You’re being a bit cavalier with the word lie here. I may be mistaken, and will happily admit to it if you can point me in the direction of a creationist/IDer who espouses the “ET life as designers” view. Dawkins maybe? 
Re video above. ID does not deny evolution, so I don’t get how finding a unique, unrelated gene should be all that high on the ID agenda. Nor how the lack of such a gene should discredit their hypothesis much. The ID angle is to marry evolution with the idea of an guiding, directed overseeing force, instead of “mere” natural selection, not so?
Mintaka
Yes I wasn’t seriously referring to Dawkins as an IDer.
I was referring to this - Dawkins talking about his interview with Ben Stein for the movie expelled:
“I patiently explained to him that life could conceivably have been seeded on Earth by an alien intelligence from another planet (Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel suggested something similar – semi tongue-in-cheek). The conclusion I was heading towards was that, even in the highly unlikely event that some such ‘Directed Panspermia’ was responsible for designing life on this planet, the alien beings would THEMSELVES have to have evolved…”
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/2394
I’ve never come across an IDer that espouses this theory, but then I do try to avoid them, so I guess I could be wrong. Telly?
The Discovery Institute at least seems to believe that the designer was God. From their “Wedge Document”:
“Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.”
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?id=349
Perhaps you do not fully understand that the gene is the unit of heritance within the framework of the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, or what the full implications of that innocuous-sounding statement are. A little hard reflection with that tenet in mind should clear up why, if ID is true, there must necessarily exist at least some genes that do not, in the words of the challenge, “exhibit an evolutionary heritage.” See if you can figure out why.
'Luthon64
Well the designer obviously reused some components. And made some modifications to the components each time he did so, to make it look like there was an evolutionary heritage. Just as a little prank you know. It gets boring when you are the only superintelligent being in the universe and have no one to talk to. And messing with those little humans is so much fun.
Julian, not sure if you spake in jest, but exactly! Where evolution theory proposes mutation along with natural selection as the mechanism of speciation, ID proposes mutation (perhaps due to tinkering) along with what boils down to artificial selection. Neither pathway implies novel, unique, cousinless genes. The product of either evolution theory and ID will be exactly the same, i.e. the genes that make up modern species.
Still, I’ll give it some more thought as was suggested, possibly with the aid of some dry red. Hopefully the light will drop, and the penny will come on…
Mintaka
IDiocy goes considerably further than just proposing “mutation (perhaps due to tinkering) along with what boils down to artificial selection” to explain complex features. Nor does it limit its focus to speciation alone. It may help to pay very careful attention to the terms in which the Discovery Institute’s Stephen Meyer casts the essentials of IDiocy at the beginning of the video clip (recorded on two separate occasions, nogal). Extending those selfsame terms just slightly and taking into account what IDiocy posits as an explanation will go a long way towards identifying the answer.
'Luthon64
I did speak in jest, but there is a serious point behind it. You can always add tinkering by God to the observed evolutionary process (whether in the mutation or selection) but a) it is unnecessary, b) it raises serious theological problems and c) it is very silly.
I think different proponents of ID have different takes on it, perhaps some take the slightly more limited and subtle view outlined by Mintaka. But hey, I’m no expert on ID theory, and don’t intend on becoming one.
As for Stephen Meyer’s argument in the video, which I could paraphrase as such: “Living things contain DNA which stores information. Therefore, an intelligent designer”. Um, no.
All I can gather from the opening sequence is that he thinks that the mere existence of a nifty digital sequence looks like it has been designed, which sounds to me like an argument from ignorance. But I don’t know if he wants us to believe that the code was created as is (i.e. in seven days), or evolved and guided by intelligence. I assumed he meant the latter. The challenge set in the video was for ID proponents to come up with a cousinless protein or DNA sequence which, sure, would be evidence against evolution and for creation. So only if IDeology rejects evolution, whatever the mechanism, will such a dare be meaningful. Otherwise it is simply a challenge to creationism.
???
Mintaka
Not really. IDiocy consistently holds that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.” The Discovery Institute says it, several IDiots have said it, and the Wikipedia entry says it. It is the basic working hypothesis of IDiocy. Now it doesn’t matter whether you read “intelligent cause”/“not an undirected process” as “periodic/ongoing maintenance” or “perfect initial planning with no further tweaking” because there is, as said, necessarily one link in the chain where random interference plus an “undirected process” either completely refutes IDiocy as an explanation, or renders it superfluous. It may help to think of an analogy in the form of a cleverly designed computer program that is self-learning, polymorphic, encrypted, stealthy, and has access to a source of true randomness in support of its growth and those various properties. There is one piece of code (or routine if you like) in such a program that cannot be messed around with without destroying it completely.
'Luthon64
In artificial genetic modification I should imagine genes that do not “exhibit an evolutionary heritage” are introduced into the genome and that these genes can later be identified as such. How would they be identified later? Not being schooled in genetics, my guess would be that they display characteristics that are incompatible with randomness. Any ID aimed at a specific quality would require similar genetic modification that can later be identified in the same way.
Yes and no. The introduced gene would exhibit an evolutionary heritage, since it comes from another organism. If however the donor and recipient organism are sufficiently distantly related, then it should be possible to later identify the gene as having been introduced. For example if you had to put certain types of plant genes into an animal.
If however you were able to synthesise the entire gene (as will soon be possible, or perhaps already is) then it could be made to be entirely distinct from any naturally occuring gene.
This discussion is far too reasonable and polite for a Flame Wars thread. Shouldn’t we be shouting at each other? At the very least a bit of name calling?
Ha-ha, yeah, don’t you just hate it when threads go to the dogs like that! ;D
Mintaka
I think after last couple of flame wars, people just got so tired/exhausted that they’re taking a breather…stilte voor die storm? >:D
This implies that a god could have fiddled with a bit of GM in an undetectable way, i.e. practised ID in such a way that we cannot spot it later.
Yes, any god worth its salt would definitely be capable of that.