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.
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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.
post alittle more english that all.
You are claiming scientific support for ID. I asked how may "intelligent designers" there are and what is your justification for your answer.
I have asked several times, but received no answer having anything to do with science.
Perhaps you have no scientific answer, just a religious belief?
Make no sense coyoteman! what you should be saying is evolutionism has no science, because it doesnt support evolution that for sure. But it does support Intelligent design. so what would be the smarter train of thought?
One you've obviously missed.
You are a troll.
Good night.
"Has Gould ever proclaimed himself a creator? Moot point."
"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."In order to be an authority on what a "useful" panda thumb should or shouldn't be, it seems Gould would had to have come up with a better one at some point, otherwise his statement is hubris, at best. Unless and until he does, he's staked out a position reserved for those who actually know how to MAKE a panda thumb.
Wow, that was so incredibly lame of a response.
Gould doesn't proclaim himself as a creator in that quote, not even close.
Its called speculation based on data, speculating about something doesn't make you a self proclaimed creator.
Lame
"Gould doesn't proclaim himself as a creator in that quote, not even close."If you're going to presume to tell someone how to do it better, shouldn't you know how to do it yourself?
If you're going to tell someone that they built a crappy panda thumb, shouldn't you have at least created a better one before criticising theirs?
Talk is cheap. Gould talks alot.
Gould's position is hubris. (Look up that word if it's too advanced for you). Unless and until he can create a better, more useful panda thumb, he's talking out his rear.
God really screwed up on the dodo.
There, now you probably think I am a self proclaimed deity.
Seriously, get a better argument, this one is pathetic.
Well, now, your post #387, is not much different from the rest of your postings...you seem almost proud of your bad spelling...how sad...
But you are acting as everything is allowed for the believer:
But - perhaps - that's just what you want to do.
In addition to being a PhD and professor of biochemistry. And being able to spell.
Yadda yadda yadda.
I criticize the work of others, sure, who doesn't.
In fact, I criticize Kent Hovind and every thing he does, especially his taxes, oh, wait, he doesn't.
Come up with a a real argument, now you are just in the silly kook category.
It is revealing to see that it isn't just evolution you're uncomfortable with. You basically despise any science that doesn't jibe well with your presumed mythological framework.
Thanks, but I'll take reality.
"The important scientific strategy of rendering theories testable by finding independently justified auxiliary propositions does not work for mini-ID. We have no independent evidence concerning which auxiliary propositions about the putative designer’s goals and abilities are true."
"It could just as well be rendered:"
"The important scientific strategy of rendering theories testable by finding independently justified auxiliary propositions does not work for evolution. We have no independent evidence concerning which auxiliary propositions about mutation and natural selection’s goals and capabilities are true."
I'm not sure why you think the two statements are in any way equivalent.
The Designer is assumed to be an intelligence capable of designing and producing such changes in DNA that humans are the result. ID assumes that we can identity the result of that bit twiddling through the bit twiddling and subsequent production techniques. For us to differentiate between a natural process and the Designer's work we necessarily need to know the Designer's goals (ID relies on identifying intent) and abilities (manufacturing indicators). Since these are necessary to define a difference between naturally occurring and designed features they are valid requirements for auxiliary propositions. As Sober explains in his article those auxiliary propositions need to be independently evidenced to avoid problems in logic. On the other hand, both mutation and NS have been examined closely enough to give us a fair bit of independent evidence from which to propose predictions.
Your restatement is not equivalent to Sober's.
"But of course, I already agree with the ID side of things."
The bias is obvious.
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