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

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

[HawaiianGecko]

	"Ah Shawnee Mission, well you spend some time on the Darwin worshiping threads and you will find you live in one of the most reviled places upon this earth by the evolutionists." Johnson County is a "reviled" place?

 

 

[Just mythoughts]

Depends on which side of Sprintville you live....

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" That's strange. I don't see anyone out there trying to disprove evolution except creationists which are so often decried."

Every time someone unearths a fossil it is another possible falsification of evolution.

"You cannot prove that we came from a massive bang 4.6 billion years ago (or did they jack up the age of the earth again? I keep losing track)..."

The BB happened about 15 billion years ago; this has been the accepted number for quite a while. 4.6 billion years is the age of the Earth, which was formed long after the BB.

Your mix up of the BB and the formation of the Earth aside, there is evidence that points to their old age. We can't prove it 100%, but then again we can't do that with any theory in science. Creation by God on the other hand, can never be proved or disproved; there is no way to gather physical evidence for or against. It can never be a scientific theory until that happens.

" So no, you cannot prove those assumptions. You cannot necessarily disprove them either."

While we can't prove or disprove God's creating the world scientifically, we CAN gather evidence against certain interpretations of creation, such as YEC. That the earth is only thousands of years old is no longer tenable scientifically.

"The evidence of evolution is frequently inconsistent, and constantly being changed as new observations are made."

The main thrust of evolutionary theory has not changed much since Darwin. That evolution is modified to account for new data is a plus, not a negative. It's what science does.

"Evidence interpreted according to the creationist model fits."

Not the young earth assertions, nor the fixity of species, nor the arguments against common descent. Whenever Creationists make specific stands about biology and geology, they open themselves up to critique by the evidence. They have not passed that test. That's why they switched to ID; it's nebulous enough to not make any testable assertions. It can hoodwink a higher sort of buffoon.

[trisham]

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

************

I would guess it's a combination of the two.

[RunningWolf]

My whole issue with evo has nothing to do with ID or any religion. Take all religion and ID out of the equation, then cosmo-evo is still a weak description.

Wolf

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Then why is it interpreted as evolutionary proof, even when the facts point the opposite direction?"

What fossils have gone against evolution?

" My mistake. So hard to keep these differing and changing evolution views straight."

Since the BB isn't evolution, it would do you good to read a book on cosmology. And these figures have been essentially the same for decades. Can't keep up with 30 year old info?

"My point was that evolution too rests on an unproven premise. If you read what I wrote, we can prove neither one, only examine the results for indications either way."

And evolution wins hands down.

"According to your interpretations based on your preconceived notions, and ignoring for the time being that there is evidence against old age."

According to the facts. There is no evidence for a young earth.

"If evolution is continually evolving, then how do you know the things you insist are true today will not be dramatically proven false tomorrow? Two generations from now, you will probably not even recognize the theory that you believe today."

Maybe. If it changes though, it will be because of new evidence. Creationism can never change because it refuses to consider the evidence from the physical world. Any belief system that is not open to change cannot be science.

"Biology and geology? Have at 'em, mate."

I meant real geology and biology.

" You mean a higher baboon, don't you? Which is what evolutionists insist we're all higher forms of?"

Nobody says we descended from baboons. Stop making a buffoon of yourself.

"Lumping Intelligent Design together with Creationism seems to make you think you've already won the battle because likening the two instantly wins the victory in your mind. I would think you ought to be able to distinguish the two."

I already have. ID appeals to a higher sort of buffoon.

[VadeRetro]

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

One or the other, yeah.

[js1138]

Your mix up of the BB and the formation of the Earth aside...

A mixup that demonstrates massive, mind boggling ignorance. This is from a guy who pontificates on the failures of science.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

At some level I don't like idiots in ivory towers telling me what I have to believe and teach my children. I read through 3/4 of "Origin of Species" when I was 14. OK, I get it. I can explain how the theory works. That's all I need to do. (Finches, are, to me, a really boring subject, by the way.)

If Darwin's theory is so defensible why worry about competing theory? How has Darwinism been used by social scientists? History would seem to teach that what has been will be again. A truely consistent materialistic viewpoint could actually support the rise of another Hitler. His "Konzentraionsanlager" were of course run by Doctors and engineers. He mobilized bhe German scientific apparatus in support of his racial theories. They, of course, appreciated his support and returned it.

