ID is not a valid scientific hypothesis, so ID should not be taught in science class

[Leela]

Hi All,

Wikipedia says the following about ID en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design:

"Intelligent design is the term used for the assertion that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”[1][2] It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God that avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer.[3] The idea was developed by a group of American creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science.[4][5][6] Intelligent design’s leading proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank,[7][8] believe the designer to be the God of Christianity.[9][10]

Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory,[11] and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.[12] The consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science.[13][14][15][16] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that “creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science.”[17] The U.S. National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience.[18] Others in the scientific community have concurred, and some have called it junk science.[19][20]

The concept of intelligent design originated in response to the 1987 United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguillard ruling involving separation of church and state.[4] Its first significant published use was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes.[21] Several additional books on the subject were published in the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, intelligent design proponents had begun clustering around the Discovery Institute and more publicly advocating the inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula.[22] With the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture serving a central role in planning and funding, the “intelligent design movement” grew increasingly visible in the late 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in the 2005 Dover trial which challenged the intended use of intelligent design in public school science classes.[7]

In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a group of parents of high-school students challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative “explanation of the origin of life”. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents”, and that the school district’s promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[23]

…

Intelligent design proponents say that although evidence pointing to the nature of an “intelligent cause or agent” may not be directly observable, its effects on nature can be detected. Dembski, in Signs of Intelligence, states: “Proponents of intelligent design regard it as a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes … not intelligent causes per se”. In his view, one cannot test for the identity of influences exterior to a closed system from within, so questions concerning the identity of a designer fall outside the realm of the concept. In the 20 years since intelligent design was first formulated, no rigorous test that can identify these effects has yet been proposed.[34][35] No articles supporting intelligent design have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, nor has intelligent design been the subject of scientific research or testing.[36]"

If ID proponents are unable to explain how design is falsifiable, it is not a valid scientific hypothesis. Falsifiability is important because if our experiences would be no different under the assumption that the hypothesis were false, then it is meaningless to say that it is true. The fact is that no matter what we imagine experiencing, we could argue that the universe was designed to be exactly that way. The theory of design carries nothing scientifically interesting. It doesn’t make and predictions or guide our inquiry in any way, because it doesn’t tell us what sort of universe we should expect to find when we inquire, since regardles of what new data we collect, an explanation of design will always be consistent with the data. And if the data were completely different than they are, they would still be consistent with design. In short, ID is not scientifically false, but scientifically irrelevant. Design as a theory tells us nothing about the world that is scientifically interesting. It tells us nothing about the world as it is, because it would be just as consistent with the universe being completely different. It is just religion trying to pass for science, and as such, it has no place in science classrooms.

Best,
Leela

 

[mardukm]

Hi All,

Wikipedia says the following about ID:

…

Intelligent design proponents say that although evidence pointing to the nature of an “intelligent cause or agent” may not be directly observable, its effects on nature can be detected. Dembski, in Signs of Intelligence, states: “Proponents of intelligent design regard it as a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes … not intelligent causes per se”. In his view, one cannot test for the identity of influences exterior to a closed system from within, so questions concerning the identity of a designer fall outside the realm of the concept. In the 20 years since intelligent design was first formulated, no rigorous test that can identify these effects has yet been proposed.[34][35] No articles supporting intelligent design have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, nor has intelligent design been the subject of scientific research or testing.[36]"

If ID proponents are unable to explain how design is falsifiable, it is not a valid scientific hypothesis. Falsifiability is important because if our experiences would be no different under the assumption that the hypothesis were false, then it is meaningless to say that it is true. The fact is that no matter what we imagine experiencing, we could argue that the universe was designed to be exactly that way. The theory of design carries nothing scientifically interesting. It doesn’t make and predictions or guide our inquiry in any way, because it doesn’t tell us what sort of universe we should expect to find when we inquire, since regardles of what new data we collect, an explanation of design will always be consistent with the data. And if the data were completely different than they are, they would still be consistent with design. In short, ID is not scientifically false, but scientifically irrelevant. Design as a theory tells us nothing about the world that is scientifically interesting. It tells us nothing about the world as it is, because it would be just as consistent with the universe being completely different. It is just religion trying to pass for science, and as such, it has no place in science classrooms.

