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

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.

Pick one:

A) Exclusivity cannot be supported only falsified. (post 3238
B) Any such instances in the future, if and when they occur, will serve to either support my assertion or falsify it. (post 3240)

Do you get it yet?

You can't really be this dense. Using the (meaningless) reconfiguration of your assertion, "Intelligence is THE mechanism by which life is assembled from lifeless matter," assume we observe an instance of intelligence assembling life. How does that lend support?

Going back in the thread, I posit that electrolysis of water is the only way to produce O2 gas. I set up an electrolysis rig and produce O2. What have I learned?

By the standard which you demand my assertion to be validated, you are unable to validate Newton's law. You would have to test every instance of gravity operating in order to do so.

Confirmation is different than proof. Validation for a single instance is not generalizable over a wide class of observations.

You are tacitly admitting this is not necessary for Newton. Why do you demand that it is necessary for my assertion?

Um, because a law is different that a hypothesis? Because Newton's Law has a wide population of observations from which to draw conclusions?

Hawkings is authoritative. Where did you find such a quote from him? In your example, you still do not have something from nothing. You have something from something else.

Hawkings' view on this matter is even more radical that it was last time I looked.

This is from a recent Hawkings lecture posted on his web site:

"the universe would start at a single point, like the North Pole of the Earth. But this point wouldn't be a singularity, like the Big Bang. Instead, it would be an ordinary point of space and time"

By now, I expect you've googled up several dozen physics lectures that contain the phrase "something for nothing", a phrase in common use to talk about the fact that quantum particles spontaneously pop into and out of existance everywhere, all the time. The mathematics of NP-PN junctions in transistors, called Ebers-Moll equations, describe this phenomenon analytically. Ask yourself how there can be a current through an electrically impermiable junction, because you and I are communicating with each other through quite a few such junctions.

"If you are not positing a law then this is irrelevant. "

It is far from irrelevant. We are debating the scientific merit of my assertion. Earlier I argued that my assertion followed the same type of logic applied to the law of gravity.

I was debating this with someone else when you interjected, if I remember correctly. I always maintained that my assertion was merely supportable, not supported the way the law of gravity is. My comparison was to illustrate that science does include universal statements, and in fact, this is a desirable thing. The more universal an explanation, the better.

You are arguing a standard of demarcation which, if applied, would exclude scientific laws like this one altogether.

If you believe the law of gravity is supportable and falsifiable (and it is), you should also accept that my assertion is as well.

It could hardly be more relevant.

"You claim that intelligent intervention is the only thing that can create life. I'm trying to figure out how you arrived at that conclusion."

It is not a conclusion. A conclusion would be what we arrive at after testing. My assertion is an assumption. It is a testable assumption. It has yet to be tested. How can I be any clearer? Are you just pretending not to understand?

"You have nothing tangible to offer in the way of evidence"

Duh. I already said repeatedly that no support was yet available.

"you have retreated from the position that your statement is supportable"

I did not retreat. This was my original position. Supportability and falsifiability are what makes the assertion a valid hypothesis.

"you have failed to produce any useful experiments on the subject"

Experimentation is not yet possible, but will be soon. And I have proposed generally how it can be tested. As I have stated, nanotechnology should allow this in the foreseeable future. Nanotechnology seeks to make it possible to assemble structures atom by atom.

"withdraw the assertion that your claim is scientific"

Oh, but it is scientific. It fits within the accepted standards of demarcation.

"Pick one:"

Exclusivity cannot be supported only falsified. TRUE.

Any such instances in the future, if and when they occur, will serve to either support my assertion or falsify it. TRUE AGAIN.

Any instances of life being assembled from lifeless matter will either support my assertion (if the assembly is intelligently directed), or falsify my assertion (if a self organizing principle is discovered and demonstrated).

Exactly the way the exclusivity of the law of gravity is only falsifiable not supportable, my statement is true. You said it yourself. We can observe many instances of gravity working which supports that the law of gravity is true. But there is no way to support that it is exclusively true. We can only assume this until proved otherwise. The general statement is supportable, but exclusivity cannot be verified.

"assume we observe an instance of intelligence assembling life. How does that lend support?"

The same way instances of gravity working SUPPORTS the law of gravity.

