Posted on 02/22/2007 6:22:34 PM PST by Boxen
In a thought-provoking paper from the March issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology , Elliott Sober (University of Wisconsin) clearly discusses the problems with two standard criticisms of intelligent design: that it is unfalsifiable and that the many imperfect adaptations found in nature refute the hypothesis of intelligent design.
Biologists from Charles Darwin to Stephen Jay Gould have advanced this second type of argument. Stephen Jay Gould's well-known example of a trait of this type is the panda's thumb. If a truly intelligent designer were responsible for the panda, Gould argues, it would have provided a more useful tool than the stubby proto-thumb that pandas use to laboriously strip bamboo in order to eat it.
ID proponents have a ready reply to this objection. We do not know whether an intelligent designer intended for pandas to be able to efficiently strip bamboo. The "no designer worth his salt" argument assumes the designer would want pandas to have better eating implements, but the objection has no justification for this assumption. In addition, Sober points out, this criticism of ID also concedes that creationism is testable.
A second common criticism of ID is that it is untestable. To develop this point, scientists often turn to the philosopher Karl Popper's idea of falsifiability. According to Popper, a scientific statement must allow the possibility of an observation that would disprove it. For example, the statement "all swans are white" is falsifiable, since observing even one swan that isn't white would disprove it. Sober points out that this criterion entails that many ID statements are falsifiable; for example, the statement that an intelligent designer created the vertebrate eye entails that vertebrates have eyes, which is an observation.
This leads Sober to jettison the concept of falsifiability and to provide a different account of testability. "If ID is to be tested," he says, "it must be tested against one or more competing hypotheses." If the ID claim about the vertebrate eye is to be tested against the hypothesis that the vertebrate eye evolved by Darwinian processes, the question is whether there is an observation that can discriminate between the two. The observation that vertebrates have eyes cannot do this.
Sober also points out that criticism of a competing theory, such as evolution, is not in-and-of-itself a test of ID. Proponents of ID must construct a theory that makes its own predictions in order for the theory to be testable. To contend that evolutionary processes cannot produce "irreducibly complex" adaptations merely changes the subject, Sober argues.
"When scientific theories compete with each other, the usual pattern is that independently attested auxiliary propositions allow the theories to make predictions that disagree with each other," Sober writes. "No such auxiliary propositions allow … ID to do this." In developing this idea, Sober makes use of ideas that the French philosopher Pierre Duhem developed in connection with physical theories – theories usually do not, all by themselves, make testable predictions. Rather, they do so only when supplemented with auxiliary information. For example, the laws of optics do not, by themselves, predict when eclipses will occur; they do so when independently justified claims about the positions of the earth, moon, and sun are taken into account.
Similarly, ID claims make predictions when they are supplemented by auxiliary claims. The problem is that these auxiliary assumptions about the putative designer's goals and abilities are not independently justified. Surprisingly, this is a point that several ID proponents concede.
###
Sober, Elliott. "What is Wrong with Intelligent Design," The Quarterly Review of Biology: March 2007.
Since 1926, The Quarterly Review of Biology has been dedicated to providing insightful historical, philosophical, and technical treatments of important biological topics.
I never claimed science to show you God, I said science backs up the bible,(that tells you alot) do you think God is hiding behind the moon? Guess what! He dont think like you! your lack is what looks behind the moon. And then says in its arrogance I looked behind the moon and I didnt see God, so there fore Ive solved a great mystery. Do you think God who made all, is going to say to you, oops you found me I was behind the moon? I was trying to hide but you were to good for me, you were smarter than I.
Dont be so arrogant!
Is Gumlegs english, have to admit that name is hilarious! sorry if thats your real name!
Ive shown you countless times in the past posts, support for Intelligent design and isuggest that anyone wanting to see go back and look at past posts. Its been mostly science.
It most certainly isnt lame, what stingray has said is absolutly correct!!!!
Your name is scrutiniser, well you should scrutinise in the mirror at least you would be more accurate!
Now in #463 you claim:
Ive shown you countless times in the past posts, support for Intelligent design and isuggest that anyone wanting to see go back and look at past posts. Its been mostly science.
You have posted apologetics, not science. You may not be able to tell the difference, but scientists can.
And you are still ducking my original question: How many "intelligent designers" were there, and what is your justification for your answer?
If you have so much science at your disposal, you should at least be able to answer that question.
ooooooh
Your name is wakeup.
You should wakeup and use your brain.
lame
No what stingray has said is excellent!!!! If you claim something is poor then you at the same time are claiming that you know all variables concerning what is best, or what would be better, and when it come to natural things ive never seen man make it better than its natural state. Man cant even make mechanical things efficiently. Man always has to repair what he makes because it falls apart it dont heal itself or even have the capabiloity too, but this same man is gonna come along and say, Oh the pandas thumb there, that will never do. Talk about funny and lame!