Maybe we should have a little more free thinking in education land and challenge the forces of convention. If nothing else we should do this because it's fun to irritate the conformists in the NEA and the parrots of the MSM.

[Thatcherite]

Nothing is actually proved in the way it might be in physics or chemistry.

You seem to think that the laws and theories of physics and chemistry are more provable than those in biology. Please explain how physics or chemistry proves something. Give a specific example of such a real world proof with full analytical rigour applying to any physical or chemical law or theory of your choice......

I'll wait. I've seen your contention made many times by those who wish to deny the theory of evolution (or to by some mysterious process promote ID to being on equal status with ToE), and when I ask this question the response has been chirping crickets, every time.

[VadeRetro]

When Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, the first thing he did was to make a concrete prediction: he predicted that a certain planet must exist in such-and-such a place even though it had never been observed before. If it turned out that the planet did not exist, his theory would be refuted. In 1919, 14 years after the advent of Special Relativity, the planet was discovered exactly where he said. The theory survived the test. But the possibility of failing a test -- the willingness to put the theory up for refutation -- was what made it a scientific theory in the first place.

This sounds like a confusion of separate incidents in science. Einstein did not use relativity to predict Pluto. He used relativity to predict the bending of starlight near the Sun. What happened in 1919 were observations of a solar eclipse by Sir Arthur Eddington which confirmed the shifting of apparent position of stars near the sun (which could only be observed during such an eclipse).

Pluto's existence was indeed foretold by certain perturbations in the orbit of Neptune. (Not by Einstein, IIRC, however.) It and its moon Charon were eventually found about where the predicted object should have been. There's a hitch, though. The Pluto-Charon system isn't massive enough to have caused the perturbations used to predict it in the first place. Either those observations were spurious or there was something else out there.

[Thatcherite]

Pluto's existence was indeed foretold by certain perturbations in the orbit of Neptune. (Not by Einstein, IIRC, however.) It and its moon Charon were eventually found about where the predicted object should have been. There's a hitch, though. The Pluto-Charon system isn't massive enough to have caused the perturbations used to predict it in the first place. Either those observations were spurious or there was something else out there.

It was Lowell who predicted Pluto in 1915, but finding it fairly close to his predicted position was actually pure luck, because it isn't what causes Neptune's orbital perturbation (I think it isn't large enough); there is something else out there, as yet undiscovered.

Einstein's successful prediction was of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit, due to the distortion of space by the sun's gravitional field.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Kind of odd, when you think about it, to take one's handle from a Kansas postal district...

So, by your name you are legal representative to gazelle hounds, or an alumni of SIU. Are you also a transplant from the sucker state?

[longshadow]

This sounds like a confusion of separate incidents in science. [snip]

It think the author is confusing the prediction of the precession of Mercury's perihelion with some sort of test of SR. He's got it all mixed up. You're right about the bending of starlight being the falsification test of GR.

It's too bad; the author's analysis of Popper and his conclusions re: ID are spot on. Oh, well, that's what one gets when one lets a philosophy nerd write an article.

[PatrickHenry]

EvolutionPing

A pro-evolution science list with over 320 names. See the list's explanation, then FReepmail to be added or dropped. Check out The List-O-Links. These two links will assist beginners: But it's "just a theory" and How to argue against a scientific theory.

[VadeRetro]

A Web Page on the Mathematical Discovery of Planets. Yes, it's all Newtonian mechanics. No Einstein.

[VadeRetro]

The precession of Mercury's perihelion was a success for relativity, but that success lay in explaining a known and puzzling phenomenon, not in predicting it.

[Thatcherite]

It think the author is confusing the prediction of the precession of Mercury's perihelion with some sort of test of SR. He's got it all mixed up. You're right about the bending of starlight being the falsification test of GR.

Sounds like I'm confused too in what I thought. I think relativity is one of those things that should probably be left to professionals. I just remembered another successful prediction; don't the clocks on the shuttle run slow enough for the difference to be detectable by the time it lands after a long flight? I'm sure I read it somewhere (so it must be true). I think it was in Relativities Chapter 3 Verses 4-6.