ID theorists believe that two properties, specified complexity and irreducible complexity, are marks of intelligent design. Specified complexity is evident when a pattern is not merely complex but matches a predefined specification. For instance, a computer program can easily be contrived to generate random text in the form of sentences. Since the arrangement of letters is completely random, the pattern is complex (in that each sentence is highly unique and unlikely), but it adheres to no known specification. Indeed, our computer program may be generating beautiful Rigelian poetry, but lacking a means of verification we must assume its creations are the product of random chance rather than design. But what if the computer program began composing poetry in French or English or some other language? That's when a design inference would kick in, and we would presume that an intelligent agent (i.e. the programmer) slipped in some design.
Another way to look at specified complexity is in a game of Poker. If I draw a royal flush, you may marvel at my good luck, but if I keep drawing royal flushes, you will quickly suspect that intelligent intervention is overriding the laws of chance.
Hume's character Cleanthes, in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, uses this argument for design when He points out that if we were to hear a voice coming from the clouds, we would not hesitate to ascribe to it intelligence, and if books grew on trees like fruit, we would certainly deduce from their contents that there was an intelligence behind their design. Though this argument seems a bit ridiculous, it's worth pointing out that every cell contains within it a tiny molecular codebook titled "How To Make This Organism."
不可减少的复杂性是指一个系统没有它的所有部分就无法运行。经典的ID示例是老式的捕鼠器，包括平台、握杆、弹簧、锤和钩子。这个例子被嘲笑得要死，因为批评家们把部分捕鼠器用作扎带、压舌板和各种其他用途，他们的观点是，你可以通过使用现有的部分服务于其他功能来进化捕鼠器。虽然人类的发明家确实会将一台机器的部件改造为另一台机器的不同用途，但有机部件如何重新配置自己，以达到与原来功能完全不同的用途呢?分子结构是如何决定它应该停止作为泵而开始作为螺旋桨的一部分发挥作用的呢?Despite the triumphal rhetoric of critics, this argument is far from settled.
设计的另一种思考方式是，列出一份清单，把已知的肯定是自然力量的结果、确定是设计出来的、以及起源不确定的东西打破出来。比如猫、雪花、石头、ipod、云、蕨类植物和自行车。我们知道ipod和自行车是被设计出来的，雪花、岩石和云的形状很容易用自然过程解释。猫和蕨类植物是模糊的，因为它们的起源比其他物品不确定得多。复杂的层次是雪花->云->岩石->自行车-> ipod ->蕨类植物->猫。天真的直觉认为，比起雪花，猫更像ipod(尽管这只猫可能是白色的，毛茸茸的，并被命名为雪花;-)所以，生物类似于有目的机器的想法是有逻辑基础的。
That life, from the ?simplest? cell (which is anything but simple) to the human brain, is masterfully conceived is beyond doubt. What?s in question is whether such intricate complexity can arise without intelligent direction. Fortunately, this idea is a testable hypothesis. All you need are some basic criteria for judging fitness, a means of testing a design, and a time compression device to condense millions of episodes of trial and error into a workable time frame. While a supercomputer would be dandy, for most design projects a PC would be quite adequate.
One scenario might involve airliner design, where computers are already used to assist in design and to virtually test proposed concepts for viability. For simplicity, let?s just say our sole criteria are speed, safety and cost. Our software automatically generates a nip here and a tuck there in the design, then tests it against these three criteria to see whether this evolution of the design improves overall fitness. Fitness, in this scenario, requires that improvement in one or several areas not seriously compromise any of our prime criteria. This approach would be literally out of the brain thinking, as no human preconceptions or self imposed limitations could corrupt the design process. ?Nature?, would be allowed to run its course, unhindered by our apish intellects and superstitious notions of intelligent design. Perhaps this is a valid approach to design, but no one, to my knowledge, is willing to invest much in it.
Trial and error, is part of the toolkit of every designer. As Edison put it ?Genius is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration." There?s a lot of truth to this, but without that one percent inspiration, human invention goes nowhere.
It?s worth noting the utter vacuity of the concept of survival as a driving force in evolution. The usual criticism is the circularity of reason that fitness is defined as whatever contributes to an organism?s survival. What survives is fit, what?s fit survives. Thus, the dodo bird, which was fit as a fiddle for millennia, became unfit the moment men with clubs descended on his paradise. Though the logic of this idea is easy to grasp, it?s empty of real meaning. Survival is just a synonym for existence. That which exists now has survived to this day. Atoms exist, because they survive the forces that would tear them apart. Stars exist, because they survive the crush of gravity, which is neither too weak to cause their substance to dissipate nor so strong as to cause them to burn out faster. Survival has no meaning as a force of causation.
我们可以通过观察另一种渡渡鸟——T型渡渡鸟来理解这个概念的不合逻辑。要么进步，要么灭亡，就这样灭绝了它，它的崇高精神还活在今天吗?这是福特的阵容。据推测，文化环境的变化使T型车不再具有竞争力，因此它必须努力生存。现在,我们呢?S雇佣了一些人才来吸取这个场景中的所有情报。灵感枯竭了，文明的前进停滞了，在艺术和科学领域没有新的想法出现。生活继续，人们工作，玩耍，组建家庭。冰河时代可能会来了又去，彗星可能会撞向地球，热带风可能会吹向阿拉斯加，但如果没有新的思想流动，这些都不会发生大的变化。从最新的汽车技术宝座。
If you think my analogy between nature and human nature is false, do the same brain drain on any typical evolutionary scenario. Erase the guy with a can of Raid, and poof go the pesticide resistant bugs. Bless the peahen with a preference for plainness, and poof go pretty peacocks. Give tigers a taste for veggies, and gazelles leap for joy instead of alarm. Blind, purposeless, unintelligent evolution just doesn?t happen. Nature is very mindful.
A final thought concerns the notion of ?The Designer.? Who designed civilization? A believer might claim that God is the ultimate architect, while an atheist would say we did it all ourselves. Heavenly Santa Claus or no, a lot of little elves gave life to imagination and manifested the world we live in now. Given that humanity is inseparable from the rest of nature, it?s not wholly unreasonable to assume that it is intelligence that created and creates the world we presently know.

