Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

"..but I don't believe that society is well served by imposing that value on all of its citizens with involuntary tax dollars."

...unless it's NASA bucks, right?

Posted by Matt Gayson at August 3, 2005 10:18 AM

No, not even NASA bucks. I've never advocated NASA budgets, and I'd shed few tears if NASA was disbanded. My goal is to see that the bucks that they seem to be inevitably given are spent as productively as possible, not to maximize (or even preserve) their budget.

But compared to the public school system, NASA is a drop in the bucket.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 3, 2005 10:22 AM

Agreed -- on those counts.

Posted by Matt Gayson at August 3, 2005 10:28 AM

"I've noted before that while I think that ID is nonsense...as long as it's not taught as science."

Why is ID non-science/nonsense? I'm agnostic, haven't seen a UFO or ghosts, but I keep an open mind about these issues. There may in fact be a "Creator" who started the spark of life vs. a random stroke of lightning giving life to some amino acid in the primordial ooze. Is either of these theories any more absurd than the other? Fact is, there's currently no way to prove Darwinism or Creationism.

P.S. I'm glad I work for NOAA...

Posted by Matt Garhart at August 3, 2005 11:09 AM

This isn't about whether or not something is "absurd." It's about whether or not it's science.

Fact is, there's currently no way to prove Darwinism or Creationism.

That's the problem with IDers (and you). Science isn't about proofs. No scientific theory can be proven--they can only be disproven. ID isn't science, because it can't be.

Posted by Rand Simberg at August 3, 2005 11:30 AM

That's the problem with IDers (and you). Science isn't about proofs. No scientific theory can be proven--they can only be disproven. ID isn't science, because it can't be.

From a Christian perspective, I can think of three things that would disprove or at least cast significant doubt on ID.

1. If it could be shown that the universe had no beginning, i.e. always existed. No creation, no need for a creator.

2. If it could be shown that there are parallel universes. Part of the ID argument is that the likelihood of complex life being created by random processes is so small as to be impossible. If, however it could be shown that there are are a large (or infinite) number parallel universes, that likelihood greatly increases.

3. The existance of complex life on other planets would cast significant doubt on ID.

Posted by Rob Smith at August 3, 2005 11:57 AM

Quote: From a Christian perspective, I can think of three things that would disprove or at least cast significant doubt on ID.

1. If it could be shown that the universe had no beginning, i.e. always existed. No creation, no need for a creator.

3. The existance of complex life on other planets would cast significant doubt on ID.

#1 only works if time is a phenomenon that exists outside of the universe. But it appears that space and time are a unified whole. So why could not a creator create a universe whose time dimension is infinitely long in both the past and future directions?

#2, I agree with.

#3, Why do complex extraterrestrial life forms cast doubt on Intelligent Design?

Posted by Kevin Adams at August 3, 2005 12:27 PM

Kevin,

Complex (or worse intelligent) life on other planets would cast doubt on almost all religions. It destroys the idea of the uniqueness of earth and man. If we are not uniquely Gods children then what are we? A true UFO would cause a huge upheaval in many religions. It would prove - without a doubt - that humanity existed on a non-descript little planet out in the boonies of one of the spiral arms of a rather insignificant universe, and that we are just one of many.

Posted by buffpilot at August 3, 2005 01:17 PM

"ID isn't science, because it can't be."

Because you say so? As I tell my kids, "because" isn't an answer. Science is very much about proofs. Otherwise, my physics textbooks would be devoid of equations. First come the theories, then someone clever enough comes along and PROVES them. Einstein's theory on the curvature of Space-Time will hopefully be proven with the Gravity-B probe.

My point is: "Why can't science and religion go hand-in-hand?" Everyone views them as mutually exclusive. Why can't there be an evolutionary form of ID?

Posted by Matt Garhart at August 3, 2005 01:40 PM

Buffpilot

That argument is just plain silly. Almost as silly as the argument that evolution must be false because we are here, which in essence is the whole point of the anti-evolutionary argument.

In the grand scheme of things, it is not essential for us to exist; others may exist.

In neither case this does this imply that either evolution is false or that God/religion does not exist or is not true, or for that matter that the two ideas are mutually exclusive.

Posted by Michael at August 3, 2005 01:45 PM

Science is very much about proofs. Otherwise, my physics textbooks would be devoid of equations. First come the theories, then someone clever enough comes along and PROVES them.

Matt, you obviously didn't read the link that Rand provided in that statement. Even if you did, then here is another link that also talks about theories in relation to "circumstantial evidence", and the comments section gets into the ID/evolution debate, as well as some more definitions of the word "theory".

