It seems to me that one who believes in ID will have good reason to look for design in living things. I don't think that's uselss; in fact, biologists already do it. ID predicts that the biosphere will have many, many examples of design. Neodarwinism predicts that there will be many, many examples of apparent design, or "designoids." These are, as Dawkins puts it, things that appear to have been designed by intelligent agents but really weren't. Thus, biologists try very hard to figure out what various structures and systems are for. Their research is guided by teleological assumptions, but with the added footnote that it's not *that* kind of teleology (Thus the word "teleonomy" is coined).

My point is that ID has the same kind of utility that neodarwinism has; the difference lies in how that utility is accounted for. But that does not make one approach useful and the other useless. I submit that in terms of utility the two approaches are equal, since they both tell us to look for design. But they cannot both be true. Therefore, the determination of which one is true cannot be based on utility...

Professor Okimoto writes, "ID can make no predictions on the difference between natural mutations and selection and designed systems."

This is incorrect. ID can does make such predictions. Behe's approach, for example, predicts that attempt to generate IC systems using undirected natural processes will fail in real time. That is a definite prediction, and readily falsifiable.

"How will we determine the designed differences from the random mutations?"

One way is this: We can try to determine what is the shortest sequence of mutations from one genotype to the other, and figure out whether the number of mutations involved is consistent with what is independently known about rates of mutation, genetic drift, etc.

"SETI would be doomed if all they expected to find were unlikely combinations of naturally occurring signals."

Good point. I'm glad I never asserted such a thing.

"We have lifeforms."

Yes.

"We know they got here somehow."

Yes.

"The only means of origin of these lifeforms that we have evidence for are natural means. We have no evidence of any outside interference (space alien or supernatural)."

No. Irreducible complexity is prima facie evidence of non-natural means.

"The only evidence that opponents have is that they don't understand something, so we should give up and go with something that we have no evidence even exists."

No. We *do* understand something about irreducibly complex systems, namely that the ones whose origin we have direct knowledge of are all made by intelligent agents. That's real knowledge, and it simply won't do to ignore it. And as I've had to point out repeatedly, evidence for design *is* evidence for the existence of a designer. Further evidence, though no doubt welcome, is not necessary.

-- Todd Moody, assoc. prof. of philosophy, St. Joseph's University (posted 2/11, 5:25 p.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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