Kerostasis

Sure I can. ID is the scientific theory that, "Given the observed mechanics of evolution, the current observed state of this world does not logically follow from our best estimate of the initial conditions of the world, nor from any other reasonably probable set of initial conditions except those referencing an outside agent, for example but not limited to the Christian God."

You can observe and teach that every bit as well as you can observe and teach classical evolution. The real benefit of going with this definition is that this form of ID actually promotes further research on Evolution, where the popular form of Evolution promotes squelching all research on ID.

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TheFatKidDeath

Generally speaking, and from my observations, most proponents of ID are more interested in promoting Christianity biblical teaching in public schools than scientific knowledge. Masking ID as science is simply a smoke and mirrors argument that has less to do about the science class room and more to do about Religious Studies 101.

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|TG-9th| TheFatKidDeath
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Kerostasis

Guilt by association, I guess. I'm interested in the scientific aspects of Intelligent Design, but I'm inevitably tainted simply by virtue of sharing the name of my goal with those who have no interest in science at all and only use Intelligent Design as a vehicle to promote church control of education.

Well, unless someone feels like defending the ultra-orthodox-creationist view of Intelligent Design here, can we agree to move past it and consider the actual scientific theory that suffers from the misfortune of having the same name?

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El_Gringo_Grande

I just watched the trailer. It is soooo Michael Moore. Which means I am going to watch it. Good propaganda is just to good to pass up.

@Kerostasis

What part of ID do you think is valid? What is it that you find appealing? What part do you think is scientific?

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Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
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I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

War.mongeR1

I, for one, find it appealing for the reason that we as humans should always look farther than what we know. Many scientists seem to think that evolution is evolution and theres nothing more to it. I believe in evolution, BUT I can't help but wonder what or who exactly caused it. I find the world too wondrous and amazing to think it's just because of pure dumb luck and randomness. So to me, shouldn't science dig deeper and farther? I'm not saying to push theology or "God" as the reason at school. I just would like scientists to delve outside the box, or at least not shun those who do.

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"Common sense is not so common." -Voltaire

El_Gringo_Grande

In science you can only dig as far as the evidence will take you.

I would bet that most scientists that deal with evolution at any level have the same sense of wonder and excitement about the type of questions you bring up.

Those type of questions are why they do it. Most don't come even close to being rich or famous. (Having worked as a personal aid to one I have seen what they get paid and it is nothing to get excited about.) But when you actually 'do' science you can't just follow those kind of questions because there are so many other ones that need to be answered before even thinking about pursuing them.


The devil is in the details.

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Sen. John McCain (AZ) For President '08
---
I’m not racists, I have republican friends. Radio show host.
- "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity". -Jacob Burkhardt
- "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Emerson
- "People should not be afraid of it's government, government should be afraid of it's People." - Line from V for Vendetta
- If software were as unreliable as economic theory, there wouldn't be a plane made of anything other than paper that could get off the ground. Jim Fawcette

tau_neutrino

In order to be a scientist one needs to possess an undying curiosity about the natural world. It's not that scientists don't delve outside the box; it's just that some hypotheses cannot be tested and some have insufficient data to support or refute the ideas. Scientists are constantly digging deeper and farther; it's just that the the amount of knowledge required to understand many of the new ideas is constantly increasing and inaccessible to the public.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Lusitano Louco

Isn't that what scientologists believe? If so, then maybe ID'ers are just scientologists who call themselves something else. I mean, of course their god is the only true one and anyone who believes differently must be nuts.

I say it's a scientologist conspiracy. Anyone who says otherwise obviously doesn't know what they're talking about and should be dismissed at once.

Razcsak

No, it really wouldn't. There's no evidence to suggest alien intervention, ergo, it would still be wild postulation completely lacking any empirical evidence.

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Kerostasis

This part:

"Given the observed mechanics of evolution, the current observed state of this world does not logically follow from our best estimate of the initial conditions of the world, nor from any other reasonably probable set of initial conditions except those referencing an outside agent, for example but not limited to the Christian God."

Which part of that do you think is invalid? Which part do you think is unscientific?

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Steeler

Multiple problems with this line here.

1. "The current observed state of this world" is far too broad to be a testable element of the hypothesis. I know that further discussion narrows this down to more manageable chunks, but it applies to so much more than evolution. One could make the same argument about the arrangement of mountains, the orbit of planets, and the position of stars, but these do not automatically invoke the "outside agent" argument. Why does biology?

2. "reasonably probable" - Sticky phrase there. What is reasonable? Does the proponent have statistically significant data points to illustrate the improbableness of something in his dataset, the aforementioned "observed state of this world"? And however improbable the state of this world may be within the set of all possible imagined worlds, the probability of the current state of this world is 1. It exists, it is measurable.

3. "outside agent" - Outside of what? Outside the observed state of the world? If it has acted upon the world, then its actions are observable, therefore it cannot be truly an outside agent. An unobserved agent? How do you test for the presence of a variable that you cannot, by definition, observe? Do you have a theoretical framework for detecting the physical effects of this unobserved force, such as one would to find a quantum particle?

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TheFeniX

Hilarity. Now: how do you teach that in a science classroom?

"Evolution says that eyes evolved from simple light receptors and became more complex over time as Natural Selection favored organisms with better and better 'eyesight.' But, aliens/God/Xenu/Obi-Wan Kenobi really determined that eyes were necessary and put them there."

Seriously, how does that in anyway offer anything worthwhile to Evolution? There's no trends to track, no "made in Alderan" tags in the back of eyeballs, nothing.

How is cutting out theories based upon no observation or evidence a bad thing?

I'll admit, there could be angels actually pushing the planets and stars around in the sky. But if there's no evidence for it, exactly why should that be taught in a science classroom?

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Zebra

This probability issue is a tough one for some people, but we all know that the numeric solution for life, the universe and everything is 42. So it follows that the probability of this universe is 1/42 - a little over 2%.

We're pretty lucky to exist, I guess, but not as lucky as those bastards in West Virginia who won a $276 million Powerball drawing last week. Perhaps I should blame outside agents (for example but not limited to the Christian God) for not giving me the winning numbers.

But really, Powerball odds are nothing, just child's play. The other day I saw a license plate that said "2EXKWSIT." With 36 alphanumeric possibilities in each of the 8 positions, the odds of that are... 1 in 2,821,109,907,456 - OMG! Either 2EXKWSIT is our Creator's name in some ancient Semitic language, or the DMV created the universe. Must be the former, because the DMV couldn't create a sand castle. And to think, all those years I wasted praying to 669MKZ (Missouri)...

INSUNABULA

What else do the voices say?

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Kerostasis

*Note -- This poster has gone on vacation and feels no compulsion to participate in any mentally taxing debates until he returns on Thursday. If anyone else wants to carry on the debate in the meantime, feel free.*

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