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.
The numbers of folks doing these things, compared with the size of the general population, is relatively small, and the effects can be "absorbed" on that scale (though on the personal scale it still leads to lack of trust and ostracization from the social group). No society would survive if such were taking place on a large scale, which is why societies have codes (most not Divinely inspired) to discourage such actions.
So you say. I'm glad that your fear of divine punishment is keeping your murderous impulses in check.
Ever wonder why atheistic socialism had no problem murdering millions?
Ever wonder why down through the ages men have had no problems justifying mass-murder in the name of religion? Did you ever hear of the inquisition? Or the slave-trade? (slavery being codified in the Bible of course)
Or is there a possibility that what God stated in Exodus Chapter 20 is the God's honest truth?
Is Exodus Chapter 21 God's honest truth?
Based on this Coyoteman is a retrograde moron able to copy big words from a dictionary; his faulty logic however is nothing more than secular anti-christ jingoistic social darwinism,...in other words BS!
"Gott mit uns" (God with us) was the motto of the Germany army in WWII.
Probably for the same reason devout religious folk in Spain had no problem torturing "confessions" out of helpless women by burning, impaling, stretching on the rack, breaking on the wheel, and genital mutilation -- the human race has some serious issues it needs to confront.
What's the difference if they call ID science or not? I call it truth.
The evolution theory has never been proved, so that just might be junk science.
I'll agree with you there.
We always called it "Divine Design" .
It is not scientific theory, but a theological, metaphysical concept.
Actually, I do believe God is preventing evil from becoming as bad as it could. Some day that restraining hand will be lifted and we (or our descendants) will get to see the full power of the dark side....in ourselves and also from the dark spiritual powers and principalities who also exist.
Too much information....right? :>)
Yet Junior just said mankind is not born depraved. Must be a bad air day.
Ok, you can stop pinging me on this. I said I was wrong about Genesis 1 and 2 as far as the stone tablets were concerned.
I appreciate your skepticism. Obviously you are not a believer and obviously you make no claim to be a follower of Jesus. I have no problem with atheists and agnostics who profess a disbelief in the authority of Scripture. My problem is with those who claim to be followers of Jesus, yet they do not believe his words.
I have a problem with those who profess to be Christians, yet they publicly profess to disbelieve the Word of God and call God a liar.
What are we talking about then? What are these skulls that aren't modern chimps or humans, according to you? Why do we never find any ancient chimps or humans? Just these skulls that look a bit different from either...
Only if you assume God wrote Exodus. You are making assumptions and then drawing conclusion on those assumptions. GIGO.
They love the best seats in the synagogue, and the praise of their fellow man. so sayeth the Lord.
We invite your attention to post 304 on this thread.
Well, if Sartre said it, then I suppose Hell is other people too. Having lived in apartments before, I can at least confirm that Hell is noisy neighbors.
Thanks.
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