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Federal judge expects to rule no later than early January. Hopefully we can end this attack on the wall between Church and State. *crosses fingers* I find it unsettling that the law office representing the Christians is located in Ann Arbor...which is supposed to be the cultural and intellectual center of Michigan.
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I was just wondering how one would argue the theory of intelligent design if one was using it against you for the existence of a Creator. From what I can tell, no one can really argue against it because no one was there when it happened and it also seems so darn logical.
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Intelligent design seems logical? I, and a number of other people well educated in logic, disagree, suggesting it is perhaps not as logical as you suppose, and your supposition may in fact be based on inadequate consideration on your part.
As for not being able to argue against it because no one was there, I suggest that you might consider all the silly things I could say that nobody was there for, yet nobody sane would consider credible in the least.
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I think what you mean, Pericles, is not that no one can argue against it, but that no one can disprove it.
The very fact that it can't be disproven makes it unscientific. If it is not science, it should not be taught in a science class. Most of us have no problem with ID being taught in a philosophy, humanities, or social studies class where it belongs.
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You hit the nail on the head Karl Ed. I don't have a problem with Intelligent Design. In fact, I believe in some version of intelligent design. I do have a serious problem with teaching intelligent design as science.
Science is a way of seeking truth. It is not the only way, but it is a method for seeking truth which is very important to modern society.
In science we seek truth by
1. Observing natural phenomena and developing hypotheses to explain them.
2. designing experiments which are capable of disproving our hypotheses.
If a hypothesis is hold up under a large number of experiments which could disprove it, we name it a theory. If it holds up on a very large number of experiment which could disprove it we name it a law.
The second step is what makes science different from most other ways of knowing, It is what makes science so powerful. We have a cleary defined process for rejecting and refining or Hypotheses. That process allows us to progress in our understanding of the world.
But as powerful as the scientific method is, there are some questions it simply can't tackle. In order for a theory to be scientific, it must have been tested in experiments that could prove the theory wrong. In fact, it must be continuously subjected to new and more clever experiments which are designed to disprove the theory.
Intelligent Design is an example of a theory which science can not address. While many people do observe natural phenomon and find Intelligent design to be a plausible explanation for their observations, it is impossible to take this hypothesis to the next step. What evidence would you look for which could prove that there wasn't an intelligent designer? Until we can answer that question, it will be impossible to explore the question of Intelligent design scientifically.
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The issue of Intelligent Design is a social one. Not a scientific one.
There's ample reason to support Intelligent Design scientifically. But Intelligent Design has a flaw, socially. That is that we don't like saying, "We don't know." It makes people uncomfortable. People will gravitate to anyone with answers, even if the one without answers is making more sense.
John Dayton once said, "It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong." And that's true, but it runs counter to human nature, at least in our times. People want assurances and certainty.
So what will happen if you teach kids that there are two possibilities: Random Evolution and Intelligent Design? The only thing they'll be able to find to paint a concrete picture of an Intelligent Designer is going to be God. It doesn't matter how hard teachers try to avoid bringing God into it. And since the dominant idea of God in this country right now is the Christian one, it will effectively be bringing the Christian God into the classroom, in violation of the First Amendment.
The problem is, though, that while this is certainly true, and certainly a valid argument for barring the teaching of Intelligent Design on social grounds, it has zero validity in terms of science. Even if everyone on Earth who believed in God were to disappear tomorrow, Intelligent Design would still be a valid theory. The most likely theory, in fact. It just wouldn't be as satisfying emotionally.
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quote:There's ample reason to support Intelligent Design scientifically.
I take issue with that. I believe that Intelligent Design is a theory which is consistent with available data. But to say something is supported scientifically means more than saying that it is consistent with the available data.
For a theory to be scientific, it must have been tested in experiments that could have disproved it. That can not be done with intelligent design. To teach ID as science would be to give people a fundamental misunderstanding of science.
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quote:There's ample reason to support Intelligent Design scientifically.
No, there isn't. Unless you're using the word "ample" in some way that makes it mean "none whatsoever" that I was previously unaware of.
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quote:Even if everyone on Earth who believed in God were to disappear tomorrow, Intelligent Design would still be a valid theory. The most likely theory, in fact. It just wouldn't be as satisfying emotionally.