The fact that there is life invalidates the Law of Entropy. There must be a force that is opposing this entropy for life to exist. The proof is in the effects of the force, as the proponents of ID assert.

It is scientifically irresponsible for Dembski to state that there has been “no rigorous test to identify these effects.” Our current scientific apparatus themselves provide these rigorous tests. The idea of using the effects as proof for something else has been a time-tested scientific method. This was, in fact, part of the manner by which the laws of electromagnetism have been dogmatized.

ID is, simply put, a search for order within disorder. That is indeed and irrefutably a valid scientific endeavor.

Your reliance on the idea of falsifiability - a merely philosophical concept that itself has no possibility of being falsified without its proponents tweaking the concept to accomodate possible epistemological arguments against it - is both ironic and disingenuous.

I make no statement either way about the theological ramifications of the concept of ID. I am simply defending its existence as a valid scientific endeavor.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Dameedna]

The fact that there is life invalidates the Law of Entropy. There must be a force that is opposing this entropy for life to exist. The proof is in the effects of the force, as the proponents of ID assert.

How does entropy support ID? I’d like to hear more about this.

It is scientifically irresponsible for Dembski to state that there has been “no rigorous test to identify these effects.” Our current scientific apparatus themselves provide these rigorous tests. The idea of using the effects as proof for something else has been a time-tested scientific method. This was, in fact, part of the manner by which the laws of electromagnetism have been dogmatized.

What effects? Scientific apparatus do a lot, and are ultimately about human observation.

I’m not sure what you are responding to hear, in terms of ID.

ID is, simply put, a search for order within disorder. That is indeed and irrefutably a valid scientific endeavor.

ID makes a claim, that an intelligent designer exists. This debate has been raging for 200 years and it has failed the entire time. ID, is not science. It is faith. It is not a search for order, it is a belief, that something created that order and attempts to use science to push faith.

ID , misses the point of science completely. However, it’s advocates recognize the “importance” of science in the modern world, and attempt to manipulate it which…for the record, any religion could attempt to do. What if it is no longer “christians” and their truth, that are attempting to manipulate science?

Your reliance on the idea of falsifiability - a merely philosophical concept that itself has no possibility of being falsified without its proponents tweaking the concept to accomodate possible epistemological arguments against it - is both ironic and disingenuous.

Science relies on empirical evidence. That is all.

I make no statement either way about the theological ramifications of the concept of ID. I am simply defending its existence as a valid scientific endeavor.

It is not valid. It is a belief IN something and an attempt to use science to justify it. Science…doesn’t believe in anything at all, except perhaps the capacity for human observation.

Any CONCEPT or IDEA that starts with belief, rather than an honest hypothesis that can be empirically proven(or has the chance to be) is not scientific. It can’t be, unless you want to redfine science entirely.

ID is nonsense, and most hard scientists ignore it for a reason.

 

[terrysa]

I’m not opposed to ID being taught in a classroom, but I don’t see how it is necessary, either. Science doesn’t necessarily contradict religious belief. It is simply the mechanism or means of his design carried out in nature.

 

[yppop]

If ID proponents are unable to explain how design is falsifiable, it is not a valid scientific hypothesis.

Since Intelligent design implies a non-material (spiritual) cause for life; it is easily falsifiable by creating life in the laboratory. Now please tell me how to falsify Darwinism?

Yppop

 

[Leela]

Since Intelligent design implies a non-material (spiritual) cause for life; it is easily falsifiable by creating life in the laboratory.

No matter what ever happens in a laboratory, someone could argue that the universe has been conspiring for all of history for just that occurence to happen. Perhaps you would be convinced that natural causes are sufficient to explain life if it became possibe to create life in a laboratory, but it would not disprove design. It would just be important evidence in support of natuarl causes. But it would also be consistent with the ID hypothesis that says that the universe is designed to be the way it is, which would then include a universe where it is possible for scientists to create life in a laboratory. There is no imagineable evidence that would force the creationist to say that the universe was not designed to be exactly the way it is.

Now please tell me how to falsify Darwinism?

(Do you think you sound polite just because you add please to your commands?)

