Intelligent Design: Science or Not?

[Deno]

Hey I played a tin can when I was a kid! Its the only musical instrument my parents could afford.

I'd more likely believe that life was placed on earth by Aliens, maybe we were some experiment that went wrong and they dropped it off here to get rid of it.

 

[JustAsking]

ID is Creationism with a fancy new name. There is nothing scientifc about it. The entire "theory" is predicated on the belief in God. Those who propose ID have already made up their minds that there is a God and then they do everything they can to try and make arguments that have the appearance of being scientific when they are actually not. The existence of God cannot be tested in a controlled environment. It's pseudo-science at best.

Furthermore...I thought that Christianity was based on faith. Doesn't that automatically take God (or the intelligent designer) out of the realm of science? To all of you Christians out there...don't you think your pissing your God off by trying to prove His existence scientifically rather than just having faith as he presumably asked for in the first place? Sounds like ID pushers aren't very secure in their faith if they are trying to prove it to all of us. Take your religion back to religious studies please. (not intended for the guy I responded to, lol)

Dave,
You bring up some good points. First your comment on "lack of faith". Mainstream Christians don't believe that God wants us to have faith for his sake. We also believe that none of us do a very good job at being faithful to God, and neither did anyone in the Bible. Especially those who walked side by side with Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, those in the Bible with the most tangible evidence of the presence of God behaved the worst.

No, faith is simply us trusting God in his promise of unconditional love, forgiveness and eternal life. So I don't think God cares if we are looking for empirical evidence of his existence. Mainstream Christians are not surprised that we don''t find any and as you say, we certainly don't require it. Faith is simply "trust".

As for ID as science, I like to give it the benefit of the doubt, since there is a semblance of effort in ID to propose something that does not actually require the intervention of a supernatural being. I am fully aware of the motives of the ID proponents, however, since they are clearly stated in The Wedge Strategy document that describes their goals.

So far, ID has not presented a clearly stated scientific hypothesis. All I get so far is something like this:

"Life on earth is too complex for all of it to have been evolved solely by undirected natural processes."

This is the most scientific definition I have seen, and it is missing the most basic ingredients for it to be scientific. In fact, Young Earth Creationists make a much more scientific statement when measured by the all important criterion of "falsifiability". For example, the statement, "All swans are white" might not be true, but it is a very scientific statement because it makes a prediction about the color of every swan you will ever run into. It has massive predictive power when it comes to the color of swans. The other side of the coin of this is that it is extremely falsifiable. By this I mean that one can easily see that if the statement is not true, it should be easily falsified. All you need to do is find one naturally occuring non-white swan and the theory collapses. A well developed scientific theory immediately suggests to you what kind of experiment you would need to falsifly it. All you need to do is put out the word for finding one non-white swan.

These two properties are the main measure of the scientific quality of a hypothesis. In contrast, consider the statement, "Some swans are white." The predictive power of that statement is close to zero, because it is useless in predicting the color of the next swaw you might come across. What experiment can you suggest that would falsifiy the "some swans" hypothesis? If you happen to find a non-white swan, you are not surprised if you are operating under the "some swans" hypothesis therefore, it is not falsifiable. You would simply say, "oh that must not be one of the 'some swans'"

I have not yet seen any definiition of ID that satisfies the basic criteria of predictive power and falsifiability. The statement that "Life on earth is too complex for all of it to have been evolved solely by undirected natural processes." has very little predictive power. It does not suggest which organisms might be too complex, so it defies an attempt to create an experiment or to examine any existing observations that would either support or falsify the statement. If you point to any organism or part of an organism and show how it evolved, you have not falsified the statement. The rebuttle could easily be, "Oh, is said 'not all of life' is too complex. The one you pointed out is not too complex."

So I am tossing aside all the underlying motives of the IDC movement and taking them up on their challenge that ID is science. Can someone put forth a hypothesis about ID that has predictive power and is falsifiable, or is ID simply a dishonest attempt to fool the unsuspecting public into adopting public policy that allows religious ideas to be introduced into our public education system? Is ID basically, "lying for Jesus?".

 

[JustAsking]

My previous posting leaves one with the impression that scientific statements have to be "all or nothing", if you go by my two examples of swan colory hypotheses.

Let me correct that by saying that the statement, "87.3% of all swans are white.", would also be a scientific hypothesis, because it is predictive and falsifiable. Science can even immediately suggests how many swans you would have to examine confirm that statistic to .1% error. If you did that properly and wrote it up, you could submit the paper to a peer reviewed scientific journal. You might not get the Nobel Prize for your work, but it would not be rejected because of faulty methodology.

 

[B_ScaredLittleBoy]

This is very true, but so is the notion of an electron made up.

Well I'm sure the notion of an electron has some rhyme and reason to it. The point is that all those gods I listed earlier are totally implausible and many of them are held by the majority of sentient beings to be false, with no basis whatsoever in reality.

If I was going to believe in just one of those gods then I would have to believe that all others exist to. And what then is to stop me thinking that once upon a time there actually was a girl called Dorothy from Kansas who travelled to the Emerald City? Or believing that the Three Little Pigs actually existed or that trolls live under bridges and attack goats.

