[Nicholas Conradin]

I hesitated in posting this because there are some significant statements about philosophy with which I disagreed. Let the reader beware.

"we shouldn't allow it into our science classrooms. At least that's what the Constitution says" AFAIK there are no statements in the US Constitution speaking to scientific theory. Maybe the author means some other constitution.

[wallcrawlr]

ping

Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info

[VadeRetro]

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

One or the other, yeah.

[VadeRetro]

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.

This sounds like a confusion of separate incidents in science. Einstein did not use relativity to predict Pluto. He used relativity to predict the bending of starlight near the Sun. What happened in 1919 were observations of a solar eclipse by Sir Arthur Eddington which confirmed the shifting of apparent position of stars near the sun (which could only be observed during such an eclipse).

Pluto's existence was indeed foretold by certain perturbations in the orbit of Neptune. (Not by Einstein, IIRC, however.) It and its moon Charon were eventually found about where the predicted object should have been. There's a hitch, though. The Pluto-Charon system isn't massive enough to have caused the perturbations used to predict it in the first place. Either those observations were spurious or there was something else out there.

[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.

[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.

[edsheppa]

While the author makes some good points, there are a couple of howlers in it.

Opponents dismiss ID's scientific credentials, claiming that the theory is too implausible to qualify as scientific.

Hardly. The principal objection is what he says later, that ID fails to conform to what we mean by "scientific theory." Obviously Kriegel does not follow the issue very closely.

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.

Talk about getting it wrong! Kriegel is confusing the predicted discoveries of Neptune (Bouvard/Herschel/...) and Pluto (Tombaugh) based on observed discrepancies in the orbits of other planets with GR's prediction about the precession of Mercury's orbit.

I'm not sure someone so ignorant can add much to the debate.

[goldstategop]

Karl Popper's dictum holds true for the scientific thought. You make a prediction about your theory and then every one tests to see if its true. Then they look at other claims and put them through similar tests. After empirical verification, if all the predictions hold up, the theory becomes an accepted part of science. Charles Darwin is still hugely consequential because no one has been able to refute his simple and at the same time elegant explanation of how natural processes operate. This doesn't exclude a Proximate Cause; its just that Occam's Razor holds the correct explanation is the one that get things right with the fewest explanations possible. That's why evolutionary theory has such a central place in biology and in understanding the history of life on the planet.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

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. ... 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.

Ding ding ding.
Evilution Theology is not science.

[RightWhale]

I don't see the point of applying the concept of evolution to all science. It wouldn't be much use in mathematics, and in physics it would be disastrous. It does have utility in biology, the taxonomic part, and in sociology. Some try to extend the idea into psychology, which might work as well as any other approaches.

That I don't have much use for evolution in my field of specialization--physics--should not be taken to imply that I have any use for the supposed alternative idea.

[Doctor Stochastic]

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

Neither. Intelligent Design is not a theory. One of the leading exponents (William Dembski) of ID claims, "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory." This shows that ID is just another type of theology.

[Dumb_Ox]

ID is certainly a theory of natural philosophy--a nineteenth century theory, in fact. In current practice, science classes are a form of natural philosophy bracketed by certain methods of discovery. Though I think intelligent design as currently advanced has severe flaws of its own, since its advocates and detractors can't quite decide if it's science, theology, or natural philosophy, I don't think this guy's taxonomy justifies forbidding ID from science class.

[King Prout]

"AFAIK there are no statements in the US Constitution speaking to scientific theory. Maybe the author means some other constitution."

congress is authorized by the constitution to promote the advancement of the sciences and the useful arts.

ID is neither science nor a useful art.

that about covers *that* aspect of what the constitution has to say on the matter, no?

[Tarpon]

How would we know?

[Zathras]

Lets put the best possible face on ID.

Ok, you are God trying to explain to Moses, Creation so he can write the book of Geneses.

Do you try to explain DNA to someone who could never understand it or...
Do you describe Creation in terms he can grasp... A parable similar to how Jesus taught his followers.

[bert]

Id is like the rats who crave power making up all kinds of stuff to win the argument. There is a hope that if you tell repeat the fiction long enough and loud enough it will turn in to truth.mthe

[TChad]

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.

This is not my field, but I think that the author is completely wrong. Einstein didn't predict the existence of any new planets. The author is apparently referring to the use of General Relativity to help explain the the orbit of Mercury.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP

[Sun]

What's the difference if they call ID science or not? I call it truth.

The evolution theory has never been proved, so that just might be junk science.

[Cincinna]

We always called it "Divine Design" .
It is not scientific theory, but a theological, metaphysical concept.

[RunningWolf]

Those last 2 paragraphs

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.

You could invert that with evolution and say the same thing.

Wolf