Is Intelligent Design a Bad Scientific Theory or a Non-Scientific Theory?

Tech Central Station ^ | 11/10/2005 | Uriah Kriegel

[RunningWolf]

There are crickets because this is a false linkage except in the mind of you guys.

When Newton observed that an apple fell to the ground on earth at 32' per/sec ² that was a direct observation that he measured, not some convoluted evolving morphing thing like your evo belief is.

You dont see a gravity cult, why?

There is no need for religion nor any ID concepts to enter the battle of ideas for cosmo-evo to be a weak description, its weak on its own. The best case against it is to take a look at it and its evidence, like I did years ago.

Wolf

[RogueIsland]

Then why is it interpreted as evolutionary proof, even when the facts point the opposite direction?

Umm, perhaps because, Discovery Institute misinformation and mendacity aside, no fossil ever has pointed in the opposite direction? Or did someone unearth a fossilized angel and I missed it?

[longshadow]

don't the clocks on the shuttle run slow....

Correct.

It's another prediction of SR; time slows down the faster you go. It wasn't testable until the advent of atomic clocks and jet airplanes to provide the combination of precision and speed needed to measure the effect.

In any case, it's worth noting that despite the anti-Evos being all over this thread for more than 60 posts, it was the Evo's who first noticed and pointed out the errors. Thankfully, the historical errors are not relevant to his analysis and conclusions regarding Popper's falsification principle and it's application to ID "theory." In that regard, he is entirely correct: ID is not scientific.

[js1138]

When Newton observed that an apple fell to the ground on earth at 32' per/sec 2 that was a direct observation that he measured, not some convoluted evolving morphing thing like your evo belief is.

I think it was Galileo who measured the acceleration of gravity by direct observation.

Newton applied his equations to the universe, an object he could not possibly observe directly. It was the successful calculation of the orbit of a comet by Halley that first confirmed Newton's gravitation -- long after Newton was dead.

But don't let facts impede your ranting.

[Thatcherite]

In any case, it's worth noting that despite the anti-Evos being all over this thread for more than 60 posts, it was the Evo's who first noticed and pointed out the errors.

Now there's a surprise. :)

[PokeyJoe]

Well, that's kinda my point. I do agree that ID is more of a philosophical posit than a scientific one and I would be more happy if it were approached in a philosophy class. But, then again - I would also label string theory a new religion because of the faith involved. (there is more evidence for String Theory than for God at the moment - go figure)

Do you think we can create a "Church of Advanced Physics" and get a tax exemption?

Maybe we should relabel and refer to ID as RD (random design).

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Have you read on his 'falsifiability'? How would you falsify creation theory, ID theory or evolution?

Evolution would be proven false if someone could identify a billion year old human fossil. I'm not aware that has been done.

[highball]

But this reasoning is fallacious: a bad scientific theory is still a scientific theory, just as a bad car is still a car.

No, that reasoning is fallacious.

Words mean things. "Theory" has a very specific meaning when used in a scientific context.

To use the car example, if you build a machine that doesn't have any wheels, doesn't contain an engine and isn't intended to move people and objects from place to place, then it isn't a car. You can make your object look a little like a car, but it isn't a car.

For the same reason, ID isn't a theory. It looks a little bit like a theory, if you squint hard enough, but that doesn't make it so.

[longshadow]

The precession of Mercury's perihelion was a success for relativity, but that success lay in explaining a known and puzzling phenomenon, not in predicting it.

Exactly; that's why the starlight bending observation during the solar eclipse was so important; it represented a prediction made by ahead of time by GR for a phenomona that had not previously been observed or predicted. And he nailed it. It was a "Full Monty" falsification test of GR.

[Thatcherite]

The retreating mutt never lets facts get in the way of anything. And his response was in no way germane to the question I asked. Just a random diatribe. How unlike all his other posts ;) .

Still waiting for any creationist (or anyone else) to supply that rigorous proof of something in the physics or chemistry fields. It's funny, there are all these Freepers who think that the physical and chemical sciences are somehow much more hard and rigorous than the biological sciences. We see that particular claim again and again, but I've never met a single practicing physicist or chemist who agrees with them. Some limited areas of mathematics deal in rigorous proof. Everyone in the natural sciences deals with evidence and predictions and falsification.

