Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (9790)	11/12/2010 5:13:02 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 69300

"Science cannot experiment or comment upon the supernatural" why not ?

To: Solon who wrote (9790)	11/12/2010 6:07:40 PM
From: Brumar89	2 Recommendations Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 69300

To say that the supernatural doesn't exist is a comment on the supernatural which you're now on record as saying science can't make.

To: Solon who wrote (9790)	11/12/2010 10:23:04 PM
From: JF Quinnelly	Respond to of 69300

'An Improper Charge of Unfalsifiability When assessing Dembski’s analysis of the Oklo Natural Reactor, Elsberry and Shallit charge that Dembski’s approach to detecting design is “unfalsifiable.” They quote Dembski saying: “suppose the Oklo reactors ended up satisfying this criterion after all. Would this vitiate the complexity-specification criterion? Not at all. At worst it would indicate that certain naturally occurring events or objects that we initially expected to involve no design actually do involve design.” They then reply: “In other words, Dembski's claims are unfalsifiable. We find this good evidence that Dembski's case for intelligent design is not a scientific one.” This is an inaccurate criticism which confuses “unfalsified” with “unfalsifiable.” After all, as we have seen, Dembski concludes that under our current knowledge the Oklo Natural Reactor was not designed. This shows that in principle, design is falsfiable. Now all scientific theories must be held subject to future data. So the fact that, hypothetically, the data regarding the Oklo Natural Reactor could be different and trigger a design inference does not imply that Dembski’s methods are unfalsifiable. Unfalsified does not equal unfalsifiable. A proper response to Dembski’s argument is to recognize that ID is falsifiable but then to note that design theorists should work hard and study nature carefully before inferring design. While one might initially think the Oklo Natural Reactor is both specified and complex (unlikely), a closer investigation shows it isn’t all that improbable and is in fact easily accounted for by natural causes. Dembski did that hard investigation and determined it was not designed. With hard work and careful investigation, it’s eminently possible to distinguish features like human designed tall pillars from basalt columns and many of these natural features from designed features. In his book Understanding Intelligent Design Dembski explains why hard work is important when studying intelligent design: The prospect that further knowledge may overturn a design inference is a risk the Explanatory Filter gladly accepts. In fact, it is a risk common to all scientific investigation, not just intelligent design. Scientific knowledge is fallible -- it may be wrong, and it may be shown to be wrong in light of further empirical evidence and theoretical insight. If the mere possibility of being wrong were enough to destroy the Filter, we would have to throw out all of science. (William Dembski and Sean McDowell, Understanding Intelligent Design: Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language, p. 113 (Harvest House, 2008).) The fact that ID can be disproven doesn’t mean we should throw it out entirely. In fact, ID’s falsifiability is a strength. III: Whose Views About Intelligent Design Are Really Treated as Falsifiable? In the previous section, we saw that Elsberry and Shallit prematurely allowed their own preconceptions to dictate what ought to be designed. They claimed that ID is “unfalsifiable,” and then claimed an overall naturalistic paradigm of origins is treated as falsifiable, stating, “Contrary to Dembski’s assertions, design is not arbitrarily ruled out as an element of scientific investigation.” This is an odd claim because there are many examples of ID critics trying to dismiss ID by defining it as outside of science. These critics arbitrarily refuse to even consider ID. In fact, Dr. Elsberry’s former employer, the NCSE, convinced Judge Jones to do just that in the Dover ruling. It’s difficult for me to accept Elsberry and Shallit’s claim given that evolutionists have said things like these: “[I]f a living cell were to be made in the laboratory, it would not prove that....' ideacenter.org