Posted by Robert Hill on March 03, 2006 at 18:11:05 from 195.92.168.166 user eclrh.
In Reply to: Re: History of Science (was Map dowsing) posted by Lyn on March 03, 2006 at 03:36:05:
Agreed that there is much of pure science that does not require a belief system to prop it up: we humans can pretty well assume that there are certain patterns that recur predictably. We can formulate laws of gravity and thermodynamics. We can be confident that an apple falls off a tree to the ground, not into the sky. With those phenomena that are observable and repeatable, we are on fairly solid ground (not me, I live in earthquake-prone California, USA).
But what about phenomena we cannot actually observe?
If you're trying to suggest that physics is more directly tied to observation than evolution theory, I disagree. There was once a time when it was so, but modern physics involves long chains of theory and resononing, much of it relating to things we cannot directly observe such as electrons. Modern physics requires large amounts of assumption which are only tested by indirect means. But the commitment to testing them by any possible means is there.
You refer to the Intelligent Design concept as if it were a thinly disguised attempt by the forces of Religion to argue with scientifically proven fact. Yet what if it is rather a valid attempt by true scientists to wrest the concept of evolution from its entrenched and outmoded ruts?
I personally have not mentioned "intelligent design" until now, or mentioned evolution until this post. But since you ask, I will say this: I haven't heard of any proponents of intelligent design who did not have a prior religious belief, i.e. a prior belief that there are revealed truths, and that faith is in some way better than doubt. I think these are bad bases on which to do science. Many scientists are religious believers, but I think the best of them keep their religion and their science separate. And many scientists who are religious believers have no problem with evolution theory.
I will be convinced by intelligent design theory when the evidence for it becomes better than the evidence for natural selection.
Evolution theory gives an answer to the question of how organised complexity could arise in a universe in which it was previously absent. Intelligent design does not, because it assumes the prior existence of the designer, and leaves open the question of how the designer originated. So if proponents of intelligent design are genuinely scientific in their motivations, they will have a two-stage program: first, convince the scientific world that their theory is correct, and then use the available evidence (excluding revealed truths) to find out what they can about the designer and how he/she/it originated.