What is wrong with intelligent design?

EurekAlert! ^ | 22-Feb-2007 | Suzanne Wu

[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.

[si tacuissem]

Common Spelling	Wakeup's version
Paul Geisert	Paul Giesert
Wernher von Braun	Werner Von Braun
Albert Fleischmann	Albert Fleischman
Austin Clark	Austin Clark (bravo!)
Arthur E. Wilder-Smith	Arthur Wilder E Smith
Gerald E. Aardsma	Gerald E Ardsma
Louis Agassiz	Louis Agassi
Alexander Arndt	Alexander Ardnt

si tacuissem: So, out of the eight names you gave in this post, seven were misspelled. You should be embarrassed!

wake-up sleeper: Im not!

[si tacuissem]

Thank you very much!

[Wakeup Sleeper]

Ok cat scans a bit different no biggie, but that doesnt shown an ignorance of anything realy! Your arguements of the petty, now that shows desperation!

[si tacuissem]

Ok cat scans a bit different no biggie

:-)

but that doesnt shown an ignorance of anything realy!

If you say so...

Your arguements of the petty, now that shows desperation!

Yep, I get a little bit exasperated reading your posts: The way you show your individuality by unconventional spelling gets annoying.

[longshadow]

Dr. Thomas G Barnes---Physicist Take him, he’s yours. Wikipedia says, “Thomas G. Barnes is a creationist who posited that the magnetic field of the Earth was decaying at an exponential rate.” This is difficult to take seriously.

It gets worse:

A quick Google search indicates that while Barnes does have a Masters degree in physics, and is a retired professor, his doctorate is an Honorary ScD from his undergrad alma mater, a religious college:

Thomas Barnes, formerly affiliated with the Institute for Creation Research, is perhaps best known for the argument that the decay of the Earth's magnetic field is proof of its young age.

Barnes, who is an emeritus professor of physics at The University of Texas at El Paso, holds a legitimate M.S. degree in physics from Brown University. However, his Sc.D. degree from Hardin-Simmons University, a Christian school and his undergraduate alma mater (when it was known as Hardin-Simmons College), is merely honorary.

as documented by TalkOrigins.

No PhD, ergo no "doctor."

[Gumlegs]

>Gasp!<

I certainly hope you're not guilty of dishonest scrutinization!

[si tacuissem]

Doesnt make a bit of difference your point is petty I listed dozens and could list hundreds more scientists who are creationists,

I do not doubt that there were thousands of scientists who were creationists - especially in times when being creationist was the default position. However, you claim in your post #338:

And I could give you a list of thousands of scientists and historians and archeaologists who use to be eager in disproving the bible and later changed their minds because of what?

Had Francis Bacon been "eager in disproving the bible" and later changed his mind?

Same for the "dozens" you listed - You should have a closer look at them, as you advised in your post #457:

The people from the lists Ive posted noe of them fit the claims?, you need to try again and look a little closer!

[si tacuissem]

If all you ever new was the dessert lived in the desseert since you were born

... you'd be surprised by the main course...

[si tacuissem]

BTW, I enjoy your posts, too. But the post I liked best on this thread was Gumleg's #408 - which let to wake-up sleeper's accusation that his post #393 had been "dishonestly scrutinised " :-)

It's astonishing that someone who mounts up that many factual errors and shows such an ignorance of any thing related to science (wake-up sleeper after being informed about the difference between CAT and MRT: Ok cat scans a bit different no biggie) on the other hand deems himself qualified to judge a Nobel Prize Committee's decision on a technical issue ...

[Gumlegs]

WS: If all you ever new was the dessert lived in the desseert since you were born

st: ... you'd be surprised by the main course...

Whipped cream for everybody! (It's all I ever old).

[Coyoteman]

I am still waiting for your reply to my question in post #465:

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.

