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.
Thats a lame reply!!!!
Sorry but it is not false there is much debate on it concerning Aids, but that makes no difference, Many STDs and STIs(there are over 50 different STIs and STDs) are contracted from skin to skin contact of infected areas regardless of the lie of "safe sex"/condoms etc... Look up
Physicians for life.org
they have an extensive list of research concerning the lies about and are propagandised about birth control and condoms etc... It is one if not the most complete site I have ever seen concerning the research.
I have already listed many names that are not in the list that you have shown, and its funny you know about that book in six days, why would you care to know about that book? Well I know why because you are someone who goes around and tries and see what the creation SCIENTISTS are doing so you can conjour up an answer to spread your evolution propaganda, thats why evolutionists know the bible they know what is being said about intelligent design, WHAT ARE YOU SCARED OF? That shows you are not honest! Your whole agenda is to refute, because it doesnt fit your "I WANT TO BELIEF" you gave yourself away, but I already knew your dishonest agenda! Peace!
LOLOL! Thank you so much for the ping!
I thought it to be important: I don't care about misspelled texts, sloppy orthography - I have my fair share of these...
But you have to be careful when you spell names, or you send people on misgoogling for hours - not nice.
It took me quite a while to track down the persons you mentioned while you saved only a few seconds by being lazy!
LOL, and I haven't looked into his quote-mining, yet.
The list goes on, Of non evolution believeing SCIENTISTS.
Dr. David Kaufman
Dr. Leonid Krochkin
Dr. Walter Lamerts
Dr. Grady McMurtry
Dr. Everett C Koop
Dr. John Morris
Dr. Lester Lane
Dr. Joseph Masterpaolo
Dr. Raul Lopez
Dr. Gary Parker
Dr. Robert Gentry
Dr. David Rosevear
Dr. Charles Thaxton
Dr. Tom McMullen
Dr. Ker Thomson
Dr. Jay Wile
Shall I keep going? Many, many more! I can assure you its more than 50! and more than just 700.
Next Ill give you a list of the evolutionists and their comments who in a nutshell dont understand why they believe what they believe. Peace!
Many? Less than ten, I'd say. But you seem to have a problem with the big number... Where is your list of thousands of names ?
Well I know why because you are someone who goes around and tries and see what the creation SCIENTISTS are doing so you can conjour up an answer to spread your evolution propaganda, thats why evolutionists know the bible they know what is being said about intelligent design, WHAT ARE YOU SCARED OF?
I tried to find the source of the names you gave - and, naturally, stumbled on "Six Days". As you gave the names in the same, not alphabetical order as they appear in the book, this seemed to be your source. Knowing the bible OTOH is a useful thing for any Christian.
WHAT ARE YOU SCARED OF?
Idiocy!
That shows you are not honest! Your whole agenda is to refute, because it doesnt fit your "I WANT TO BELIEF" you gave yourself away, but I already knew your dishonest agenda! Peace!
I refute only the easily refutable, i.e., I can't stand lies. Have you given any honest quote? Does any of your hyperbolic claims stand to closer scrutiny?
Joseph A. Mastropaolo not Masterpaolo.
Get it right!
This is so annoying...
In the last days there will be scoffers-
They will profess themselves to be wise but they became fools-
For these things covetesnous, adultery, and sexual immorality the wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobediance-
And if your foot offends you, cut it off, for it is better for you to enter into life maimed rather than having to feet, to be cast into Hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched---where the worm dies not and the fire is never quenched-
Oh faithless generation how long shall I be with you How long shall I bear with you?---
Unless you all repent you shall all likwise perish---
----" The Word Of God----
Those who repent and come unto Christ can be forgiven and find mercy you shall be washed whiter than snow no matter what youve done- I wouldnt throw that away!!!!
scrutinise all you want its already been published long before I posted it, your the one who is afraid of scrutiny and your cheap scapegoat of no evidence evolution.
So you want to repent your hyperbolic claims and misquoting? Well done!
Or do you take this as a license to spout lies today - and be forgiven later?
Granted, misspelling the names of your brothers and sister is only a minor sin...
And you shouldnt use words like "Idiocy"! Thats not very "TOLERENT" of you, Shame on you si tacuisshem!
just playin friend! Peace!
Oh, you found it in the internet, so it has to be true! LOL!
Trust, but verify!
I never claimed to be tolerant, especially not in the face of idiocy...
BTW, it's "si tacuissem" as in "si tacuisses philosophus mansisses"..
Poor si tacuissem, keeps kidding himself, is being a deceiver an art form for you or is it just a hobbie?
Already have! and if you were honest you would look it up for yourself, thats all! Peace!
What you avoid capatalist, is what shows you that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness, I found out, and so can you, Peace friend!
Let me get this straight. Are you saying you can post anything at all from anywhere at all in an argument about whether intelligent design is science, and that it's incumbent on si tacuissem to track down your sources?
If you are, it's no wonder si tacuissem isn't taking you seriously.
By the way, flinging Bible verses in an argument about whether intelligent design is science only tends to confirm the idea that ID is religion, not science.
Tracking down his sources is quite a task, as he tends to misspell even the names of his protagonists and only once gave a link...
And none of his sources has been what it was claimed to be: I'm still missing the list of "thousands of scientists and historians and archeaologists who use to be eager in disproving the bible and later changed their minds".
But I'm the deceiver
who isn't honest
. Speaking of projection...
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