Did ID finally make predictions?

Not really. Denyse “Buy My Book” O’Leary thinks that she’s come up with a list of nine ID predictions, and they’re unbearably silly.

1. No good theory will be found for a random origin of the universe, either by the Large Hadron Collider or anything else. The universe will consistently behave more like a great idea than a great machine.

What is a “good theory,” Ms O’Leary? Well, since you don’t accept evolutionary theory, despite thousands of independent verifications, I think it’s safe to say you’ll never accept that this prediction has failed. And what is the difference between a universe that functions like an idea and one that functions like a machine? Wouldn’t that require explaining what kind of idea the universe was, and thus specifying the designer? And we know ID proponents can’t do that.

2. No good theory will be found for a random origin of life, though there will be plenty of huffing and puffing in favour of bad ideas. All theories that exclude purpose and design fail because they leave out the key driver – the purpose that life should come into existence.

Define “random.” Do you mean “unguided”? This is a common problem for Denyse–her language is so imprecise that it looses all meaning. Which is of course what you do when you’re trying to design predictions that can’t possibly be wrong. We now have “random” and “good” in that category. And of course, we can ask what could “purpose” that life come into existence, except something that lives? Denyse would like us to forget that ID just raises further sets of questions which can’t be answered.

3. Complete series of transitional fossils will not usually be found because most proposed series have never existed. Eventually, researchers will give up on ideologically driven nonsense and address the history that IS there. They will focus on discovering the mechanisms that drive sudden bursts of creativity.

What is “complete”–how many intermediate forms do you need to be shown? How rare is “not usually”? Which series really have existed and how would we know? Naturally, Denyse can’t answer these questions, because every time we discover a link in the evolutionary chain, Denyse can claim we’ve just discovered two gaps, making the complete series even further off than it was before! That’s called “moving the goalposts,”which is a staple of ID argument.

And before I go any further I should note that all of these predictions assume that if evolution was disproved, ID would be right by default. That’s a logical fallacy, but it’s all they have “bursts of creativity” isn’t really a prediction, so finding further gaps to jimmy god the designer into is all creationists ID proponents have.

4. The environment will prove far more resilient than eco-doomsayers believe. People forget that the Permian extinction wiped out 90% of the marine life forms on this planet. Life seems to want to exist on this planet, even at the South Pole (cf March of the Penguins). Note: I have no time for environment destruction, and personally gave up keeping a car, as the simplest and most economical way to reduce my environment footprint. But I am NOT waiting for enviro-apocalypse!! – I don’t believe it will happen. There will be changes. That’s all. Not the end of the world or anything like it.

Why does ID predict this, exactly? Why does she believe evolutionary theory predicts the opposite? For that matter, what was “far more resilient” mean?

5. No account of human evolution will show a long slow emergence from unconsciousness to semi-consciousness to consciousness, let alone that consciousness is merely the random firing of neurons in the brain. However consciousness got started, it appeared rather suddenly and it permanently separates humans from our genetic kin, however you want to do the gene numbers and however much time researchers spend coaxing monkeys to stop relieving themselves on the keyboard and type something meaningful.

So now according to Denyse O’Leary, monkeys apparently do not have consciousness. I’d be curious to hear what Denyse thinks is the point where consciousness “appeared rather suddenly”? If it did, clearly she can point to which of our ancestors didn’t have it. Or is this just cover for young earth Creationism? You be the judge.

6. Claims that the human brain is full of “anachronistic junk” will be falsified, just as century old claims that there are hundreds of vestigial organs in the human body were falsified. The human body will be recognized as suitable for the purposes for which we exist. (Not in all cases perfect, to be sure, but in general suitable.)

Hopefully there’s no more question about what I mean when I say Ms O’Leary doesn’t know what her words mean. Of course the body is “suitable” for survival. But what does “suitable for the purposes for which we exist” even mean? Our knees bend the right way for prayer? What is she even talking about? I honestly don’t know. Some gibberish that misunderstands what vestigial organs are aside, our bodies work to keep us alive, because otherwise we wouldn’t exist as a species. So it’s really not clear that O’Leary has any idea of what evolutionary theory actually predicts. After all, she just predicted that ID will be vindicated when we discover that our bodies work!

You can’t make this shit up, folks.  I couldn’t have written parody like this–my imagination would have failed to imagine such stupidity.

7. No useful theory of consciousness will demonstrate that consciousness is merely the outcome of the random firing of neurons in the brain. All useful theories will accept that the mind and the brain exist in a relationship. Research will focus on delineating the relationship more clearly. That will greatly benefit medical research, especially research on difficult mental disorders such as phobias, depression, etc.

Quiz for Denyse: what is the “mind” if not the brain? How does it function? Why would the designer choose to make our consciousness dependent on two entities, one which we can’t observe. For that matter, what research could possibly detect the “mind”? If it can be detected, it will have to be made of matter and/or energy–you know, the stuff that makes up our brains. While we’re waiting around for Egnor to enlighten us on how dualistic science can proceed, we can wait for O’Leary to do the same. I won’t hold my breath.

8. No useful theory of free will (human volition) will demonstrate that it does not really exist. Free will (which includes using the mind to help heal bodily injuries) will become an important tool of medicine, especially for helping aging people toward a better quality of life. For example, the fact that a drug only need perform 5% better than a placebo to be licensed for use will encourage the development of mind-based treatments for people who would otherwise be forced to take antagonistic drugs.

This is just frothing gibberish. What are these “mind-based treatments”? Why is the brain*’s role in healing a question of free-will, rather than interacting organs? How does FDA licensing have anything to say about evolutionary theory? Anyone? Bueller? Honestly, at this point Denyse just seems to be flinging as much crap as she can and hoping some of it sticks in the “minds” of her credulous readership.

9. No useful theory of human psychology will be founded on claims about what happened in the caves of our ancestors (= evolutionary psychology). That is because there are no genes that simply “cause” behaviour in a clinically normal human being. The mind is real and humans create their social environment by mental effort. Information is passed on from mind to mind, not through genes or physiology.

Wait–I thought genes were just chock full of information, and that’s why evolution couldn’t happen. Maybe Denyse forgot about that argument, even though it’s an ID standby.

Actually, I agree with Denyse in one, trivial way: we’ll never understand human behavior exclusively in terms of genetics, because environment has a lot to say as well. But since I don’t know of a single evolutionary theorist who denies that there is a social component to our interactions, I have to say I don’t know why she even thinks this could somehow be evidence of ID.

It’s nice to see Denyse admitting she thinks we “create” our reality with mental power, though. Maybe she’ll find common cause with ESP-proponents. Maybe if she thinks hard enough, social reality will change and she’ll finally be able to destroy the Dreaded Darwinist Menace.

So those are O’Leary’s nine predictions. Every one of them is so vague as to be useless, predicts the same things evolutionary theory does, doesn’t actually predict anything that could ever be shown true or false, or is just an example of goalpost moving. Some of them combine several of these tricks!

ID: still without useful predictions. Still not science. Still impeding knowledge.