Posted on 09/13/2005 4:20:14 PM PDT by rob777
Sooner or later everyone asks the question, “Where do we come from?” The answer carries profound, life-molding implications. Until this question is answered we cannot solve another fundamental question that is key to ethics, religion, and the meaning of life (if any): “Are we here for a purpose?” There are two possible answers: the universe and life and its diversity—natural phenomena—are the product of 1) a combination of only natural laws and chance (the “naturalistic hypothesis)”; or 2) a combination of law, chance, and design—the activity of a mind or some form of intelligence that has the power to manipulate matter and energy (the “design hypothesis”). The latter produces purpose, the former does not.
The naturalistic hypothesis is supported by theories of chemical evolution (with respect to the origin of the universe and of life) and by Darwinian evolution (with respect to the origin of the diversity of life). The design hypothesis is supported by the purposeful characteristics of exceedingly complex natural systems that are frequently described as “fine tuned.” Each hypothesis is densely laden with philosophical and religious baggage, and clear thinking is required in order to separate the
science from the philosophy, the evidence from the implications, and reality from imagination.
...
(Excerpt) Read more at intelligentdesignnetwork.org ...
The presumption isn't that "only those things which can be explained or predicted by science are true", but that only things that can be explained AND predict are SCIENCE. "Intelligent design" by its very nature, predicts nothing, and thus is "definitively not science".
"Are "social sciences" summarily judged to be mislabeled precisely because they study the frequently unpredictable, often inexplicable behaviors of intelligent beings? Are anthropologists to be ejected from the sphere of serious science because they deal with the imprecise analysis of the evidence of historical human activity, deducing the activities and motivations of countless intelligent beings by analyzing the fruits of that intelligence?"
Despite the fact that they call themselves such, most "social sciences" are not science, either. "Imprecise analysis" has nothing to do with it. It's all about being "hard-facts based" and useful in making predictions about or explaining previously not-understood facts of science or nature.
"Why then is the very notion of science being applied to the study of the fruits of a greater Intelligence so categorically repulsive?
Nothing repulsive about it---it's just NOT SCIENCE. "Intelligent design" is METAPHYSICS, not physics. You can use the tools of science to explore metaphysical questions all you like.
"Is it so reprehensible to think of biology, astronomy, et al in the same terms as anthropology? Much can be learned while some may only be speculated. That's OK. The mere fact that parts of the puzzle are, by their very nature, unknowable shouldn't be such a crisis-inducing idea to scientists. As with other imprecise sciences, there is still much valuable knowledge to be gained with this approach.
ANY scientist forth his breakfast meal readily admits that "parts of the puzzle are, by their very nature, unknowable". The problem is that the "pushers" of "intelligent design" don't know where those limits are.
What is repugnant is a bunch of ignoramuses foisting off "non-science" AS science by lobbying boards of education and legislators.
There's the rub. Just what is "evidence against ID?"
What does ID have if it doesn't have irreducible complexity? The Anthropic Principle? Fine Tuning?
If you claim these, you can have them, but they don't alter the physical history of the universe as proposed by mainstream science.
What "philosophical assumptions" does it make that (READ FOLLOWING CAREFULLY) are not made by other comparable and non-offensive scientific theories? For example the assumption of the uniformity and universal application of natural law (sometimes called "naturalism") is NOT unique to evolution.
Yes really. You were quite clear - if science can't infer biological engineering then it can't explain biological observations. I took your sentence, changed the domain without changing the logic or relationships, and the result was clearly dumb. This is one technique of demonstrating fallacious arguments.
science probably is capable of detecting the signature of intelligent agents on a given phenomena.
And I have challenged you to demonstrate this for us. I have explained the form necessary. Why won't you do it?
in rejecting a "design hypothesis" in biology, you're essentially making an argument from ignorance.
I have been very clear over several posts. I reject ID as science because it does not have the proper form. Once that hurdle is cleared, which you have conspicuously failed to do although I have challenged you to do it several times now, then we can compare it to other theories using other criteria.
I don't see it. If we already know the right answer (say, this insulin-producing bacterium is a product of human design), are you really claiming that science is incapable of detecting that? I seriously doubt it. But if so, how is it possible for science to make any authoritative statement about origins?
Even worse, without knowing the history of an object, you don't know what steps were required to produce it, and without knowing the steps, you cannot do a meaningful probability calculation.
