Intelligent Design case decided - Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board loses [Fox News Alert]

Fox News | 12/20/05

[snarks_when_bored]

Fox News alert a few minutes ago says the Dover School Board lost their bid to have Intelligent Design introduced into high school biology classes. The federal judge ruled that their case was based on the premise that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was incompatible with religion, and that this premise is false.

[donh]

Wow! Am I ever jealous of RunningWolf. He must be pretty effective, that you had to call the whole gang in. lol

I copied RunningWolf's list, try not to faint with the excitement.

Do you know there was a time when only one man believed in Darwinism - Darwin!!

Which demonstrates what?

But yet evos believed Darwin, and he was wrong.

Cosmic.

[donh]

you couldn't ask for a better example of what the founders were warning us of.

ROFL

So that's your big rebuttal of post #2683? Very incisive.

[RunningWolf]

If the Germans and Americans could momentarily stop the combat at Christmas in WWII, Wolf can do the same.

I wish all a Healthy Happy Holy Christmas.

Wolf

[donh]

Where is the specific constitutional authority for the Federal Goverment to in any way get involved in the public school education of our children or to tax me to pay for it?

Which Article or Clause? The Commerce Clause? Are you kidding?

Again you are attaching as broad a reading of the Commerce Clause as you have on the Establishment Clause. Using your interpretation of the commerce clause anything that ends up in any way "affecting" commerce can be legitimately regulated.

Perhaps you have a Federalist Paper that suggested that this kind of broad mandate to the Federal Goverment was intended by the founders?

...

Article 1 - The Legislative Branch
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

...

Come now, I just finished eating a raft of shinola about my supposed libertarian principles, and now I'm being lambasted because someone imagines the the Constitution is some libertarian wet dream of a constraining document, the Constitution, as it actually exists, gives a disgustingly wide charter to the government.

I would, in fact, prefer that the Constitution was a libertarian one, that constrained the feds to regulating volunteer police and military, but that ain't the way of it--and you can't make it so by displaying a really confident, sarcastic attitude.

[donh]

So far the arguments against my proposition are weak.

As one would expect of an argument that one can barely comprehend.

[unlearner]

"You have not addressed how you will support an assertion that life cannot possibly by any means have spontaneously self-assembled."

It is more a question of likelihood than possibility. Until we see some evidence, any evidence, of this actually occurring, it is reasonable to assume it does not occur.

I gave the analogy of gravity (post # 2553), a point to which you did not respond. I wrote:

"Do you feel the same about the law of gravity? It states that EVERY object in the Universe attracts EVERY other object with a force directed along the line of centers of mass for the two objects. Do we need to wait until we can test EVERY object in order for this statement to become scientific?"

Are you saying the law of gravity makes claims which are not falsifiable? How is this universal statement fundamentally different from my saying EVERY occurrence of life originating is the result of intelligence? If the only difference is supporting evidence, then we agree. That is why the statement about gravity is a law, but mine is merely a hypothesis. But you seem to be saying that my statement is logically flawed rather than lacking evidence. I can go along with unsupported, but not unsupportable.

So far we have no supporting evidence that it is possible to assemble life in a lab. But it seems a reasonable assumption we will. We can verify this.

Some people think life arose spontaneously as the result of the right combination of conditions occurring randomly. If that is the case, the pursuit of assembling life will assist in deducing what conditions could serve as a precursor.

I am not saying we should not pursue abiogenesis experimentally or speculatively. Doing so will either falsify or support my hypothesis.

It is not possible to test for every eventuality, but this does not in any way limit a hypothesis from asserting universals that can never be fully verified.

The creation / evolution debate led me to see the importance of the philosophy of science. I came to realize that much of the argument is not really about science but the philosophy upon which it is based. The same is the case here.

I recently asked my friend (who is working on his doctorate in molecular biology) how much study of the philosophy of science was required to earn his degrees. I was astounded to find out the answer is NONE.

What this means to me is that it is possible to be a scientist, even an expert, and not have an accurate understanding of what science is. Science is defined by the philosophy of science.

This lies at the heart of the debate. This is what I am measuring against. Until someone can demonstrate how my assertion differs logically from other accepted science, I will stick to my guns - it is a scientifically valid hypothesis.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Not exactly. Ideally tests support or falsify, but not necessarily."

If they don't support or provide evidence against the theory, they are not tests.

" There are statements which are verifiable but not falsifiable. In that sense, something can be testable but not falsifiable."

Then they are not verifiable. If something is not falsifiable, there is no way to verify it.

" I think ID has a very low bar to meet since there really are no scientific theories for the origin of life."

The status of other hypotheses for the origins of life has no affect on the scientific status of ID. All other hypotheses can be falsified, and ID will not be any better off. That being said, abiogenesis has much more evidence to back it than ID, which has nothing.


Merry Christmas!!

[donh]

I think ID has a very low bar to meet since there really are no scientific theories for the origin of life.

What? How does the one follow from the other? There are several naturalistic abiogenetic theories floating around, some of which have been published in refereed journals. And there is Woese's work, which is definitely biological science, and which seems to be narrowing the abiogenetic options down. Whether you can call all of this science or not is in the same problematic bag as crop circles and cold fusion, at the moment, however, it would seem to play hob with your somewhat loopy theory that you can pull any rabbit out of your hat you like, and call it a falsifiable test, because there are no such tests being hunted up for competing theories.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"If the Germans and Americans could momentarily stop the combat at Christmas in WWII, Wolf can do the same.

I wish all a Healthy Happy Holy Christmas."