In either case, even your definition of science disproves your statement that ID is science. According to you, science is made up of theories and proofs. Therefore, it is a superset of theories. However, a theory, as a SUBset of science, is not itself science. It is a theory, in the scientific field.

If ID is a theory, it's not science. It's a theory. Science is what we call the process of creating theories and attempting to prove or disprove them. It's not "because Rand said so", it's because that's what the dictionary says it is, and the dictionary is a collection of widely agreed-upon definitions for words.

Posted by John Breen III at August 3, 2005 02:09 PM

John
Then, according to this definition, Einstein's Theory of Relativity is not science at this point because it hasn't been proven. Maybe if I had a few beers it would all become clearer.

Regardless, re-read my posts. I never accepted ID as science; I'm simply asking why people mutually exclude the two theories. Bottom line: keep an open mind.

Posted by Matt Garhart at August 3, 2005 02:28 PM

Buffpilot: Thanks for replying, but I thought that Intelligent Design was a hypothesis which (although used to support religion) was independent of any particular religion. A hypothesis which basically says that the observed universe is so statistically improbable that in order for it to have come about, there must have been some intelligence guiding its development.

It may be, as you say, that the discovery of complex/intelligent life elsewhere would shake many religions to their foundations. But I still fail to see how intelligent design, as such, would be affected.

Posted by Kevin Adams at August 3, 2005 02:37 PM

"No scientific theory can be proven--they can only be disproven. "

This is a (pseudo-Popperian) truism that happens not to be true.

Existence of antipodes used to be a scientific
theory. Now it is a proven fact. "Air has weight",
"Light moves at finite speed" - these theories
have likewise been proved.

And sometimes disproving one theory (or several) means, ipso facto, proving another: this is so if together these theories cover all possible alternatives.

"ID isn't science, because it can't be."

It isn't science, because it is scientifically untestable. However, scientifically testable
versions of it may be formulated; they may then
be disproved or (conceivably) even proved.

Posted by Sceptic at August 3, 2005 02:38 PM

Political Science? Doctorate in Psychiatry? Social Sciences? Academia has hijacked the term for its own aggrandisement. Don't try to pull that "purity of science" horsepuckey.

Posted by Roy Lofquist at August 3, 2005 02:57 PM

Has anyone actually addressed the arguments that those who champion Intelligent Design make? What are those arguments, any way? Are they in the realm of science or not?

Posted by Mark R Whittington at August 3, 2005 03:06 PM

Oh believe me, the arguments the ID crowd makes have been addressed, and addressed, and addressed, and addressed some more. That doesn't stop the ID crowd from making them, or from pretending they haven't been addressed.

Try the following sites:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/ (go to the Intelligent Design section, CI)

http://www.talkdesign.org/

http://www.pandasthumb.org

http://www.talkreason.org/index.cfm?category=10

etc etc etc. You can find lots more links from there.

Posted by asg at August 3, 2005 04:09 PM

3. The existance of complex life on other planets would cast significant doubt on ID.

Not at all. I am a Christian, and there is nothing in my Bible that states that God created life only on this planet. He could very well have created life on numerous planets.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at August 3, 2005 06:35 PM

The answer is simple: Allow the teaching of ID in science classes in return for being allowed to teach science in Sunday School.

Posted by Kevin Parkin at August 3, 2005 09:06 PM

Rand,

It's true that a lot of weak arguments are made for various positions, and I agree that Klinghoffer is not making a strong or rigorous argument here. One of the reasons I try not to identify with any group (and I haven't yet looked deeply into the ideas of the IDer's but it doesn't sound like some of theirs are very far from mine) is that invariably they claim something obviously wrong and pretty embaressing (definitely Bozoish.)

I think however that...

"When laymen, including conservative journalists, follow the scientific majority on a question like this, rather than the dissenting minority, they should at least be aware that they are following guides who, while claiming to be disinterested, are anything but that."

...is a strong and valid point. It's blatantly obvious that this goes on all the time especially in evolution (where a number of frauds are not unknown) and where the arguments sometimes consist of reference to authority which is perhaps the weakest of all logical arguments.

To me, arguing irreducable complexity is just asking for trouble. All you need is a single example and you make the argument look ridiculous. However, if you tried to say that that mousetrap sitting on the floor was not designed by anybody, I don't care how intellectual and ingenious your argument might be... it's still stupid!

Science should be science. Your absolutely right that pseudo-science should never take it's place... We left alchemy a long time a go and it looks like it was a pretty good move for mankind.

But sincere questions (an origins are legitimate) shouldn't be ridiculed (ok, if it's bozo science I might join you in a teensy bit of ridicule ;)

I agree completely with your point about the presidents comment.

