Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement

"SCIENCE VS. STUPID"

LOL!

"Darwinism" is a proven fact? Please, do not compromise evolution to your specific anglo referents. Thanks

The worst kind of argument to have is one with someone who Just Doesn't Get It. The debates that find your well-reasoned points countered with the tautological equivalent of "nuh-uh" or "because, that's why" may not make you feel like you lost the argument, but you certainly don't feel like you won, either. Especially when the topic you're disagreeing on isn't even something that should be up for debate.

I'd say that Darwinism is a proven fact, of course the question is how much of evolution can be explained by Darwinism.

That selection and variation happen has been quite well established. But your point is well taken.

Jason Ferguson's article is another datum going to the point that commentators in the media are increasingly taking the proper tone with intelligent design. The brainlessly-neutral he said vs. she said framing is being replaced by Pro science vs Pro ignorance. Last week Dembski whined that the 'pro science' label is being used to mean anti-ID.

"Darwinism" isn't a proven fact, but evolution is. For that matter "Newtonism" or "Einsteinism" aren't facts, or theories (in the scientific sense), either. The explantory ideas these men discovered have a life outiside their crearors.
This is the hallmark of a scientific idea. It is not the hallmark of a religious one. To assert otherwise is a "category error" (I like this phrase - so true.
Anthony Kerr

Does anyone else feel that the term "Darwinism" is a pejorative replacement of Darwinian Theory?

So what the heck is Darwinism? Better have a good definition if you want to claim that it is "airtight." This guy might have fallen into the creationist trap. Creationists don't have a set definition of Darwinism. If you check out places like ARN "Darwinism" just means anything that they don't like about science. It isn't a good description of evolutionary biology.

As a biologist; I'd give Jerry a big smack upside his head for using the term "darwinism".

It's all the more heinous considering the context he used it in.

*sigh*

Design can't 'have' intelligence.
Stupid authors design foul smelling creation.
Intelligent authors design beautiful rebuttal.

Posted on Sat, May. 27, 2006 Intelligent design leads to forsaking atheism By Jerry Bergman Northwest State College Why did the court rule against teaching intelligent design in the Dover, Pa., case? Judge Jones' ruling was summed up by one commentator as follows: Critical analysis of evolutionism leads to intelligent design, which leads to the Creator requirement. The Creator requirement leads to religion, which leads to God. The courts have consistently ruled that the state cannot hinder or aid religion --- and that teaching intelligent design aids religion. Of the many examples I know of people who left atheism and became theists because of intelligent design, I will cite only two. ... The above are only two case histories involving conversion from atheism to theism because of intelligent design discussed in a book I edited that will be published this fall by Master books.

I'm a Darwinian biologist whose interpretation of data is informed by Darwinian theory. Don't let the non-scientists define scientific terms.

Last week Dembski whined that the 'pro science' label is being used to mean anti-ID.

Does anyone else feel that the term "Darwinism" is a pejorative replacement of Darwinian Theory?

Well said, Tom Curtis! As a footnote, many textbooks on geology continue to discuss 'uniformitarianism'. Who was Uniformitarian, by the way? A Roman? ;-)

Does anyone else feel that the term "Darwinism" is a pejorative replacement of Darwinian Theory?

Thursday, Feb. 9 (2006)--- "Where Do We Go From Here? The Future of Darwinism in American Society," at the Museum of the Earth, 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. This panel discussion, moderated by Cornell Provost Biddy Martin, will examine the impact of the recent Dover decision on the future of Darwinism. http://telicthoughts.com/?p=529

To which Mike Gene replied, "Since only creationists use the term 'Darwinism', it looks like the Trojan Horse is more insidious that anyone suspected."

— FL

It's odd to me all this discussion of whether we are Darwinists. I wouldn't describe myself as one: I'm an evolutionary biologist. There's no need to explicitly pin my colours to Darwin's mast, simply because that's the only game in town. OK, we've changed the rules somewhat since Darwin's day but we still ackowledge his antecedence.

As a matter of linguistic politics, insisting on "evolutionary biologist" is useful because it pushes the IDers out of being, well, evolutionary biologists. I think this could be an effective strategy: both sides (the other side being specifically ID) agree that we're talking about evolution, but it's the mechanisms that are under discussion. So. if we're evolutionary biologists, then what are the other side going to call themselves? Intelligent Designers? That doesn't sound like anything to do with biology. Intelligent Design Biologists? Not much better.

Bob

For a different - and dishonest - view, here's Jerry Bergman:

As a biologist; I'd give Jerry a big smack upside his head for using the term "darwinism". It's all the more heinous considering the context he used it in.

— Sir_T

nothing in biology makes sense in the light of intelligent design

— Jerry A. Coyne

Judge Jones' ruling was summed up by one commentator as follows: Critical analysis of evolutionism leads to intelligent design, which leads to the Creator requirement. The Creator requirement leads to religion, which leads to God.

Hey FL, if ID isn't creationism, then why does Discovery Institute list defending "traditional doctrine of creation" as one of its "five-year objectives"?

Are you lying when you claim ID isn't creationism, or is DI lying when they claim it is?

See Lenny? See how good it feels to be succinct? Isn't it refreshing?

At the risk of sounding stupid, and of being accused of putting words in someone else's mouth:
I think it has been said here or on the Science Blogs that the reason that evolutionary biologists resist the "Darwinism" label is because the current version(s) of Evolution are much broader and deeper than was Darwin's. In other words (at the risk of sounding like GBW) Darwin's original views are now considered simplistic.

Ok, Karl, I'll go with that. But I do wish that biologists would use a phrase such as 'biological evolution', or something such as 'bio-evolution'. The reason is that there is also the evolution of the visible universe, the evolution of the sun and other stars, the evolution of the solar system, the evolution of Terra, ... and the evolution of human thought.

FL's post is EXACTLY the reason why evolutionary biologists should drop the use of "darwinism" in the PR wars.

it isn't a matter of real-world usage or definition; it's simply a matter of PR.

don't be stupid to think otherwise.

which is also the reason I said that Coyne's usage of it in this particular context was er, bad.

Theoretically, I don't think "darwinism" describes modern evolutionary theory any better than "einsteinism" would describe quantum theory (if he even agreed with it).

It's been repeatedly pointed out that scientists are losing the PR war.

it's a small thing, but this is one of the reasons.

We simply choose to ignore or deprecate the traction that creobots gain by using "darwinism" as a perjorative term.

There is no value in maintaining it as a descriptor except for one's own personal vanity.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the 'PR war'?

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the 'PR war'?

""Darwinism" isn't a proven fact, but evolution is."

Maybe it is because english is a second language, but I don't like the term "proven fact" either.

As with validated theories, facts aren't verified "without doubt" but beyond reasonable doubt - there is still room for bad experiments, new findings, new theories that use the facts differently, et cetera.

What is worse, "prove" also suggest results from formal reasoning or formal theories, which both might be incorrect. And especially it is incomplete - verifying propositions still need observations.

Only the archaic meaning of "prove", to find from experience, comes close. This is confusing (for me, at least). So I would prefer observed, verified or validated fact, or something such.

""Darwinism" is just a common English construction meaning (approx) that theory proposed by Darwin."

But how common is it in science?

I don't think any other hard science uses it, you don't hear about 'newtonism' for example.

Darwinism and Lamarckism were perhaps appropriate once, but it seems it is time to let these terms rest.

Looking over this thread, I think if someone gave you guys a free cake, you'd complain that it wasn't german chocolate.

Looking over this thread, I think if someone gave you guys a free cake, you'd complain that it wasn't german chocolate.

— steve s

I think it has been said here or on the Science Blogs that the reason that evolutionary biologists resist the "Darwinism" label is because the current version(s) of Evolution are much broader and deeper than was Darwin's. In other words (at the risk of sounding like GBW) Darwin's original views are now considered simplistic.

FL's post is EXACTLY the reason why evolutionary biologists should drop the use of "darwinism" in the PR wars. it isn't a matter of real-world usage or definition; it's simply a matter of PR. don't be stupid to think otherwise. It's been repeatedly pointed out that scientists are losing the PR war. ... it's a small thing, but this is one of the reasons. We simply choose to ignore or deprecate the traction that creobots gain by using "darwinism" as a perjorative term. There is no value in maintaining it as a descriptor except for one's own personal vanity.

""Darwinism" is just a common English construction meaning (approx) that theory proposed by Darwin." But how common is it in science? I don't think any other hard science uses it, you don't hear about 'newtonism' for example. Darwinism and Lamarckism were perhaps appropriate once, but it seems it is time to let these terms rest.

Leaving aside ID, the subtext of these quotes is, "We've got a theory that has vast gaping holes, we don't have a clue how the theory might fill the holes, but we still believe the theory accounts for what actually happened." To challenge this is to be guilty of "an argument from incredulity," in other words, of refusing to believe despite overwhelming evidence. Isn't it rather that to accept this is to be guilty of "an argument from gullibility," of believing despite the overwhelming absence of evidence?

— Dembski

As for your example, I'm not going to take the bait. You're asking me to play a game: "Provide as much detail in terms of possible causal mechanisms for your ID position as I do for my Darwinian position." ID is not a mechanistic theory, and it's not ID's task to match your pathetic level of detail in telling mechanistic stories. If ID is correct and an intelligence is responsible and indispensable for certain structures, then it makes no sense to try to ape your method of connecting the dots. True, there may be dots to be connected. But there may also be fundamental discontinuities, and with IC systems that is what ID is discovering."

— Dembski

Let's start with an assumption that there are designed organisms that were implemented in some manner by an unembodied designer. Thus "Darwinism" is not true for the entirety of biological diversity. Thus in the case we will explore, it is false that "everything evolved, we just don't have the evidence yet." Now please show how the ID argument is not an "argument from ignorance," given that assumption. Very specifically I have not made a statement that there are a large number of cases in which the "unembodied designer" designed organisms. I have not specified the frequency of such non-natural events in the physical universe. I have not, for example, specified that any prior probability of "unembodied design" is a high value. In fact that would be a complete unknown in my proposed assumption -- it could be high frequency, it could be very low. If that frequency is very low, then discovering that one does not understand how something occurred naturally (without interference from the "unembodied designer") is not in itself a Bayesean argument for design, for example, because the prior probability is still very low. Yet the statement conditions are met -- in my proposed assumptions we can't assume that "Darwinism" is true always, or that "everything evolved". So now with those assumptions, how there is an ID argument that is not "an argument from ignorance"?

Now as to the issue of "sweeping the field clean" and basing hypothesis on currently available information, I think that reading the quoted segment above is very important. (That's why I wanted to quote it entirely from previous page.) Alonso's post is a reflection of just what Dr. Dembski wants us to read, in my opinion. But Dembski's misses the point that scientists may know explicitly that all the pathways have not been examined without having examined them explicitly. So "currently available" information comes in two forms, completeness and results of what has been analyzed. It is the completeness issue that is at the hart of the IC argument, and it is the completeness issue that Dembski's passage suggests we ignore. It suggests we ignore the completeness issue because it suggests that we examine the "hypothesis" that are currently available for that judgment, rather than examining the meta-knowledge of the completeness of the list of such hypothesis. This is a misdirection -- taking our focus off of what is important. Alonso's post demonstrates just exactly how this misdirection affects readers who want a positive result for ID.

This is another aspect of Godel's theorem. To demonstrate existence of God, we must have a system which is equal in complexity to God. Or as someone said, you can't prove a dollar truth with a fifty cent theorem.

Now creationists fire a salvo in the war. They say that Evolutionary theory is an "-ism", ie, and ideology, because it is called "Darwinism".

Tom:

"Actually, you do hear the term "Newtonism" (Google: 1,280 appearences) and more commonly "Newtonianism" (Google: 30,600 appearences). Perhaps they are not common in science, but they certainly occur in the philosophy and history of science."

Exactly my point, by continuation. Philosophers are likely to think about and perhaps redefine theories for their metaphysical ramifications. In their hands it becomes different and perhaps a philosophy instead of a mere scientific theory. There is also a demarcation problem, it may be unclear if they use the same theory that the science use.