That's an unnecessary constraint that essentially calls for scientists to ignore any knowledge of how things (in general) get made. We need not know the history or manufacturing processes used to create the artifacts found by archaeologists, and yet we are still somehow able to identify things as "made." How? Because we can often recognize the signature of "made things." Moreover, even if we're uncertain about the origin of an object, we can try to discern it by looking for known characteristics of "made things." And thus an archaeologist can label an unremarkable chunk of stone to be "a primitive tool."
No one in science claims that any complex structure poofed into existence in one step, and no one in ID has found a structure that isn't comprised of simpler, functional structures.
An airplane meets this criterion. Are you saying that a "design hypothesis" for the origin of that airplane would be wrong, simply because the airplane is comprised of "simpler, functional structures?"
What are "hard facts", if not truth? Your answer to the first part of my post implies that science is but a subset of the search for truth; that science is concerned with those things which may be explained and predicted. Yet, here you change the definition of science as being that which is "hard facts" based. Again, you seem to define truth (hard facts) as only that which can be explained and/or reproduced.
By your definition, do there exist hard facts which can neither be explained nor reliably reproduced? ...or does inexplicability or irreproducibility negate the existence of hard fact?
Try an analogous, but easier problem: What is evidence against the existence of your great, great, great grandfather?
If you claim these, you can have them, but they don't alter the physical history of the universe as proposed by mainstream science.
I don't believe ID requires irreducible complexity, but that it would definitively prove ID. There is a lack of irreducible complexity in many of mankind's creations, yet the ID remains.
No, I'm defining SCIENCE as "only that which can be explained or reproduced".
"By your definition, do there exist hard facts which can neither be explained nor reliably reproduced? ...or does inexplicability or irreproducibility negate the existence of hard fact?"
Yes, of course there do exist such hard facts--and finding the eplanations of those is what science is all about, so "no"--simply because something is currently "inexplicable or irreproducible" doesn't "negate the existence of hard fact", but that does mean that whatever that particular "hard fact" is, is not yet "science".
This is why I simply don't buy the idea of "irreducible complexity" as an argument for "intelligent design". Just because something APPEARS "irreducibly complex" by today's knowledge base doesn't mean that it "is" REALLY "irreducibly complex".
Then it seems there really isn't much difference between the two; only the question of whence the unknown cometh. It seems the anti-ID scientists view the trinity of chance, chaos and mutation as the creators, where ID'ers believe there is a mind controlling the tools.
Both agree there are "things known" and "things not yet known", which are true. Why is it science only if the "things not yet known" didn't come to be by the design of a greater Intelligence?
This is why I simply don't buy the idea of "irreducible complexity" as an argument for "intelligent design". Just because something APPEARS "irreducibly complex" by today's knowledge base doesn't mean that it "is" REALLY "irreducibly complex".
With this approach, you can simply put off committing to the answer for ever, claiming that the future may yet prove it untrue. Is there a defined threshold where irreducible complexity would become real to you?
I.e., evidence against ID is chimerical, rendering it inherently unfalsifiable. It therefore fails to provide any meaningful avenue for scientific inquiry.
Nor is it attempting to, at least by the definitions put forth by anti-ID scientists. I think ID simply wants a place at the intellectual table, not to expel any of the current occupants. The anti-ID voice, on the other hand, doesn't even want to let them into the room.
This attitude is curious since, by definition, science is concerned with exploring the unknown. If that is their aim, how can a scientist be so doggedly certain that the tools he has used for that exploration in the past are well suited to explore what is currently unknown, to the exclusion of tools with which he is unfamiliar?
First off, it's important to note that the argument in question was a discussion of one possible outcome of a test of the ability of science to detect design.
You're misrepresenting this argument by overstating its claims. Considering the context of the statement, it is not fallacious, though I suspect that you just don't like the logical implications. It's rather obvious that if a discipline is incapable of telling the difference between hypotheses X and Y, then any claim that "it was X and not Y" is by definition unreliable. In the case of biology, if we assume it's impossible to detect the presence of engineering even when we know it happened, then it follows directly that scientific declarations of "it was not designed" are untrustworthy.
And I have challenged you to demonstrate this for us. I have explained the form necessary. Why won't you do it?