I just ask questions here, but one can probably detect a point of view in them.
1. Could the orderliness of nature--or some of its more orderly parts that have impressed ID folks, like the animal eye--have been evolutionary freeloaders? I.e., could some really efficacious trait, like human brain power, have carried traits that were less efficacious through the reproductive cycle so that these orderly traits hung around, like paracites, just waiting to be praised by ID enthusiasts? The human brain has, after all, not proven itself particularly orderly, however philosophers might proscribe that the mind should behave.
2. Some ID types have also been teleologists (Chardin). Once you have found the watch and cannot give an explanation for the natural event that gave rise to it, the question arises "why did the watchmaker put it here?" Some would say it means there is a larger watch or world monitor of which we know little--except it is a mechanism leading to maker's goal. Impressed by the watch in the desert, we assume that there are more impressive things. Some might be really cool, constructed by the Coolest. But, is it not smart to think that the watchmaker who can make killer apps like the watch is not also a weapons manufacturer who is busy making real killer apps like hurricanes, earthquakes and plagues? Malaria, observed as a sly way of killing, is among the maker's best and most elusive time bombs.
3. Language-oriented theorists have thought there is a species survival trait advantage in true utterances or disquisitions over false ones. If ID partisans think evolution is "just a theory" and their theory deserves equal time--and the 2 are incompatible--then they should believe that the extinguishing of the pro-evolution-enunciating trait has a design or that it is a haphazard part of the whole the designer felt could be allowed to persist because it would have an innocuous effect on the design. Either way, why create these stealth wedges into school boards, fight for sympathetic judges and mount massive propaganda campaigns? The designer will eventually watch the withering of evolution proponents or extirpate the unhealthy weeds. Are ID friends in a big hurry to not let the intelligence of the designer decide the pace?

You will find an interesting take on the Kitmiller decision in philosopher Bradley Monton's article IS INTELLIGENT DESIGN SCIENCE? DISSECTING THE DOVER DECISION.
ID Proponent Bill Dembski has a chapter posted on his website on Hume, Reid, and Signs of Intelligence from his book The Design Revolution.
Be forewarned that both of these are PDF files, but they are fairly small.