I don't belive any physicist would subscribe to the term Newtonianism. They would likely continue to talk about newtonian mechanics. Or perhaps classic mechanics after incorporating Galilean relativity and the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations. It isn't especially unambigious. Quite like evolutionary theory.

"As for time to let these term rest, what other succinct and unambiguous term exists for the research program whose core theses are:

Life on the Earth is very ancient;

All modern life are descendants of one, or a very few original life forms;

Life has diversified and adapted to distinct environmental niches over time;

The source of that diversification has been mutations which are arbitrary with respect to adaptive advantage (random); and

The main (not exclusive) driver of the diversification and adaption has been natural selection.

It is not time to retire a term until a suitable replacement is available; and I know of no suitable replacement to "Darwinism"."

My understanding was that this research program is evolutionary biology, the part of biology that is preoccupied with the theory of evolution. As with any theory, it may incorporate several mechanisms, and change over time. That it is about biological evolution is redundant to state since there is nothing to confuse it with. Cosmological evolution for example is called cosmology. (Not cosmologism or Aristarchism (from Aristarchus of Samos) BTW.)

It is time to retire historical misleading terms, and I know of no modern suitable use of Darwinism. But preferably it is the biologists who should decide, not me or other parts of the public, I think. Especially not antievolutionists.

Good to see that Dembski reads PandasThumb

Dembski wrote: Leaving aside ID, the subtext of these quotes is, "We've got a theory that has vast gaping holes, we don't have a clue how the theory might fill the holes, but we still believe the theory accounts for what actually happened." To challenge this is to be guilty of "an argument from incredulity," in other words, of refusing to believe despite overwhelming evidence. Isn't it rather that to accept this is to be guilty of "an argument from gullibility," of believing despite the overwhelming absence of evidence?

— PvM

ID is not just at war with Darwin. Its real enemy is biology, which, of course, contains a lot of Darwinian notions because Darwin, as it happened, was right about a lot of stuff.

ID is not just at war with Darwin. Its real enemy is biology

"That a theory has holes comes as no surprise, science is not only tentative but also cannot be expected to answer all relevant questions."

Exactly, and this is why ID isn't a theory. They expect every fact to be answered with a blanket statement. "A theory that explains everything explains nothing". It is an old observation, but it bears repeating.

"Dembski in the past has tried to use Godel to further his claims."

Perhaps it is already mentioned in the discussion on Brainstorm that the link goes to, but Dembski is making a basic mistake there. He discusses evolution as a closed axiomatic system. But evolution, even as idealised RM+NS only, is an algorithm. When you apply that algorithm you do that on a template and with boundary conditions.

In this case it is chemicals and environment. Whatever the algorithm develops, genes or limbs for example, is new solutions that may have new properties and adds new 'axioms' to the system. The properties appears in the interaction with the template and open environment.

So it is really the other way. Evolution adds Gödels new axioms, and is trivially as rich as the rest of the nature that it is responding to. It is the ID hypothesis that would have the Gödel problem. (But see above why it doesn't even make it that far.) This observation, if true, lacks formalisation and verification, and if that is PvM's project I'm excited about viewing the results.

"This is another aspect of Godel's theorem. To demonstrate existence of God, we must have a system which is equal in complexity to God."

That was an interesting link. I didn't now libertarians had trouble with scientism. (But maybe I shouldn't be surprised.) They even use the popular misdefinition instead of what I've seen as the philosophical one. A philosophy war, exciting! Words will be thrown...

Anyway, the commenter make the Dembski mistake when he tries to "get from "here" to "God"". Nature and science has each by Gödel enough complexity to handle everything thrown at them. But I don't see the connection between misguided attempts to prove or disprove gods, and ID. Oh, wait...

"It is not true that the theory of evolution has holes."

I sympatise with the point of the comment. But the cited observation depends on whether one includes the facts and observations the theory depends on or not, and further if one includes the observations the theory explains or not. All these usages are permissible IMHO.

"ID hypothesis"

Aaack!!! Must wash brain with soap. I meant to say ID idea. It doesn't qualify as a scientific hypothesis about natural phenomena for obvious reasons.

Perhaps it isn't even and idea. Surely pseudosciences has pseudoideas, and antievolution has antiideas?!

So it is really the other way. Evolution adds Gödels new axioms, and is trivially as rich as the rest of the nature that it is responding to. It is the ID hypothesis that would have the Gödel problem. (But see above why it doesn't even make it that far.) This observation, if true, lacks formalisation and verification, and if that is PvM's project I'm excited about viewing the results.

— Larsson

Perhaps it is already mentioned in the discussion on Brainstorm that the link goes to, but Dembski is making a basic mistake there. He discusses evolution as a closed axiomatic system. But evolution, even as idealised RM+NS only, is an algorithm. When you apply that algorithm you do that on a template and with boundary conditions. In this case it is chemicals and environment. Whatever the algorithm develops, genes or limbs for example, is new solutions that may have new properties and adds new 'axioms' to the system. The properties appears in the interaction with the template and open environment.

Darwinism or darwinian theory is NOT common ancestry, the main idea behind evolution. Common ancestry and descent with modification was alreday commonplace in scientific discussion in Darwins time thanks mainly to Lamarck, who was better known than is admitted. In the english tradition of natural theology, Darwin gave in to Paleys argument that perfect adaptation was the main phenomenon to be explained. To explain it, he took the laissez-faire notion of right wing economists that competition makes progress, and applied it to nature as a mechanism for increasing perfection of adaptation (interestingly, I doubt economists currently take the malthusian notion of endeless comeptiton by superproductivity as being particularly useful). Thus he managed to "solve the riddle" of perfect adaptation and stand out from under the shadow of lamarck, by insisting that natural selection was the main mechanism of evolution. So true darwinism has a progressist ideological component at birth, along with other notions that have eroded considerably, such as gradualism, and the subserviance of historical phyletic constraints to the forces of natural selection. If natural selection is "the main motor of evolution" "the main force" or any such empowering title, or whether it is just a constraint, is something that remains to be untangled. To point to the mammalian mid ear or any complex adaptation and say "this is the product of the perfecting action of natural selection" is at least somewhat scientifically vacuous and ideological. A structural description of steps reveals for example how humble exaptation, which is not regarded as a force or main machanism of any sorts, is usually crucially involved in the evolution of complex adaptations.
So no, I do not sympathize with those who say "darwinian theory is a proven fact", hahaha. Please, common descent comes first, and Darwin did not come up with that one.

Dembskism = "an argument from gullibility"; useful for selling soap.

Exactly my point, by continuation. Philosophers are likely to think about and perhaps redefine theories for their metaphysical ramifications. In their hands it becomes different and perhaps a philosophy instead of a mere scientific theory. There is also a demarcation problem, it may be unclear if they use the same theory that the science use.

My understanding was that this research program is evolutionary biology, the part of biology that is preoccupied with the theory of evolution. As with any theory, it may incorporate several mechanisms, and change over time. That it is about biological evolution is redundant to state since there is nothing to confuse it with. Cosmological evolution for example is called cosmology. (Not cosmologism or Aristarchism (from Aristarchus of Samos) BTW.)

he seminar shows the weakness of evolution in light of recent evidence for intelligent design in all of nature, and presents Intelligent Design Theory or Creation Science as approaches which contribute more to research and better explain our origins. Ferndale, WA (PRWEB) May 28, 2006 -- "Creation or Evolution? Does It Matter?" will be the topic of a free seminar led by Dr. Jerry Layton and his wife Donna Layton at the First Baptist Church of Ferndale, WA, on the evening of June 3, 2006, beginning at 7:00 PM. Since 1999, Dr. Layton and his wife have taken their 2-hour Creation Science PowerPoint Symposium into more than 200 universities and public schools in the Philippines, usually speaking to very large audiences. They have been warmly received in 2 major universities in Thailand, where Dr. Layton also appeared on National Education TV Network in an interview and presentation. Last July the Laytons trained their first group of Filipino Creation Science Presenters who are now giving seminars all over the Philippines. The seminar shows the weakness of evolution in light of recent evidence for intelligent design in all of nature, and presents Intelligent Design Theory or Creation Science as approaches which contribute more to research and better explain our origins. The Laytons will be expanding into other Asian countries next year, training nationals as well as other missionaries having science backgrounds. Outside the United States there is a growing awareness and concern among educators over convincing evidence refuting evolution theory, especially in countries which still allow integration of religious instruction in schools. In America, professional articles considering Intelligent Design Theory have recently started appearing in some professional journals, reflecting the concern of many state school boards wanting to present scientific alternatives to evolution-based theories. Plan to attend this informative seminar on June 3, 2006, beginning at 7:00 PM at First Baptist Church of Ferndale, WA. The church is located at 5759 Vista Dr, Ferndale, WA, 98248. Plan to arrive a few minutes early as seating will be limited.

There are a very few biologists who are not Darwinists,....... A large number of biologists ... are no longer Darwinians...

...I much prefer good old Sam Adam's ale.

It may cause me to blither on occasion, but I do so among similarly blithering friends.

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-Ben Franklin

Tom Curtis: It might be something else. I have hypothesized that "Darwinism" and similar phrases are more common in the sociolects of UK (as opposed to US) folks. I haven't investigated the matter, but I have proposed a project to any linguist who wants to take it up ...

PvM: Actually, all factual theories have to be formally incomplete, because otherwise they could not be conjoined with the propositions representing evidence (for or against them) without leading to inconsistency.

Tom Curtis: Not all philosophers of science want to exclude metaphysics, even pro-science ones like me. Some of us realize that science presupposes (and confirms) specific but very general hypotheses about the nature of reality - that's metaphysics - and so we ought to cultivate these. I've said for a long time that ignoring this plays into the hands of the creationists (etc.) because they "wear their metaphysics on their sleeves" and hence by ignoring scientific metaphysics we miss a place of great conflict between the respective world views. The metaphysics in question has epistemological implications and ethical implications for society and our roles in it, so it is also very important to consider it carefully.

Science by its nature rejects the very concept of metaphysical. It does not presume to make ad hoc assertions about the nature of existence, or make distinctions without compelling logical reasons to do so. Metaphysics is nothing BUT ad hoc assertions about the nature of existence and unjustified distinctions.

Sure, for a sufficiently vague interpretation of "kind", science has a kind of metaphysics. It's called Physics.

This very article opens with Masaru Emoto's "Water makes funny shapes when you talk to it" research and spends a good chunk of the end pushing homeopathy. Upheaving mainstream science, this is not.

— Anton Mates

Actually, you do hear the term "Newtonism" (Google: 1,280 appearences)

I'm not sure Lamark supported common descent, as angloamerican affirms here. AFAIK, his ideas were most in favor of a parallel, independent evolution between lineages, i.e. transformism.
I might be wrong, though.

A less bizzare challenge is the recurring debate on "directed mutations" or near analogues. A large number of biologists no longer accept the randomness of mutation in general. They are no longer Darwinians; but they are certainly still evolutionists, and still study and contribute to evolutionary theory.

We have reason to believe, as stated in the first chapter, that a change in the conditions of life, by specially acting on the reproductive system, causes or increases variability; and in the foregoing case the conditions of life are supposed to have undergone a change, and this would manifestly be favourable to natural selection, by giving a better chance of profitable variations occurring; and unless profitable variations do occur, natural selection can do nothing.

Pete Dunkelberg: "the right term for evolutionary biology is 'evolutionary biology'".

That makes it sound like there is a field in biology which is not evolutionary. As Dobzhanski wrote, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution". Nothing. It is all evolutionary biology or it is non-sense. So, the right term for evolutionary biology is 'biology'.

PvM wrote... "But that has not stopped Dembski on embarking on his displacement quest. As long as evolution has an environment, it can increase the information in the genome by correlating the genetic 'code' with the environment. This correlation of information, aka mutual information, is why science has no problems explaining in principle at least that the displacement theorem presents no objections for evolutionary theory.
In the end I predict Dembski will return to his argument from 'hasty induction' by claiming that our ignorance of how something arose should be counted as evidence that it was 'designed'."/>

Excuse my amateurish contribution, but it seems to me that Dembski's argument that no new information can be created in a species is moot because what is happening is not the creation of new information. Instead, it is the flow of information into the genetic makeup from existing sources. This is similar to algorithms we use for fitting functions to curves or training a neural network. Its not creating new information, but just providing a method for information to flow from the "thing to be modeled" into the "model". Amirite? Is this what you just said in your post?

