Posted by alexandra_k on September 6, 2005, at 17:34:15
In reply to Re: Evolutionary Theory and Creationism » alexandra_k, posted by messadivoce on September 6, 2005, at 14:24:36
> Alex, I'm not a biologist by any means. It would take me some time to go through your post and respond to different things, which I would be glad to do.
I'm not a biologist either... If philosophy doesn't work out for me then I think I am going to do biology though. I don't have a terribly good understanding of evolutionary theory... I have a better understanding of creationism... And what it takes to be a scientific theory...
> I just think that there should be mention of the fact that MANY people do not ascribe to Evolution, and that there is an Intelligent Design theory out there along with the Evolutionary theory.
But once again... Intelligent design theory is not a legitimate scientific alternative to evolutionary theory.
Evolution by natural selection is accepted by the scientific community as the best theory we have to predict / explain our observations of the world. And scientists are in the business of getting out there in the world and making systematic recordings of their observations of the world. The intelligent design hypothesis is accepted by a bunch of religious peoples who insist on a literal interpretation of their spiritual texts despite the fact that construed literally... what they are saying is either false or unflasifyable. Which is to say... That it is either a BAD scientific theory, or it is not properly one at all.
Compare the intelligent design hypothesis vs creationism to a case in the history of science where there is a genuine case of competition between theories:
Heat was thought to be a fluid (phlogiston) that could neither be destroyed nor created. Phlogiston was thought to flow from one object to another (e.g., from a fire into the room or from an element into water in the pot).
Compare that to modern chemical-atomic theory (Dalton) where heat is the vibration of molecules.
So here we have two rival (competing) theories of heat.
The crucial observation is as follows:It was observed that rubbing two things together produced heat. If heat is a substance that flows from one object to another (e.g., from a fire into a room) then it is an anomalous observation that heat can come from two objects that were initially cool. The phlogiston theory rules out this phenomena from occuring and the occurance of the phenomena shows the phlogiston theory to be false (or at the very least to require some substantial revision).
This observation served to falsify the heat-fluid theory. There were other observations too... Something to do with negative weights and things being burned...
That is something that is important (crucial) in scientific theorising... A theory must predict certain phenomena... It must rule out the occurance of other phenomena... Thats what gives it its predictive power... And there is always the possibility of an observation (such as the production of heat by friction) to show the theory to be false.
But the intelligent design hypothesis is unflasifyable...
1) How would the world be if there was an intelligent designer? (Just as it is now)
2) How would the world be if there was not an intelligent designer? (Just as it is now)
3) What possible observations could confirm the existence of an intelligent designer (There aren't any)
4) What possible observations could falsify the existence of an intelligent designer (There aren't any)Some people start to wonder if the hypothesis is even meaningful at this point...
The intelligent design hypothesis requires us to accept into our ontology one more kind of thing than we had before
God exists!
And what explanatory advantage does this extra entity provide for us?
Because God willed it so.
> I don't know how it is in other states or countries, but if a bio teacher here in CA were to merely mention the intelligent design theory here in CA, they would lose their job. Their instructions are to teach Evolution ONLY, and teach it as FACT. NO ROOM FOR OTHER POSSIBILITIES.
If they want to teach other possibilities they could teach the brain in a vat hypothesis (a modern varient on descates evil genius) ... Thats a good rival contender to pit against the intelligent design hypothesis because the very point to it is that there is no evidence that could count for or against... But once again this is philosophy not biology. And you can't go making everything compulsory...
Evolutionary theory is accepted by the scientific community comperable to how
Modern atomic theory is accepted by the scientific community which is comperable to how
Relativity is accepted by the scientific community.Thats not to say that all the details have been worked out.. There is still a lot of work to be done.
But at least these research projects are up off the ground.
Whereas 'because god willed it so' doesn't make for a terribly long thesis, article, book, or research project.
They seem to want to replace scientific inquirey with faithReplace observations of the natural world
With study of their spiritual texts
>You might find it interesting to read literature written by a Creationist scientist (they do exist! more than you think).Have done. Most creationist arguments rely on a misunderstanding of the nature of scientific theorising (especially regarding falsifiability). They also make much of the fact that the scientific explanations are still incomplete (the evolutionary theorists can't tell us how every characteristic evolved as yet - but the intelligent design hypothesis can - because god willed it so!). They make use of most every formal fallacy in the book (the 'only game in town fallacy' - you can explain everything by saying 'god willed it so' and evolutionary theory doesn't have much to say about some characterisics at present). They are most persuasive due to their use of rhetoric.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:551237
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050903/msgs/551476.html