You too Wolf. Merry Christmas!

My evo-cult Darwin Church virtual ignore is off for the Holy Days.
Don't think I won't be able to turn it back on afterwords :)

May your holidays be happy and full of love.

[RunningWolf]

Yes Bump To Post #2684

[unlearner]

"As one would expect of an argument that one can barely comprehend."

But is that a reflection on me or the one trying to comprehend what I said?

What I am saying is fairly simple. If it is logically flawed, you or some other intelligent person around here should be able to pinpoint where that flaw is located rather than making generic statements about how illogical or hard to understand it is.

[RunningWolf]

I could say this for many many areas of science and theory.

No one knows what gravity is, and why how, etc. Yet they insist their model of these things ARE, and ridicule any suggestion that this part of physics or any other can be different.

But for even the Big Bang Theory to remotely survive intact, (and I say it does not) the physics of gravity, light, etc., must change.

Wolf

[donh]

This lies at the heart of the debate. This is what I am measuring against. Until someone can demonstrate how my assertion differs logically from other accepted science, I will stick to my guns - it is a scientifically valid hypothesis.

You're not the first, and won't be the last to go verbally nuclear upon discovering that pretty much all scientific reasoning is inductive (and hence, formally insecure), over very tiny collections of evidence. This apparently alarming fact did not put everyone's brains and hearts on hold. Despite imperfect knowledge, we can still assess the likelihood of an explanation being accurate/useful. We do this in the manner that Karl Popper elucidated--we run tests that have many stringent criteria, and which we hope are well-designed to fail if the hypothesis is wrong. The part you appear to me to be having trouble groking is the part where you actually have to make a serious, affordable, pointedly relevant test. It is not a popularity contest where you vote for the test you like best, and that's the one whose theory gets to be class president--we don't grade this issue on the curve.

[unlearner]

"There are several naturalistic abiogenetic theories floating around"

How are they falsifiable? Where is the supporting evidence? Apart from these, why are you calling them theories?

"your somewhat loopy theory"

I never called it a theory. It is a hypothesis. What is loopy about? You are making a broad statement without identifying anything specific.

[donh]

What I am saying is fairly simple.

Then kindly say it in way fewer paragraphs.

If it is logically flawed, you or some other intelligent person around here should be able to pinpoint where that flaw is located rather than making generic statements about how illogical or hard to understand it is.

the universe isn't designed to be fair. If it doesn't blow out half my jets trying to do so, and I manage to understand something you've said, and it tickles my fancy to do so, I'll attempt to respond to something you may say.

[donh]

I never called it a theory. It is a hypothesis. What is loopy about? You are making a broad statement without identifying anything specific.

The statement that started this part of the thread was yours as follows (and I might add, quite recently, and proximately to this post):

I think ID has a very low bar to meet since there really are no scientific theories for the origin of life.

That is your theory--it is, in fact, the very theory that started this conversation, and, strictly as a matter of scientific objectivity, it is definitely loopy: the status of falsifiable tests of naturalistic explanations of life's origins has absolutely no bar-lowering affect on the falsifiable-ness of ID tests.

[unlearner]

"That is your theory--it is, in fact, the very theory that started this conversation, and, strictly as a matter of scientific objectivity, it is definitely loopy: the status of falsifiable tests of naturalistic explanations of life's origins has absolutely no bar-lowering affect on the falsifiable-ness of ID tests."

My assertion that there are no competing theories about the origin of life does not lower the bar for falsifiability for my hypothesis. Agreed. It is either falsifiable or it isn't.

However, if there was a competing theory which satisfactorily answered the question of origin of life, it would raise the bar for competing theories to provide a better explanation.

My hypothesis may be simplistic, admittedly, but it is falsifiable and verifiable, which is more than the other propositions of the origin of life can claim.

I am calling it a night. Merry Christmas.

[unlearner]

"If they don't support or provide evidence against the theory, they are not tests."

Perhaps not good tests. String theory makes certain predictions for which tests have been proposed and will be carried out in the near future. But these tests, if they fail, will not falsify string theory because the failure may, in this case, merely indicate that the method of detection is flawed, but not the predictions.

But the point is not worth fighting over. A good test is one that offers the possibilities of either supporting evidence or falsification as the outcome.

"If something is not falsifiable, there is no way to verify it."

Now that is simply wrong. Here is an example from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Some_examples

Non-falsifiable theories can usually be reduced to a simple uncircumscribed existential statement, such as there exists a green swan. It is entirely possible to verify that the theory is true, simply by producing the green swan. But since this statement does not specify when or where the green swan exists, it is simply not possible to show that the swan does not exist, and so it is impossible to falsify the statement.

"The status of other hypotheses for the origins of life has no affect on the scientific status of ID."

Most philosophers of science would disagree. Competing theories and hypotheses provide alternative explanations. When one has been supported more extensively by empirical evidence it tends to be given more credence.

"That being said, abiogenesis has much more evidence to back it than ID, which has nothing."

You are saying there is supporting evidence for abiogenesis? Where? What qualifies it to support abiogenesis? What particular hypothesis is supported?

Merry Christmas to you too. I am calling it a night.

[RunningWolf]

Take Care you you ape, 'er I mean human being, 'er I mean soul, I mean brilliant ray of His Infinite Being.

Healthy Happy Holy Christmas

Wolf

[P-Marlowe]

...the Constitution, as it actually exists, gives a disgustingly wide charter to the government....

Correction:

...the Constitution, as it actually exists has been recently interpreted, gives a disgustingly wide charter to the government.