ID is not science as it is practiced because there is nothing there. There are millions of hypotheses generated, most of which don’t make it further than a lab notebook because preliminary study shows them to be bogus. Only with something like ID, with its religious impetus, does it get further. Which is why current ID is inherently religious.
However, consider some visiting alien paleontologists a million years hence, long after we’ve wiped ourselves out. They find fossils of cows, poodles, a wll preserved seedless grape, etc. I think those paleontologists would be able to publish on intelligent design, as done by us. We are intelligent designers. There is no evidence that there was ever someone like us in the history of life on earth.
I think it is inadvisable to rule out a field a priori. All we have to do is to tell them that if they have something, they should try to publish it, and if and when it obtains accepted status it will find its ways into the textbooks. That way we won’t be accused of making up our minds in advance.
I see what you’re saying, but I think that there’s a difference in form, not just in truth value between ID and science. To the best of my knowledge, ID as proposed offers no testable hypotheses or predictions.
The thing is, those aliens might say, “We believe that seedless grapes must have been designed by an intelligent entity; if they were, we expect to find some artifacts showing that this entity was capable of splicing cloned grape vines to root stocks from other grape varieties.” Then, when the aliens dug up a cache of pruning knives, they’d be able to say, “Aha! We predicted the existence of these tools, and here they are!” Similarly, they might predict Dog Fancy magazine, transmissions in space of ads for chocolate milk, etc.
If the aliens offered no predictions about what else they’d find, then they wouldn’t be offering a scientific theory at all. If they offered predictions which didn’t come true, they’d at least be doing science (although if they maintained their theory in the face of a series of failed predictions, the quality of their science would be called into question).
I’m not ruling out an abstract concept of intelligent design. I’m ruling out Intelligent Design as it’s practiced by its current practitioners. The two words aren’t objectionable together, but the folks who adopt the label are.
On the other hand, those could also just be considered holes bored in rocks. The aren’t built up of discrete elements which is what I think the post in question meant.
We’ve got to distinguish between Behe, who might have started out with a real hypothesis but got seduced by all the attention, and the rest of the so-called IDers, who are espousing creationism in ID’s clothing. The prediction of ID is that we will find structures in some creature or other that cannot be explained by evolution. So far, the prediction has not come true. If the IDers were off in a corner with the cold fusion proponents and the few remaining steady staters, it would be fine.
Right, and the problem is what is happening after the predictions don’t come true. There are always scientists who don’t give up until they die, but science marches on. The real problem is the projection of this little ripple into the outside world where it has become a big wave.
yeah, ID even at its best is crap science, but there is plenty of crap science. (Crap science <> junk science.) Very little crap science gets endorsed by the president.
Now that I agree with 100% - especially Behe, who should know better. I’d expect nonsense from doltish Dover deacons, but if Behe had any scientific ethics he’d be telling his supporters that evolution happens, but that he thinks there is a designer in the gaps. He be back to being a two bit prof that no one pays attention to in a second if he did that.
I’m about halfway through reading the court decision, and I find myself actually feeling sorry for the defendents and their witnesses. Especially Behe, as he seems to have made a complete ass of himself.
A great passage is on page 81. Responding to Behe’s assertion that “purposeful arrangement of parts” implies design, the plaintiffs offered a lot of contrary evidence. The court wrote:
“Professor Behe’s only response to these seemingly insurmountable points of disanalogy was that the inference still works in science fiction movies.”
No, it didn’t say that 50 books were kept in the classroom. It said “allowed”, and it’s clear from the context that “in the classroom” is a figurative term, meaning “at the school”, not in a particular classroom, and certainly not in every biology classroom in the Dover county school district. Further, instructions were given to teachers that were not to have no other discussion of ID in the classroom, beyond the reading of that 4 paragraph disclaimer.
As much as I find ID to be of no value, scientifically, I can’t see that what these folks in Dover were doing rises to the level of “establishing religion”. There is no attempt to teach any particular creation myth of any particular religion. The 4 paragraph discalaimer is horribly written, contains many factual errors, and I’d be embarrassed to read it myself. But it doesn’t establish religion.
If I understand you correctly, Behe is doing shitty science, but if he’d quit with the religion angle, it’d be legal science; but the Dover folks aren’t doing science at all. Is this correct?
If so, I guess I agree; and if the school district weren’t motivated by religion, I guess I could squint and see how their mandating the teaching of shitty science wouldn’t be unconstitutional (although the idea is loathsome to its core).
It’s a useful distinction to have, you’re right. I’m not sure that in practical terms, however, a school district will ever be on the constitutional side of that distinction. (I originally wrote “the right side of that distinction,” but given that “the right side” would signify mandating the teaching of shitty science, I figured I had to change that).
Sorry I missed this earlier. Yes, the SCOTUS jurisprudence on the Esatblishment clause (convoluted and contradictory as it is) doesn’t give the judge in this case much choice. As a lower level justice, he was pretty much bound by precedent to rule as he did.
Right. I couldn’t conceive of why the district would want to teach this shitty science if it was not religiously motivated. The Dover school board knew and cared nothing for science at all - it seemed from the testimony that their actions were absolutely and completely religiously motivated.
When I was a professor my metallurgy professor (a course EEs got to take to protect us from chemistry) taught about polywater. He was a prof emeritus at MIT, and was convinced by it, but it was shitty science. That’s an example of shitty science not religiously motivated. ID is even shittier, since it has had enough time to be discredited.
This is the first full legal decision I’ve ever read, so I don’t know how its language and tone compares to others.
Two questions…
Is it usual for this kind of legal document to include so many adjectives? I see a lot of “astonishing”-s, “incredible”-s, and other such words of emphasis.
Does a judge normally speak so forcefully in such a document?
The judge claims several defendents lied during their testimony. Are these people in danger of being prosecuted in some way?