Suppose you dig up a fossilized sketeton of a rabbit dating back to the jurasic period. That would contradict current thinking about evolution. Or if you found the 5000 year old remains of a kangaroo buried in Texas… Obviously the fact that we have never found such evidence does not prove that it does not exist, so we could never say that Darwinism or any other theory is proven to be true for all time. All scientific theories are taken as provisional and subject to revision as new evidence becomes available. That is the strength of science. The pencil is mightier than the pen! But ID has not shown how an eraser could ever be even theoretically useful. It is just religious dogma written in indellible ink that tells us nothing scientifically interesting.

Best,
Leela

 

[JDaniel]

Hi All,

Wikipedia says the following about ID en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design:

"Intelligent design is the term used for the assertion that “certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”[1][2] It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God that avoids specifying the nature or identity of the designer.[3] The idea was developed by a group of American creationists who reformulated their argument in the creation-evolution controversy to circumvent court rulings that prohibit the teaching of creationism as science.[4][5][6] Intelligent design’s leading proponents, all of whom are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank,[7][8] believe the designer to be the God of Christianity.[9][10]

Advocates of intelligent design argue that it is a scientific theory,[11] and seek to fundamentally redefine science to accept supernatural explanations.[12] The consensus in the scientific community is that intelligent design is not science.[13][14][15][16] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that “creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science.”[17] The U.S. National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have termed it pseudoscience.[18] Others in the scientific community have concurred, and some have called it junk science.[19][20]

The concept of intelligent design originated in response to the 1987 United States Supreme Court Edwards v. Aguillard ruling involving separation of church and state.[4] Its first significant published use was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 textbook intended for high-school biology classes.[21] Several additional books on the subject were published in the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, intelligent design proponents had begun clustering around the Discovery Institute and more publicly advocating the inclusion of intelligent design in public school curricula.[22] With the Discovery Institute and its Center for Science and Culture serving a central role in planning and funding, the “intelligent design movement” grew increasingly visible in the late 1990s and early 2000s, culminating in the 2005 Dover trial which challenged the intended use of intelligent design in public school science classes.[7]

In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, a group of parents of high-school students challenged a public school district requirement for teachers to present intelligent design in biology classes as an alternative “explanation of the origin of life”. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that intelligent design is not science, that it “cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents”, and that the school district’s promotion of it therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[23]

…

Intelligent design proponents say that although evidence pointing to the nature of an “intelligent cause or agent” may not be directly observable, its effects on nature can be detected. Dembski, in Signs of Intelligence, states: “Proponents of intelligent design regard it as a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes … not intelligent causes per se”. In his view, one cannot test for the identity of influences exterior to a closed system from within, so questions concerning the identity of a designer fall outside the realm of the concept. In the 20 years since intelligent design was first formulated, no rigorous test that can identify these effects has yet been proposed.[34][35] No articles supporting intelligent design have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, nor has intelligent design been the subject of scientific research or testing.[36]"

If ID proponents are unable to explain how design is falsifiable, it is not a valid scientific hypothesis. Falsifiability is important because if our experiences would be no different under the assumption that the hypothesis were false, then it is meaningless to say that it is true. The fact is that no matter what we imagine experiencing, we could argue that the universe was designed to be exactly that way. The theory of design carries nothing scientifically interesting. It doesn’t make and predictions or guide our inquiry in any way, because it doesn’t tell us what sort of universe we should expect to find when we inquire, since regardles of what new data we collect, an explanation of design will always be consistent with the data. And if the data were completely different than they are, they would still be consistent with design. In short, ID is not scientifically false, but scientifically irrelevant. Design as a theory tells us nothing about the world that is scientifically interesting. It tells us nothing about the world as it is, because it would be just as consistent with the universe being completely different. It is just religion trying to pass for science, and as such, it has no place in science classrooms.

Best,
Leela

Well, I’ll be darned! I agree with you! ID should not be taught in “science class”.

God, theology, and religion should be taught in theology and religion classes - maybe even philosophy classes - and, at home.

jd

 

[ricmat]

It is just religious dogma written in indellible ink that tells us nothing scientifically interesting.

Hi Leela. Suppose you went to Mars and discovered an ancient non-human city, and brought back to earth a device which appears to be a prime number generator/display.

Would you attempt to investigate it (the design) scientifically, or would you dismiss it as religious dogma and not scientifically interesting?

