| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Ordog" |
| Date: |
24 Nov 2005 01:41:34 AM |
| Object: |
Re: Cut funds to myth advocates: Greens |
David Moss wrote:
<snip for brevity>
Do you like my model?
Its not perfect, but it is a good start.
Clever little devil, aren't you?
Now you are talking my language! No more objections on my part!
And all I can do is restate that science must give the theory of
Intelligent Design the same status as any other untested theory.
A fair enough position. But untested theories are not very suitable for
teaching purposes in science classes, specially not at the primary or
secondary level of education.
At the best you can do is to create research projects which attempt to
test that theory! But which, of course, must fail since the theory
contains incontestable components! Unless of course the designer
finally decides to materialise in order to resolve that impasse!
Science often attempts to construct models of more complex systems as an
aid to understanding how they might work. I offer such a model to
relieve you of the burden of having no theory to rebut:
Your model needs fine adjustments to mimic the reality of Intelligent
Design correctly:
1 The goats have no means to see the actual edge of their universe!
They can only theorise about it, and construct experiements which allow
calculations indicating the likely size of their universe!
2 During harsh times they just die! There is nothing magical in their
world. Actually they have absolutely no reason to believe that magic
exists at all! But they have the ability to create colourful fantasies!
So colourful, in fact, that some of them starts to wish that it was
true. And then all of a sudden some actually believe that fantasies are
"reality". And this makes them happy! But not for long! Now they
realise that those who do not share those fantasies, err... "reality",
are standing apart and would spoil their joy. That makes them angry!
They want all to share their "reality". They invent words to describe
those who do not, like "heretics" and "infidel"! And they start to
slaughter each other for petty reasons just to relieve their
frustrations...
After a while the heretics invent science. The bothersome lot! The true
believers are feeling helpless. Who knows, after all their "reality"
just might turn out to be a fantasy. But that can not be. Something
must be done and quickly! So along comes the unbeatable theory of
Intelligent Design.
3 The goat scientists work hard. They create theories to explain the
observed world, they create experiments to support those theories and
find that certain things can be predicted by those theories. Low and
behold, that enables them to create technology and a highly advanced
civilisation. They also find that many things that used to appear
unexplainable, almost magical during the early stages of their
civilisation can be very nicely explained by their fancy scientific
theories. So nicely, in fact, that any alternative explanation would
only complicate things unnecessarily and mess up their predictions!
4 They see not what is not within their ability to see. But that has no
effect on them. Between their world and the one outside of their
perception there is no exchange of knowledge, no detectable material
transfer, not interaction whatsoever and nothing that they can not
somehow account for ever happens. Of course, their life span is short
and they have to use science to pinpoint the time of their first
appearance in their world. They work out their past quite well without
the need for a designer. (Nor is there strictly speaking a designer in
this partical model. You might be the property owner but you have not
truly designed your goats! Nor did you create the grass that grows. And
you have not invented photosynthesis! Nor the parasites that plague the
goats from time to time. In fact if you were a designer, and an
intelligent one at that, would you invent parasites at all? Or draughts
that makes life more difficult than it already is?)
So you see a model can be rigged to favour one theory or an other!
Admittedly Intelligent Design allows for only one possible outcome
while science has to accomodate flexibility!
Intelligent Design does not identify the agent of creation. Yet it
relies on the existence of such an agent whose actions make the theory
more complicated than its scientific counterpart! The existence of the
creator can not be undermined nor can it be supported by observations.
Intelligent design is unchangeable, you can not modify it to
accommodate new observations. The designer is beyond what is observable
therefore you might never be able to define its actual effect on your
model (theory).
Scientific theories do not enjoy the privilages of ID. They work
according to strict guidelines of observation, theory, experiment and
proof. Have you ever tried to publish anything that included the
concept of undefined agents?
That is for now!
But I am sure you are not done, so let us argue till the cows (or
goats) come home!
Ordog
Either the neocons go or civilisation does!
.
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