Steve Peterson (in
et) said:

| Please note, these are philosophical questions, not scientific
| questions. The scientific approach is to break them down to small,
| distinct hypotheses that can be addressed and which produce a
| distinct answer. It may take a scientific breakthrough to settle
| some questions. Consider that at one time, there was a question
| about a running horse - did it always have to have at least one
| foot on the ground. It was "obvious" that a horse is too heavy to
| lift all four feet, but high speed photography was invented and
| settled the question. So come on ID, make the hypotheses and do
| the experiments. Until the observations are made, ID will continue
| to fail to be scientific. If philosophy classes want to include
| it, no problem. They can argue about irreducible complexity and
| provability as long as they want.

Steve...

Agreed - these _are_ philosophical questions. Also worth noting is
that at many stages in our quest for knowledge and understanding, it
has been the philosopher who has raised the important issues that
science has endeavored to explain.

I'm not certain that the philosopher and the scientist necessarily
work at cross-purposes - even though each (frequently) seems to
criticize the other's very perspective.

I'm also of the opinion that discussion of ID belongs in a
philosophical setting until its proponents are able to formulate
questions that can be addressed in scientific terms. Thus far, the
philosophical and theological types haven't managed to advance their
questions to that point; and the scientific types can't find a
starting point for meaningful investigation.

It's not really a new/strange situation. Even with well-formulated
questions, progress is slow and painful. The philosopher asked: "What
is the nature of matter?" and just look at how far we have and haven't
gotten. Around the corner is another philosopher asking: "What is the
nature of dimensionality?" We're still struggling to figure out what
_is_ - and appear not quite ready to scientifically address whether
the "all" is /intentional/.

My head hurts. I'm off to make some sawdust.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html