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Intelligent Design Ruled "Not Science"
blane.bramble writes "The Register is reporting that the UK government has stated there is no place in the science curriculum for Intelligent Design and that it can not be taught as science. 'The Government is aware that a number of concerns have been raised in the media and elsewhere as to whether creationism and intelligent design have a place in science lessons. The Government is clear that creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programs of study and should not be taught as science.'"
It's not really religion either.
God demands faith. God does not provide proof, because proof kills faith. If you see something that you think is proof of God's existence, you're wrong. He's ineffable. That means you can't effing figure him out.
The arrogance of the goddamn literal read types is just astounding....Anyone else would look at evolution and go, "Damn! That God guy is hella fricking smart! Look at this crap! It's a system for self-improvement built into self-replicating creatures! It's awesome!" but a literal-read weenie will look at it and say, "Don't say nuthin about that in da bible. You must be wrong."
The worst thing that can be said about the literal read types, is that they have nothing to look up to. They know all there is to know about god and everything. So very very sad.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Will someone in the US government please do the same?
Very pleased to hear the government come out and and state what by far the majority of the country would assume anyway, nice to have it made official.
May as well teach crystal healing in heart surgery if your going to allow RE into Science classes.
I can't believe it is such an issue in the USA. People don't seem to even understand the definition of science. While I won't diminish the importance of religion or spirituality in life, science is based on reason and logic and is therefore a very practical and useful way to understand the natural world.
Personally, I don't see any conflict between the world being created by some God, even in 7 days, and its being formed over billions of years by natural processes. One is a faith based way of experiencing the world, the other is a sensory based, practical, and logical way. They are both useful.
What isn't useful is to deny children understanding of what, very practically and falsifiably, is the way our reality works.
The Big Bang theory doesn't say what happened before. The Big Bang says things only about the progression of the universe after its beginning. The difference between the Big Bang and a literal reading of Genesis is that the Big Bang is based on natural laws that have been discovered.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Could you list the sources where you got your definition of Big Bang cosmology? I'd love to know what hoakey craphouse you got it from. Big Bang cosmology neatly explains:
1. the red-shift of distant galaxies.
2. nucleosynthesis
3. the black body radiation that can be found every in the universe
ID, on the other hand, explains nothing. It's an empty statement that is designed to
a. fool judges
b. make such vague statements on the origins of the universe and life that everyone from a Young Earth Creationist to a Theistic Evolutionist are supposed to be friendly and consequently overthrow the evil secular forces of public education in America.
My recommendation to you is to
a. go read something on the Big Bang by actual cosmologists
b. go look up the Wedge Document to find out what ID *really* is.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Account 1: "Nothing existed. Then something inconceivably complex existed. That something willfully created us, specifically."
Account 2: "Nothing existed. Then through sheer logical necessity, everything else existed. Everything. Those parts of everything which were capable of contemplating existence posted on message boards. The rest were not aware that they should be doing so."
Why do you feel there should be an explanation for what caused causality?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
...I don't see any place for Intelligent Design in public schools, either.
Then again, I don't see any place for public schools when it comes to my (eventual) kids or the kids of the families I financially support. Personally, I'm a fan of Intelligent Design combined with evolutionary and old Earth science, but I would in no way force my opinion on others -- as the public school system does. Evolution? Creationism? Who cares -- if you as a parent don't work to teach your children, don't expect the public school to do a better job, regardless of what they're teaching.
Even worse, you enter a logic trap when you insist that things require a Prime Mover. If the universe requires a Prime Mover, then the logical extension to that is that the Prime Mover also does, and you enter an infinite regression of Prime Movers. The standard answer by those who insist on causality all the way down is that their Prime Mover is exempt. At that point, an application of Occam's Razor states that unnecessary entities should be removed, and so if the alleged Prime Mover requires no lower-level Prime Mover, then why can't the universe exist without the need of a Prime Mover.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is typical Abrahamic religion thought, and not common to all religions. And to make it worse, the fact that it's a typical argument in Abrahamic religious traditions, doesn't make it an essential feature of them.
Which means that you're carrying out a strawman argument, since you're not engaging the actual claims and beliefs of any actual adversary, only those you project onto an imagined one, and which just happen to be very conveniently weak.
Are you adequate?
Because, when it all boils down to it, you have to have faith in something, be it science or religion.