 

[ricmat]

BTW - wikipedia is good for some things, but not for others. For many “controversial” subjects, such as this one, I wouldn’t rely on it as Gospel Truth

Here are some FAQ’s about ID from an organization that is (probably) the acknowledged leader in the ID movement. Perhaps a good place to start would be to read what they say about themselves, and about ID.

intelligentdesign.org/faq.php

 

[JDaniel]

Well, I’ll be darned! I agree with you! ID should not be taught in “science class”.

God, theology, and religion should be taught in theology and religion classes - maybe even philosophy classes - and, at home.

jd

The above being stipulated to, I would at least like moronic science teachers to not delve into what they have limited knowledge of - like theology, religion and philosophy - and work so hard to undermine them. Just teach science.

Relativity, evolution, evolutionary biology, quantum physics, general science, chemistry, p-chem, physiology, and so on. Go for it! Teach them all.

Leela, I would think you might agree with this, no?

jd

 

[Non_sum_dignus]

I believe in an Intelligent Designer, but I’m not sure how you go about “teaching” it. Observing that there appears to be an order in creation that points to a creator is responsible enough, but it doesn’t exactly create an evolving model that can be re-evaluated with new evidence.

“Because God make it that way,” may be a valid teological observation at times, but it doesn’t necessarily advance anyone’s understanding of the nuts and bolts God used to put it together.

 

[buffalo]

Only teach empirical science in science class.

Evolutionism and ID should be taught in philosophy class. All kids should have to take philosophy and metaphysics.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Evolutionism and ID should be taught in philosophy class. All kids should have to take philosophy and metaphysics.

Um, “evolutionism”, like Creationism/ID, aren’t really philosophies. They are simply weird misunderstandings about evolutionary theory (evolutionism) and God (Creationism/ID)

 

[buffalo]

Um, “evolutionism”, like Creationism/ID, aren’t really philosophies. They are simply weird misunderstandings about evolutionary theory (evolutionism) and God (Creationism/ID)

Oh really now.

Why not just empirical science in science class?

 

[JDaniel]

Only teach empirical science in science class.

Evolutionism and ID should be taught in philosophy class. All kids should have to take philosophy and metaphysics.

Exactly. Sure wouldn’t hurt.

Can you imagine if kids coming out of high school, or college, nowadays, had taken a class on Aristotelian logic, delivered by a sympathetic professor?

jd

 

[Leela]

Hi Leela. Suppose you went to Mars and discovered an ancient non-human city, and brought back to earth a device which appears to be a prime number generator/display.

Would you attempt to investigate it (the design) scientifically, or would you dismiss it as religious dogma and not scientifically interesting?

This is a great question. I am hopeful that it will be useful for clearing up an important misconception.

Certainly, I would want to investigate this evidence of intelligence. As you’ve described this situation, it is a simple fact that this discovery points to “intelligent design.” It is scientifically interesting in that it raises a lot of scientific questions, but the important point to keep in mind is that facts are not scientific hypotheses. It is a fact that my favorite color is purple, but it is certainly not a scientific hypothesis. So it is in positing an intelligent designer to explain biological life. It may or may not be true that biological entities were designed to be the way they are, but as a scientific claim, this claim is not scientifically false so much as just completely scientifically irrelevant since it is unfalsifiable.

ID does not predict that we find the universe to be any particular way. It is not a theory, because it is not even a hypothesis. It is an observation. The universe appears in some ways to be designed. Ok, so what? From that point we either try to explain why things appear to be designed or give up on science.

At most, ID, if thought to be true, tells science to stop doing science. But scientists don’t want to give up on looking for natural causes because they continue to be successful in making, verifying, falsifying, and adapting hypotheses based on new experiences.

Remember that the point of this thread is to discuss whether ID should be taught in school science classes. Of course, biology teachers need to talk about the fact that some aspects of nature appear to be designed if they want to teach evolution, because it is this appearance of design in nature that evolutionary theory hopes to explain. But it would be wrong for a biology teacher to talk about design as a theory since it predicts nothing and guides inquiry in no way whatsoever. It is an observation, a fact, not a theory. Theories are supposed to explain facts. ID is not a theory because it has no explanation for the appearance of design other than the unfalsifiable religious one, “God did it.” Well, that’s fine if you want to believe that God did it, but your belief in God is irrelevant to science and should not be taught in science class as if it were a scientific theory.