[RunningWolf]

Well you are wrong about even this most basic thing,
Sir Isaac Newton: The Universal Law of Gravitation
but even if I got the attribution wrong it changes nothing.

Wolf

[Thatcherite]

How would you falsify creation theory, ID theory or evolution?

I am not aware of any falsification test for ID.

A DNA retrovirus shared by humans and gorillas but not chimps would neatly falsify the theory of evolution. (one of many, many, many possible falsifications that ToE has survived over the last 150 years, it wasn't so long ago that the creationists were predicting that the molecular evidence from genomes *would* falsify ToE when it came in. How wrong they were; it has vindicated ToE in spades.)

[shuckmaster]

Thanks for a good article. There's no real difference between those who push for Marxism in schools and those who push for ID in schools.

[Thatcherite]

Well you are wrong about even this most basic thing, Sir Isaac Newton: The Universal Law of Gravitation but even if I got the attribution wrong it changes nothing.

But it does clarify your almost total ignorance of the issues. Galileo was the first to calculate the acceleration due to gravity at sea level; so the observation that you randomly supplied in response to my request for a mathematically rigorous proof of something in the real world was both wrongly attributed *and* irrelevant. What a double whammy.

[highball]

You're right.

ID is just a right-leaning PC. It's every bit as silly, and every bit as dangerous.

[Dimensio]

It was, as you allude to, also used by people like Marx and Hitler to support some of the most damaging and horrific social, and genetic, engineering ever inflicted on humankind.

Care to explain how the theory of evolution logically justifies anything that Hitler or Marx did or said?

If we are just a product of a mechanical biochemistry than whatever is, is... There is no right, no wrong. Not really a world even a materialist biochemist would really want to live in.

1) False dichotomy.

2) Appeal to consequences. Not liking the implications of a theory does not amount to evidence against the theory.

[shuckmaster]

For Marx attracted followers and his 'theories' were tested ... and proven false. Freud has been utterly deligitimized ... because much of what he wrote proved to be, in practice, false. But both of them got an audience.

ID, in practice has proved to be false but, there's a sucker born every minute.

Funny ... ID is the only non religious body of thought I have ever seen which is been so vociferously attacked and being denied an audience.

Funny... perhaps. Non religious? Sorry, but you can't fool me with that bit of doublespeak.

[RunningWolf]

No its not random, in fact it is a common linkage made by maybe not you, but your side here on these threads.

Wolf

[Palisades]

'Species' are a human-imposed division used to make classifying things easier for study. There is no absolute natural definition for one.

It's an interesting question- under the generally accepted definition, if two types of animals cannot breed to create fertile offspring, that would make them different species.

Under that definition, we would have to carve up dogs into several different species, as many breeds of dog cannot naturally mate with other breeds (Great Danes and chihuahuas).

You're right- species is a human construct.

[ndt]

"One of the problems with the Origins of the Species, is biologists hava a CRAPPY definintion of what a species is."

Well I totally agree with that statement. Species is defined in different ways for different organisms, there is no real definition of species, more just a bunch of examples which is no definition at all. Most based on ability to cross breed, but some times this is due to genetic incompatibilities and other times due less clear cut factors like flowering times, etc. And lets not even get into hybrids or wildly dispersed species that show massive variation from one end of their range to the other.

The problem is that species (and larger classification groups) only make sense when the intermediate forms have ceased to exist, leavening two clear cut species from what was at one time a continuum. The groupings are a construct of the human mind and as such are often arbitrarily drawn to match our perceptions of different types.

In any case, it's still a lot better defined than the biblical "kind".

"ToEs like Natural Selection have not shown much utility up to this point in time."

Except for trivial things like agriculture, animal husbandry and medicine. Were it not for the principals of natural selection your corn on the cob would be about 2 inches long and contain about 10 grains of chaff covered kernels. Any farmer that selects the biggest cobs to plant next year is, consciously or not, working as an agent of natural selection.

"It is not a very important theory. It certainly hasn't been in history. "

Feel free to return to gathering your wild grains and hunting rabbits, I have a big juicy steak and roasted corn on the cob BarBQ to go to.