Excuse my amateurish contribution, but it seems to me that Dembski's argument that no new information can be created in a species is moot because what is happening is not the creation of new information. Instead, it is the flow of information into the genetic makeup from existing sources. This is similar to algorithms we use for fitting functions to curves or training a neural network. Its not creating new information, but just providing a method for information to flow from the "thing to be modeled" into the "model". Amirite? Is this what you just said in your post?

— Chiefly

A common mistake made by Dembski et al seems to be the realization that evolution of a particular system is not a closed system, in other words, neither Godel nor Hilbert, nor Turing Machines seem to present a problem here. Lets assume that at a particular instance, the genome describing the system consists of a set of fixed axioms, the system surely is limited in what it can do, which is another way of describing that evolution is not omnipotent. In other words, the genome posesses just enough information to describe/generate the system in question. Now, under the mechanisms of variation and selection, part of the existing genome, or a recently duplicated part of the genome, acquires information from the environment. In other words, the genome adds another axiom to its repertoire and with the extended set of axioms, it manages to increase its information and complexity of the system. The displacement theorem basically says that such displacement as found in evolution is as possible as having an intelligent inject such information. In fact, Darwin showed how natural selection and artificial selection are very similar in that extent. So, either the displacement theorem is a fundamental problem for evolution AND intelligent design or it isn't. At least at the system level. So perhaps one may extend the concept to the universe, total information in the universe cannot increase because of the displacement theorem. But like the 2nd law of thermodynamics, there is no restricting on local increases in complexity/information or in case of the 2nd law decrease in entropy. So once, again, there is no problem for evolutionary theory although one may ask from where did the original information, low entropy in the universe arise, and that my friends is a boundary condition on the Big Bang, and as far as I am aware the solution is shrouded behind the Planck time constant. In other words, the displacement theorem says nothing about evolution that it does not say about natural intelligent designers. If the argument is that the displacement theorem prohibits 'X' from arising via evolution then the same argument applies to intelligent designers who are similarly prohibited. Of course this does not mean that intelligent designers are limited by the axiom set applicable to the system 'X', it merely means that if they find a 'solution' they are importing information from elsewhere, just like evolutionary processes. So for the displacement theorem to have any relevance one has to show that no known and unknown processes can generate system 'X' and we are back to the set theoretic complement of chance and regularity with all its known problems and limitations. Let me add one more. Godel's incompleteness theorem seems to be far more a problem for ID which has to eliminate all known and unknown set of axioms. Per Godel, we will never know if such a set is complete, hence ID becomes unprovable per Godel and since per Godel we cannot eliminate false positives, the explanatory filter becomes useless (in Dembski's own words)

PvM,
I appreciate the answer - it was interesting.

"In other words, the displacement theorem shows that ID is about the supernatural or front loading at the beginning of the Universe. Unless Dembski has some ideas how the designer can interact with His Creation. His idea about an infinite wavelength carrier signal, which would have zero energy, fails for practical reasons as such a signal has zero content."

This is untread ground for me. The signal idea seems as misplaced as quantum effect supernatural action ideas - there is no signal content either. It is quite interesting to see Dembski et al running on their selfmade treadmill. Or to find the guaranteed fault in their models.

"algorithms which combine regularity and chance can be quite effective in solving problems, generate complexity and information etc."

Yes. Like simulated annealing or the shotgun..., excuse me, Monte Carlo methods.

"Target number one would be the claim that intelligent design is the set theoretic complement of chance and regularity. By that definition it seems that ID is far more affected by Godel than scientific theories."

Perhaps. The design filter says it is the complement. (At least if it is adjusted for looking at each explanation randomly instead of a forced order).

Tom,
"Actually, philosophers of science are more interested in excluding metaphysical content; and in determining a demarcation between science and metaphysics."

Well, see Keiths answer. My own view is that no metaphysics is presupposed in science, but there are general results that the methods depends on and verifies. I prefer to say "depend on" instead of "presuppose" - both are of course technically, if not morally, correct. I would prefer to call these results science. But it is also a philosophers prerogative to call all general hypotheses about the nature of reality metaphysics. Speaking of demarcation problems...

I could also go into misusing science for metaphysics. But I think I have made my point. (By somewhat rudely take Keith's sympathetic answer and run with it. Sorry about that!)

"No, the research program is Darwinism, which happens to be (due to overwhelming weight of evidence) the dominant paradigm in evolutionary biology."

I know next to nothing about evolution. What I hear is that Darwinism was supplanted by neodarwinism, which was in turn supplanted by the modern synthesis.

"Evolutionary theory is not just Darwinism by another name. To think so treats a contingent and successfull research program as though it were in fact the only logicaly possible theory to solve the problems of evolutionary biology (the study of how and why life has changed since its origin)."

True. We probably have a misunderstanding. You seem to agree with that it is a mistake to reduce evolutionary theory to the label "Darwinism". That was the point I tried to make, when I said it was historic. Perhaps you did too, while you see some current use for it.

But as I already have said: "But preferably it is the biologists who should decide, not me or other parts of the public, I think."

Tom,
I now also note Pete's post about your last comment's contradiction. I profess to not having read your comment verbatim, which is perhaps why I missed it.

Reading that, I'm also concerned about your statement "The main (not exclusive) driver of the diversification and adaption has been natural selection" which lead me to believe you were describing all of evolutionary theory, which you say you were not. Perhaps there are some logical problem there too, perhaps not.

"(At least if it is adjusted for looking at each explanation randomly instead of a forced order)."

I think that should be looking at all explanations in full. Or just deleted.

Re "His idea about an infinite wavelength carrier signal, which would have zero energy, fails for practical reasons as such a signal has zero content."

Not to mention that an antenna for an EM signal has to have a size of at least one wavelength. ;)

(Or that might be a half wavelength; I'm not sure on that point - but it doesn't affect the result in this case.)

Henry

[Good to see that Dembski reads PandasThumb]

You mean his brain didn't just fizz out? Groan.....

Maybe it is because english is a second language, but I don't like the term "proven fact" either.

I know next to nothing about evolution. What I hear is that Darwinism was supplanted by neodarwinism, which was in turn supplanted by the modern synthesis. "Evolutionary theory is not just Darwinism by another name. To think so treats a contingent and successfull research program as though it were in fact the only logicaly possible theory to solve the problems of evolutionary biology (the study of how and why life has changed since its origin)." True. We probably have a misunderstanding. You seem to agree with that it is a mistake to reduce evolutionary theory to the label "Darwinism". That was the point I tried to make, when I said it was historic. Perhaps you did too, while you see some current use for it.

"Darwinism (not a theory anymore, by the way, but a scientifically proven fact)"

sigh... If only they could get it right.
Theory = explanation of (reproducible) observations. In the case of the theory of evolution, an explanation for many, many observations.

Target number one would be the claim that intelligent design is the set theoretic complement of chance and regularity.

Caledonian: There are philosophers who (attempt to) pay close attention to the general hypotheses presupposed by scientific research and to systematize these in an organized way and to study their use. These days there are even other fields who are then borrowing these ideas back again, like the "ontology" movement in computer science. I.e., not all metaphysics is as you describe.

(Incidentally, the concepts and hypotheses in question are the ones generally shared by many fields, and hence not the proper subject matter of any of them.)

In other words, the displacement theorem says nothing about evolution that it does not say about natural intelligent designers. If the argument is that the displacement theorem prohibits 'X' from arising via evolution then the same argument applies to intelligent designers who are similarly prohibited.

There are philosophers who (attempt to) pay close attention to the general hypotheses presupposed by scientific research and to systematize these in an organized way and to study their use. These days there are even other fields who are then borrowing these ideas back again, like the "ontology" movement in computer science. I.e., not all metaphysics is as you describe.

It's just occurred to me that "movement" is the perfect name for what Intelligent Design is.

Maybe because I just went to the bathroom.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how the concept of scientific vacuity of Intelligent Design is surfacing more and more.

Telic Thought, while much better than Uncommon Descent has yet to explain why ID is not scientifically vacuous.

So ID activists, where is your evidence that ID is not scientifically vacuous?

It would have a whole more force if we knew, for example, what the list of necessary and sufficient conditions are for something to be considered scientific, but alas, as Pim knows (or ought to know) all too well, there is no widely agreed upon, unproblematic definitive list of such conditions.

Donald's just irritated that he backed a loser.

No matter how oft repeated, that phrase 'scientific vacuity of ID' just doesn't seem to have the force that Pim wishes to ascribe to it. It would have a whole more force if we knew, for example, what the list of necessary and sufficient conditions are for something to be considered scientific, but alas, as Pim knows (or ought to know) all too well, there is no widely agreed upon, unproblematic definitive list of such conditions. So, declaring ID as 'vacuous' on definitional grounds, really doesn't work because there is no unproblematic definition to which Pim can appeal.

I realize this is a really inconvenient fact for Pim's claim, but there really not much he can do about that. Thus his claim is reduced to "ID is scientifically vacuous in the way that I wish to define science". Of course, Pim can define science any way he wishes, but what he can't do is declare that his definition or point of view or philosophical presuppositions are the ones that everyone ought to accept. Pim can repeat the claim as often as he wishes, but he has a mountain of history and philosophy of science against him. Good luck.

In my argument against Intelligent Design Theory I will not contend that it is not falsifiable or that it implies contradictions. I'll argue that Intelligent Design Theory doesn't imply anything at all, i.e. it has no content. By 'content' I refer to a body of determinate principles and propositions entailed by those principles. By 'principle' I refer to a proposition of central importance to the theory at issue. By 'determinate principle' I refer to a proposition of central importance to the theory at issue in which the extensions of its terms are clearly defined.

— Nichols

unwittingly, Donald does make an indirect point, tho Pim.

it isn't likely that the concept of scientifically vacuous, vs non-scientific, is going to catch on with audiences that don't have a grasp of what we even mean by 'scientific method' to begin with.

Not to say it isn't a valid concept. It most certainly is.

But how do you promote it to "the masses", to put an overly blunt point on it?

Re "because there is no unproblematic definition"

Is there an unproblematic definition of "problematic"?

Henry

this is in response to 2 posts: 102858 (non angloamerican) and the more correct 102903 (jeannot)- sorry I'm too dumb to use this technology- Lamark did not believe in common ancestry he believed in spontaneous generation (a well accepted idea in the early 1800's). This supplied a continuous source of "lower forms". In reponse to "percieved needs" these forms would "struggle" to respond to these needs and thus improve themselves to be better adapted to their environments and as an extra added bonus pass these improvements to their offspring who would have a leg up on their competition. This resulted in a linear upward progressive evolution to more and more perfectly adapted species. This was also similar to the ideas of Etienne Geffroy Saint Hilaire where the environment itself induced the organisms to become better adapted. These 2 scientists developed these theories primarily to counter the ideas of their powerful rival George Cuvier who theorized that species became extinct and were replaced by subsequent creations (thus sidestepping the sacrilege of extinction-the imperfection of God). These French intellectuals had a great effect on Erasmus Darwin who unlike his reticent grandson leapt headfirst into the evolution debate strongly on the pro side in iambic pentameter no less. The more introspective Charles was pretty sure that (his grandfather included) this was all bushwa and not at all amenable to the scientific method. He was very careful even to not address the origin of life in any way beyond "the creator" and sure enough by the mid 1800's Pasteur had pretty much put spontaneous generation to sleep. So Darwin's metaphor of the ever-branching tree of common ancestry was very different from the Lamarkian picture of many different lineages evolving in parallel but never coming together- a picture more in common with the famous ID/Creationism "lawn of life" with millions of independant blades none with any past-present-or-future relation to any other thus providing a "theory" that explains everything but predicts nothing except "what ever is, is."

"Or that might be a half wavelength; I'm not sure on that point - but it doesn't affect the result in this case."

