Evidence for God from Science

Physics can wait

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The use by evolutionary biologists of so-called demarcation arguments—that is, arguments that purport to distinguish science from pseudoscience, metaphysics or religion—is both ironic and problematic from the point of view of philosophy of science. It is ironic because many of the demarcation criteria that have been used against non-naturalistic theories of origin can be deployed with equal warrant against strictly naturalistic evolutionary theories. Indeed, a corpus of literature now exists devoted to assessing whether neo-Darwinism, with its distinctively probabilistic and historical dimensions, is scientific when measured against various conceptions of science.9 Some have wondered whether the use of narrative explanation in evolutionary biology constitutes a departure from a strict reliance upon natural law. Others have asked whether neo-Darwinism is falsifiable, or whether it makes true or risky predictions. In 1974, Sir Karl Popper declared neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory “untestable” and classified it as a “metaphysical research programme.” While he later revised his judgment, he did so only after liberalizing his notion of falsifiability to allow the weaker notion of “falsifiability in principle” to count as a token of scientific status.

The use of demarcation arguments to settle the origins controversy is also problematic because the whole enterprise of demarcation has now fallen into disrepute. Attempts to locate methodological “invariants” that provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for distinguishing true science from pseudoscience have failed.10 Most philosophers of science now recognize that neither verifiability, nor testability (nor falsifiability), nor the use of lawlike explanation (nor any other criterion) can suffice to define scientific practice. As Laudan puts it, “If we could stand up on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like 'pseudo-science'…they do only emotive work for us.”11

Others have asked whether neo-Darwinism is falsifiable, or whether it makes true or risky predictions. In 1974, Sir Karl Popper declared neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory “untestable” and classified it as a “metaphysical research programme.” While he later revised his judgment, he did so only after liberalizing his notion of falsifiability to allow the weaker notion of “falsifiability in principle” to count as a token of scientific status.

The use of demarcation arguments to settle the origins controversy is also problematic because the whole enterprise of demarcation has now fallen into disrepute. Attempts to locate methodological “invariants” that provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for distinguishing true science from pseudoscience have failed.10 Most philosophers of science now recognize that neither verifiability, nor testability (nor falsifiability), nor the use of lawlike explanation (nor any other criterion) can suffice to define scientific practice. As Laudan puts it, “If we could stand up on the side of reason, we ought to drop terms like 'pseudo-science'…they do only emotive work for us.”11

The prevalence of unobservables in such fields raises difficulties for defenders of descent who would use observability criteria to disqualify design. Darwinists have long defended the apparently unfalsifiable nature of their theoretical claims by reminding critics that many of the creative processes to which they refer occur at rates too slow to observe. Further, the core historical commitment of evolutionary theory—that present species are related by common ancestry—has an epistemological character that is very similar to many present design theories. The transitional life forms that ostensibly occupy the nodes on Darwin's branching tree of life are unobservable, just as the postulated past activity of a Designer is unobservable.69 Transitional life forms are theoretical postulations that make possible evolutionary accounts of present biological data. An unobservable designing agent is, similarly, postulated to explain features of life such as its information content and irreducible complexity. Darwinian transitional, neo-Darwinian mutational events, punctuationalism's "rapid branching" events, the past action of a designing agent—none of these are directly observable. With respect to direct observability, each of these theoretical entities is equivalent.

Keep banging the same old drum.

Ok, well my question still has gone unanswered... does anyone else care to address the topic at hand?

And I am not trying to pick a fight here, but I would like to see what would happen if you told the mathematician/statistician who came up with that number, that an exceedingly small probability is impossible. An impossibility and a very very small probability are NOT equivalent! Anyone who knows anything about numbers knows that. It is not valid for anyone to use this fallacy in an argument, so I would hope that will stop sometime soon.

Cougar: I think KMart did answer your question:

AttentionKMartShoppers wrote:Thank you for misrepresenting irreducible complexity...it's not that a system evolving is unlikely, but in principle not possible. Also, I'm doing physics so I won't pull anything up, but I ask you...how is evolution falsifiable? Or testable? I mean, Karl Popper didn't consider evolution science until he changed his standards to "falsifiable in principle"

The part in bold is the part you should especially note.