Best,
Leela

 

[yppop]

No matter what ever happens in a laboratory, someone could argue that the universe has been conspiring for all of history for just that occurence to happen. Perhaps you would be convinced that natural causes are sufficient to explain life if it became possibe to create life in a laboratory, but it would not disprove design. It would just be important evidence in support of natuarl causes. But it would also be consistent with the ID hypothesis that says that the universe is designed to be the way it is, which would then include a universe where it is possible for scientists to create life in a laboratory. There is no imagineable evidence that would force the creationist to say that the universe was not designed to be exactly the way it is.

Leela
A materialist does not need to convince everyone before a particular theory is considered to be scientific. There is no single method for creating science according to Karl Popper, the philosopher who introduced the concept of falsification; generally speaking theories become science when they make it into the text books, and they make it into the text books by consensus of the scientific community. Therefore, whether or not there is a probability that the I.D. crowd accepts laboratory induced abiogenesis as falsification of their intelligent-design hypothesis or not, laboratory induced abiogenesis still would count with the scientific crowd that would jump all over such evidence that ID has been falsified and as proof there is no God. Look how one simple experiment by Stanley Miller in which he created a goo of amino acids in a test tube effectively killed Henri Bergson’s elan vital theory. Believe me, the materialists would love to falsify intelligent design by creating life out of matter. Does this mean that I believe I.D. should be taught as science in the classroom, No, it does not! My objection is with your use of falsification as an excuse to label I.D. as non-scientific. Just to show you how much the scientific community thinks of falsification: when observations showed that peripheral motion of galaxies did not obey Theoretical Mechanics they created Dark Matter and when observations of Ia supernova deviated from the Hubble curve they created Dark Energy.

(Do you think you sound polite just because you add please to your commands?)

Suppose you dig up a fossilized sketeton of a rabbit dating back to the jurasic period. That would contradict current thinking about evolution. Or if you found the 5000 year old remains of a kangaroo buried in Texas… Obviously the fact that we have never found such evidence does not prove that it does not exist, so we could never say that Darwinism or any other theory is proven to be true for all time. All scientific theories are taken as provisional and subject to revision as new evidence becomes available. That is the strength of science. The pencil is mightier than the pen! But ID has not shown how an eraser could ever be even theoretically useful. It is just religious dogma written in indellible ink that tells us nothing scientifically interesting.

Evolution and Darwinism are two different things. Evolution is a fact that describes the fossil record. Like 90% of all science it is purely observational (think botany, geology, archeology, astronomy, etc.) and needs no falsification. Evolution means that life has progressed from the simple to the complex at the same time as it increased in diversification and cephalisation. Your rabbit and kangaroo example would be considered as aberrations and readily dismissed by the scientific community, as are many other aberrations in the fossil record. Darwinism, on the other hand, is an extrapolation that implies that humans are at the end of a long string of small increments of development that extends back in a smooth curve to a pool of slime about 3-billion years ago, while conveniently skipping over a couple of nasty gaps in which that spoil sport God is still lurking.

I think you still owe me an answer to my question and leave the please out. But before you try, let me warn you that in order to validate a hypothesis whether by the classical method and testing or by the Popperian method and falsification, in both cases the hypothesis must provide a prediction. What does Darwinism predict?

best
Yppop

 

[buffalo]

This is a great question. I am hopeful that it will be useful for clearing up an important misconception.

Certainly, I would want to investigate this evidence of intelligence. As you’ve described this situation, it is a simple fact that this discovery points to “intelligent design.” It is scientifically interesting in that it raises a lot of scientific questions, but the important point to keep in mind is that facts are not scientific hypotheses. It is a fact that my favorite color is purple, but it is certainly not a scientific hypothesis. So it is in positing an intelligent designer to explain biological life. It may or may not be true that biological entities were designed to be the way they are, but as a scientific claim, this claim is not scientifically false so much as just completely scientifically irrelevant since it is unfalsifiable.

