Faith Well Grounded

the fact that he made no mention of the supernatural is a pretty good indication that he made no mention of excluding it as a potential causal force-- especially considering that he was a Muslim with a creation framework for beliefs.

So supernatural (by definition, unrepeatable) causes are included *by default* in a process that relies on exprimentation and observation? That's rich!

Every accepted founder of our modern scientific discipline worked within this framework (of supernatural causal allowance), spoke of this causation in their scientific writings, and many even used their scientific writings as a platform for Christian apologetics.

You seem to gloss over the fact that they do not invoke the supernatural as a *scientific* explanation. They don't include the supernatural in the scientific process, they merely supplement the science with philosophical statements to cover the unknown.

Their contention is that natural selection is incapable of producing the awesome variety of life we see today. neo-Darwinism says that it is. That is a dualism. If ID proves itself correct, it will have disproved neo-Darwinism. If it doesn't then it hasn't. But to claim that there is no dualism is asinine.

What does ID say beyond "natural selection is incapable..." and goddidit? Is there anything testable beyond the negative arguments? If the negative arguments prove true, is ID the *only* other answer?

Further, at the very least, Dembski is offering a testable mathematical model for positive ID claims.

From what I've seen, it boils down to: check the probability of all the hypotheses we can think of, and if they're all sufficiently low, we can infer design. I'm pretty sure his filter has been applied to many things and shown to at least sometimes give incorrect results.

Because it is widely accepted does not mean that it isn't one philosophical acceptance over another.

Keep in mind the context here: teaching ID in public school. Your expanded definition of science to allow consideration of supernatural causation runs afoul of standing legislation, whether you like it or not.

the definition was changed to protect the "new" blood of academia.

Your assumption of the motivation for the current definition of science is unsupported.

Disproving that natural selection (the blind, non-rational process) is capable of such production of variation either proves design or sends neo-Darwinists back to the drawing board for a new blind, non-rational process, sans rational intent. Either is appropriate if natural selection is disproved.

There's that contrived dualism again. Natural selection fails, so design wins by default! What? No, we don't have to consider any other possibilities! That's up to the heathen evolutionists to figure out.

ID is proposing a mathematical model for testing design. Please stop claiming that it is nothing but negative argumentation. (Behe only asks that they prove a positive when they actually require that he prove a negative. Who is being more sensible?)

I'll stop the negative argument claim when a testable positive argument is provided.

After claiming that proving evolution is a too much to ask, you have stated that evolution (i.e. natural selection as the mechanism of creating the vast varieties of life on Earth) is proven and thus disproves ID claims (again... after claiming it wasn't a duality?).

Huh? I never said proving evolution is too much to ask. I said Behe's specific burden of proof for certain IC systems is unreasonable.

Please try to keep up on the duality thing: ID folks contrived the duality because the only testable arguments they could muster are negative arguments against evolution. Those have been refuted, but the religious central tenent can never be.

Defining science against supernatural causation isn't science.

When the scientific method deals with empirical evidence, experimentation, and repeatability, where exactly does supernatural causation fit in?

(For the record, ID is careful to not specify who the designer is. Just that it was a designer. It may be alien, supernatural...? ID doesn't try to say.)

They do that for a very good reason: because they got their butt handed to them by the Supreme Court in Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987. ID was born as a direct result of that ruling, something that the Dover trial made very clear.
Creationism - God = ID.