New ideas are always met at first with ridicule;
then with vehement opposition; afterwards, they
are seen to have been obvious.
This is true for a tiny fraction of new ideas. Most deserve the ridicule that's heaped upon them at the outset. It's a winnowing process that I wouldn't change, even if I could.
New ideas are always met at first with ridicule;
then with vehement opposition; afterwards, they
are seen to have been obvious.
Such happened when scientists suggested the earth orbits the sun.
If "ID" was truly a "new" idea, it might be rational to hold out some hope for that scenario. Unfortunately... "ID" is thousands of years old, and *still* hasn't come up with squat.
As I wrote in earlier thread:
Because the scientific community is a monolith, impenetrable and often hostile to new theories, intelligent design proponents have to turn to the public schools to recruit support, a witness said Monday. [...] Fuller talked of intelligent design as being a possible scientific-revolution in waiting in which it challenges the "dominant paradigm" of evolutionary theory. [...] But during cross-examination, he said intelligent design — the idea that the complexity of life requires a designer — is "too young" to have developed rigorous testable formulas and sits on the fringe of science. He suggested that perhaps scientists should have an "affirmative action" plan to help emerging ideas compete against the "dominant paradigms" of mainstream science. [...] As a philosopher, Fuller testified he remains open to all new views, even though he maintains that at the moment, evolutionary theory is a better explanation of the biological world.And in reply to an attempted rebuttal:What the heck is this "new views" propaganda? "ID" isn't a "new" view, it's a very, very *old* view. It existed for thousands of years before science as we know it today began around 1650, or evolutionary biology in 1859.
"The idea that the complexity of life requires a designer" is hardly "too young" to have "developed rigorous testable formulas", it has BEEN AROUND FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, and *still* hasn't managed to come up with anything that holds water in a testable, falsifiable manner.
"ID" has been the world's oldest dead-end hypothesis.
Science in general, and evolutionary biology in particular, arose after thousands of years of ID's *failure* to advance human knowledge or produce workable theories or techniques. *Science* is the "newcomer" here, and has managed to gain enormous widespread acceptance and produce *incredible* results (which a couple of centuries ago would have been considered utter sorcery), precisely because it proved vastly more insightful than the age-old presumption of "ID".
And during centuries of stunning scientific progress in every field imaginable, ID has still produced... nothing but further excuses of how they "just need a few more years, then you'll *really* see results!"
Perhaps Fuller should get a clue.
"I want to see where intelligent design is going to go," Fuller said.
Fuller should brush up on history. I've seen where ID has gone. Absolutely nowhere in over 10,000 years. What are the odds it'll finally produce some results *now*?
What is in fact young and absurdly underdeveloped [...] is the notion that a generalized test for the products of an intelligent actor might be feasible.
*Everything* about ID is "absurdly undeveloped", and my point is that they have no excuse, since the ID postulate is hardly a "new" one, it has been around for millennia.
And yet, throughout all of human history, and throughout the entire rise of science, and despite millions of "true believers" across all that time who desperately desired to produce some evidence of ID to shut up those uppity "naturalists" (think of all the brilliant minds who were devout "IDers" and adept at science, like Newton), they've still come up empty after all this time.
Old religious views (the only such views around for 'thousands of years') don't propose such a test (or care about one, since they take a supernatural 'designer' literally on faith.)
See above. There have always been countless of the devout who also sought in vain for "evidence of ID" within philosophy, within science, etc.
Is it really so clear that one can't come up with an information theoretic test [...] ?
What *is* clear is that the IDers have so little evidence or established body of work that even after all this time, they admit that their "science" is in its "infancy" with regards to results. And yet, for some reason, they're absurdly confident that they'll have a breakthrough "any day now", if only those cranky scientists will lower their standards enough to let the IDers catch up...