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Old 12-20-2005, 02:55 PM   #3 (permalink)
rsl12
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A bit more--the ruling contains, starting on page 64, a discussion of whether ID is or isn't science. The ruling is that ID is not science, because it fails three criteria, any of which would be sufficient to mark its doom: "(1)
ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting
supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community"

I'm still reading through, but I think the 1st argument is flawed. I'll quote some of it.


Quote:
Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena. This revolution entailed the rejection of the appeal to authority, and by extension, revelation, in favor of empirical evidence. (5:28 (Pennock)). Since that time period, science has been a discipline in which testability, rather than any ecclesiastical authority or philosophical coherence, has been the measure of a scientific idea’s worth. (9:21-22 (Haught); 1:63 (Miller)). In deliberately omitting theological or “ultimate” explanations for the existence or characteristics of the natural world, science does not consider issues of “meaning” and “purpose” in the world. While supernatural explanations may
be important and have merit, they are not part of science...Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based
upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.
This may have been a good definition in the 16th and 17th centuries, but I don't think it's a good one today. What was meant by "looking for 'natural' explanations" is looking for explanations that didn't involve invoking the words 'because God...'. Back when science stood in such stark contrast to religious authority, making this distinction was probably very important. But these days, I don't think it's really a suitable description of science. A much better definition comes from the ruling:

Quote:
{The National Academy of Science} is in agreement that science is
limited to empirical, observable and ultimately testable data: “Science is a particular way of knowing about the world. In science, explanations are restricted to those that can be inferred from the confirmable data – the results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based upon empirical evidence are not part of science.”
I think this is a much better definition. It's not that science actively avoids explanation involving God--it's that science is only looking at theories that are potentially confirmable through observation. The judge seems to get confused in the distinction between these two points--he equates 'natural' with 'testable' and 'supernatural' with 'untestable.'
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Last edited by rsl12; 12-20-2005 at 03:02 PM..
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