The following ID hypotheses were originally produced to supply candidates for a testable ID hypothesis consideration on AmazonBooks.com at a time when the possibility of writing such hypothesis was a matter of heated contention. Even a rudimentary, provisional ID hypothesis test if empirical would allow scientists to at least look more closely at the potential theoretical import of ID arguments, for eg., the possibility of drawing explanatory inferences from real-world data. Anybody want to do so? As I am a proponent of ID trained in scientific methodology and am convinced that such is possible, I sought out such hypothesis for doing simple tests like those done in SETI. I can tell you how to do this.
The database providing usable evidence for testing these ID hypotheses is readily available to the public. It can be found on the internet. Check for it at NASA. The data come in the form of a chart posted as some initial results of the Kepler telescope team's exoplanet survey. They cover only the first six months of the survey and so come from a few years back, but they still provide extensive data suitable for analysis and useful in this connection. Now wouldn't that make a nice science fair project?
Where do you go to look for the pertinent data? Check out planetary descriptions of planets in habitable zones around nearby stars. There are over 50 of them listed in the original Kepler telescope survey! Yes, potential life-producing planets have been found around nearby stars. I will give the links to some sources soon, but the database I am talking about here can be easily found simply by doing a Google search on the Kepler exoplanet survey.
Looking closely at the differences between planets located inside and outside liquid water-temperature habitable zones of stars and to popularize such a comparison as a viable ID research project is the matter of concern for me here at this time. The concept reminds me of SETI. SETI used statistical inference to examine radio signals coming primarily from outside our solar system. The goal was to detect anything that might reflect a pattern of intelligent repetition or modulation in radio signals coming from beyond our solar system. A very sensitive and highly directional antenna was used for this purpose.
SETI was never considered a religious or supernatural activity. (Times have changed. The same mathematical and statistical indicators used in SETI when applied to ID detection get held in contempt by some scientists, due to their belief that the examination gets 'contaminated' outright by religious interests.) The processes of forming and parking life-bearing planets are indeed worthy questions for scientific exploration. Examining the location and makeup of planets existing in and out of habitable zones are surely as important a scientific concern as listening to the radio for signs of intelligent activity. Would you rather be all eyes or all ears as a scientist, if given the choice? Which would be better for doing a scientific exploration for the existence of aliens (or none)- removing scientific blindness or deafness- or wrestling with religious bigotry in academia?
I believe there are many other testable ID hypotheses that are possible, though most evolutionists I have spoken with state unequivocally and categorically that there can be none. That's rather closed-minded, I think. Only one is needed to show otherwise, and that was originally my whole point. Provisional case exemplification and assertion-nullification were my primary goals for bringing the matter up at the time (when I first mentioned it); not to publish a paper about it or to demonstrate that I am a cosmologist. I most certainly am not the latter.
The simplest hypothesis here would be a check on the percentage of exoplanets in habitable zones versus adjacent to them. The next would add size/weight(gravity) of the planet concerned, i.e., midrange, Earth/Mars-like versus moon/Mercury-like or Jupiter-like. An associated consideration was a prediction that high-gravity (large planets in general) and other planets holding environments hostile to the development and differentiation of life AS WE KNOW IT (gas giants and planetoids being only two examples of this) might typically fall outside the habitable zone, and ID explanations for this. However, the evolutionists on Amazon.books I discussed this matter with appear to believe that life can exist on most planets and moons in our solar system (and believe this based on negligible scientific data taken from very hostile environments on Earth). However, they have no real scientific evidence of life living beyond Earth or Mars, i.e., on very small or large planets, or beyond our sun's own habitable zone. What has already been documented as life existing on a celestial body must be the basis for actual scientific comparison in this hypothesis test, not scientific conjecture.
A lot of observations and math that relate to such an investigation have already been performed for you by NASA personnel. They must get cited and be thanked for this. However, an investigator does not have to empirically define or measure habitable zone around any star, only critically ponder and correctly interpret what it means with reference to this projected study. Indeed, this determination has already has been made for us: The habitable zone is typically defined for every applicable star once a planet is discovered; sometimes, it appears, before such discoveries are made.
I am of the opinion that something less than a god or gods is/was involved in doing design. Perhaps a whole pantheon of participants operated in more or less chorus fashion advancing a somewhat inscrutable purpose(s). I think a lot of naturalistic processes were involved, too. To me, these factors would explain the waste and mistakes in evidence among the results of design.
I also don't hold or seek to pursue any 'unitary' view on life that might lend cohesion to such disparate views (and to multiple levels). That is undoubtedly one source of the ambiguity in some of what I write. And I don't care much about remaining consistent from a philosophical or personal point of view; basically only from a scientific and paradigm perspective.
I've been pouring over habitable zone hypotheses in the back of my head like wire puzzles. I thus have a third habitable planet hypothesis. It is the most complete one yet encompassing my thoughts about star system design, however:
ID HYPOTHESIS: Size and mass of planets orbiting stars possessing a habitable zone are correlated with distance from the star in ways that maximize the potential for the proliferation of life as we know and observe it, but are not so correlated in stars lacking habitable zones and stars possessing no planets in their habitable zones.
