news:o+oeOgAOpIU$EwDJ@arcadia.net by PeteM <postmaster@bermuda.triangle>:
Ferrous Patella <mail125797@pop.net> averred
news:Rq3Q7LAsa8T$Ewd7@arcadia.net by PeteM
<postmaster@bermuda.triangle>:
Ferrous Patella <mail125797@pop.net> averred
news:LifW5VAMH0T$Ew$f@arcadia.net by PeteM
<postmaster@bermuda.triangle>:
Blare Blage <blageblare@hotmail.com> averred
Cheezits <cheezits32@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:<Xns93E5C9018
5D61cheezitsnetzeronet@129.250.170.96>...
[...]
In this context, it is safe to say Cheezits meant "scientific theory".
What a pity he/she wasted our time by not saying so, then. If I had
known the word "scientific" was going to be conjured up out of
nowhere, I wouldn't have bothered replying, knowing that I would be
confronted with the "No True Scotsman" routine.
Just what kind of theory did you think we are talking about?
A theory that explains experience.
But now that you and Cheezits have introduced the word "scientific", we
are going to have the problem that not everybody agrees what it means.
You and Cheesits will no doubt demand that "scientific" theories have to
be materialist, or non-teleological, or predictive, or dealing purely in
observables, or subject to Occam's Razor, or strictly falsifiable, or
published in the scientific literature, or whatever else will make your
statement tautologically true.
Yep (with the exception of "published" and the cheap shot at the end). In
the context of TO, the term "theory" is scientific.
Others will merely demand that the word
refers only to compatibility with experience.
Theory means "compatibility with experience". Where did you get that
definition?
So the statement "ID is not a scientific theory", which is apparently
what Cheezits really meant although she didn't use the crucial
predicate, will therefore be false for some carefully chosen values of
"scientific", and true for others. It'll be another dull Usenet argument
about definitions.
The definition is well established. It is not a moving target.
[...]
Also a theory in the context should have a body of supporting evidence,
which is lacking in ID.
No it isn't. The evidence of dramatic evolutionary change supports the
theory of ID.
Every piece of evidence for ID, from mouse traps to bacteria flagella, has
failed. Every piece will fail since there is no way to support the premise
"There in no natural way for this to happen naturally.
The same evidence also supports some other theories, but that's OK: it
often happens in science that the evidence supports several conflicting
theories.
[snip]
However, it doesn't make a
theory into a not-theory. There are an uncountable number of perfectly
"scientific" theories that are utterly unresolvable, but that doesn't
stop them being theories.
Not answering all questions does not disqualify a theory. Not answering
any questions does.
ID does answer some questions. It explains how (for example) certain
striking biological complexities could have arisen.
No it does not. It says there is no way for us to know how certain
striking biological complexities could have arisen.
Of course, there are other possible other explanations for these
complexities. But that does not disqualify ID from being a theory, or
even from being a "scientific" theory.
Other theories do not disqualify ID. Its own inadequacies do.
--
Ferrous Patella
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not
only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt
May 7, 1918
.