People these days are so rigid. Why does it have to be one or the other? Perhaps there could be a melding of the two (science and religiion). I believe that our understanding of God has increased immensely through science and technology. Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, etc. The ancient thinkers of the past who propagated religion, although great thinkers, could only observe that which was observible to the naked eye. And it was those sort or 'ancient scientific observations' that gave forth to religious doctrines. Many religions that have been around for centuries prescribe remedies or ban substances/foods for reasons that can now be proven beneficial through scientific means.
Today, we have telescopes that can detect galaxies light years away from our own, and even clone animals. Our reality is similar, but very much different than that of ancient times. However, much of what is contained in religious text is still very much plausible. For example, there are religious text out there that echo the Big Bang theory and many other 'scientific discoveries.' But, we also forget that in most religions there was a concept of continuous revelation. People were always being shown new things and subsequently learning new thinigs. Somewhere along the line (I won't say where)(Rome) this concept was removed from Christianity and Islam, but has survived in many other religions.
In conclusion, religious text is vague in telling you exactly how 'life' began, but it is still accurate. On the other hand, the theory of evoloution may be very detailed but does not prove Christian nor any other creation story wrong.
It is very important to understand that even in ancient civilizations such as the afore mentioned they also had the ability to form abstract thoughts. However, since they were bound by their times, the ancient thinkers had to use what they knew to describe both what they could and could not see.

Human consciousness is so complex and so unique in nature that is must have been created by an intelligent designer, because consciousnessness cannot be derived from unconsciousness.

Hi,
1. The notion of "complexity" is observer-relative, dependent upon the mind of the observer. So it is incoherent to say that part of the universe is irreducibly complex. The argument never gets off the ground. Math problems that were complex to me when I was 8 were simple to me at 12.
2. Even if you accept the idea of some "objective" complexity to the universe, the argument that the complex universe must have had a designer implies that the intelligence that designed the universe must be more complex than what it created; hence it too must have a creator. So we get a circular infinite regress...
Scientific rationality has made it impossible for educated people to believe in the supernatural; yet for whatever reasons, we are left with religious cravings. ID is just another manifestation of these cravings...
Timothy Beneke

While I agree with most of the things said by the hosts, I think the show did its audience a disservice by not dealing with a fundamental misunderstanding that came up more than once in caller comments: The labeling of evolution as "just a theory."
More precisely, the common misunderstanding of what theory means in a scientific context, which is a falsifiable hypothesis that has been tested, which has made successful predictions, and which is backed up by enormous evidence.
It should be pointed out, as judge Jones did in his ruling, that intelligent design completely fails to be a true scientific theory. It is not even a hypothesis.
Given the nature of this show, a discussion of the meaning of "theory" would have been most beneficial. (Now, I did not hear the whole show, so I apologize if that was dealt with.)

我必须承认，我发现上述关于特定复杂性和不可简化复杂性的概念相当不连贯;例如，在充实特定复杂性的概念时，有人认为“字母的排列是完全随机的，模式是复杂的(因为每个句子都是高度独特和不可能的)”。——但所有的句子都是极不可能的，这似乎表明了一个相当空洞的复杂概念。你可能会怀疑同花顺序列凌驾于机会法则之上，但你永远不会表现出来，我甚至怀疑你会注意到一些“平凡的”低价值手牌的相同长度的同样不可能序列(尽管我并不是想说设计的错觉只是一种选择效应)。虽然我同意作者的观点，这个问题可能还没有解决，再加上不可减少的复杂性的概念的连贯性，我倾向于认为胜利的修辞实际上是相当令人信服的。最后，我想说的是，我希望复杂性的概念能够从设计辩论中解脱出来(例如，我认为John Perry的3个问题可以很好地将debae框架化，而无需任何无关的复杂性概念的介绍)。我认为许多科学家正集中于一种有用的复杂性概念(类似于——在观察系统行为时，由于其组成部分之间的强相互作用而产生的固有的不确定性因素)，这是不可知论的重新设计论点;但是，当科学家们不得不从设计的泥沼中挖出一条路来讨论复杂性时，他们就失去了一些效用(看看那些刻薄的哲学家对可怜无辜的科学家们做了什么!)

1. What is your definition of God? Throughout the world there are many forms of religion, and many have complex views of their creation and creator.
2. Is science the language of God. If God exists in all spaces, and the laws of physics are true, then how can you separate the two (this statement is dependent upon an omnipresent God).
3. Finally, if #2 is true, then could evolution then be viewed as s a tool of God used to bring about the existence of life.
p.s. who knows what the true nature of an all encompassing god is. did it create life on purpose, or perhaps just likes to watch and see what happens.