It would still be a valid hypothesis, but it wouldn't be a valid scientific theory until some one could design and perform a large number of experiments that were capable of disproving the theory. Those test are what make something a scientific theory and ID simply does not qualify.
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quote:"There's ample reason to support Intelligent Design scientifically."
No, there isn't.
Also:
quote:"...Intelligent Design would still be a valid theory. The most likely theory, in fact."
Perhaps, but not a scientific one.
As to your main point, that society tends to prefer certitude, even when wrong, and eschew "I don't know" -- while the observation may be true (I don't know) in a very general way for human nature, I cannot overstress how strongly I feel that you have applied the idea backwards to the issue at hand.
Science thrives on "I don't know." Science is all about "I don't know." And then, when you are trained in scientific thinking, you get better at stating very precisely what you don't know, and formulating more and more useful questions that, bit by bit, whittle down the "I don't know" until there is a semblance of an answer.
If you're very good, or very lucky, your answer may help create the foundation for others who come after to attack other questions. And the nature of the universe (so far) seems to be such that there is no end to "I don't know's". I don't think theoretical physicists are going to be out of work any time soon, because we have figured every damn thing out.
On the other hand, it is Intelligent Design that claims to provide the pat answer. It is Intelligent Design proponents who say, "don't try to apply the methods of science (i.e. asking questions) to this 'theory.' It is enough to be able to say that life, or the universe, could have come about from purposeful causes -- and if you accept this theory, you can relax all your pointless efforts to unravel nature, and go get jobs as productive members of society."
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I have one sincere wish regarding Intelligent Design. That is that everyone would read Miller's The Search for Darwin's God before talking about ID as if it had much, if any, real support among experts in the field to which it supposedly applies, let alone among scientists who are also faithful Christians.
ID is not good science, nor does it pose any serious problems for those who hold that the theory of Evolution offers a better explanation for the facts as we know them...and learn more.
The early examples proposed by ID's proponents as "irreducibly complex" biological mechanisms (things that couldn't possibly have evolved) have all been shown to be readily explainable through Evolutionary means, once studies are carried out. The response among ID theorists has been the very unscientific reaction of saying nothing about those things anymore and just picking new "irreducibly complex" things to talk about. Or to ignore the contrary data.
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I have one sincere wish regarding Intelligent Design. That is that everyone would read Miller's The Search for Darwin's God before talking about ID as if it had much, if any, real support among experts in the field to which it supposedly applies, let alone among scientists who are also faithful Christians.
ID is not good science, nor does it pose any serious problems for those who hold that the theory of Evolution offers a better explanation for the facts as we know them...and learn more.
The early examples proposed by ID's proponents as "irreducibly complex" biological mechanisms (things that couldn't possibly have evolved) have all been shown to be readily explainable through Evolutionary means, once studies are carried out. The response among ID theorists has been the very unscientific reaction of saying nothing about those things anymore and just picking new "irreducibly complex" things to talk about. Or to ignore the contrary data.
While I do not doubt the existence of an intelligence that exceeds our own and of a creator, I have to conclude that the creator worked through the laws of nature to achieve the world that we can see and study. One of those laws is something that is as close to the current theory of Evolution as makes no appreciable difference.
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I'm not precisely sure, but is not theory of intelligent design suggest that due to all the natural order in the universe, there must have been something that made it this way, and was just not coincidence? And if this is the case Fugu, or anyone for that matter, how is this not logical? That the universe and planets and ecosystems etc etc are all subjects to some randomness and by chance, came to work together. I understand that ID is not a scientifically sound theory, but can you please explain why it is not logical as well?
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Its not logical because we can point to large numbers of examples of order that appear absent any creator.
Its not logical because then all you've done is moved the problem to a different place -- now you've got a creator you can't explain because he/she/it is clearly too complex to arise naturally and must have been created.
Its not logical because "I can't explain it, therefore somebody made it" isn't reasoning, its speculation.
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quote:There's ample reason to support Intelligent Design scientifically.
I take issue with that. I believe that Intelligent Design is a theory which is consistent with available data. But to say something is supported scientifically means more than saying that it is consistent with the available data.
For a theory to be scientific, it must have been tested in experiments that could have disproved it. That can not be done with intelligent design. To teach ID as science would be to give people a fundamental misunderstanding of science.
So you're defining "science" in a way that can possibly exclude what really happened from consideration?
