Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Taltos
The top quoted section is really more on the topic I am interested in. How would you go about trying to apply the scientific method to intelligent design, if we start out with the premise that there are people who want to do this. If it truly cannot be proven, the science classrooms and thinktanks of the world seem the most apt places to reveal this, and I don't see why, as a hypothesis, it should not be submitted, evaluated, and analyzed under scientific scrutiny and skepticism. To "work on it", rather than outright dismissing it because you find it offensive to your beliefs.
|
This has nothing to do with my beliefs. The reason that ID gets dismissed out of hand by pretty much every respectable scientific institute is because it's not something that the scientific method can be applied to.
Evolution can be falsified. All it would take to discredit the evolutionary theory is a single fossil out of place; one modern creature in the cretaceous period and the whole thing is junk. Further, tests can be devised to test the specific aspects of evolution, such as mutation, speciation or gene flow. Empirical evidence suggests these underlying principles, but any one of them may be supported or discredited by quantitative testing.
For the record, I have absolutely no objection to your beliefs. I may not agree with them, but I don't take issue with the fact that you do. What I do object to is calling a faith based opinion science. Intelligent design is not falsifiable. This is not an assumption, it is a fact. There is no evidence supporting intelligent design that cannot be explained by an existing theory, which means that there's nothing to test. Furthermore, intelligent design violates the principle of parsimony. While this is more of a guideline and not actual law (hence it's called the principle of parsimony and not the law of parsimony), it's used frequently because it does contain a grain of truth.
I don't know what else to say. If you can refute me, if you can think of a way to test intelligent design in a scientific fashion, feel free to let me know.
EDIT -
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by willravel
-people are too complex to be an 'accident'
-the earth is too perfectly designed for people
|
Being generally of a friendlier disposition than willravel, I will take a moment to point out that both of these supporting claims are opinions and not facts. If they were facts than there'd be no room to disagree, which I do. I don't think that humans are too complex to have come about by accident at all; the very fact that I can argue that points makes it a hypothesis at best, and it's very poor scientific practice to attempt to support one hypothesis with another hypothesis. Further, I'd argue that the second point really supports evolution more than it does intelligent design. If the earth is too well tailored for us, then wouldn't it hold that it's more likely that we've adapted ourselves to be well tailored to the earth?