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Questions I would like Intelligent Design Proponents to Answer

Maybe as far as space travel is concerned.

But, while you are awaiting budget approval for such a massive undertaking, we would like to investigate some other options that will lead to innovative solutions to our biological problems now.

People don't care. People want their bling bling and unless you force them to reach for something greater, you get cell phone innovation.

Going to sirius will require advancements in biological science far beyond what the pursuit of bling leads to.
 
(Skipping to the end, so apologies if someone posited this question already...):

Is the designer still alive? If so, how do you know?

Puts the IDiots in the position of either having to acknowledg that the designer is eternal (i.e., God), or that ID has nothing to do with God.

Where is the designer? Does he/she/it move around? What are his/her/its dimensions? What is he/she/it made of? What does he/she/it now do? How did he/she/it come to be? Will he/she/it die? Is there any shred of scientific evidence that would give us answers to any of the above?
 
Gagglegnash said it best earlier. Anything can be explained by saying "God made it that way."

If Evolution was all a hoax, then how come those actively using it in fields such as medical research, agriculture, animal conservation, oil drilling, and organic materials research, etc. seem to think it is a real science?

How does one go about using evolution? Either way, I think I get your point, and I've heard IDers explain it like this: When God created Adam, he created him as an adult male. Adam did not have to grow older, he was born old. Same with the Earth. It's only 6,000 years old, but it was created as a 6 billion year old planet.

Getting IDers to answer these questions within your parameters is futile. You can't apply logic to crazy.
 
Acceptance of Intelligent Design would require a redefinition of science to include the supernatural. What benefit would the sciences obtain from accepting supernatural answers? Would a doctor be required to have a woman with an infection consult a priest or merely have the antibiotics blessed?
 
Acceptance of Intelligent Design would require a redefinition of science to include the supernatural. What benefit would the sciences obtain from accepting supernatural answers? Would a doctor be required to have a woman with an infection consult a priest or merely have the antibiotics blessed?
Most of them would say that was a "strawman" question, and that I.D. does not include the supernatural. (And, simply asking how I.D. would affect medicine was already covered by some of the other questions.)
 
Until we confirm that the I.D. is on Sirius, do you tihnk we will be able to apply I.D. to help make those advancements necessary?

All joking aside, I think I bring up a good point.

Would I.D. be as offensive if IDers, instead of using it as a tool to advance religion, used it as a tool to gather public support for genuine science and research?
 
Would I.D. be as offensive if IDers, instead of using it as a tool to advance religion, used it as a tool to gather public support for genuine science and research?
No, of course not! If I.D.ers were enganged in genuine scientific research, they would not be nearly as offensive.

They could be like S.E.T.I., but finding stuff out about life, instead of the cosmos.

S.E.T.I. is more respected by scientists, because (with a few minor exceptions, in the past), they are not prone to false alarms of intelligence.

Funny thing is that I.D. likes to compare themselves to S.E.T.I. The big difference is that I.D. is NOT making any new discoveries about anything, at all! They just sit around affirming their conclusions.
 
Most of them would say that was a "strawman" question, and that I.D. does not include the supernatural. (And, simply asking how I.D. would affect medicine was already covered by some of the other questions.)

Of course, but if it is not supernatural then what is the intelligent designer? If Darwinian evolution is a crock like they claim and, assuming a supreme xenosapient force created us, how did it get here in the first place? I have a feeling that we could toss the debate out the window and refer to such beings as Gods/Supernatural Forces anyways.

ETA: On second thought let me rephrase and include it to answer only those IDers who accept a supernatural force or deity as their ID. What benefit does science have by accepting the answer "magic man dun it"
 
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Thanks, everyone, for the contributions, so far! The following is a draft of the questions I chose, so far. I will present them to most target places in parts (not the whole thing at once). (Though, a few places might get the whole thing, at once. It depends on how I judge the "needs" of the audience.)

Any feedback would be appreciated.
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Part 1: The Practical Issues
1A. How can I.D. be applied to medical science, to help us fight diseases?

1B. How can I.D. be used as a framework for solving problems in any scientific field?

1C. If I.D. were to completely replace Evolution as the standard theory taught in U.S. schools, how would that give our students a competitive advantage in understanding the science of biology, on the world's stage?