Um - no, and no. Not being an antenna expert here. But dipole half wave antennas are not the minimum size. You can make small loop (magnetic) or wire (electric) antennas, and some cute small EM antennas.

But their gain will be small also. Signal*gain = 0*0 = Dembski, at least in my book.

Popper's says:

"It's a proven fact that water is H2O, that George Bush is president of the U.S., and that evolution has occurred. Not all proofs are analytical/deductive."

I would like to call these validated facts. If you read my comment, you will see my arguments why. Do you have any comments on these or any own arguments?

"However, neither "Darwinism" nor Darwinian Theory are proven facts --- as Anthony Kerr noted, that's a category mistake (an important concept given to us by Gilbert Ryle, one of Dan Dennett's mentors)."

If you read my comments, you will see that I don't acknowledge the terms "Darwinism" or "Darwinian Theory" any modern meaning. Evolutionary theory is a solidly verified theory, so is any sufficiently established subset of it. If you ask your closest biologist I think you will get an agreement.

Popper's says:

"The misunderstanding is due to you folks"

You are unclear. Do you mean bioloigists or non-biologists, and do you include me?

My view is that biologists has a specific meaning by this term, and some, like creationists, abuse it. There could be regional differences among biologists.

Popper's says:

"It's reasonable to say that either something is intended or it occurs by chance. But then "intended" and "not by chance" are analytically equivalent terms, and one can be freely substituted for the other (Leibniz' Law)."

I'm feel bad about my third comment in a row to you, but i feel this is overly simplistic. Chance, determinism, random, regular, classical chaos, quantum chaos, complexity, unintentional, intentional, information and entropy are different notions around the same concepts. It is too complicated to say that it is an either-or situtation IMO. Classical chaos is coarse scale randomisation in a small scale deterministic environment.

"It's a proven fact that water is H2O, that George Bush is president of the U.S., and that evolution has occurred. Not all proofs are analytical/deductive." I would like to call these validated facts. If you read my comment, you will see my arguments why. Do you have any comments on these or any own arguments?

You are unclear.

My view is that biologists has a specific meaning by this term, and some, like creationists, abuse it.

There could be regional differences among biologists.

i feel this is overly simplistic

it isn't likely that the concept of scientifically vacuous, vs non-scientific, is going to catch on with audiences that don't have a grasp of what we even mean by 'scientific method' to begin with.

This "problem" is really all about the implementation.

First, if you are interested in selling the idea to Billy Bob Nascar or Eugene Dorkenmeister you need to avoid three syllable words like "vacuous." Try "useles" instead.

Also, in addition to being "useless," the idea of "intelligent design" is also "stupid" (note: when speaking to a clever audience, I might use both terms "vacuous" and "vapid" for the alliterative quality of the resulting phrase).

Finally, all these things need to be explained carefully, as if you are talking to a twelve year old (the age at which the stupidity of fundamentalists Christians became blindingly obvious to yours truly and many of my peers).

Here's just one example:

The so-called "theory" named "Intelligent Design" is useless and stupid. It's useless to scientists because it is impossible to determine whether something was caused by invisible all-powerful aliens. And it's stupid because there is no evidence that such invisible all-powerful aliens exist in the first place.

Other than a discussion of the names of -- and the lies told by -- the pathetic losers who have been trying to foist "intelligent design" on the American public (and elsewhere, as I am now aware of at least one Australian "scientist" who has gotten himself sucked in) there is nothing to add to the discussion.

No matter how oft repeated, that phrase 'scientific vacuity of ID' just doesn't seem to have the force that Pim wishes to ascribe to it. It would have a whole more force if we knew, for example, what the list of necessary and sufficient conditions are for something to be considered scientific, but alas, as Pim knows (or ought to know) all too well, there is no widely agreed upon, unproblematic definitive list of such conditions. So, declaring ID as 'vacuous' on definitional grounds, really doesn't work because there is no unproblematic definition to which Pim can appeal. I realize this is a really inconvenient fact for Pim's claim, but there really not much he can do about that. Thus his claim is reduced to "ID is scientifically vacuous in the way that I wish to define science". Of course, Pim can define science any way he wishes, but what he can't do is declare that his definition or point of view or philosophical presuppositions are the ones that everyone ought to accept. Pim can repeat the claim as often as he wishes, but he has a mountain of history and philosophy of science against him. Good luck.

so this raises the obvious question:

who is the target audience for the term "vacuous"?

the typical PT reader?

scientists in fields other than biology?

with what audience is it a useful distinction?

You've made it quite clear it's of limited use if the words "stupid" and "useless" are just as efficient at conveying the message to some audiences.

so back to Steve S' first post in the thread:

Is saying ID is scientifically vacuous any more productive than saying:

"science Vs. stupid"?

I'm just trying to get clear on where and when this distinction will be relevant and productive.

But the proof is in the empty bowl.

Dongald M

Pim can repeat the claim as often as he wishes, but he has a mountain of history and philosophy of science against him.

Ooooh, those philosopher's of science are oh so scary to working scientists! Keep them away from evolutionary biology or they'll discover all our philosticosophical secrets and

Just out of curiosity, Donny, can you tell us how much of a challenge did your "mountain of history and philosophy" present to the scientists' position at Dover?

Answer: diddly freakin squat on a flat uninteresting rock.

In fact, the Big Time Loser who was called upon to testify as to the nature of that mountain left a giant stink trail behind him that he tries (unsuccessfully) to pretend isn't there, to this very day!

Just out of curiosity, Donny, can you tell us how much of a challenge did your "mountain of history and philosophy" present to the scientists' position at Dover?

Yes, yes, yes, Donald ---- science doesn't pay any attention to your religious opinions, and you don't like that. Right. We got it. Really. We heard you the first hundred times.

Of course, weather forecasting or accident investigation or medical practice or the rules of basketball also don't pay any attention to your religious opinions, do they.

If it makes you feel any better, Donald, none of them pay any attention to MY religious opinions either. Of course, I don't throw tantrums over it, like you do. (shrug)

Sir TJ

so this raises the obvious question:

who is the target audience for the term "vacuous"?

the typical PT reader?

scientists in fields other than biology?

Most of those folks know what vacuous means. But not all, probably (English as a second language or just plain less literate) so the terms "useless and stupid" are probably better.

with what audience is it a useful distinction?

With any audience, anywhere, who doesn't understand what "scientifically vacuous" means. I explained that above.

Is saying ID is scientifically vacuous any more productive than saying:

"science Vs. stupid"?

Neither are particularly useful for explaining the problem to less literate or naive audience.

But now you or someone else will tell me that saying ID is "useless and stupid" will "turn off" some members of the audience.

Right?

So that's why the "civilized" three letter words like "vacuous" are used instead.

We could go even further and speak French, I suppose, but then we'd be accused of being anti-American HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

But now you or someone else will tell me that saying ID is "useless and stupid" will "turn off" some members of the audience.

With any audience, anywhere, who doesn't understand what "scientifically vacuous" means. I explained that above.

make that your point, not you're. *sigh*

ID is vacuous in the same way that your rhetoric is vacuous. Where content is called for, we have instead a patheticly sophistic argument that Pim can't prove that ID is devoid of content. But the proof is in the empty bowl.

— Popper

I'm sure you're bored of this at this point, but here's a different tack:

Is the idea of using the term vacuous to address the "ID is science" issue spouted off constantly by IDiots?

so you can simply avoid the whole, "who determines whether it's science or not?" question?

So judges wouldn't have to deal with the question of whether it is science at all, and simply bypass it entirely to address the "valuelesness" of it?

If that's so, I've always been under the impression there is a relatively objective measure of something as science, if we preface that with "modern".

am i wrong?

Is there an objective way to view ID as science?

it doesn't seem to meet any criteria i can think of.

Sir TJ

any argument or term you have to define to the audience you use it on loses value over ones that you don't.

I never said you had to define it.

You have a curious way of "arguing" today, Sir TJ.

I hope you haven't been infected. ;)

Donald M seems to have confused my statement that ID is scientifically vacuous with the claim that ID is not scientific.

With any audience, anywhere, who doesn't understand what "scientifically vacuous" means. I explained that above.

I never said you had to define it.

Is there an objective way to view ID as science?

Yeah, if science is defined as encompassing theology.

But let's face it: between evolutionary biology, geology (and other sciences) the recent studies on third-party prayer, and the continued failure of "miracle-working" charlatans to demonstrate their ill claims, the idea that any "objective" basis to support most mordern religions -- including ID -- has been utterly debunked.

Religions exist simply because people want to believe in the stuff that makes up their religion: superpowerful all-knowing beings, fluffy clouds to float on after you die, surrounded by all your favorite people, and it provides some substance to those feel-good platitudes that are easy to recite (i.e., "God is love," "love thy neighbor," etc.) but difficult to explain or practice all the time.

As for me, I made up my mind long ago: a complete waste of time and, for the most part, dangerous vile crud.

But that's just my opinion. Oh yeah -- it's shared by a growing number of millions of people but you needn't be concerned.

Heh heh.

fair enough. I think I've reached the dead horse stage myself.

a tangent for another day.

I suppose that "ID is vacuous" is somewhat catchier sounding than "ID doesn't actually explain anything", even if it is somewhat less precise. Then again, I suppose it can be rather hard to be catchy and precise at the same time.

Henry

"ID doesn't explain anything." is the more pragmatic... explanation.

Don't use ID because ID is useless.

No philosophical or intellectual arguments are required, or possible.

I can posit a hypothesis on gravity:

"Anything placed in mid-air will fall...except when it doesn't."

My hypothesis is correct, but vacuous. Think of "vacuous" as a word meaning "meaningless", and "unproductive" in combination. At least, I think that's what it means.

Popper says:

"It really doesn't matter what you would like to do."

True. Except that we have a discussion where I stated my preference and reason why I have them.

"The definition of "prove" is "to establish the truth or validity of by presentation of argument or evidence"."

If by evidence you mean observational evidence, I agree.

"Thus, it's a proven fact that evolution has occurred, and insisting we only use the word "proven" in analytical contexts has no basis in linguistics."

This sounds different for me. It could be that english is a second language. But what I really want to do is to distinguish between proven by argument and proven by evidence.

"OTOH, most people wouldn't know what the heck you mean by "validated fact" --- it's not very good English. You might do better with "confirmed fact", but that's really too weak for the examples given; they are proven, not just confirmed."

Are you sure you read my comment 102816? I said "Only the archaic meaning of "prove", to find from experience, comes close. This is confusing (for me, at least). So I would prefer observed, verified or validated fact, or something such."

Validated was an analogy from validated theory. It's not supposed to be very good english since it is a second language to me. It's supposed to be passable english. But I see that it doesn't mean colloquially what I thought it meant. Verify doesn't help either since it has the double meaning as proven has. So perhaps observed fact is fulfilling my intention of an unambigous term.

"No, I wasn't unclear."

How is your contradictory claim helpful or even true? You were unclear to me at least. It is obviously not important to establish what you are saying, so I'm not asking again.

"So Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne aren't biologists, because their specific meaning for this term isn't the one you have in mind? It seems that you have quite a few erroneous views."

This doesn't follow, of course. We are discussing the problems with the term "Darwinism". If you don't want to read my comments thoroughly, see for example Pete's comment 102880.

""There could be regional differences among biologists."

Gee, ya think?"

Gee, ya think?

"But then it can't be true that "biologists has (sic) a specific meaning by this term"."

That doesn't follow. There is no special problem to see regional differences in a specific term and it's uses. It is a problem when trying to use it outside its region, of course.

"You seem to have missed the point entirely."

How is your claim helpful or even true? You haven't responded to my comments argument. I note that you do that a lot, even though it's not meaningful. Why is that?

"Also, in addition to being "useless," the idea of "intelligent design" is also "stupid" (note: when speaking to a clever audience, I might use both terms "vacuous" and "vapid" for the alliterative quality of the resulting phrase)."

This was succinct. It is also useful to speak of useful theories, so "useless" is really a useful term. :-)

"Popper wrote:

"ID is vacuous in the same way that your rhetoric is vacuous. Where content is called for, we have instead a patheticly sophistic argument that Pim can't prove that ID is devoid of content. But the proof is in the empty bowl."