ID does not predict that we find the universe to be any particular way. It is not a theory, because it is not even a hypothesis. It is an observation. The universe appears in some ways to be designed. Ok, so what? From that point we either try to explain why things appear to be designed or give up on science.

At most, ID, if thought to be true, tells science to stop doing science. But scientists don’t want to give up on looking for natural causes because they continue to be successful in making, verifying, falsifying, and adapting hypotheses based on new experiences.

Remember that the point of this thread is to discuss whether ID should be taught in school science classes. Of course, biology teachers need to talk about the fact that some aspects of nature appear to be designed if they want to teach evolution, because it is this appearance of design in nature that evolutionary theory hopes to explain. But it would be wrong for a biology teacher to talk about design as a theory since it predicts nothing and guides inquiry in no way whatsoever. It is an observation, a fact, not a theory. Theories are supposed to explain facts. ID is not a theory because it has no explanation for the appearance of design other than the unfalsifiable religious one, “God did it.” Well, that’s fine if you want to believe that God did it, but your belief in God is irrelevant to science and should not be taught in science class as if it were a scientific theory.

Best,
Leela

Why would ID stop science? Science should continue to do its work, ID or not. If science stays out of philosophy then no harm.

 

[Leela]

But before you try, let me warn you that in order to validate a hypothesis whether by the classical method and testing or by the Popperian method and falsification, in both cases the hypothesis must provide a prediction. What does Darwinism predict?

Darwinism predicts that species will adapt to changing conditions though genetic drift and natural selection.

Darwin predicted that transitional fossils would be discovered, and millions - trillions if you count microfossils - have been uncovered. The peppered moth evolved black colouring to adapt to pollution-stained trees when industrialisation took place. Remove the pollution and, evolutionary theory predicts, the light strain should once again predominate - which is just what is happening. Evolutionary theory predicts that if you genetically engineer crops to produce a pesticide, this will lead to the evolution of insect strains which resist that pesticide, but it also predicts that you can slow the spread of resistance genes by growing regular plants alongside the modified ones. That has proved to be the case.

Darwin predicted that precursors to the trilobite would be found in pre-Silurian rocks. He was correct: they were subsequently found.

Similarly, Darwin predicted that Precambrian fossils would be found. He wrote in 1859 that the total absence of fossils in Precambrian rock was “inexplicable” and that the lack might “be truly urged as a valid argument” against his theory. When such fossils were found, starting in 1953, it turned out that they had been abundant all along. They were just so small that it took a microscope to see them.

There are two kinds of whales: those with teeth, and those that strain microscopic food out of seawater with baleen. It was predicted that a transitional whale must have once existed, which had both teeth and baleen. Such a fossil has since been found.

Evolution predicts that animals on distant islands will appear closely related to animals on the closest mainland, and that the older and more distant the island, the more distant the relationship.

It was predicted that humans must have an intermaxillary bone, since other mammals do. The adult human skull consists of bones that have fused together, so you can’t tell one way or the other in an adult. An examination of human embryonic development showed that an intermaxillary bone is one of the things that fuses to become your upper jaw.

In 1861, the first Archaeopteryx fossil was found. It was clearly a primitive bird with reptilian features. But, the fossil’s head was very badly preserved. In 1872 Ichthyornis and Hesperornis were found. Both were clearly seabirds, but to everyone’s astonishment, both had teeth. It was predicted that if we found a better-preserved Archaeopteryx, it too would have teeth. In 1877, a second Archaeopteryx was found, and the prediction turned out to be correct.

Almost all animals make Vitamin C inside their bodies. It was predicted that humans are descended from creatures that could do this, and that we had lost this ability.When human DNA was studied, scientists found a gene which is just like the Vitamin C gene in dogs and cats. However, our copy has been turned off.

In “The Origin Of Species” (1859), Darwin said:
“If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.”
This challenge has not been met. In the ensuing 140 years, no such thing has been found. Plants give away nectar and fruit, but they get something in return.

A thousand years ago, just about every remote island on the planet had a species of flightless bird. Evolution explains this by saying that flying creatures are particularly able to establish themselves on remote islands. Some birds, living in a safe place where there is no need to make sudden escapes, will take the opportunity to give up on flying. Hence, Evolution predicts that each flightless bird species arose on the island that it was found on. So, Evolution predicts that no two islands would have the same species of flightless bird. Now that all the world’s islands have been visited, we know that this was a correct prediction.