You see what happens when you abandon reason and all logic.

 

[bobabooey69]

Creationism = this link

 

[avgdave]

So far, ID has not presented a clearly stated scientific hypothesis. All I get so far is something like this:

"Life on earth is too complex for all of it to have been evolved solely by undirected natural processes."

Would you agree that this is tantamount to looking at a car and saying, "wow this car is complex; so many moving parts and since I don't understand all the functions involved, it must be magic."

 

[JustAsking]

So far, ID has not presented a clearly stated scientific hypothesis. All I get so far is something like this:

"Life on earth is too complex for all of it to have been evolved solely by undirected natural processes."

Would you agree that this is tantamount to looking at a car and saying, "wow this car is complex; so many moving parts and since I don't understand all the functions involved, it must be magic."

Yes, that is pretty much it. If we did this 300 years ago, we would have made very little progress in science, because we would have ascribed anything we didn't know yet, to God.

In fact, this is one of the big differences between Judeo-Christian theology and the rest of the world's religions. Genesis describes a Creation that is made by God, but is separate from God. Creation is subordinate to God, but there are no gods needed to operate all the machinery. There is no Sun God, or any other God making things work, necessarily. If God is interfering with the Universe, he does so voluntarily, and not out of the necessity of keeping things running.

This is why it is no surprise that science as a discipline grew out of Judeo-Christian dominant Western civilization.

This is why most major denominations reject Special Creationism and Intelligent Design. They consider it bad science and worse theology.

But back to your point, science makes a methodological assumption of "naturalism". It does so not as a world view, but as a methodology. When confronted with a novel phenomenon, science assumes that it occurs through a natural process that is yet to be understood. Then it sets out to characterize it. It just keeps plodding along that way.

And so far, it has proven to be a warranted assumption. It works. And so far there is no signal that anyone has figured out that would tell us that this time there will be no natural process to be discovered because "Goddidit". Once someone makes the assumption that God did it, then it is time to pack up the white lab coats and clip boards and just go home. In that regard, ID is a science stopper.

 

[AquaEyes11010]

I'm completely against the notion of teaching ID alongside evolution as doing so concedes to ID being an equally-valid theory, when it is not. However, as for swans...there are two that are not all white. Both are from Australia or thereabouts. One is solid black with a red beak, and the other is white with a black neck. But that really has nothing to do with evolution vs ID.
;-)

Dave,
You bring up some good points. First your comment on "lack of faith". Mainstream Christians don't believe that God wants us to have faith for his sake. We also believe that none of us do a very good job at being faithful to God, and neither did anyone in the Bible. Especially those who walked side by side with Jesus in the New Testament. In fact, those in the Bible with the most tangible evidence of the presence of God behaved the worst.

No, faith is simply us trusting God in his promise of unconditional love, forgiveness and eternal life. So I don't think God cares if we are looking for empirical evidence of his existence. Mainstream Christians are not surprised that we don''t find any and as you say, we certainly don't require it. Faith is simply "trust".

As for ID as science, I like to give it the benefit of the doubt, since there is a semblance of effort in ID to propose something that does not actually require the intervention of a supernatural being. I am fully aware of the motives of the ID proponents, however, since they are clearly stated in The Wedge Strategy document that describes their goals.

So far, ID has not presented a clearly stated scientific hypothesis. All I get so far is something like this:

"Life on earth is too complex for all of it to have been evolved solely by undirected natural processes."

This is the most scientific definition I have seen, and it is missing the most basic ingredients for it to be scientific. In fact, Young Earth Creationists make a much more scientific statement when measured by the all important criterion of "falsifiability". For example, the statement, "All swans are white" might not be true, but it is a very scientific statement because it makes a prediction about the color of every swan you will ever run into. It has massive predictive power when it comes to the color of swans. The other side of the coin of this is that it is extremely falsifiable. By this I mean that one can easily see that if the statement is not true, it should be easily falsified. All you need to do is find one naturally occuring non-white swan and the theory collapses. A well developed scientific theory immediately suggests to you what kind of experiment you would need to falsifly it. All you need to do is put out the word for finding one non-white swan.

These two properties are the main measure of the scientific quality of a hypothesis. In contrast, consider the statement, "Some swans are white." The predictive power of that statement is close to zero, because it is useless in predicting the color of the next swaw you might come across. What experiment can you suggest that would falsifiy the "some swans" hypothesis? If you happen to find a non-white swan, you are not surprised if you are operating under the "some swans" hypothesis therefore, it is not falsifiable. You would simply say, "oh that must not be one of the 'some swans'"

I have not yet seen any definiition of ID that satisfies the basic criteria of predictive power and falsifiability. The statement that "Life on earth is too complex for all of it to have been evolved solely by undirected natural processes." has very little predictive power. It does not suggest which organisms might be too complex, so it defies an attempt to create an experiment or to examine any existing observations that would either support or falsify the statement. If you point to any organism or part of an organism and show how it evolved, you have not falsified the statement. The rebuttle could easily be, "Oh, is said 'not all of life' is too complex. The one you pointed out is not too complex."

