Are ID/YECs right about anything?

Are ID/YECs right about anything?

I would say, yes, but the way they go about 'persuading' people is less than persuasive, and tends to have the opposite effect of ostracizing and demonizing people. But IMHO I think they are right about the following:

1. There is anti-supernaturalism bias in science (There is no 'evil' 'evolutionist', anti-God or anti-religion conspiracy, but science by definition does presuppose methodological naturalism and reject supernatural causation a priori).

2. The origin of life does not seem explainable by naturalistic causation (at least, by our present understanding, but due to #1, science will always presuppose a naturalistic cause).

3. "Missing links" cannot all be due to an incomplete fossil record (while we now know that much evolution is saltational (by 'leaps') and small scale 'tweaks' and alterations in regulatory genes & developmental pathways can cause abrupt, large-scale changes in organisms; they were correct in their criticism of Darwinian gradualism and the lack of expected intermediate/transitional forms predicted. While in some cases the incompleteness of the fossil record is to blame, it can't account for the overall general lack of expected intermediates).

4. Natural selection and mutation (alone) cannot account for the diversity of life.

5. Other

*And then there are some things that the jury is probably still out on, but that are potentially compelling (at the least, they deserve further consideration and debate): philosophical arguments; origin of the universe; fine-tuning; critical/'hard steps' in evolution that remain problematic (e.g., origin of life, origin of eukaryotes, origin of complex multicellularity, origin of human symbolic language/intelligence, etc.).

"Natural selection and mutation (alone) cannot account for the diversity of life."

Q1) Would Richard Dawkins (for example) and other respected biologists agree with that statement?

Q2) Which of you is better informed on the subject?

As the saying goes 'a stopped clock is right twice a day'.

But more importantly, do they add anything to the endeavour to find the origin of life and understand its development over the 4000,000,000 years that have elapsed since?

Speaking the truth is the only thing that matters, if it is attempting to find common ground then what can end up happening is simply watering down portions of what is, and instead of speaking it outright, what is looked for are possible selective items of agreement that might be acceptable to another's palate when it comes to reality. We can figure out somethings if we have a proper truth table that allows us to see errors, while sometimes a revelation is required.

You have to be willing to acknowledge the weaknesses in your own position; not just the strengths. The origin of life remains highly problematic for metaphysical naturalism/atheism.

Also, the stopped clock reference is a little glib and erroneously implies that they were right only as a result of 'guessing,' when in fact it was legitimate criticism (and if they had presented their criticism in the proper peer-reviewed forum they might have been listened to!)

Dawkins is not the authority on all things biology (and a number of his ideas are passe). Evolutionary biology is a body of knowledge amassed over the last couple centuries. That knowledge shows that the vast majority of evolutionary changes in genomes are the result of neutral to slightly deleterious mutations and that "purifying" selection has been more important than "positive/directional" natural selection. Not that the latter is not important; it's just that the evidence shows that there is a lot more going on; more than can be accounted for by "random mutations and natural selection" alone.

My post on 'Natural Genetic Engineering' covers a lot of this (see the list of citations). In "Nothing in Evolution Makes Sense Except in Light of Genomics," Shapiro makes an instructive observation:

"When we ask how novel species arise from human intervention, it is significant that there are no cases where selection has led to species formation."

See also, The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis

I would suggest that the manner in which one speaks the truth is also very important. But that aside, ID/YECs/religious apologists have yet to demonstrate the *truth* of their whole position.

Please someone who refuses to acknowledge a binary choice should not be criticizing anyone else' methods.

You lost me. What 'method' am I 'criticizing'? I simply said the manner in which truth is communicated is also important. Do you disagree? And who is refusing a 'binary choice'? Expound.  Are you referring to your 'Notes' comment in relation to 'natural genetic engineering'? Are you saying that God doesn't have the power to create living things with the ability to evolve if God had wanted to do it that way?

I'm saying if God gives them the ability due to the way God set it up, it has nothing to do with mindless processes, life is coded to behave the way it behaves. Without instructions guiding the processes, there would be no mechanism in place to direct the processes the way they are directed, Changes downstream must be accounted for in the instructions driving everything, breaking that the processes die. The reason abiogenesis seems like a mystery you want to take the one cause out of the picture that answers all of the questions before the discussion begins voiding ID arguments.

By all means, ignore the obvious, claim I'm wrong, be understanding of both sides of the discussion and ignore what is seen in every encounter you have with written instructions cause functionally complex work to happen!

"The reason abiogenesis seems like a mystery you want to take the one cause out of the picture that answers all the questions...By all means, ignore the obvious."

Where do you get this stuff? I'm the one who keeps saying that we lack empirical evidence for abiogenesis and that there is empirical evidence against abiogenesis (plus, I'm a Christian theist!). But "by all means" keep "ignoring the obvious," and keep pretending you didn't already know that.

The obvious is that the only way instructional functions are there is always due to a mind, hence "design" is put forward as the only means we see today that can account for what we see today and how it all started. Ignore the obvious, its a mystery only because you are ignoring the obvious, Dawkins got it wrong life is not some complicated thing with the appearance of design, the appearance is due to the fact it is designed, no other explanation covers all of the bases, so of course, if you ignore what is right in front of your face, you'll never see it. So avoid what is right in front of you, you cannot produce anything else that answers all of the questions, so you are left with, maybe someday, someone will with an unknown method, with a lot of effort, time study, research, and development, figure it out so we can give credit to a mindless process, we got faith.

Why do you keep arguing with me about points we agree on?

My 'position' is precisely that of researchers into the origin of life, so in what way is their position of pressing on with research 'weak'? Beyond let's wait and see and not jump to unwarranted conclusions, I make no emphatic assertions.

Glib or not, it's reasonable to ask what ID/YEC's bring to the discussion other than endless references to scripture?

Because you water down things to keep things agreeable when the evidence doesn't leave wiggle room.

That would be a sound stance if there were anything here that was unwarranted, the evidence that life was set up to work is too good to be anything other than that. The complexity is not only functionally complex dealing with a variety of issues, we cannot do it, so it is not just a mind, but an extremely powerful one beyond ours for life. The fingerprint within life's mechanisms works with instructional guidance that manipulates with a great deal of precision.

Life for all of its complexity requires the universe to function within parameters that are life-friendly. So unless you want to take it for granted another huge piece of the puzzle is the material world., in order for the entire universe to function properly, the very universe itself is put together in such a way it doesn't fly apart, or collapse on itself, and not only that it is understandable to us, our minds were designed to understand it. Mindlessness cannot do that there would be nothing in the realm of chance or necessity that could account for the grandness of the universe being life-friendly and understandable, all the way down to our molecular makeup functioning as it does.

Don't kid yourself, you look at all of this and make emphatic assertions all of the time, all of this doesn't show you squat, you are fine with wait and see, because you claim it is reasonable to suggest nothing about the whole picture is enough to move you to acknowledge the need for a mind behind it that would not only work it out but also powerful enough to pull it off, by putting the universe together and maintain its functions in a consistent law like manner we can grasp.

   You know, Stephen, if you ever quit being a gullible, blinded, sheepish atheist you would make a perfect gullible, blinded, sheepish Catholic.

Completely uncalled for and he could say the same about you

Actually, I tell the unvarnished truth about what the scientific evidence supports (even if it goes against personal beliefs). You just don't like it. (Even so, it's still kind of silly to argue against someone on points of agreement)