Posted on 11/10/2005 4:43:24 AM PST by Nicholas Conradin
In an election in Pennsylvania this week, voters tossed out eight members of the Pittsburgh school board who wanted Intelligent Design theory to be taught alongside evolution in school. But should Intelligent Design -- the theory that living organisms were created at least in part by an intelligent designer, not by a blind process of evolution by natural selection -- be taught in public schools? In one way, the answer to this question is simple: if it's a scientific theory, it should; if it's not, it shouldn't (on pain of flaunting the Establishment Clause). The question, however, is whether Intelligent Design (ID) is a scientific theory.
Opponents dismiss ID's scientific credentials, claiming that the theory is too implausible to qualify as scientific. But this reasoning is fallacious: a bad scientific theory is still a scientific theory, just as a bad car is still a car. There may be pedagogical reasons to avoid teaching bad scientific theories in our public schools, but there are no legal ones. The Constitution contains no interdiction on teaching bad theories, or for that matter demonstrably false ones. As long as theory is science and not religion, there is no legal barrier to teaching it.
To make their case, opponents of teaching ID must show not just that the theory is bad, but that it's not science. This raises a much more complicated question: What is science? What distinguishes genuinely scientific theories from non-scientific ones?
In one form or another, the question has bothered scientists and philosophers for centuries. But it was given an explicit formulation only in the 1920s, by Karl Popper, the most important 20th century philosopher of science. Popper called it "the problem of demarcation," because it asked how to demarcate scientific research and distinguish it from other modes of thought (respectable though they may be in their own right).
One thing Popper emphasized was that a theory's status as scientific doesn't depend on its plausibility. The great majority of scientific theories turn out to be false, including such works of genius as Newton's mechanics. Conversely, the story of Adam and Eve may well be pure truth, but if it is, it's not scientific truth, but some other kind of truth.
So what is the mark of genuine science? To attack this question, Popper examined several theories he thought were inherently unscientific but had a vague allure of science about them. His favorites were Marx's theory of history and Freud's theory of human behavior. Both attempted to describe the world without appeal to super-natural phenomena, but yet seem fundamentally different from, say, the theory of relativity or the gene theory.
What Popper noticed was that, in both cases, there was no way to prove to proponents of the theory that they were wrong. Suppose Jim's parents moved around a lot when Jim was a child. If Jim also moves around a lot as an adult, the Freudian explains that this was predictable given the patterns of behavior Jim grew up with. If Jim never moves, the Freudian explains -- with equal confidence -- that this was predictable as a reaction to Jim's unpleasant experiences of a rootless childhood. Either way the Freudian has a ready-made answer and cannot be refuted. Likewise, however much history seemed to diverge from Marx's model, Marxists would always introduce new modifications and roundabout excuses for their theory, never allowing it to be proven false.
Popper concluded that the mark of true science was falsifiability: a theory is genuinely scientific only if it's possible in principle to refute it. This may sound paradoxical, since science is about seeking truth, not falsehood. But Popper showed that it was precisely the willingness to be proven false, the critical mindset of being open to the possibility that you're wrong, that makes for progress toward truth.
What scientists do in designing experiments that test their theories is create conditions under which their theory might be proven false. When a theory passes a sufficient number of such tests, the scientific community starts taking it seriously, and ultimately as plausible.
When Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, the first thing he did was to make a concrete prediction: he predicted that a certain planet must exist in such-and-such a place even though it had never been observed before. If it turned out that the planet did not exist, his theory would be refuted. In 1919, 14 years after the advent of Special Relativity, the planet was discovered exactly where he said. The theory survived the test. But the possibility of failing a test -- the willingness to put the theory up for refutation -- was what made it a scientific theory in the first place.
To win in the game of science, a theory must be submitted to many tests and survive all of them without being falsified. But to be even allowed into the game, the theory must be falsifiable in principle: there must be a conceivable experiment that would prove it false.
If we examine ID in this light, it becomes pretty clear that the theory isn't scientific. It is impossible to refute ID, because if an animal shows one characteristic, IDers can explain that the intelligent designer made it this way, and if the animal shows the opposite characteristic, IDers can explain with equal confidence that the designer made it that way. For that matter, it is fully consistent with ID that the supreme intelligence designed the world to evolve according to Darwin's laws of natural selection. Given this, there is no conceivable experiment that can prove ID false.
It is sometimes complained that IDers resemble the Marxist historians who always found a way to modify and reframe their theory so it evades any possible falsification, never offering an experimental procedure by which ID could in principle be falsified. To my mind, this complaint is warranted indeed. But the primary problem is not with the intellectual honesty of IDers, but with the nature of their theory. The theory simply cannot be fashioned to make any potentially falsified predictions, and therefore cannot earn entry into the game of science.
None of this suggests that ID is in fact false. For all I've said, it may well be pure truth. But if it is, it wouldn't be scientific truth, because it isn't scientific at all. As such, we shouldn't allow it into our science classrooms. At least that's what the Constitution says.
The writer teaches philosophy at the University of Arizona.
Bravo for your post #126...I read these ID/evolution threads with great interest, and every single day, I learn more and more, with great posts such as yours...
I look for those posters such as yourself, who contribute reliable information, for those of us who are primarily lurkers and I am sure that there are those, like myself, who are really unlearned in so many areas of science...reliable information helps many of us along...
