The Scientific Method of ID

Tash · Post by **Tash** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 8:16 pm

For a while now, i have wanted to see both ID and Evolution from an even standpoint, and i have found out how.

every scientific theory can be considered equal, because every scientific theory must use method. And when considering the method that an individual theory uses, and comparing it to an opposing theories method. we can see which has more or less scientific method.

Karl Popper, a philosopher of science in the twentieth century viewed that any form of science, or human knowlege for that matter, does not progress by theories being proved, but by theories being proved wrong.

This method of falsificationisim is present in every scientific theory. When developing a scientific Method, as all of you reading now will know, you must look at the observations made, in the case of evolution, fossil records, Rock Strata, according to the geological time scale ect, and form the theory, which makes predictions, such as when certain animals lived, catergorising past animals into the modern kingdoms and families. and testing the theory, to ensure that it fits all the predictions.

This scientific method works, it is an underlying foundation to all knowlege and science.

and when we coinsider the method of ID, we see its only flaw, the fact that there is no way to Test ID, or to prove it incorrect. That whenever something comes up to question it, ID scientists add to the theory not allowing anything to prove it incorrect. should one human thighbone be found in the belly of some large fossilised dinosaur, that would prove evolution wrong. but every time we dig up animals from that time perion millions of years ago, there are none. which strengthens the evolution theory.

ID does not make predictions, It will never be found incorrect because it is engineered to be untestable and unquestionable. it doesnt have the beauty and elegance of e=mc^2 and unless the method of ID changes, the only beautiful thing about it will be its relationship to god.

In conclusion, the lack of correct scientific foundation in its method, shows why ID is not science- YET. it has the ability to be a well thought out strong, and convincing theory, worthy of the immortalisation of law, but until then. I have to say, it has no scientific merit.

AttentionKMartShoppers · Sun Dec 25, 2005 8:59 pm

You know, it's interesting...your scathing attack on ID seems to be an edited version of a scathing attack on evolution...replace ID with evolution, and the statements are true

and when we coinsider the method of EVOLUTION, we see its only flaw, the fact that there is no way to Test EVOLUTION, or to prove it incorrect. That whenever something comes up to question it, EVOLUTION scientists add to the theory not allowing anything to prove it incorrect. should one human thighbone be found in the belly of some large fossilised dinosaur, that would prove evolution wrong. but every time we dig up animals from that time perion millions of years ago, there are none. which strengthens the evolution theory. (this is just false I must say, it wouldn't...it'd just change the timeline of evolution...)

EVOLUTION does not make predictions, It will never be found incorrect because it is engineered to be untestable and unquestionable. it doesnt have the beauty and elegance of e=mc^2 and unless the method of EVOLUTION changes, the only beautiful thing about it will be its relationship to god.

In conclusion, the lack of correct scientific foundation in its method, shows why EVOLUTION is not science- YET. it has the ability to be a well thought out strong, and convincing theory, worthy of the immortalisation of law, but until then. I have to say, it has no scientific merit.

Don't declare your open-mindnessness and then lie about ID. ID is testable, it is falsifiable, and it does make predictions. On the other hand, as I noted...evolution seems to fail on all three counts, though.

AttentionKMartShoppers · Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:05 pm

You seem to get writing tips from Michael Moore and that short liberal Jew, Al Sharpton I believe.

Jbuza · Post by **Jbuza** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:19 pm

Every time I hear that the natural world, physics, mechanical inventions, increase in knowledge, and every other good thing ever devised by man is dependant on wide spread acceptance of evolution I wonder if man's reason has left him altogether.

Has society become so Facist that one must now only theorize from within the party line of science. If one doesn't accept what they are told by science than they are all to often deemed misguided or simple minded. I mean after all if all the high and mighty know what truth is, how dare anyone even consider within there own minds that science is wrong.

The scientific proces, as far as I am concerned is an abstract that isn't seen in any science today. It is not possible to say there is no God and for it to be a reasonable or logical statement. It isn't either logical or reasonable to totally divorce science from God. I ask what will allowing the possibility of God into science and promoting free thought do to the scientific method and the careful application of logic and reason?

Science, so called, should be interested in discovering truth, and it shouldn't matter what a man uses for inspriation to divise a hypothetical statement, or to imagine any new application of man's creative abilities.

Evolution is laughable if it presupposes a geological time frame in every one of its hypotheticals. There are problems within science if it presupposes no God in every one of its hypotheticals. What difference does it make, if one can divise a disprovable hypothesis if it is on faulty assumptions it will lack evidence or be disproved.

I ramble. I think you are confusing scientific method and observations. You seem to be claiming the very existence of fossils as a part of the method of evolution, you are claiming the very layers of crust as method of evolution. I can assure you that rock strata, and fossile exist in the actual world, and not just within the one propossed by evolution.

All ideas should be on an equal footing with respect to investigation by the scientific method. Some will have more evidence than others, some will be more convincing than others, and well constructed hypothesis should disprove false ideas.

