I know this stinks of a long, pointless debate, but bear with me. I’m an atheist myself, but a meeting with Jehova’s Witnesses got me thinking. They claim that creation is science. My first thought - bollicks! Creation doesn’t meet the standards of a scientific theory, it’s non-falsifiable. A theory has to make some predictions, and therefore a way to experimentally prove or disprove it. However…
Theory - There exists a God who favours life.
Prediction - If there is a God, life will exist. If there is none, life won’t exists.
Observation - Life exists.
Therefore, the theory seems to “work”.
What the hell? I can smell the fallacy, but I sure as hell don’t see it. Oh Great Ones, please solve this mystery and save my precious worldview from crubling to pieces. Please remember, the question isn’t whether ID is right or wrong, but is ID scientific or not, and why?
Well, to start with the “theory” is not a theory at all but a hypothesis. For another thing, the hypothesis is not the only explanation (in fact, it’s not even a good explanation, from a scientific standpoint) for what is observed.
In order to make this little proof work, they would have to first prove that God is the only explanation for life. You can substute “Aliens” or “elves” or “natural processes” for God and it still works.
What the prrof boils down to is this: "God is one possible explanation for the existence of life, therefore God exists (therefore Christ is Lord).
There are more problems with that line of reasoning than this, but the most obvious one is that you wouldn’t be able to make the observation if life didn’t exist. There is therefore no way to falsify the hypothesis. (Your intial statement is a hypothesis, not a theory.)
Theory - There exists a God who favours life.
Prediction - If there is a God, life will exist. If there is none, life won’t exists.
Observation - Life exists.
The logical flaw is in the second step… I could equally well say that:
Theory - Bananas are created by a giant magical monkey name Harold, how likes bananas.
Prediction - If there is a giant magical monkey name Harold then bananas will exist. If there is no Harold bananas won’t exist.
Observation - Bananas exist.
Well, the point about Harold is a great comparison, but then, by extension - what is so wrong about Harold that doesn’t satisfy the scientific method? You can clearly see that Harold is a pseudoscience (man, do I get a kick out of writing that), but on a list of “properties of good science”, where does Harold fail?
I think its more of logic argument rather than a scientific one. I’m sure there so some suitable proof with lots of upside down A’s and U’s that could destroy Harold in a puff of logic.
Harold fails because most good science is about controlling variables to see which have what effects. The big monkey banana creator is only one possible explanation and in the “proof” above, no other possible explanations have been ruled out. It’s not scientific to say, “If God exists, X will happen. X happens, therefore God exists.” The reason that proof fails is that if God doesn’t exist, X could still happen. You have to make sure that it is the only explanation, not just one of many. If there are two or more equally valid explanations then we usually choose the “simplest” based on Occam’s razor, but I’ll let someone else get into the details of that, because that’s really philosophy and I’m no good at that.
As Colibri already pointed out, he fails the key standard of Popperian science: he can never be falsified. Something isn’t science because it it can’t be proven false. That is an argument from ignorance.
Something is science because the proponenet (ie you) can tell a skeptic (ie me) what observations I can practically make that will prove it to be false.
You can’t tell me a single observation that I can make that would actually prove Harold to be false. All you can do is tell me what I can observe that might prove him to be true. As an example, if you were able to tell me that if Harold exists then all bananas will be signed by him then Harold would be scientific. I could look at a a lot of bananas and if even one banana was unsigned then Harold has been falsified. And of course if all bananas were signed then I would be forced to accept Harold at least tentatively.
But as it is you have nothing. There is no way to prove that Harold doesn’t exist. He is unfalsifiable. And as such he isn’t scientific. He is no more than an argument from ignorance. The only reason you can give me for believing in him is because I can’t actually pove he doesn’t exist. And the reason I can’t prove he doesn;t exists is you refuse to tel me how I could prove that he doesn’t exist.
