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Author | Topic: So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
JonF Member (Idle past 195 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
who has been cautioned enumerable times
Would you please enumerate them? {hee hee hee hee hee hee}
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
This segway began from PaulK's allegation in message 122 of this thread that Buzsaw and Berreta were demonstrating twisted "Supernatural 'science'."
I'd say that Buzsaw and Beretta have been demonstrating it for us. Supernatural "science" is twisting misrepresenting or ignoring the evidence in service to preestablished ideas which are taken as dogmatic fact. That and attacking anyone who sees through the charade as being "blinded" (for refusing to blind themselves). It's not a pretty sight. Imo, I've made the point that there are alternative debatable POVs and that some of these do not ignore the requirement for evidence, models, etc. My apologies for not opening a new thread in a suitable forum to respond to PaulK's allegations. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: That obscures the fact that my message was posted in December 2007. It was hardly necessary to reply now, 9 months later.
quote: In fact you've proved my point. You produced no evidence, nor a model to rival that of General Relativity. All you've doen is to dogmatically insist that GR is wrong because it contradicts your ideas. The simple fact is that you have been given the answers and your only response is to deny that those responses even exist. You certainly didn't answer my points, or even attempt to. And of course you attack your opponents as being "blinded" because you refuse to accept the answer, just as I said. In reality all you've done is prove me right.
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Admin Director Posts: 13036 From: EvC Forum Joined: Member Rating: 2.1 |
Please ignore messages or parts of messages that do not bear on the topic, or which seem to display a profound ignorance of the topic. If no one has anything to say about the thread's topic then just let this thread sit idle. Thanks.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2504 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Percy writes: Expressing this in my own words, the topic of this thread is how a science based upon the Discovery Institute's wishes to abandon methodological naturalism would work. The answer is that it wouldn't, and already doesn't. The O.P. describes I. D. as superstition based, and it is, of course, inspired and informed by religion. Because it's a religious movement, it already shows the symptoms of being one. No agreement on a coherent theory can possibly be reached, because the decisions that have to be made are not evidence based, they are theological, and as with theology, different people can make up different things. But, at least the religions usually have some text to argue over, which members of the religion, however much they disagree, all regard as some sort of set of guidelines. I. D. doesn't even have that. So, how can the I. D. people come to an agreement on what the designers design, let alone questions like "how" and "why". Do they design at the level of species, or genus, or family, or order, or class, phylum, kingdom or domain. Or does the designer just tinker with features that are above a certain undefinable level of complexity, or perhaps just design the original life form and set the evolutionary ball rolling? When we think about this, it becomes clear that there's no real criteria on which to make decisions, so how will I. D. advocates do so? Prayer? Employ self-appointed living prophets? So, it will not work as "science". Methodological naturalism has become science not because of metaphysical naturalism, but because it (M. N.) works. It was common for scientists like Newton to employ a "God of the Gaps" to do things like nudge his planets into their orbits, but increasing knowledge has closed so many gaps that that approach is now regarded as silly, and it requires evidence for the existence of the non-natural for science to move away from pure methodological naturalism. That's what I'd like to see the I. D. people working on. They could learn a lesson from people like mediums and ghost hunters, and go out searching for evidence of the supernatural which would establish it as part of a reality that science should consider. An I. D. advocate who doesn't own a Ouija board is an I. D. advocate who is not showing serious interest in real I. D. research. (I've forgotten the thread, but I once suggested something like that to I. D. supporter Randman, and he came out with a photograph with a wispy looking piece of smoke that could've been a ghost, making me laugh. At least he tried to show real evidence. ).
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
bluejeans writes: ......and go out searching for evidence of the supernatural which would establish it as part of a reality that science should consider. 1. The problems with narrow threads like this is that our evidences of the supernatural is a corroboration of multi-topic ones. Since the majority view of ID creationism is sudden designed and produced species there's not a lot of methodology to debate. Thus we need to refer to other evidences of the supernatural such as archeological discoveries, prophetic phenomena and such, all of which is off topic here. The dilema for us is that our evidences are segmented in the thread topics to the extent that the big picture of all the corroborated evidences is forgotten. Our opponents divide and conquer, so to speak in order to make it easier for them to undermine the isolated pieces of the puzzle as insufficient. You take a dozen pieces of the puzzle box and try to make sense of them for a picture and you get nothing worth looking at. 2. "......that science would consider." You can just forget that notion. It aintagona happen. Secular mainstream science will have nothing to do with anything that hints of a higher intelligence existing in the universe than we have here on this little speck in the vast universe called Planet Earth. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2504 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Buzsaw writes: The dilema for us is that our evidences are segmented in the thread topics to the extent that the big picture of all the corroborated evidences is forgotten. Our opponents divide and conquer, so to speak in order to make it easier for them to undermine the isolated pieces of the puzzle as insufficient. You take a dozen pieces of the puzzle box and try to make sense of them for a picture and you get nothing worth looking at. No, I don't think your problem is to do with the threads. After all, we do have threads in which the topic is evidence for I.D., or for creationism, or whatever. What I was saying in the post above is that I. D., like the world's many theistic religions, will not be able to agree on what the exact role of the designer/god is, and what he has created, when, and how. Think about it. What is the I. D. theory? How much designing and how much evolving goes on? Will you agree with all other EvC I.D. creationists on questions like that? And the age of this planet?
