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.

Amazing. I have been round and round with evolution proponents around here who insist that DNA evidence proves there was a universal common ancestor of all life we know on this planet. I'm glad you recognize this is not correct.

The devil hides in the details. Do you understand why this makes your experiment utterly irrelevant to the question of where life comes from? Since your experiment is an attempt to recreate a picture of life's instantaneous origins science does not underwrite?

Yes and they are guided by intelligence rather than random natural processes. Have you ever heard of a controlled experiment? It is useful to narrow the range of possibilities in order to figure out how things work. Your argument would through out controlled experimentation and conclude that it does not matter what color is emitted from a particular substance burning, because we can only conclude that all colors are part of a natural process.

This is not a sensible or relevant argument. All experiments are, in some manner, controlled. Are you trying to argue that gathering historical data can't be falsifiable--because you can re-rig a contemporary experiment until it doesn't fail? Want to think twice before pinning your hopes on this argument? Paleontologists and oil engineers are always predicting where old, organically generated debree will be located, and then going to look to see if they were right. How is this not experiments that can fail? They sporadically do fail, so that would be a pretty hard argument to make.

"How is this not experiments that can fail? They sporadically do fail, so that would be a pretty hard argument to make."

Of course. Experiments must have the potential for failure to be falsifiable.

My point is that the general conclusion that my test would merely support life originating by natural processes is too limiting. It supports a specific natural process (and does not necessarily imply that this natural process could not be duplicated by other forms of intelligence), namely that life originated by intelligent assembly. By attempting to find a way the same processes involved could occur without intelligent control, serve to falsify my assertion (that is, if an instance is found).

"Do you understand why this makes your experiment utterly irrelevant to the question of where life comes from? Since your experiment is an attempt to recreate a picture of life's instantaneous origins science does not underwrite?"

That is your assumption. There is a distinction between life and non life, even if life is difficult to define. There must have been at least one point in the past in which non life became living. Otherwise, either natural life has always existed and has continued to exist uninterrupted until now, OR life came to exist from nothing. Your argument for abiogenesis does not negate that at least one transitional moment must have occurred at some point in time, even if that point is difficult to pinpoint.

"there is no significant functional difference regarding falsifiability, between data you collected 10 minutes ago with a telescope, or an oscilloscope, or unearthed 10 minutes ago with a trowel and spade. The essential thing about the data that makes for a falsifiable experiment, is that you didn't have the data 10 minutes ago, with which to rig the experiment--regardless of how long ago the data was generated."

I think this is the point you made well, some time ago. But what is lacking is an explanation of how the data is interpreted.

The difference is, other observations (i.e. not prehistoric history) do not rely on extrapolation from data which is not falsifiable in order to interpret their meaning. The difference is in the starting point.

Internal agreement of data is significant if at least some data are falsifiable. But if none of it is falsifiable, you have fiction. Lord of the Rings may be internally consistent, but that does not make it true or real.

"Yes, it does, it needs to be hostile to the tenates of specific religeous seeking a pulpit using public money, in an institution that has a legally enforced virtual monopoly on our children's minds for 8 hours a day."

Public education does not have a monopoly; there are other options, regardless of what I think compulsory education.

You also must oppose federal grants and loans and scholarships to be given for students to study things of a religious nature in college, in order to be consistent. Also, public libraries must not carry Bibles or religious books.

The religious liberty expressed in the first amendment was designed exclusively to protect religious liberty. It was not written to be hostile toward religion in any sense.

"Are, or are not, laboratories part of the natural world? What you need, to have some traction, is a way to produce life in a lab that somehow suggests the same pathway can't exist in the wilds. How will you do that? How will you concoct a test that will be inherently unduplicatable by nature, given a virtually infinite budget and lab space?"

Then cars and computers are made by natural process. Yet the only natural process that has made any is intelligent design. Until you can show an example of them existing without being built, your argument is a non starter.

"String theory has it's first big falsifiable test scheduled for 2010."

If so, it is a very recent development. And if it's the search for super symmetry, that's not a falsifiable test. My point was how huge resources have been funneled into ST, it is taught as a science, no falsifiable predictions were made, yet no complaint for decades from your camp until it began to pointed out as an example of bias.

