Posted on 09/28/2005 6:31:31 AM PDT by gobucks
(snip) But in order to attract converts and win over critics, a new scientific theory must be enticing. It must offer something that its competitors lack. That something may be simplicity (snip). Or it could be sheer explanatory power, which was what allowed evolution to become a widely accepted theory with no serious detractors among reputable scientists.
So what does ID offer? What can it explain that evolution can't?
(snip) Irreducible Complexity (snip)
Darwin himself admitted that if an example of irreducible complexity were ever found, his theory of natural selection would crumble.
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down," Darwin wrote.
Yet no true examples of irreducible complexity have ever been found. The concept is rejected by the majority of the scientific community. (snip)
A necessary — and often unstated — flipside to this is that if an irreducibly complex system contains within it a smaller set of parts that could be used for some other function, then the system was never really irreducibly complex to begin with.
It's like saying in physics that atoms are the fundamental building blocks of matter only to discover, as physicists have, that atoms are themselves made up of even smaller and more fundamental components.
This flipside makes the concept of irreducible complexity testable, giving it a scientific virtue that other aspects of ID lack.
"The logic of their argument is you have these multipart systems, and that the parts within them are useless on their own," said Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University in Rhode Island. "The instant that I or anybody else finds a subset of parts that has a function, that argument is destroyed."
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Even if you were right, the hypothesis should still be mentioned.
Science doesn't develop the test before the hypothesis, but rather the hypothesis before the test.
If there isn't an intelligent designer then what's the use? I'm already dead. Might as well be a gang-banger.
Are you saying evolution is "fact"?
The appropriate maxim is: "Seek out people who claim to be searching for the truth; run from people who claim to have found it."
Then they are ignoring the actual philosophical foundation of Darwinism. Neo-Darwinism requires blind faith, and many of its proponents admit that it requires a belief that the universe is meaningless, purposeless, and creatorless.
Many people believe in the TOE merely because it's been drummed into their skulls since early childhood and there is a social stigma among educated people; only knuckledragging fools don't believe in it.
I was raised to believe in evolution, only cousin marrying tobacco chewing ignorant unedcated idiots didn't believe it. But I grew up to think for myself, and the evidence tells me that Darwin and his followers are wrong.
You don't see the internal inconsistency in that statement?
"Show me how. If there are plenty of ways, you should be able to tell us about one of them, right?"
Glad you asked. I assume you think THAT YOU CAN THINK. Therefore you must allow the case that there are other entities in the universe that can think. Am I correct? (or are you a soliton?)
Given that other thinking entities exist, you cannot therefore exclude the possibility that higher entities exist, perhaps even on a cosmic scale. Voila, you are now at least an agnostic.
Regarding evolution, AND/VS intelligent design, I would prefer to think of it as intelligent evolution. If there can be larger (universal) thinking entities, you cannot exclude the possibility that such entities guide the evolution of organisms. Preposterous you say? What if we simply reword the laws of physics as "God's thoughts on how physics should work". Science and the devine would therefore be congruent, and even bare assed evolution would be a subset of the class of all possible sets of intelligent design. But I am more of the opinion of Rene Thom or D'Arcy (?I forget), that there are attractors and gradients that define how things evolve. Those natural gradients may be indistinguishable from intelligent design. But in any event, no one is stopping anyone from making logical hypoteses about these situations and testing them.
As a scientist, are you saying that intelligent design, as a theory, cannot be tested by scientists and scientific logic? If so, you are admitting that reductionism cannot even reduce the intelligent design question to a rational answer.
That is, dismiss intelligent design at your own mental risk. I could add more, but outta time.
This is not generally true. The hypothesis must contain a prediction, even if the technology doesn't currently support testing. This is true of string theories, for example.
In the case of ID, it is not technology that is the barrier; it is the lack of a hypothesis. There is nothing to look for, even if we had the means.
This isn't just me saying this. This is admitted by the founders of the ID movement.
try [hypotheses], hate those spelling brain freezes
There are two hypotheses with regard to the origin of life and the origin of higher life forms:
1. They were designed by an intelligence.
2. They developed as a consequence of natural processes.
Not to mention:
3. They developed as a consequence of an intelligently designed process.
4. Some combination of 1., 2., 3.
[Nicely stated, that's it in a nutshell. Most of the evo/creationmist war is because people can only see 1 or 2 but not 4]
Unfortunately I accidentally hijacked the thread earlier and our debate at hand was not about evolution.
