ID: Is it science? (Critical voices)

The scientific community views intelligent design as unscientific, as pseudoscience or as junk science. Wikipedia, entry on Phillip Johnson.

A new brand of creationism has appeared on the scene in the last few years. The so-called neocreationists largely do not believe in a young Earth or in a too literal interpretation of the Bible. While still mostly propelled by a religious agenda and financed by mainly Christian sources such as the Templeton Foundation and the Discovery Institute, the intellectual challenge posed by neocreationism is sophisticated enough to require detailed consideration (see Edis 2001; Roche 2001). http://www.csicop.org/si/show/design_yes_intelligent_no_a_critique_of_intelligent_design_theory_and_neocr/

Since then creationists have developed more nuanced objections to evolution, alleging variously that it is unscientific, infringes on creationists' religious freedoms or that the acceptance of evolution is a religious stance. Creationists have appealed to democratic principles of fairness, arguing that evolution is controversial, and that science classrooms should therefore "Teach the Controversy". These objections to evolution culminated in the intelligent design movement in the 1990s that had public support in the United States, as it unsuccessfully attempted to present itself as a scientific alternative to evolution. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objections_to_evolution)

In fact, ID is a religious viewpoint masquerading as a scientific theory–it is a religious position which is layered in factually untrue or arbitrary assertions. Government is entirely free to denounce the factually untrue statements and explode those arbitrary assertions. No, it cannot say that God does not exist, and it cannot say that man was not created by God through some guided process. On that, Luskin is correct. But government violates no law when it says (and rightly) that there is no factual basis for ID’s scientific claims.  http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2010/08/luskin-laws-and.html


From a book review on Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Straight-Introduction-Reasoning/dp/1573922390/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4

3. For Intelligent Design to be considered a genuine scientific theory, capable of replacing Charles Darwin's very highly confirmed theory of evolution by natural selection, it must do more than just point to a few spots at the cutting edge of science (e.g., the emerging field of protobiology) where our knowledge is perforce a bit fuzzy. ID must do two things: it must do a better job than the reigning theory does of accounting for all the data, and it must make more accurate predictions than the reigning theory does. If ID doesn't do these two things, then it's utterly useless and cannot qualify as a scientific theory. And in fact, ID fails on both counts. How well does it account for all the data? Very poorly indeed. Has it made any accurate predictions? None whatsoever. Can it even generate any testable hypotheses? No. Basically, ID is just our old friend "The God of the Gaps", an old and dodgy maneuver whereby the arguer asserts that any natural phenomenon not currently explained by science must be the result of divine intervention. One glaring and amusingly ironic problem with this maneuver is that it puts God in a rather precarious and vulnerable position: Whenever science successfully explains a previously unexplained phenomenon, God (as defined by the IDers) is forced to retreat a little further, gradually disappearing as our scientific knowledge increases. The smart move, you'd think, would be to *avoid* putting God in a sure-lose situation.









Is ID science?: (affirming)



An exceptional debate
http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/michael-behe-and-stephen-barr-debate-intelligent-design/

http://www.isi.org/lectures/flvplayer/lectureplayer.aspxfile=v000355_cicero_040710.mp4&dir=mp4/lectures

http://www.isi.org/lectures/flvplayer/lectureplayer.aspx?file=v000355_cicero_040710.mp4&dir=mp4/lectures

Steve Myers Responds (in a lengthy rambling reply that could have been condensed by 75 percent.)

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/stephen-meyer-on-ids-scientific-bona-fides/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+uncommondescent%2FJCWn+%28Uncommon+Descent%29

Primary argument: The same criteria that are used by those who object to the Design Inference, would (or should) apply to rival theories.

The Cost of ID:

Caroline Crocker, defrocked: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/07/free_to_think_caroline_crocker036671.html

Notes:

(this is from a comment of the Uncommon Descent website.)

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-consensus-of-scientists/

veilsofmaya

08/02/2010

1:20 am

Gill,

It may be that biological life was created by an intelligent agent. You personally may feel there are “good reasons” to believe this is the case. However, the theory presented by ID is defined in a way that makes it a bad explanation of what we observe.

This is because ID is intentionally incomplete for reasons which are obvious. It merely accounts for what we observe, rather than explains it, by assigning an intelligent agent as the cause. And in doing so, it invalidates the explanations provided by Darwinism.

In other words, ID’s explanation is limited to explaining away darwinism.

So, yes. You might be right. But this doesn’t mean that the actual theory presented by ID is sufficient to reach that conclusion. You reach this conclusion for reasons which are implied and are absent from the theory.

Until ID provides an underlying premise that explains the specific complexity we observe, it will be discarded. However, given the implied designer, it seems very unlikely as such an explanation will be forthcoming as it would be impossible by definition. It’s a catch 22 situation.  (My emphasis)

On one hand, you want ID to be accepted as science. But on the other hand, you intentionally stop short because of the ‘nature’ you personally attribute to the designer.

Regardless of your intuition or your personal incredulity on the matter. Regardless if what your believe represents the true state of affairs in reality. Being “right” for the “wrong reasons” is still wrong. This is how science works.

To claim that science is biased for not accepting an incomplete theory is not “thinking logically.” It’s disingenuous.