quote:

Originally posted by Bravus:
Hasa is right about Popper's criterion for what is and isn't science. Intelligent Design is not at all science under that definition, because its key idea is a hand-wave. "Here's all this complexity, and we can't think of any other explanation, so someone musta done it." That's not testable. And that's the 'hard core' (in Lakatos' terms) of the research program. There are various empirical matters around the edges that are testable, and as kl has said, the tests on these are coming back negative for ID as well, but I'd still feel comfortable claiming that the program as a whole is not science.

I know people who have no truck with Popper's *theory* of science. Newton got along swell without him.

And I think we're having a semantic tiff about 'science'. An idea, a theorum, a hypothesis, a postulate, all them good little building blocks of scientific method, were used to show that ID so far has (*ahem* CAPS ALERT) FAILED TO MAKE GOOD ON ANY ONE OF ITS PREDICTIONS.

Science isn't relativity or evolution or genetics: science is a method. ID has failed itself, but it has done so SCIENTIFICALLY.

It is a failed theory. ONe of the blessed wondrous reliabilities of science is that it is virtually dogma free. (It accepts as dogma only very basic axioms of logic, like those in computer logic gates.)

So, new discoveries tomorrow COULD throw relativity out the wormhole window and smash in deep inside its own blackhole. This is because relativity isn't scientifically valid because scientists say so; it is valid because the agreed upon methods, used to validate or disqualify a theory from the accepted running pack of reliable truths, have upheld its tenets.

ID has upheld the tenets of science. BY failing to prove its predictions reliably. Sure, it's got the turtles, turtles, turtles all the way down stated upfront as its current premise, which premise is still, after all these years: IF someday we find a level of irreducible complexity that yields not to any other scientific explanation, THEN, Design by Intelligence will be the most likely explanation in existence.

At such time, that is. For scientific modeling (theorizing, gedankening) will then begin to invent new models of explanation, one of which might eventually show a way where design by intelligence is no longer the most likely explanation.

Kenmeer's Summary: a theory based on scientific thinking is *still* a scientific theory even after it has repeatedly failed to be a (...wait for it...) SUCCESSFUL scientific theory.

As Popper and others have noted, failure is the chief product of science. Success is its rare product. It kicks all other predictive models' asses, though, in its reliability. YOu know, 'Elementary, dear Watson. remove the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.'

Currently, the truth is NOT ID. But it is STILL perfectly scientifically possible for ID to suddenly become the only explanation available, however improbable it seemed. Indeed, the ID faithful (and currently they run on faith, obviously, and not on good swcientific reasoning, which is what I think a lot of people mean when they say that ID is not scientific; they really refer to ID-ers, not ID) seem to be hloping for some level of irreducible complexity to be reached much as quantum-level physics have, for some time, been the threshold for current ignorance and magical-type thinking regarding known natural laws.

But, I repeat: IF such a point is reached, they will only be correct a) for as long as no better explanation can be found and b) will be in this enviable position only because for so long, scientific success didn't support theorizing outside the mainstream theories that work (the evolution spectrum of life theories).

ANother reason I so defend ID's right to call itself scientific (even as I laugh at it as very UNsuccessful science, a theory about as valid today as phlogiston), is because the scientific method does not ofg itself encourage thinking outside the box even as it relies on same.

It encourages dogmatic acceptance of what the textbooks say. Again, this is precisely *because* it is so successful. MUch like corporate structure of a giant like SONY. No one knows how 'true' all those business plans and patents and employees and strategies are because it has become so successful, so huge, no body can hope to verify its components. (Do we *really* have ahang-glider R&D?)

Instead, we have a 'scientific community' that does due diligence in a lateral relay race that mostly keeps truth levels, hygiene of accuracy, sufficiently untainted by corrupting elements.

But this becomes, by nature of bureaucratic structure, a vast priesthood. So even when obviously biased wishful thinkers like the ID crowd continue throwing 'but it still might be so at some level' at the Ivory Towers of Science, I cheer them on. Their current method may be no different than hope in an afterlife, i.e.: 'Someday, they'll dig deep enough to find God's blueprints, and THEN we'll be proven right!', it is still thinking outside the box.