And as to your original question, you are falsly equating the phiolsophy of science with the practice of science. The current philosophy is built around falsifiability, but that is a relatively new technique thought up by Anthony Flew, if I have my history right. And, as it turns out, he has conceded to Theism of some sort based exactly on ID!

But, the point is that people have been doing science long before Flew. There are a lot of reasons for rejecting his formulation . . . science is just what it says it is: a systematic study of the way the universe works. It's once we start getting into the interpretation of the facts we observe that things start to get hazy, but don't say something "isn't science" because you disagree with the philosophical method on which the interpretation is based. That's not bad science . . . that's just bad logic!

Cougar wrote:Could someone please explain to me the methodology of intelligent design and how, in fact, it is testable and falsifiable along the standards of modern science?

There is none proposed by the main ID proponents, since ID is only interested in methodologies of detecting true design. Such methodologies are involved in detecting intelligence behind archaeological artifacts, crime investigations (e.g., whether some intelligence was involved in the murder or it was accidental), and many other areas of science. The controversy happens when some apply similar methodologies to biology, obviously due to the naturalistic philosophical underpinnings which thoroughly pervade this area of science.

The question that mainstream ID proponents (who have no particular model they put forward) attempt to answer is the following: "If a biological system was designed, what would we expect to see?" Some say this question can't even be asked in biology, but I think those who say such a thing beg the question with their philosophical assumptions. Others such as Michael Behe, Dembski, Meyers, or what have you have focused their attention towards "information" content, to detect features such as "specified complexity" and "irreducible complexity" within biological information.

While no models are advocated within ID methods and practices, there are models that have been proposed by others. See Intelligent Design: Models

Kurieuo

Kurieuo,

Thank you for your explanation. I think that even some of the people that are "for" intelligent design on this forum do not understand a bit of it.

The idea of "if it were designed, what would we see?" completely makes sense. There are many observations we, as humans, can call upon to make comparison to in relation to supposed random occurrences. The number phi, for example, is a common ratio observed throughout the universe. Is this coincidence or evidence for intelligent design? I could not say, but it certainly is interesting.

So, you basically answered my question, in that ID methodology does not follow the scientific theory of observation, hypothesis, methods, results, discussion. That was specifically my point, that this would be fairly difficult to do. However, the methodology you described seems much more appropriate to me being that statistics, philosophy and mathematics are the foremost areas used to analyze the phenomenon. I do also think that the argument for intelligent design being prevalent in biological systems would be exceedingly difficult to have evidence for because these systems are extremely complex and we scientists can't even understand them currently. To speculate way outside of what little we already know would be career suicide, from a biologists' standpoint.

Again, thanks for the comments and viewpoints.

Cougar wrote:Thank you for your explanation. I think that even some of the people that are "for" intelligent design on this forum do not understand a bit of it.

I would agree there are many on both sides who do not understand ID. Christians often leap upon ID with their Christian presuppositions, or as a tool to further their Christian beliefs (as I believe was the case with those on the Dover school board). ID is also often confused with philosophical design arguments for God's existence such as Aquinas', although it is really something quite different especially since it is disinterested in who or what the intelligence is.

Surprising to most Christians is ID allows for common descent (e.g., Micahel Behe still appears to believe in this). Yet, IDists do question whether Darwin had the mechanism right due to the complexities they see on the biochemical level (something previously unknown Darwin). These complexities within a biological system have been termed "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity" and I think critics often criticise before really understanding what they mean, or having read any books by the authors who created them (Michael Behe and William Dembski respectively). Now given that there is no other "true" natural contender for an evolutionary mechanism besides the gradualistic Darwinian evolution (at least this appears to be a majority consensus), IDists believe they are in their rational and epistemological right in believing intelligence was involved in bringing systems which exhibit "irreducible complexity" and "specified complexity".

Cougar wrote:The idea of "if it were designed, what would we see?" completely makes sense. There are many observations we, as humans, can call upon to make comparison to in relation to supposed random occurrences. The number phi, for example, is a common ratio observed throughout the universe. Is this coincidence or evidence for intelligent design? I could not say, but it certainly is interesting.

