You're forgetting the other component of Occam's razor. It's not the simplest explanation that's best, but the simplest one that can actually account for your observations.
The theory of the 4 humors accounted for observations, just like astrology does. People are constantly, and with sober seriousness, observing successful experimental predictions in both cases. Who are you to say these aren't scientific observations as best as could be obtained at the time? It hasn't been that long since science marched along happily proving over and over that the ether existed, and the continents were fixed. Your assumptions are pretty cocksure, given science's track record regarding such things as ether, phrenology, and clitorectomic cures for hysteria, not to mention astronomy's current incapacity to accurately describe the large-scale behavior of galactic orbits with einsteinian mechanics.
So, in other words, for almost all practical uses, the special relativity components of the calculations are utterly useless window dressing--unneeded complexity in violation of Occam's Razor.
We're talking science, not practicality. As a scientific matter, Newtonian mechanics do not give an accurate result. Einsteinian relativity does.
As noted above, you are mistaken regarding Einsteinian mechanics, it gives widespead, and important astronomical predictions at wide variance from observation. Our confidence in it derives from sources other than its demonstrated infallible accuracy up until now. At any rate, are you under the impression that calculations in physical dynamics or physical chemistry are normally done using einsteinian mechanics? There's nothing scientifically acute about insisting on calculating terms whose precision is beyond your capacity to measure. Choosing calculations that make claims of precision you don't actually have isn't spectacularly scientifically respectable.
Much in the same way that ID never gets a fair chance at scientific investigation because of the assumption that because you don't currently have any evidence, you don't need to look for it.
That is not the assumption made by ID theory.
Well of course not--that's not a relevant response. It is the assumption made by establishment science in refusing to consider ID. Why don't you explain why SETI is science, and can be mentioned in the classroom, but ID cannot. Both postulate, and search for, an entity external to any naturalistic evidence science currently possesses.
Just as you can claim that Occum's razor makes a case against ID that rises to the level of classroom acceptance, so I can similarly claim regarding SETI. In fact, the SETI claim is stronger, because we've actually been looking pretty hard, and not succeeding for quite a long time now--rather than just thumbing our noses at it, as we've done with ID.
Letting ID into the classroom is the grand mistake--doing so because you think to refute it is an even grander mistake, because you can't, particularly not with as feeble a weapon as Occam's Razor. If you can undersand why SETI is a scientific endeavor, but ID ain't, maybe you can understand why we don't want a cock in this fight, even if we thought it could win.
Do you have any references for this? If what you're saying is true, then these theories do have a scientific basis. But that of course is a mighty big "if".
It hasn't been that long since science marched along happily proving over and over that the ether existed, and the continents were fixed.
Then new data came along to undercut these theories. What relevance does that have to anything we're talking about?
As noted above, you are mistaken regarding Einsteinian mechanics, it gives widespead, and important astronomical predictions at wide variance from observation.
That makes it inferior to Newtonian theory? Bet me.
At any rate, are you under the impression that calculations in physical dynamics or physical chemistry are normally done using einsteinian mechanics?
No. Again, you're talking practicality. That's not what I'm arguing. All you're saying is that the improved accuracy from relativity theory does not, in these cases, warrant the extra labor necessary for calculations using it. It has nothing to do with whether or not the theory is sound.
If you can undersand why SETI is a scientific endeavor, but ID ain't
You're comparing apples and oranges. Unlike ID, SETI isn't a theory; it's a means of testing a theory. Or, it's an acknowledgement that we don't have enough data just yet to formulate a theory on that subject.