So I am tossing aside all the underlying motives of the IDC movement and taking them up on their challenge that ID is science. Can someone put forth a hypothesis about ID that has predictive power and is falsifiable, or is ID simply a dishonest attempt to fool the unsuspecting public into adopting public policy that allows religious ideas to be introduced into our public education system? Is ID basically, "lying for Jesus?".

 

[TurkeyWithaSunburn]

Here Watch this NOVA | Intelligent Design on Trial | PBS it's about the trial in Dover, Pennsylvania. Intelligent Design is creationism just under another name. It's a full 2hr program divided into 12 segments. It was broadcast on the PBS program NOVA.

One of the drafts of the textbooks used did a word replace for creationism with intelligent design. Which wound up as "Cdesign proponentsists"

Transcript, from Chapter 10

NARRATOR: After much digging, she hit pay dirt. Buried in these documents were two drafts of Pandas straddling the 1987 case of Edwards versus Aguillard, in which the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional to teach creationism in public school science class. One draft was written before the case and the other revised just after.
BARBARA FORREST: In the first 1987 draft, which is the pre-Edwards draft, the definition of creation reads this way "Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly, through the agency of an intelligent creator, with their distinctive features already intact: fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks and wings, et cetera." The same definition in this draft, after the Edwards decision, reads this way: "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact: fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, et cetera." Same definition, just one is worded in terms of creationism, the other one worded in terms of intelligent design.
NICK MATZKE: Everyone said intelligent design is creationism re-labeled. Never in our wildest dreams, though, did we think that this would actually be recorded in paper in a way that could be documented in a court case.
ERIC ROTHSCHILD: And that became probably our best single piece of evidence at trial.
NARRATOR: Barbara Forrest's testimony would make a strong case that the Dover school board was thrusting religion into the classroom. And in comparing the Of Pandas and People drafts, Forrest discovered that the authors had apparently made their revisions in haste.
BARBARA FORREST: In cleansing this manuscript, they failed to replace every word properly. I found the word "creationists." And instead of replacing the entire word, they just kind of did this, and got "design proponents" with the "c" in front and the "ists" in the back from the original word.

The BUSH appointed judge ruled that Intelligent Design IS creationism just with another name and CANNOT be taught in SCIENCE classes. It is a religious dogma, not science.

 

[AquaEyes11010]

Yes, and don't forget that the Republican VP candidate believes in ID, and that it should be taught in school. Keep that in mind on November 4th.

Here Watch this NOVA | Intelligent Design on Trial | PBS it's about the trial in Dover, Pennsylvania. Intelligent Design is creationism just under another name. It's a full 2hr program divided into 12 segments. It was broadcast on the PBS program NOVA.

One of the drafts of the textbooks used did a word replace for creationism with intelligent design. Which wound up as "Cdesign proponentsists"

Transcript, from Chapter 10


The BUSH appointed judge ruled that Intelligent Design IS creationism just with another name and CANNOT be taught in SCIENCE classes. It is a religious dogma, not science.

 

[liberia]

Religion is very dangerous stuff. The vast majority of all wars have had religious differences at their core. When will the crazy American Christians realise that their views are just as insane as the crazy muslim fanatics. To take the teachings from a book written thousands of years ago when humans thought the Earth was flat, and then try to alter facts to fit their faith is indeed stupid.

 

[dong20]

In a sentence, and loosely speaking, I'd say that Intelligent Design is 'science' in a similar fashion to Astrology.

 

[JustAsking]

In a sentence, and loosely speaking, I'd say that Intelligent Design is 'science' in a similar fashion to Astrology.

dong,

You are right about that. In fact, one of the three Senior Fellows of the Discovery Institute (the lobbying firm that is proposing Intelligent Design), Dr. Behe, agreed with you while under oath during the Dover, PA trial in 2005. Here is a section of the trial transcript where the now famous Phillip Rothschild is cross examining Dr. Behe about the nature of ID as a scientific theory. Dr. Behe was saying that the definition of a scientific theory should be changed to allow things such as ID to be considered science:

Q And using your definition, intelligent design is a scientific theory, correct?

A Yes.

Q Under that same definition astrology is a scientific theory under your definition, correct?

A Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect which nonetheless would fit that -- which would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one, and so is the ether theory of the propagation of light, and many other -- many other theories as well.

Q The ether theory of light has been discarded, correct?

A That is correct.

Q But you are clear, under your definition, the definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a scientific theory, correct?

A Yes, that's correct. And let me explain under my definition of the word "theory," it is -- ...

Q Has there ever been a time when astrology has been accepted as a correct or valid scientific theory, Professor Behe?

A Well, I am not a historian of science. And certainly nobody -- well, not nobody, but certainly the educated community has not accepted astrology as a science for a long long time. But if you go back,...
​

 

[Pdick]

Intelligent design is in no way shape or form, science of any kind. ID is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to bring christian religious right theology into the state in any fashion that they can.

Any public servant dumb enough to embrace this crap and attempt to foist it upon everyone else, should be immediately thrown from office.

It's another good reason to not vote for McPallin.