Posted on 10/01/2006 4:18:53 PM PDT by RussP
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The notion that Intelligent Design theory is fundamentally "unscientific" is based on the philosophy originated by Karl Popper (1902-1994), who postulated a set of rules for science known as "Falsificationism." The main idea is that a hypothesis or theory does not qualify as "scientific" unless it is "falsifiable" (which is independent of whether it is actually "true" or "false"). Popper is revered by evolutionists, but certainly even they would agree that we should not blindly accept his word as revealed truth. So let us consider some of the implications of his "falsifiability" criterion.
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The ultimate irony here is that, given Popper's definition of science, the Neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution itself is based on an "unscientific" foundation. How did the first living cell come to be? If Intelligent Design is categorically rejected, then that first cell must have come together more or less by random chance. Mathematicians and physicists have argued (and claim to have proved) that the simplest conceivable living cell is far too complex to have come together by random chance, but evolutionists always reply that, given enough time and space, "anything" can happen. In this case, the evolutionists are correct: proving that the first cell could not have formed by random chance is impossible. But that is just another way of saying that any purely naturalistic theory of abiogenesis is unfalsifiable, hence "unscientific" according to Popper's falsifiability criterion. [When cornered with this undeniable fact, evolutionists usually claim that abiogenesis is "separate" from evolution. But that's not quite true: evolution depends on abiogenesis. Evolution obviously could not have occurred if the first living cell had never come into existence!]
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(Excerpt) Read more at russp.org ...
A parameter is a restraint. It is a limit on what the acceptable values the model can return. We all know that science is restricted to natural processes. That is why science cannot be used to decide the question of supernatural vs natural creation.
'Unknown natural processes' serve the exact same purpose in naturalism that 'God' serves in ID. Both are metaphysical assertions. Naturalism (pantheism) is not a superior methodology over ID for determining supernatural vs natural creation.
Evos commonly profess that 'naturalism-only' is some sort of expanded worldview when the exact opposite is the reality. Since they have been taught *what* to think, rather than *how* to think; most are not capable of recognizing their error.
To claim that the limited worldview of naturalism is superior to the more open worldview of ID is illogical and is merely evidence that believers have been taught *what* to think rather than *how* to think.
Well now; aren't we STILL the sandal wearing, silicon age, computer jockeys!
"I thank you Lord that I am not like this tax collector!"
(If you'd have READ the Book; you would have found out that they used IRON - and in about the first 6-7 chapters; too! ;^)
Oh, I don't know: how about ancestry and biology - related or not?
"If grampa was sterile, YOUR offspring will be mighty few!"
Hey!
I've been there!
(Under the arch, that is: not across the canyon where THIS pix was taken.)
Why did the bozo KEYBOATRD designer make the CAPSLOCK so big and the A so small??
An ID keyboard would have a SMALL "CL" key and a LARGE "A" one.
That's putting it Delicately!
(Don't them other Alpha male wannabe's get to be tiring this time of year!)
Actually what Pasteur was concerned with was not abiogenesis but heterogenesis, which is spontaneous life from decaying matter. In fact it was Virchow who made the statement Omnis cellula e cellula not Pasteur, and Virchow was unable to provide a demonstration of this, to him, universal dictum.
In your article you mention the difficulty in logically proving the negative. This is quite true, you can never prove a universal negative nor a universal positive through a limited set of experiments or observations. When you, or anyone else, makes the universal statement 'life can only come from life', you are faced with the same problem - it is logically impossible to prove the statement without exhausting all possible tests.
When Pasteur went about his experimentation he was testing a very specific idea - that complex life such as maggots and flies, in other words modern life, does not spontaneously arise from rotting material. Modern abiogenesis does not claim that life arose, fully complex, from rotting material. What it does claim is that life came about through the gradual addition of complexity such that there would be no point in the process where life could be differentiated from pre/proto-life. To lump modern Abiogenesis in with Pasteur's work is to over generalize.
"Also, I am continually amazed at the mental acrobatics that people like you are capable of. You believe that evolution *started* with the first living cell, yet you think that the origin of that cell is completely isolated and separated from the evolution that followed it!
Darwinian Evolution has a number of tenets, Neo-Darwinian Evolution contains all of the Darwinian tenets, either as-is or corrected by new knowledge. Nowhere in those tenets will you find a need to know the origin of the first life. No where in those tenets will you find mechanisms which do not need imperfect replication with some method of inheritance.
On the other hand, if we need to include the origin of life in any consideration of evolution, then all of physics has a problem because we do not know what happened during the first Planck second of the BB.
Yeah... believing what the book SAYS tends to winnow out the crowd; doesn't it!
Oh??
By WHAT?
"Your patronizing "Please educate yourself, and quit letting evolutionists mislead you.", is not only obnoxious and unenlightening, but your 'theories' are just plain wrong."
Oh, forgive me for hurting your feelings.
FYI, when someone like you tells me I am wrong (with no substantiation whatsoever, of course), that is encouraging -- like having some Leftist lunatic call me wrong.
Quick question, Elsie: Do you think that astrology is scientific?
I would imagine that almost everyone you meet tells you that you are wrong.
The more I study nature, the more I am amazed at the work of the Creator. --Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
That makes him a "creationist" of some sort, doesn't it.
That makes him a "creationist" of some sort, doesn't it.
No, that doesn't make him a believer in a literal 6-day creation as specified in the Bibuhl. It appears that you misunderstand what is being discussed here. Again.
"I would imagine that almost everyone you meet tells you that you are wrong."
No, but I can tell you right now that you are wrong.
You guys are like a gang of hyenas in your baseless attacks. You get your jaws around the ankle and just refuse to let go. Your unprincipled tactics disgust me.
I'm just darn glad I don't have to work or live with people like you.
Of course it does. However that Pasteur was a creationist was never in dispute. Of course that are, and always have been, creationists who are also evolutionists. What I was disputing was your claim that Pasteur "rejected [Darwin's theory] in no uncertain terms". This is simply wrong. Pasteur's views in this regard, if any, are unknown. AFAIK nobody has ever found any instance of Pasteur having expressed himself, one way or the other, on Darwin's views or on common descent specifically. (And since this has been an issue in the CREVO debates for sometime, if someone had uncovered something we would almost certainly know of it.)
So you think your dismissal of two-hundred years of biology, chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy and archaeology, by hundreds of thousands of scientists, including millions of pages of publications, is not baseless?
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