Posted by ken anthony at August 4, 2005 02:12 AM

Whether or not ID is science is neither here nor there. These people are free to submit their work to journals or publish papers on the internet, and the rest of the world is free to read it or ignore it.

The real question is how should the topics taught in school science classes be chosen, and what are the criteria for mentioning counter-theories?

For example, when I was taught quantum mechanics no counter theory was suggested despite the fact that some scientists don't believe its unintuitive physical interpretation. If there were some competing theory held by 0.001% of the scientific community, should it be mentioned in textbooks and classes for the sake of completeness?

Posted by Kevin Parkin at August 4, 2005 04:03 AM

...and I suppose the other difficulty here is to define what "intelligent" means anyway.

There are complex self-organising systems that some might not call alive but others would call intelligent. Ironically enough these systems tend to arise from a Darwinian evolution type process.

Posted by Kevin Parkin at August 4, 2005 04:11 AM

" "Light moves at finite speed" - these theories
have likewise been proved"

No, this has *not* been 'proved' in the scientific sense. What we have is a theory (Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity) which states this should be the case, and an ever increasing body of empirical evidence which supports that statement - which in turn gives us ever increasing confidence that the theory is correct.

However it would only take one example (that everyone agrees on) and one could disprove Einstein. This isn't a flaw on the scientific
method - it's a strength.

A scientific theory is only such if it clearly indicates what is needed to disprove it. This is what keeps it grounded in reality and stops it becoming a flight of fantasy.

ID could only be scientific if it's proponents
could specify a means by which it could be
disproved. More generally if you want to propose *as a scientist* that a creator exists, then you need to give other scientists the tools with which to investigate your claim. Otherwise you can still claim a creator exists but you have to take the metaphoric white coat off when you say it!

Posted by David Claughton at August 4, 2005 04:46 AM

" "Light moves at finite speed" - these theories
have likewise been proved"

However it would only take one example (that everyone agrees on) and one could disprove Einstein. This isn't a flaw on the scientific
method - it's a strength.

A scientific theory is only such if it clearly indicates what is needed to disprove it. This is what keeps it grounded in reality and stops it becoming a flight of fantasy.

Posted by David Claughton at August 4, 2005 04:47 AM

Existence of antipodes used to be a scientific
theory. Now it is a proven fact. "Air has weight",
"Light moves at finite speed" - these theories
have likewise been proved.

Those aren't theories. They're claims of fact, which are an entirely different class of statement.

Posted by Pixy Misa at August 4, 2005 04:55 AM

As any serious Conservative will tell you- if GWB thinks ID is right- then, he's right. The President is ALWAYS right. Look how well he's handled this Iraq thing- 2 1/2 years, over 1,000 Amrican lives, and over 100 billion dollars to do what ONE well-targeted ICBM launched out of an Iowa cornfield could have done in about 20 minutes. Yeah, GWB is right. He's just gutless.

Oh but wait- all his buddies in the military-industrial complex wouldn't have made much of a profit with one missle. Maybe he's not so stupid after all.... so yeah, let's teach ID. There should also be special classes to inform our youth about fairies, elves, evil spirits, witches, leprecauns, dragons.... the whole nine yards.

Posted by Usual Suspect at August 4, 2005 07:35 AM

Good Post, Rand. I agree with your completely on this.

Personally, I've always felt that I'm even fine with Creationism taught in school, as long as it was the apropos venue (Social Studies, perhaps?), rather than trying to insist on having it taught as science, which it clearly isn't.

Of course, if you're going to teach Creationism beliefs, you should teach several of them, right? American Tribal...Buddhist...Christian...Hindu...Norse? Yeah, that'll go over really well.

As far as the "Science v. Religion" thing. I heard a great interview with a Scientist, can't remember who it was, but he said as a Christian, he had no conflict. He said that he found that Science answers "how", Religion answers "why". Which I thought was a pretty good answer. (I'm also paraphrasing horribly :))

They're not mutually exclusive, they're addressing different things. The problem occurs when you try to make one do the duty for the other.

Science will not tell me why it is morally wrong to kill people on the street. Religion will not tell me how a tyrannosaur looked.