Part 2: The Designer

2A. Where is the evidence that a Designer exists? And, why do so many Creationists act like this question is not even important, when they claim they are doing science?

2B. How are we to assess the engineering skills of the Designer? Can we determine what constraints existed for the Designer, in terms of materials, labor, and so forth? (This would seem important, if we are going to replace Evolution for use in medical research, for example.)

2C. Why are certain common characteristics of designed products absent in most life forms? (such as detachable and easily replaceable parts, or "maker" labels, for example) What prevented the Designer from giving us these things?

2D. How can we deduce the motives of the Intelligent Designer?

2E. Does I.D. claim that there is supposed to be a specific purpose for life on Earth? If so, how do you know what it is? (Or what they are? There could be more than one purpose.)

2F. Some people are under the impression that life looks as though it was either 'designed by committee' or perhaps 'competing contractors'. But, some insist that there was only one Designer. Can you develop a test to determine which is more accurate?

2G. If I were to claim that the "deducing of an Intelligent Designer" was nothing more than a type of paredolia phenomenon, how could you demonstrate otherwise?


Part 3: The Science

3A. Scientists are often motivated by the thrill of discovering new things. If you want more scientists to take Intelligent Design more seriously, how would you appeal to that?

3B. Could you define your technical terms, (and other words or expressions), that are likely to be misunderstood? For example: What is I.D.'s working definition of "Intelligence" or "Design"? In what ways do they differ from forces that are not intelligent and things that are not designed? (In other words, we are aiming for empirical definitions.)

3C. Why do so many I.D. proponents often (but not always) get scientific concepts wrong, such as: junk DNA, macroevolution, thermodynamics, Big Bang Theory, and the whole concept of Natural Selection, etc.?
How come so little effort has been made to "do your homework, and "know your enemy" better, before debating these issues on scientific grounds?

3D. What observations were originally predicted by your theory?

3E. Can you design an experiment that could invalidate (or "falsify") Intelligent Design, depending on the results?

3F. Why has Evolution, even in its provisional form, been powerful enough to change what I.D. proponents think, over time. But, I.D. has not been powerful enough to change what Evolution proponents think, so far?

3G. How come it always seems to be the evolutionary biologists who are publishing new, innovative results and findings, and not I.D. researchers? (If it is "luck", then why do they get all the "luck"?)

3H. If I were to claim that Intelligent Design studies do nothing but "affirm their conclusions", how could you demonstrate otherwise?

Part 4: The Competition

4A. Can your theory explain why the present distribution of plant and animals in the world came about, the way it is? Why are tomatoes and potatoes only native to the Americas, for example? Why are monotremes and a few placental mammals restricted to Australia? Why could they not have been distributed anywhere else?

4B. Can your theory explain endogenous retroviruses?

4C. For every example of Intelligent Design given so far, how come Evolution has also discovered a possible way for it to emerge, naturally? And, how come the natural method is usually the one making better predictions about the example's behavior? (For example: Evolutionary theory predicted the behavior of mal-formed bacterial agents, than Intelligent Design.)

Part 5: Politics and Values (These are not as important as the other four sections, though.)

5A. Why is it so difficult for I.D. proponents to distance themselves from religious fundamentalists?

5B. Why has so much of the resources spent promoting I.D. been used to fight court battles and school boards, and virtually nothing on labs or new research?

5C. Many creationists claim that Evolution is all a hoax, and a conspiracy theory. Why has there been virtually no effort, on the part of legitimate I.D. researchers to point out how Evolution science has already impacted our lives in positive ways? (Such as in the fields of medical research, agriculture, animal conservation, oil drilling, and organic materials research, etc.) How do you answer the accusation that you are "endorsing madness through inaction"?

5D. Some people are under the impression that the values behind the Intelligent Design movement are only based on fear, oppression, and guilt. Can you demonstrate otherwise?
 
Thanks, everyone, for the contributions, so far! The following is a draft of the questions I chose, so far. I will present them to most target places in parts (not the whole thing at once). (Though, a few places might get the whole thing, at once. It depends on how I judge the "needs" of the audience.)

