Replies

2) Science, being a philosophy (reasoning, way of knowing, etc.) SHOULD include the idea that ID is a legitimate means to existance. Design is more readily observable than random chance. And Science's methodology professes that we can only assert what we observe.

Before I respond, let me suggest that you try using the spell checker button. I say this not as a put-down -- I'm a really bad speller and a worse typist -- but because your errors are chronic and detract from your argument.

Now to the argument.

ID is not wrong because I say it is wrong. It is simply not science. It does not argue scientifically; it does not engage in scientific research; it does not employ scientific methodology or scientific assumptions.

Science is not truth, nor is everything said by scientists necessarily true or correct. What science is, is a set of methodologies and assumptions, together with a history of facts, theories, codified regularities (laws), hypotheses, rules of thumb, instruments, uncodified observations.

The central hypothesis of science is that relationships between and among phenomena are regular and unchanging over time. You might detect in this statement an assumption that miracles don't happen. this assumption is not based on a proved fact that miracles don't happen; it is based on the fact that miracles are outside the bounds of what science can study.

It is also based on the experience that when phenomena such as disease, earthquakes, etc are studied, they turn out to be regular phenomena. And when psychic phenomena, spood bending, mind reading and such are studied carefully they turn out to involve fraud or misapprehension.

Getting to the central question of design -- it is obvious that living things have the appearance of design. The question is how to study the history of this appearance. One could make the assumption that every detail is specifically manufactured in the shop of some hyper-intelligent alien, or some omniscient being.

But some of the smaller details appear to be the result of observable processes. Dogs, for example, can be conformed to arbitrary shapes merely by breeding the closest approximations. From this we can derive the hypothesis that those variations of a species that result in the most offspring will be the dominant, or most frequent shape of the species.

The next question might be, how far can this shaping go, and can we find any mechanism in biology that would limit the range of variation. This is a scientifically posed question. It can be studied; it leads to testable hypotheses. No statement can be considered scientific unless it suggests questions that can be answered by experimentation or by observation and quantitative analysis.

"It(ID) is simply not science."

This being the basis of our debate, I will simply use this quote.

I think the point that is TRYING to be reached by ID-ists, is that science in and of itself cannot answer all the questions.

It has tons of merit, yes, but it fails to remain "unbiased" (as it cannot do, since all experiments are based on questions that have arisen from previous thoughts)

ID (in my little world at least) does not attempt to assume it can be unbiased. It simply takes the bias we have, with the methods we know, and uses them without being hypocritical.

Again, this is my take on it. I cannot speak for every body else's.

In other words, it is the opinion of THIS ID-ist that "science" as a whole needs to take a look at itself and rethink it's positioning on philosophy and religion. It IS a philosophy/religion. And there is nothing wrong with that, save the bitter resentment that many scientists hold in regards to that assertion.