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 ...
I suggest you check out a book called "Genesis and the Big Bang." It was written by someone with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from MIT, if I recall correctly. His thesis is that when you account for relativistic time dilation, the world really did come to be in six days. Surprise!
"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?"
No, what is baseless is your assertion above. It is based on nothing. You pulled it straight out of your rear end, loser.
The recurrent laryngeal nerve is evidence against intelligent design. It's like having the wire from the push button by the front door run to the chime in the front room by going into the basement and circling the furnace ducts first. See here for details and other examples.
Gumlegs: That's like saying color theory is useless if it can't explain how colors evolved from blackness.
Southack: Why is it like that?
Because both statements "require" that the theory address something outside of its own definition. In the case of the example I gave, no one says colors "evolved" from blackness, although I suppose that if you postulate that before there was light there was nothing but blackness, and therefore colors must have in some way "evolved" from blackness.
But no one says that. It's not part of the theory, and no one expects it to be. No one says color theory is useless.
The TOE does not attempt to explain "how life evolved from inanimate matter," because the origin of life is not part of the theory. The theory is about how different species come about. The TOE has been an integral part of science since it was proposed.
How is it you arrive at the conclusion that the TOE is useless unless it does something it doesn't attempt to do?
How do you *know* that inanimate matter evolving into the first living cell is outside of the realm of an Evolutionary Theory explanation?
You don't. You can only guess that to be true.
This stuff is too hard, Barbie. Lets go shopping.
Ah, one or more of the 3 Evolutionist panic moves:
#1 attempt ridicule
#2 attack
#3 flee (or feign disinterest)
and here is some evidence......you seem to need some.
Spontaneous generation was a "prevailing evolutionist notion"? Please document. It was a biological hypothesis, AFAIK unrelated to the fact or to any of the theories of evolution, and certainly goes against common descent.
Omne vivum ex ovo
Purely naturalistic abiogenesis with no ID is essentially the modern day, scaled back version of spontaneous generation
There's kind of an analogy, but Aristotle-style spontaneous generation requires meat or other previously-living matter, whereas abiogenesis requires sterile conditions.
But since it involved just one living cell somewhere in the universe billions of years ago, it is impossible to disprove. In other words, it is "unfalsifiable."
An interesting point: Isn't that very similar to what Behe attempted to do? Along the lines of "no unguided chemical reactions can produce an irreducibly complex system" "life requires IR systems" "therefore, something other than unguided chemistry is responsible for life". Alas, no-one's been able to demonstrate the plausibility of the first premise.
Also, keep in mind that there is not yet a theory of abiogeneisis. There are a lot of hypotheses, some of which are known to be wrong, but no agreement on which of the others are more likely to have happened. My gut feeling is that there are an astronomically huge number of ways to get from a sterile "soup" to a living cell, some of them leading to our own RNA-protein-DNA world, others leading elsewhere. It may be impossible to know exactly which path (if any) was taken here, while at the same time having lab experiments that demonstrate abiogenesis is possible. Be patient. It's only been about 50 years since the structure and function of DNA was discovered.
The modern synthesis does not depend on Abiogenesis.
"If you do, then I think you are clueless. The TOE itself makes it clear that evolution started with the first living cell.
Care to point out where? Which tenet of the SToE?
The ToE starts with the first self-replicating, feature inheriting, selectable organism. We have no definitive idea what that first organism was, or where it came from. We have some very good notions of where to look for the natural processes that created those organisms, but nothing definite. In the mean time, the study of Evolution can proceed as it always has, focusing on extinct and extant organisms.
"If that first living cell had never come to be, then evolution obviously never could have happened."
You are quite correct, if that first form of life had not come to be we would not be discussing evolution. However that is not the point.
What is the point is how that first life came to be. You are insisting that the ToE requires the first life to be a result of abiogenesis, the origin of life from non-life. This is simply not true. That life had an origin is not in question, that that life is necessarily the result of abiogenesis is where you make an error in your argument. If that first life was produced by a god, or it was planted here by aliens, or it flew here from Mars, or it originated in a sulfuric pool of water does not matter to the SToE. Evolution is concerned with the mechanisms behind the genotypic and phenotypic changes experienced by early Artiodactyls as they evolved into Cetaceans. Or the change from Theropod to Aves.
I'm sorry, but Evolution does not 'depend' on Abiogenesis. That is something you have simply asserted. It does depend on an origin but the cause of the origin is, and can remain, unspecified.
Unless of course you have evidence that early proto/pre-life was subject to imperfect replication, had some mechanism for inheritance of features and was subject to some selection process. Do you have such evidence?
You know, I admire subtlty. For instance, I admire the subtle way in which your question is phrased, specifically the part about, “‘An’ Evolutionary Theory explanation.” You got me! I suppose there could be out there, somewhere, perhaps in the most obscure filing cabinet in a dark corner of the basement of the Discovery Institute, "an" evolutionary theory explaining how the origin of the first living cell is part of the TOE. But that particular, rather eccentric version of the theory hasn't been peer reviewed, like every other accepted scientific theory has been, so it really doesn't matter much.
Or, at least it hasn't to my knowledge. If I'm incorrect on this, please let me know and I'll be happy to retract that statement.
What I do know is this: “inanimate matter evolving into the first living cell” is outside the current TOE. I know this because I've read the theory and understand it, to some limited degree. I do not feel qualified, however, to insist that the theory is flawed or wrong if it fails to address some personal hobby-horse.
That's incorrect. You don't know it; you are surmising it. You'd have to know the mechanism by which inanimate matter evolved into the first living cell to actually know it.
It's not even right, and it certainly doesn't explain why ToE doesn't cover the first instance of Evolution.
"This is a strawman. No one has claimed that the theory of evolution does not "cover the first instance of Evolution"."
This isn't even a strawman. Evolution by definition of the 'first instance of Evolution' covers that instance.
If he started with a "thesis", then did he did not arrive at that as a conclusion. I have no interest in reading such psychoceramic apologetic babblings.
"Maybe we can just 'compare degrees' to see whether my supposition above is accurate....
"Argument from authority remains invalid.
The comment from Al Simmons was purely to incite argment and should be ignored.
Argument from authority is only a fallacy if the authority is unspecified or is not recognized as an authoritiy in the field specified by the argument. Using a quote from Ernst Mayr in an argument about black holes would be an appeal to authority. Using a quote from Stephen Hawking would not.
Southack: That's incorrect. You don't know it; you are surmising it. You'd have to know the mechanism by which inanimate matter evolved into the first living cell to actually know it.
You appear to be confused about something here. I'm citing the theory accurately. You, on the other hand, are attempting to tell me what the theory ought to say.
You'll have to excuse me on this, but I'm going to go with the theory itself.
"I reject ID as a scientific claim. I have never claimed to know it to be false."
"So you're saying that Intelligent Design theory could be true, but even if it is, it's not scientific?"
No, what he is saying is that without some method of testing (which requires potential falsifiability) the validity of ID in a specific instance we have no way to determine if it is true or not.
Gee, then you'll have no difficulty citing the precise words (no more, no less) in the Theory of Evolution itself that preclude an Evolutionary explanation for inanimate matter evolving into the first living cell.
< /crickets chirping >
That's not an issue.
ID must have a bias. If there is no bias in the origin of species, then ID is and must be false.
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