That troubles me. I think of science as a means of discovering the truth. Learning about reality. If rules of science are created that can rule something as being untouchable by science, even though it might really be the case, then those rules make science diverge from the quest to discover the truth. I don't think that was ever the intent of science.
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Science is indeed a tool of making truth clearer.
The "scientific method," however, is what a previous poster stated: a methodical testing of a given theory by attempting to find ways to prove it false. The method rests itself on the fundamental idea that there cannot be a PROOF, but that one can only find evidence that supports a given theory.
However, I would argue that the search for "truth" belongs more to the field of philosophy than to the scientific method. :-)
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I suggest some readings in the history and philosophy of science, then.
Science is a remarkably constricted field, for the simple philosophical reason that if it weren't, we couldn't say much of anything at all. If we allow people to say things are science which are untestable, then what's the point?
also edit: to elaborate on the above, one thing which will always be a possibility is that humans are actually somehow suspended in a perfect virtual world (perfect meaning undetectable from any experiment performed within it).
As there is no experiment that can falsify this in a scientific sense, a "theory" which states it is not science. One philosophical reason it is excluded from science is that adding it to science does not increase science's explanatory power at all, even if it is actually true!
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quote:Originally posted by John Van Pelt: starLisa wrote:
quote:"There's ample reason to support Intelligent Design scientifically."
No, there isn't.
Also:
quote:"...Intelligent Design would still be a valid theory. The most likely theory, in fact."
Perhaps, but not a scientific one.
So science requires that a possibility be ruled out, because it doesn't fit the rules of scientific inquiry. <sigh>
Science is supposed to be a tool by means of which we attain knowledge. Not a procrustean bed that rules out certain ideas on the basis of a dogma.
quote:Originally posted by John Van Pelt: Science thrives on "I don't know." Science is all about "I don't know."
It really doesn't.
"Once one has experienced the desperation with which clever and conciliatory men react to the demand for a change in the thought pattern, one can only be amazed that such revolutions in science have actually been possible at all." --Werner Heisenberg
"It's impossible that the Big Bang is wrong." --Joseph Silk
What you're talking about is an idealized concept of science. It has the same reality that a frictionless surface or a geometric plane has. Scientific establishments have a very bad track record when it comes to tolerating paradigm shifts. When continental drift was first proposed, it was rejected soundly. Albert Einstein, to his dying day, rejected quantum physics as nonsensical.
Solid scientists have lost their jobs and been virtually excommunicated from the scientific community for proposing ideas that conflict with the reigning paradigm. Halton Arp is a classic example. A respected astronomer, he noticed that many observations demonstrated problems with the Hubble Law and the conventional understanding of what the red shift is. For his crime, he was fired from his position and barred from using major telescopes. Students who attempted to check Arp's claims were also banned.
quote:Originally posted by John Van Pelt: On the other hand, it is Intelligent Design that claims to provide the pat answer. It is Intelligent Design proponents who say, "don't try to apply the methods of science (i.e. asking questions) to this 'theory.'
Not at all. That's a misrepresentation. A strawman argument. The science of genetics is just as valid even if it can't be extrapolated back to a single point. It was never dependent on any such thing. There is no example, anywhere, ever, of speciation. No such thing has ever been observed, either in the laboratory or in the wild. But that doesn't make genetics any less important.
To use the watch example again, if I find a watch laying in the street, postulating that it was made by someone, even though I know nothing about that someone, doesn't stop me from investigating the watch itself and learning from it.
Sure, there are fundamentalists who might say what you're claiming. But to tar the entire idea of intelligent design with such a thing borders on the dishonest.
If God had never interacted with people and if religions had never happened, I think scientists would all take intelligent design for granted.
quote:Originally posted by John Van Pelt: It is enough to be able to say that life, or the universe, could have come about from purposeful causes -- and if you accept this theory, you can relax all your pointless efforts to unravel nature, and go get jobs as productive members of society."
You know what, John? I completely agree with your reaction to anyone who says that. Truly I do. But since you didn't address it, can I ask your opinion of the view that intelligent design is a likelihood, and that it doesn't in the least exempt us from scientific inquiry in the fields of genetics, taxinomy, biology and so on?
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The thing that gets me fairly steamed is that I believe in intelligent design to some degree, but I just do not understand how it can be taught as science? Also how does scientific evolution and intelligent design differ in what they are saying? As far as I understand isnt intelligent design just saying God made things evolve into the way they are?
