Complexity is a somewhat weird argument for design being the only possible solution.

Actually replace "weird" with "misguided".

It's like saying pyramids have to complex a design to build by mere humans, therefore they must have started building them on the top and worked themselves downwards.

This is a lot stronger case for irreducible complexity than you might think. If you try to use the eyeball as an example of irreducible complexity, you can easily refute it by producing examples of eyes in nature in various stages of complexity across many different organism. I don't think there are any examples of bacteria flagellum in different stages of complexity. It occurs in nature in all its complexity or not at all.

Anyways, the judge made a good call in that particular case. However it wasn't scientific arguments that doomed the ID folks. It was their own internal documents.

Yep, I would say most everyone here is making that logical fallacy. The attitude in this forum is "ID hasn't been proved true so it must be false therefore it doesn't belong in science class(especially since I find the idea distasteful)"

Stu

because the features are irreducibly complex! i am right.

you just said "if it's true that certain features are best explained by an intelligent cause, then examples should exist that are not explained by an unintelligent cause (or "natural process")." that's NOT a prediction, you're just saying "if we think an intelligent cause is the best explanation, then it's probably because there are things we can't explain with unintelligent causes."


no, that's a possible effect of intelligent design the thing, not ID the "theory." i can intelligently design things that aren't irreducibly complex.

ID the "theory" is "life is irreducibly complex, therefore ID."

STOP CONFLATING INTELLIGENT DESIGN THE THING WITH INTELLIGENT DESIGN THE POSITION.

you think that when people say "intelligent design is creationism" they're saying ID and creationism are the exact same thing?? seriously? they're saying ID was invented by creationists to specifically and entirely to support creationism.

you think when i say "ID asserts irreducible complexity" i'm saying "ID and 'irreducible complexity' are the exact same thing? no, one is part of the other.

and then you're going to bitch out about not being able to apply the transitive property to the terms (why you think you should be able to do this in general is mystifying) and call it "foolishly inconsistent"? seriously?

no, it's "ID is not science therefore it doesn't belong in science class."

Even if it's true that "irreducible complexity" falsifies non-theistic evolution, it still doesn't follow that ID is science.

Suppose, for example, that Einstein nor anyone else had figured out General Relativity yet. If in the meantime we precisely measure the orbits of certain planets such a Mercury, we find that Newton's Law of gravitation does not fully predict the complexity of that orbital trajectory. Thus this observation of "complex orbits" falsifies Newton's Laws.

As an alternative "explanation," suppose someone suggests that an "Intelligent Mover (IM)" must actually be directing the motion of the planets. Would IM be a valid candidate scientific theory? Of course not. A scientific theory must be cast in terms of previously integrated knowledge, as well as make testable predictions, at least in principle. The "IM theory" totally fails in both respects, as does ID. In fact neither posits any coherent theory at all.

Now let's consider the converse (which I believe is historically accurate). Suppose Einstein proposes GR, but there is no evidence yet which supports it. Should it be considered a (speculative) scientific theory, appropriate to teach at the advanced university level? Of course it should, since it provides a coherent theory, integrated with the rest of physics, and which can be tested. The theory of plate tectonics is another example of an initially speculative theory which became strengthened by subsequent evidence.

String theories also fall into the latter category. It is a coherent, mathematically rigorous theory, which can in principle be tested. It is science. ID is a vague "argument" from incredulity no different than my IM example. It hasn't been proved because it proposes no theory other than: "Goddidit... er, no,.. I mean an intelligent designer did it." That is NOT science, even if it's true.

You are the only one making logical fallacies here.

Just so you know you have your work cut out for you with that example, here's a snippet from Ken Miller -

I don't follow ID literature so I don't know what they've moved on to now, perhaps you should check it up just so that part of your argument does sound so much like "what good is half an eye".

Please show me where I mentioned a supreme being at all in my post. ID asserts the existence of an intelligent designer. That's all. ID doesn't assert or predict anything about irreducible complexity.

Your second paragraph doesn't follow from your first. There is no way that intelligent designer implies irreducible complexity. Not unless you can show that intelligent designers *must* make designs that are irreducibly complex.

Irreducible complexity is a red herring in the argument for ID.

What Miller is referring to is homolugus structures contained in toxic secretion systems of certain bacteria. Toxic secretion is quite removed from locomotion. I suppose its possible that a very complex system evolved for one function could in one(or at most a few) mutations change into another complex system with a completely different function. However, usually one sees systems evolve from the simple to the complex while maintaining the same purpose. Light sensing cells evolve into simple eyes which evolve into better and more complex eyes. You don't see fins evolving into eyes which is equivalent to what Miller is suggesting.

Stu

The fact is the amount of evidence for String Theory is equivalent to the amount of evidence for Intelligent Design. That amount being ZERO.

Yet you and others are willing to give String Theroy a pass into science class. Its not science until it can be tested. Same goes for Intelligent Design. String Theory belongs in math class and Intelligent Design in philosophy.

Stu

you seem to make some pretty sweeping statements about science. the point of teaching string theory is not to teach it as proven fact, it is to show what is happening in science. the prerequisit physics to grasp a mathematical understanding of string theory would be too much for any high school class or lower level college class, but the idea is to explain what is currently of interest in physics. the point is to show that science is dynamic, which ID does not do but string theory does.

It would behoove you to not repeat arguments that have already been debunked. String theory makes plenty of predictions that have been confirmed. ID makes none.

Back in the day when String theory was career-ruining and laughable, it still would have been allowed in science class.

Stu

Name one predicition that has been confirmed that isn't really GR.

Stu

The fact that another theory *also* makes those predictions is irrelevant.

So I take it you would not have a problem teaching theistic evolution in public schools.

Stu

Theistic evolution doesn't make any predictions at all. The analogy fails.

there is no way you can substantiate this statement

Huh? String theory makes tons of predictions that are not GR. Extra dimensions, spin 2 graviton, supersymmetry etc. The problem is not that string theory doesn't make predictions, but that other quantum field theories make the same ones. Why we are studying it is that it may provide a method to understand physics at all energies, which no other theory right now can do. The fact that they can't be tested yet is a silly reason to think it is not science.

Don't be silly, its a great analogy! Theistic evolution doesn't make any testible predictions that are not made in Evolution. String theory doesn't make any testible predictions that are not made in GR.

Prove me wrong. Post one testible prediction that string theory has made that didn't come from GR or Quantum M.

Su

No working scientist would agree with this. Hawking radiation has not been observed and may not ever be.

And your claiming we have tested these? You know were talking about testible prediction correct?

Stu

You can observe a black hole's loss in mass over time. Therefore you can observe Hawking's radiation indirectly. If you can't observe either directly or indirectly, its not science. Its an idea.

Can you observes strings directly or indirectly?

Stu

No I can't substantiate it other than I have been reading and posting in this forum for a long time and I know the audience. They would have all given it a pass, you included.

Stu

i wouldn't if it weren't a leading theory in physics at the time. there are plently of alternative theories out there to string theory that i don't think should be taught because not enough research has been done in them. the rest of the world doesn't run on the beliefs of this forum, why would science classes be any different?

Didn't we just go over this? The fact that other theories also make the same predictions is entirely irrelevant. The issue is this:


Again, ID makes no predictions at all. Every single piece of evidence you can possibly imagine observing is compatible with ID.