An animal’s bones contain oxygen atoms from the water it drank while growing. And, fresh water and salt water can be told apart by their slightly different mixture of oxygen isotopes. (This is because fresh water comes from water that evaporated out of the ocean. Lighter atoms evaporate more easily than heavy ones do, so fresh water has fewer of the heavy atoms.) Therefore, it should be possible to analyze an aquatic creature’s bones, and tell whether it grew up in fresh water or in the ocean. This has been done, and it worked. We can distinguish the bones of river dolphins from the bones of killer whales. Now for the prediction. We have fossils of various early whales. Since whales are mammals, evolution predicts that they evolved from land animals. And, the very earliest of those whales would have lived in fresh water, while they were evolving their aquatic skills. Therefore, the oxygen isotope ratios in their fossils should be like the isotope ratios in modern river dolphins. It’s been measured, and the prediction was correct. The two oldest species in the fossil record - Pakicetus and Ambulocetus - lived in fresh water. Rodhocetus, Basilosaurus and the others all lived in salt water.

Does any of this prove that Darwinism is correct? No, theories are never proven. We just accumulate such data that is consistent with a theory, or need to revise the theory when contradictory evidence is found. The point is that these predictions could have been proven wrong, but weren’t, and that evolutionary theory was useful in telling people what sort of evidence to look for and where.What does ID predict?

 

[Leela]

A materialist does not need to convince everyone before a particular theory is considered to be scientific. There is no single method for creating science according to Karl Popper, the philosopher who introduced the concept of falsification; generally speaking theories become science when they make it into the text books, and they make it into the text books by consensus of the scientific community.

But before any theory could be considered as a theory, it would have to be an actual hypothesis first. The observation that certain aspects of nature appear to be designed is all well and good, but it ust isn’t a hypothesis.

Therefore, whether or not there is a probability that the I.D. crowd accepts laboratory induced abiogenesis as falsification of their intelligent-design hypothesis or not, laboratory induced abiogenesis still would count with the scientific crowd that would jump all over such evidence that ID has been falsified and as proof there is no God.

As a battle in the war between the God of the Gaps and natural explanations, this would indeed be a victory for natural explanations, but it would not be proof of any theory or falsification of ID. This fact would pose no problem for design since regardless of what sort of universe we observe, someone could say it was designed to be that way. It would only be proof that scientists can create life in the laboratory. This would be a fact that theories would need to explain or at least be consistent with. Never a problem for design since design is consistent with everything we could ever observe about our world and also consistent with any imaginable data that would be very different from what we actually observe.

My objection is with your use of falsification as an excuse to label I.D. as non-scientific. Just to show you how much the scientific community thinks of falsification: when observations showed that peripheral motion of galaxies did not obey Theoretical Mechanics they created Dark Matter and when observations of Ia supernova deviated from the Hubble curve they created Dark Energy.

These are just examples of how theories always need to be changed when they are falsified by new evidence.

Evolution and Darwinism are two different things. Evolution is a fact that describes the fossil record. Like 90% of all science it is purely observational (think botany, geology, archeology, astronomy, etc.) and needs no falsification. Evolution means that life has progressed from the simple to the complex at the same time as it increased in diversification and cephalisation.

Right, theories or hyptheses rather than facts or observations are what need to be falsifiable. Are you saying that ID is an observation rather than a theory?

Your rabbit and kangaroo example would be considered as aberrations and readily dismissed by the scientific community, as are many other aberrations in the fossil record.

Such data would be veiwed as inconsistent with current thinking about evolution.

Darwinism, on the other hand, is an extrapolation that implies that humans are at the end of a long string of small increments of development that extends back in a smooth curve to a pool of slime about 3-billion years ago, while conveniently skipping over a couple of nasty gaps in which that spoil sport God is still lurking.

The God of the Gaps you describe is not a spoil sport to science. The battle between this god and science has moved in only one direction. Science has relentlessly progressed and the God of the Gaps has always had to retreat.

I think you still owe me an answer to my question and leave the please out.

I don’t owe you anything. We don’t even know one another. We are just having a conversation. Can’t we try to be civil?

Best,
Leela