Shoe on Nov-19-2005 at 01:34 AM RST @ 24.180.72.198 What I want to talk about is intelligent design.
At its core, intelligent design simply says that the planet hasn't been around enough to account for the complexity of life observed. That random mutation followed by natural selection over 3 to 3.5 billion years is insufficient to account for the complexity of life.
Interestingly enough, this is a question that can be addressed in a scientific manner. Statistical analysis of how we believe mutation and natural selection function would provide a reasoned and critical assessment of intelligent design's central hypothesis.
Yet I don't see that statistical analysis and scientific thinking happening. Instead I see vitrolic personal attacks on the intelligent design advocates who are advancing what is, at its heart, a scientific question. That, more than anything, confirms in my mind that for many people, evolution is not a science - it is a religous belief.
Let me repeat that - EVOLUTION is the religous belief.
And I say that as an agnostic. If I had to bet today, I'd come down on the side of evolution. But I don't worship at the altar of evolution.
4 comments:
Heya Shoe, thanks for the Pemmican info, somehow I don't think I'll be making that though!
I have to disagree with you on your evolution as religion post.
Intelligent Design is nothing more than the wolf of creationism trying on the sheep's clothing of science. They are trying to use the language of science without using the rigorous proofs that it requires. A classic example of what Richard Feynmann called "Cargo Cult" science.
You say that we could use scientific methods to test the validity of the ideas espoused by ID but that would be pointless because they
A) Offer no disprovable hypotheses.
B) Would not accept the validity of the tests.
C) Would offer contradictory and misleading information to skew the tests to their desired results or make the tests seem ineffective.
It is what proponents of creationism have always done and always will do. They have no regard for the scientific method and are simply using the guise of science to promote their theology.
Look again at what you've said in your comment, and tell what part of it is a scientific rebuttal of ID? It is entirely an ad hominen attack on ID's proponents.
There is an underlying scientific question that lies on the dividing line between evolution and ID that can be addressed scientifically, to wit:
"Statistically, can the complexity observed in living organisms be accounted for by the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection over the period of time we think they have operated?"
If the answer to that question is "yes", then the major scientific objection ID proponents have to evolution is invalid. But if the answer to that question is "no", then the theory of evolution has its own problems.
You said "what part of it is a scientific rebuttal of ID?"
To which I respond that you can have no scientific rebuttal of Creationism because they do not offer a disprovable hypothesis. To rely on the supernatural as your explanation removes the question from the realm of science.
In regard to your scientific question about whether evolution has had enough time to create the complexity found in nature, the answer, obviously, must be yes.
The most important part of the scientific method is attempting to find the flaws in your own arguments and presenting them along with the things that support your construct. Surely somewhere between Darwin and now this question has been addressed and found to be possible.
I do not claim that evolution or 'descent with modification' is without flaw. But it is the best answer that we have to fit the data that we have. It does not make spectacular claims without the physical evidence to support them. Intelligent design does.
In regard to your scientific question about whether evolution has had enough time to create the complexity found in nature, the answer, obviously, must be yes.
That answer is obviously yes - because here we are? Don't you see that for the tautological argument that it is?
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