I suppose that may come under something like the order we see within the universe. Yours seems more of a philosophical argument for God's existence though. As written at ARN: "[ID] simply claims "that intelligent causes are necessary to explain the complex, information-rich structures of biology and that these causes are empirically detectable." (http://www.arn.org/idfaq/What%20is%20in ... design.htm) In this sense, ID is more practical in its methodologies than perhaps the "feelings of design" in Pi or also Phi which depend upon ones own subjective judgement. That is, ID methodologies can be applied to detect whether complex and information-rich structures exist in biology, and this is the part of it which touches upon science and which causes so much controversy.

Cougar wrote:So, you basically answered my question, in that ID methodology does not follow the scientific theory of observation, hypothesis, methods, results, discussion.

I'd say in order to test whether a system is "irreducibly complex", such a system needs to be observed, how it works mapped out, hypothesis' of how the system could have arisen tested (hence the importance of professional discussions and critique), and the like. Some of this is what Michael Behe attempts to do through his book Darwin's Black Box by which he intended to raise a lot of discussion (a book I'd really recommend reading before criticising as many appear to do). Thus ID methodologies appear to be very scientific in practice. Whether one is wrong to ask the question, "if it were designed, what would we see?" to begin with (which is why many dismiss ID as unscientific for science only looks "apparently" for natural explanations), well that perhaps comes down to more a philosophical debate rather than a scientific one.

Kurieuo

Cougar wrote:I would like to see what would happen if you told the mathematician/statistician who came up with that number, that an exceedingly small probability is impossible. An impossibility and a very very small probability are NOT equivalent!

This topic has come up elsewhere and some, such as Mystical, maintain that they are indeed equivalent. Aa118816 kindly provided a reference to Borel's Law. [E'mile Borel was indeed a reputable mathematician.] In "Probabilities and Life", a book for the layperson, he does write (in an edition translated from the French) "the single law of chance" ... "[e]vents with a sufficiently small probability never occur; or at least, we must act, in all circumstances, as if they were impossible." And "uch is the sort of event which, though its impossibility may not be rationally demonstrable, is, however, so unlikely that no sensible person will hesitate to declare it actually impossible."
Although it is clear that Borel does not mean literally impossible, some people have taken his writings that way. The numbers he gives depend on the scale; the "impossibility limit" for a probability is larger for something occurring in one's lifetime than for some event occurring in the lifetime of the universe.

Kurieuo wrote:There is none [scientific method] proposed by the main ID proponents

I accept that you are more involved with intelligent design than I am, but it seems to me that it follows the scientific method fairly well. IT is just a matter of where in that method they are.

IT seems to me that the proponents of intelligent design must have through direct observations found evolution to be lacking and began to formulate a hypothesis that all things are designed. Your comments suggest that Intelligent design is currently working on what predictions it can make based on that hypothesis.

Intellignet design is an infant, so it is not unreasonalbe to think they are still in the process of development.

So we have

Observations contrary to evolution

Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the observations (irreducible complexity, genetic stability and lack of speciation, etc etc (whatever they may be)).

Development of predictions. (What should we find if organisms are designed)

I see a clear methodology, that is as yet incomplete. I would assume intelligent design will at some point begin to test to see if what it predicts will be found in designed organisms is in fact present in them.

To a casual viewer of intelligent design it appears to more strictly follow the scientific method than evolution (to not so casual viewer) does. Whereas Intelligent design makes predictions based on direct current observations, evolution must explain by hidden unseen processes why there have been in the past observations that run contrary to recorded history. So evolution is using imagintation and unsubstantiated fairy tales as part of their methodology.

So evolution is using imagintation and unsubstantiated fairy tales as part of there methodology.

Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Rom 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Acts 26:18 . . . open their eyes, and . . turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Jbuza wrote:

Kurieuo wrote:There is none [scientific method] proposed by the main ID proponents

I accept that you are more involved with intelligent design than I am, but it seems to me that it follows the scientific method fairly well. IT is just a matter of where in that method they are.

I can see I should have been clearer. I was meaning there is no real "origins" model (which I understood Cougar meant by "methodologies") proposed by mainstream ID theory which make it testable or falsifiable. In this sense, ID theory is limited to being more a tool of scientific inquiry, rather than a fully testable model or theory comparible to that of Darwinian evolution, or even YEC.

