Thank you too for engaging me in an interesting dialogue.

The so-called ?inferior? design sometimes turns out to be a misinterpretation due to human ignorance or incompetence. Let us review one recent case.

Darwinists used to claim that the inverted retina of vertebrates is bad design and that a designer would not have created the eye that way. The thing is that light has to pass through several retinal layers to get to the photosensitive cells at the back of the retina. And this is considered ?bad? design, for why were the photosensitive cells, it is asked, not placed at the front of the retina so that light did not have to travel all the way to the back of the retina through several retinal layers before the visual signal is transmitted to the brain? Dawkins protested:

?Any engineer would naturally assume that the photocells would point towards the light, with their wires leading backwards towards the brain. He would laugh at any suggestion that the photocells might point away from the light, with their wires departing on the side nearest the light. Yet this is exactly what happens in all vertebrate eyes. Each photocell is, in effect, wired in backwards, with its wires sticking out on the side nearest to the light. This means that the light, instead of being granted an unrestricted passage to the photocells, has to pass through a forest of connecting wires, presumably suffering at least some attenuation and distortion (actually probably not much but, still, it is the principle of the thing that would offend any tidy-minded engineer!)? (Richard Dawkins (1986). The Blind Watchmaker. London: Penguin Books, pp. 93-94.)

The eccentric arrangement of retinal wiring and photocells is, by the way, what causes the blind spot in human vision.

Now, a study published last year in the scientific journal PNAS shows that the wiring in the eye is cleverly set up this way for a good reason (press release: www.theregister.co.uk). The researcher remarked, ?Nature is so clever. This means there is enough room in the eye for all the neurons and synapses and so on, but still the Muller cells can capture and transmit as much light as possible.? The Muller cells ?work almost exactly like a fibre optic plate: a ?zero-length window? that optical engineers can use to transmit an image without using a lens.? There could be even more reasons for this peculiar design.

Darwinists interpreted the backward wiring of the retina (again, based on the predetermined philosophical constraint) as evidence for the purposeless process of evolution, which must produce a lot of trash. Darwinists claimed that no designer in his right mind would have muddled up the cells in such an eccentric way and that there is no good reason for the cells to be muddled up that way. Today, the creative arrangement of cells in the eye is inspiring engineers in the design of optics, sensors, and computers. Now that it is found that backward wiring is there for a good reason, is Darwinism?s claim that it is not there for a reason falsified? No, Darwinism will simply invent another speculative story to support how ?nature is so clever? that it produced the newly discovered arrangement through the purposeless process of mutation and selection. This is one of the ways that Darwinism seems immune to scientific falsification and seems more like a religious belief. Sounds like another Darwinian just-so story.

>> To add flavour to the discussion dna replication is sometimes not fault free also, is this also as per ID stance.

The video is worth a clarification. Intelligent design does not require that all designed objects be necessarily optimized or always perform well. Indeed, a flaw in design does not refute design. Genetic abnormalities and diseases do not refute the design inference. A common objection against ID is that ?inferior design or flaw in design or sub-optimal design or painful design or abnormal design = no design.? Perhaps the confusion arises from the word ?intelligent,? which in design theory actually could refer to an intelligent agent who may even act stupidly (as long as the agent designs something). Dembski explained this point further in his writings.

In any case, first, no one, I think, would claim that the Toyota Camry was not designed if inferior design of the vehicle?s exhaust intake manifold leads to product recall or that the space shuttle was not designed since due to inferior design of the o-ring in the external fuel tank and the subsequent gas leak the shuttle exploded in mid-air shortly after lift-off. The objection against design in natural systems is theological in that God would not create inferior design or that God would create a perfect world or that God would not create genetic abnormalities and disease. ?How could God be evil or uncaring or incompetent?? we hear. Such objections, some of which were raised in the video, are not science (although theology offers clarification for theists). Interestingly, even some atheists raise similar objections even though they do not believe that God exists.

Second, engineers know that design can involve trade-offs, a phenomenon that occurs due to the laws of physics that govern the universe. That is why design cannot always be optimized across all engineering parameters. For instance, a robotics engineer may have to sacrifice one parameter (material strength) in order to optimize another parameter (weight) in a complex design that is intended to perform a specified function (e.g., robot should run the hilly Boston marathon with human-like biomechanics) with some acceptable level of quality, reliability, and designer satisfaction (finish the marathon within 2 hours and 45 minutes on a 72F day with light rain and 25mph winds out of the north-east, for instance).

Admittedly, the DNA replication process is not completely without faults, but the extreme precision with which the process normally takes place most of the time, not to mention the genome?s informational codes which are now being more fully appreciated, must also be taken into account. Dr. James Shapiro (Division of Biological Sciences, University of Chicago) explains the DNA replication process in the E. coli bacteria this way (emphasis mine):

?When an E. coli cell divides every 20 minutes, exquisitely reliable coordination has been achieved for hundreds of millions of biochemical reactions and biomechanical events. E. coli cells replicate their DNA at almost 4000 base-pairs per second but have an error frequency of far less than one nucleotide misincorporation per every genome duplication (2 X 4.6 million base pairs duplicated every 40 minutes; Cooper & Helmstetter, 1968; www.genome.wisc.edu). This incredible precision is accomplished not by rigid mechanical precision but rather by using two layers of expert error monitoring and correction systems: (1) exonuclease proofreading in the polymerase itself, which catches and corrects over 99.9% of all mistakes as soon as they are made (Kunkel & Bebenek, 2000), and (2) the methyl-directed mismatch repair (MMR) system, which subsequently detects and fixes over 99% of any errors that escaped the exonuclease (Modrich, 1991). Together, this multilayered proofreading system boosts the 99.999% precision of the polymerase to over 99.99999999%. At both stages of the error correction process, detailed molecular analysis has clarified the distinct roles of sensory and repair components. In the case of the MMR system, the sophistication is even more impressive because the molecules discriminate newly replicated from old DNA so that they only correct the newly synthesized strand (Radman & Wagner, 1988).? (?Bacteria Are Small But Not Stupid: Cognition, Natural Genetic Engineering, and Sociobacteriology,? Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences )

We must consider: what is the typical first time through (FTT) and parts per million (PPM) quality of a human-made product manufacturing facility and how does that compare to the E. coli?s DNA replication precision rate? Although design is not necessarily without flaw, biological nanomachinery generally far surpasses human-engineered products in terms of quality and efficiency.

