I STILL do not see what this has to do with Geroge Bush Drinking

Fletis Humplebacker wrote:


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.

Huh? How would it be a wild guess? (And what would be the
antecedant guess making this 'another' one?). The hypothesis
follows straight from the observation that Jewish males have been
circumcized in infancy for thousands of years, surely hundreds
of generations.

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.

Ding! ding! ding! ding! ding! We have a winner!



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.

Fine. Unless you can state a testable hypothesis your "possiblity
of a designer" is irrelevant to the scientific porcess. Not only
can one do science with or without considering the possibility,
indeed, the scince one does, in either case, will be the same.



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.

With a repetition of statement I showed to be false.



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?


You lost me.


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.

Al theories are answers. Take for example, the question, "Why
the Cambrian Explosion?" There are lots of answers, maybe
some are correct.




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.

Of course not. An hypothesis is a statement to be tested.
It is the testing that proves or disproves something.



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.

That doesn't make any sense. Hypotheses are suggest by theories.
E.g. given a modern horse and a modern cow most evolutionary theories
predict that there should have been a species that was a common
ancestor of both. One looks to the fossil record to test that
hypothesis.



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.


It is silent on the subject. IJ a similar vein, biology is silent
on cosmology.


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?

Intelligent Design.

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

Here is why your assertion is wrong. Silence may be simple
silence, a non-statement. But if silence is to be interpretted,
silence implies consent.

Silence on the issue of God implies consent to whatever belief
each student brings to school.

--

FF