However to answer your question, I believe it's the best answer to why species change and adapt over time given current evidence.
I do not accept "It's a miracle!" as a valid scientific theory, and thankfully most scientists do not either or we'd probably still be wondering where fire comes from.
If someone's religion can't survive the onslaught of science that is a problem with the religion, not the science.
Personally I do not see why religion and evolution can not exist except in the case of the 6,000'ers that think cavemen were riding around on dinosaurs.
I don't know about blind faith, my education in the 50's and 60's, taught it as theory. It taught it as being thought by scientists to be likely, but still in the category of theory. I've always thought that the theory of evolution made sense, but in my mind that does not rule out ID, whether by divinity or other entity.
Although some will draw from TOE the conclusion that life is meaningless, and other unsavory conclusions, I doubt that to be a majority opinion of its adherents.
I think you mean solipsist. A soliton is a non-dissipative wave.
Given that other thinking entities exist, you cannot therefore exclude the possibility that higher entities exist, perhaps even on a cosmic scale
I can't exclude that the universe was created last Thursday by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, either. I don't waste time worrying about things for which I have no evidence whatsoever. Ergo, I am an atheist.
But in any event, no one is stopping anyone from making logical hypoteses about these situations and testing them.
No one is stopping anyone from anything. But, at the risk of suspending this magnificent flow of irrelevance, you claimed ID could be tested. I asked you to provide a test. You have not done so.
As a scientist, are you saying that intelligent design, as a theory, cannot be tested by scientists and scientific logic?
I'm asking you to do what you claimed was possible, which is, to tell me how to test Intelligent Design.
That is, dismiss intelligent design at your own mental risk. I could add more, but outta time.
You could add lots. But you haven't answered the question.
Thank you, cogitator, for taking the time to post these links, but (1) as for the Wapo article, it's mostly just an overview of current Darwinist thinking. The study referenced on Chimpanzee gene mutation and the theorizing on tool-kit genes really don't take us very far at all, and nowhere near meeting my objection (and one would have to examine the entire original source anyway to have a serious, meaningful discussion of it). And (2) the discussion by the blogger on the second link simply isn't very useful. The objection here goes far beyond not finding a "missing link" here or there in a particular postulated evolutionary tree.
But anyway, all this is just splashing about in the shallow part of the pool. All of this Darwinist theorizing about what random mutation and natural selection can accomplish must begin with at least a one-celled organism that replicates itself using genes that are subject to mutation. And to have a one-celled organism (which in itself is an astonishingly complicated machine) that replicates itself using gene controllers come into being from nothing in only a few billion years is simply impossible. It's the old analogy about how long would it take a monkey sitting at a typewriter to hammer out King Lear. The answer is never, for all practical purposes.
And no offense to anybody on these threads, but to be perfectly honest, I find these FR evolutionary science discussion threads to be exceptionally wearisome, and I think I will go back to the political/activism threads.
Thanks again, Cogitator, for your post.
Why is Darwin's metaphysics taught in science classes, then?
"Origin of man now proved. -- Metaphysics must flourish. - He who understands baboon would do more toward Metaphysics than Locke." --- [Charles] Darwin, Notebook M, August 16, 1838
As proudly quoted front and center by Michael T Ghiselin in his book Metaphysics and the Origin of Species
I doubt they think cavemen were riding dinosaurs. Maybe they had them for dinner, but I don't think many people think they were riding them.
I have no problem with Intelligent Design being taught in a school
I do have a problem with it being taught as science though. Evolution can be tested and has been over and over again in the lab.
If you can not test ID in the lab then it's not science in my view. How can you test a theory that adds a supernatural layer to it? Just by saying that there are complex systems in nature that could not have formed on their own does not mean you can test that in the lab. To be able to do that you would need the designer to be a part of the test.
If they want to teach ID though in school in some non-science capacity I have not a problem with that at all. In fact it would anger me if they would try to supress its teaching.
Both are equally silly notions.
Oh - but it could happen. :)
Evolution is one of the biggest foibles ever pushed onto mankind.
just helping here, but the ping list got missed on this m.a. ping...
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