Well said."

I second that. "Empty (content)" is also a good complement to "useless" when replacing "vacuous", I think.

"Why is that?"

I'm not interested in any answer here, of course. It is a question I propose may be useful to put to yourself. Sorry for the confusion.

Popper's Ghost: That statement is, to say the least, extremely contentious. Would you care to explain why none of the proposed ones are correctly identified?

"But what I really want to do is to distinguish between proven by argument and proven by evidence."

Then one wants to do such a distinction two questions must be answered. Is it meaningful and is it usable?

Meaningful: Just because the dictionary definition suggests meaning due to two allegedly separate cases doesn't mean they exist. And in reality there is a gradual scale between basic observational facts (very little or no direct theory) to theoretical statements (very little or no direct observations). There is no qualitative difference. But there is a colloquial and quantitative difference, though the border is fluent.

Usable: People confuse proven by argument and proven by evidence. Proven by (formal) theory may still mean (often mean) that it remains to do verification by observation. This is why I want to make a distinction, if possible.

Just harking back to the 'Darwinism' debate earlier, and whether it's an appropriate term. There is a very good reason why the creationists use Darwinism, and that's so that they can conflate evolutionary science - 'Darwinism' - with Social Darwinism, in the assumption that the layman will not be able to spot the difference.

Which is a very good reason why we scientists shouldn't use it, and should oppose the creationists use of it as well.

Answer to The Pro, Comment #103024 and Jeannot #102903
The point on spontaneous generation and the progressist, fairly "one way climbing" beliefs of predarwinian evolutionists is well taken. However, I find it very hard to believe that lamarck and others would think that there was no lineage splitting, as if only spontaneous generation existed. Surely these men where no that narrow minded or lacking in imagination and admitted to a mixture of both. It seems difficult to me to be able to conceive descent with transformation, and thus not admmit the possibility of common descent. Plain genealogical thinking, as applied to humans, was certainly available at the time. Lineages may split, despite the fact athey may be conceived to continue moving in the same direction.
This being said, it remains that descent with modification (transformism) is probably much more close to being the basic evolutionary "fact" than "Darwinism" is. And certainly, Darwin's approach o the origin of life is unscientific, while spontaneous generation remains the only truly mechanistic approach to this problem (no small issue, considering that many today, like Darwin, feel this to be a "roadblock" to scientific explanation)

Just harking back to the 'Darwinism' debate earlier, and whether it's an appropriate term. There is a very good reason why the creationists use Darwinism, and that's so that they can conflate evolutionary science - 'Darwinism' - with Social Darwinism, in the assumption that the layman will not be able to spot the difference. Which is a very good reason why we scientists shouldn't use it, and should oppose the creationists use of it as well.

And certainly, Darwin's approach o the origin of life is unscientific, while spontaneous generation remains the only truly mechanistic approach to this problem (no small issue, considering that many today, like Darwin, feel this to be a "roadblock" to scientific explanation)

the theory of evolution and the hypotheses about the origin of living things occupy separate places in the scientific sphere. You don't need to know anything about origins to make testable inferences about evolution/common ancestry. If you are interested in origins research Prof. Robt. Hazen of George Mason Univ. has written a book on it's current status. Clearly it shows that any understanding on the subject will not come from biology but from physical chemistry and organic chemistry. Evolution only addresses diversification of species. Let's look at a testable but not-yet-done experiment. Let's take 2 groups of 5 living mammals. No tricks here; they all secrete milk and have hair on some part of their bodies at some part of their lives. In group 1 we'll put the spiny anteater, the banded anteater, the scaly anteater, the giant anteater and the aardvark. The 2nd group will have the arctic fox, the giant panda, the walrus, the mink and the tiger. Using the fossil record the TofE will predict one of these groups to be much closer genetically to each other than the other group's species to each other. Again, no tricks here. The fossil antecedents all have synapsid skulls and 3 osssicles, the criteria for mammals. My guess is that ID would make no prediction about the outcome of the experiment but whatever was found it would be expected with ID.

I think the reason that we shouldn't use "Darwinism" as a group identifier is that scientific ideas are independent of their discoverer. It could so easily have been "Wallaceism" that the fundies object to.
Science unlike, say literature or, curiously, mathematics (where theoems are very much personalied), exists outside the personal sphere. We follow the ideas and not the people behind them.
That said, I understand that working biologists and others who regularly use evolution as a given are often happy to give credit to the man who discovered the real tree of life. However I feel that to call yourself a Darwinist personalises the issue way too much and might suggest to the unwary but religiously motivated observer that we are a cult devoted to a secular god.
So what do we call ourselves? Evolutionsists (capital E only because at the start of a sentence)? Rationalists? Thinkers? Natural Philosophers?
Only joking of course - none of us needs a label.

Pro, Cuvier, Linnaeus and other old non evolutionists would have nailed it nicely in several such experiments.
I disagree that life is not relevant to understanding the origin of life, and I think that the subject of the origin of life, is not to be shied awayof by, for example, separating it from evolution and only talking about how much we know about the latter. It unavoidably intersects with evolution, too. No organism, no evolution. How about "The fact of Oparinism"? heehee

Re "So what do we call ourselves?"

Realist, perhaps?

Henry

I disagree that life is not relevant to understanding the origin of life, and I think that the subject of the origin of life, is not to be shied awayof by, for example, separating it from evolution and only talking about how much we know about the latter. It unavoidably intersects with evolution, too. No organism, no evolution.

Let's take 2 groups of 5 living mammals. No tricks here; they all secrete milk and have hair on some part of their bodies at some part of their lives. In group 1 we'll put the spiny anteater, the banded anteater, the scaly anteater, the giant anteater and the aardvark. The 2nd group will have the arctic fox, the giant panda, the walrus, the mink and the tiger. Using the fossil record the TofE will predict one of these groups to be much closer genetically to each other than the other group's species to each other. Again, no tricks here. The fossil antecedents all have synapsid skulls and 3 osssicles, the criteria for mammals. My guess is that ID would make no prediction about the outcome of the experiment but whatever was found it would be expected with ID.

This is easy. The anteater group is closer genetically to each other because they all have 'ant' in their name.

No no no, it's because they all eat. Based only on the criteria given, we can't say that those others eat anything at all!

What essential difference would it make to evolution if the origin of life turned out to depend upon God?

Let's look at a testable but not-yet-done experiment. Let's take 2 groups of 5 living mammals. No tricks here; they all secrete milk and have hair on some part of their bodies at some part of their lives. In group 1 we'll put the spiny anteater, the banded anteater, the scaly anteater, the giant anteater and the aardvark. The 2nd group will have the arctic fox, the giant panda, the walrus, the mink and the tiger. Using the fossil record the TofE will predict one of these groups to be much closer genetically to each other than the other group's species to each other.

— the pro from dover

Glen, it is not a matter of the amount of evidence. That should be clear at this point by the persistence of creationism and ID. If we know very little about the origin of life, that does not mean there is a greater chance that god is responsible. There will still be a scientific way, of conditions and physicochemical mechanisms, and a supernatural way ("guidance", without mechanism) of approaching the subject. The correct scientific aattitude, both towards evolution, and to the origin of life, is not a "matter of evidence". In fact, if you accept that it COULD be a matter of evidence, you play right into the hands of those who wish to mix religion and science.

It is a matter of evidence in exactly the way I stated: We have reason to teach models that have adequate evidence, and we have little reason to teach models which do not.

The problems of bringing God into biology have more to do with physics than they do with biology--as I noted. Beyond this, there is nothing that categorically distinguishes "supernatural" from "natural", so that there is no reason to a priori exclude God as an explanation. We exclude (at the present time) God a posteriori, for, yes, lacking in evidence and/or as being defined as existing beyond evidence.

So of course it COULD be a matter of evidence. I do not play into the IDists hands because I would be willing to grant that a non-human, non-animal designer could make things in this world, but we would need evidence that this has happened. Real evidence, connecting cause and effect in a scientific manner. Excluding a hypothetical God of known purposes and devices a priori does give truth to the accusations of IDists that a cognitive possibility has been excluded for no evidentiary reasons whatsoever.

Empiricism is what counts, and suggesting otherwise does play into the hands of anti-science forces. Observable (not necessarily directly) causes and observable effects are what count, and any suggestion that we do or should exclude hypothetical causes due to a priori categorizations is as noxious from the irreligious as it is from the religious.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

well, glen, for those of us who are not as far "out there" as you are, there is always a truly scientific approach. So, Ok, lets say a "designer" could have been involved, much like there could be one involved in making a car. Obvioulsy, he could not make the car in any way. He got his hands dirty, he did it step by step. He was constrained by the rules of this world. Should there not be similar constraints to constructing a cell? To just say "there could have been a designer" is hardly a contribution to understanding HOW , truly, could a cell be put together.It is not even clear whether he just spelled out the words "abracadabra". Therefore, DESPITE the wacky possiblity of the designer (which we now, leads to supernatural anyway because of the "designer of the designer" riddle) there STILL is another, truly mechanistic and scientific explanation due as to how was the cell assembled.
Now, delving into this second, truly interesting part of the explanation, will probably lead to no resolution as to whether there was a designer or not. In other words: the part of the explanation that is not scientifically vacuous is the one that deals with mechanism, yes, in good old physicochemical fashion. Not the part that deals with the "designer"

Just how stupid are you, non-entity? Obviously you are too dumb to recognize that I don't accept any "explanation" that lacks constraints.

Sir TJ could have avoided that strawman as well, had he paid attention to the fact that in context I was asking only what difference "God created the first life" would make to our knowledge of evolution, and not what difference it would make to abiogenesis or the rest of science (did I not discuss the problem that bringing God into science is? To be sure, non-entity didn't understand it either time when I brought up the issue). Indeed, how else could what I had written be interpreted, well, intelligently interpreted?

So you follow TJ's strawman argument, which I had left alone because his opst essentially "concluded" what I had essentially written (I assumed that most anybody who read both posts would recognize the strawman, though obviously not all did). I had mentioned the "mechanisms" of evolution, and those of abiogenesis via a pronoun.

And you attack with your lame, unintelligent comments, as if you don't understand the meaning of "evidence". Which apparently you don't, or you wouldn't have begun to suggest that science was about something other than evidence.

One can hardly follow "evidence" without there being constraints. Are you too daft to know that?

Learn something about science, and just quit trying to score points when you're incompetent even to read a philosophically-informed discussion of science. I now see why you wrote the bilge you did about abiogenesis and evolution, for you're far too incompetent to deal with my arguments against it, only tilting (like Sir TJ) at a strawman that you ripped out of context.

And now my intention is not to reply to you any more, at least on this thread, as your reading capacity appears to be severely limited. It's not a promise, but really, I don't have the time to deal with strawmen and dolts after a couple posts or so.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

PvM was saying;
Unless Dembski has some ideas how the designer can interact with His Creation. His idea about an infinite wavelength carrier signal, which would have zero energy, fails for practical reasons as such a signal has zero content.

Oh!!! I thought that what D_mbski was refering to was called POOF...Good Did It!!!

Yes, tyrannosaurus, that is the issue. I always hedge, because it is in fact true that the original "design hypotheses" have in fact been falsified. Essentially, Genesis posits a God like us, who would also design like us.

Paley's "design argument" was somewhat like this one, although he hedged regarding bad designs. Still, his hypothesis was understood by most people to be sufficiently constrained to be falsifiable by the evidence for evolution.

Only the devious and dodgy "design hypotheses" remain. And as I argued on "Intelligent Design Lacks Fertility" this morning, their "hypothesis" deliberately avoids connecting cause and effect. Not a really new thought, but it is the more scientific reason why ID lacks fertility.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/b8ykm

PvM continued;
Just like human intelligence is guided by regularity (patterns, morals, laws etc) but also by random behavior, algorithms which combine regularity and chance can be quite effective in solving problems, generate complexity and information etc.