Now this one directly addresses the need of discriminating design, purpose, and guidance as distinct from the typical patterns seen in natural processes, i.e., the hardest issue/catch to make- in my opinion. Hopefully it will take a step in the right direction by adding a control (group) for ID vs. natural processes, i.e., a comparison to stars lacking habitable zones and stars completely lacking planets in their habitable zones. That's about it...
Why not just count planets in and out of the habitable zone for comparison to be simple? Or how about something more like the quasi-anthropocentric "Stars with habitable zones (will) have more planets close to them- improving the chances for a proliferation of life in the universe" then? (re: planet distribution)
Or, even the more direct, though simple and innocuous "Stars with habitable zones (will) have more planets- providing more opportunities for life to develop in the universe"? (re: planet frequency/incidence)
Indeed, in my second habitable zone hypothesis just mentioned above, I have been essentially assuming (if looked at overall, using simple terms) that the designer(s) like planets and prefer multi-planet star systems.
I say 'essentially,' because that varies from my own concept of a designer slightly. It seems somewhat limited in scope and a little anthropocentric. That is to say, isn't it a psychological reference/emotive appeal to the feature of motive only? Then are we to assume then that designer(s) cannot be robot-like/emotionally detached or even slow moving/amoeba-like in operation? I have no qualms about using the term of 'preference' in all references to this area, though I admit this selection may be partisan and somewhat arbitrary; I see rational drive in self-aware creatures more in terms of a goal or purpose, i.e., in keeping with classical teleology.
Then again, why quibble over terms with evolutionists here? Drawing fine distinctions at this point in an investigation is likely to wind up an exercise in futility/trivia. In some versions of the hypothesis I mentioned, the outgrowth of making assumptions about designer(s)' preferences/ purpose is more particular and complex. These versions predict (more) specialized patterns of planetary location/distribution/or size in stars that have habitable zones in contrast to a random or naturally predictible distribution of the same features around stars having none, I think without resort to natural selection. They are intended to reflect that designer(s) preferred certain locations, sizes, and/or kinds of planets, and not merely more planets.
Could it be that the designer(s) simply prefer more planets, thus putting more of them in habitable zones, or even more of them in any location around stars that have habitable zones? That seems like the most basic place to start. However, can natural forces indeed not do such things? Indeed, the fact that such has even been done has not yet been determined. These questions must first be addressed. Yet, can we know these matters with sufficient degree of logical and inductive certainty at this time? I think these are intriguing questions. Since they are at basic levels of the inquiry, they would be good places to start.
I haven't yet considered size of the habitable zone as a variable. Size and spectral output of the stars might also interact with the above projected relationship(s). What about possible outliers such as very large (eg., white giant) and very weak (eg., red dwarf) stars? Could the habitable zone (or its size) serve as a control for the effects of star size and radiation characteristics, or should the latter factors be instead considered as additional independent variables? I haven't even considered what would constitute realiable types of stars in terms of radiation characteristics for the purposes of generating life and sustaining biological progression on a planet.
I think the general null is reflected at least to some degree in the following considerations: Could life-promoting confluences of habitable zones and propitious planetary number/distribution/size be only random occurrences, or patterns resulting from the operation of natural phenomena alone? Assuming only natural factors, could the same, possibly a third natural phenomena such as the particular type of star (or its size, development, history, etc.) provide star systems with both habitable zones and quantitatively more planets (or, alternatively, qualitatively more potential life-producing planets)? That is, could the latter two dependent phenomena be caused by an as-yet unidentified third naturally occurring factor? Then again, what would the discovery of purely random or star-type-only correlated planetary distributions suggest about ID theory in this area?
As you can see, I am still talking about several alternative variables as options for this study. For instance, I am assuming that more planets in the habitable zone would reflect design only if we could rule out appropriate naturally influencing factors, or alternatively, that a complex, life-propitious pattern of size or distribution of planets around candidate\habitable zone stars could logically be only due to design. More likely, the results will provide uncorrelated findings, the failure to reach levels of statistical significance, or provide only hints about possible real causes.
I believe a good first step would be to focus and refine the hypothesis to be investigated. That is what I have been exploring here for the most part. In the more complex versions of the proposed hypothesis, if I am not able to describe all potential causal factors well (in your analogy perhaps: the features of the lake, island proximity, local and surrounding geology,and area features), i.e., whatever conditions that give rise to habitable zones (star type, distance from star, emitted spectrum, etc.) and affect planet number/distribution/or size, I'm going to need a lot of descriptive data on planets lying outside of habitable zones or around stars having no habitable zones. If that is so, then at this time, at the start, with little descriptive data to go on and only a basic understanding to build on, wouldn't a simpler form of the hypothesis would be better?
In all of this, we should not lose track of the overall goal of trying to discover whether there more independently generated life-favoring factors present in habitable zones than in regions outside of them, and then, discovering whether such should be explained by something other than natural forces alone, i.e., not dependent on fluctuations in natural phenomena or the operation of random factors.
To that more basic and general end, wouldn't simpler forms of the hypothesis be preferable now? Here is yet another example of such: Stars with habitable zones will have a larger number of planets and their orbits will be closer together in habitable zones than adjacent to such zones. However, wouldn't even this version be a little too complex at present to count as a good starting point for launching such an investigation?
Want to help test a real-world ID hypothesis using public domain astronomical data? Get in contact with me and let's discuss the possibilities.
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