Bullshit. Don't water down science as something that people must have "faith" to believe in. That's is 100% false, and that is purely rhetoric to make science sound like something that is debatable. By and large, it is not. It's not always right, but it is right a hell of a lot more often than not. Religion and science do NOT intersect. In fact, they're polar opposites.
I don't respond to AC's.
Despite the contrary, all systematic views of the Whole Thing(tm) require faith (philosophically known as a "world view"). Science is no different in this regard. Science has two basic articles of faith: First, that mankind has the mental capacity to reason out the universe and can do so through independent, verifiable testing of mankind's understand of the universe. Second, that despite not understanding currently everything, eventually mankind will figure out the Whole Thing (tm).
The first article of faith has shown repeatedly that there is no need to call in anything supernatural. Time and time again, when confronted with things (i.e. miracles, magic, etc), science has shown through testing that non-supernatural answers (or no answer) has been found. There has never been a proven case that science was left with "boy, no matter what, it seems God is working that."
The second article of faith has shown that many things that were labeled as unknowable or only in the realm of the supernatural were eventually solved with non-supernatural, testable, verifiable understanding; thus, one can conclude that while we do not have an explanation of the Whole Thing (tm) now, it seems some day we will.
Remember, there was a time when most people only accepted that the world was flat. A few people did tests and realized that their tests and the laws of math for a flat earth did not jive. Many people through away the differences because "how can you explain a round Earth when I clearly see flat land and the sun and moon revolving around us?" It took a long time of gathering evidence to recognize that it was *our perspective* that was flawed.
The Big Bang is merely our current understanding given the view of all our evidence. It is not the first proposal. An early proposal was Steady-State universe. Like any good theory, it gave predictions of other things we should observe, but they didn't hold up to testing. The Big Bang has. Does this mean that Big Band is The Answer (tm)? Of course not, because it doesn't (yet!) explain what came before it; however, that may be a meaningless question.
Paul Davies has been trying to marry Quantum Dynamics with Cosmology has the interesting suggestion that the idea that there is such a thing as time may be very misguided. I can't do justice to his work here, but the short version is that time is just another direction in QD. The QD works irrespective of time and the suggestion that perception a past and future comes from how we view things in a macroscopic view; in other words, our perspective is likely wrong.
What makes Science scientific is that scientific theories present something that is testable and is rooted that everything we need to observe exists within the universe. Intelligent Design coached in statements that sound plausible to the layman, but it is flawed because it makes claims that cannot be tested. It's faith is based on lack of proof. Science is faith based on proof.
Bel, the mostly sane.. "Of course I can't see anything! I'm standing on the shoulders of idiots." -- Me
Science is based, even moreso, on the scientific method, which, sadly, doesn't seem to be taught in schools in the U.S. It may be mentioned once or twice in ten years of education, but it's not taught, such that kids graduate from high school actually understanding it well enough to explain it to someone else.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
... that the only science of intelligent design ... IS the science of evolution.
The reason IMO, even as a staunch defender of intelligent design theories, that this is the correct move, is because the only real science (currently) for intelligent design, is the exact same science as that of darwin's evolution.
I.e. the only way to prove evolution is to design a repeatable experiment, whereby the experimenter designs the environment of the experiment (e.g. with fruitflys), and then evolution occurs before the naked eye, as organisms adapt, or are selected by fitness, and ultimately evolve in the controlled confines of this scientifically reproducable experiment.
Of course, the irony is that this simultaneously proves both evolution, and intelligent design. Because without an intelligent designer of the experiment intervening and subverting nature, there would be no results and no new life forms to witness.
The creator of the Universe caring about what happens to us is like us caring about what happens to some Ant hill somewhere.
Without detracting from the rest of your argument, this part needs work. We're limited beings, complex machines made of crude matter. The Yahoweh mythology is about an infinite being.
Do you have absolutely no interest in what the ants are doing inside their ant hill? I think it might be neat to watch them. But I certainly don't have the resources to do so frequently, widely, or intently, so I elect not to care about them.
Those constraints don't apply to the supreme being worshiped by the tribes of Abraham, ergo it would be surprising if he didn't pay attention to everything. And play Ski-ball at the same time.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Many of the advancements to science can be considered outside of what is considered "science" at the time.
You're confusing prevailing beliefs held by scientists with the scientific method itself. You're right, at any given time some portion of the best-believed scientific knowledge will be wrong, and other scientists will eventually find evidence for other theories. This will, however, be done using scientific principles. It will not be done by examining scripture.