[Wakeup Sleeper]

Well you can say what you want but the facts are the facts, and i can tell you one thing what darwin proposed called pangenes, now thats a no evidnce proposal, and someone like steven j gould who repeatedly admitted the same as darwin basicly did, no missing links, etc...etc... over ahundred years later, now thats what I call a no evidence arrogance!

[Coyoteman]

...no missing links, etc...etc...

False (as usual).

This is one example of a "missing link" -- what scientists call a transitional. Note its position in the chart which follows (hint--in the upper center):

---

Fossil: KNM-ER 3733

Site: Koobi Fora (Upper KBS tuff, area 104), Lake Turkana, Kenya (4, 1)

Discovered By: B. Ngeneo, 1975 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.75 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal, paleomagnetic & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Female (species presumed to be sexually dimorphic) (1, 8)

Cranial Capacity: 850 cc (1, 3, 4)

Information: Tools found in same layer (8, 9). Found with KNM-ER 406 A. boisei (effectively eliminating single species hypothesis) (1)

Interpretation: Adult (based on cranial sutures, molar eruption and dental wear) (1)

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=33

Source: http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/environment/eePages/eeDating/HumanEvol_info.html

[Wakeup Sleeper]

no ive shown you the errors in carbon dating etc...etc...

If you want we can go through it again!

radio carbon errors www.angelfire.com/mi/carbondating.html

this website will explain to anyone a great deal of the errors in no evidence science like evolution. science is appologetics you might say cause it supports what the bible says!about creation! it fits the bible timleine!

[EGPWS]

What is wrong with intelligent design?

There's always someone envious of it to the point of taking offense to it.

D@mn liberals anyway....

[Coyoteman]

no ive shown you the errors in carbon dating etc...etc...

If you want we can go through it again!

radio carbon errors www.angelfire.com/mi/carbondating.html

Your link is bad. Given your ability to spell that's not surprising.

But that's OK. I have reviewed most of those creationist sites dealing with radiocarbon dating and found that they are replete with lies, half truths, and misrepresentations. They are doing apologetics, not science.

I have done a lot of radiocarbon dating, and I can tell the difference between the two. Apparently you can't.

Only a fool would rely on those creationist sites as accurate sources of scientific information.

[Wakeup Sleeper]

Where did you get those drawings from the sunday comics, anyone can make something up! and then tell everyone this is how it supposed to be put together, but we know from the past that evolutionists have lied and errored consistantly in this area, those line of supposed bones are nothing but no evidence to the way they are displayed nor confirmed, in other words the picture youve shown is a no evidence made up hypothetical with no evidenceto support its claims.

actually ,fossil discoveries have been shattering the standard beliefs with monotonous regularity. Each in its day was hailed as "scientific proof" that human beings evolved from apelike animals, yet all the canidates once proposed as our evolutionary ancestors have been knocked off the list. this is understood by any credible science.

[Coyoteman]

Where did you get those drawings from the sunday comics, anyone can make something up! and then tell everyone this is how it supposed to be put together, but we know from the past that evolutionists have lied and errored consistantly in this area, those line of supposed bones are nothing but no evidence to the way they are displayed nor confirmed, in other words the picture youve shown is a no evidence made up hypothetical with no evidenceto support its claims.

actually ,fossil discoveries have been shattering the standard beliefs with monotonous regularity. Each in its day was hailed as "scientific proof" that human beings evolved from apelike animals, yet all the canidates once proposed as our evolutionary ancestors have been knocked off the list. this is understood by any credible science.

Your witnessing would be more effective if you paid attention to spelling, grammar, and got at least some of the science right.

Three strikes... ?

[Wakeup Sleeper]

Thats zero strikes you haven been able to refute any science I have shown, and i know you cant because, Ive heard all kinds of debates already with people of science and scientists who use to be evolutionists, and the evolutionists are shut down every time. So you need to look into it a little further! Peace!

[Wakeup Sleeper]

The link is absolutly accurate and you know it, and it shows your dishonesty!