The flaw is in the premise. “There exists a God”. First you have to prove the God. If you can’t prove the God like Diogenes the Cynic said then you’re free to substitute natural forces, universal consciousness, pixies, ect.
Occam’s Razor wittle’s it down to natural forces as the most likely explanation. As most evidence points to them. So you get:
Theory - There exists natural forces that favours life.
Prediction - If there are these natural forces, life will exist. If there is none, life won’t exists.
Observation - Life exists.
In addition to the objections raised above, your argument fails because it’s simply a lousy syllogism. Compare:
If it is raining the streets will be wet.
The streets are wet.
Therefore it is raining.
That just isn’t valid. There are all sorts of reasons the streets could be wet. Maybe they’ve just been washed, or a sewer pipe burst.
Similarly your syllogism, cleaned up a little, goes as follows:
If a life-valuing God exists, then life will exist.
Life exists.
Therefore God exists.
But there are all sorts of reasons why life could exist, including the purely naturalistic ones all the evidence points to.
Theory: all gods that exist would destroy any life they found
Prediction: if there are any gods, there will be no life
Observation: life exists
Therefore, there are no existing gods. Atheism scientifically proven, folks!
The “theory” is actually a hypothesis, or maybe just a premise, as others here have said. But is the claim that the prediction is a prediction of that theory/hypothesis? Because it’s not, it does not follow at all.
The unspoken assumption here is that “There exists a God who favours life” ==> “without God there can be no life”, which is false. Even assuming the hypothesis is true it makes no direct or implied statement about the existence of life without there being a God. For that to be the case it would have to say something like “There exists a God without whom life could not exist”, which of course is assuming the very thing you are trying to prove, a classical example of circular reasoning.
Also, your chain of reasoning is backwards. In science, you normally START by making observations, THEN formulating testable hypotheses to explain those observations. You then make predictions based on those hypotheses, and then NEW observations intended to either verify or falsify those predictions.
Observation: Life exists.
Hypothesis 1. Life originated by being created by an intelligent being.
Hypothesis 2. Life originated through natural processes.
Prediction 1. Life will show evidence of having been designed intelligently.
Prediction 2. Life will show evidence of having originated through natural processes.
The next step would be to make systematic observations that would support or refute either of the two predictions.
This of course is a very generalized outline; you would want your actual predictions to be much more detailed than what I have written here. Since this is not the place to get into the substance of the controversy (I won’t say debate) I won’t go into the kinds of evidence that might legitimately be used to support or refute the two hypotheses.
OP; did your religious visitors actually use that argument, or something like it?
The correct response if presented with nonsense like that is not, IMO, to engage in debate, it is to fall off your chair laughing.
How about:
If God exists, He created the World 6000 years ago.
The World is much older than that.
therefore God doesn’t exist.
There exists a God who favours life.
Except of course for worshippers of other Gods (e.g. Baal), bad people (see Sodom and Gomorrah) and an entire generaqion of innocent Egyptian children.
Ah, thank you, God… I mean, good people! While it sure is evidence enough against ID being a scientific hypothesis/theory/anything, there’s still something that bothers me. Some of you stated that a creator favouring life cannot be disproven, as no-life is unobservable. Well, wouldn’t a hypothethical JW say "Das is bias! You could as well say “As background radiation exists, disproving Big Bang theory is impossible, therefore BB is unscientific.” Well, not exactly something like that, he would probably stomp and burn anything regarding proof for Big Bang, but something similar. What’s the remedy for that, Ockham’s Razor?
Mangetout - Well, they didn’t exactly say it, but one of those little brochures they gave me contained something of the like. Not in the “theory-prediction-observation” way that I did in my first post, but a simple assumption “creator = life, life = creator”. I tried to (clumpsily) put it in context of science and find out what’s exactly wrong with it, with little avail. Hence the topic.
Thanks for the clarification.