"Going back in the thread, I posit that electrolysis of water is the only way to produce O2 gas. I set up an electrolysis rig and produce O2. What have I learned?"

Answered already. Until some other way is found, your assertion is true. But since it can also be a product of fusion, we must modify the assertion to merely state that electrolysis is a common way for oxygen to form. You might even say it is the most common. But your first assertion is no longer valid. Likewise, when any instance of self assembly occurs, my assertion will be falsified.

"Confirmation is different than proof. Validation for a single instance is not generalizable over a wide class of observations."

And where did I claim proof for my assertion? Further, I do not have even a single instance. If, however, multiple instances are observed, they can be generalized to support my assertion.

"Because Newton's Law has a wide population of observations from which to draw conclusions"

As I said, my assertion is supportable not supported. If we eventually have thousands of instances wherein life is intelligently assembled from lifeless matter, and we have no instances of life self assembling, will you be prepared to concede that your standard has been met?

"You mean like a Sears santa is useful"

No. That Santa serves no scientific purpose. His utility is not a scientific one.

"Compared to machine tool approaches organic structures leave a lot to be desired."

But biological ones tend to be better designed and more efficient, which is why they are and will be mimicked. For example, synthetic muscles are currently about 10000 times weaker than actual muscles.

What you are referring to is the inherent shortcomings of engineering when it comes to duplicating the functions of nonlinear systems. It is more desirable to have linear systems because they are easier to engineer.

"You are vastly unaware, apprently, of how much engineering it would take to duplicate a living cell 'from scratch' as you have insisted."

And, contrary to your claim of being well versed in nanotechnology, you are vastly unaware of the ultimate goal of this field. It is to develop atomically precise
manufacturing in an atom-by-atom fashion. The vision is programmable matter.

The reusability of code written for programmable matter will allow building code libraries that are accessible to John Q. Public via the future version of the Internet. The cumulative effect will be that designing custom materials will be a matter of punching up the desired characteristics, and creating life forms may be nothing but tweaking working programs. Making life may become little more than grade school level science projects.

Am I assuming a lot. Yes, I am. And I am well aware that testing my assertion presumes vast leaps in our technical know how. And I am assuming this will happen. Soon.

" We just had this discussion on this thread, and you finally conceded that we can conduct science on historical data."

I conceded that my arguments against history as science were inadequate. You proved that. I still maintain that historical events cannot be falsified. Perhaps they can serve within the context of support for a particular scientific claim. Well, not perhaps, definitely. I will give you that you proved that much. But how exactly would you falsify the WHOLE concept of gradual abiogenesis? My assertion is falsifiable in a very precise way. Mine does not allow any loopholes whereby I can back out of evidence which disproves my assertion. That is a lot better than merely saying this particular model failed, but we can formulate another.

"Gradual abiogensis does not involve 'self assembly'".

Fine by me. Use what ever description you prefer, as long as we both understand what is being discussed. Any natural assembly, any assembly which can be shown to work by natural mechanisms apart from being intelligently directed, will qualify as a falsification of my assertion.

"If you weren't hiding a supernatural source of design in your back pocket, the issue wouldn't arise."

Supernatural aspects are philosophical inferences. I made no scientific claim of bearings on the supernatural. Something which you keep doing, along with my other detractors.

"As I have pointed out, producing something you claim is 'just like' life, is a far cry from demonstrating anything of statistical significance about actual life, much less provide any insight as to whether actual life's source is supernatural."

I did not say my test was for things that are merely like life. They must actually be alive. There must be consensus. If something can be assembled that is life by your criteria then you have no leg to stand on with the foregoing argument.

Now quit trying to make this an argument about the supernatural, or I will have to smack you... and not in a good way.

"I suppose you can make a word mean whatever you want it to mean, but self-assembly ought, in my opinion, require some actual self-assembly."

It is the best I could come up with to reference a supposed self organizing mechanism (or group of mechanisms) within nature. My comparison is the self organization of periodic elements. Any better description you come up with is welcome.

"If the process is gradual and effectively continuous, the borderline is arbitrary and the definition is fuzzy."

I have dismissed any requirement to establish the borderline. What must be demonstrated is that the process, at some point contains only lifeless matter, and, at some point, produces life. A distinction must be made between what is alive and what is not. If you cannot pinpoint the precise moment of the transition, it does not matter. But the transition must exist. And it must be evident.

