Posted on 12/25/2005 1:41:41 PM PST by RussP
This most elegant system of the sun, planets, and comets could not have arisen without the design and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being. --Sir Isaac Newton, The Principia
Is Intelligent Design Theory Scientific?
2005-12-20 -- If you've participated in online debates about the theory of evolution, you know the standard arguments of evolutionists. Their "trump card" is the claim that Intelligent Design (ID) theory is simply outside the realm of science. This claim is not that ID has insufficient empirical corroboration, although they often make that claim too. This claim is that ID is not even a valid scientific theory because it is "unfalsifiable."
The notion that ID 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.
Consider first the hypothesis that "extraterrestrial intelligent life does not exist." If a spaceship landed on earth carrying aliens from another planet, this hypothesis would obviously be disproved or "falsified." If an intelligent message were indisputably received from a non-man-made source in space, that would also disprove the hypothesis. Hence, this hypothesis clearly meets the falsifiability criterion and is therefore "scientific" according to Popper's definition.
Now consider the opposite hypothesis, namely that "extraterrestrial intelligent life exists." How could this hypothesis be falsified? The only way to falsify it would be to prove that absolutely no intelligent life exists anywhere in the entire universe other than on (or from) earth. Because that is obviously impossible to prove, this hypothesis fails the falsifiability criterion and is therefore "unscientific."
According to Popper's criterion, therefore, the hypothesis that "extraterrestrial intelligent life does not exist" is "scientific," but the opposite hypothesis, that "extraterrestrial intelligent life exists," is not. But if the former "scientific" hypothesis is disproved, then the latter "unscientific" hypothesis is obviously proved! Hence, a hypothesis about the natural world can be proved true yet still be "unscientific" according to Popper's criterion. Popper's definition of science is therefore misleading if not just plain nonsensical.
Popper's followers readily concede that what they call an "unscientific" hypothesis can be true. For example, the hypothesis, "nutritional supplements can improve a person's health," is "unscientific," yet it is also certainly true. The problem is that their misleading technical definition of science is used by evolutionists to deceive the public about ID theory. Hence, a substantial percentage of the public has been fooled into believing that, because ID theory is "unscientific" (according to Popper), it must also be untrue or bogus.
Several years ago the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" (SETI) project was initiated. Large radio telescopes were used to receive radio signals from space, and massive computing facilities were used to analyze those signals in search of "intelligent" messages that could be presumed to have originated from an "intelligent" life form. Apparently, nobody informed the SETI team that their motivating hypothesis -- that "extraterrestrial intelligent life exists" -- is "unscientific"!
Suppose an apparently "intelligent" message were detected by SETI. The first question would be whether the message really originated from space and not from a man-made source, but suppose a man-made source could be ruled out. The next question would be whether the message really originated from an intelligent source, or whether it was merely a statistical fluke that only appeared to have come from an intelligent source.
Suppose the message contained the first 100,000 binary digits of pi, repeated indefinitely, with each repetition separated by a "spacer" of 1000 zeros. Now, one cannot "prove" with absolute mathematical certainty that such a sequence cannot occur by random chance, but most reasonable people would agree that the probability would be extremely low. In fact, most would agree that the probability of a such a signal originating from an "unintelligent" source would be zero for all intents and purposes.
The repeating pi signal coming from a non-man-made source in space would therefore conclusively prove the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, and it would prove it even if the location and identity of the source were never determined. But according to Popper's falsifiability criterion, the hypothesis that "extraterrestrial intelligent life exists" does not even qualify as "scientific." Thus, SETI would be in the strange position of having proved a truly monumental -- but "unscientific" -- fact about the universe!
The hypothesis of extraterrestrial intelligence can shed some badly needed light on the philosophical debate over whether or not intelligent design theory is "scientific." The philosophical question is not about how much order or complexity is needed to reasonably prove the existence of Intelligent Design; that is a scientific and mathematical question. The philosophical question is whether any amount of evidence for ID could be enough to get evolutionists to concede that it ID is even a possible explanation. Apparently the answer is no, because they have ruled ID "out of bounds" from the start.
Evolutionists often point out that ID theory "makes no testable predictions and explains nothing." But what "testable predictions" can be made based on the hypothesis that extraterrestrial intelligence exists? None. So, what do evolutionists say about the potential for intelligent messages from deep space? Do they insist that such messages wouldn't prove anything and should simply be ignored? I doubt the SETI team would agree with that, yet it is the logical equivalent of the evolutionist position on ID. The irony is that evolutionists would probably be the first to embrace the idea of extraterrestrial intelligence because it would transform the origin of life from a "miracle" to a "statistic," as Carl Sagan once explained. Indeed, most or all of the SETI participants probably are evolutionists!
Both professional and amateur evolutionists will continue to arrogantly asert that ID theory cannot possibly be "scientific." If a famous philosopher said it, apparently that's all the "proof" they need -- common sense notwithstanding. And that's just the start of their many ridiculous assertions. After explaining that ID is "unfalsifiable," many evolutionists then proceed to explain that it has indeed been falsified anyway! "It can't be done, but by golly we did it anyway just to reassure ourselves"! And the significance of the fact that their premise and their conclusion are identical apparently escapes them.
Another popular evolutionist canard is that ID theory is nothing more than a "thinly veiled" cover for Biblical creationism and is therefore unscientific. Never mind that many ID advocates were originally evolutionists before they studied the matter in depth. By the same "logic," evolution could be considered a "thinly veiled" cover for atheism, of course. Nonsense. Both atheists and creationists may indeed be biased, but attributed biases are never directly relevant to the actual validity of any scientific theory. The validity of Einstein's theory of relativity is completely independent of whatever personal biases he may have had!