I think perhaps science teachers should not be saying wether evolution is God influenced or not thus avoiding the whole controversy to begin with.
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And sL, the official line of the ID proponents who are making headway in school boards is that speciation does occur, just that its guided by God.
Promethius: the common classifications are Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design, Theistic Evolution, and Evolution.
YEC and OEC both involve literal creation events of all the species, or at least groups of them. It appears sL is advocating what would typically be called Old Earth Creationism.
Intelligent Design says that it is possible to find scientific evidence for God's (sorry, "a creator's") existence by seeing how species couldn't have gotten where they are without "help".
Theistic Evolution is roughly what you describe; the notion that evolution is how things happen, but that God is necessary and intrinsic and the cause, much in the same way he's the cause of gravity. This is not and does not attempt to be a scientific belief.
Evolution just means thinking evolution is how things happen; Theistic Evolution is a subset. You could also make other subsets, but its relatively pointless.
Science teachers should definitely stay out of whether or not God influences evolution; science has nothing to say about whether God does or not.
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quote:John Dayton once said, "It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong." And that's true, but it runs counter to human nature, at least in our times. People want assurances and certainty.
This is wrong.
Being vaguely right doesn't get you anything.
Knowing what is definitively incorrect on the other hand, lets you immediately know what to abandon, and that you need to start looking somewhere else. This is the entire basis for falsificationism (i.e. how most scientists think science is supposed to work).
Second, people who have the gall to claim that there's support for Intelligent Design amaze me. Being a stalwart in the evolutionary camp, i find it utterly astonishing that hardline ID supporters are so unfathomably ignorant of the immense volume of unanswered criticism that one literally stumbles over while passing through the internet. The fact that they are unaware of these criticisms indicate exactly to what extent this "debate" is a social farce, and in absolutely no way a scientific exchange.
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StarLisa, it isn't that we're saying science precludes the possibility of an intelligent designer. Science does not require that there not be one. Science simply cannot address that which is unproveable.
For instance, Science may ask "How was the Earth formed?" If you answer, God formed it, you might be right, but that is also a form of saying "It was formed by the force that formed it". This is a perfect logical statement, but it is also a useless one.
There are scientific assertions about God, most of which have been proven mistaken. Back in Galileo's day, it was believed that God created the Earth as the center of the universe. It was clear that he had because everything we could see revolved around the Earth. The sun, the moon, and even all the stars. You could go out day or night and see their progression around the earth with your own eyes. It was believed by some that this was evidence of our supreme stature in the order of God's creations. He gave us center stage, so to speak.
It was once believe that the perfect orbits of the planets testified of God. Each was a perfect mathematical circle. Newton, or perhaps one of his contemporaries, I forget, even worked on mathematical proofs linking the distances of the orbits of the planets with perfect geometric objects, further pointing to a grand designer.
Well, over the years we've improved our measurements and found that no such relationships exist. The orbits are not mathematically perfect circles. They are elipses. One of our "planets" doesn't even fall in the same plane, really, as the rest of them.
Now, none of this is proof that God didn't design creation, but it is proof that those specific claims are not true. The fact is, every time someone has turned God's involvement in creation into a scienfically verifiable (or falsifiable) claim, it has come up short - been proven not to be the evidence it claimed - and God has been relegated further into the remaining unknown.
And there will always be "unknown", so science is never going to disprove God.
But when ID says it is a theory that some "intelligence" created the universe, it offers nothing that can be tested. It might be 100 percent true, but it isn't scientific. But it isn't scientific in the same way "The universe was formed by the force that formed it" is not scientific.
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Pod, I think you misunderstand John Dayton. He's not saying it's better to remain in plausible uncertaintly than to determine one thing is incorrect. He is saying it is better to dwell in a realm of partial answers than to latch onto one falsehood as truth.
quote:So science requires that a possibility be ruled out, because it doesn't fit the rules of scientific inquiry. <sigh>
Science is supposed to be a tool by means of which we attain knowledge. Not a procrustean bed that rules out certain ideas on the basis of a dogma.
Are you being intentionally thick? This has been explained here three times and you stubbornly misinterpret it each time.