"It is also not, by courtroom decision, involving perjurious attempts by creationists to fly a religeous tenate into the science classroom under false colors, in defiance of the 1st amendment."

This was a lower court decision that does not even have jurisdiction over a single state. The Supreme Court has decreed more than once that this is a Christian nation. Most people in this nation call themselves Christian. Public schools traditionally taught the Bible and biblical doctrine with no outcry about the first amendment. The founders supported the Bible being taught in public school. A federal court recently rebuked the ACLU by stating that there is no constitutional separation of church and state. There is no need to sneak God into the classroom, because there never was legal authority for courts to restrict religious speech.

What this judge ruled was essentially if someone is religiously motivated, they do not even need to mention God, and their viewpoint can be silenced. That is a ludicrous and egregious abuse of constitutional interpretation.

The problem with people like you who jump on this bandwagon is that if some judge makes an erroneous ruling, you announce that the issue is settled. Yet you ignore other rulings and precedents. The issue is far from settled.

This is just an example of how some people prefer to have the courts determine the demarcation issue. You can't defend your standard of demarcation such that only science you like is included, so you have to politicize it.

My hypothesis meets the standard of demarcation by any reasonable manner. Neither endless debate, changing the rules, nor edicts of a judge will change this fact.

You have brought up two good points out of hundreds of posts. You identified a flaw in my argument against natural history. And you argued that abiogenesis might be such a long process that we may never be able to observe it. This second argument does not negate that my hypothesis is both supportable and falsifiable. Most else you have said contributes nothing to the debate. I am of the opinion we exhausted the limits of a fruitful debate.

Thank you for taking the time to debate. I have found it interesting and useful to my objectives.

My point is that the general conclusion that my test would merely support life originating by natural processes is too limiting.

That wasn't my claim--my claim was that there's no better reason to think your test's failure would say anything more about the need for external intervention, than it would about the need for more time than any laboratory can allot.

It supports a specific natural process (and does not necessarily imply that this natural process could not be duplicated by other forms of intelligence), namely that life originated by intelligent assembly.

There is nothing remotely specific about this claim because you refuse to specify in fine detail what you mean by "life". And, as I just now told you, the failure to produce life in the lab, if it to address intelligent assembly, must in some way weight against all natural reasons why the test might fail, and that is way too tall an order. Your test's failure does not mean whatever you want it to mean, just because you say so over and over...and over.

By attempting to find a way the same processes involved could occur without intelligent control, serve to falsify my assertion (that is, if an instance is found).

Bleep...see above. A test's failure doesn't imply whatever you want it to imply, any more than it implies anything else, just because you can filibuster longer than anyone else. The imaginary failure of this imaginary experiment with unspecified imaginary constraints might also falsify the theory that life isn't real at all--it's just the imaginings of rocks. It might falsify the theory that life is a trick played on the universe by Mr. Mxlpxl, Superman's nemesis from the 9th dimension.

The contention that life takes too long to happen, for it to happen in a lab, is, of course, the most natural and obvious, and least hair-brained, of the many contentions that might be falsified by your test--and has the advantage that there is some actual, and rather unsurprising evidence in favor of it, when stated as a positive scientific thesis.

Then cars and computers are made by natural process. Yet the only natural process that has made any is intelligent design. Until you can show an example of them existing without being built, your argument is a non starter.

There is no scientific quandary about whether or not cars and computers are made by natural processes. This misses the point. Like your failure to specify what life is, your failure to specify what intelligence is continues to make your proposed test so much vapor in the wind. This is just a silly way to avoid letting your deponents separate the argument for supernatural ID from the argument for non-supernatural ID, which, of course, you'd prefer remain confused. If it was natural, then biological science hardly changes an iota, because of your experiment. We just learn we want to look, if possible, further in time and space than we at first thought for life's origins.

If life can be developed a lab, than it was developed by natural means, since labs are natural, and it's success or failure, as far a science is concerned, speaks primarily to the success or failure of natural means. You must constrain the test far more rigorously than is humanly possible, for such a tests failure to RULE OUT EVERY POSSIBLE WAY LIFE MIGHT NATURALLY OCCUR, to actually, seriously be taken to have ruled in favor of non-natural means.

