Assuming the "designer" isn't some omnipotent invisible energy being who goes "POOF!, Now life exists on this ball of dirt", ID can be disproven by the lack of life anywhere else in the universe.
So in other words, scientology can be proven wrong this way, assuming you can actually prove it.
@ Daiwa: I think you're just trying to use semantics to counter a statement I never made. If you re-read what I wrote, I think it's pretty clear what I meant: it would make far more sense to those who believe the Biblical account of the great flood and Noah's Ark.
@ Leauki: I have to say I'm having a hard time following your logic. Species borders are a general measure of the average characteristics which might be seen in that species - so of course there aren't any "hard" borders to each species. However, the genetic information required for those changes already exists within the creature, whereas the information necessary for reptiles to evolve into birds is not already within the reptile (so far as genetic science has determined as of yet). So really this "border" is more of a situation in which the genetic information of a creature is insufficient to allow further change without mutation.
This cutoff in information must exist somewhere, since obviously a living creature has the information necessary to make itself; the question is how much extra information the creature has along with it. So somewhere along the line there is a point at which the creature cannot adapt any further with the information it has. It must either continue as is or gain information to change further.
In other words, the limit to that extra information is what defines the species border, which is somewhat flexible. If there is enough extra information to change significantly, then the creature would be reclassified as a different species after it changes. Thus the species classification really does matter, because it shows us the differences between genetic information in organisms.
Of course, mutations could potentially provide the extra information necessary to change (and subsequently be reclassified), but science has yet to prove that mutations can be even slightly beneficial. Though it hasn't proven that they're not, either. I personally believe that information cannot be gained in this way, hence my seeming belief in a "hard divider" between creature families or classes.
You misunderstand "scientific". It doesn't matter if there is a god involved. It only matters whether it's disprovable. Can you imagine any kind of possible (or impossible) evidence that would disprove "Intelligent Design"? What "third type of origions theory"? Which theories are there to explain how life started? And how exactly has abiogenesis been proven wrong?
I stated that no god was involved to make it clear that they're doing what they can to remain objective, which as I recall is a fundamental building block of science. I don't misunderstand "scientific."
Evidence which would disprove Intelligent Design would be an experiment which recreated pre-life atmospheric conditions and showed that life could have been created by chance. The Miller/Urey experiment doesn't cut it because of substantial flaws in what was created. Abiogenesis can be disproven if such conditions can be proven to be impossible. So, evidence actually leans toward the ID movement at the moment, though of course neither side has been proven right or wrong.
There are currently only two types of origins theory: creation and abiogenesis. All origins theories currently fall into one of those two categories, so far as I'm aware. A third type of theory would be one which would have to be given its own category - something like "life came from half a creator."
As I said before, abiogenesis has not been proven wrong. Neither has the ID movement. I never claimed that abiogenesis had been proven wrong.
That statement makes no sense. The idea of a biological family is meaningless in these circumstances. Families is something we sort organisms into after the fact. It is not something that exists before the organisms do. Biological families do not impose limits evolution cannot cross because biological families do not exist before evolution created them.
The idea of the biological family is not useless at all, as I said earlier. There is a reason for the classifications.
The problem is you're assuming that all organisms have no barriers, which is absolutely not true. Even with as limitless as DNA information storage seems to be, it can't hold everything. Organisms do have limits to the information they contain.
If every organism had the information necessary for all the others (in essence, no barrier from having all the required information) then there would be nothing stopping a dog from having a litter of kittens. Obviously that doesn't happen, because dog DNA doesn't have the information necessary to create a cat; thus, there is no chance of a dog reproducing a cat.
Thus, because the dog is unable to produce a cat, that means there is a barrier right there. Additional (or at least different) information would be required. As species become more and more defined (hence their genetic classifications becoming more specific) the amount of extra genetic information decreases, reducing the amount of variation among creatures from the phyla, to the families, and to the species classifications.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you? Do you mean that a common ancestor simply branched out for form, say, birds and reptiles at the same time? Because that also has its own issues, namely that of there being no way for random genetic chance to determine the difference between bird traits and reptile traits, which would result in a great number of dead half-bird half-reptile inbetweens. Again, possible, but unproven. One should at least find fossils of such failures.
EDIT: That actually makes me think too. If there was a common ancestor which had the information necessary for the birds and reptiles, and that ancestor had an ancestor of its own, then ultimately that would mean the first cell of life contained the genetic information necessary for every creature alive today. I must say that if you believe that, you might as well just take God's word for it when He said He created each kind of creature separately. If you don't, then you have to explain how creatures crossed information borders along the way, because either they had the information or they didn't.
Again, mutations are possible, but unproven.
