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.
It is not riddled with errors, why do you insist on being dishonest? Shall I give you another? Anyone out there should look up www.bible.ca get a creation scientist and an evolutionist and the evolutionist wont even show up for the debate. as amatter of fact this has been doen already, a man has proposed a debate on national television and to get an evolutionist to debate him on evolution and not one evolutionist would step up to the plate.
Why do you make darwin your indenty as an evolutionist, when he contributed nothing but junk! Address the pangene issue for me, and make me laugh! and the fact that darwin was a racist and his friends were propagandists.
and his mama dressed him funny.
And dont forget, Darwin recanted on his deathbed...
Hey Riddler? yes Ive seen an intersection but if you are going in a certain direction that must be followed in order to get were you are trying to go in the most best of way there will be only one road you can choose, you cant just pick and choose and expect to get there in the proper and efficiently.
Cola is cola and the rest are spin offs of the origional.
Three canidates, but only one wins, unless you think you can recount the hanging chads with God, but what you dont realise is God is the righteous judge so you wont be playing baby games with Him.
Scientific debate is not conducted in front of live audiences, like some circus sideshow. Showmanship and a glib delivery have no value in science. Try a revival.
Science is conducted in scientific journals. These occupy whole floors of major libraries.
Here are a few of the journals pertaining to evolution. How many are you familiar with?
American Journal of Human Biology
American Journal of Human Genetics
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
The Anatomical Record Part A
Annals of Human Biology
Annals of Human Genetics
Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics
Anthropological Science
Anthropologie
L' Anthropologie
Archaeometry
Behavior Genetics
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Biological Psychology
Biology and Philosophy
BMC Evolutionary Biology
Current Anthropology
Current Biology
Economics and Human Biology
Ethnic and Racial Studies
European Journal of Human Genetics
Evolution and Human Behavior
Evolutionary Anthropology
Forensic Science International
Gene
Genetical Research
Genetics
Genome Research
Heredity
Homo
Human Biology
Human Heredity
Human Genetics
Human Genomics
Human Molecular Genetics
Human Mutation
International Journal of Osteoarchaeology
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Journal of Archaeological Science
Journal of Biosocial Science
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
Journal of Human Evolution
Journal of Human Genetics
Journal of Molecular Evolution
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Molecular Biology and Evolution
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
Nature
Nature Genetics
Nature Reviews Genetics
PLoS Biology
PLoS Genetics
Proceedings of The Royal Society: Biological Sciences
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Russian Journal of Genetics
Science
Trends in Genetics
Depends on the layout of the streets and the traffic flow. Often there are alternate routes that get you where you're going just as quick.
There's also the question of whether you want to take the fast route or the scenic route -- but they both get you to the same place.
Cola is cola and the rest are spin offs of the origional.
You, sir, are clearly not a connoisseur.
Three canidates, but only one wins,
Unless it's for, say, two posts on a city commission with the two highest vote-getters getting the seats.
unless you think you can recount the hanging chads with God, but what you dont realise is God is the righteous judge so you wont be playing baby games with Him.
Just because God is righteous, doesn't mean he doesn't play wordgames. Check out Jeremiah 1:11-12.
In post #465 and several others, I asked you:
How many "intelligent designers" were there, and what is your justification for your answer?And in post #510 I noted:If you have so much science at your disposal, you should at least be able to answer that question.
I am beginning to wonder if you are for real. None of the other creationists on the site are quite as in-your-face-far-out as you are.Are you willing to address either of these points?If someone was trying to mimic the bad characteristics of creationists, and take them to the most ridiculous extreme possible, I imagine they would post somewhat like you do.
Darwin did say, that the fact that there was no evidnce to his claims that it would have to be that they would find them later because there wasnt any evidence, and over a hundred years later steven J gould pretty much said the same thing!
Atheist/evolutionists in history
Adolph Hitler
Stalin
Lennin
Ku Klux Klan
abortionists
cloners
euphanists
etc...etc...
Did you know that Darwin was a racist? a womaniser? and believed in not helping the sick?
Did you know darwins family was riddled with drug abuse and alcohlism and infidelity in which his grandFather had two illigitmite children inwhich his wife whom he cheated on died from a massive over dose of opium while she was intoxicated that he administered and it was said of Anna Seward that he was a tyrant it was said that darwins father was a ruthless wealthy bussinisman etc...etc...
Read about the upbringing of Darwin!
look at what makes the most sense and you will see it is the God spoken of in the bible, he is the intelligent designer just as the bible speaks of over a thousands of years of recording the bible inwhich it spoke of Christ before Christ and it ended after Christ and then Christianity broke out everywhere. This dont happen with mythology! Including historians who wrote of the event spoken of in the bible who had nothing to do with the bible, the archeaology, inwhich they find to be absolutly accurate to a tee to what the bible speaks of and the history is remarkable, this doesnt happen with mythology. Take an honest look my friend! Peace!
Apologetics.
No other response to my post #528?
The fast route or the scenic route? In life the scenic route could be defined as a life of hardship sure you might get there but you will pay for it, and regardless you will have to head in only one direction, its not a matter of playing symantics games, it is the direction you are going, you are heading to a specific destination, you must specificaly go in that direction and no other way will suffice, so what I said there are no third roads, you either take the road of the only truth in Christ, or take the alternitives which lead to seperation of God! Christ said there is only one way to the Father and thats through Him, no other paths will acomodate!
First you say all I have are appologetics and then I show you once again websites and even you say that Im a poster who is earger to post, well those site are science. so I realy dont get what you are trying to say. There is only one true God look at the evidence and put two and two together! Peace!
Those sites are apologetics, and anti-science.
Only a very few creationists take them seriously.
Not going to answer my questions?
There are no facts coming from you, just a lot of hysteria, terrible spelling, awful grammar, a lack of any common knowledge about anything, a lack of scientific knowledge, a lack of historical knowledge, and a lack of Biblical knowledge...
Yep, that just about covers it...you are a hysterical person, who knows very little about anything, and you are quite proud of showing off your lack of knowledge, and doing it with awful spelling and grammar...
You are good for a laugh, and useful for pointing out how one should NOT argue for the creationist side,(because frankly, you are an embarrassment to that side of the argument)....so you do serve a purpose, you serve to bolster the very side you wish to argue against...good going there...
Not pouting about anything, I have decades and decades of provable, testable and peer review science, you just have a bunch of people saying "Its a miracle!!!!"
Whoa! Now who isn't reading the Bible?
Deuteronomy 6:4: "Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One."
And here you are, saying that God will separate. How many pieces do you think God will separate into, if we "take the alternitives"?
| Common Spelling | Wake-up's Version |
|---|---|
| Adolf Hitler | Adolph Hitler |
| Stalin | Stalin |
| Lenin | Lennin |
Wow, one out of three - it's an improvement! Though you were lucky not to use the names Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili .
OTOH, it's doubtful that they were "Darwinists".
BTW, are you still working on the list of your post #338, you know, the one with thousands of scientists and historians and archeaologists who use to be eager in disproving the bible and later changed their minds
?
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