[r9etb]

Ain't it fun to have a civilized discussion on one of these threads?

[js1138]

I try to have civilized discussions. There are reasons I don't expect ID to go anywhere, but I do think it has forced mainstream biology, particular in the popular press, to be more cautious in its pronouncements. Anything that cuts down on junk science is not all bad.

But I have a little cautionary tale for anyone who thinks you can find the signature of the designer.

In Carl Sagan's Contact, the book, not the movie, there's a chapter called The Signature of the Creator (or something close to that). In this chapter, on advise from an alien civilization, the expanded binary digits of pi are searched for patterns. Of course a pattern is found; a string of digits that can be placed in an array, like a digital camera image, to form a picture.

The problem -- not mentioned in the book -- with this is that the digits of pi are effectively random. If you expand pi indefinitely, you will find every possible finite string, including the ascii encoded works of Shakespeare.

Patterns do not automatically reveal their history.