak randomness or blindness. This trend away from randomness and ignorance leads science to new questions about intelligence in the universe.

We at ResearchID.org are asking many new questions . . . about intelligent design. Many, many questions. Can phenomena, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause? Do the common features of biological organisms lead us most appropriately to an investigation of common descent or common design as the cause? Or, is it both? Does scientifically thinking about some phenomena in a design-theoretic perspective yield heuristic value by bringing informative, explanatory, or predictive results that can be utilized, tested, verified, or falsified? Does scientifically thinking about some phenomena in a design-theoretic perspective yield insight into solving problems addressed by the applied sciences, like engineering, technology, biotechnology, and medicine? What must ID do to make additional scientific in-roads?

These are some of the broad stroke questions currently under investigation by ResearchID.org. These questions lead us to a challenging and exhilarating investigation of nature. ResearchID.org was born from the firm conviction that this inquiry is required. ID critics would like to assert that asking these questions are an abandonment of reason and intelligent thought. At ResearchID.org, we see clearly that to leave these questions uninvestigated would be to abandon reason.

Anti-ID groups are now parasitical on the claims of ID for their existence. Unwittingly, they have become pawns and foils for ID theorists and researchers. The intelligent design community is in a position where we are setting the agenda, now all we have to do is to continue bringing more meat to the table.

What kind of meat? Here our focus is on three principal investigations: researching intelligent design theoretically, empirically, and technologically. These three areas of research are where the majority of ID’s focus needs to be directed. The inquiry underway at ResearchID.org is distinctly ID-focused, yet dispassionate; aggressively curious, yet as objective as possible.

Bon Appétit
I know that the intelligent design community (and its critics) will enjoy perusing these pages. To all of our guests; advocates, opponents, and the indifferent: I hope this website will incite you to think about the theoretical and scientific issues surrounding intelligent design. I also hope that we will inspire brave theorists and researchers to write boldly on this new paradigm.

Again welcome to our site and make yourself at home,

Joey

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Joseph C. Campana

Founder and Webmaster, ResearchID.org

http://www.researchintelligentdesign.org

jccampana at gmail dot com