Posted on 11/10/2005 4:43:24 AM PST by Nicholas Conradin
In an election in Pennsylvania this week, voters tossed out eight members of the Pittsburgh school board who wanted Intelligent Design theory to be taught alongside evolution in school. But should Intelligent Design -- the theory that living organisms were created at least in part by an intelligent designer, not by a blind process of evolution by natural selection -- be taught in public schools? In one way, the answer to this question is simple: if it's a scientific theory, it should; if it's not, it shouldn't (on pain of flaunting the Establishment Clause). The question, however, is whether Intelligent Design (ID) is a scientific theory.
Opponents dismiss ID's scientific credentials, claiming that the theory is too implausible to qualify as scientific. But this reasoning is fallacious: a bad scientific theory is still a scientific theory, just as a bad car is still a car. There may be pedagogical reasons to avoid teaching bad scientific theories in our public schools, but there are no legal ones. The Constitution contains no interdiction on teaching bad theories, or for that matter demonstrably false ones. As long as theory is science and not religion, there is no legal barrier to teaching it.
To make their case, opponents of teaching ID must show not just that the theory is bad, but that it's not science. This raises a much more complicated question: What is science? What distinguishes genuinely scientific theories from non-scientific ones?
In one form or another, the question has bothered scientists and philosophers for centuries. But it was given an explicit formulation only in the 1920s, by Karl Popper, the most important 20th century philosopher of science. Popper called it "the problem of demarcation," because it asked how to demarcate scientific research and distinguish it from other modes of thought (respectable though they may be in their own right).
One thing Popper emphasized was that a theory's status as scientific doesn't depend on its plausibility. The great majority of scientific theories turn out to be false, including such works of genius as Newton's mechanics. Conversely, the story of Adam and Eve may well be pure truth, but if it is, it's not scientific truth, but some other kind of truth.
So what is the mark of genuine science? To attack this question, Popper examined several theories he thought were inherently unscientific but had a vague allure of science about them. His favorites were Marx's theory of history and Freud's theory of human behavior. Both attempted to describe the world without appeal to super-natural phenomena, but yet seem fundamentally different from, say, the theory of relativity or the gene theory.
What Popper noticed was that, in both cases, there was no way to prove to proponents of the theory that they were wrong. Suppose Jim's parents moved around a lot when Jim was a child. If Jim also moves around a lot as an adult, the Freudian explains that this was predictable given the patterns of behavior Jim grew up with. If Jim never moves, the Freudian explains -- with equal confidence -- that this was predictable as a reaction to Jim's unpleasant experiences of a rootless childhood. Either way the Freudian has a ready-made answer and cannot be refuted. Likewise, however much history seemed to diverge from Marx's model, Marxists would always introduce new modifications and roundabout excuses for their theory, never allowing it to be proven false.
Popper concluded that the mark of true science was falsifiability: a theory is genuinely scientific only if it's possible in principle to refute it. This may sound paradoxical, since science is about seeking truth, not falsehood. But Popper showed that it was precisely the willingness to be proven false, the critical mindset of being open to the possibility that you're wrong, that makes for progress toward truth.
What scientists do in designing experiments that test their theories is create conditions under which their theory might be proven false. When a theory passes a sufficient number of such tests, the scientific community starts taking it seriously, and ultimately as plausible.
When Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, the first thing he did was to make a concrete prediction: he predicted that a certain planet must exist in such-and-such a place even though it had never been observed before. If it turned out that the planet did not exist, his theory would be refuted. In 1919, 14 years after the advent of Special Relativity, the planet was discovered exactly where he said. The theory survived the test. But the possibility of failing a test -- the willingness to put the theory up for refutation -- was what made it a scientific theory in the first place.
To win in the game of science, a theory must be submitted to many tests and survive all of them without being falsified. But to be even allowed into the game, the theory must be falsifiable in principle: there must be a conceivable experiment that would prove it false.
If we examine ID in this light, it becomes pretty clear that the theory isn't scientific. It is impossible to refute ID, because if an animal shows one characteristic, IDers can explain that the intelligent designer made it this way, and if the animal shows the opposite characteristic, IDers can explain with equal confidence that the designer made it that way. For that matter, it is fully consistent with ID that the supreme intelligence designed the world to evolve according to Darwin's laws of natural selection. Given this, there is no conceivable experiment that can prove ID false.
It is sometimes complained that IDers resemble the Marxist historians who always found a way to modify and reframe their theory so it evades any possible falsification, never offering an experimental procedure by which ID could in principle be falsified. To my mind, this complaint is warranted indeed. But the primary problem is not with the intellectual honesty of IDers, but with the nature of their theory. The theory simply cannot be fashioned to make any potentially falsified predictions, and therefore cannot earn entry into the game of science.
None of this suggests that ID is in fact false. For all I've said, it may well be pure truth. But if it is, it wouldn't be scientific truth, because it isn't scientific at all. As such, we shouldn't allow it into our science classrooms. At least that's what the Constitution says.
The writer teaches philosophy at the University of Arizona.
It talks to me sometimes and sometimes it lies, too.
Check back to post 646
"Only in a degenerate moral system is self esteem and self pride considered a vice"
BOINK! (oops, that should be BINGO!)
When you scratch a Creationist, you find a statist. That's why today's Theocracies are practically identical to the old Socialist "Democracies" and why Creationism must be stopped.
He's been doing that for some time. It's one of the signs of a troll. Not worth responding to.
When talking with those who do not condemn slavery, it would seem so.
What about The Bab?
Amusing how many so-called Conservatives agree with the Marxists in using physical force to fix economic inequalities.
I like the way you think.
No. That's all fabricated. if you believe otherwise, produced the tablets.
the koran is no word of god.
Well, how do we resolve such conflicts today? Depending on how serious the conflict is, there are traditions & unwritten rules that guide a resolution, or they may have to resort to the law. A resolution could involve forgiveness, one party deciding to accomodate the other's wishes, one party buying out the other party in some way, both parties deciding to just end their relationship, or one party warns the world via the Internet not to do business with the other party, or one party takes the other party to court, or one party calls up their Attorney General, etc. etc."Whatever rules I make up for myself that I think will give me an advantage in life, I must also allow other people to treat me in the same ways in their dealings with me.
That is only fair,"
And what if you don't follow your rules or what if someone does not want to follow your rules because they conflict with his rules that give him an advantage? How do you determine what's fair? certainly everone does not start out at the same place or level.
IOW, a free & healthy society has developed several types of technologies, so to speak, for dealing with conflicts as peacefully & positively as possible. I'm not sure how believing in God per se is going to make it any more certain that good rules will get developed than bad ones.
Your reading comprehension is atrocious. It says man not slave or servant.
Gen 37:26 And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit [is it] if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?
Gen 37:27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he [is] our brother [and] our flesh. And his brethren were content.
Oh really? What does fulfill mean then, in the context of the commandment about the Sabbath?
According to Mohammed, his prophet, it is. Can you disprove his contention?
There are 1.5 billion people in the world that agree with him and would shove it down your neck if they had the chance.
OK Doc, ya got me. What's the Bab?
Yeah and there were umpteen billion chinese waving a little red book with the same intent. That doesn't make it the word of God. BTW, the Koran was supposedly revealed to one man over his lifetime. The Bible was revealed to many men over millenia.
Wow if this guy is so smart, he could at least read a map. The town of Dover is at least 200 miles east of Pittsburgh.
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