Interesting line of thoughts. This can lead towards the "appearance of design" in nature and thus a "natural tautology". Of course that does not imply a "purpose" or any other ulterior intelligence behind the appearance of design.

why, that kind of violent answer is typically... angloamerican!! heeeheee. As angloamerican as naive empiricism and pragmatism. Sorry Glen, if you felt your intelligence was brought into question. Not my intention. Maybe you will be able to provide a shorter, better answer some other day, when you are feeling more serene.

For instance if you think gods hand is an empirical possibility you should have been much more clearer on what "evidence" you think could prove his participation at the origin of life. This being said, the physicochemical ,mechanistic "part" remains unavoidable, and of course, the truly interesting and scientific explanation as to how life comes to be.

What's all this talk about "god"? I thought ID didn't have anything to do with religion.

Or are IDers just lying to us when they claim that . . . ?

For instance if you think gods hand is an empirical possibility you should have been much more clearer on what "evidence" you think could prove his participation at the origin of life. This being said, the physicochemical ,mechanistic "part" remains unavoidable, and of course, the truly interesting and scientific explanation as to how life comes to be.

How would one go about proving the intervention of a god, anyway? Christians haven't even successfully supported the idea of the EXISTENCE of a god, never mind any possible traits one might have.

I could keep going on, but that should be sufficient. That set of emperical data would be sufficient to infer the existance of a God who created heaven and earth and all living kinds.

Basically what that would support would be that Genesis was largely an historical account, but this doesn't extend to the existence of God. All those events and whatnot could still be misattributed or misinterpretted by the ancient authors to be the doing of a supreme Being, which they then proceded to write about for the same reason the real authors of the biblical texts wrote about God.

The "history" in Genesis doesn't make any more sense than the cosmology. Just compare the table of the nations with what is known about the similarities between the various languages.

Ask Clouser; genesis is a written down version of a combined mythos handed down orally within her tribe for thousands of years.

the KJV version is just plain wrong.

*clouser, clouser, clouser*

(hides behind desk)

It would be incredible supporting evidence of various biblical myths, but it still wouldn't effectively demonstrate "God".

Basically what that would support would be that Genesis was largely an historical account, but this doesn't extend to the existence of God.

The reason, I suspect, why Wheels and Sounder make this claim is because a complete emperical description of the situation I describe does not entail a single proposition about the existance of God or otherwise. This is true, but it is also true that a complete emperical description of the motion of the planets does not entail a single proposition about the existance or otherwise of gravity; a complete emperical description what we physically observe does not entail a single proposition about the existence or otherwise of electrons, still less of quarks; and a complete emperical description of the present moment does not entail the existance of a past.

This is not startling news. It is only to say that induction is not deduction. But just as we can be justified in inductively infering the existance of gravity (or curved space-time), electrons, quarks and the past (and future), we could also be justified in inductively inferring the existance of a creator, at least hypothetically.

blah blah blah BAYES WAS SMART OK?

Put another way, if you insist that the a priori probability of a God is much much less than the a priori probability of the universe springing into existance 10 thousand years ago with millions of extant and unrelated species forming viable eco systems on Earth; why should we not conclude your rejection of the God hypothesis is not just the rankest dogmatism?

While their are rational objections to the ideas I presented (not sufficient, but rational none-the-less), plainly Sounder does not know any of them. Instead he resorts to painstaking irrationality, stooping to the level of fake quotations, out right misrepresentation, at one stage purporting to give my view when actually giving his own. He even invents a fictitious theology which he attributes as my belief. So far is he carried away by his irrational assault that he is unable to follow the simple algebra that,
If 1 >> b/c then c >> b.

There is no purpose in attempting to defend ideas against blatant irrationalism, so I will not attempt to. Perhaps if Sounder can actually find a cogent argument, he might like to try again.

Why are we all talking about this god-thing? I thought ID was science and wasn't about religion or religious apologetics.

Or are IDers just lying to us when they make that claim . . . ?

Sounder is mischaractering me...

Is this in relation to my writing on the Bible myths, or your formula?

If it's the latter, and if I am mischaracterizing you, it's not intentional.

I called it as I saw it. You can go ahead and keep lamenting your new-found victimhood, or try clarifying your position.

Now if by "demonstrate" we mean "deductively entail", I have to agree with Sounder. But if it means "provide conclusive inductive support for" I would have to disagree, as I also disagree with Wheels.

PS: "by definitely" = "by definition."
Spell check doesn't help if you correctly spell your malapropism!

It's a nice thought and all, but no amount of empirical data can allow you to safely infer the existence of God, or other supernatural beings. Supernature is, by definitely, something that can and does exceed the ability of natural law and empiricism to pin down. This problem becomes readily apparent if you are dealing with (I assume) an omnipotent supernatural being.

Consider the theory that: There exists a powerfull being, such that that being is not physical, and not part or our space-time continuum;

— Tom Curtis

That being desires that in at least one planet in a space-time continuum, there should exist genetically distinct species of life forming stable eco-systems; That being also desires that on at least one planet with distinct species in stable eco-systems, there should exist on species of intelligent beings; That being is sufficiently powerfull and knowledgable to bring about his/her/its desires as listed above; Our space-time continuum was brought into existance around 10 thousand years ago by this being inorder to satisfy those desires.

Is this in relation to my writing on the Bible myths, or your formula? Both.

Which makes it sound as though the misrepresentation of the former was deliberate.

Try this: All naturaly radioactive minerals show an age of 10,000 years; Each year new stars are seen, and when measured by parralax it is determined that the most distant stars visible are 10,000 light years distant (incrementing every year); Determining genetic similarity of life forms, it is found that all members of the same species have a recent common ancester, that non-coding sequences and tripply redundant bases in coding sequences are random with respect to different species within the same genera, though strongly correlated to ecological similarities at active sites; That humans show a genetic bottle neck down to 8 people 5,000 years ago; and that unclean animals show a bottleneck down to 2 animals, while clean animals show a bottleneck down to 6. I could keep going on, but that should be sufficient. That set of emperical data would be sufficient to infer the existance of a God who created heaven and earth and all living kinds. The fact that we would not be able to determine the mechanics of creation would be irrelevant; just as the fact that Newton did not have a mechanism for the operation of Gravity was irrelevant to the viability of his theory.

The way you chose to phrase your "critique" shows it is not worth the time to discuss it with you.

However, I would be interested in your demonstration of a deductive conclusion regarding forces in the solar system from a description of motions only. (Hint: forces involve time, distances and mass; velocities involve only time and distances. There is no deductive path from velocities to forces, let alone to a particular force.)

new post

Now, you wish to deny this inductive argument because such a being would be "supernatural", and by definition the "supernatural" cannot the explanation of emperical phenomena. Fair enough. Let us adopt your definition. But then how do you know the being mentioned in the theory is supernatural?

Not sure how you could distinguish this from a powerful being (or a collectively powerful civilization) which is physical and part of spacetime, and just has access to really humongous matter-reconstruction devices.

How would you distinguish this from a being or beings who didn't desire the above, but were too dumb or insufficiently powerful to bring about their preferred state of affairs?

Or were simply indifferently copying a chunk of another universe which had developed naturally?

Or a being or being whose desires actually focused around, say, there being as high a population of pigeons as possible, and intelligent life being a necessary evil to advance that end?

Or if we go with explanations that have no overseeing intelligences at all: our rocks being apparently 10 ky-old, and the recent appearance of stars, could be explained by historical variation in various fundamental physical constants. Explanations for historical evidence of all life recently radiating from the Middle East are more constrained, but we could at least hypothesize that they were developed elsewhere and transported to Earth at a recent moment using natural (not ruling out intelligent) processes.

The bolded part tells me that you believe such findings would be compelling evidence for the existence of God. How do you come to this conclusion? It seemed only logical to me that you would find this to be true because the Bible makes such claims, and these would "prove the Bible and its claims to be true". If I'm wrong, go ahead and explain your reasoning for coming to your conclusion.

Did I come off as hostile, or mean-spirited? Whatever feeling you got from the writing shouldn't matter. I asked honest questions and want answers to them. I am open to your arguments. I just don't find them convincing.

I have to admit, having yet to take any physics courses, that I can't do such a thing.

Is it possible to scientifically investigate the nature of this being? Speficically, using methodological naturalism?

Who defined it so?

Regardless, by pinning your argument on a definition, you are also making it free from content. To see this, consider what would happen if I rephrased my claim to get rid of contentious words like "God" and "Creator".

I am not "pinning" my arguments on definitions, I am taking your argument and showing how it doesn't work given the definitions for terms you used.

The comparison of your hypothetical world to the work of Newton is rather unfair: Newton did not infer that there was a supernatural agent at work, in fact he admitted that he was powerless to define the agent at work. The only thing he could do was describe the effects.

The fact of the matter is that when you open the door for supernatural agencies, you are powerless to conclude that the empirical data (any kind of empiricism here, not just as used in the sciences) is reliable at all. It could be that all the Genesis-like data we gathered from biology and physics and astronomy is a deliberate deception caused by Milton's Archfiend, who has concealed the truth from our senses and thus effectively ruined the working of empiricism at all. If any supernatural power can BUILD the physical universe, it's also impossible to rule out that such a power could also build a FALSE universe whenever we poke around for data.

methodological supernaturalism

Having read through Tom's posts in this thread a couple of times now, it's apparent that he either doesn't have a point, or does have one and has no idea how to express it, but thinks that verbiage is useful in direct proportion to its mass, without regard for specific content. If that's the strategy, it's helpful to at least know how to spell "empirical."

You are using contentious definitions and foisting them onto my argument. It is certainly not any part of my definition of "supernatural" that "it cannot be infered from emperical evidence".

I don't really have a definition of "supernatural".

I have a refference class of purported objects which are "supernatural", ie, ghosts, angels, demons, and gods, and have not tried to narrow it down much beyond that.

The usual way to define non-natural is that it is not explicable in terms of natural laws; that is, it breaks the causal chain. If we abandon the methodological assumption of naturalism - that everything is open to empirical investigation - we can say that anything not presently explained by scientific laws is non-natural, but that's not what is meant. We can distinguish between our present ignorance and something that's in-principle not scientifically explicable, surely. We want something that is completely outside the course of physical events [some proponents of the term 'supernatural' use it to mean 'uncaused' - what that actually means is really unclear]. But if we had it, could we incorporate it into a scientific explanation? We could obviously not use empirical observations - they depend on the ordinary course of physical processes. So what else is there? The answer is, nothing. Non-natural explanations are not scientific.

How would you distinguish this from a being or beings who didn't desire the above, but were too dumb or insufficiently powerful to bring about their preferred state of affairs?

How would you distinguish this from a being or beings who didn't desire the above, but were too dumb or insufficiently powerful to bring about their preferred state of affairs?

Not sure how you could distinguish this from a powerful being (or a collectively powerful civilization) which is physical and part of spacetime, and just has access to really humongous matter-reconstruction devices.

— Tom Curtis

A matter reconstruction device that shields the reconstructed from all starlight from other parts of the universe? If you mean a being or civilization which is physical in another space-time continuum, my answer is below, but if you mean physical in this space-time continuum, I think the suggestion cannot explain the hypothetical phenomena.

How would you distinguish this from a being or beings who didn't desire the above, but were too dumb or insufficiently powerful to bring about their preferred state of affairs?

The lifeforms and ecosystems are the most functionally complex features of the hypothetical design, and so are close to the purpose of the hypothetical design. Put simply, there are many more ways to make rocks than to make life. Consequently the life in the scenario needs more explanation than the rocks. A theory that proposed that the being made the rocks on purpose but that the life was an unforseen side effect would fail to explain that which was most in neeed of explanation.

Or were simply indifferently copying a chunk of another universe which had developed naturally?

Further, simple copies of sample sections of our universe are unlikely to include any life forms (or even any stars), so and indifferent copy leaves unexplained the most startling feature of the scenario.

Or a being or being whose desires actually focused around, say, there being as high a population of pigeons as possible, and intelligent life being a necessary evil to advance that end?

Or if we go with explanations that have no overseeing intelligences at all: our rocks being apparently 10 ky-old, and the recent appearance of stars, could be explained by historical variation in various fundamental physical constants. Explanations for historical evidence of all life recently radiating from the Middle East are more constrained, but we could at least hypothesize that they were developed elsewhere and transported to Earth at a recent moment using natural (not ruling out intelligent) processes.