Science doesn't require that anything be ruled out. It requires that you subject hypotheses to tests that could rule them out. That is, in order to have a hypothesis A, you must be able to describe a test which has, as one of its possible results: "Not A." If the only possible tests cannot disprove A, then they aren't tests at all.
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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Risking the kind of nationwide ridicule it faced six years ago, the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.
The 6-4 vote was a victory for "intelligent design" advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.
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It is more scientifically honest to declare "we don't know, yet." If something doesn't fit the rules of scientific inquiry than it remains unproven until tests can be devised. Some things may never be provable, may never be testable. Doesn't mean that there aren't truths to be found there.
But those truths should not be taught in a science class.
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Yeah, i wasn't concerned with the original intent of the quote. But the point it's used to support is wrong. Science is about nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you don't take a stand that can be provably decided upon, you've made no progress.
Also, to attempt to take the middle ground in this debate, here's the compromise. It's the one the catholic church takes. The world around us tells us certain facts about the history of the universe. What lies beyond the beginning of the universe, and how it got there, we don't know (whether we can know is open to speculation). That means there could be a creator out there. What the history of our universe does tell us, is that there are certain things that are not true (or extremely, extremely, extremely unlikely to be true) about the universe. The universe is not a couple thousand years old. Literal creation did not take place. Does this exclude the possibility of a supreme creator? No. Does it mean that the bible is not true word for word? yes.
Science means that not all dreams can come true. (or in philosophy speak, science makes no positive claims about religion, it does make negative claims however.)
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I think that we should teach that the nature of an intelligent designer is, in itself, so complex that the universe's intelligent designer had to have an intelligent designer as well. And so did that one. And that one again. And so on. In fact, I think that every minute of every class should be spent saying, "and so that one had an intelligent designer, and so that one had an intelligent designer, and so..."
No more math, no more science, no more history; nothing. Just intelligent designers, all the way down (until, of course, you start bumping into the turtles...)
Oh, and StarLisa,
quote:If God had never interacted with people and if religions had never happened, I think scientists would all take intelligent design for granted.
Say what? To "take ID for granted" is to presume the existence of an intelligent designer, thus...religion.
Oh, and "God" never has interacted with people. I don't know where you get that idea from.
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: There is no example, anywhere, ever, of speciation. No such thing has ever been observed, either in the laboratory or in the wild.
Just in case you missed it from fugu's link, this is flat-out wrong. Speciation has been observed many times, both in the wild and in the lab.
quote:Originally posted by starLisa: To use the watch example again, if I find a watch laying in the street, postulating that it was made by someone, even though I know nothing about that someone, doesn't stop me from investigating the watch itself and learning from it.
Well, yes, maybe in an ideal world where IDers are reasonable. But in practice it wouldn't work that way, because every time you actually learn something about an organism, it looks less designed. Have you considered, for example, that the human eye is upside down, making it way less efficient than it could be? Designed, posisbly, intelligent, nonsense.
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quote:If a hypothesis is hold up under a large number of experiments which could disprove it, we name it a theory. If it holds up on a very large number of experiment which could disprove it we name it a law.
I wanted to take brief issue with this. I know it's the way many people, both lay and professional scientists, use the terms, but in using them that way they leave themselves open to the accusation that evolution is "just a theory," which is unfortunate.
A law describes a single, universal effect, like the law of gravity, and is often phrased (or can be phrased) in mathematical form. A theory explains how and why a set of actions and observations relate and connect. Theories do not become laws, though they use laws to support themselves.
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There is something of a historical issue here. Scientists these days rarely feel dogmatically certain enough to call something a Law with capital L, so theories no longer become Laws. However, they do have considerable respect for the old guys, so anything that was declared a Law in the nineteenth century is still considered one. Hence Newton's (disproved, or anyway refined) Law of Gravity is actually less accurate than Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: There is no example, anywhere, ever, of speciation. No such thing has ever been observed, either in the laboratory or in the wild.
Just in case you missed it from fugu's link, this is flat-out wrong. Speciation has been observed many times, both in the wild and in the lab.
Lisa never acknowledges links that prove her flat-out wrong, KoM. It's one of her more charming debating tactics.
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quote:"What you're talking about is an idealized concept of science."
Um, yes. And I thought the topic was whether Intelligent Design should be taught as a scientific theory in a curriculum of science. Surely an "idealized concept" of one thing is relevant when one is trying to determine if another thing qualifies as an example of the first.
quote:"Scientific establishments have a very bad track record when it comes to tolerating paradigm shifts."
