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

[Leela]

The purpose of science is to inquire, and we inquire because it serves our human purposes to do so and may be a human purpose in and of itself.

ricmat raises an interesting point

Why can humans see purposes in the things they do (science, for example) but then evade the purpose for which they themselves exist, preferring to see themselves as purposeless (atheism) in the grand scheme of things?

Atheists don’t lead purposeless lives. They just don’t look for their purpose to come from outside the universe.

Einstein’s theory of relativity was true (and respected enough to be published in academic journals) even before he was able to verify it by the fulfillment of predictions based on it.

Why couldn’t Intelligent Design be accorded some scientific respectability on the basis of fixed natural laws by which we can predict many things about the behavior of the universe (for example that some day this planet will perish)?

ID predicts that the universe will perish? How so?

Best,
Leela

 

[buffalo]

T

Augustine thought that a form of evolution produced many things.

.

Source?

 

[Leela]

Human beings are constantly designing things. The computer you are using was designed by an intelligence. It could not have come into existence on its own.

A living cell is very complex and could not have come into existence on its own. Intelligence is required to make purposeful artifacts, whether it is called art, a computer or an automobile. Purposeful artifacts are only made by an intelligence. Many books have been written about design; design created by an intelligence. Wherever you are, you are surrounding by artifacts designed by an intelligence.

This is all fine, but there is no scientific hypothesis in the above with the exception of the implied claim we will never discover a living cell coming into existence on its own, which nobody thinks anyway.

 

[Leela]

The only thing wrong with Intelligent Design, for some, is their fear that it could point to God. Both John Paul II and Cardinal Schoenborn have recognized design in nature (see Finding Design in Nature by Cardinal Schoenborn, New York Times). This is why they bring this up. Now, if a scientist proposed the idea that mortal alien beings made man, that would please them. The idea that God made them does not. It’s threatening.

How much experimentation is required to prove that a shard of clay dug from the ground is A) A piece of hardened clay, or B) A fragment of an ancient clay pot with intelligible markings on it?

Intelligent Design simply means that living biological beings did not spontaneously come to existence or life.

No one thinks that living biological beings spontanepously came into being. Everyone recognizes the appearance of design in nature. It is this appearance of design that evolutionary theory attempts to explain.

 

[ricmat]

Everything that has a use has a purpose.

I would expand on this and say that everything has a purpose, even if it’s “use” is not obvious.

To ask what is our (human) purpose, a good place to start is to ask what is the purpose of the universe. I don’t know of a scientific way to answer that (and maybe you don’t demand a scientific explanation as some do…I don’t know). But the Catholic explanation is (others may correct me, or expand here if you don’t think I got it right):

1. God is love.
2. Love cannot exist without another person to love (this is part of the basis of “Trinity”).
3. God has so much love to share that he wanted to create more persons to love (hence, humans).
4. Humans would need a place to live, so God created the universe for that purpose. BTW - the universe provides “more than we need to live” as a sign of God’s superabundant love, and to help us stand in awe of his glory and majesty.
5. The purpose of humans (in this life) is to learn to love God (partly by learning to love other humans). We also cooperate with God in creating new persons to love (we provide the bodies, God provides the soul). This is part of the reason for so much emphasis on matters of reproduction (how, when, where, why). It also explains why sex is much more than a recreational sport. (Note: I’m not implying anything about you in particular here, but society in general seems to treat it that way.)
6. Our ultimate purpose is to be with God, loving him, and being loved in heaven.

The broadest statement I could make is that I use my life to pursue happiness.

Indeed, that is what we all pursue. How do you know what path actually leads you to happiness? Our position would be that since God created us from love, and wants us to be happy, that he has actually given us some directions on how to achieve happiness and not be in the dark.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

As to Intelligent Design, the following quote from Einstein seems relevant:

“I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the language in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.” Albert Einstein in Max Jammer’s Einstein and Religion."

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela
*
ID predicts that the universe will perish? How so?*

Actually, I said the **planet **will perish. As to this being done by Intelligent Design, see the quote above from Einstein who apparently believed that some kind of God (who designs intelligently) rules the universe and sets down all the laws, including the law of entropy, which our planet is subject to, never mind the universe at large.

 

[edwest2]

I think scientific community in many cases is reacting to theologians attempting to undermine science…

The journal Nature tells us most leading scientists reject God. Then there is the scientific atheist promotion team:

Richard Dawkins
Sam Harris
PZ Myers
Christopher Hitchens

Nope, too many scientists have blinded themselves.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

I’ve been saying over and over that design CAN be believed as a fact. Everything we observe is entirely consistent with design. It just isn’t a scientific theory for the reasons I’ve been giving. Facts aren’t the same things as scientific theories which try to explain facts and predict new observations.

If I find a rock, what theory or experiment is required to determine it was designed? That it is not just a rock but an arrowhead made by an intelligence?

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

This is all fine, but there is no scientific hypothesis in the above with the exception of the implied claim we will never discover a living cell coming into existence on its own, which nobody thinks anyway.