We burst out laughing when creationist propose similar absurdities. I don't think we should resort to them ourselves even hypothetically.

I am not quite sure about just what I wandered into here. But a good Bayesian weighs the evidence for hypotheses, using those which the weight of the evidence most strongly favors. In addition, the rule of parsimony, Ockham's razor, suggest favoring the simplest hypothesis which has the weight of the evidence.

On carefully looking at the astronomical, physics, chemical and geological evidence (so just leaving biology entirely out of it) the overwhelming weight of the evidence speaks to the great age (and evolution) of the observable universe, the sun and solar system, and Terra. The geological evidence alone is overwhelming that life began before, say, one billion years ago.

The above synopsis agrees with all the evidence and the hypotheses to account for various aspects of that evidence. Parsimony suggests leaving out anything else, including a postulated creator or designer.

I am not quite sure about just what I wandered into here. But a good Bayesian weighs the evidence for hypotheses, using those which the weight of the evidence most strongly favors. In addition, the rule of parsimony, Ockham's razor, suggest favoring the simplest hypothesis which has the weight of the evidence. On carefully looking at the astronomical, physics, chemical and geological evidence (so just leaving biology entirely out of it) the overwhelming weight of the evidence speaks to the great age (and evolution) of the observable universe, the sun and solar system, and Terra. The geological evidence alone is overwhelming that life began before, say, one billion years ago. The above synopsis agrees with all the evidence and the hypotheses to account for various aspects of that evidence. Parsimony suggests leaving out anything else, including a postulated creator or designer.

— David B. Benson

The hypothetical world set up for this little debate is one in which all the empirical data apparently matches up with a Young Earth Creationist account of Genesis, and whether or not it would be kosher to conclude, from the empirical data, that God the Creator was behind it all.
I still maintain that empiricism does not play nicely with supernatural agents. Appeals to Bayesian methods and a kind of pseudoparsimony do not let us firmly establish the existence of the supernatural, as we cannot have any knowns or even a definite range of variables about the supernatural agents from which to set up a proof, either through symbolic logic or its more specific incarnation of mathematics. Thus, if the appeal is purely to the empirical data, which was the initial claim in regards to this hypothetical world, we're still stuck without the ability to infer the supernatural over the natural, let alone WHICH possible supernatural agency is working.
It certainly doesn't help that many kinds of Creation myths happen to overlap on key ideas, and that many other cultures have partial or total flooding as a facet of mythological history. The idea of using Bayesian tactics to reduce the situation from polytheism to monotheism can also be used to reduce it from monotheism to nontheism. We don't have to appeal to the supernatural.
Tom obviously has one advantage, though, in that he can define the nature of this hypothetical world in any way he wants, especially ad hoc. But this doesn't allow him to redefine empiricism and supernatural to his liking.

Thank you, Anton. Then I will say no, not possible. If this hypothetical universe includes people, then eventually thought evolves to include logic (taken in the widest sense). From this logic together with experimentation comes a naturalistic explanation of the universe and everything in it. Again, on the grounds of parsimony, no creator or designer.

Um, what the hell is "methodological supernaturalism", and, uh, how does it work?

My definitions are not in contention to my knowledge. It is not my definition of "supernatural" either, rather this is a direct consequence of the definitions for "supernatural" and "empiricism."

1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil 2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)

Empiricism, especially in the sciences, depends on your ability to test an idea against the natural world and natural phenomena and natural experiences. However, even without this limited scientific usage of "empirical," you have to be able to judge something by making observations about it if you're going to call it "empirical." With the supernatural, you simply cannot take this for granted because a supernatural agent can go beyond the laws of nature in order to decieve your senses and experiences. That is the thing which destroys your whole argument. Since empiricism relies on our ability to percieve with the senses, and since a supernatural agent could circumvent such scrutiny with no apparent limitations, supernatural agents are useless to empirical methodology period.

The hypothetical world set up for this little debate is one in which all the empirical data apparently matches up with a Young Earth Creationist account of Genesis, and whether or not it would be kosher to conclude, from the empirical data, that God the Creator was behind it all.

It certainly doesn't help that many kinds of Creation myths happen to overlap on key ideas, and that many other cultures have partial or total flooding as a facet of mythological history. The idea of using Bayesian tactics to reduce the situation from polytheism to monotheism can also be used to reduce it from monotheism to nontheism. We don't have to appeal to the supernatural.

Tom obviously has one advantage, though, in that he can define the nature of this hypothetical world in any way he wants, especially ad hoc. But this doesn't allow him to redefine empiricism and supernatural to his liking.

Um, what the hell is "methodological supernaturalism", and, uh, how does it work?

Sorry, slip of the pen. As can be determined from context I meant "methodological naturalism".

What you need to show is that the supernatural cannot constitute and explanation of empirical phenomena

To be fair, I don't think you have stated your definition of the supernatural.

— Tom Curtis

The usual way to define non-natural is that it is not explicable in terms of natural laws; that is, it breaks the causal chain. If we abandon the methodological assumption of naturalism - that everything is open to empirical investigation - we can say that anything not presently explained by scientific laws is non-natural, but that's not what is meant. We can distinguish between our present ignorance and something that's in-principle not scientifically explicable, surely. We want something that is completely outside the course of physical events [some proponents of the term 'supernatural' use it to mean 'uncaused' - what that actually means is really unclear]. But if we had it, could we incorporate it into a scientific explanation? We could obviously not use empirical observations - they depend on the ordinary course of physical processes. So what else is there? The answer is, nothing. Non-natural explanations are not scientific.

— Wheels

Supernature is, by definitely [sic], something that can and does exceed the ability of natural law

— Wheels

I believe Dr. John S. Wilkins has an excellent essay which covers the idea of overlap between science and the supernatural in this section. Similarly, professors Robert Pennock and Vic Stenger (PDF) have more comprehensive run-downs on the issue of supernaturalism and science specifically.

— Wheels

You keep on mentioning the possibility of deception. Well if that is the worry, and if you think that worry can be defeated by a mere convention, why not use the simpler convention, that, "If there is a God, s/he is no deciever."

Scientists have already carried out experiments on the effectiveness of prayer. As I understand it, in double blind tests, sick patients heal no faster if prayed for than if not prayed for. But we could imagine a situation in which people prayed for by Zorastrins consistently healed better than people not prayed for by Zorastrans in double blind experiments. We could further imagine people told that they were being prayed for by Zorastrans but no in fact prayed for healed better than people told they were not being prayed for by Zorastrans and but actually being prayed for. We can further imagine that the prayers of non-Zorastrans had no beneficial effect on healing; that the ecg and nnmr scans of prayers of all religions were equivalent, as also of prayees; that Zorastran prayer when not explicitly to Azuraha Amada (excuse spelling) were not effective; and so on. In this situation the best scientific explanation would be that Azuraha Amada answered prayers.

— Tom Curtis

explain miraculous healings

I not only provided a vague definition of supernatural in my own words, I also provided a cited definition directly from one of the three sources I gave you in which the idea of supernatural is discussed in greater detail. It's remarkable that in all this time you have still completely failed to acknowledge my sources. Accusing me of not providing enough information or sufficient definitions for supernatural is clearly erroneous.

That's not any simpler. In fact, that invokes just as many conditions.

Your argument that we test for the existence of forces is once more simply asserting that we can likewise test for the existence of God. It does not work because all natural forces are constrained by natural laws, and supernatural agencies are simply not.

Since the only way to determine that a particular supernatural agency is at work is to eliminate all concievable natural explanations, and then to eliminate all competing supernatural explanations, this idea of proving the supernatural agency falls prey to exactly the same criticisms that plague ID when it claims to be based on empirical, scientific thought. Supernature isn't open to empirical testing, regardless of whether or not the empirical data of the actual world happens to line up with a particular Creation myth.

you mean apparently miraculous healings.

— Sir_Toejam

OT---I've never seen Ahura Mazda spelled that way. Is it a common alternative?

Anyway, as Wheels says, the best scientific explanation would be that certain prayers work. It would not be justifiable to say they work because there's a real being called Ahura Mazda who answers them; it could just as well be [A] that there's a being called Satan who's answering certain non-Christian prayers in an attempt to draw people away from Jesus, or [B] that prayers of a particular form serve to activate magical psychic healing powers in the suppliant, or [C] that the precise sound vibrations of the prayer generate a wave of healing energy out of the atmosphere. Heck, all these explanations are already advanced in all seriousness by large groups of people to explain miraculous healings.

Right, we could have a naturalistic explanation of a signal (between prayer and prayee) which is independant of physical states, dependant on semantic states, not blocked by any sheilding of any sort including of the same type as the transmiter and receptor (ie, people)and which involves no measurable energy transfer - but such a signal would not be supernatural because by definition empirical data cannot justify supernaturalistic conclusions. Sure we could.

— Tom Curtis

And if a man in a red suite with white fur trim came down every household chimney of every house with children on the stroke of midnight between December 24 and December 25, and left a present or piece of coal depending on the moral behaviour of the children durring the year, and was never seen at any other time; that also would have a naturalistic explanation because no empirical observation can have a supernaturalistic explanation.

Sure sounds an awful lot like "methodological supernaturalism" to ME.

I point to some phenomenon; you say "goddidit". So what? What has THAT accomplished?

Anyway, as Wheels says, the best scientific explanation would be that certain prayers work. It would not be justifiable to say they work because there's a real being called Ahura Mazda who answers them; it could just as well be [A] that there's a being called Satan who's answering certain non-Christian prayers in an attempt to draw people away from Jesus, or [B] that prayers of a particular form serve to activate magical psychic healing powers in the suppliant, or [C] that the precise sound vibrations of the prayer generate a wave of healing energy out of the atmosphere. Heck, all these explanations are already advanced in all seriousness by large groups of people to explain miraculous healings.

— Tom Curtis

Note that A and B are still supernaturalistic explanations.

[A] is not parsimonious because it would predict that Satan would heal people from all religions except Christianity, and also that the effect would be strongest in countries were Christianity was well entrenched, and starting to make inroads.

[B] is not an explanation at all in that it is just a form of words from which no predictions can be made.

[C] is not much of an explanation either. It's sole prediction is that the prayer must be audible, and that generating the same sound frequencies without semantic content would be equally effective.

A lot of the resistance to my thesis seems to stem from an apparent assumption that if you allow one supernatural explanation, all other supernatural explanations will also be equally valid. That is nonsence. The quality of all explanations, supernatural and natural are judged by the same criteria; and virtually all supernatural explanations really stink by those criteria. In fact, in actual circumstances, for every supernatural explanation a superior natural explanation has been found, typically much, much superior. But it does not necessarily follow that in all possible circumstances the best supernatural explanation is inferior to the best natural explanation if judged by the same criteria. In fact it is trivially easy to imagine (trully bizzare) circumstances were that would be the case. I really don't see the difficulty with admitting that.

Sure, light shielding is the least of it. A former giant shell of space dust 10,000 ly thick surrounding us, or maybe the being involved was an enormous and visually opaque swarm of nanobots. Or, like Wheels suggests, we're still surrounded by a Dyson sphere holographically projecting a fictious view of the rest of the universe (and radioactive atoms were selectively teleported into all the minerals on Earth to screw up our dating. Or just about anything.

No, I don't see that all. Suppose we (all living creatures on Earth) were designed by a semirandom evolutionary algorithm and said beings didn't have time or energy or inclination to rerun it until they had a better design? Or suppose different beings had different plans for what Earth should look like and interfered with one another?

How does "functional complexity" differ from Dembski's "specified complexity?" Both sound to me like "complexity by which I happen to be particularly impressed."

Tom, you still have not demonstrated to me how any "supernatural explanation" would work.

I'm still waiting.

Re "The Dyson sphere projection would fail in that it would not show the proper angular changes due to parallax."