I believe the Discovery Institute also see this, and they do not want ID taught in science classes for they believe it will be taught wrongly since people do not understand it (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB ... ew&id=2847). As ID leaves open this blank, they are further frustrated by others taking their own liberty to fill in the blank with their own beliefs. As John West (a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute) said: "The [Dover] school district never consulted us and did the exact opposite of what we suggested... Frankly I don't even know if school board members know what intelligent design is. They and their supporters are trying to hijack intelligent design for their own purposes. They think they're sending signals in the culture wars." (http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/more.html)

The reason there is so much confusion over ID and Creationism is because ID refuse to name "the Designer". They refuse to step into the philosophical or theological arena of saying who the designer is since to answer such a question would would mean ID may no longer be strictly Science (and certainly would have no hope of being accepted as such today). Thus, they focus on the methodologies of ID to detect whether a biological system is designed by carrying out observations, testings and what have you within biological systems such as the bacterial flagellum or blood clotting system. Once they observe such systems appear designed... that is where it ends.

Now what we have in religion, other people, and organisations are models which fill in the blank ID leaves open. For example, as a Christian, I'm very sympathetic to RTB's creation model, that the God of the Bible is the designer. This conclusion however should perhaps be kept to philosophy or religion classes if there is to be a strict category split between all the truth inquiry sciences.

Kurieuo

Cougar wrote:Could someone please explain to me the methodology of intelligent design and how, in fact, it is testable and falsifiable along the standards of modern science? I have seen many claims to this argument but no evidence to back it up. All I have ever seen are arguments claiming that a particular system, for instance, is extremely unlikely to have occurred naturally... anyway, if someone could explain these scientific methods in more detail I would like to hear it.

That's what the ID proponents seem to keep missing. They stop their science at the mere statement that "it is testable" but never actually describe any tests. The skinny is it is not testable. The closest I've ever heard an ID proponent come to testing is listing problems with the Theory of Evolution. As if problems with one theory justify something, anything else.

Its actually quite laughable.

Hey Everyone!

I'll throw a sample test. Take something that ID says is too complex to have happened through a random process like evolution and explain how it could have happened without intelligence. Take a single cell for example. If you can come up with an unintelligent cause for a single living cell, you will have largely disproven ID. The scientific method would say that you have to create an environment where a single cell is actually created by random chance. That would be hard to do though since even if you succeeded ID proponents would say that you as an intelligent being inherently brought intelligence into the environment you created. But I'm making it easy for you. I'm not asking you to disprove anything. I'm just asking you to come up with an alternative theory. Would everyone agree that this is fair 'test'?

Wall-dog wrote:Hey Everyone!

I'll throw a sample test. Take something that ID says is too complex to have happened through a random process like evolution and explain how it could have happened without intelligence. Take a single cell for example. If you can come up with an unintelligent cause for a single living cell, you will have largely disproven ID. The scientific method would say that you have to create an environment where a single cell is actually created by random chance. That would be hard to do though since even if you succeeded ID proponents would say that you as an intelligent being inherently brought intelligence into the environment you created. But I'm making it easy for you. I'm not asking you to disprove anything. I'm just asking you to come up with an alternative theory. Would everyone agree that this is fair 'test'?

NO.

The topic is "The Scientific Method of ID" show us a test of ID. If it is a science show us a test of ID. Lack of abiility of one theory is not a test of ID.


Why do ID proponents keep missing this ?????

Your not fooling anyone.

jleslie48 wrote:

Wall-dog wrote:Hey Everyone!

I'll throw a sample test. Take something that ID says is too complex to have happened through a random process like evolution and explain how it could have happened without intelligence. Take a single cell for example. If you can come up with an unintelligent cause for a single living cell, you will have largely disproven ID. The scientific method would say that you have to create an environment where a single cell is actually created by random chance. That would be hard to do though since even if you succeeded ID proponents would say that you as an intelligent being inherently brought intelligence into the environment you created. But I'm making it easy for you. I'm not asking you to disprove anything. I'm just asking you to come up with an alternative theory. Would everyone agree that this is fair 'test'?

NO.

The topic is "The Scientific Method of ID" show us a test of ID. If it is a science show us a test of ID. Lack of abiility of one theory is not a test of ID.


Why do ID proponents keep missing this ?????

Your not fooling anyone.

It's called inference to the best explanation-genius.

And what would be a test for evolution, genius? You make these demands of ID that not even evolution can give! So what is with you? Love is blind?