ID is unique (I'm not talking about young earth crap) because it really is not straight philosophy as it has too many ties to empirical data, it shouldn't be religion because (at least the reasonable arguments) don't actually argue for a "God," and yet it doesn't fit very nicely into the current definitions of "science."
ID simply does not use the scientific method. To do so, it would have to generate a testable hypothesis which is disproveable. It is inherently not proveable to show that the earth was made, in some way, by a deity. As Wolfgang Pauli once put it, "That's not right. That's not even wrong!" His point was that, for a theory to come under the purview of science, it has to be disprovable. ID is not. ID takes a specific belief and carefully skirts around existing evidence in a way that it avoids making a testable hypothesis. As such, ID does not belong in science curriculum. There's also the notion of "why the Christian religion?" If they get equal billing with science, surely Mayan, Greek, Norse, Phoenician, Aztec, Zulu, Persian, Flying Spaghetti Monster, and other creation myths should be taught in science class, right?
An attempt to limit scholarly inquiry by excluding it from scientific discussion will only discourage diversity in the scientific community.
We're talking about what should be taught in high school science. Textbooks contain the best available knowledge at any given time, and that's what should be taught in PUBLIC schools. The vast majority of scientists have examined the available evidence and mechanisms and concluded that evolution is almost certainly responsible for the existing biodiversity on earth. No one, however, is preventing a group of people from conducting research into ID or anything else, or of teaching it in parochial schools not funded by taxpayers. So no one is attempting to limit scholarly inquiry.
Just to point out. In the bible it says God created the world. However it doesn't say how he did it. For all we know he created the world through evolution. Fact is, no one will ever really know for sure. Anyway just something to think about.
No. Evolution is a "theory" as the term is used in science, that is, it is a proper scientific hypothesis (an explanation which makes predictions which are empirically falsifiable) which has withstood attempts at falsification.
Intelligent Design is a "theory" only by one of the looser definitions in common conversation, a a conjecture that does not make predictions which are falsifiable even in principle. Its nothing more than "that looks really hard, so God musta did it."
Attempts to equate the two are equivocation.
he only exists in your mind
Im assuming that such an objective, clear-headed individual such as yourself as some empirical evidence of that?
The reason I ask is because (and I speak as one of those unwashed masses I think your post was aimed at), all of the scientific theories Ive heard for the origins of the universe sound just about as implausible as the idea that a god of some sort created everything. My uneducated understanding here is that those scientific theories tend to work (sort of) mathematically, but there's not a whole lot of concrete evidence in support of any in particular.
Likewise, in my limited experience here (less than 3 decades), it has seemed to me that people will pretty much use anything to keep them in line - material or imaginary - but that a combination of guns and an economic stake in your way of existing seem to work far better for keeping people in line than religion does.
I havent seen any evidence of god that I cant explain with math or science, but I certainly havent seen any math or science that preclude the idea....but...since you're so sure of yourself...maybe you have some? It would certainly help me settle of couple of bets with my other uneducated friends.
This is nonsense. There's not a drop of science of any kind in ID. ID does not argue that "God set the evolutionary process in motion", or "God guided the evolutionary process". It flat out argues that "some things (i.e., the eye, the bacterial flagellum, the bombardier beetle, the tongue of the green woodpecker) are too complex to have evolved gradually. They are 'irreducibly complex', meaning that if you take away any one part, the whole system fails (which means that they could not have evolved gradually). The existence of such objects is proof of a design and proof of a designer.
This is NOT science, and is the very OPPOSITE of science for at least four reasons:
1) Appeal to the supernatural to explain natural phenomenon. (Yes, ID *does* quite clearly argue for the existence of a God. It's just a rehashed version of the teleological argument, and if you argue that all things in nature must have had some "designer", then in the end, you need a god to break the infinite regression.)
2) Unlike science which crafts theories from evidence, ID tries to find evidence to match a theory that already exists. (Unsuccessfully. Every example of "irreducibly complexity" has been explained by evolution.
3) It is completely unfalsifiable. The theory goes that "if there is any ONE thing that is irreducibly complex, then that is proof that EVERYTHING is the work of a designer." In order to *disprove* ID, you have to *prove* the evolution of every feature of every creature that has ever lived.