我只知道上帝是光。它是万物之源，没有上帝，什么也不存在。上帝在另一个更高的维度。维度是相对于你当前的感知。一切都只是幻觉，除了上帝和上帝赐予你的那一部分，你的精神/思想/情感。
人类生命的全部目的就是了解神。那就是通过你自己的意志使你的思想与真理——上帝——保持一致。它必须在看穿世界上所有的谎言——幻觉的同时做到这一点。它必须找到穿过黑暗森林的路，找到通向光明的路。还有一些人在世界的黑暗森林里，他们真的不在乎找到上帝，但他们最终会找到的，但这必须通过他们自己的意志。他们自己的意志，将决定所需要的时间。
I believe that God created life on purpose as a test, because either we failed before and he wants us to succeed in his test called life through our own understanding and will. God could have also created life on purpose not because we previously failed, but because we have to prove ourselves worthy to be in his prescence. The whole idea of having to prove yourself could also be wrong, it may just be that we have to be able to understand first, that is there must be a maturation process called life.
The processes that God uses go beyond evolution. Evolution is a term used to name a current perception we currently have of the way the world works. Science and Religion are not against one another it is just that they have to protect their institutions-there is a separation between the institution and the knowledge. They both are doing well, but they have different followers with different mentalities, and they have to appease those followers so that they can keep on seeking the truth through their methods.
Actually Islam Christianity and the Jewish Religion worship the same God.

(In response to erosirony)
我相信你和我有一些共同的观点，但我不确定你说的“我所知道的关于上帝的一切就是上帝是光”是什么意思。它是万物之源，没有上帝，什么也不存在。”光怎么会是万物的基础光本身也有光源。我相信上帝既存在于光明中，也存在于黑暗中。而且在黑暗中可能比在光明中更多。(end response to erosirony)
After listening to the show on the net several times, and my own personal G.O.D. search, I am just as puzzled as when I started. Perhaps what philosophy and science ultimately teach us is that we are able to truly to shape our own lives.
I also believe that it is a good thing to praise/give thanks to a God who is the creator of all things. I mean, we say thank you to people for all kinds of things. Why can we not give thanks to the processes that are responsible for not only our being, but for existence as a whole?

God is a radiant energy/light. When people die they say they see a light on the other side, during near death experiences. I have seen that light/energy once. It contains all knowledge. Now you may say that I and the people who say have seen that light are full of garbage, but once you have seen it you know it is true. Socrates said that no one could know if there is a life after death because no one have come back to report, but this I think is wrong. Some people are actually allowed to see this light if they try to search for it, or see it on accident. I saw it on accident. All I can say is that those people are not liars. The only problem they have is that the majority of people have not seen it too so they cannot all agree on it. It is not in this dimension, it is in a higher dimension. This dimension that we are currently on and perceive is an illusion. That light that I call God, has been called by others the collective unconcious. It is the totality of conciousness. Maybe the whole idea of cause and effect is flawed. We think that each cause must have an effect, that each thing must have a source, but this could be wrong. Nature could be working some other way. It may be like recycling. Humans tend to thing linear, but things may be more circular like the infinity symbol. If this is an illusion then the way we are taught to make sense may also be a lie, and that is why we have not yet solved the cause without cause problem for 2300 years.
I will tell you of my experience. You may think it is junk, but I have found that people at the latest fringes of knowledge of consciousness have similar knowledge, even people of the past.
When I saw God/light I had no body all i was, was consciousness. It was blissful, I was in need of nothing and had no want-all I needed was coming from the radiance of the light. While there I saw that the light had all the knowledge of eternity, So I looked for the knowledge that I thought would be most important in our present dimension-how to create a machine that could interchange matter-I found it, it was a giant structure-like a building. Then I saw to light beings on either side of the light-they could have been what people call angels/or seraphim. One came towards me and told me that everything is an illusion except "thought and emotion". This light being did this through telepathy. I wanted to stay there because it was so blissful and everything you could ever want was there. You would not want to come back if you had a choice to stay. Before I knew it I came back from that dimension into this dimension. Going through dimensions was hard, not painful but it puts stress on your mind/consiciousness.
我仍在试图解决整个demiurge sophia gnostic的想法。我只知道这个世界是幻觉。像列奥纳多·达·芬奇这样的伟大思想家知道这个地方是一种幻觉，事实上他们可以塑造它。我们也不能毫无原因地解决整个原因的原因，是因为这个维度的所有原因的原因甚至可能不在这个维度中。我们目前可能也无法用我们目前的技术或人类感知去感知没有原因的原因。
All I know is that people who have seen this light are not liars. That is a good starting point.