Rob writes:
The only thing I can think of in terms of predictability, is that Intelligent design can predict that no coherent material explanation will ever avail itself as to the origin of life in the emperical evidence.
This is more a prophecy than a scientific prediction. The question concerns whether creationism or ID provide any predictions about the natural world, not about how doomed future research based upon methodological naturalism might be.
The answer is yes, of course creationism and ID make predictions about the natural world. For example, young earth creationism predicts that there should be global evidence of a recent world-wide flood, that fossils should not appear in any particular order, and that all geologic layers should date to less than 6000 years old. Non-Behe ID predicts that investigations of life history should not uncover evidence of a hierarchy of descent.
Since a key portion of the strength of a theory is it's ability to make accurate predictions, these failed predictions of creationism and ID argue strongly against them.
But any predictions creationism and ID make, successful or not, cannot help them qualify as science, because theories develop out of a methodological process of experiment, observation, evidence gathering and analysis focused on the physical world, while creationism and ID spring from a religious focus on issues of faith and spirituality.
--Percy
PS - You always misspell empirical. There are spellcheckers out there, Google Toolbar and Firefox to name two.
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