Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


Fletis Humplebacker wrote:
"Bruce Barnett"
...


There is a big HUGE difference between ID and evolution.
But you ignored my earlier point.

There is NO way to use ID to predict any results.

I don't think that's true. For example, presuming an omnipetant
intelligent designer one hypothesis might be that there would be
no evolutionary 'dead ends'.


Meaning what? Extinction or an unchanged design? Neither
one implies the lack of a creator unless you presume to know
his purpose.

Meaning that it is an hypotheses that follows from the presumption
(e.g. law) of an omnipotent intelligent designer. Sort of like
the prediction, from transmutation theory of Jewish males born
without foreskins.


It would be another wild guess hypothesis then. We know that gravity
exists and we know some of it's properties well enough to call them
laws but we don't know all there is to know about it, even though
it is testable and observable. I don't see how anyone can presume
any laws about an Intelligent Designer since he would beyond our
scope of observation.


Regardless, if you do not like my choice of hypothesis please suggest
some of your own. I hope you understand that a theory that does
not suggest testable hypotheses is not a scientific theory.


All I suggest is the possibility of a designer, especially since it's so
unlikely that the universe and life jump started itself into existence.
If someone says there's a better likelyhood that there is no designer,
they do so out of faith, not science.


We CAN use evolution to predict results.


You can't predict anything with evolution.


False. Hypothesis testing of competing theories of evolution
is why some come to be favored over others.


Like I said, you can't predict anything with evolution, that's why
there are competing theories.


That doesn't even make sense. First of all, I showed you examples
of predictions that follow from evolutionary theories. Indeed,
you left the examples in your reply and I will too. They
follow a couple of paragraphs below.


I answered the assertion.


Further, Without competing theories, there could be no progress
in Science.


I don't follow that either. How does having multitudes of theories
prove what we are discussing?


Of course not all evolutionary theories truly compete.
Macromutation (e.g. "hopeful monster") theory, is not incompatible
with micromutation theory and in bacteria there are even
observations consistant with tranmutation theory.


Sure, how about the Cambrian Explosion? Lots of theories, no answers.



An hypothesis entails a prediction.


Not necessarily. A prediction entails a predetermined end result,
a hypothesis could entail anything.


Perhaps as you use the term. In the scientific method 'hypothesis'
is a term of art with a more restricted defintion. An hypothesis
is a statement that follows from a theory. If the theory
is true, the hypothesis will be true.


No problem there. My point was that the hypothesis doesn't prove
anything.


But recall what Niehls Bohr said about
prediction, that it is very difficult, especially
about the future. A prediction, in the sense of an hypothesis
may be made about past events, evidence of which has not yet
been discovered, (e.g. predictions of what may be found in
the fossil record), or current phenomena not yet observed,
which has been happening a lot over the past several decades
in DNA studies.


If evolution was tested and proven in some concrete way it wouldn't
be a hypothesis.


Evolution is not an hypothesis.


Sure it is. Unless you are limiting the term to "micro-evolution".

An hypothesis is a statement, not a single word.


That's what I was addressing. The hypothesis or theory of
evolution.


Evolution is a field of study
within biology.


... That's
why it's important to give school children an unbiased education.


They should be given a better education about the process of
science.


More emphasis on critical thinking would be good but "science" is
a very general term.


Yes we have Computer Science, Library Science, Political Science,
even Christian Science.


Those as fundamentally different uses of the _word_ science as
compared to the sciences of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and
so on.


True, so science doesn't exclude an Intelligent Designer.


I see no reason to exclude ID as a possibility
unless there are other motives.


If religious doctrines are excluded from the Biology Classroom
the students free to ascribe the authorship of natural law
to whatever higher power they choose or do not choose to believe
in. Including ID, as a possibility, in a Biology Class would
promote a particular religious doctrine.


Which one? I would assert that to not include one and give the
students the sense that biology started itself, which *is* taught,
is religion.