"One last charge must be met: Orr maintains that the theory of intelligent
design is not falsifiable. He's wrong. To falsify design theory a scientist
need only experimentally demonstrate that a bacterial flagellum, or any
other comparably complex system, could arise by natural selection. If that
happened I would conclude that neither flagella nor any system of similar
or lesser complexity had to have been designed. In short, biochemical
design would be neatly disproved."
Thanks, Pim, for posting this. It makes perfectly clear that what Behe,
Johnson and colleagues have chosen to label a theory of "Intelligent
Design" is _in fact_ an hypothesis of "Extranatural Assembly."
My question is, Why the continued employment of the misleading label, ID?
In modern usage, to be 'designed' is to be thoughtfully conceptualized for
the accomplishment of a specifiable purpose. 'Design' is an act of mind
that is clearly distinguishable from 'assembly,' which is an act of the
hand (or something equivalent).
The Behe, Johnson, et al, version of ID opens the door to the preachers of
Naturalism (broad worldview definition) to say, if life forms evolved, then
there need be no Creator-Designer. The promotion of this version of ID
will, I believe, turn out to be highly counterproductive for Christians
(and other theists) in their apologetic engagement with Naturalism.
Howard Van Till