Wow, just...wow.

In response to Orac's challenge to show that the design inference is useful to medical research what is the first example that Egnor chooses? Watson and Crick's discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA.

The reasoning? Well, they reverse-engineered the structure from the X-ray crystallography diffraction patterns (although he forgets to mention that they also used paper models representing the molecules of DNA to help figure out which structures were physically possible), and anything that is engineered is designed (according to Wikipedia), so they were using the design inference.

Am I reading that right? Is this actually what passes for logic these days? What's really sad is that the Discovery Institute thinks they have a winner in Michael Egnor, maybe it's because in the process of advancing denialist arguments they have absolutely no appreciation for what makes a good argument. But really, Watson and Crick, using the design inference? Please.

So, simply put, Egnor is saying because macromolecules follow physical rules and create structures that one can interpret from physical phenomena, that means they are engineered or that one infers design by using the physical laws of the universe to interpret them? Is he suggesting that a macromolecule could not form a regular structure without being engineered? (Oh boy, I hope he does) Or is he suggesting that without inferring design one is no longer allowed to use to laws of physics?

Seriously, this is such a dumb argument I can't even begin to figure out his reasoning. This is another problem with denialists, is that the arguments they make can be so bad, that you get confused since there isn't enough logic present to get an adequate hand-grip. I'm going to have to disagree with Orac and this idea that you can "challenge" IDers to provide evidence for a design inference and that will help prove a point, because they'll just say the design inference is in use already, is used all the time, and everything scientists really do is design inference but they won't admit it because they're part of the evil materialist conspiracy. And then, the sheep that swallow what are just really bad arguments will defend it, to the death, like it's a genius idea.

It's time to stop pretending the Discovery Institute are honest brokers in a debate about the physical nature of the universe, they're just denialists, they have nothing to offer.

Labels: Evolution denialism, Michael Egnor