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.
indeed it is
You would ask that, doggonit!
I'll let you decide for yourself whether you've ever in your life stolen anything at all.
Try: http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/marital-infidelity.htm
Shere (sp) Hite's work showed infidelity up to 70%.....that's from memory based on a master's level Human Sexuality class I had at Kansas State in about 1995.
indeed it is
That's all I wanted to know.
Fascinating. Could you point me to a citation for this statistic?
Natural selection by itself makes no new things.
Of course it doesn't. There needs to be a difference in individuals in a species ... through mutation, for example ... for natural selection to have something to "select".
It is actually the permanent loss of information.
Really? I've heard of something called "recessive genes" that are still in the DNA ... not permanently lost ...
It is not the creative, uphill, limitless process imagined by Darwin.
Limitless? Part of the TOE is that there ARE limits ... whatever mutations exist that can be selected for ... a cat's not going to give birth to a kitten with jet engines, for instance, as what mutation would cause that.
Although it would be cool.
"In what way is it scientific to assume that an unsolved problem has no solution?"
ID doesn't assume that. People falsely say it does, but it doesn't. I'm assuming of course that finding the cause of the origin of life, and the specified complexity of organisms, is a problem that can be solved. Maybe I don't understand your question?
That's not that unusual anymore.
But there are definitely some philosophical challenges that go along with any perspective that includes God.
At some point, all of us, creationist/ID/theistic evolutionist are overwhelmed by the idea of God's eternity.
Everyone is a child of God; why wouldn't God speak to His progeny? There is no special club or caste one must belong to in order to have God speak to him.
You're welcome. Interestingly enough, it was given to the Jewish nation in a time when they themselves were slaves. It has always been an admonishment of God's, that the Jewish people would live among the nations, and that they would obey the laws of those nations. However, when the people realized that God's law transcends man's law, they would disobey that law. therefore you find Christians, both in the past and now, at the forefront in the outlawing of slavery.
I know what Darwin said. I know what his eugenics associates said. And I know what a lot of people claim about evolution in order to shove God out of the picture.
But I have no idea what you're trying to say. Brilliant reply.
Festival of the Chatty Troll
Name one that convincingly deduces that God does not exist.
God absolutely does not talk to everyone. That is Gnosticism. You might want to examine your beliefs.
You're welcome.
Thanks. I've learned on this thread that some people think that both God created the universe in 6 days and that slavery is OK with the same God.
I've been known to stick pens in my pocket at work and forget about them till after I got home. Not intentional, but I've done it. That's a far cry from hitting on someone else's wife. One's a sin of omission and the other of commission.
In that time and in those places, slavery was a fact of life. It is a fact of life today. Who, other than christians, speak out against it?
"Name one that convincingly deduces that God does not exist."
None. And that includes evolution. None can deduce God exists either.
My pet desires are that our future generations are not brainwashed through the public-education system into accepting a secular-humanist view of life. That is, of having an open mind.
Schools can't even read a statement that there may be some originating energy source that set all this in motion?
If your teachings cannot tolerate a little competition -- that has serious backing from large parts of the scientific community (of course, you discount it because you begin the experiment biased as to the outcome) -- then it is your pet desire that has yet to pass the test.
It is not a theory. It is, at best, a hypothesis but not a hypothesis in science. It more properly belongs in philosophy or theology.
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