The serendipity of science would likely reward, ere long, research designed to Find God. I doubt they'd find god, but I'll wager they'd find some really great stuff precisely because they weren't digging the mainstream veins.


Sorry for the syntax. (When I'm thinking en write, it tends to be parenthetical )

quote:

I'd still feel comfortable claiming that the program as a whole is not science.

Believe me, I;m with you there. When the day's labwork is done, a scientist wants COMFORT. And probably hot sex. And a good game of chess. And a dog/cat that adores him. And maybe a psychedelic mystical experience on the weekends.

Oh. Almost forgot. Really good food. Yeah.

P.S. My gun's bigger than y'alls'. So's my rifle. The still life with guns threadjack spinoff is everywhere! Ai-YEEE!!!

repubs use three things to scare middle class america into voting for them.

Guns, god and gays.

quote:

Originally posted by kenmeer livermaile:

quote:

Camus was wrong about the redemption of absurdity in my opinion.

I loved reading Camus' rambling observations on life at large. His descriptions of the beach at Algiers, stuff like that. But I couldn't read The Myth of S. (*yawn*)

And, having dropped out of high school, I escaped The Plague, The Stranger, et al.

I liked the Myth of S. right up until the end. There I felt his conclusions erred.

As forID being a scientific theory, well, under your parameters, Ken, so could my explication of the mating habits of unicorns.*



*Available in PDF, HTML and HD-TV this Christmas from all major networks. Oh, the writer's strike, Yule Love it!

quote:

As forID being a scientific theory, well, under your parameters, Ken, so could my explication of the mating habits of unicorns.*

Firstly, I made it clear early on that it remains a consistently refuted *hypothesis*. Never even MADE it to the theory stage. THis is because the scientific method was invoked and the ID hypothesis consistently failed its own predictions.

Being wrong is scientific too. So is being consistently right (QM) yet someday having the bases of that rightness revealed to be only secondary artifacts. (Could well happen.)

Much like the theory of the sun going around the earth was incredibly scientific until enough data could be obtained using the scientific method.

I've concluded, however, that science has suffered from its own excess and can no hardly even agree on what science is.

Secondly, it is well know that unicorns don't mate.

Interesting thing. The ideas that ID is not conclusively falsifiable is itself a notion at this point not conclusively falsifiable. It is based on the notion of infinite reducibility, which is probably at least in part a result of science's enviable record of success using reductionism.

Reductionism took us to the perfect accuracies of QM. The fact that we have yet to obtain a reliable ToE compels us to believe that there are further layers down whereat a ToE may become apparent.

We don't KNOW this but we believe it because it fits the pattern of our reductionist investigations over several centuries. It fits the pattern, but it is not a fait accompli.

AT the same time, it goes against another prevailing (but less clearly articulated) theme of what we so loosely call science, which theme is that there are no limits to the frontiers of knowledge, that mystery requiring investigation and answers is inexhaustible. This latter fits poorly with the former (ToE based on ultimately finite reduction).

Science not oinly embraces this dilemma but thrives from it.

The belief on the one hand of a Holy Grail ToE (or, for biology, a definitive answer to the riddle of primogenesis), is wonderfully motivating.

The belief on the other hand that mystery is infinite, is just as motivating.

A ying'n'yang research drive.

There is no reason of which I'm aware to say there is no point where evolutionary reductionism will achieve explanatory stasis and the riddle of primogeniture will be resolved (at which point, one assumes, ID will be either confirmed or conclusively falsified).

Bioscientists continue probing the trail through time of terran life for two conflicting reasons: they love the chase (thus are addicted to infinite supplies of mystery) and are curious to know The Answer.

So which is it, y'all, the unproven dogmatic assertion that someday we will now, or the unproven dogmatic assertion that we never will know?

Which of these two dogma is most (*ahem*) scientific: the one that says ID is unscientific because it is not conclusively falsifiable (We Will Never Know), or the one that says it is unscientific because We Will Someday KNow (and the answer sure won't be ID because ID isn't 8scientific*).