Life does not arise spontaneously. That is an old, established fact of science.

Peace,
Ed

 

[Leela]

Leela
*
ID predicts that the universe will perish? How so?*

Actually, I said the **planet **will perish. As to this being done by Intelligent Design, see the quote above from Einstein who apparently believed that some kind of God (who designs intelligently) rules the universe and sets down all the laws, including the law of entropy, which our planet is subject to, never mind the universe at large.

How does positing a designer imply the claim that the planet will perish as opposed to the claim that the planet will not perish? I’m trying to figure out what ID predicts, if anything. I don’t see how ID includes any prediction about the end of the planet though Catholicism does. Does ID oinclude the predictions made by Catholicism or some other religion?

 

[Leela]

If I find a rock, what theory or experiment is required to determine it was designed? That it is not just a rock but an arrowhead made by an intelligence?

It doesn’t take any theory or experiment at all. That’s the point. ID is not a falsifiable scientific hypothesis. Design is an observation we make, not a testable theory. Since it is not a theory, it should not be taught as if it were.

 

[Leela]

Life does not arise spontaneously. That is an old, established fact of science.

Actually, this one is a hypothesis. And it is falsifiable like any valid scientific hypothesis. If life was ever created of something nonliving in a lab, it would be shown to be false. Until then, it is accepted as provisionally true. That is why it is taught in elementary school science class. But this has nothing to do with Darwinism which only needs to rely on the fact that the first living thing existed at some time in the past.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela

I’m trying to figure out what ID predicts, if anything. I don’t see how ID includes any prediction about the end of the planet though Catholicism does.

Look at the Einstein quote more carefully (post # 126). Chaos or chance does not reign. Einstein sees order and laws in nature, to the degree that he cannot call himself an atheist (as you must know, he often uses the word “God” … not the Christian God, to be sure … to describe the force behind the creation of this law and order). One of these laws of nature is that stars eventually burn out from the law of entropy. The natural law therefore is a predictor that the planet will perish at some point when the Sun is in the process of dying. This is basic science and doesn’t need Scripture to confirm, though Scripture talks plenty about the end of the world.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Also from Einstein:

“I have never found a better expression than “religious” for this trust in the rational nature of reality and of its peculiar accessibility to the human mind. Where this trust is lacking science degenerates into an uninspired procedure. Let the devil care if the priests make capital out of this. There is no remedy for that.”

 

[The_Barbarian]

As to Intelligent Design, the following quote from Einstein seems relevant:

It is, but not in the way you might hope.

“I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the language in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.” Albert Einstein in Max Jammer’s Einstein and Religion."

In other words, Einstein, even though his work was completely methodologically naturalistic, believed in a creator. Rather than debase religion by erecting a faux-scientific explanation, he merely believed based on his apprehension of God.

This is the great sin of “Intelligent Design.” Lacking faith in the means God has provided us for knowing Him, they seek to recruit science to shore up their faith. Science can’t do it. Trust God, not science.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

This is the great sin of “Intelligent Design.” Lacking faith in the means God has provided us for knowing Him, they seek to recruit science to shore up their faith. Science can’t do it. Trust God, not science.

If I’m not mistaken, it was the great Aquinas himself who said that there can be no ultimate conflict between faith and reason. So yes, ultimately science, which is supposed to be strictly rational, can be enlisted to support the idea of God, as Einstein argues, though it certainly is not essential, and there was a great deal more faith in the medieval world than there is in the present age of science … not that this need always be so.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Another one from einstein:

“My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.”

 

[Henry_Green]

It is, but not in the way you might hope.

In other words, Einstein, even though his work was completely methodologically naturalistic, believed in a creator. Rather than debase religion by erecting a faux-scientific explanation, he merely believed based on his apprehension of God.

This is the great sin of “Intelligent Design.” Lacking faith in the means God has provided us for knowing Him, they seek to recruit science to shore up their faith. Science can’t do it. Trust God, not science.

Amen brother, science is often wrong and always changing, God is neither.

 

[Leela]

Leela

I’m trying to figure out what ID predicts, if anything. I don’t see how ID includes any prediction about the end of the planet though Catholicism does.

Look at the Einstein quote more carefully (post # 126). Chaos or chance does not reign. Einstein sees order and laws in nature, to the degree that he cannot call himself an atheist (as you must know, he often uses the word “God” … not the Christian God, to be sure … to describe the force behind the creation of this law and order). One of these laws of nature is that stars eventually burn out from the law of entropy. The natural law therefore is a predictor that the planet will perish at some point when the Sun is in the process of dying. This is basic science and doesn’t need Scripture to confirm, though Scripture talks plenty about the end of the world.

So the laws of science predict the end of the world, and scripture predicts the end of the world. I agree, but the question is about whether ID predicts the end of the world (or anything at all) as you claim. I can’t see how. If it doesn’t predict anything and can’t be falsified, then it is not a scientific theory. That’s not to say that design is necessarily a bad idea, it’s just not a scientific theory.

Best,
Leela