View Single Post
Old 05-03-2006, 08:06 PM   #1 (permalink)
KnifeMissile
 
KnifeMissile's Avatar
 
Location: Waterloo, Ontario
Intelligent Design: A Misunderstanding of Science...

I was reading a few threads on this forum, particularly this one, about creationism and its place in the public education system, and I was surprised by the amount of controversy around it. I know, you probably think controversy around this subject is a no brainer and that I must be daft to be surprised by it but what I mean is that many of the people who participated in that thread seemed to be honestly confused as to why intelligent design shouldn't be taught with the other scientific theories in science class and it was this that I found surprising.

In my opinion, for many people, the source of this controversy is that they don't really know what science is. I was very tempted to post a full explanation, including the motivations behind the scientific method but, for brevity's sake, I will merely state points that directly relate to intelligent design. Specifically, I intend to list criteria for scientific theory and show how intelligent design fails to satisfy them and, thus, disqualifies itself as scientific.

One criteria for scientific theory is that it can be falsified. This means that we must be able to construct an experiment that can challenge the claim. This is to help ensure that scientific theories remain real.
Intelligent design cannot be disproved. No matter what experiment we construct, one can always say that the Designer meant for the outcome to turn out that way. There is nothing that we can do to potentially disprove the theory and is, therefore, by definition, not scientific.

Another criteria for scientific theory is that it have predictive value. That means that, in some capacity, one can predict the future with it. This helps ensure that scientific theories remain, in some sense, useful.
Intelligent design makes no predictions. It only says, after the fact, that things are the way they are because He designed them that way. The theory says nothing about how the Designer chooses His designs and is, therefore, by definition, not scientific.

So, if intelligent design is not science then why would you want it taught in science class? I think it's obvious that you wouldn't...

Sadly, many of the people in those threads are no longer active participants of this forum so they won't benefit from this post but my hope is that new members who are here, and the ones who have stayed, could learn something. Thank you for reading...
KnifeMissile is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360