And also I have found out on these threads, that there are also posters who post nothing but old, outdated, incorrect information, and others who have no information to share, but like to get on these threads, call people names, and then run away...
It is all very enlightening, not only for the information provided, but also for shedding light on the horrible behavior of some posters...
Carry on...it is appreciated by this poster...
Because these threads are ultimately about science. When you make claims like that one, you're supposed to back them up with evidence. That's what science is, and it's why evolution is good science and ID doesn't qualify.
Ok, you are God trying to explain to Moses, Creation so he can write the book of Geneses.
Do you try to explain DNA to someone who could never understand it or...
Do you describe Creation in terms he can grasp... A parable similar to how Jesus taught his followers.
"why would you even think that a fictionalized account of how the Hebrews arrived at the same rules means that Jesus or Moses were frauds or fantasies?"
Because both claimed they were direct revelations from the God, not myths or legends. But I'm intrigued by your "*Aside from the first couple of commandments, the rest are simply common sense measures to allow people to live together peacefully."
Why, if there is noone to ultimately answer to, should anyone worry about "living peacefully" with neighbors? That is a principle for the weak to live by, not the strong and clever. If I have the most powerful navy, why not impose "gunboat" diplomacy on lesser nations? If I have the most powerful army, why not impose my will on weaker peoples? If I'm stronger than my neighbor why not take his wife, car, house and money? The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre says that "If God is dead, everything is permitted." In other words, if there is no supreme being to lay down the moral law, each individual is free to do as he or she pleases. Without a divine lawgiver, there can be no universal moral law.
If we are just random "accidents", products of chemicals, why should we care about anything but ourselves and why should we speculate about origins, purpose or being?
How would you falsify creation theory, ID theory or evolution?
Evolution is falsifiable. Any fossil found that didn't fit the predicted evolutionary progression would falsify it. For example, a 2 billion year old rabbit fossil or a T. Rex fossil only 6000 years old would do it. Every time a fossil is found evolution is tested.
"You're taking away all my options. Im reminded of the Life of Brian skit:"
Are you denying that musculature is based off of the skeleton?
Are you denying that body posture is mostly a product of the skeleton?
You haven't refuted either of these points, but seem to wish to implicitly argue that they aren't fair because they leave you with nothing to back up your argument with. If all of your examples of a difference between the "outer shell" of a chimp and a human that is not reliant on the skeleton turn out to be fallacious, then that is a problem with your reasoning, not mine.
Why are you talking about God writing the 10 Commandments when you originally said,
" When God wrote with his own hand on tablets of stone that in six days He made "heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" was he lying or just mistaken?"
You therefore claimed he wrote Genesis 1 and 2 with his own hand on tablets made of stone (that's where the creations stories are). Why are you talking about the 10 Commandments?
So when you said, "When God wrote with his own hand on tablets of stone that in six days He made "heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.", were you mistaken or lying?
If in conquering everybody and taking their stuff, one manages somehow to avoid early retirement due to a dirk in the ribs, one may reflect in old age on whether working cooperatively in a community might not be less arduous and far more productive of happiness.
Id is like the rats who crave power making up all kinds of stuff to win the argument. There is a hope that if you tell repeat the fiction long enough and loud enough it will turn in to truth.mthe
Careful, or he'll sic Pat Robertson on you.
My point being that the laws and the waves that we encounter in life have a logical and intelligent use to them. The being is the Author of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Zoology, etc. It all came from a Super Intelligent Being. The major problem of evolution is that it operates within a finite boundary while dismissing things that are infinite and transcendent.
While evolutionist have the process of life taking so many billions of years, creationists who believe in an infinite God realize that the whole process could have taken one day or one hour. Why six days? For our benefit in order to give us a pattern for work. In regards to age, everything was designed mature.
Is that saying, micro-evolution has not occurred? No. There have been changes within the cat family and the dog family but that is after their kind.
I thought that was Ivan in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov? (But then maybe this naive formulation isn't as persuasive coming from a fictional character that turns around and kills himself.)
That's because defining a specie, from an evolutionary standpoint, basically involves drawing arbitrary lines to break up a smooth continuum. 'Species' are a human-imposed division used to make classifying things easier for study. There is no absolute natural definition for one.
Well said. It can't be repeated enough.
At some level I don't like idiots in ivory towers telling me what I have to believe and teach my children.
What about idiots behind pulpits?
Would you be unreservedly dedicated to not making a profit under any circumstance whatsoever?
Be better to look to Hitler or Marx and their advocates for those answers.
LOL.
Will these behaviors and other things happen from the dementeds of the cult of evo..??
ROFLOL.
>When God wrote with his own hand on tablets of stone that in six days He made "heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is" was he lying or just mistaken?
Did Methuselah really live to be 969 years old?
Did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego really walk in the fire.
Did one man, Noah, really build a boat large enough to contain two of every species and the food required to feed them for 40 days and the time afterwards required for the waters that covered the Earth to receed?
And when the water receeded, where did it go? Since all the Earth was covered with water, it couldn't have gone into the oceans, since they were already filled with water. Where did the water go?
Don't confuse Bible stories with God's works. They can be very different.
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