Evolution without accidents and also no intelligence?

…
that life on Earth has by and large been designed by some form of high intelligence…..

Funny, sounds exactly like wiki’s definition of religion “the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.”

You just choose to name it something else than god. It’s still not science, sorry no way saving that one no matter what terminology you choose.

Funny, sounds exactly like wiki’s definition of religion “the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.”

You just choose to name it something else than god. It’s still not science, sorry no way saving that one no matter what terminology you choose.

OK so let's say astronauts land on Mars someday and find a collection of gadgets full of electronic circuitry in a cave somewhere. Are they forced to explain that by 'natural causes' or are they OK to say that they have found artefacts built by some form of intelligence?

David

Funny, sounds exactly like wiki’s definition of religion “the belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a God or gods.”

You just choose to name it something else than god. It’s still not science, sorry no way saving that one no matter what terminology you choose.

ID scientists in their enterprise use the methods of science (hypothesis, prediction, experiment, etc.) to rule out natural causes for evolution. This is in itself scientific work. It happens that their work does in fact rule out the RM + NS "natural causes" defined by the Darwinian theory. That then leaves whatever else there is. The fact is, the only actually observed source of design and invention is intelligence, namely human. Then there are the "Third Way" evolution theories based on supposed natural genetic engineering carried out by the organisms themselves. There are also other speculations. And some of the ID scientists may have their own private religious beliefs, but these beliefs do not enter into their science activity. Regardless of the indeterminate status of finding the actual source of engineering design of life, the work is science.

In any case, your definition of "science" is artificial and founded on historical causes. Early in the formation of the foundations of science it was decided (primarily out of fear of the Church and God being able to get a "foot in the door"), that "science" had to be defined as either absolute or methodological materialism, so that it inherently excluded any Divine or other supernatural or immaterial causes.  This was a pragmatic and also philosophical or metaphysical decision that automatically excluded as if it didn't even exist the most important thing of all to us - the essence of our existence, consciousness. That this was a colossal mistake is now coming home to roost so to speak, in the continuing failure of neuroscience to explain consciousness as the work of the physical brain, and in the failure of evolutionary biology to uncover the source of design in life.

An illuminating article in Evolution News by Casey Luskin effectively and comprehensively took apart James Shapiro's ideas (as of 2011) re. a natural self-generated and non-ID alternative to Darwinistic RM + NS, at https://evolutionnews.org/2011/08/james_...ion_a_vie/ . The article is a review of Shapiro's book, "Evolution: A View from the 21st Century".  

The following quote is long but worthwhile, and I think Luskin's analysis demolishes Shapiro's concepts, at least as they had developed by that time. Question 3 is by far the most telling and important one.

 "There are three questions that Shapiro’s model must face:

(1) Does Shapiro’s model really reject Darwinian evolution and random variation?
(2) Can we explain the origin of these “self-modification” mechanisms?
(3) Can these “self-modification” mechanisms explain observed biological complexity?
Let’s briefly look at these questions. - C. Luskin  (a geologist commenting on results in Micro-biology)

Shapiro and the scientific community are focused on scientific research results, not philosophy questions it raises in others.  I am sure you guys understand this at some level. 
Question one is phrased in the language of propaganda, with the issue not in the data, or analysis, but about subjective feelings.  In fact in the real world RM+NS is not taught as the exclusive path to speciation!  The paradigm has changed and ID is NOT the cause.  Hard science killed Dawkins and P. Z. Myers science rant.

Report on a working model for genetic diversity, such Shapiro et all have crafted, needs to be backed with researched facts.  It doesn't need to address popular political ideas.  Science is about --> HOW.  Luskin is asking for a why, as a reflection of his personal worldview?  A why that matters in metaphysics and not in findings from observing nature.  Why all the emotion?

Why are you be so sad that neoDarwinism is dead.  Hell, I have decades of encouraging a better model of mind in evolution and relish its collapse.    
 from the book review

 Professor Shapiro's [Evolution: A View from the 21st Century] is the best book on basic modern biology I have seen. As far as I can tell, the book is a game-changer.
—Carl Woese, University of Illinois, founder of phylogenomics and discoverer of Archaea, the third domain of life

Woese was not a geologist.

Shapiro and the scientific community are focused on scientific research results, not philosophy questions it raises in others.  I am sure you guys understand this at some level. 
Question one is phrased in the language of propaganda, with the issue not in the data, or analysis, but about subjective feelings.  In fact in the real world RM+NS is not taught as the exclusive path to speciation!  The paradigm has changed and ID is NOT the cause.  Hard science killed Dawkins and P. Z. Myers science rant.

Report on a working model for genetic diversity, such Shapiro et all have crafted, needs to be backed with researched facts.  It doesn't need to address popular political ideas.  Science is about --> HOW.  Luskin is asking for a why, as a reflection of his personal worldview?  A why that matters in metaphysics and not in findings from observing nature.  Why all the emotion?