4) The whole purpose of science is to tear down barriers and to *learn* things. ID encourages ignorance and says, as a famous comedy bit once said, that a "magic man done it".
As scientists know, ID has absolutely no place in the science classroom or in science itself. It's unfalsifiable pseudoscientific garbage that produces no useful predictions whatsoever. Leaving it open as a possibility within the realm of science makes no more sense and is no more useful than allowing for the possibility of Zeus's invisible hand being responsible for lightning bolts.
If philosophers are convinced by such a bankrupt "theory", they're welcome to it. Despite what you claim, there is not a SHRED of evidence to support it.
The fundamental basis of the scientific is repeatability.
All the evidence that underlies evolution is repeatable - without having to reproduce 3 billion years in a laboratory the size of the entire Earth.
When you understand how this can be true, you'll be a lot less stupid - and you'll understand what "repeatability" means in the scientific method.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Intelligent Design is not a theory, it's a conjecture. So not only do you not know science you also don't know English.
Theory - "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."
Conjecture - "The formation or expression of an opinion or theory without sufficient evidence for proof."
Note that a theory explains facts and is repeatable and/or can be used to make predictions. A conjecture is just a guess...
I thought the intelligent design theory was based on the idea of throwing all the parts of a bicycle out a plane, and then seeing a well formed gleaming bike on the ground - taking into account the time taken for gravity to work its magic.
The chance of getting a bike from doing this would be astronomically small, but of course we do live in an astronomically large universe.
I think intelligent design should be taught - but taught as an exercise for debate. Missing out religion from the curriculum also leaves a huge gap in history.
When I was young not only did I have to walk to school, they taught Religious Education in it, but you could go play with computers instead if you so wished - now where are the virgin memory chips I need to sacrifice to the great god of logic.
what many would claim to be absolute truth based only on
There are no absolutes in science. What we have is the best model so far, based on observable evidence. The model will continue to change, and parts of it will be modified, thrown out, and refined. That is how the scientific method works.
"Creationism" or any religion-based "theory," and I use that word very loosely, are not built upon observable evidence over time. Creationism is not based in fact, and it is not continuously refined and retested. There is a reason why people refer to religion as "faith."
Please try not to view those of us who accept evolution as doing so upon faith. It is simply the best model that we have at the moment. If the model changes, based on new, factual evidence, and it can be retested with the same results, then our understanding of evolution will change right along with it.
I don't know about you, but I like my explanations of the things around me to be based on fact, not largely fictitious prose written two-thousand years ago.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
"Absolute truth" isn't what science is about, and "extrapolation" isn't as important as you would make it; inasmuch as it is relevant at all, it is just in coming up with hypotheses. Once you have a proper scientific hypothesis you then, by definition, have empirically falsifiable predictions you can test to validate the hypothesis. If those predictions fail, your hypothesis is wrong. If they do not, your hypothesis is a viable theory. That doesn't mean it is right: a more parsimonious or powerful theory may displace it because of the greater utility it provides, or additional predictions may be later derived from your hypothesis enabling new tests that may fail. No proper scientific theory (though some things popularly labelled theories are untested hypotheses) rests on extrapolation alone: if it is properly called a theory (as evolution is) it has testable predictions with have withstood testing.
Science isn't about giving answers that are some kind of Ultimate Absolute Truth. It is about refining models that have explanatory and, more importantly, predictive power.
All I have to do is stimulate the right part of your brain with the right electromagnetic field. It was an interesting experiment, as everyone knew that something was being done to their brain, yet most people still felt that the experience indicated the actual presence of the divine.
One argument I love to refute from personal experience is the "If you ask with an open heart He will show you the way," argument. Well, I have and I got nothing. I'm still an agnostic, but I can only believe based on my experience that any God that might exist must not give a damn whether I believe in Him or not.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There's a near infinite supply of "alternative" theories from crackpots. You can't teach them all, or even a small fraction. What makes creationism worth mentioning?
Unless someone has presented a testable hypothesis there's simply no reason or excuse for presenting it in science classes other than as part of a discussion on how to spot why the theories are not scientific.
I love how everyone who has a crackpot theory thinks they're Galileo. The truth of it is, if there had been a real scientific community around Galileo, they'd have agreed with him. His evidence was sound.
There is zero evidence for ID. None. The only arguments I've ever heard in favor of it were arguments against "DE" as you call it, or Evolution as the rest of the world refers to it. Darwin wouldn't recognize much more than the shell of it, these days. He laid the groundwork, but there has been a lot of building since then.