Consider the case of the insulin-producing bacterium. Suppose the I hypothesize a designer is responsible. To test that hypothesis, I would predict that the signature of genetic engineering would show up as an "out of place" gene in otherwise "normal" bacterial DNA (I could do a DNA comparison to show this). I can detect that the bacteria produce human insulin, so I could compare the "out of place" gene sequence against the known human insulin sequence. If my hypothesis is correct, then I would expect to find an excellent match. Now, since we're aware of the techniques associated with recombinant DNA, the presence of the human insulin gene sequence in an otherwise unremarkable bacterial DNA supports the hypothesis that a designer was involved in this case.
QED. There's your test. And I suspect that you were already well aware of the details.
Babble and blather. I'm really not interest in engaging in philsophical hair-splitting. The simple fact is that "intelligent design" is not science because it explains EVERYTHING the same way----"the designer dood it", and thus explains nothing. It cannot PREDICT NEW SCIENCE, which is one of the key requirement for a scientific hypothesis.
"With this approach, you can simply put off committing to the answer for ever, claiming that the future may yet prove it untrue.
ALL science is this way. "IF" a superior hypothesis/theory comes along which explains ALL CURRENT PHENOMENA explained by the previous theory AND, explains or predicts the explantion of phenomena NOT currently explained, then the new hypothesis becomes the "leading contender".
"Is there a defined threshold where irreducible complexity would become real to you?"
Sure---when there has been about a century of study of such biological systems ACROSS MULTIPLE SPECIES using the tools of todays molecular biology. It's simply too early to say that biological systems are "irreducibly complex".
Two problems with this.
First, you've drastically overreached here. We already know for a fact that the hypothesis of naturalistic evolution does not explain "ALL CURRENT PHENOMENA." We know of thousands of life forms for which the proper explanation must include the actions of human intelligent agents.
Second, it is no longer possible to reject a design hypothesis for any phenomena that came about during the time of human activity on Earth. (And for future developments, the "design" hypothesis only gains strength as humans become more adept at genetic engineering.)
Isn't that like saying physics is not science because it explains everything the same way: "Atoms and subatomic particles behave in ways explained by physical laws." I mean, really, do you think there is nothing to be learned in a universe that was created to be as it is by a superior intelligence? Would you also feel there is nothing to learn from a lecture prepared by a scientist smarter than yourself?
The idea that an Intelligence has created what we see does not diminish in the slightest the value of the knowledge we stand to gain by better understanding those things and how they behave.
ALL science is this way. "IF" a superior hypothesis/theory comes along which explains ALL CURRENT PHENOMENA explained by the previous theory AND, explains or predicts the explantion of phenomena NOT currently explained, then the new hypothesis becomes the "leading contender".
But that's just it! ID doesn't deny the existing and previous learning, it simply re-frames it in terms of causality. The facts don't change, they are understood in the context that observable forces and matter are under the control of something much more than chaos. The truth is still the truth. The only thing discarded is the worship of chance and chaos as creators.
Sure---when there has been about a century of study of such biological systems ACROSS MULTIPLE SPECIES using the tools of todays molecular biology. It's simply too early to say that biological systems are "irreducibly complex".
...conveniently postponing the final answer beyond your lifetime. ;-)
Sorry, but I'm not going to waste more time trying to get the point across. Go away and bother someone else with your pseudo-philosophical bullshit.
Sorry you feel that way. I thought we were having a well-mannered debate. I was actually going to let you have the last word, since I have other work I need to attend to.
I am saying that ID is not a design hypothesis until it makes specific, testable statements about the history of the objects or structures is claims are designed. We know that airplanes are designed because we know their history. There is no mathematical or objective method for deciding that an object has a specific history.
What you can do is demonstrate that a specific conjectured history is possible in that it follows all known physical laws.
What ID lacks is a proposed mechanism for the occurrence of the objects under its purview, and a proposed history for those objects. It needs to propose some characteristics of the designer, some abilities and limitations that can be put to the test.
So far, ID has asserted that certain structures could not have arisen by incremental steps. Each of the structures proposed has failed that test. Eyes, blood clotting, flagella, all have simpler implementations and examples of functional substructures.
You cannot calculate the probability of a structure arising naturally unless you know each step in its history, and whether each step is likely to occur naturally.
So if ID wishes to make some kind of Drake equation, calculation the probability of living things arising naturally, it needs to know the actual history of things, so each element can be properly entered into the equation.
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