Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my debate. I apologize for not responding sooner; I was busy completing other work last night. Unfortunately for your side of the debate, my entire case doesn't hinge of falsificationism. You failed to address Kuhn's account of science, so I'll assume you concede that ID fails in this regard. ID, I still maintain, does not give rise to testable predictions. Your first contention actually serves my case quite well. Just because we can't observe something directly (like the center of the earth) does not make it unscientific; I agree with this. However, the point for my case is that ID makes no predictions that could be tested. It's framework is not strict enough to give rise puzzles to solve. Evolutions framework, in contrast, is very strict. Evolution dictates that we all have a common ancestor (which is a king-size risky prediction that could be refuted) and that every creature evolved through natural selection. This paradigm gives rise to millions of puzzle's to solve. If these puzzle's can't be solved (for example, if we found a human skeleton in the Cambrian), evolution would be in trouble and could possibly be falsified. If the earth's core is made of super-condensed and super-heated metals, then we expect to calculate certain gravitational and magnetic fields. If these calculations suggest that the earth's core is not made of hot metals, the theory that the earth's core is made of hot metals fails. There are predictions made that we can test using other scientific theories, like gravity in this particular instance. A better example you could have cited would be string theory, which has yet to make any testable predictions, so there is no empirical evidence for string theory. However, sting theory solves incredible conceptual problems (namely unifying classic and quantum physics), that's why it's held onto. Also, the calculations themselves are refutable. Even so, there is a strong case to be made that string theory is not scientific at this point. Once it becomes testable and makes predictions, then it will cross into the realm of science. So, with this in mind, how could we possibly test the theory of ID. What predictions does it make? ID simply says that evolution is wrong because it has gaps (which are slowly closing). This is simply a negative theory that makes no predictions of its own. Your second point fails to address my concern with the unscientific tendency of ID proponents to simply switch features that are supposedly "irreducibly complex" to salvage their theory. Scientist have shown that the eye could have developed through purely naturalistic mechanisms (http://www.pbs.org...), so the ID supporter need only switch to a different feature that appears in life, like the commonly referenced bacterium flagella (which has also been shown to develop through natural selection--http://rnaworld.bio.ku.edu...). The issue is that the history of life is profoundly large, so there will always be examples that appear in nature that science has yet to explain. Once again, ID supporters confuse the unknown (e.g. how the first cell evolved) with the unknowable (e.g. what happens after we die?). ID proponents resort to a tactic often used by creationist. The so-called gaps in the fossil record can never be entirely filled because every gap that is filled opens of two more gaps. For example, if I show that species B is the intermediate species between species A and species C, the creationist will simply say that there is a "missing link" between species A and the newly discovered species B. As you can see, this can go on forever. My point is that although ID is in principle entirely falsifiable, it is not in practice. For as long as we are alive and for many generations thereafter, not every feature of life will be explained. This is perhaps an impossible task. Again, you failed to address the fact that ID is unscientific because it is a theory that, in practice, escapes refutation. The ID proponent must specify what would cause them to abandon their theory as refuted, but they cannot. To say that they will only accept ID as falsified once every feature of life is entirely explained is absurd. Imagine if I salvaged my moon frog theory by ad hoc modifications. I could say that the moon didn't turn into a frog because the weather in November was too warm, and the year after I could claim that it rained too much. Eventually, I would exhaust every variable and my theory would be falsified, but that doesn't make my moon frog theory scientific. Issues concerning what became before the big bang are not scientific. They are philosophical. If we were arguing about the God as first cause concept, I would argue that this is unscientific because it isn't falsifiable. This doesn't make this discussion unimportant, but merely unscientific. You claim that ID is broader theory that attempts to explain the universe. How could we test that God created the universe? I believe in God and think He created the universe, but this is not a scientific theory. The Big Bang, on the other hand, is scientific because it makes predictions that could fail. For example, the Big Bang theory predicted that their would be some heat left in the universe as a result of ionized plasma cooling to form neutral hydrogen and thereby allowing space to become transparent to light. This is precisely what was found: cosmic microwave background radiation of the temperature 2.725 Kelvin is everywhere the universe. The specific science, for the purpose of this debate, is unimportant. The point is simply that if this prediction failed, the Big Bang theory would be undercut and close to falsification because the Big Bang theory mandates that this radiation exists. More failed predictions would lead to falsification. So, you are categorically incorrect to say that the "Big Bang is irrefutable in its very nature." It makes predictions that could fail and is therefore scientific. What predictions does ID make? The rest of your third contention is irrelevant to this debate. You write "no theory is truly refutable because of our limited ability to perceive the universe," which is outrageously off topic. If you want to talk about the nature of the brain (as well as it's ability to provide humans with accurate information) or whether our senses are reliable, we can do that in another debate, but that has nothing to do with whether ID is scientific.