Unless it's a holographic projection, using lasers and interference effects to get the result image to vary with angle of reflection. ;)

Henry

Sure, light shielding is the least of it. A former giant shell of space dust 10,000 ly thick surrounding us, or maybe the being involved was an enormous and visually opaque swarm of nanobots. Or, like Wheels suggests, we're still surrounded by a Dyson sphere holographically projecting a fictious view of the rest of the universe (and radioactive atoms were selectively teleported into all the minerals on Earth to screw up our dating. Or just about anything.

— Tom Curtis

The Dyson sphere projection would fail in that it would not show the proper angular changes due to parallax. It is possible that the makers of the sphere could shift the projection to compensate for motion of the planet, but not for more than one observer at a time (ie, in the space age) without consistency.

A dust cloud would need its inner shell to retreat from the Earth a light velocity in all directions simultaneously.

Nanobots would have to do either that, or change position to compensate for parallax, again for multiple observers in the space age.

In all cases, introducing these naturalistic, but malicious observers who screw with all our experiments introduces exactly the situation that Wheels thinks makes supernaturalistic theories untenable as explanations. If the possibility of a supernaturalistic demon interfereing systematically with all our experiments makes supernaturalistic theories untenable, why does the possibility of a technically advanced race doing the same thing make all naturalistic theories untenable?

No, I don't see that all. Suppose we (all living creatures on Earth) were designed by a semirandom evolutionary algorithm and said beings didn't have time or energy or inclination to rerun it until they had a better design? Or suppose different beings had different plans for what Earth should look like and interfered with one another?

How does "functional complexity" differ from Dembski's "specified complexity?" Both sound to me like "complexity by which I happen to be particularly impressed." A system or process has a function if it is part of, or is, a "directively organised system". A directively organised system is a system such that: 1) The state of each of the component subsystems of the system at a given time, t, together with all the others at that time, causes, in a purely physical way, the attainment of an outcome, O, later time, t + d. 2) The state of each of the subsystems at t is instantaneously independant of the states of the others at t. 3) Each subsystem has a restricted range of states. 4) If the state of one of the subsystems changes greatly enough at t, then, in the absence of changes in the other subsystems, a t + d, the whole system S will be caused not to attain outcome O. But 5) The subsystems are so causally linked that whenever such a great change occurs in one of them at t, this change causes changes in the other subsystems at a later time t + e, which together with the initial great change at t causes the whole system to attain the specific outcome O at t + d. Following Ernst Nagel, "The Structure of Science, 1979; and Alexander Rosenberg, "The structure of biological science, 1985; we can call the outcome of a directively organised system its "Goal", and say that the system or its components have the function of bringing about (their share of) the goal. The "functional complexity" of a process or object is the minimal kolmogorov complexity of an object or process that can be substituted into the directively organised system and the directively organised system still accomplish its goal. There you go. That is a straight forward and decidable measure (within the limits of decidability of Kolmogorov complexity in general). It does pick out living things has having a high functional complexity compared to other things in the universe, but doesn't justify a design argument. The nearest parallel term I know of would be Dawkin's "complex design", ie, the thing Darwin explained in life.

It does pick out living things has having a high functional complexity compared to other things in the universe, but doesn't justify a design argument.

Granted for the sake of argument that we are inferring a being (or beings) who brought about the hypothetical state of affairs, then we can infer that the functionally complex features of that state of affairs are closely related to the purpose of the state of affairs. The lifeforms and ecosystems are the most functionally complex features of the hypothetical design, and so are close to the purpose of the hypothetical design.

As to not acknowledging your sources, sorry, I am not into argument by proxy. If you think they said something cogent, quote or paraphrase their argument.

Could science investigate God and the Creation hypothesis in the same manner that it investigates the natural world and the human intelligent creators that populate it? Could we have a "theistic science" as Johnson suggests that admits the possibility of supernatural interventions?... The first and most basic characteristic of supernatural agents and powers, of course, is that they are above and beyond the natural world and its agents and powers. Indeed, this is the very definition of the term. They are not constrained by natural laws. Indeed, on some views it is a supernatural creator that makes the laws in the first place, and those that make the laws have the power to break them. Of course, this is why humans hanker after access to occult powers, since they would supposedly free us from the laws that bind us. ... The second characteristic of the supernatural, that we have mentioned before and that follows rather directly from the first, is that it is inherently mysterious to us. As natural beings our knowledge all comes via natural laws and processes. If we could apply natural knowledge to understand supernatural powers, then, by definition, they would not be supernatural. The lawful regularities of our experience do not apply to the supernatural world. If there are other sorts of "laws" that govern that world, then they can be nothing like those that we understand. Occult entities and powers are profoundly mysterious to us. ... These characteristics of the supernatural show why supernatural explanations should never enter into scientific theorizing. Science operates by empirical principles of observational testing; hypotheses must be confirmed or disconfirmed by reference to inter-subjectively accessible empirical data. One supports a hypothesis by showing consequences obtain that would follow if what is hypothesized were to be so in fact. Darwin spent most of the Origin of Species applying this procedure, demonstrating how a wide variety of biological phenomena could have been produced by (and thus explained by) the simple causal processes of the theory. But, as we have seen, supernatural theories can give no guidance about what follows or does not follow from their supernatural components. ... Finally, if we were to allow science to appeal to supernatural powers even though they could not be tested, then the scientist's task would become just too easy. One would always be able to call upon the gods for quick theoretical assistance in any circumstance. Once such supernatural explanations are permitted they could be used in chemistry and physics as easily as Creationists have used them in biology and geology. Indeed, all empirical investigation could cease, for scientists would have a ready-made answer for everything.

— Pennock

There are two ways science cannot be non-naturalistic. It cannot make the assumption that phenomena are themselves non-natural - it has to assume that everything observed is amenable to a naturalistic investigation. Call this methodological naturalism. Science must also avoid non-natural explanations. This is explanatory naturalism. Any explanation that uses a non-natural explanans (thing doing the explaining) fails to be testable. I could propose that some process is the result of an Invisible Pink Unicorn's powers. You can neither falsify nor verify this (in the ordinary senses).

When you do, please make sure you quote Stenger when he says: I disagree. M[ethodological] N[aturalism] can be used to investigate God" (p. 12, my emphasis.) (I can't believe you have been citing in your favour an article which claims that science can investigate the supernatural, has investigate the supernatural, and has demonstrated that there is no supernatural. Talk about "selective illiteracy".)

On the contrary. The hypothesis of deception must invoke some description of the actual state of the world; some conception of the actual state of the world in the deciever (both of which must be invoked by the non-deciever model); plus some conception of the apparent state of the world that the deciever wants the scientists to believe; plus a number of discrete acts approx equal to the number of experiments conducted as the deciever systematically distorts the data. That is not simpler. On the contrary it is far more complex.

Natural forces are not constrained by natural laws. Rather, the laws are just the description of how the forces work.

The laws constitute the description of the theory...

adj. -Of or relating to existence outside the natural world. -Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces. -Of or relating to a deity. -Of or relating to the immediate exercise of divine power; miraculous. -Of or relating to the miraculous. adj : not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws; not physical or material;

— dictionary.com

While the exact definition varies, any concept of supernaturality requires that supernatural phenomena are not accessible by the scientific method. Contrary to common prejudices, science is not restricted to laboratory experiments but can be based on any form of experience. If a phenomenon is by definition outside of the realm of science, it therefore cannot be experienced and has by definition no impact on our lives

— Wikipedia

The first and most basic characteristic of supernatural agents and powers, of course, is that they are above and beyond the natural world and its agents and powers. Indeed, this is the very definition of the term. They are not constrained by natural laws. Indeed, on some views it is a supernatural creator that makes the laws in the first place, and those that make the laws have the power to break them. Of course, this is why humans hanker after access to occult powers, since they would supposedly free us from the laws that bind us.

— Pennock

The usual way to define non-natural is that it is not explicable in terms of natural laws; that is, it breaks the causal chain. If we abandon the methodological assumption of naturalism - that everything is open to empirical investigation - we can say that anything not presently explained by scientific laws is non-natural, but that's not what is meant. We can distinguish between our present ignorance and something that's in-principle not scientifically explicable, surely. We want something that is completely outside the course of physical events [some proponents of the term 'supernatural' use it to mean 'uncaused' - what that actually means is really unclear]. But if we had it, could we incorporate it into a scientific explanation? We could obviously not use empirical observations - they depend on the ordinary course of physical processes. So what else is there? The answer is, nothing. Non-natural explanations are not scientific.

— Wilkins

Empirical: Based on use of the senses, observation, or experience generally. Hence, the empirical coincides with what is a posteriori. Empericism: Reliance on experience as the source of ideas and knowledge. More specifically, empiricism is the epistemological theory that genuine information about the world must be acquired by a posteriori means, so that nothing can be thought without first being sensed.

— philosophypages.com

Empiricism is a theory which holds that the origin of all knowledge is sense experience. The term also refers to the method of observation and experiment used in the natural sciences. Often, empiricism is contrasted with rationalism, a theory which holds that the mind may apprehend some truths directly, without requiring the medium of the senses.

— skeptic.com

-The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge. -Employment of empirical methods, as in science. -An empirical conclusion.

— dictionary.com

In philosophy, the term empiricism is used to describe a number of distinct philosophical attitudes, practices, and propositions. As a general rule, a philosophical empiricism emphasizes, perhaps exclusively, the role of experience in constituting some other category, for instance, concepts, existence, knowledge, meaning, reality, truth, or universals. The category of experience may include all contents of consciousness or it may be restricted to the data of the senses only (Keeton, 1962). In the philosophy of science, empiricism refers to an emphasis on those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to experience, especially as formed through deliberate experimental arrangements. It is generally taken as a fundamental requirement of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than relying on intuition or revelation. Hence, science is considered to be methodologically empirical in nature.

— Wikipedia

So someday someone may find "evidence" that god or ET made the cell, huh?. Wow, that surely sounds jolly exciting...but I, at least, STILL want to know HOW was that darn cell made!!!! In good old scientific, mechanistic terms, please!

Discussions of scientific methodology in these parts (and elsewhere) puzzle me because they talk about that methodology as if it were a set of timeless, universal rules that could be applied to any subject matter whatsoever. As I understand the history of the sciences, however, the methodology of the sciences, no less than substantive scientific theories, evolved out actual scientific practice. The nature of things has had a hand in the emergence of methodological naturalism because it was fooling around with stuff that taught the scientists what worked and what didn't.

The point is, if the scientists had encountered spirits and gods in their researches, what counts as science now would be a very different enterprise, something rather closer to the mix of magic and empiricism we call alchemy. Such a state of affairs is not at all difficult to imagine. Indeed, the writers of fantasy novels have endlessly imagined what research would look like in an enchanted world.

In response to that, however, it must be remebered that we're not talking about encountering spirits and whatnot and the effect that would have on history. As for the use of a single idealized model of philosophy of science, it's generally my view that you should use the most current and most accepted version to the best of your understanding. Somebody once tried to argue with me about science and supernature by bringing up supernatural mechanisms science had considered from hundreds of years ago into the beginnings of the 20th century, but I have to point out that those ideas are not considered kosher anymore and that appealing to them is basically denying all the advances that have been made in the Phil of Sci since. Besides, most have proven to be premature conclusions and/or not follow from the empirical data.

The philosophers of science are hardly the science police. So far from legislating how things should be done, they would be doing very well if they could accurately describe the rules that obtain in actual research. In fact, the disconnect between the accounts of the scientific method you find in the introductory chapters of the textbooks and what the scientists actually do is painfully obvious and raises very interesting questions about the political and cultural meaning of scientific ideologies like positivism and Popperism.

The point is, if the scientists had encountered spirits and gods in their researches, what counts as science now would be a very different enterprise, something rather closer to the mix of magic and empiricism we call alchemy. Such a state of affairs is not at all difficult to imagine. Indeed, the writers of fantasy novels have endlessly imagined what research would look like in an enchanted world.

— Jim Harrison

Iow, if a phenomena produces consistent repeatable effects it can be studied and described. The more consistent and/or repeatable it is, the more reliable any conclusions are apt to be. That's the distinction that matters, not the intuitive notion of whether something is "natural" or "supernatural". (Plus, if I were to try to define that distinction myself, it'd most likely come out as whether the thing has consistent repeatable effects or not.)

Henry