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To: inquest
Since you've failed to provide a workable definition of "supernatural" other than, outside the realm of science, you're merely making a circular argument.

You're like the energizer bunny of obtuse irrelevance. If you don't know what ordinary 6th grade spelling test words mean, I'd strongly recommend you try looking them up.

The fact is, anything that exists, in reality, and has an observable effect on the real world, can properly be the subject of a scientific theoretical model. Whatever label you put on it doesn't change that fact.

...which means, mr. attentive, that if ID proves to be the case, there's no reason to think it will likely deepsix evolutionary biology, since what we already know and puzzle about from fossils and microbiology isn't going away. As I might possibly have mentioned already, but who the heck has the attention span to wade through your definition-circus to remember what the fuss was about in the first place?

1,256 posted on 09/27/2005 9:55:06 PM PDT by donh
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To: inquest
The fact is, anything that exists, in reality, and has an observable effect on the real world, can properly be the subject of a scientific theoretical model.

Oh, and by the way, this is an incredible overreach, which defies common sense, formal math, quantum physics, and which finite beings could never possibly demonstrate. You likely will never develop formal foundations for all the true theories of any godelian system; you likely will never know exactly when or where quantum effects will move electrical effects through a transistor barrier; you will likely never have any idea what goes on below the Heisenburg limit in an atomic exchange. There are only a very limited number of things in the "real world" that show, in fact, any significant signs of being completely knowable: formal mathematical systems that are linear, continuous, and abstract, in fact, is the only thing I can think of. Outside of that, the inherent problems of discontinuity, and NP complexity probably makes the majority of the universe unanalyzable for all time.

A common gross way to make this argument, is that if you try to analyze any system that is combinatorially complex, such as, for example, trying to calculate the celestial mechanical future of all the particles in the universe, you eventually run into the point where you run out of particles in the universe to dedicate to the calculation. Complexity problems of a similar nature kill your chances of understanding even fairly simple things way less challenging than this extreme example.

1,257 posted on 09/27/2005 10:56:13 PM PDT by donh
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To: donh
If you don't know what ordinary 6th grade spelling test words mean, I'd strongly recommend you try looking them up.

I already quoted you the definition. It means something not reachable through scientific investigation. So all you've done is make the completely circular observation that something which by definition is outside of science is outside of science. Doesn't elucidate much there.

...which means, mr. attentive, that if ID proves to be the case, there's no reason to think it will likely deepsix evolutionary biology, since what we already know and puzzle about from fossils and microbiology isn't going away.

Current evolutionary theory is that natural variation regulated by natural selection is enough to account for the development of the living species of the world. Anything that shows exceptions to this type of species development will show that that's not the case exclusively, and that will leave open the question of just how much of the biodiversity on this planet was designed, and how much was the product of naturalistic evolution.

You'd be dreaming if you don't think it would turn current scientific assumptions upside down. Even the presence of oil deposits in the predicted locations would only prove that species descended from other species, not that this descent was not guided to any degree by any intelligent force.

1,261 posted on 09/28/2005 7:02:29 AM PDT by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
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