Posted on 09/01/2008 3:53:36 PM PDT by DallasBiff
Late night mistype. I meant to say: What information do you have on...
I have no information about the drive-by midia on this subject. As for myself, I am in favor of teaching intelligent design as a theory as well as teaching evolution as a theory. In addition they need to teach that theories in science are never proven. (Do I really need to go into the deference between deductive and inductive reasoning, the assumption of first principles that all arguments are based, and the role of experimental data?) Good scientists know this, but people on the school boards usually do not.
“Good scientists know this, but people on the school boards usually do not.”
I guess this is why in the Dover case the judge, who was a Bush appointee, determined that the school board was not only ignorant of science, that intelligent design was back door religion, and that several school board members also committed perjury. Also, can you tell me what experiments have been designed and conducted to prove intelligent design might be a fact?
The point of my post is this: theories are not facts. Scientists do not prove theories. They propose them as working models. You can collect all the experimental data you want. It doesn't prove a theory. Experiments do not prove theories. If you don't understand that, you don't understand the nature of science or mathematics.
Have you every taken a physics lab in college? One thing you will learn very quickly is that if you write up your lab report and say that the experimental data you collected proved the theory you were testing, you will most certainly not get an A.
As for scientists, the majority of them simply ignore what theory actually means. As for judges, there is nothing infallible about a judges ruling.
“Have you ever taken a physics lab in college?”
No, but I did work as a laboratory technician at NIH’s Department of Cardiovascular Physiology. This was more than 45 years ago and we were doing basic research on the effect of calcium, potassium and magnesium on the contraction of heart muscle. I can’t say that these experiments proved anything. I can say that today drug companies are using these results to sell a number of popular heart medications. If science has not proved that evolution exists, then why don’t all creationists/intelligent design supporters reject their annual flu shot? So, I repeat my question, what experiments have been conducted proving intelligent design is a fact?
What experiment has proved that evolution is a fact?
As I have been trying to explain to you, an experiment is not a proof. But you think it is. And the reason you thing that is because science education in America has failed to explain and teach the nature of scientific reasoning. Inductive reasoning is not a proof.
Every year the flu virus evolves into a new form that is not affected by the previous year’s vaccine. If that is not evolution then we are wasting our time and our money on these vaccines. I doubt if they have changed due to the wave of a magic wand. I guess the experiment could be stated as: if you take last years vaccine for this year’s flu, you will probably get sick. Or at least the percentage of people using last year’s vaccine and getting sick will be a lot higher than those using this year’s vaccine.
Again, you are confusing facts with theory. The fact that a flu virus mutates does not prove the theory of evolution. Now, if the flu virus mutates overnight into a butterfly, you would have stronger experimental data for the theory of evolution. But again, experimental data does not prove any theory of any kind or sort. That is simply the nature of inductive reasoning.
Sorry, I didn't see that you were agreeing with me. But more importantly you are agreeing with a long tradition that defines how scientific reasoning works.
Yes, so lets revise that. Science must have physical data, data verified by the senses. And those data can be gathered from observation out in the field or in the laboratory.
Hypotheses can be formed and evidence gathered from observation to support them, but the observations have to have priority over theory.
Yes, we agree on this. But I would like to add that there is theoretical science as well. For example in physics, theories like superstring theory and M-theory are purely theoretical. The theory is quite elegant, but it proposes vibrating loops or stings so small, that there are no instruments sensitive enough to observe them. When do we get the data to check the theory? Nobody knows, if ever.
This has been the problem with astronomy since Hubble. An idea (redshift as exclusively the product of recessional velocity) gained ascendency and now shoehorns observations (such as quasars as ejecta from certain types of galaxies) to fit the theory or ignores them entirely.
That is the sort of thing that most people do not realize about science. Sometimes scientists are not very scientific when they ignore data that contradicts their favorite theory. Here is another example. Again in physics, relativity and quantum mechanics contradict each other. They cannot both be true. So for about 50 years, physicists worked in one field or the other, and simply ignored people working in the other field. But that has changed over the past 15 years or so. Physicists are indeed talking to each other to resolve that contraction.
Please elaborate on this.
To describe the behavior of large objects like solar systems and galaxies or objects moving close to the speed of light, physicists use relativity theory. The experimental data and the theoretical predictions are close enough.
But for subatomic particles, relativity gives wrong results. So scientists use quantum mechanics. And then the experimental data and theoretical predictions are close enough.
But that means these two theories contradict each other. Science strives to find theories that are universal and apply everywhere in the universe. Einstein was aware of the contradiction and spent the last 30 years of his life looking for a unified field theory that would apply to both parts of the universe. He failed in that attempt.
That is the Holy Grail of physics today, to find one theory to describe both objects that are very large (or moving very fast) and objects that are very small. One theory they have come up with is superstring theory. It says that the universe is composed of very small strings, which are more like little rubber bands that vibrate at different frequencies. It is a very elegant theory, but it is also impossible to verify that they exit, at least for the time being.
If you like to read about science, I recommend The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.
:) Looks right no matter it is counted.
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