Am 07.01.2011 17:51, schrieb Invisible:

> I've seen a lot of arguments for and against whether ID should be taught
> in schools alongside evolution. For me, these all miss the main point:
> ID is not a scientific theory. It may or may not be correct, but it's
> not testable. Because it doesn't /predict/ anything.

Well, in its essential form, the most popular version /does/ predict 
something. Like, all creatures should have been there from the beginning.

So yes, it can be regarded a theory. A falsified one, but a theory 
nonetheless :-P

In its more elaborate form though, it's indeed "enhanced" to a dogma, 
which fends off any contradicting evidence by means of other dogmata 
(like, "anything that seems to contradict the dogma of the existence of 
God, or another dogma supporting his existence (including this one), is 
either (a) of the devil, or (b) a device of God to test your faith").


BTW, my favorite about ID is the banana: Gee, it's /the/ ideal fruit! 
Ideal size and all... how could this not be by design?

Well, sure, it /is/ by design, or - to use a slightly better fitting 
term - by intention: The intention of those people who cultivated the 
banana in the last 8000 years or so :-P


> By the way, you know what else isn't science? String theory.

What you're overlooking here is that...

(1) In order to be science, something doesn't have to be a proper 
testable theory. Science is also the process of /developing/ such a 
theory based on a hypothesis.

(2) There is no such thing as "the" string theory. There are in fact 
multiple of string theories, and they can be rightfully labelled as 
such, as they /do/ make predictions; some of them are even deemed 
testable within the next decades. Admittedly none of them could falsify 
quantum theory or the theory of general relativity - but that's not a 
prerequisite to make them valid theories. Rather, they need to make 
predictions by which they /themselves/ might be falsified. And they do. 
For instance, some of them make certain yet-untested predictions that 
are also predicted by quantum theory. Other string theories don't make 
the same predictions, or even predict the opposite (I'm not sure about 
the latter though).

> So check it out. Thousands of scientists and mathematicians around the
> world have devoted their entire professional careers to studying string
> theory. It all looks very "sciency"; there are equations in string
> theory that make general relativity look like 2nd grade math class. This
> is serious, highly respected research.
>
> And it's /still/ not science. You know why? No testable predictions. Not
> a single damned one. There is no possible experiment, even
> hypothetically, which would prove or disprove string theory. (But that's
> the least of their problems; they're still trying just to make the math
> stop contradicting itself!)

No, they're trying to find ways to derive (more) predictions from the 
respective theories.

> Intelligent Design, on the other hand, is a thinly veiled attempt to get
> the Christian Holy Bible into schools. Let me make this clear: even if
> God exists, it's /still/ not science. /Science/ is the study of what you
> can /prove/. It's that the study of /truth/, only /provable truth/.
> We're not saying that God doesn't exist, we're just saying that such
> questions have no place in /science/. Now go sit in the corner.

I'm not saying Intelligent Design is the right thing. All I'm saying is 
that neither(!) side even seems to notice that evolution may be a means 
of design, too, and actually a pretty efficient one.

Or maybe they just don't want to notice. The ID adherents might not want 
their God to use evolutionary design because they don't want him to be 
efficient (why should a God use an efficient method if he has infinite 
knowledge and power at his disposal?), or because they're stuck too deep 
in defensive mode against evolution already, and the other side might 
prefer to outright falsify ID, rather than make a point that ID taken as 
a serious science doesn't contradict evolution anyway so why the heck 
should it be taught as an /alternatve/ to evolution.

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