Establishments, period, have such a track record. And the current debate absolutely reflects the fact that certain pockets of society have lagged much more seriously than has the scientific establishment, in tolerating the paradigm shift that is evolutionary theory (not to mention contental drift, geological time, etc.).
Face it, Intelligent Design is not a vanguard of the next bright thing, it is an empty throwback to ancient ideas promulgated by diehards. Presenting it as a new paradigm shift that science is too narrow-minded and cowardly to tolerate, is like criticizing the medical establishment for their callous resistance to the benefits of "bleeding out humors" for treatment of fever, PMS, hysteria, and indigestion.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by John Van Pelt: On the other hand, it is Intelligent Design that claims to provide the pat answer. It is Intelligent Design proponents who say, "don't try to apply the methods of science (i.e. asking questions) to this 'theory.'
Not at all. That's a misrepresentation. A strawman argument.
Not one question that I have ever conceived of, that if studied would represent pursuit of a scientific inquiry into Intelligent Design, its definition, history, dynamics, causes, purposes, examples, proofs, or counterproofs, have I ever seen referred to, much less answered, in ID literature or statements. The ID movement solely comprises tired arguments (like the pocket watch analogy) which attempt only to cast doubt on accepted science, and do nothing to argue for a Designer -- and much more to the point, do nothing to establish anything like a scientific framework for evaluating the question.
[Your reference to genetics and speciation is specious. Everything in genetics (theoretical, experimental, and descriptive) supports and is supported by supposed mechanisms in both macro- and micro-evolution, and even so revolutionary a discovery as DNA merely introduced refinements to evolutionary theory rather overturning it.]
[Today we observe species. In the fossil record we observe species (some different, some similar). What mechanisms can have caused this to be? Everything we know about genetics (along with other provable phenomena) satisfies, without recourse to un-provable phenomena.]
Absent that, I think one is left only with what you apparently favor (reading between the lines): changing the definition of science to include, rather than exclude, the acceptance of theories (hypotheses, etc.) for which no test can be formulated.
quote:"But since you didn't address it, can I ask your opinion of the view that intelligent design is a likelihood, and that it doesn't in the least exempt us from scientific inquiry in the fields of genetics, taxinomy, biology and so on?"
I think that anyone who holds the view that intelligent design is a likelihood is either operating on shallow and probably ignorant premises of what science is and what science says; or they are operating on faith.
I personally believe that virtually all of those in the first category are actually in the second category, and for some reason are reluctant to trumpet their religious or philosophical convictions. I find this disturbing. I read the start of enochville's KoM thread, and he makes a lovely statement of his personal faith right up front. The ID movement appears reluctant to do so.
What are so-called Intelligent Design proponents afraid of? I thought there was a resurgence of power and respect for religion in this country. Why not come out and say, "I believe there's a living, intelligent force in the universe, that is responsible for creation and for life."
And once one testifies to that, under what compulsion does one then attempt to insert the statement into science books? Why not engineering books, or medical books? Why not cookbooks?
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It was once believe that the perfect orbits of the planets testified of God. Each was a perfect mathematical circle. Newton, or perhaps one of his contemporaries, I forget, even worked on mathematical proofs linking the distances of the orbits of the planets with perfect geometric objects, further pointing to a grand designer.
Kepler discovered that the orbits of the planets were ellipses 50 years before Newton was born. Newton was fully aware the planets were ellipses and worked out the mathematical proofs for why they had to be.
I'm going through a phase of Newton hero worship and couldn't let that pass, sorry.
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Sorry for my ignorance, but is the reason why ID is not plausible is due to the existence of speciation and evolution in general
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No, its not plausible all on its lonesome, but those contribute as well. See my post in reply to yours, directly after yours, above.
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posted
Thanks for being patient with me fugu, just a couple of points. I was just wondering if you could give me some examples of order in nature out of randomness.
I wish to discuss the point where you explain that since God is so complex that He must have been created and thus is paradoxical. I am coming from a biased point of view, so please bear with me, but, does that point not define God’s nature. If He truly is an inifite, omniscient, and omnipotent being, does it not make sense that He exists through His own will. If He truly is an infintely omniscient and omnipotent being, and due to His infinite complexity, requires a creator himself, is that not paradoxical as well, saying that this infintely omnipotent and omniscient being depends on an even higher being. This would be paradoxical to the fact that He is omniscient and omnipotent in the first place.
