Vigil on 12/3/2006 at 14:17
Quote Posted by Convict
If ID was made compatible with the available empirical data, then would it be acceptable to teach ID on an equal basis to evolution?
ID already
is compatible with the available empirical data. In fact it's also compatible with any and all data we haven't discovered yet. Why? Because ID's answer is "God did it". There is
no possible way to prove that phrase right or wrong. You cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. You cannot prove or disprove the influence of an omnipotent, omnipresent, undetectable hand of an intelligent immortal creator.
This explanation covers every event in the universe and is immune, hermetically sealed by logic, against any attempt to prove it right or wrong. Even the earth being 6000 years old and created in 7 days, a blatant contradiction of empirical evidence, can be explained by stating that God constructed everything to appear older to scientific analysis than it really is; even baroque inefficiencies in biological makeup can be explained as God's design and will being ineffable to the human mind and conception of purpose.
So why is it not acceptable to teach ID on an equal basis to evolution? The actual answer involves a lot of incredulous and derisive swearing, but the scientific answer is:
a) it is not falsifiable; b) it is completely untestable; and c) it is of no practical use at all for meaningfully explaining or predicting any physical or biological event.That's right. Not only is intelligent design
a priori unprovable, but it is also completely useless to scientists, engineers, miners, breeders, botanists (or anyone else who actually DOES ANYTHING with the physical world) for creating predictions, extrapolations or other hypotheses about how living things, our planet, or the universe works. You may remember hypotheses from school; along with scientific experimentation, they're what has driven the technological advances, medical discoveries and general betterment of the human situation.
To return to the pat question you asked of Evolution earlier and so rigorously denied was ever addressed,
What evidence would it take to prove your beliefs wrong?<hr />
Edit: It occured to me after posting that Intelligent Design is not a priori unprovable at all. All one needs to do is to provide scientific evidence for the existence of God, perhaps in the form of an answerphone message.
<hr />
Edit #2: It occured to me much later after posting that I was arguing specifically against Creation Science and not Intelligent Design, which argues on the basis of design-patterns rather than religious dogma. That said, I get the impression Convict will claim to be supporting the less specious and flamboyantly pigheaded of the two regardless of his actual beliefs.
SD on 12/3/2006 at 15:04
Quote Posted by Convict
I call your bluff and ask for what species (pl) preceded the platypus. Evidence plz.
We don't have a complete fossil record. I can't give you examples of everything that preceded the platypus because they haven't all been found. All we know is that the ancestors of platypus brached off the ancestors of humans around 180 million years ago.
Of course, I know this is giving you the green light to run round and say that evolution is nonsense, but then you've shown a peculiar talent for exceptional obtuseness in the past.
To me, a mammal that shows reptilian traits is pretty damn clear evidence that mammals were once reptiles. I can't imagine what conclusion you would draw, but I'd take a guess that it wouldn't involve anything approaching science.
SD on 12/3/2006 at 15:26
Quote Posted by nickolae
When StD said that platypi are an extant species. I take it you mean that platypus have always given birth to more platypus things
Extant is an English word that means "exists at this moment in time". Perhaps investing in a dictionary would be a wise move?
What the Christ is that supposed to prove?
R Soul on 12/3/2006 at 15:35
It also argues that sometimes scientists are too clever for their own good. Comparing genetic similarities or whatever may be clever, but sometimes you can just compare photographs.
I don't know what my point is.
Anyway, I thought that theory was only scientific if it was based on some sort of observation or controlled experiment. Itelligent Design is based on neither so it's not science.
SD on 12/3/2006 at 15:42
Quote Posted by nickolae
The Duke study shows how Platypus are pretty much on their own.
No it doesn't. What it
asserts (not shows - believe it or not, scientists actually disagree with each other on this) is that platypus and echidna branched off the mammalian evolutionary line on their own, when it was previously believed that they branched off with the marsupials.
So when I ask you again, "What the Christ is that supposed to prove?", could you give us an answer which doesn't approximate to "I don't understand science"?
jay pettitt on 12/3/2006 at 15:54
Quote:
and as far as the hadrocodium. I can't tell you how many waffle statements are in that article(hints at, suggests.....) I didn't find anything very moving in the article, it sounds like a mammal, not even mammal-like, just a very tiny mammal.that little rat thing
Nope you've lost me there. You've linked to an article (not a brilliantly written one, agreed - but you chose to link to it) describing how the jointed jaw bone and complex ear structure show Hardrocodium to be a basal mammal species (ie a transitionary stage between lizard and mammal in the fossil record) and have decided that you're unmoved and it's just a little rat thing anyway. Please elaborate. (then again...)
You'll have to excuse me if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, only I can't really see where else your having a problem. Mammaliformes is a taxanomical super class (technically a series within a superclass - yadda yadda yadda). Mammals are a class within Mammaliformes. Mammaliformes are not the same thing as Mammals. If Hadrocodium was taxanomically identified as a mammal it would be
mammalia not
mammaliaformes.
d0om on 12/3/2006 at 16:02
As far as I know there aren't any crazy Jews running around spouting creationism or ID. And they actually wrote the book of genesis themselves.
Why on Earth did some American Christians decide that to reinterpret everything and deny scientific evidence?
Its not like the Bible explicitaly states that God didn't use evolution and a big bang to create the universe and the life in it.
d0om on 12/3/2006 at 17:45
Uhmm... thats just a diagram which lacks a caption explaining what it is trying to show.