"Is a citrus cycle an example of non-living matter?"

Now, what do you think? I have already clarified why things like assimilation and reproduction do not qualify. You must start with an environment which is naturally occurring and without life. From this environment must come life. So, no, no metabolic processes qualify. Living organisms are made out of components which are not alive by themselves - water for example. So the components are not a measure for the criteria.

"It does not 'contain' energy, if it did, you could give me the reading in ergs."

It says so in the article you provided me:

http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/15/9/6

It says:

"Even a perfect vacuum at absolute zero has fluctuating fields known as 'vacuum fluctuations', the mean energy of which corresponds to half the energy of a photon."

---

"What will you measure with your non-nothing detector to prove your case?"

I don't know that it is possible to detect it. Scientists claim that it can be described mathematically, has symmetry, and is unstable. This is a realm where science is being made to fit into mathematical models, while math itself does not necessarily represent reality.

Even if something can come from absolute nothingness, it is probably impossible to support it scientifically.

Sorry, your Amazon link only directs me to the book title. My query produced 0 results. "No reference to 'something from nothing' in this book". The term "nothing" did not appear in the lecture as far as I could tell.

Even if you can boil the first something down to "an ordinary point of space and time", it would still be something, even if extremely discrete. What causes space or time to exist?

While I'm sure Hawking's view is a brilliant explanation for the formation of the universe, it still does not support the something from nothing position, in my opinion. Perhaps he holds your view (though I have yet to see it), but supporting it scientifically is something else altogether.

I did find this statement in his book: "Because energy cannot be created out of nothing, one of the partners in a particle/antiparticle pair will have positive energy, and the other partner negative energy."

Without redefining the universe as a big cumultive "nothing", or rethinking conservation, something from nothing does not work.

"Which, lest we forget, after much wrangling, you graciously conceded was, in fact, a valid way to do science."

What I conceded was that my arguments against natural history as science are inadequate. I still contend that historical events are not falsifiable. You have demonstrated fairly well that they can serve in providing supporting data within a scientific theory.

But fair enough. If it can be demonstrated with some form of support that the universe began from nothing, then you would be able to support the general something from nothing position. That is probably the only place it could be found anyway, since the influence of any mass at all would extend throughout space.

I just think "something from nothing" is outside the scope of natural science - very much like the supernatural. It might be within the scope of math, as well as philosophy. It might even be complimentary to science. But I am skeptical that science could be used exclusively to support such a claim.

Exclusivity cannot be supported only falsified. TRUE.
Any such instances in the future, if and when they occur, will serve to either support my assertion or falsify it. TRUE AGAIN.

Not remotely. Not until you remove the word "only" from your assertion. Intelligent assembly may be A way in which life can form. Human-created life will support that.

Exactly the way the exclusivity of the law of gravity is only falsifiable not supportable, my statement is true.

Gravity makes no exclusive statement. It is universally INCLUSIVE. Gravity deals with a property, not a process.

Until some other way is found, your assertion is true.

I disagree. Does the truth of a statement depend on the knowledge of the individual making the statement?

If we eventually have thousands of instances wherein life is intelligently assembled from lifeless matter, and we have no instances of life self assembling, will you be prepared to concede that your standard has been met?

It depends on the qualities of the created instances of life and the intelligences doing the creating. If we are attempting to learn something about the initial appearance of life on earth (as I assume we are), then at least one instance of creation should be performed by a non-earth-type intelligence. Would you agree?

It is not a conclusion. A conclusion would be what we arrive at after testing. My assertion is an assumption. It is a testable assumption. It has yet to be tested. How can I be any clearer? Are you just pretending not to understand?

But it is a conclusion, based on your opinion that you "do not think the functional complexity and interdependence of living things can spontaneously arise." You have also stated that you have simply assumed this, and have no plans to test or verify that your opinion is true. So here is the problem: you have an untested (and untestable) assumption upon which you have rested your intelligent intervention hypothesis. This cannot be scientific.

"Not until you remove the word 'only' from your assertion. Intelligent assembly may be A way in which life can form. Human-created life will support that."

Newton: "Every point mass attracts every other point mass by a force directed along the line connecting the two."