Although the existence of God does require a fair amount of faith, let’s say you did believe that God was what religion and Scripture describes Him as, is it not a fair speculation that the only being that could create an infinitely complex material universe must be an infinitely complex being, be it God, or a Creator in general.
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quote: In one stunt that he has demonstrated in settings ranging from high school classrooms to television studios, the University of Toronto physicist loads clear plastic tubes with white table salt and black sand and starts them rotating. What transpires in the tubes usually knocks the socks off of any unsuspecting bystander. Instead of mixing into a drab gray sameness, the sand particles slowly separate into crisp black bands cutting across a long, narrow field of salt. As the spinning continues, some bands disappear and new ones arise.
posted
Wow. This is one of the most lucid discussions of the topic I have read in a long time. I wish you were all in my class this semester! I have had my students (first year college/non-majors) discuss (in an online forum) the topic as a group. I had them wait until they heard my lectures on the nature of scientific inquiry and evolution by natural selection. They were also responsible for outlining the ID position so that they had a solid foundation to address the question, "should teachers present ID in the science classroom." After going through the posts I was shocked to find that 87% of the posts were essentially "yes." Most of the reasons centered on the idea that teachers should present both sides of the argument or opposing theories and let the students decide for themselves.
Apparently I failed to acheive my goal of teaching them what science is and what can be accomlished with it. I would seem that I even blew it on educating them on what a theory is! My general education assessment forms will be poor, indeed.
When I asked the class about their responses and my apparent failure I often heard something like the following: "I understood what you were saying and will answer the exam questions the way you want, but you wanted to know what I thought and I think that ID makes more sense than evolution."
posted
I don't think that if God exists he's so complex he requires a creator; I think that if you argue the universe is so complex it scientifically requires a creator (the argument of Intelligent Design) then you must apply the same argument to the creator .
As for your application of logic to an infinite, omniscient, omnipotent being, I merely submit that if such a being were to exist, logic would be the last thing that would matter to it.
Some further points: the universe is not infinitely complex. We've got a pretty good idea as to its size, and already find it trivially easy to determine things which will never be calculated because the amount of calculation is beyond the scope of the size of the universe. The universe, while incredibly, wonderfully complex, is complex in a very finite way.
Also, there is of course the possibility that the universe has no creator. Just as you posit a God having no creator, the universe may have existed for all time (which still allows for a beginning, in a weird sense; time may be finite and unbounded; but there would still be no need for a creator). So no, it is not fair speculation that "the universe, therefore God", at least from a purely logical perspective. This is why you have faith .
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Babies (the matter/energy that makes them up/powers them was previously very disorganized).
Plants (they get energy from, among other places, the sun, and make some of it less random, which they use, at the expense of making more of it random).
For some examples on your own, try taking an egg carton, open so the holes are exposed, and lobbing ping pong balls at it. Most will bounce away, but eventually you'll fill it up. That's a very ordered little bit of the universe right there.
Or go make some soap bubbles. Despite all the random stuff going on with them, we always get some sort of ordered structure.
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posted
Thanks alot fugu. I’m kinda sorta seeing from your point of view. I have some more comments and questions but am too tired to continue. I’ll probably come up with something tomorrow for discussion. I just wanted to put out there before I turn in for the night that I dont’t believe evolution is contrary to the existence of God. I’ll explain why probably tomorrow. G’night!
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posted
The ironic thing about this whole intelligent design debate is that it seems to be up to religious groups to save science, or at least save scientific education, from excessive dogmatism. This is the reverse of how it normally goes.
Students need to learn that science is a method of evaluating different theories based on observations - not a set of dogma laid down by scientists. But the latter is the message when science refuses to even discuss the possibility of Intelligent Design as an alternate theory. If the scientific method itself becomes a set of rules that biases science against certain theories that fit the evidence in favor of other theories that fit the evidence no better, students will rightly conclude that science can't be trusted to give us accurate explanations of its data.
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posted
Then I await the day my "evolution is caused by an undetectable force from the purple flowers that grow on a planet two million light years away" theory is taught in your idea of a science classroom.
There's a notion called separability you might look into, Tres.
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Long time no see, man ('round these parts, anyway).
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