Posted by W. Ian Blanton at August 4, 2005 08:25 AM

A major flaw in your analysis is contained in the statement "they laughed at Bozo the Clown, too." In point of fact, nobody ever laughed at Bozo the Clown, but if they did it would have been in reaction to an intentional act on his part to induce laughter, not in response to some defect in his philosophical/scientific proposals. What I don't understand is the ID proponents put forth some specific ideas as examples that they say suggest the presence of ID, Michael Behe's blood clot cascade being one example. This would seem to be able to disproven, i.e. show a plausible Darwinian explanation for the cascade (that wasn't just a dressed up Thorton Wilder "Mother West Wind Story") or even show that he's wrong about the need for the separate steps in the cascade, and therefore a scientific statement. It is true that the ultimate issue of whehter or not there is a designer may not be susceptible of disproof, but that is also the case with respect to pure materialism such as Carl Sagan's "the Cosmos is all that ever existed, etc"

Posted by George Ditter at August 4, 2005 10:03 AM

Usual Suspect: No "conservative" thinks that. Try reading (for example) The Corner over at National Review On|ine sometime. (Evidently the content filter thinks on-li-ne is somehow "questionable".)

If you listen to what actual non-imaginary conservatives say, rather than your cheap stereotypes, you might learn something about them. Something that might even be useful in formulating political arguments and fine-tuning your beliefs and positions to correspond to reality rather than a comforting illusion.

But, then, considering you think a nuclear missile would have "the same effect" as our efforts in Iraq, perhaps that would be too much mental effort?

Posted by Sigivald at August 4, 2005 10:05 AM

David Claughton, on speed of light: you are confusing two different theories.

That light velocity is the maximum possible speedof any movement - that is indeed the assertion of the special relativity theory.

But that was *not* my example, as you will see
on re-reading. That light moves at a *finite speed*, rather than instantly - *that* was been proved conclusively long before relativity theory - and the speed was measured.

But that, too, has once been a controversial assertion! Now it is *proved*.

The alternative theory (instant propagation of light) has been *disproved* at the same time. Disproof of one *is* proof of the other. Thus, scientific theories *can* be proved. Q.E.D.

Posted by sceptic at August 4, 2005 10:08 AM

George Ditter,

Every example of alleged "irreducible complexity", including the blood clot cascade, has been shown not to be irreducibly complex under the definition Behe spells out in his book.

For that specific example, see: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200_2.html, which deals specifically with blood clotting, or http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html, which deals with Behe and irreducible complexity in more detail.

Posted by asg at August 4, 2005 10:29 AM

sceptic,

The alternative theory (instant propagation of light) has been *disproved* at the same time. Disproof of one *is* proof of the other. Thus, scientific theories *can* be proved. Q.E.D.

This is incorrect. We haven't ruled out theories that light travels at a variable speed. Further, you can't rule out theories where the speed of light changes at some point where no observations were made, eg, light moved 10% faster in a cornfield in Iowa in 1955 while nobody was looking.

We can't really even rule out that there might be a time or location (eg, at the begining of the Big Bang) where the speed of light might have been infinite.

But one sign of a good theory is that alternate explanations keep getting more and more elaborate in order to describe the growing body of observations. This isn't "proof" in the usual sense.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at August 4, 2005 01:20 PM

ASG

You mean that ID can be disproven? But, but that would mean that it is a scientific theory.

Posted by george ditter at August 4, 2005 04:59 PM

"You mean that ID can be disproven?"

No it can't. We were taught a version of ID in school back in England - in our religious education classes. Back then there was no such buzzword as ID but the idea it stands for is a member of a class of arguments we learned as "God of the gaps".

Basically anything that is not convincingly explained by science can be attributed to a God. As scientific knowledge grows, the gaps in scientific explanation recede and therefore so does the "God of the gaps".

And since Rand suggested it earlier for US education; yes we were taught something of the belief systems of many different religions, Christianity being only a small part of the curriculum. Some kids had to be excused from class because their religion forbade them from learning about other religions, but for the most part the classes were beneficial, and really the only suitable place for that type of ID argument was the religious education class.

Posted by Kevin Parkin at August 4, 2005 06:53 PM

Clearly the human species is to young to competently understand the dynamics of a universe full of such vast quantities of time and space. It would be unscientific to think that our collective conscience is able to truly understand what even a million years of time is like. As Popper showed we still display a child like sense of wonder that forms the motivation for science and philosophy. Our collective work thus far lacks the necessary rigor to create a unified equation to answer the questions to life, the universe, and everything. Few people today seriously believe that even Albert Einstein was anywhere close to being able to catch God's hand in the cookie jar.

Its the fact that we know so little about so much that it scares us to high holy hell. Therefore, we create a caring and loving father figure in our heads to help cover us in a warm blanket of feelings that we are wanted here on this planet and are somehow protected. If anything this just shows how childish, selfish, and arrogant of a species we still truly are.