Why are you be so sad that neoDarwinism is dead.  Hell, I have decades of encouraging a better model of mind in evolution and relish its collapse.    
 from the book review

Woese was not a geologist.

There seems to be a reading comprehension issue here. You don't seem to have clearly read Luskin's critique. Luskin's analysis is plainly the asking of scientific questions and the reasoning out of their answers given the evidence: this is the hows, not the whys. His logical questions and subsequent analysis are obviously not philosophy, politics, emotional appeals, propaganda, subjective feelings, etc. 

If, as you apparently would like to believe, his three questions and associated analysis are all of these non-scientific things, then please explain in a little detail. Otherwise please actually rebut his actual scientific reasoning that answered those 3 questions.

Shapiro and the scientific community are focused on scientific research results, not philosophy questions it raises in others.

The best science is aimed at both scientific research and thus to philosophical questions!

ID is a research program, and its aim is to illustrate the flaws in traditional RM+NS and the flaws in the efforts of Shapiro et al to claim there is a third way to solve the problem - basically by waffle!

David

Shapiro and the scientific community are focused on scientific research results, not philosophy questions it raises in others.  I am sure you guys understand this at some level. 
Question one is phrased in the language of propaganda, with the issue not in the data, or analysis, but about subjective feelings.  In fact in the real world RM+NS is not taught as the exclusive path to speciation!  The paradigm has changed and ID is NOT the cause.  Hard science killed Dawkins and P. Z. Myers science rant.

Report on a working model for genetic diversity, such Shapiro et all have crafted, needs to be backed with researched facts.  It doesn't need to address popular political ideas.  Science is about --> HOW.  Luskin is asking for a why, as a reflection of his personal worldview?  A why that matters in metaphysics and not in findings from observing nature.  Why all the emotion?

Why are you be so sad that neoDarwinism is dead.  Hell, I have decades of encouraging a better model of mind in evolution and relish its collapse.    
 from the book review

Woese was not a geologist.

To continue my response:

Quoted below are a few of the key observations by Luskin. Please show how exactly these are non-scientific philosophical, political or emotional, etc. outpourings, and secondly, how they are false. And it's true that Luskin is a geologist not an evolutionary biologist, but that doesn't prevent him from furnishing a penetrating analysis of Shapiro's and other Third Way researchers' ideas. The proof of the pudding here would be actual credible arguments demolishing Luskin's analysis point by point, not just generalized claims. 

Under question 1:

"While he notes that many of the mechanisms he cites provide a higher “probability of success” (p. 130) than mere point mutations, we’re still dealing with a trial and error process where variation arises, in an important sense, randomly without regard to the needs of the organism. The hope is that some of those changes will stick."

Under question 2:

"Shapiro does not even attempt to explain how complex capacities to change — which he claims amount to a system of “cognitive networks and cellular functions for self-modification” could be produced by random mutations for selection to preserve."

Under question 3:

"After all, many of the “natural genetic engineering rearrangements” he cites entail observations like “LINE-1 elements associated with deletions in human genome variation” or “Many inversions associated with L1 repeats.” (pp. 122-123) No doubt those are accurate observations, but is that evidence that some complex mutational mechanism can produce (and has produced) new traits by coordinating multiple regions of the genome?"

.......................................

"Shapiro’s ideas are certainly interesting, but his claim that these complex mutational mechanisms like “horizontal transfers and the movement of transposable elements through chromosome rearrangements [and] whole genome duplications and cell fusions” (p. 128) can spontaneously produce radically complex traits is not conclusively established. Much here is speculative, and much is inadequate: (for instance,) “domain swapping” (p. 130) cannot explain the origin of domains in the first place."

Question one is phrased in the language of propaganda, with the issue not in the data, or analysis, but about subjective feelings.  In fact in the real world RM+NS is not taught as the exclusive path to speciation!  The paradigm has changed and ID is NOT the cause.

I think the fundamental point here, is that RM+NS is at least a genuine theoretical possibility that has been seen to operate in certain simple cases. Indeed, how could it fail to work in some cases - such as the mutation that causes sickle cell anaemia? For people living in a region where malaria is rife, that mutation provides significant protection, but damages the gene for haemoglobin.

If a despot decided that all people who were not a certain colour were to be killed, then after a time the population would 'evolve' so that everyone was that colour!

To me, the problem with TTW-speak is that it is deliberately vague because it doesn't offer an alternative mechanism. I am sure that whatever conventional biologists say, they are only too hungry for an alternative mechanism to RM+NS that doesn't break the somewhat arbitrary restrictions imposed by materialism. If the TTW crowd could provide a detailed explanation for an alternative mechanism for evolution, they would be embraced by biology full stop.

David