A SIMPLE CHALLENGE TO JOHN E. CARLISLE & IDers (and others of my Christian brethren who confuse philosophy and science) Apparently John E. Carlisles thread was deleted by him while I was responding to his claims at length. So I am posting my reply here along with this simple summary of my challenge----for those who dont wish to read through my entire tome below. It all comes down to this, John: If you are not simply confusing philosophy and science, you should be able to post for us a SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS of INTELLIGENT DESIGN, and show us how your claims of Gods role in the universe would be subjected to falsification testing. If you cannot do so, then you have confirmed what most of us already know: Your claims are philosophical/theological; your claims are NOT SCIENCE. Secondly, if you are implying a scientific theory of Intelligent Design, I would love to see your heuristic rules by which I can determine for any entity X whether X is intelligently designed or not intelligently designed. [Ive been posing that request to my ID-activist Christian brethren for years now but nobody has ever given me anything useful. At most they will say, If it is irreducibly complex, it is ID. but we all know that years of attempts to define IC have produced laughable results. Yes, Im laughing at you, Dr. Behe. I read your Dover Trial testimony. You got fried on the witness stand because you had never attempted to research the science behind your IC examples.] {John, the above summary should be sufficient but if these concepts are new to you, you may wish to read my original reply below---which I wasnt able to post because Facebook indicated that you had deleted your thread.} ____________________________________________ **OPTIONAL DETAILS BELOW ** ____________________________________________ John E Carlisle, you are confusing science and philosophy. Now if you have scientific evidence for claiming that life COULD NOT develop with an intelligence, you are welcomed to present it. But dont expect anyone to consider an Argument from Personal Incredulity in any way convincing. As a Christian, I certainly affirm God as the creator of everything, including life. But that does NOT mean that Im dishonest enough to pretend that I have some compelling SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENT for my philosophical and theological stance. For centuries now Christians have tried to claim that natural processes were somehow inadequate to explain various phenomena---and we have a terrible track record in failing every time. Indeed, when Newton published his Law of Universal Gravitation, many Christians still preferred to think that God commanded individual angels to propel the heavenly bodies through the heavens. They insisted that Newtons equations were somehow leaving God out. But why should anyone assume that God would not use the processes he created to fulfill his purposes? ______________________________________________________ Moreover, John E Carlisle, adding theological claims to ones science does not provide any additional scientific information or predictions. Newtons Laws of Motion are useful regardless of ones theology or lack thereof. Now if someone can present a Comprehensive Theory of Intelligent Design (for example), I would be thrilled to see the heuristic rules whereby I can determine for any X whether or not X was intelligently designed (whether by a deity or not)---but to my knowledge none of the IDers have bothered to do that. Indeed, I recall back in 2005 or so when one of the Board of Directors members at the Discovery Institute embarrassed his colleagues by admitting to the press that the lack of a published theory of ID was a major obstacle to a wider acceptance of ID science. [Talk about the understatement of the year!] But I have often wondered how the Discovery Institute or any other ID scientist [yes, the quotation marks are intentional] could possibly publish such heuristics without defying Christian orthodoxy. After all, we Bible-affirming Christians claim that EVERYTHING was created by God, which would imply that EVERYTHING is intelligently designed. (Right?) So if EVERYTHING is/was designed by God and thereby, intelligently designed by definition, how would the ID label be at all useful? How would it help inform our science? How would it make any useful predictions? Indeed, I have assumed that that is why IDers never will publish a meaningful theory. Ken Ham and other Young Earth Creationists have denounced the ID movement and I suspect that this is one of the reasons. How could one DEFINE ID without dividing the universe into ID and non-ID items? Is a mud puddle intelligently designed? Is the water perfectly designed to fit the contours of the hole in the ground that contains the puddle? Can one say that the creator designed the laws of physics in such a way that the water perfectly fits the hole in the ground? How is such a claim useful to a scientist? What predictions does it provide? Historically speaking, philosophers made a very important contribution to science (formerly called natural philosophy) when they devised the modern scientific method. But since that time, misbegotten efforts to redefine science to return it to its pre-empirical roots have only tended to expose the ignorance of the renegade philosophers involved (e.g., Stephen Meyers and his embarrassing DARWINS DOUBTS.) But one can certainly understand why simpletons like Ken Ham in the Bill Nye debate tried to pretend that scientists have taken the word science hostage and want people to forget that science simply means KNOWLEDGE. What a putz! Of course, Ken Ham WISHES that modern science could return to the ancient definition entailed in the Latin term SCIENTIA----because Ham thinks that that sleight of hand would allow science to mean absolutely anything. But it doesnt. And he cant. Modern science is based on the scientific method and one must follow the evidence wherever it leads---a prospect which frightens him and threatens the maintenance of religious dogma in domains outside of theology. But back to John Carlisles claims: John, do you have any sort of published scientific hypothesis [We all know that there is no such scientific THEORY] which demands a role for God in some aspect of the universe which can be subjected to falsification? I dont doubt that you have philosophical or theological claims but Im asking if you have a SCIENTIFIC HYPOTHESIS involving Gods role in the universe which we can put to the test. Do you? If such a hypothesis cant be subjected to falsification testing, it simply is NOT SCIENCE. So, to be blunt about it: Put up or shut up. [Im not trying to be unduly harsh or rude----but if you are going to make scientific claims which involve theology, you should expect to be put to the test. If your claims cannot be subjected to falsification testing, I hope you will display the honesty of dmitting that your claims are philosophical and not scientific.]
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 18:30:29 +0000
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