Basically all ID arguments come down to the following: "Evolution doesn't explain X. X is either irreducible or too complex to have come about 'by accident'. Therefore ID is correct, and God exists."
This is not proof. This is not science...It's actually a fallacy: the argument from ignorance. In many cases, the ID objection isn't even rational. ID has no falsifiable hypothesis, it has no positive evidence supporting it. It's not science, by any definition of science I have ever heard.
I always ask, "Do you have any rational, positive evidence to support ID?" And the answer is always no. I have never heard a single thing that wasn't either negative, or trivial. Maybe this will be the first time.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Many of the advancements to science can be considered outside of what is considered "science" at the time.
I don't think that's accurate. Those advancements were outside of what science people wanted to hear (like the earth going around the sun) but they were still perfectly within the realm of science. Science has nothing to do with majority rule, personal preferences, or what sounds reasonable. Science is about testable theories; theories that help us predict the future. Even if every scientist in the world hates a new discovery, it's still science if it is a testable theory with the ability to make predictions. This is why science is fundamentally different than religion. It's a subtle but critical difference that nearly all ID proponents fail to grasp.
Cheers.
Athiesm IS the safe bet.
OK, lets suppose you believe in a god. Which pisses your god off more, not believing in any gods, or believing in one of his competitors?
Now place your bet. Which god are you going to believe in? Now, if you're like most people you'll choose the one you were indoctrinated to believe in. In the history of the world, far more people have not believed in your god than have. Even right now more people don't believe in your god than do.
Better do your research. You'd better read up on all the gods that have ever been worshipped to make sure you pick the right one. Assuming you only choose a single one and that there is only one god, rather than a pantheon, your chances are probably about 1 in 10,000 you'll get it right. You'll waste a good fraction of your life on this fruitless search. That's pretty high stakes in this bet.
You would think that an all powerful god would make the choice obvious. If you think the choice is obvious, feel free to stand on a box in St. Peters Basilica, at the great mosque in Mecca, at the temple of Tirupati, at the Wailing Wall, any of the thousands of temples to the god you didn't pick, and explain to them why they picked the wrong god. If you picked the right one, I'm sure he will protect you. After all, there are no true believers in a foxhole, because what would a true believer need a foxhole for?
Since the choice isn't obvious, more logical assumption is that either there isn't a god, or he doesn't give a damn who you worship or even if you worship.
Read Kissing Hank's Ass for an alternative look at Pascal's wager.
Support SETI@home
Can Evolution be disprovable? If not then maybe it shouldn't be taught in Science classes either.
The problem with attacks on Darwinian science is that they are done from the perspective of someone who accepts an ancient text as flawless received wisdom. Such a person assumes that we in the scientific community also accept our received wisdom (The Origin of Species, for example) as flawless. But no, we realize that Darwin didn't have all the facts or all that many fossils, that science builds upon the shoulders of giants instead of believing that all of reality was revealed at some point in the distant past. Darwinism looks at nature and sees it performing the scientific method (experiments, paradigm abandonment, etc.) to achieve its ends, even as it itself undergoes these forces. I wrote about this at length here:
the Authoritarian Model of Information Value
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
for example, I have faith that the person who put together the periodic table of elements in my chemistry class did so correctly. We wouldn't get very far if we didn't have faith of that sort, because it's beyond any of us to build our entire knowledge base from the ground up.
Well, I have trouble with this part of your statement. You see, if you learned the lessons of your high school chemistry class properly, then you should be able to construct the periodic table on your own. At least a good portion of the table. I don't recall at this moment if high school chemistry covers enough material for you to understand how to arrange the lanthanides and actinides... but I digress.
I don't care if you remember the periodic table. I care that you understand electron configuration and the concept of the valence shell. If you get that, which is a large chunk of the course material of an introduction to chemistry, then you can reconstruct the bulk of the periodic table, including entries for elements you can't remember or have no exposure to. In fact, you can construct your own alternative periodic table if you so wish to emphasize different aspects of the elemental properties.
My main point is that even such a simple pronouncement as "here is the periodic table," should be understandable and re-creatable by the student of science. That's why so many proofs in math are left as an exercise for the reader/student. It is important that you be able to carry through the reasoning yourself, important that you draw your own conclusions.
This is how science differs from faith.
