Univ. of Kansas Takes Up Creation Debate

Not to be snippy, but give me a break, I am trying to come up with an experimental design in a five-minute period at one in the morning. I really have not that of a way to empirically test the ID hypothesis before, but apparently since I haven't in about 5-10 minutes, then it can't be done. Hmm, and I guess the four months to plan my thesis was not indicative of how short it really takes to design an experiment. Your right, my design was not to directly test the ID thesis, but rather some of the main thesis of evolution and my job is not to test the ID theory, I leave that up to those who have training for that. It was not meant to disprove evolution, but rather was starting with the assumption, that the DNA could form randomly. The time in which it took would either then provide support for or against evolution. Plus, I didnt' realize that the scientific method was limited to an experiment that could be done in a short amount of time with very finite resources.


Besides, when does one experiment ever prove or disprove anything? It's only a start.

EDIT: (And what's with the once again? P.S. It would be good to make sure that you are replying to the right micheal).

 

I edited my post for clarity... You can't show a NEGATIVE by simply letting an experiment run for some arbitrary amount of time and say 1 million years in the future and making a declaration.

That's the wrong way to attack evolution.

I'm trying to explain to you the difficulty in trying to find a way to empirically test ID... because the question of what is intelligence isn't a science question... it's philosophy.

Edit: you were asked how to apply the scientific method to intelligent design, but you tried to attack evolution, which many here have pointed out is a common tactic among ID proponents instead of defending ID.

 

I actually never said that I didn't think that science encourages critical thoughts and doubts, only that evolution didn't seem to do so. And on this, I will restate that I was not given any indication in my biology courses that scientists were doubting the core assumptions of evolution (perhaps those that Ruse talks about as spreading the secular religion).

 

You really don't need to explain the difficulty of empirically testing ID. I know how difficult it is to do that. My point in my post was not to state that my design was not meant to be an definitive experiment on ID, just a starting point. I never stated an arbirtary amount of time until I decided it was long enough. I said to let it run until a successful random generation was made. (This was assuming you would have many different combinations at the same time).

 

Science and religion are completely separate if you ask me. They are completely orthogonal, and shouldn't be mixed... that being said, I see no sign of evolution being treated in the same regard as Christianity...

Your assumption that evolution isn't like other scientific theories is based on the stubbornness, in your mind, to question it... read this again:

All theories are stubborn. Science is by no means easy to change, and it's not the wild wild west.

As for your assertion about spreading a secular religion... I have to agree with tripp and fshagan on this one...

 

I am confused, was I supposed to be challenging evolution or trying to somehow test ID? Or is this in reference to some other post? I am not sure what you were trying to add to the table with this excerpt.

 

That theories are not easily discarded. Exactly what I emphasized. You seem to think that evolution is special among all scientific theories because of the stubbornness of the scientific community to accept a challenge like ID... but the fact is, that's the way it is when you're dealing with ALL science. You've got to have a VERY compelling case to change theory.

This goes beyond learning evolution. You should have been taught the scientific method before all of that, and it is very clear that the purpose of the scientific method is self correction and digging deeper, but also intense, rigorous debate that can seem endless.

 

Your "experiment" would neither serve toward disproving evolution nor proving ID.

Even if nothing happened, it wouldn't be grounds to say that it's a point against evolution nor would it be a point for ID, or even a starting point at all!

 

Science and religion may be that way to you, but realize they are not that way for everyone. Many of the early scientists were scientists because of their religion. Science does intersect with some people's basic view of people. If science says we are product of randommess, while a person believes that they humans are built in God's image, you can see where they might have some headbutting.

I never made the assumption that evolution was not like other scientific theories. You said that science encourage critical thinking and doubt, and I said I did not think that evolution does this (as I have repeatedly said in my experience). Being stubborn is not the issue, but rather the openness to question (which none of my professors I have had mentioned any possibility of questioning of evolution or for that matter any gaps). In your quote it had before they seriously question.

I think we are suffering from a lot of assuming. And we all know what happens when we assume right? I don't necessarily think that the purpose of evolution is to spread a secular religion. The mention of it sometimes being a secular religion was referenced to Michael Ruse, who is a staunch Darwinist.

 

Okay, one more time. I am saying that the experiment would run until it provided a viable random generation, however long it took. Then, the amount of time it took for this would be used to determine mathmatically if evolution of complex organisms was possible in the time frame specified by evolution. Would it debunk Darwinism? No, it may only change the given time frame. It would give us a starting point because then we might have some real data on how long it might take for a random molecule of DNA to form. Then again, it would only be one data point and I don't how many it would take to have a reliable sample. It really doesn't matter, I don't feel like analyzing a spur of the moment research design any more and it is apparent that you think it is useless. Boy am I glad I wasn't staking my career on it. If all wer are going to continue to do is discuss how my design dooms ID, then I am going to bed.

