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user wrote:

resedit wrote:

Similarly, ID says that despite micro evolution, macro evolution is impossible.

Without specifying WHY it's impossible.

Irreducible complexity is one of the many reasons they give.
Irreducible complexity, which was not falsified by this experiment.

Can "Irreducible complexity" be falsified?

resedit wrote:

jerwin wrote:

Can "Irreducible complexity" be falsified?

Yes - demonstration of the evolution of a complex system.

Wouldn't that simply demonstrate that the system wasn't irreducibly complex to begin with?

If I might excerpt an article from The New Yorker:

It’s also hard to view Intelligent Design as a real research program. Though people often picture science as a collection of clever theories, scientists are generally staunch pragmatists: to scientists, a good theory is one that inspires new experiments and provides unexpected insights into familiar phenomena. By this standard, Darwinism is one of the best theories in the history of science: it has produced countless important experiments (let’s re-create a natural species in the lab—yes, that’s been done) and sudden insight into once puzzling patterns (that’s why there are no native land mammals on oceanic islands). In the nearly ten years since the publication of Behe’s book, by contrast, I.D. has inspired no nontrivial experiments and has provided no surprising insights into biology. As the years pass, intelligent design looks less and less like the science it claimed to be and more and more like an extended exercise in polemics.

In order for Intelligent Design to succeed as a scientific theory, its practitioners must be able to use it to make testable predictions. Have they?

resedit wrote:

jerwin wrote:

Can "Irreducible complexity" be falsified?

Yes - demonstration of the evolution of a complex system.

What do you mean by "demonstration" ? Because seeing the total evolution of a complex system can never happen unless you own a time machine.

The best (and it's very good...) is the field of statistical genomics which has been very successful in predicting gene flow based on evolutionary theories: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/8/266

jerwin wrote:

If I might excerpt an article from The New Yorker:

It’s also hard to view Intelligent Design as a real research program. Though people often picture science as a collection of clever theories, scientists are generally staunch pragmatists: to scientists, a good theory is one that inspires new experiments and provides unexpected insights into familiar phenomena. By this standard, Darwinism is one of the best theories in the history of science: it has produced countless important experiments (let’s re-create a natural species in the lab—yes, that’s been done) and sudden insight into once puzzling patterns (that’s why there are no native land mammals on oceanic islands). In the nearly ten years since the publication of Behe’s book, by contrast, I.D. has inspired no nontrivial experiments and has provided no surprising insights into biology. As the years pass, intelligent design looks less and less like the science it claimed to be and more and more like an extended exercise in polemics.

In order for Intelligent Design to succeed as a scientific theory, its practitioners must be able to use it to make testable predictions. Have they?

I don't consider intelligent design to be science, I consider it to be a philosophy.
I also don't think every question has a scientific answer. If every question has a scientific answer, then there can not a supernatural being. Many of you believe there is not a supernatural being, but that itself is philosophy - and not science.

resedit wrote:

I don't consider intelligent design to be science, I consider it to be a philosophy.
I also don't think every question has a scientific answer. If every question has a scientific answer, then there can not a supernatural being. Many of you believe there is not a supernatural being, but that itself is philosophy - and not science.

No, belief in a supernatural being is philosophy. Lack of belief in a supernatural being, considering that there is no substantive evidence, is science. Scientists generally don't pull hypotheses out of thin air. It all depends on where one places the burden of proof. Personally I think those claiming that god exists are the ones who need to prove his existence. I don't need to prove he doesn't exist, just as I don't need to disprove the existence of unicorns.

The problem with ID is that it simply shifts the question to who is the designer and who designed the designer? It doesn't really offer any sort of scientific explanation of anything. It simply tries to repackage creationism using pseudoscientific terms. Despite the best efforts to try and remove references to Yahweh, the fact remains that creationism simply isn't possible without the incredible spackle of his divinity, omniscience, omnipresence and being all-powerful. Trying to pass off ID as non-religious and scientific is insulting.

The simple fact remains that ID and YEC defy every observable, testable scientific principle. To try and support it with science is laughable.

In an above post, it was stated that if ID was a science, it should be able to make testable predictions.
What testable predictions do practitioners of "lack of belief in supernatural" have?

ergo, it's a philosophy - not a science.

resedit wrote:

No. There are numerous scientists, past and present, who believe in a supernatural being.
Lack of belief in supernatural is a philosophy, and I highly doubt you will find a single credible philosopher who disagrees.

Where would I find a single credible philosopher? What makes a philosopher credible or not? I mean I may not agree with one's philosophy but that doesn't mean it's not credible. I may doubt one's logic but that doesn't necessarily make it flawed. I would say JC was a philosopher with some interesting ideas, I just don't think he was divine. There are some scientists who believe in god, but the credible ones won't claim they can prove s/he exists. They understand that it is a belief and not proven fact. Even men and women of science can have faith. I think most will agree however that the existence of god cannot be proven scientifically. Hence, given that there is no scientific evidence supporting the god hypothesis, it is necessary to exclude it when conducting scientific research.

It isn't that science disproves god per se (though it does disprove a lot of the magic), but that it simply doesn't put god into the equation. It doesn't assume that god exists as creationism and ID do. God is an essential component of both. They need god, science doesn't.

We run into problems however when science does disprove certain things in the good book. That depends on whether one interprets it literally or critically. There are aspects, most notably in the Torah, that defy the laws of physics, chemistry, thermodynamics and well, pretty much everything. This is all glossed over by the fact that god can do anything with a mere word. You either believe that this entity exists and has this power, or you don't. If you don't, it makes the creation story, flood, etc. all seem pretty implausible.

And so we arrive at our impasse. Either you believe despite the lack of substantive evidence that this being does in fact exist, or you aren't convinced. I'm sure the deities worshiped by many cultures all over the world throughout human history seemed quite real to their followers, yet most of us don't believe in them either.

Atheism isn't my philosophy, it is an outcome of the philosophy of not believing in something until it's proven. I don't believe that there is a copy of The Beatles orbiting Io because it's not been proven. Sure, some things can be fudged a little and we don't require ironclad proof of absolutely everything. But a deity that can supposedly do most anything and who demands my supplication and complete obedience? Yeah, I'm gonna need some hard evidence for that one, and it just doesn't exist. Until it does, I see no reason not to be an atheist.

What if I believe in a natural being?  Is that science or philosophy?

Metacell wrote:

What if I believe in a natural being?  Is that science or philosophy?

Its simply natural.

Let's look at this another way.

How far can a science be practiced before it infringes upon a religious belief?

I understand that catholic theology essentially teaches that God designed life to work through evolution-- so a catholic biologist can explore all of biology all the way back to that first biological ancestor without bringing up theology in his papers (stem cells are right out, though).

And an atheist can do the same. Now, an atheist might wonder how that first biological ancestor developed-- but that's not biology. It's a different field, without biological information. Science it may be, but most biologists would be lost, unless their background was in chemistry or physics.

With Intelligent Design, certain questions about the structure of biological organisms cannot be explored.  Sooner or later, instead of modeling evolution to guide his protein structure work, a ID practicing biologist is going to have to model the mind of the designer. And modeling the mind of the designer is a theological activity.

ID limits the scope of biological inquiry. It expands the scope of theology.

Last edited by jerwin (2008-07-08 8:43 am)

There are things science cannot currently explain. It depends on whether one wants to default to "god" or other supernatural explanations, or is simply content with "I don't know". It isn't necessary to fill in the gaps in scientific knowledge with deity. Just because there isn't a rational explanation for something doesn't mean there isn't one. There are many things thought to be mysterious and beyond human comprehension that are now easily understood.