In my opinion, it would be an impressive achievement far surpassing most of the other scientific or technological achievements of the human race if it is ever demonstrated that life came from non-life by purely naturalistic means and then replicated by the Darwinian mechanism, eventually producing the human machine and its conscious mind. If it is ever demonstrated that mud led to mind without intervention, the ID camp would be effectively wiped out (falsified), leaving no proverbial ID campers alive or the ID camp itself to embrace anything. This potential for falsfication is a key criterion of science.

When I said that ID does not ?allow predetermined beliefs to impinge on empiricism and theory,? I mean that prior to the investigation ID as an epistemological framework does not rule out or forbid, based on some predetermined philosophical premise, any particular cause (law, chance, or agency) in the explanation of the natural world. However, if and only if the investigation shows that certain features of living things are most likely the product of intelligent cause and that natural processes are fundamentally incapable of producing those features, then ID would indefinitely hold on to those falsifiable hypotheses (as it currently does) until demonstrated otherwise, at which point ID itself would be falsified and would not exist as a viable theory to embrace anything. If the rival naturalistic or Darwinian theory ever demonstrates otherwise, then ID would no longer remain a viable theory to embrace the findings of the naturalistic theory, because ID?s aforesaid hypotheses would have been toppled (falsified). The theory itself would be dead, so to speak. Following the scientific investigation that probes both nature and agency as potential causes, the agnostic third camp proposes that natural processes alone cannot produce life from non-life (amino acids) or certain features of a conscious human machine from a single-celled bacterial machine and that some engineer?s plan and foresight are required. If a naturalistic theory demonstrates how such a complex-specified transformation (even one) could occur in the complete absence of intervention, the third camp would be wiped out (falsified) and would not exist to embrace anything.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. If I understood correctly, if there were well substantiated cases to prove that the origin of life on this planet originated 3-4 billion years ago in the form of simple amino acids, evolving to the stage where 150 thousand years ago homo species arrived at its current modern stage, the 3rd camp will be comfortable embracing it? Not that I agree from the other, just trying to understand how open the stance is?
To add flavour to the discussion dna replication is sometimes not fault free also, is this also as per ID stance. www.youtube.com

I scratch "artificial breeding," which involves man-made, not natural, selection.

You are right that Darwinism and evolution mean the same thing. In fact, I use the terms interchangeably.

>> So they could believe in Darwinism if the evidence pointed that way, or they could accept intelligent intervention.

Perhaps the statement above has caused some confusion. What I meant was that since ID as a broad epistemological (knowledge-seeking) framework is not limited to naturalistic causation, ID accepts the Darwinian mechanism for small-scale evolutionary change (such as a bird population?s beak size variation over generations), but also proposes that any substantial change would require the effort of some designing agent(s). Because Darwinism is artificially restricted to law and chance (that all life must be accounted for by the Darwinian mechanism, no matter how ridiculous the explanation), the theory?s interpretations of facts are obviously biased forever in favor of that predetermined philosophical constraint. ID, on the other hand, does not stipulate, a priori, that all facts must be accounted for by intelligent design. ID examines the facts and then offers an unbiased evaluation.

Intelligent design, which accepts both Darwinism (for small-scale change) and design, is a broader and a more open-minded theory in that it considers not only the Darwinian mechanism but also interventionist design as potential causes. Since ID ventures into the zone outlawed by mainstream science (i.e., intelligent agency), ID is not only a theory of origins but also a much-needed light shining on the ?blind spot? of modern science itself (check out Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism by biophysicist Cornelius Hunter). Like a religious fatwa, Darwinism in contrast bans intelligent causation by philosophical fiat, even before the inquiry begins. Critical scientific questions, discussions, and objections against Darwinism are forbidden or dismissed. Given this mind-set, Darwinism seems completely immune from falsification. This does not fit the scientific spirit. It was my intention to emphasize that ID is free of this self-inflicted blind spot that goes against the free spirit of science.

ID?s official stance is still the same as it was in the past. It is not that ID is now relying more on evolutionary logic. Well-substantiated cases of Darwinian speciation have always been accepted within the ID framework. ID never rejected all of evolutionary theory and indeed always accepted small-scale evolution or variation, which has actually been observed in finch beak sizes, cichlid fishes, pathogen resistance to antiviral drugs, pesticide resistance, artificial breeding, and population genetics field studies, to name a few.

I hope that shines some light on the inadvertent blind spot in my writing.

I thought darwinism and evolution(natural selection) were the same thing. On the same token I thought ID meant creation vs. evolution. It seems from the above paragraph that maybe things have changed the last I read on ID, or ID is inclining more on evolutionary logic to justify ID(proverbial 3rd camp ~ agnostic), which in term the so called atheists were claiming all along. Could you kindly comment. By the way I enjoy reading your post whenever I find time (which translates into one year form reading one post to the next).