 

Questioning the scientific theories you were taught doesn't need to be reinforced for every single class you take...

You should have gotten the message early on when you were taught the scientific method.

Again, your professors were not horrible because they never stood up in front of their classes and said "evolution is a theory, so don't believe it as fact"... it's IMPLICIT because you're setting foot into a science classroom that you understand the scientific method, and in the scientific method is that doubt, that search for better explanations!

Which is why i think it's silly to single out evolution in this case. When you step foot into a physics class, people don't make a big fuss about how the physics professor doesn't state that gravity is a "just" a theory... it's implicit that you understand the scientific method.

A legislature forcing a biology teacher to tell his class that evolution is a theory and they should take it with a grain of salt is redundant because that's the purpose of the scientific method.

 

Here we are with the assuming again. You are assuming that I meant evolution is not welcoming of the challenge of ID. I had never even heard of ID until about two years ago, several years after I had all of my bio coursework. My perception of evolution being a very stubborn theory is that there were never any discussions of criticism, gaps, or changes in evolutionary theory in my training as a scientist. I never stated that I thought scientific theories should be dropped after one contradicting study. Obvioiusly, the entrechment of the theory depends on what theory you are talking about and how much support it has behind it. Some of the theories in psychology have been easily challenged while others were not.

I don't think anyone on here is talking about any paradigm shift to ID in the near future, that is pretty ludicrous at this point. I really do fail to see how anything I have said has gone against these purposes of the scientific method (or maybe you are just saying that I never learned what it was about since you assume I don't know what it is about?)

EDIT: In reply to the above post: Perhaps I wasn't clear on how I was instructed. Evolution was not treated as a theory with a good amount of evidence behind it as something like relativity is, but something that has been proven as fact, with so much evidence behind it,there could be no question. I know this is at least one major professor at TTU that does the same. Regardless of one's knowledge of the scientific method when professors present something as a fact, it makes it hard to see how there could be any self-correcting a fact. So perhaps kids just need a better emphasis on the SM being a self-corrector, regardless of how much people saying something might be a fact.

 

My comments about the scientific method was less addressed to you, and more to legislatures and non-scientists who want to put stamps in science books and have teachers speak about evolution in a way that undermines it artificially and the extreme of teaching ID in a biology class.

 

I got the opposite impression. Relativity and evolution got similar treatment...

Moreover, what is the difference between "scientific theory" and something that is "all but proven as fact?"

 

I think if more people understood SM as being that way, then we wouldn't be having this discussion at all...

But that disregards the underlying issue that those against evolution aren't challenging that it is a fact more than its social significance... regardless of whether or not evolution is changeable theory or fact, it threatens core faith in some people.

 

Ah, I guess I just got thrown off by your replying to me. IMO, there is not enough of an emphasis on the SM in classes in general, but there should be as Ruse says a sticking to the science aspect of evolution by educators.

 

My first biology teacher prefaced the unit on evolution by acknowledging that other ways of thought exist regarding the origins of the universe and life, but that she was teaching a science class, so she'd do just that... stick to the science, and leave the further discussion of that other topic for a more appropriate forum.

 

In my edit, I said as something proven as fact. This means that there it is a truth or something that is unchangable.

It's not necassarily it's social significance, I think it boils down to moral signficance. If the factual nature of evolution contradicts the factual nature of two of the three world's major religions, sparks are gonna fly and people are going to be uncomfotable and one of the facts must be wrong or skewed.

 

I think that's about right, but that depends highly on your worldview... and on whether or not you can entertain two seemingly contradictory ideas at the same time.

I can see it being a problem if someone must take a literal interpretation of their faith... it'd be binary... either everything I believe of God and Christianity is right, or everything falls apart...

I mean... to me it's almost an issue of science seeking to explain the what and the how... while religion's role should be to explain the why...

I just find it bothersome that some insist that religion provide the what and the how, and that anything that challenges that challenges their religion as a whole.

I don't see Intelligent Design as being incompatible with evolution only because I see evolution falling comfortably into the "what" and the "how" of science while ID is the why of faith.

 

For my part, I'm tired of the continual attempts of ID proponents to justify their position solely on the perceived deficiencies of the theory of evolution.
Without offering criticism of scientific theories, these proponents have said nothing to scientifically justify their position.
What is the scientific justification of ID?
How do you test it?
It doesn't merit equal standing with legitimate scientific theories.