Do you want to remove "every" from the law of gravity? The support you mentioned earlier for this law does not lend itself to the exclusivity of words like "every" and "only". That is why falsification is a sufficient standard for exclusive (or, if you prefer, universal) claims. Why do you consider Newton's law to be logically valid, but turn around and say it is not allowed to say, "every instance of life originating has an intelligent cause"? Instances of gravity working support the law of gravity even if they do not support the exclusive aspect particularly. Likewise, instances of intelligent assembly will support my assertion in general even if the exclusive aspect can only be falsified.

This issue needs no further debate. It is settled. You need to get over it.

"Gravity makes no exclusive statement. It is universally INCLUSIVE."

Universal statements have both aspects. What is inclusive is what is included. What is exclusive is what is excluded. My assertion is inclusive in the same sense. Your argument is purely semantic. As I said above, use "universal" as the desciption if you prefer.

"Gravity deals with a property, not a process."

This is a separate issue from the one that proceeds it. They do not belong together as one argument.

You are incorrect. The law of gravity encompasses both property and process. Matter possesses a property that results in a process. Mass and momentum are properties. Acceleration and motion are consequent processes.

Intelligence has properties (e.g. intent). Life has properties (e.g. complexity and interdependence). The formation of life would be a process. My assertion assumes a connection between them.

"Does the truth of a statement depend on the knowledge of the individual making the statement?"

Scientifically it does. In science, truth is validity. Scientific truth is not absolute truth. It is always subject to change. It is logically valid. When something is scientifically true, there is an unspoken and understood agreement that it is true as long as the underlying assumptions are true. This is the implied contract of science.

"If we are attempting to learn something about the initial appearance of life on earth (as I assume we are), then at least one instance of creation should be performed by a non-earth-type intelligence. Would you agree?"

That is purely philosophical. What exactly would constitute a non-earth-type intelligence? I think an agreed definition or measurement of intelligence and life are necessary in order to evaluate the outcome of the tests. As far as I am concerned, the life does not need to be a duplicate of known life forms, and the intelligence does not need to be human.

I think animal intelligence is more unlikely to be able to guide the process of life assembly because they are not intelligent enough. It is unclear if human intelligence will be sufficient, but it possibly may be. If artificial intelligence does the job, that could work too. But AI is far from such accomplishments presently.

As far as a non-earth-type, faith of the spiritual kind indicates the existence of God, angels and other non-earth intelligences. But these are not scientifically measurable.

"But it is a conclusion, based on your opinion that you 'do not think the functional complexity and interdependence of living things can spontaneously arise.' You have also stated that you have simply assumed this, and have no plans to test or verify that your opinion is true. So here is the problem: you have an untested (and untestable) assumption upon which you have rested your intelligent intervention hypothesis. This cannot be scientific."

No. It is an assumption. Yes, it is a logical and reasonable assumption. It is not a conclusion.

I have not stated an intent not to test it. I have stated that it needs to be tested when it is possible. I have suggested a specific test.

Science does work this way. Observation leads to questions. Questions lead to speculations (i.e. assumptions) of how or why things are as observed. Tests are proposed to validate or eliminate the assumptions. Tests are performed. Conclusions are drawn based on the outcome of testing. New observations lead to new questions.

I have observation, speculation, and tests proposed. That's not a claim that all the needed details are here, but just that my approach is scientifically valid.

Do not confuse confidence in my assumptions to be the same as drawing a conclusion. Scientists should have some confidence in their assumptions. I fully expect that intelligent assembly will occur at some point in my lifetime. I also expect that no self organizing principle will be observed. But I have taken the risk of allowing my assertion to be proved wrong.

What I conceded was that my arguments against natural history as science are inadequate. I still contend that historical events are not falsifiable. You have demonstrated fairly well that they can serve in providing supporting data within a scientific theory.

If it's not falsifiable, it isn't science. Your memory of this conversation leaves something to be desired. I spent a considerable amount of effort to get you past that hurdle, and now you have retrenched to the brain-dead contention that modern astronomy, paleo-geology, and paleo-meteorology aren't sciences, and predicting elements in a periodic table isn't a potentially falsifiable experiment. You put on a good show of being genuinely interested, and you fooled me good. Please address further inquiries to someone else.

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