Re: Stupid Design.

In article <dkt16b$321$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ale <_cutbetweenunderscores_theopps75@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>anybody has the new definition they want of science?
>
>Should be interesting (read funny) to read it...

I'm not sure what new definition they want for science. But I have seen
the argument that science, "by definition", can't include the
supernatural.

I disagree with that on general principles. The supernatural could be
studied scientifically (ignoring whether there's any supernatural to be
studied). Psychical research, as an example, is around a hundred years
old, and the typical ESP test involves statistical analysis of the results
of repeatable experiments. Ghost hunters try to document their
investigations objectively by photographs, field strength readings, sound
recordings, and so on. They (at least some of them) are fully aware that
anecdotes are not compelling evidence. Some even have theories about the
electromagnetic nature of ghosts, which they bolster by their field
strength meters and playing with electrostatic devices.

Whether it's good science or bad science is another matter. At least they
understand the basics of science. It involves collecting data from
specific phenomena and creating testable theories. As long as you're
doing that, as far as the definition of science goes it doesn't really
matter whether it's applied to natural or supernatural phenomena.

But intelligent design doesn't even rise to the standards of ghost
hunting. Ghost hunters try to find evidence of ghosts, like images in
photographs. Intelligent designers are happy enough with the absence of
evidence for evolution. They don't have anything to say about what their
theory is, only what the other theory isn't, the fundamental basis of the
theory is ignorance. There's no fingerprints of the designer, no names
engraved in body parts, no signatures they can search for. Only the claim
that if we haven't figured something out, then we never will and we might
as well stop trying.

On the other hand, if something like an evolutionary history of the
eyeball is figured out, they can always claim that the design was not so
complicated that we couldn't devise a naturalistic explanation, and that
the designer could have done it that way if he wanted to. In other words,
the theory gives nothing to test! Human eyes have a blind spot while
octopus eyes do not-- well, I'm sure the designer wanted it that way for
some reason. Important biological molecules are found from basic
precursors-- I guess we're mini-designers, too, but it doesn't mean there
wasn't a designer that did the same thing on a more sophisticated level.

No specific phenomena, no conclusions, nothing testable-- not science.

Teaching it in grade school is yet another level. Being scientific isn't
enough to get it into grade schools. Nobody expects aether theories to be
taught to grade school kids "so they can decide for themselves". Nobody
expects grade school kids to "decide for themselves" about the Big Bang
versus neo-steady state theories. Nobody expects Ritz's emission theory
of light to compete with field theories at the grade school level. Those
fringes just aren't very important to the practice of science today. And
if intelligent design can't even get a large proportion of the articles
published in the professional literature, if it's not important in the way
biology is practiced, it has no business in grade schools even if it could
be called science. The motivation, of course, is to widely expose future
voters when they are at an impressionable age, but that's entirely
political and has no scientific or pedagogical merit whatsoever.

But a science of the supernatural-- sure, why not?


--
"A good plan executed right now is far better than a perfect plan
executed next week."
-Gen. George S. Patton
.

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