Secular mainstream science will have nothing to do with anything that hints of a higher intelligence existing in the universe than we have here on this little speck in the vast universe called Planet Earth. It would have to, if there were evidence. A higher intelligence in this universe is quite possible, considering its scale, but there's no evidence for it yet.
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
bluejeans writes: Think about it. What is the I. D. theory? How much designing and how much evolving goes on? Will you agree with all other EvC I.D. creationists on questions like that? And the age of this planet? The majority of fundamentalist ID creationists don't agree that the species evolved. I am among the majority on that count. As for the age of the planet, I consider that to be the most problematic issue relative to supernatural based science for the majority, since they can't have it both ways. If God is eternal, the Universe is eternal since God's abode is in the Universe along with his heavenly domain. I'm pretty much standing alone with precious few on that count. It is this which makes some of my arguments tougher for the secularists to counter. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2504 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Buzsaw writes: The majority of fundamentalist ID creationists don't agree that the species evolved. I am among the majority on that count. The majority of creationists are young-earthers, and most of those agree that some degree of evolution goes on. The AiGenesis type creationists currently believe that speciation happens within kinds. Here start the problems. We're talking about I.D. on this thread, which could just be used as another expression for creationism, but a lot of the self-described I.D. types are old earthers who believe in quite considerable amounts of evolution, and some believe in common descent. Over all, there are massive divisions, and you will never be able to agree, because you're all basing your views ultimately on religious Faith, not empirical evidence, so you just all make up stuff in your own minds. One of the basic problems is that evolution can be observed happening on a small scale, so the I.D. people, if they're claiming that evolution is not the complete story of life on earth, have to decide what its limits are. So, here's a question for you, to illustrate the problem. Do all of the Felidae share a common ancestor? If "yes", why can't all mammals descend from a common ancestor. If no, do the cats who can produce offspring share a common ancestor? If no, do all leopards share a common ancestor? Then, how do you make your decisions about these things? (Be scientific, please ) {ABE}BTW, I'm bluegenes, as in the picture, not a pair of pants, as in your last two posts. Edited by bluegenes, : addition
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5950 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
2. "......that science would consider." You can just forget that notion. It aintagona happen. Secular mainstream science will have nothing to do with anything that hints of a higher intelligence existing in the universe than we have here on this little speck in the vast universe called Planet Earth. Wrong! Science will not have anything to do with the supernatural because science cannot deal with the supernatural! If you disagree and contend that science can indeed deal with the supernatural and should incorporate supernaturalistic explanations, then do please so state and then demonstrate how such a supernatural-based science methodology would work. That is, after all, what this thread is supposed to be about. If you don't believe that, then here again is what I wrote in the OP:
dwise1;Msg 1 writes: Here is basically how science currently works. We observe the natural world and form hypotheses to try to explain what we observe. Then we test those hypotheses by using them to make predictions and then either conducting experiments or making further observations. Those hypotheses which prove correct are kept and subjected to further testing, while those that don't pan out are either examined for what's wrong with them and they either get discarded or a correction is attempted which is then subjected to further testing. Out of this process we develop a bundle of hypotheses which are used to develop a theory, a conceptual model of the natural phenomena in question and which describes our understanding of what that phenomena are and how they operate. That theory is used to make predictions and it is tested by how good those predictions are; thus the theory undergoes further testing and refinement and correcting. And that testing is not performed solely by the developers of the theory, but also by other members in the scientific community who have a vested interest in finding problems in that theory because they may be basing their own research on that theory -- if that theory turns out to be wrong, then they want to know that before they start their own research based on it. Now, an extremely valuable by-product of all this hypothesis building and testing is questions. In science, the really interesting and valuable discoveries are the ones that raise new questions. Because questions help to direct our research. Because by realizing what we don't know and what we need to find out, we know what to look for and we have some idea of where to find it. Without those questions, science loses its direction and gets stuck. Science cannot use supernaturalistic explanations, because they don't explain anything. We cannot observe the supernatural either directly or indirectly; we cannot even determine whether the supernatural even exists. Supernaturalistic explanations cannot be tested and hence cannot be evaluated nor discarded nor refined. They cannot produce predictions. They cannot be developed into a conceptual model that could even begin to attempt to descibe a natural phenomena nor how it works. And supernaturalistic explanations raise absolutely no questions and so provide absolutely no direction for further research. "Goddidit" explains nothing and closes all paths of investigation. Supernaturalistic explanations bring science to a grinding halt. In Message 245 I wrote:
And from what I understand of the Wedge Document, ID's goal is not really to "teach the controversy", but rather it is to eliminate evolution and to pervert science into their own image, effectively killing science as well. In Message 250, Beretta replied:
effectively killing science as well. Believing in ID cannot possibly kill science. I contend that Beretta is dead wrong. ID's goal is to reform science to be based on supernaturalistic explanations, or at the very least to include them. It is the inclusion of supernaturalistic explanations that will kill science. The task before Beretta and any other ID advocate is to prove that ID will not kill science. A required component of that proof is a detailed description of just how ID-based science is supposed to operate. Certainly their ID idols have already provided them the answer. And if even they haven't come up with a description of how their brave new science will function, then why not? Well? Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5950 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
{as there is nothing to hear but the crickets}
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
Too much of what I would need to say relative to my science POV would not be acceptable as science here, so I'll pass on that, since sudden creation ID arguments entail the supernatural.
BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2504 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Buzsaw writes: Too much of what I would need to say relative to my science POV would not be acceptable as science here, so I'll pass on that, since sudden creation ID arguments entail the supernatural. Look at the topic title and you'll see that we're not on a hard science thread but in "Theological Creationism and ID" -> "So Just How is ID's Supernatural..." (etc.). So, you could attempt an explanation of how your "science" works, but my point is that you can never reach agreement with other I. D. people, because all of you are just making stuff up, which means an inevitable fragmentation of the "movement'.
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Percy Member Posts: 22499 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Maybe it would help if a couple questions were asked about how supernatural-based science would work.
How do we know where the natural stops and the supernatural takes over? For example, take something as simple as lighting a match. When the match lights, how do we know we actually struck the match hard enough to create a sufficient spark? How do we know it wasn't a supernatural event? Lighting a match is just an example, of course. In reality the question applies to absolutely everything. No matter what happens, no matter how ordinary and mundane it might seem, how do we know it didn't involve a supernatural event? Another question concerns the "how" of the supernatural event. When a supernatural event occurs, is it possible to learn anything about how it occurred? Take the example of a fatal tumor that shrinks and finally disappears. Should it be possible to determine how the tumor was made to disappear? For example, should we be able to propose hypotheses for the supernatural event (e.g., God decreased the flow of blood to the tumor, or God increased the flow of toxins to the tumor, etc.) for which we can devise tests? --Percy
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5950 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Exactly! If they want science to use supernaturalistic explanations and hypotheses, then they absolutely must offer some kind of guidelines for doing so. Science has been so incredibly successful and productive by not incorporating the supernatural, how is it supposed to function and continue to be productive after being forced to incorporate the supernatural? I contend that it cannot and that incorporating the supernatural will kill science.
Even besides the ultimate outcome, ID's imposition of the supernatural on science would present the more immediate need for a supernatural-based scientific method. I've already described the basic methodology of hypothesis building, testing, and refinement leading to theory development. And I've already pointed out that supernaturalistic hypotheses cannot work because we have no means whatsoever of observing, measuring, or detecting anything that's supernatural, nor can we even possibly determine whether the supernatural even exists. Without the ability to test a supernaturalistic hypothesis, the methodology screeches to a halt. Now, could an ID advocate please describe how the scientific method could successfully use and test a supernaturalistic hypothesis. Or describe how the ID literature describes the scientific method successfully using and test a supernaturalistic hypothesis? And if no ID advocate can even begin to offer such a description, then why advocate the incorporation of the supernatural in science? Or another bit of scientific methology: the controlled experiment. In a controlled experiment, the experiment is run multiple times (very often in parallel, such as in testing the responses of bacteria to different substances). You want to test the effects of a particular factor, so you run the test incorporating that factor and you also run the identical test without that factor (this is the control group). Then you compare the results of the two sets of tests to determine the effects of that factor. So, how do you run a controlled experiment to test the effects of some supernatural factor? First, how do you ensure that the test group does have that supernatural factor applied to it? And, more importantly, how do you ensure that the control group does not have the supernatural factor applied? And how do you determine which supernatural factor is (or is not) being applied? A possible solution that comes to mind are to use magical invocations, preferably combined with the sacrificing of the right animals to the right gods/spirits. Though how then are we to know the right invocations and the right choices of gods and sacrificial offerings? Or you could simply pray fervently that your experiment will work. I'm sure that that approach is very widely used, especially in school, though its effectiveness is extremely doubtful. Or, to ward off the supernatural factor from the control group, you could draw a pentagram on the floor with salt and place the control group within it. At least that's what's done in cheesy movies. This is very important, because if you cannot control your experiments, then you cannot do science. I find it very telling that no ID advocate has even tried to answer these questions.
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