How many time do I have to bear with the war is bout oil, and Bushes oil interests. That is so childish its ridiculous, no one becomes the president of the united states so they can build up their personal oil interests. thats just so ridiculous. Get a clue my friend! When hitler was in power you same type came back with, we neglected jumping right in there and save those from the concentration camps, and then when its now its all together different, why dont you folks just try and be a little honest, and come right out and say you dont like bush because he is generaly a more moral stance president! He gives side to the more moral and for that reason alone you dont like him, it has nothing to do with any war.
wrong again Halblaub, look at statistics 20 30 40 50 60 70 years ago and there is a tremendous difference in the way we live, also to mention, when ever you have to have a man made invention and then try to call it safe or a normal or natural way of doing things, then you are kidding yourself. If you do things the way God said to do them then you dont suffer phsycologicaly or physicaly, I.e. homosexual behaiviour has an extrememly high rate of drug use, alchoholic,disease and suicide. And who are those who get diseases those who dont hold to Gods principles, that includes non gays. you cant have an invention and then calim it natural. Because that just aint natural. If something is dangerous without the supposed safety assistance of a mans invention/condom then that tells you it aint normal/natural. Peace!
Gods principles are 100% fail proof. It is seen everywhere and has stood the test of time.
Dude, your premise is wrong, no man ever says he is creating life or a panda's thumb.
It was a silly side argument that meant nothing.
So, stick to the fables, and let real scientists do the thinking.
"Why do people assume "intelligent design" refers to some god? Space aliens are as likely a source of the intelligence as a god. Or does the ID theory specify "god"? I've heard of ID but have not read about it and I'm curious to know if a god is the only assignee of the intelligence behind intelligent design"
The possibility of intelligent life on other planets, other universes and even other dimensions is extremely high. The bible says God is light or in other words energy. Einstein proved energy can be converted into matter and vice-versa. I think about where mankind began and realize we are very close to our consciesness (energy) being able to go or be whatever we want it to be. Imagine people a even 200 years trying to fathom such things. I believe in God or an originator of the design. Genesis tells a story of evolution from fish in the sea first, to flying creatures of the air, to reptiles then mammals then modern man.
Well that's good to know. For a moment I figured you for a 'nuke 'em all and led god sort them out'.
and I dont care what the Pope knows
No Catholics, eh? Pity.
... and when I say Christ has come I mean the first time.
So the last hour is not the real last hour. Gotit. A cat scan you say? by an MRI machine that was invented by a creation scientist! Dr. Raymond Damadian. In which He was jipped out of the nobel peace prize and money and they gave it to his assistants who were evolutionists. More dishinesty from the evolutisms.
Yes a CAT scan. It uses X-rays, not magnetic fields such as the MRI... --and check your nomenclature, the prize is 'Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine' not the 'Nobel Peace Prize'.
They don't award it for incomplete work, or patents, or whining in the NY Times as was as done by Raymond Damadian.
but the growths that come out of the ground are trees, and the substance that flows is water, and the growths of color of all varieties are flowers, isnt so mythological anymore is it! If you deem something mythological because it seems bizarre to you, then the very world we live in should be mythological to you but yet here it is before your very eyes, but you are use to it because God has made you comfortable in it and it has become routine for you, but it is every bit as marvelous.
Indeed it is marvelous. But we're past the stage where God's semen is needed to produce the plants and trees.
ditto for the Pharaoh.
and the High Priest.
and the Shaman.
Why is it any more unrealistic that you get to talk as it would be for a donkey, who said you can talk but not a donkey?
So you think the story of 'Balaam's ass' (Numbers 22:28) is a factual truth?
If I'm going to be condemned to Hell anyway, why should I bother bowing first?
Well, the KJV of the Bible, mentions a 'unicorn', several times, I have been told by those who take every word of the KJV of the Bible as being literal, that if those 'unicorns' were mentioned, then they must have been real, and better yet, they may still be around...Yeah, right..
You said...
"A cat scan you say? by an MRI machine that was invented by a creation scientist! Dr. Raymond Damadian. In which He was jipped out of the nobel peace prize and money and they gave it to his assistants who were evolutionists. More dishinesty from the evolutisms."
You have made so many factual errors, and so many spelling errors...I did not think it was possible for anyone to make so many errors in such a short post, but you have done it....
Are you actually for real?...are you trying to give a bad rap to all creationists?...because you are doing a great job at just that...
They got ate by the dinosaurs on the Ark.
Ah, so those reports of unicorns on the loose in the world today, are just false reports?...Thanks for the information, now I am all the better informed...
They got ate by the dinosaurs on the Ark.
That's not quite how the Irish Rovers tell it.
1:CAT Computer (Axial) Tomography works with x-rays, not with magnetic resistance: this shows your ignorance of science
2: "The Nobel Prizes (Swedish: Nobelpriset) are awards in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine." This shows your lack of common knowledge
3: Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield weren't assistants of R. V. Damadian. This shows your usual disregard for facts: you make them up as it pleases you
4: that shows your high sense of irony
Bravo....that was most excellent...I love the way you did that...
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