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To: CarolinaGuitarman
. . . there is no way to test any hypothesis we have about a deity or about design.

How preposterously small is your expectation when it comes to the capabilities of science! Why not start with something as simple as an automobile, which we know is a product of intelligent design. Are you saying it is impossible for science to test a hypothesis about its design?

In almost every case, an automobile is indirect evidence of intelligent design. Are you saying it is impossble for this to be addressed from a scientific standpoint?

Did you have to see humans making an automobile before you inferred it is the product of intelligent design? Did someone have to sit you down and say, "Now, Horsey honey, this is an automobile, and it was designed by humans" before you correctly inferred it might not have sprung up by itself in the desert or grown out in some farmer's field? Did you have to have it all laid out in formal logic complete with a hypothesis and a theory to back it up? Were you "unscientific" and "mystical" for assuming it was designed when you never even saw who, or what, designed it?

1,068 posted on 11/18/2005 12:24:00 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Fester Chugabrew

"Horsey, honey" = "Stringneck, baby"


1,071 posted on 11/18/2005 12:33:17 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: Fester Chugabrew
"How preposterously small is your expectation when it comes to the capabilities of science! Why not start with something as simple as an automobile, which we know is a product of intelligent design. Are you saying it is impossible for science to test a hypothesis about its design?"

Again... WE ONLY know that an automobile is designed because WE DESIGNED IT.

"In almost every case, an automobile is indirect evidence of intelligent design. Are you saying it is impossble for this to be addressed from a scientific standpoint?"

Nobody is arguing that intelligent beings (humans) don't exist. That does not have ANY bearing on whether an intelligent being caused the universe. (You're changing the goal posts again)

"Did you have to see humans making an automobile before you inferred it is the product of intelligent design? Did someone have to sit you down and say, "Now, Horsey honey, this is an automobile, and it was designed by humans" before you correctly inferred it might not have sprung up by itself in the desert or grown out in some farmer's field? Did you have to have it all laid out in formal logic complete with a hypothesis and a theory to back it up?"

I had to know a great deal about human beings and what human beings are capable of producing before I could make a confident claim that the automobile was designed. Of course, we gather this info continuously as we are socialized into this culture. A culture that had no such background info could not make this claim.

"Were you "unscientific" and "mystical" for assuming it was designed when you never even saw who, or what, designed it?"

But I have always known, since I was a baby, that people make cars.
1,072 posted on 11/18/2005 12:35:10 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Fester Chugabrew; CarolinaGuitarman; WildHorseCrash; BlueStateDepression; highball; ...
Fester, you have given us a very clear example of why the current incarnation of ID is not nor can be considered science.

You have stated that absolutely everything of 'order' (a slippery term at best), from the laws of physics to a cube of water shows evidence of design. More than that you have repeatedly confirmed that the designer is and can only be the Christian God.

Science is not just something people do, it is a methodology, a set of logical steps based on the same principles as formal critical thinking, an algorithm that has developed over time to enable us to determine with a level of certainty beyond what previous methods, or lack of methods, gave us, accurate knowledge of our natural surroundings. A major part of that certainty comes from our ability to devise and perform tests that rely heavily on the consistency we can expect from our natural surroundings; that consistency which we describe mathematically and label 'law'.

You have created a universe where everything and anything that can be construed as having 'order' is evidence of a designer, a designer that you have given the power to not only 'create' irrespective of the laws of physics but can also interfere at will with the observation, investigation and testing of all phenomena.

There is no way to conclusively know that this designer is or is not interfering with a given test. Since the scientific method was developed to give us some level of certainty beyond what simple observation gives us, anything that decreases that certainty will also decrease the benefit of using the scientific method and may take us back to the level of uncertainty we had before the development of the scientific method. In this case, science becomes meaningless.

Because you desire the universe to not only be designed, but designed by your specific God, and I believe you understand the difficulty a designer that is essentially above physical laws introduces to, and in fact invalidates, the scientific method, you have broadened the definition of science to be simply observation by a human. This enables you to say, without evidence I must add, that any putative 'order' in the universe is evidence of a non-human designer, going so far as to implicitly equate order with design. Your redefinition of science and consequently the scientific method has made the term 'science' and the use of the scientific method meaningless.

Interestingly, if you insist that the designer of the universe can be tested for because he/she/it will not and has not interfered with the consistency of physical laws, then you have to accept the age of the universe, the age of the earth, the fossil record and all of evolution, all of which rely on the 'unchanging' universe.

1,114 posted on 11/18/2005 2:05:48 PM PST by b_sharp
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