Any feedback would be appreciated.

...

I'd like to see a question asking what the crux of the ID theory is. Until you got a clear definition of what's under discussion there is too much wriggle room. It's already clear from the thread so far that there's a diversity of opinion on what ID implies, and that, I suspect, is due to there being no clear definition given.
Alternatively you might want to state what you regard as the central claim(s) of ID at the beginning. Proponents can then self-identify even if they hadn't realised they were ID proponents.
 
(For example: Evolutionary theory predicted the behavior of mal-formed bacterial agents, than Intelligent Design.)

Minor nitpick: this sentence appears to be missing a word or two.

Otherwise, this looks like a very good set of questions. I look forward to your accounts of how they were evaded.

Dave
 
Why are certain characteristics of designed products absent in most life forms, such as detachable and easily replaceable parts, or "maker" labels, for example?
I am not a fan of this one as worded. Some things humans design do not have the items specified.

First, you are constrained by the materials chosen. The designers tried attaching a 2 inch label to a single cell, but the rivets kept popping and they gave up. I hear there is a project to attach a labels to the new elements at the end of the periodic table, but we can't seem to get our labels attached within the lifetime of the particles.

Perhaps the designers were not worried about glactic patents. Why bother to encode DNA that would print "Proudly made in Xhtwb Galaxy with union labor" on the skin?

We constantly replace individual cells within the body as part of our life cycle. Heck - stem cells can be anything, including cells that makes more stem cells. It is only the bigger structures that would fall under your replacement part category. Which leads to...

Why don't we make writing paper with detachable and easily replaceable parts? The cost of doing so dwarfs that of making another piece. Similarly, I venture to guess that the majority of life forms reproduce prolifically. Replacing the entire unit with 10 (100, 1000, etc) offspring may be "eaiser" than designing the individual unit to replace/repair large parts. Given the nature of biological materials, this may be the most efficient approach, though not optimal for the individual needing a new part.

CT
 
I am not a fan of this one as worded. Some things humans design do not have the items specified.
I did rephrase it slightly, in the draft:

2C. Why are certain common characteristics of designed products absent in most life forms? (such as detachable and easily replaceable parts, or "maker" labels, for example) What prevented the Designer from giving us these things?

But, perhaps I can word slightly better than that:

2C. Why are certain characteristics commonly found in many designed products absent in most life forms? (such as detachable and easily replaceable parts, or "maker" labels, for example) What prevented the Designer from giving us these things?
 
I think 2C still begs the question of why the designer *should* give us those labels.

I think that if you want to make the ID believers (note: as opposed to proponents who are likely going to covet their ignorance), you need to make the questions free of obvious bias/confrontational mindset against the theory. When trying to actually change someone's mind, it helps a lot to actually come off as giving the theory a fair chance while asking exactly those questions which highlight the weak spots.

You mentioned not putting all these questions to the same person, so I suppose you've already thought of this. I'd just like to flag those questions that will aggravate your opponent AND come across to neutral observers as unfair and aggressive. You may not respect their position, but you need to at least appear to give them a fair chance.

So, going over the questions:
1A-B: Very good.
1C is slightly biased, but not too bad

2A mentions Creationists, not "design proponentists" ;) and is a little biased - rephrase somehow
2B is great
2C begs the question as mentioned
2D-F are great
2G is fine if you're preaching to the choir.

3A could be rephrased along the lines of "Assuming the theory is accepted, list some of the top most interesting research avenues for Intelligent Design" The first part of that is simply to avoid a laundry list of "show evolution is wrong about X"
3B, 3D-E are great.
3C is exactly the sort of thing *not* to ask someone supporting ID - instant hostile reaction.
The rest of section 3 is also pretty bad, but not as much as 3C

4A is good
4B triggers the honest response "What about them?". Clarify the question
4C is biased

5B deserves to be asked, I think - someone who is on the fence deserves to hear the answer to that one.
The rest of section 5 is a little too confrontational.
 
An exciting field in science and engineering is the fabrication of materials based on designs originally found in nature. Why doesn't the Original Designer bring suit against such activity on the grounds of infringement of intellectual property? Can this question be answered without assuming some characteristics of that Designer?
 

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