No. ID is NOT falsifiable, because, as carterba pointed out, ID supporters can claim “irreducable complexity” at any gap in the fossil record. If that claim is later proved false, they just move on to another gap. Scientists could disprove a million claims of irreducable complexity without falsifyng ID as a whole because there will always be some nook or cranny of evolutionary theory where the design might be hiding.
For example, early in the history of ID it was claimed that eyes are irreducably complex. After this was thoroughly disproved, the ID supporters just moved on to new claims.
It is not possible in a nonscientific sense to prove anything happened in the past. It may all be a grand illusion. Everything is faith in that sense.
as I remarked before ID states TWO things
(i) it is impossible for life to have evolved randomly
(ii) Therefore it didn’t
If scientists can disprove (i) then all it leaves IDers with is (ii) “it didn’t”.
(ii) is faith and religion by itself. It is not science (whereas (i) is scientific and possibly could be proved or disproved). If you really want to disarm IDers then prove (i) false. It will be exposed ID as the faith it undoubtly is and they can keep (ii) all they like to themselves.
yes but at each step the claims become weaker and weaker until they disappear up their own a… . There are some very fundamental problems the scientists have to address on the origin of life. We of course view these as wonderful challenges rather than insurmountable problems like the Iders . However in one sense they are right. We have complete faith that these problems are solvable, but we only do that by dismissing ID out of hand which is a faith on our part. Of course life on earth MAY just have arisen off planet and drifted in, it MAY have been created by a god. However showing that life can arise spontaneously reduces both to the level of beleifs rather than real alternatives. However, a scientist should not dismiss either at the moment completely.
Its like any scientific theory. You accumulate evidence either for or against. After a while the supporters of a “wrong” theory drop away or die off slowly. Science is not cut and dry. witness the continuing debates on the origin and fate of the universe where theories swing in and out of fashion. For many theories (continental drift, macromolecules, quantum wierdness) they were accepted slowly and often with great reluctance.
OK, you want an explanation for the origin of life which does not have a nihilistic philosophy attached to it? That’s easy enough. Try the Theory of Evolution. Contrary to what some folks think, evolution does not have any nihilistic philosophy attached to it, because evolution doesn’t have any philosophy attached to it. Yes, there are some nihilists who accept evolution, but there’s also theists who accept it, and Taoists who accept it, and agnostics who accept it. If you want a theory resembling evolution, and also want to believe in God, then accept evolution and believe in God. They’re not mutually exclusive, because unlike ID, evolution says nothing at all about the existance or nature of God.
In ten minutes I could come up with a dozen “theories” about the universe that are as well-supported as ID is. Saying “well maybe it happened, prove me wrong” isn’t science. You have to have some piece of empirical evidence to hang your hypothesis on.
“Falsifiable” means that there is some observation that can be made or experiment that can be performed that will prove that a claim is false. Meaning that there is no doubt at all that the claim is false. No amount of evidence can ever prove ID false, because the point of “design” can always change. Ultimately they can say that the evidence was designed (b/c the designer wanted to fool us into thinking he didn’t exist), and if you have evidence that proves it wasn’t, they can just say that evidence was designed. Therefore ID is not falsifiable, and therefore not science.
Here’s a concrete example: I come to you and say “All swans are white.” You go off and study swan genetics and run computer models and show that it is possible for black swans to exist. It sure seems unlikely that all swans are white. Many scientists will probably believe that a black swan exists somewhere. Yet my claim has not been falsified until someone provides evidence of an existing black swan.
On the other hand, if I say “Swans do not exist. All the birds we call ‘swans’ are actually figments of our imaginations,” you can’t prove me wrong. You can show me swan DNA, swan fossils, living swans, anything you want, but I just keep saying that it’s an illusion created by our brains that are so desperate to believe in swans. Maybe everyone else in the world believes that swans exist, but nonetheless, my claim has not been falsified. It is unfalsifiable, and thus not worth discussing (except in a metaphysical way).
Yes, those are possibilities, but there is no evidence for them and they are unfalsifiable. They’re not scientific hypotheses. There is no way to study them with the scientific method, and therefore they should be thrown out. It’s not faith; it’s simple logic.
They were accepted because they could be studied, evidence could be collected, alternate hypotheses could be falsified. It may have taken a long time for the right technologies to be invented, but it was always possible. That’s not the case for ID.
Actually, if one wished to be junior mod-ish about it, one would point out that the whole GD debate you guys are conducting has nothing to do with the GQ question actually asked in the OP.
I don’t see why the insertion of a deity in the picture imbues the universe with meaning (and I’m not an atheist, BTW).
If there’s no God in the universe, then above a certain point, things are meaningless (in a philosophical sense); there’s no why, there’s only is.
If there is a God in the universe, we’re in a similar predicament, it’s just that the bar is set a little higher; there’s still a point above which there’s no why, only is; it just happens that the set of things leading up to that point now includes God.
this [UK] is a much more secular society than the USA. People with religious views are much less visible, in public life or private life. If our politicians have religious beliefs we expect them to keep them to themselves and not come bothering us with them. The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman was recently quoted as saying, “We don’t do God.”
There’s very little debate about intelligent design in Norway. There are few letters printed on the readers’ opinions pages in newspapers, and solid rebuttals, and there’s the odd scientist who likes ID. In a recent interview one of them claimed that education in Norway was brainwashing students, as people who’d been skeptic about evolution became proponents after taking a degree in biology…
Not sure I can quite agree. It would be easy to show life could have arisen off planet and drifted in if it was signs of it was found on mars or on some asteroid or comet.
It just may be (I dont think so myself but won’t rule out the possibility) possible to show that evolution could not have happened by chance. A wild stab. It may be that the precise conditions for polynucleotide synthesis from possible abiotic chemicals are found and that no other conditions are likely. It might then be shown that this is not possible to have happened in the earth’s formation as these conditions could not have existed (dont bother attacking the precise example as it is just a straw man for the moment).
As a scientist and athiest, I’d like to comment on hostility between “us” and “them”.
What seems hostile to me is inserting ID or Creationism into a public school class that is part of the science curriculum, when scientists don’t own ID. Including things in a science class normally happens after they are vetted by some of the science community, and this insertion is cheating - in effect, it is using the reliability and authenticity of the sciences to promote something that scientists reject. It’s a fraud.
If scientists started a mission of their own to teach evolution in churches, and used the political system to make their lessons a required part of Sunday School, wouldn’t the churches look at that as a hostile intervention and a fraud (on the basis of their beliefs)?
Proving something and falsifying something are not symmetrical. Something can be provable without being falsifiable.
Take, for example, the statement “fairies exist.” It’s easy to prove true – just find a fairy. But it’s impossible to prove false. No matter how many times you look and fail to find a fairy they still might be hiding somewhere you haven’t thought of yet. The statement “fairies exist” is not a scientific hypothesis.
There are many, many things that, if observed, would be strong evidence for Intelligent Design. That says nothing about whether ID is falsifiable or not.
Well, they’re community schools, so really in my community it’s “us” and not “you all.” I don’t want to teach Republic of Texas history in my local schools, but there’s a good reason to teach Michigan history. I’m not saying I agree with teaching ID, just that you’re reasons aren’t any good. Community standards count for everything in this country, and it’s part of why we’re so great – you know, no overbearing dictators?
But you do have a load of religious fundamentalists , with too much political influence. Their actions and behaviour in this respect, would not be tolerated in most other western countries.