I urge you not to accept the party line of science simply because of the authoritative nature of science. Careful application of logic and reason should lead you to realize that a science divorced from the possibility of God is going to be skewed and suspect.

The method used and the observations are in total identical amongst different theories. The only difference between evolution and ID as I understand them, is that the observable world is explained differently depending upon which theory you are investigating from. Dont be scared of looking at the problem from 14 different angles and try to discover the truth.

Tash · Post by **Tash** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:21 pm

what happens when a discrepency is found in the fossil record, something as small as a human pinky toe found lodged in the mouth of a t rex can prove Evolution incorrect,

as you agree

but as we are continualy digging up fossils, no such anomoly is occuring, as it should, if ID is correct, millions would not have been warned about the impending doom by water, there should be plenty of human fossils alongside those of the dinosaurs. ( such a thing happening would prove evolution wrong, we would not be able to correct the fossil record accurately, due to lack of evidence, but we dont have to worry about that, because evolution has correctly predicted that we WONT find any human fossils more than 1 million years old)

this is Karl poppers explination of the process of scientific theory, and growth of human knowledge taken from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/#Grow

(a) The first is formal, a testing of the internal consistency of the theoretical system to see if it involves any contradictions.

(b) The second step is semi-formal, the axiomatising of the theory to distinguish between its empirical and its logical elements. In performing this step the scientist makes the logical form of the theory explicit. Failure to do this can lead to category-mistakes - the scientist ends up asking the wrong questions, and searches for empirical data where none are available. Most scientific theories contain analytic (i.e. a priori) and synthetic elements, and it is necessary to axiomatise them in order to distinguish the two clearly.

(c) The third step is the comparing of the new theory with existing ones to determine whether it constitutes an advance upon them. If it does not constitute such an advance, it will not be adopted. If, on the other hand, its explanatory success matches that of the existing theories, and additionally, it explains some hitherto anomalous phenomenon, or solves some hitherto unsolvable problems, it will be deemed to constitute an advance upon the existing theories, and will be adopted. Thus science involves theoretical progress. However, Popper stresses that we ascertain whether one theory is better than another by deductively testing both theories, rather than by induction. For this reason, he argues that a theory is deemed to be better than another if (while unfalsified) it has greater empirical content, and therefore greater predictive power than its rival. The classic illustration of this in physics was the replacement of Newton's theory of universal gravitation by Einstein's theory of relativity. This elucidates the nature of science as Popper sees it: at any given time there will be a number of conflicting theories or conjectures, some of which will explain more than others. The latter will consequently be provisionally adopted. In short, for Popper any theory X is better than a 'rival' theory Y if X has greater empirical content, and hence greater predictive power, than Y.

(d) The fourth and final step is the testing of a theory by the empirical application of the conclusions derived from it. If such conclusions are shown to be true, the theory is corroborated (but never verified). If the conclusion is shown to be false, then this is taken as a signal that the theory cannot be completely correct (logically the theory is falsified), and the scientist begins his quest for a better theory. He does not, however, abandon the present theory until such time as he has a better one to substitute for it. More precisely, the method of theory-testing is as follows: certain singular propositions are deduced from the new theory - these are predictions, and of special interest are those predictions which are 'risky' (in the sense of being intuitively implausible or of being startlingly novel) and experimentally testable. From amongst the latter the scientist next selects those which are not derivable from the current or existing theory - of particular importance are those which contradict the current or existing theory. He then seeks a decision as regards these and other derived statements by comparing them with the results of practical applications and experimentation. If the new predictions are borne out, then the new theory is corroborated (and the old one falsified), and is adopted as a working hypothesis. If the predictions are not borne out, then they falsify the theory from which they are derived. Thus Popper retains an element of empiricism: for him scientific method does involve making an appeal to experience. But unlike traditional empiricists, Popper holds that experience cannot determine theory (i.e. we do not argue or infer from observation to theory), it rather delimits it: it shows which theories are false, not which theories are true. Moreover, Popper also rejects the empiricist doctrine that empirical observations are, or can be, infallible, in view of the fact that they are themselves theory-laden.

this is what BOTH evolution and ID have to be able to acomplish

Jbuza · Post by **Jbuza** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:28 pm

Tash wrote:what happens when a discrepency is found in the fossil record, something as small as a human pinky toe found lodged in the mouth of a t rex can prove Evolution incorrect,

What do you mean when a discrepency is found? If you do not realize that their are numerous problems with geological time, numerous "anomolies" with respect to unifrom geology, and many problems with a fossil record tied to that assumed time, than you are either ill informed, or not acutally sincere in discovering knowledge.

Evolution is an abstract and many want to believe that it is true, so it will exist in best explanation of all the observations, so I don't really think it is a "disprovable" hypothesis.