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
The fact that both are theories does not make them equally plausible scientifically. I'd rather my kids studied the best theory science can offer, not the minority view that's propped up by 'scientific' propoganda institutes with overtly religious funding.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
The point that the parent was attempting to make is that other species are designed not to need all this intellectual baggage we drag around with us. They can still accomplish the three prime objectives of life (eat, breed, die), and never waste a moment sitting and agonizing over the wording of their slashdot posts.
/sig
You are insane. And you have magic teeth. Mine do not replace themselves. The do, however, have nerves where none are necessary and rot on contact with that which they are intended to act against.
Spoken as one who has never had a slipped disk. But really. Don't you realize that the worst spinal cord injuries are caused by the vertabrae acting as a shear to sever the cord? How is that kind of "protection" better than passing the spinal cord through the middle of the torso where it would be padded instead of sliced? The spine provides negative protection and crap structure.
I have known several competitive runners, and they all have podiatrists practically on call. Feet suck for running and suck even more for standing.
Being that is doesn't touch the lymphatic system, I'd call bullsxxx on that one. There is no known health problem caused by removing it. If it is doing anything it is "designed" to do, it must be doing a piss poor job of it.
I know what they are "for" (or at least the tiny benefit they provide). But they do it badly. What they do well, is get their linings inflamed at the drop of a hat, within a tightly confined space, closing themselves off to form moist, warm incubators for all conceivable disease. Why bore holes in the skull when the humidifying function would be much better served by a separate chamber ahead of the lungs, and not encased in bone. The water bong is better than sinuses, and that was designed by potheads.
Have you seen the Fantastic Four movies? The stretchy guy? 'Cause that's what you look like here. That's the kind of stretching you have to do to maintain any internal consistantcy for this ID crap. How many men have you met who breast feed children. How many have you ever seen do so in a picture? NONE. Really.
And if you had any idea what evolutionary biology is about, you wouldn't use the term 'optimization' like you do. Or 'fierce'. There is no intention in the process. There is no ideal situation to 'optimize' for. Its just a matter of some, mostly small, random changes making it into the genepool because they increase fitness under the prevailing conditions. Wash, rinse, Repeat. For a billion years, rather than five thousand. As a product of randomness and natural forces, I think the human body came out pretty darn good. But if it was designed by an individual, that guy better look out for a six billion strong class action lawsuit. Bad design can sometimes be against the law.Awesome. So guess my theory that there are unicorns somewhere in this galaxy is probably true because it isn't very disprovable.
So ID is true until proven false but any other theory is false until proven true? Is that how this works? ID proponents can just sit back and claim ID is true with every one else has to do the actual scientific legwork?
I wish I had you for a science teacher. I could make up any theory and it would be true by default... as long as it wasn't disprovable! And I wouldn't have to do any actual research. I'd just tell the rest of the students to prove THEIR theories to be true. And if they couldn't do so to my satisfaction, I'd get an A!
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Seriously, though, this sort of thing should be important to libertarians. People keep trying to get ID into classrooms, and because it's basically dressed up religious apologetics, they are (rightly) taken to court (or at least challenged in the policy making body) over it. They defend their idea by saying, "It's not (just) religion! It's also science! Lookie here at this book that used to be a creationism tract but now has the words 'Intelligent Design' in it!" An argument ensues over whether it's really being introduced based on scientific merit or whether it's just a lame trick. Typically, ID is (rightly) tossed on its ass. Libertarians should not be afraid of this process because the alternative is the slow decay of science education brought about by people who would rather have their preferred deity pushed by the government than confined to churches and private life.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Such a model would not be enough to disprove the existence of God. For the universe inside Super Mario Brothers, there exists a scientifically-complete model; it happens to be 40960 octets long. However, when I hex edit a saved state, I am the god of that universe. I can modify the state of the game at will, without modifying the rules. Despite a self-consistent and fully-accurate model of the universe, God exists and can perform miracles.
Similarly, a god of our universe would be able to create objects without regard to the standard rules, and discovering those rules would not disprove her existence.
Note that I'm an atheist. I just want to make sure the logic on all sides is valid.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
You're defining "better" in a way that's not particularly relevant to biological evolution.
I can't figure out why people want to use evolution as a theory that describes how we should behave rather than how we got here. Nobody claims that we should drop bags of hammers on people because gravity causes them to fall and they "should" be allowed to fall.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"