The other reason it’s wrong (or maybe it’s part of the same reason) is that it is an expression of the strong anthropic principle; - in a nutshell; that the universe must have been carefully made to fit us - designed to foster life - , because we’re able to be here.
-Of course, that’s just silly, because in all those other possible universes not conducive to the existence of life, there aren’t people sitting around noticing how their universe is so poorly suited to their existence; they simply wouldn’t exist. And in all those other possible universes that are conducive to life, but are subtly or radically different to our own, then any lifeforms existing could also argue that their universe was made to measure.
It’s been likened to a puddle, exclaiming that the hole in which it collected was designed, because it fits so snugly.
Not really; the idea is that a scientific theory should, in addition to explaining what we do already know, try to predict what we do not already know.
And this was the case with Cosmic Microwave Background radiation; its existence was predicted (as a part of BB theory) in 1948; it was discovered to exist in 1965.
The name of the logical fallacy in the OP is Affirming the consequent
Most of the things the intelligent design advocates are using as “evidence” aren’t considered evidence by mainstream scientists.
The one that seems to be used the most in recent years is “irreducible complexity” – the claim that certain systems wouldn’t work if you took away one of the component parts, and thus they couldn’t have evolved from simpler systems. This argument has been attacked from various angles, but perhaps its fatal flaw is the fact that those constituent parts might have served different purposes when they first developed. As new components are introduced, the roles of the old components change. (Note: I mean that they served a purpose in that they gave the species some evolutionary advantage – not that they were designed with some purpose in mind. It’s also worth noting that sometimes an otherwise useless feature provides an advantage just because it attracts the attention of potential mates.)
Many intelligent design critics will go one step farther than criticizing the proposed evidence for intelligent design – arguing that it’s not a theory that can be tested even in principle. In part this is because pretty much any claim intelligent design advocates put forth will be of the form “Evolution can’t explain X, therefore the only alternative is intelligent design.” Of course, even if the theory of evolution isn’t the whole picture, that doesn’t prove that there isn’t some other explanation besides intelligent design that would explain it (one which perhaps we just haven’t been clever enough to think of yet). Sure, sometimes people try to argue for a largely-untested scientific theory based on the fact that no one’s been able to come up with any better alternatives (e.g., string theory) – but if your theory is consistent with everything that’s not considered legitimate. This is “God of the gaps” reasoning – basically, “Science isn’t currently able to explain everything. Saying ‘God did it’ explains all the other stuff. Thus, this is evidence for God.” If scientists accepted that kind of reasoning, then the best theories would be the ones that don’t make any specific predictions. Obviously, scientists prefer not to treat non-predictiveness as a virtue.
It is possible in principle, I suppose, that one could find direct evidence for intelligent design – e.g., something like a baby born with a birthmark that spells out the words “Hey, I exist. Sincerely, God.” Of course, no one is holding their breath waiting for this to happen. But sometimes ID proponents will claim that certain features of animals are evidence of design because they “look designed.” This is basically the “blind watchmaker” arguement – “you couldn’t build something as complex and sophisticated as a watch (much less a human) by fumbling around in the dark.” Of course, critics of intelligent design that evolution by natural selection provides a mechanism to do precisely that. To continue the metaphor, if the blind watchmaker has millions of years to fumble around, and a mechanism for telling which prototypes to throw out and which to keep, then eventually he may very well manage to build a watch.
I think it’s also worth noting that whether intelligent design is supported by evidence isn’t the only relevant question in the political debate. For instance, there’s also the question of whether minority views should be given equal time in scientific classrooms as those that are supported by a majority of the scientific community as a whole. Even if there’s some evidence for multiple theories, that doesn’t necessarily make them equally good. Perhaps even more important is the question of whether people should factor in their religious beliefs when deciding what to teach in a science classroom. And if so, whether intelligent design even is more compatible with Christianity (for example) than evolution (last I heard, the Roman Catholic Church, at least, thought otherwise.) But a discussion of these topics might be more appropriate to Great Debates.