In any significant online debate over evolution, some genius will inevitably proclaim that Intelligent Design theory is meaningless until the actual "Intelligent Designer" is physically located and identified. That is logically equivalent to claiming that the pi signal mentioned above would not prove the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence until the source of the message was explicitly located and identified. A related and equally absurd notion is that purely naturalistic evolution must remain the accepted theory until the "Designer" can be understood and explained scientifically. That is the logical equivalent of a prosecutor claiming that a criminal defendant must be presumed guilty unless or until another culprit is found. The truth is that, just as a defendant can be exonerated before an alternative suspect is identified, purely naturalistic evolution can be disproved before an alternative theory is fully understood or even available.
The point here is not that ID theory is true and purely naturalistic evolution is false. The point is that reasonable people can disagree on the issue, and both positions should be respectfully permitted to co-exist in the spirit of free and open inquiry. That is not what is happening today. A misleading definition of science is being used to exclude ID a priori. A judge recently ruled that even mentioning ID is prohibited in the science classes of a particular public school system. That kind of censorship is certainly more in the spirit of the Soviet Union than of the United States. Professors have been publicly censured by their peers for espousing ID. One can only wonder if Isaac Newton would be censured today for his professed belief in the intelligent design of the universe.
Centuries ago the church was the ultimate authority, and dissenters from orthodoxy were excommunicated and punished for their supposed heresy. But science and the church have reversed positions in modern times, and secularized scientific institutions now have the upper hand. Scientists who deviate in their public writings or teachings from the prevailing naturalistic orthodoxy are now ostracized, ridiculed, and sometimes even denied tenure or research funding. Those dissenters are modern day Galileos who are standing up to the Neo-Darwinian dogma and the misleading attacks by its believers, who fear the truth just as the church did centuries ago.
http://RussP.us/IDscience.htm
Some of the evidence for continental drift was evident as soon as accurate maps of the South Atlantic coasts were available, which was in the 1800s. Abundant additional evidence was presented by Wegener and others in the early 20th century. Yet orthodox geologists continued to reject it, just as dogmatic Darwinists continue to reject anything which challenges their pet theory. Ruthlessly suppressing anything but an orthodoxy is not science! What should really be asked is why Darwinists are so obsessed with having their theory taught at the secondary or even elementary level. As a trained scientist, I know that knowledge of evolution is not necessary in most areas or science. One could even get along in geology without it, although one would have to keep one's ignorance hidden, and recognize that life did progress through geologic time. This doctrine is really being pushed, not so much because it is needed to succeed in life, but because of its absolute necessity to the determinist-materialist worldview which underlies socialism.
You can find more info here.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1544485/posts
Archival ping.
No. A theory does not have to be reproducible in the way you are using it here. Did you ever take any science classes after 5th grade?
As a trained scientist, I know the evidence for ID is nil, and As a trained scientist, you should too.
Yes, you can speculate about ID, you can speculate about space aliens too, but teaching ID or that space aliens exists in school is stupid.
"ID theory has not enough evidence for it to be taught in school. Maybe if there is more evidence for it, but little or none exists for it."
Translation: "I have successfully ignored the evidence in favor of ID."
Read Spetner, Behe, and Dembski for mountains of evidence for ID. See the links at the bottom of the online version of my article.
Mind haash? Especially if we have to contemplate thoeries.
How old are you?
If ID is intelligent, then why the heck are there so many extinct species. If a species goes extinct, I fail to see what was so intelligent about its design.
Further, if we humans allow any species to go extinct are we not destroying the work of the creator ? Should we not immediately adopt a zero tolerance policy on species extinction ?
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Merry Christmas, pingees!
I wasn't going to ping anything today, but I really like this article.
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
Note: The proponents of the TOE remind me of characters from "Through the Looking Glass".
Long-standing member of the GOP and a devout Lutheran. Not an ACLU member. Impugn the motives of the judge all you want. Maybe you ought to consider the bearing false witness that occurred as the ID folks testified that religion had nothing to do with their efforts.
The entire SETI program is nothing more than a philosophy based in part on Drake's equation which even Drake found problems with.
Millions of dollars, and untold amounts of time, have been poured into a program that attempts to prove a negative.
Why? Because scientist have their own religion, and two of the disciples of that "religion" are Sagan and Asimov.
The whole idea of Intelligent Design is based on design by an intelligent being or beings for which there's no scientific rationale to believe exists at this time.
Neither is there a scientific rationale to believe intelligent life exists beyond this planet. So, if the scientific community wants to ban ID then, by extension, they have to ban SETI as well.
Thanks Arthur Dimmesdale! Give my regards to Hester.
"I think you'd better look at this PA judge for an example of who sounds like a liberal. Is he, by chance, an ACLU member? I have no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me. He certainly shares their hostility to anything reflecting a reverence for God."
LOL....he is a Pres. Bush 43 appointee who is very respected in the Pennsylvania GOP.
"If ID is intelligent, then why the heck are there so many extinct species. If a species goes extinct, I fail to see what was so intelligent about its design."
Well, I don't follow your reasoning. If the bi-plane goes "extinct," does that mean it wasn't designed by an intelligent being? It's only an analogy, but it answers your question. Please don't read more into it than I wrote. Maybe the "Designer" had reasons to let species go extinct.
If the bi-plane goes "extinct," , it usually has be supplanted by a superior model. Survival of the fittest I believe.
Judge Jones is not a member of the ACLU, and is, in fact, a GWB appointee.
ID is not a challenge to evolution. At best it is a challenge to Creationism.
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