If you have your mind made up that evolution is the bright and holy truth, than it matters little that these anomolies and hoaxes have accoured in great number, or that there is an appaling lack of evidence. IF you choose to believe evolution happened, instead of the creation God said he made, than you will explain everything as best you can from that false theory.

AttentionKMartShoppers · Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:35 pm

Things could get fun. I can do this Rush Limbaugh style...

what happens when a discrepency is found in the fossil record, something as small as a human pinky toe found lodged in the mouth of a t rex can prove Evolution incorrect,

as you agree

but as we are continualy digging up fossils, no such anomoly is occuring, as it should, if ID is correct, millions would not have been warned about the impending doom by water, there should be plenty of human fossils alongside those of the dinosaurs. ( such a thing happening would prove evolution wrong, we would not be able to correct the fossil record accurately, due to lack of evidence, but we dont have to worry about that, because evolution has correctly predicted that we WONT find any human fossils more than 1 million years old)

What are you saying here? You seem to be mixing two separate things together, ID and YEC, which is rather dishonest of you to do. And, as I said, if a pinky were found 1 BILLION years old for all I care, the entire timeline would just be redone.

Also, what you forget to notice, is that there are several large problems with the fossil record. First one is the Cambrian Explosion. Second one is sudden appearance and statis (which goes beyond the Cambrian Explosion), third you have top down design instead of bottom up design.

And, with Popper's explanation...so what? You haven't explained how ID fails at this (which you just dogmatically claim without feeling the need to dogmatically defend it).

Or how evolution doesn't fail Popper's requirements.

Tash · Post by **Tash** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:43 pm

there are even more with ID, adding up the ages of everyone in the bible to discover the age of the universe explaining that god wants us to beleive the universe is alot older by making it only appear as if it is 15 billion years old, if god wants you to beleive that, why dont you? he must have a reason for it. and all the while us atheists are going along, thinking what god wants us to.

AttentionKMartShoppers · Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:50 pm

Tash wrote:there are even more with ID, adding up the ages of everyone in the bible to discover the age of the universe explaining that god wants us to beleive the universe is alot older by making it only appear as if it is 15 billion years old, if god wants you to beleive that, why dont you? he must have a reason for it. and all the while us atheists are going along, thinking what god wants us to.

Get over the fact that 1) ID is not creationism, and 2) the geneology is not complete, meaning I don't have to for any reason believe that the universe is 6000 years old or anything like that. Get your facts straight, PLEASE. That, and stop presumming the existence of God if you're an atheist

Jbuza · Post by **Jbuza** » Sun Dec 25, 2005 9:52 pm

Tash wrote:there are even more with ID, adding up the ages of everyone in the bible to discover the age of the universe explaining that god wants us to beleive the universe is alot older by making it only appear as if it is 15 billion years old, if god wants you to beleive that, why dont you? he must have a reason for it. and all the while us atheists are going along, thinking what god wants us to.

The earth appears young and new, can't wait till spring. Science cannot establish as fact that the earth is 15 billion years old, which by the way is a new one on me. Evolution does have a history pf creating mroe and more unevidenced back story to go with observations, so I guess it is reasonalbe that the earth has aged billions of years in the last 250 years. Give it 10 more years and everyone may be convinced tha the earth is simply eternal to avoid hard questions.

AttentionKMartShoppers · Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:39 am

Tash, I find it exceedingly amusing that you use Popper to attack ID...it's quite ironic...

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.

Kurieuo · Post by **Kurieuo** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 2:05 am

Tash wrote:there are even more with ID, adding up the ages of everyone in the bible to discover the age of the universe explaining that god wants us to beleive the universe is alot older by making it only appear as if it is 15 billion years old, if god wants you to beleive that, why dont you? he must have a reason for it. and all the while us atheists are going along, thinking what god wants us to.

"The scientific theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Note: Intelligent design theory does NOT claim that science can determine the identity of the intelligent cause. Nor does it claim that the intelligent cause must be a “divine being” or a “higher power” or an “all-powerful force.” All it proposes is that science can identify whether certain features of the natural world are the products of intelligence." (http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB ... ew&id=2348)

Please read up properly on ID. As KMart said, ID is not Creationism and has no bearing on Scripture, and as I've said to others, I won't have misinformation which I consider intentionally false or blindly accepted propaganda spread here.

For a better understanding of ID I'd recommend reading the pages at http://www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php and http://www.arn.org/id_faq.htm.

Thanks,
Kurieuo

Cougar · Post by **Cougar** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:33 pm

Jbuza,

I think you may be arguing the wrong subject; evolutionary theory says nothing about the age of the earth. That is a topic that should be taken up with astronomers and cosmologists. So, if opponents to ID need to read up more on ID to accurately argue and debate, I feel the same should go for opponents to evolution. Fair enough?

Cougar · Post by **Cougar** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 2:45 pm

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.

AttentionKMartShoppers · Sun Jan 22, 2006 2:53 pm

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"