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.
Sorry. I was trying to approach this rationally.
Not bad an approach - contrasts nicely to quite a few things I've seen on this thread :-)
Let's take the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 on the mount. Clearly that's an advanced xerox machine at work from a higher scientific technology. Note the 3D "fabber" just announced at Cornell University.
Arthur Clarke's Third Law : a sufficiently advanced technology will seem like MAGIC to a less advanced technology. Alien technology is obviously far in advance of our 300 year young science, they've had billions of years to perfect it.
The laws/tools/equations/theories of science are NEUTRAL, ANYONE can discover them. Are you so self-centered that you thnk YOU are the geatest genius in the universe? Pride goeth before a fall..
Then there's the SERMON on the mount. Clearly there is a cosmic PETA group that produced our lord Jesus as an in vitro implant in the host mother Mary. And here that GOD-PETA philosophy is being TOLD to you, from billions of years worth of knowledge, wisdom, understanding. And there is SO much you could learn from the shroud of Turin.
You can deny it in your satanic arrogance, or come to realize that YOU will be judged upon how YOU accepted or rejected that sermon. Opportunity knocks but once, temptation leans on the doorbell.
In revelation it is said that there is a WAR in heaven, is it only a spiritual war, or a REAL war, a star wars war as a cosmic battle line advancing across the cosmos. Soon the earth will be a smoking crater, who will be there to save you from the flames? And what is the FIRST commandment?
This is why I avoid creationist threads.
Well that was from 10:35 AM on the 3rd ... I guess it wasn't really the last hour after all.
You said, "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".
I too, await such a remarkable list, tho I do insist that one actually take the time to correctly spell their names...
Tho I was once told by someone, on one of these CREVO threads, that correct spelling was unnecessary, and that one had their spelling criticized only because others could not successfully dispute their remarks...that is pure bunk of course...
Its quite bad enough, when someone consistently spells commonly used, every day words, which is quite different from spelling mistakes everyone makes when posting due to posting too quickly or instances such as that...but to misspell the names of those people that one is referencing is even worse...without the correctly spelled name, one has a difficult time, doing further research about that person...
You might inquire as to how many "intelligent designers" there were, and what is the justification for their answer.
That should be interesting.
Andi git oph your hi horce! How du you like that fur spellin! peace frend!
It's as persuasive as everything else you've posted.
No the greater question is what is your support for evolution religion!
Science just supports God and Christ after all God made it all!
Anyone can look up what ive posted and see for themselves and I encourage them to do so! I shouldnt have to spell it all out for you, if you are honest you would look for yourself, Ive already heard and seen evolutionist claims for the last few decades now its time to see all the evidence and uncover the lies and propaganda.
Heres ANOTHER evolutionist who is baffled,
An interview given to a scientist who wouldnt give their name, The columnist George Caylor who once interviewed a molecular biologist in a magazine , who used the name Scientist J,
columnist---Do you believe that informaton evolved?
Scientist J---George, nobody in my profession believes it evolved. It was engineered by genius beyond genius. and such information could not have been written any other way. The paper and ink did not write the book! Knowing what we know it is ridiculous to think otherwise.
Columnist---Have you ever stated that in a public lecture, or in any public writings?
scientist J---No, I just say it evolved,To be a molecular biologist requires one to hold onto two insanities at all times, One it would be insane to believe in evolution when you can see the truth for yourself. Two it would be insane to say you dont believe in evolution. All government work, research grants, papers, big college lectures---everything would stop. Id be out of a job, or relagated to the outer fringes where i couldnt earn a decent living.
More scientists who say evolution is bunk.
Dr. Robert Boyle--- helped develop sciences of chemistry and gas dynamics
Dr. Werner Von Braun--- rocket sciences and space exploration
Dr. Authur Chadwick---Geologist
Dr. Melvin Alonzo Cook---Physical Chemist, nobel prize nominee
Dr. Francis Bacon---develped the scientific method
Dr. Steven A Austin---geologist and coal formation expert
Dr. Humphry Davy---helped develp science of thermokinetics
Dr. David Brewster---helped develop science of optical mineralogy
Dr. Henri Fabre---helped develop science of insect entomology
Dr. Micheal Faraday---helped develop science of electromagnetics etc...invented theelectric generator
Dr. Thomas G Barnes---Physicist
Dr. Charles Babbage---helped develop science of computers etc...
Dr. William Herschel---helped develop the science of galactic astronomy discovered double stars etc...
The list as I said goes on and on and on!
Heres a known evolutionist you might know Issac Asimov---his credits? He was a science fiction writer, dumb da dumb dumb!
Heres another evolutionist
Steven J Gould---couple of his credits member of the show NOVA boards of PBS a propaganda machine tv show---member of the childrens tv show workshop---more propaganda machinery!
You havent proved it so far!!!! You got to back up what you say, with hard evidence not story telling hypotheticals, like evolutionism. Peace!
No one's asked me to prove it. But all I have to do is point to the other nonsense you've posted, and then to my post 388, and its accuracy is self-evident.
Your arrogance is beyond ridiculous! Just look up scientists who do not believe in evolution, I thought you were educadated! ha! and peace no hard feelings!
No oh arrogant one, science just supports Intelligent design!
You may think that rules - especially those of grammar and spelling - are just for others. But, at least, show some manners & write individual names correctly!
Dr. Humphry Davy---helped develp science of thermokinetics
Thermokinetics? Davy found a way to melt the words Thermodynamics and Kinetics into one to make it easier for undergraduates? And shouldn't that be Humphrey Davy?
Back to my question, which you dodged with a torrent of semi-illiterate verbiage: how many "intelligent designers" were there, and what is your justification for your answer?
The last hour refers to your last chance, it is written in the bible that God is going to make a short work, and now that Christ has come it is the final hour, the last days and as you can see the bible was written over thousands of years and just ebded after Christ, and mans living has escalated in knowledge as it says also in the bible that knowledge will greatly increase on the eartrh, and another remarkable thing is that man lived mostly the same for years but in the last years of the 20th century and after Christ realy things have progressed and in the last 300 years of the 20th century all our great inventions have occured cars trains plauns camera etc...etc... it is all the more the last hour, just something to think about and you will.
Every knee will bow and every tounge will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, He is just being merciful to right now and showing you grace, because God has not come to condemm the world but to seek and to save the lost. But He is also the righteous judge. Better think about that my friend I plead with you!
Read the bible and you will soon realise these are not words of mythology. The choice is yours make an honest one!
no problem friend! Peace!
So, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) didn't believe in evolution - he didn't believe in Newton's physics, either. OTOH, he never maligned Charles Darwin...
I get lazy when Im not challenged, But besides this Im not here to argue with you, I sincerely want you to look honestly and to let you know there is forgivness for you, and I say that not to be spiteful but with all due respect I say it and hope it for you! Peace friend! im not a pefect person but I am forgiven! and I live a peaceful life in Christ even though I am poor I am rich.
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