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Dr. Don Johnson (with earned Ph.D.s in both informational and natural sciences), the founder of Science Integrity, once believed anyone not accepting the "proven" evolutionary scenario that was ingrained during his science education was of the same mentality as someone believing in a flat Earth. With continued scientific investigation, paying closer attention to actual data (rather than speculative conclusions), he began to doubt the natural explanations that had been so ingrained in a number of key areas including the origin and fine-tuning of mass and energy, the origin of life with its complex information content, and the increase in complexity in living organisms. It was science, and not religion, that caused his disbelief in the explanatory powers of undirected nature. The fantastic leaps of faith required to accept the undirected natural causes in these areas demand a scientific response to the scientific-sounding concepts that in fact have no known scientific basis. Scientific integrity needs to be restored so that ideas that have no methods to test or falsify are not considered part of science. Science needs to avoid unsubstantiated speculation based on "science as we don't know it." Speculation is important for investigating whether proposed mechanisms are possible, but great care is needed if those speculations are conveyed outside the scientific community. For example, the argument "we don't yet know how this feature can arise by undirected natural processes, but we will someday" is not a scientific statement. It is faith based on "naturalism of the gaps" dogma, which has no more scientific validity than the "God of the gaps" theology as an explanation for currently unexplainable complexity.
Popular on-line videos
Programming of Life (over 100K views)View video (2012 Telly Award winner for best educational video) trailer or 4 minutes or author-selected excerpts
Recorded presentation "Programming of Life and It's Prerequisites"
Resources
Description "Programming of Life" Book
Description "Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability: A Call to Scientific Integrity"
Description "Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability -- Lite
A Sequel for the Non-Scientist and a Clarion Call to Scientific Integrity" Book
Description "Programming of Life Prerequisites" Book
Description "Programming of Life" (2012 Telly Award winner for best educational video) DVD (plastic case)
Description "Programming of Life DVD (cardboard sleeve)
Service Activities
Science presentations on most continents (including in Russia, China, Australia, New Zealand, England, and Germany) cover topics from natural and informational sciences (e.g. Scence vs Pseudoscience), addressing questions like:
Can undirected natural processes account for mass, energy, life, or speciation?
What is the role of chance? Are we just incredibly lucky?
What is information and what does it have to do with life?
Is Intelligent Design science or religion and why is it important?
Is ID unambiguously detectable by empirical science?
Targeted audience will have an interest in science, but need not have a scientific degree. Not having funds may not exclude a presentation (many have been done gratis).
Example video: The Information of Life excerpts
Handout and video for "Bio-Informatics: the Information in Life" (presented at UNCW)
PDF and video for "Programming of Life"
Handout and video for"Is Undirected Naturalism Sufficient?"
Debates on Naturalism -- Does it Work?
Typically debate forum is a secular college, with both pro and anti stances presented .
Advisor on Covering Naturalistic Weakness (for a schoolboard, for example)
Avoiding "religious" (creationism) pitfalls and highlighting scientific evidence
Promote educational material
Such as Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability: A Call to Scientific Integrity
Probability's Nature and Nature's Probability – Lite:
Programming of Life book, Video based on book, or Presentation based on book
Interviews: part1 part2 Cell as Computer System Amazon Books, Blog, & video
Several attempts have been made to expose unwarranted speculations purported to be science. A submission to UNCW’s Journal of Effective Teaching: Special Issue on Teaching Evolution was rejected as not fitting into the guidelies for promoting effective evolution teaching. You can evaluate whether that's true. A peer-reviewed book chapter in "The First Gene" can be viewed. A jointly-authored, peer-reviewed paper is also viewable.
When intelligent design is portrayed as the most feasible explanation, it should be clearly understood that the designer's identity and source is scientifically unknowable, and is therefore not part of ID. If one is theologically or philosophically opposed to a designer, one could attempt to argue that a designer is infeasible based on those beliefs. However, if one looks at the scientific facts and considers the scenarios that could produce the features that are the strongest evidence for ID, an intelligent source stands out as the only feasible (causally adequate) scenario. The fine-tuning of nature's constants and properties and chemical evolution producing chemicals compatible with life are shown to have such low probabilities as to make them infeasible (operationally falsified) by natural processes. The complex functional and prescriptive information and interactive information processing systems are shown to have zero probability of arising by undirected natural processes (physicality is incapable of generating formal functional information), but intelligence has been clearly demonstrated (and scientifically verified) as capable of producing such features (and is the ONLY known source of such features). Until known science can demonstrate a feasible scenario for the informational features of life arising by undirected nature, science must recognize that intelligence is the only scientifically feasible source. Thus, based on the fact that is the ONLY feasible explanation, ID is a certainty based on known science. I point out that all science is tentative, so if information science is shown to be incorrect, this question may have to be
revisited.
Some have argued that design would require that the identity of the designer also be known. Those are two separate issues. For example, the complexity of this Webpage makes it unmistakenly designed, as detected by empirical science. That conclusion would be true if the designer were born a normal human, transplanted by an alien civilization, or has eternally existed. We don't have to know the mechanism or purpose in order to acknowledge a truth. For example, not knowing how or why gravity works would not detract from its reality if one jumps off a cliff.
As an example of non-supernatural ID (from p77 of PN&NP): "Some believe that nature itself possesses intelligence capable of design. For example, Shapiro’s natural genetic engineering 'employs a combinatorial search process based upon DNA modules that already possess functionality... Such a cognitive component is absent from conventional evolutionary theory because 19th and 20th century evolutionists were not sufficiently knowledgeable about cellular response and control networks... It also answers the objections to conventional theory raised by intelligent design advocates, because evolution by natural genetic engineering has the capacity to generate complex novelties' [Shapiro 2010].
Even though he denies ID, what he proposes is precisely ID! A cell would have a cognitive mind capable of doing a combinatorial search of possible outcomes to design the best mutation before mutating."
Science Integrity no longer sells or gives away books or DVDs, as explained by the Legacy page.
Science Integrity
Phone: (952)583-0106
Email: don@scienceintegrity.org (Figure from US-DOE's GMIS)
