Is Intelligent Design a Bad Scientific Theory or a Non-Scientific Theory?

Tech Central Station ^ | 11/10/2005 | Uriah Kriegel

[Just mythoughts]

FYI

[RogueIsland]

The problem is this: ID searches for causes.

It does no such thing. It simply assumes a supernatural cause, without definition or attempt to understand its mechanisms, and decides that everything the observer is intellectually unequipped to understand is automatically a product of that supernatural cause. (And please, don't trot out the "Xenudidit" nonsense, or you'll have to tell me how Xenu was created, and how the creator of the creator of Xenu was created).

[JCEccles]

Fascinating headline. Looks fun! Let me try:

Query: Do Darwinists become closed-minded zealots and fools by education and training, or are these inborn traits?

[BlazingArizona]

Considered scientifically, intelligent design is a hypothesis, not a theory. A hypothesis is a scientific conjecture that has not yet been tested by experiment. We don't generally go around teaching hypotheses in grade school, but we also don't reject them until we devise experimentsthat disprove them.

Scientifically, we can express the ID conjecture as: "There exists at least one biological structure or process that cannot be explained by natural selection". ID advocates have cited some examples they think are candidates, such as the bacterial flagellum. Are any scientists out there willing to scientifically test the hypothesis, or are they going to take natural selection on faith, as with "human-induced climate change"?

[The Shootist]

Creative Design is, by definition, not a theory. To be a theory a hypothesis must be testable. Creative Design is not. When a theory becomes untestable it become philosophy.

[oblomov]

Evolution isn't a theory, it's a fact based on the observed reality of the fossil record. There are theories about how it occurs. Natural selection is the most widely accepted theory of how evolution occurs (an early 20th c competitor was Lamarckism). Natural selection is falsifiable- one would merely need to show that genetic mutations are never beneficial to an organism, or that these mutations are acquired (Lamarckism) in the lifespan of an organism. Clearly the evidence is in favor of natural selection, but the theory of natural selection itself has undergone several major revisions over the past 100 years as a result of new evidence and a closer examination of existing evidence.

To the contrary of your assertion, I know several evolutionary biologists, and they are all thoroughgoing Popperians.

[Liberal Classic]

Someone who doesn't know the difference between wavelength and frequency ought not brow-beat people on the topic of science education.

[DGray]

Query: Are Creationists capable of debating without using the ad hominem fallacy?

[Just mythoughts]

FYI

[doc30]

The problem is that those on the Darwinism side of the debate refuse to see or studiously ignore the fact that the natural sciences do not contain all possible knowledge.

Science has never claimed to be the oracle of all possible knowledge. To make such a statement underscores your own ignorance of scientists. Do you actually know, in person or on line, any scientists? Any scientist who claimed science was such an oracle, would never pass his or her dissertaion exam.

[Sloth]

But should Intelligent Design -- the theory that living organisms were created at least in part by an intelligent designer, not by a blind process of evolution by natural selection...

This article seems fairly sound to me. But the same standard should apply to the other side. Proponents of evolution being a "blind process" -- i.e., purely the product of natural forces -- also propose no test by which that belief may be falsified, and therefore it is not scientific. Neither view belongs in a science classroom. Both are philosophies.

[Just mythoughts]

"Science has never claimed to be the oracle of all possible knowledge. To make such a statement underscores your own ignorance of scientists. Do you actually know, in person or on line, any scientists? Any scientist who claimed science was such an oracle, would never pass his or her dissertaion exam."


You are exactly correct "SCIENCE" does not claim such but flesh man sure does, else they would not make the claim that the Creator did not create fully grown adult beings, more than two. That rejection is an oracle of lack of knowledge.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Neither should someone who does not know the difference between philosophy and science.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Falsifiability, especially in rhetoric (via a continually reinforced argument) is a good starting point. As to 'science', the Science Wars, have they been won or lost and by whom?

[Fester Chugabrew]

I would agree that falsifiability has it's place in science, but it is not the only element that qualifies it as such. Furthermore, much of what is posited by evoluionists as "falsifiable" is no such thing. The attitude ought to be "no options left out." I don't see that attitude in those who use the courts to enforce a particular, unproven, view of world history.

[SuziQ]

Here's another one about ID.

[doc30]

That rejection is an oracle of lack of knowledge.

Sorry, what makes Genesis correct? There are hundreds of creation stories that claim equal validity. What you purport is not knowledge, but faith, because you have no proof.

[aruanan]

Is Intelligent Design a Bad Scientific Theory or a Non-Scientific Theory?

Neither. But the title is an example of being polemical.

[SalukiLawyer]

Neither evolution nor ID is science in the first place. They are both attempts to explain past events on the basis of limited evidence. To that end they may use science and consult experts. Nothing is actually proved in the way it might be in physics or chemistry. Both are argued, and both have appealing arguments on their behalf. The problem with evolution as it is taught is that it includes (indeeds depends upon) a type of questionable argument called an enthymeme ("the glove don't fit, you must acquit") sprinkled with "magic science dust" to help it sneak by.

It is an absolute historical fact that evolution has been used from the beginning as an engine of destruction of religious faith by some people (not necessarily scientists). It is also a fact that ID is being used as a means of getting Christianity back into public schools. People sometimes get strident on both sides.

If you want to think clearly about evolution, imagine less Einstein and more CSI. This is a forensic question and the issue is currently unresolvable in terms of scientific proof. Materialists and believers will therefore make such arguments as they may on the basis of the evidence. Many modern educated people are, frankly, scared of God. They can take comfort in bad rhetoric posing as "science." As far as what goes on in school, we all know that evolution is taught as a scientific fact, which it is not.

Of course, neither is ID. :-)

[Just mythoughts]

"Sorry, what makes Genesis correct? There are hundreds of creation stories that claim equal validity. What you purport is not knowledge, but faith, because you have no proof."

Faith comes from things NOT seen. Genesis is the description of the formation of "flesh" man, which is not living without the breath of life which means "soul" that entity which is not seen by the naked flesh eye. Genesis lays the foundation upon which the rest of the book follows, and planted therein are the witnesses that gives Genesis its credibility.

Genesis does NOT tell us the age of this earth, nor the age of the souls of man, only the "FLESH". This earth provides the evidence that give Genesis and the rest of the word credibility of what is past, it is FAITH that one has to believe what is said to come will come.