If we spun the subject of teaching ID in classes purely for the sake of expressing an alternate point of view to evolution, as the president puts it. Then, perhaps this may herald a generation of young thinkers that are better able to formulate arguments and ideas of how we can elevate our position in this reality. Maybe we can get to the point where we can discard one idea or the other because it will no longer fit into our undestanding of the universe. Or, perhaps there will be a great reunification of those ideas to inspire people to go forth and conquer there fears.

Posted by at August 5, 2005 07:32 AM

Once you've reached the discipline of scientific inquiry, how can you turn back to Intelligent Design?

Of course you have to reach the discipline of scientific inquiry first. Not to mention the discipline of historical inquiry. Both are casualties of proselytizers determined to force the one true way onto the rest of us. And they come from both ends of the political spectrum:

Making the world safe for scientific illiteracy

(Trackback didn't seem to work}

Posted by Sissy Willis at August 5, 2005 07:44 AM

Once you've reached the discipline of scientific inquiry, how can you turn back to Intelligent Design?

Making the world safe for scientific illiteracy

(Trackback didn't seem to work}

Posted by Sissy Willis at August 5, 2005 07:45 AM

George Ditter,

No, falsifiability is necessary but not sufficient for something to be a scientific theory. The statement "There's a pink elephant in my office" is falsifiable, but that doesn't make it a scientific theory. For example, scientific theories also have to be predictive and explanatory, and ID is neither of those.

Posted by asg at August 5, 2005 09:22 AM

Well, I hate to come in at this late date and spoil this discussion, but Rand's entire argument is deeply flawed.

They never, ever laughed at Bozo the Clown. At least I've never seen anyone laugh at him. When I was a kid I was scared to death of him.

He still pretty much creeps me out.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at August 5, 2005 09:29 AM

I disagree. If there were indeed a pink elephant in my office, then there are certain predictions that one could make. In particular, that someone could enter the office and see a large pink mammal with tusks and a prehensile snout. Further, the explanatory nature of the theory is context dependent. Perhaps, there are large piles of pink dung appearing mysteriously in this office or something, which from the evidence appears messy and massive, is rifling through the peanuts. So whether it is a scientific theory or not depends on the context.

ID can be made into a scientific theory. We already have some of the ingredients. After all, the complex organization of life is easy to explain if there's something steering the process. So ID naturally is explanatory. Second, it predicts the existence of an "intelligent creator". So if it were a scientific theory, one could observe this creator with repeatable experiments and determine it's level of intelligence. For example, if it were aliens, then we should be able to observe, somewhere in the Solar System either evidence of their stay or perhaps even artifacts embedded in our DNA.

While a creature with an existence outside the universe seems a big problem, but a problem for the ID proponents. In a scientific theory of ID we will be able to infer its existence through repeatable observation. They just need to come up with corresponding tests that will make this aspect of ID, a scientific theory. It's certainly not my problem.

I think it reasonable to require ID proponents to work their theory into a scientific theory first, before it gets inserted into a scientific curriculum. I think it can be done.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at August 5, 2005 09:51 AM

I generally agree w/ Karl's stand...as for some of the others.

Just because one cannot predict nor explain (or perhaps disprove) the ID concept TODAY does not mean it's not a science. Are you then saying that if 10, 100, 1000, or 10000 years from now one were able to meet those requirements then ID would suddenly be 'canonized' as a science?

And I remember laughing at Bozo...at times...until that movie came out. ;-)

Posted by CJ at August 5, 2005 11:03 AM

CJ -- you do realize that by your permissive rule, astrology, phrenology, and crystal reading could all be called science? After all, who knows if in 10,000 years they'll all be vindicated?

Karl -- My bad; I'd assumed I didn't need to say "non-trivially predictive."

Posted by asg at August 7, 2005 04:08 PM

Ha! That's right...and no, I had not considered that but then again, it's not MY rule. ;-)

However, I sense a trap here so I'll bite. Is it wrong to BE that permissive?

Posted by CJ at August 8, 2005 09:32 AM

America is slowly going mad.

Posted by Andy Dabydeen at August 10, 2005 08:55 PM

Not at all. I am a Christian, and there is nothing in my Bible that states that God created life only on this planet. He could very well have created life on numerous planets.-Cecil Trotter

The point here is not that religion denies the existence of life on other planets, its that the bible states that man was created in God's image. If life on other planets does exist (we'd be fools to think not) then did God create them in his image too? Being omnipotent, I'm sure He can change forms at will. More likely, since man was still struggling to explain the unexplainable, he attached a human visage to the divine force and said that a God looking like man, created man. An omnipotent being...ALL POWERFUL...creates the whole universe.....and all life in it. It would be cool if He looked like us, but the chances of that are far more remote than.....life on other planets.

Posted by Mac at August 16, 2005 08:49 AM

Post a comment