The difference is, other observations (i.e. not prehistoric history) do not rely on extrapolation from data which is not falsifiable in order to interpret their meaning. The difference is in the starting point.

So your basic argument is that historical data is not the grist for falsifiable tests because, well, it's not.

This is just stubborn, intentionally vague blather. Data you didn't have before you formed your hypothesis becomes potentially falsifying data when discovered. There isn't the slightest difference, regarding the potential to falsify between data you collected a minute ago that's a minute old, and data you collected a minute ago, that's 100 million years old.

Your bold attempt to re-define how scientific induction works is duly noted. Geology, astronomy, paleo-meteorology and biology will struggle on regardless.

That is your assumption. There is a distinction between life and non life, even if life is difficult to define.

In your mind, at least. In the minds of biological scientists, it's just an arbitrary, man-made distinction, just like distinct speciation. There is no moment in time when one species give rise to another, just as there is no moment in time when life gives birth to non-life. Again, you can't construct a scientific experiment out of vapid lay-generalities of little or no specific meaning.

There must have been at least one point in the past in which non life became living. Otherwise, either natural life has always existed and has continued to exist uninterrupted until now, OR life came to exist from nothing. Your argument for abiogenesis does not negate that at least one transitional moment must have occurred at some point in time, even if that point is difficult to pinpoint.

You don't understand the issues involved here. You are trying to invent an experiment using a childishly simplified view of what science actually thinks happened.

I am of the opinion we exhausted the limits of a fruitful debate.

I was of that opinion a long, long time ago.

Thank you for taking the time to debate. I have found it interesting and useful to my objectives.

No doubt. The more you get to wave this silly notion that ID is somehow scientifically respectable because of an unlikely thought experiment whose details you refuse to specify, the more propaganda points you get with the scientifically illiterate.

This also flies in the face of your previous argument, that the experiment consists of inventing every single little minor detail of "life" from scratch. Which is it? Is the invention of life just a minor tweak of the nucleus to produce life from the previously almost identical non-life? Or is it the actual production of a living thing from "scratch"?

The problem with people like you who jump on this bandwagon is that if some judge makes an erroneous ruling, you announce that the issue is settled. Yet you ignore other rulings and precedents. The issue is far from settled.

The problem with people like you is that you'd have trouble locating your nose in front of your face. ID is on the agenda because of the desires of a specific set of religeous fruitcakes in the US egged on by a specific christian outfit with a specific, published goal of defacing the teaching of science to make room for the teaching of their specific religeous tenates. Pretending that this is about a scientific idea of marginal concern, natural, intelligent abiogenesis, is a cover for this attempt at public fraud against the 1st Amendment, which you are assisting with this bulbous, bogus nonsense of yours.

Your point about library books is also mis-directed: there isn't a problem with public libraries containing religeous works, because they, and their ideas are not being foisted on student by force of law, and not being fraudulantly represented by educational authorities as proper fodder for a scientific education. The 1st amendment abjures Establishment. It does not abjure acknowledgement.

"the failure to produce life in the lab, if it to address intelligent assembly, must in some way weight against all natural reasons why the test might fail"

Just like the law of gravity explains all the ways possible it might not work? Oh, but it doesn't do that, does it?

To the contrary, someone must falsify my assertion by showing at least one other possible way life can come into existence without intelligent guidance.

"The contention that life takes too long to happen, for it to happen in a lab, is, of course, the most natural and obvious, and least hair-brained, of the many contentions that might be falsified by your test"

Then you should welcome my test as a way to show your assertion is falsifiable. But then again, maybe you would like your assertion to be falsifiable without actually being tested. Because, realistically, it will be falsified at some point.

"Like your failure to specify what life is, your failure to specify what intelligence is continues to make your proposed test so much vapor in the wind."

No, it just means I do not feel like wasting time debating their definitions. They mean what consensus says they mean. That is not arbitrary.

"We just learn we want to look, if possible, further in time and space than we at first thought for life's origins."

If a super natural intervention occurred some time in history which accomplished something which no natural process could do, would your approach be the same? Keep looking, because there must be a natural explanation? You have said that the super natural might exist, but how would you recognize it if it did?

I agree that my test would prove nothing about the super natural, but it does not have a predisposed conclusion either. You seem to require that science assume that their is no super natural, all the while asserting that there could be.

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