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To: untrained skeptic
Ok, how do you disprove evolution?

Find Precambrian rabbit fossils. Find a transposon that occurs in whales and cows but not hippos.

How do you disprove the theory of relativity?

Find a situation where time dilation does not occur when two objects are travelling at markedly different speeds.

How do you prove that is not possible to disprove the theory of intelligent design?

That's not my job. The burden falls to those caliming that Intelligent Design is a theory to demonstrate that a falsification criteria exists.

It's not possible to prove that ID cannot be proven. Therefore even by your own definition you cannot prove that it is not a theory.

Wrong. A theory must have defined falsification criteria. If you can't define falsification criteria, then it isn't a theory. Saying "you can't prove that none exist!" doesn't work. You have to show that at least one does exist.
616 posted on 09/28/2005 5:36:59 PM PDT by Dimensio (http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif <-- required reading before you use your next apostrophe!)
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To: Dimensio
" Find Precambrian rabbit fossils. Find a transposon that occurs in whales and cows but not hippos."

But that doesn't disprove it, because evolution is random, and it may have taken different paths along previous branches and we just don't have enough fossil records to show it yet.

If you're requirement of a "falsification criteria" is what makes something a scientific theory, then evolution isn't a theory either.

Evolution says things evolved due to random chance and natural selection. However, because it is based on random chance rather than predefined design, the possibility exists of evolution taking multiple paths over time, and what might look like a falsification at a micro level, is really multiple separate paths of evolution at a macro level. It's simply impossible to prove otherwise with the knowledge we have available.

By that criteria, I guess we should teach neither in schools.


" Find a situation where time dilation does not occur when two objects are travelling at markedly different speeds."

You got me on that one.

"That's not my job. The burden falls to those caliming that Intelligent Design is a theory to demonstrate that a falsification criteria exists."

No, if you want to exclude it you need to prove that there is no falsification criteria, and that is logically impossible to prove. Theories don't need to be provable, but rules you use to define things cannot rely on things that are not provable.

You cannot prove that something does not have a falsification criteria. The set of ideas that you can prove don't have falsification criteria is the empty set. That can be proven logically.

" Wrong. A theory must have defined falsification criteria. If you can't define falsification criteria, then it isn't a theory. Saying "you can't prove that none exist!" doesn't work. You have to show that at least one does exist."

Then you cannot prove that anything is not a theory, and your definition is useless.

The designation of a Theory as opposed to a Hypotheses or Law relies in a great part of the subjective as well as the objective.

Evolution is considered a Theory because there's enough examined evidence that it is plausible. It is considered to be possible by a great many people. However, I would bet there are more people who believe that the universe and life were created by the design of some intelligent entity than there are people that can even explain what evolution is.

Intelligent design isn't even really in opposition to Evolution, except when people start insisting that there was no design that set things in motion, or when people argue that nothing is random.

Both are strongly held theories. Both should be taught. Why they are theories and why they we haven't been able to prove them should also be taught.

I'm not suggesting that either evolution or intelligent design should be taught as settled fact. One of the most important things students can learn from the lesson is how little we really know.

That's something that really seems to make teachers nervous in primary and secondary education. The education system we have now wants to indoctrinate students rather than to teach them how to learn and challenge them to think critically and logically.

The problem with our education system is that it does not teach people to think. It teaches that the questions that will be on the test will have one correct answer, and it's the answer that you learned in class.

Evolution is being taught as the only credible theory as to how life came to exist as it does not. It's being taught as a kind of fact that everyone knows, but can't really be scientifically proven.

The reason that intelligent design is being excluded isn't scientific. The philosophical argument about falsification criteria and is it science or not are pointless distractions from the real issue of our children are being taught not to think, but to regurgitate things taught to them as facts.

It's an argument between indoctrination and education, because if you teach people how to learn and how to think critically, they can balance the merits of different theories on their own. If you instead teach them single answers to every question, you teach them to rely on others for answers.
655 posted on 09/29/2005 6:51:16 AM PDT by untrained skeptic
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