If anything, science is more vulnerable to passionate bias and prejudicial bigotry than religion, because these days, science has more wealth and power at its disposal. (If we ever discovered there was a God, we'd probably nuke It.)

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
repubs use three things to scare middle class america into voting for them.

Guns, god and gays.

Yes, I understand they're in bed with all three.

lol
one thing I don't get is how someone can on one hand denounce terrorism, and otoh run the biggest "candy store" of easily obtainable firearms and a porous(to say the least) border.

Seems almost designed to perpetuate violence.

Or the way our constitution states that the right to own and carry weapons will not be infringed, nor anybodies civil rights, calling for the removal of office of anyone who dares to do so...

So anyone who dares advocate gun control is painted as a traitor. Even simply banning certain types of ammo brings this arguement up.

To paraphrase Sarah Brady: We, as a country, have a whole lot of growing up to do.

But that's why you should make election records public, so non-GOP voters can be easily denied access to firearms.

Would make your next civil war go by a helluva lot faster.

(Not to derail this thread any further, but, from an outside perspective, it seems certain elements in the US are trying to elevate the M60 as the American version of the Malaysian kris...)

Gawd, Gunz 'n' Gayz

quote:

"The fair question would be to ask ... will you impose your theology on civil law?"

quote:

"Non-theists don't have any problem with people having their religion ... You shouldn't be walking into the booth thinking,'I'm going to vote for or against someone because of what he or she believes,'" says Lipman Brown.

I guess the writer of that piece hasn't read our "Science vs. God" thread yet.

quote:

Originally posted by kenmeer livermaile:

Secondly, it is well know that unicorns don't mate.

I feel used, then...

quote:

Originally posted by lithos:
But that's why you should make election records public, so non-GOP voters can be easily denied access to firearms.

Would make your next civil war go by a helluva lot faster.

(Not to derail this thread any further, but, from an outside perspective, it seems certain elements in the US are trying to elevate the M60 as the American version of the Malaysian kris...)

Probably because it's been phased out by the M249 SAW.

quote:

Originally posted by UberDog:

quote:

Originally posted by kenmeer livermaile:

Secondly, it is well know that unicorns don't mate.

I feel used, then...

Check under your pillow. Might find a golden bridle. Never know. Movie'll feature Julia Roberts, I hear.

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Gawd, Gunz 'n' Gayz

quote:

"The fair question would be to ask ... will you impose your theology on civil law?"

And we shall call it "Sharia!"

Wait. What do you mean, it's taken?

"Mike Huckabee worries him"

YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

These inbred snakecharmers were fine and dandy when they simply voted en-bloc for whoever the corporatist elite implanted and then shoved out there onna campaign bus. But now that one actually has a chance at being President of the UfickingNited States, they're all about panic.

The neocons are worried. The Catholics are worried.

YAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Hope he gets elected. I really do. We donneed no watta!

quote:

The small-town incident was part of a wider pattern of "disenfranchisement" of non-believers, according to Margaret Downey, president of the educational organization Atheist Alliance International.

She claims atheists are "the fastest-growing minority in America."

But they are also "the least tolerated group by conventional standards of religious toleration in the US," Sherkat said.

Atheists Unite!

Today solidarity!

Tomorrow, anti-Nicean councils!

Next year, hanging of heretics!

quote:

"They are entitled to their beliefs and free speech but it doesn't make a sound foundation for elected officials who makes our laws ... to promote an Atheist that we know anything about," read the ungrammatical email, shown to AFP.

You can tell the Bible was written (or at least proofread) by atheists: it's grammatically correct.

Being the least tolerated "religious" minority may be the case, but there are some seriously prominent atheists that garner a lot of respect in the wide world of America. Neil DeGrasse Tyson comes to mind... I see that guy EVERYWHERE. He's my favorite astrophysicist. I wish they made the scientist equivalent of baseball cards, I *so* own a Neil Tyson rookie.