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To: Frumious Bandersnatch

So what you are saying is that there must be intelligent design because all of our tests are intelligently designed? That does not follow. Must we conclude that there must be humans on other planets because all of the tests to determine if there is life on other planets are conducted by humans? How can you eliminate this human impurity from the test? My contention is that the evidence supports the notion that all the variety of life is derived from the changing of allele frequencies in the gene pool of organisms over time. This statement does not state that there is no design to the process. Nor does it state that there is. The question of design must be left to philosophers and theologians and kept outside the realm of science. If I am wrong, then please provide me with an observation that would cause you to conclude that there is no design. That is the test of an idea to determine if it is scientific. Evolution passes this test. To falsify evolution, any number of observations would suffice. For example, finding a reliably dated 1 billion year old human fossil, finding an organism which used something other than polynucleotides for its genetic material, finding an organism that doesn't use polypeptides as its basic enzymatic and structural material, or even showing an example of a rabbit giving birth to a donkey all would show that the current evolutionary theory is false. Note that even were evolution shown to be false, creationism (or ID) would NOT be the replacement for it. Another SCIENTIFIC theory would come along to replace evolution, and probably these same arguments would continue to occur.


193 posted on 12/14/2004 10:08:16 AM PST by stremba
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To: stremba
I'm not necessarily saying that ID has to be because all of our tests are intelligently designed. What I am saying is that we cannot separate ID from our tests, therefore to deny that inherent bias is bad science.

Using Occam's Razor, of which you are so justly proud, the simplest solution would be to admit the ID bias of the evolutionary data. As such, the evidence is more in favor if ID than against it.

Even though you state that the evidence neither confirms nor denies the existance of ID, you also indicate that ID must be kept out of the realm of science. Therefore, you are implying that ID is false, even though you state otherwise. It is not good science when one's premise is based on assumptions which exclude inconvenient data.

You wish me to provide you with an observation to conclude that there is no design. That is more your position than mine. I'm stating simple facts. You cannot remove design from experimentation. Therefore, concluding that there is no design based on such experimentation is a false conclusion.

Evolution passes your test only insomuch as we know that there is some good hard evidence for micro evolution and some soft evidence and a lot of supposition for macro evolution. The mechanisms behind it are currently pretty much unknown. But to say that Evolution is falsifiable is not quite correct. Many aspects have been indeed so proven. However, the theory as a whole has not, and probably cannot, due to the aeons that are needed to do the necessary experimentation. Indeed, I've met few other scientific areas of purview wherein that which is proven falsifiable today is proven falsified tomorrow.

On another note, I've had the privilege to read a lot of articles attacking the premises advanced by Dembski and Behe. Everyone I've thus far seen has unconsciously undermined their own arguments by using extremely poor analogies. As an example, "The Blind Watchmaker" (Dawkins?) uses a blind watchmaker as an anology to blind mechanisms in place to create the Universe. However, it is extremely poor, because the Watchmaker is still an intelligent designer, be he blind or not.

To believe that ID has no influence is like saying that the complete works of Shakespeare wrote themselves.
196 posted on 12/14/2004 10:52:09 AM PST by Frumious Bandersnatch
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