Invoking The Voyagers Against Id Options

[ljk4-1]

Cornell President Rawlings Condemns Intelligent Design

Drawing from sources ranging from Cornell's founders to Voyager
space missions, Interim President Hunter R. Rawlings III condemned
the push to teach intelligent design in public schools Friday. The
attack came during the president's State of...

http://www.cornellsun.com/vnews/display.v/...4/435c7762cf891


"The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress." - Bertrand Russell

[deglr6328]

.......Most scientists will say they reject Intelligent Design because it is not supported by facts. It is a good reason. But I am afraid that, in some cases, they reject it because it involves a metaphysical entity. This is not a good reason. I think that, even in science, we are not allowed to reject a-priori such explanations. Simply, until today, there is no physical evidence of any such entities, so that it is still largely speculative to invoke them. A possibility is that we shall NEVER have any physical evidence of the existence of God or other metaphysical/spiritual entities, because these evidences exist, but are not in the domain of physics. In this case physical science will have to admit that it cannot explain everything.

I would like to very strongly, but respectfully disagree on this point. I think it is not only ok and an equally good reason to reject it; but it is in fact necessary to reject things like ID from the realm of scientific inquiry precisely because it involves a metaphysical entity. It is an idea that by definition belongs fully and completely within the supernatural realm. It is an idea whose precepts lie outside of the natural world and therefore cannot be examined and tested by our science.

If you accept the idea that there actually is a supernatural world then yes, it would follow that "science would have to admit that it cannot explain everything". However, I (for instance) remain completely unconvinced that there needs to be any supernatural counterpart to our natural world, and therefore I am apt to think that all of this ID talk is just so much bollocks.



If I might, I would like to revisit ljk4's mention of Carl sagan's thoughts about us and our place in the universe. When I first read his idea that "we are the universe experiencing itself" (can't remember if it was in Cosmos or The Demon Haunted World) it immediately struck me as one of the most intensely beautiful ideas I had ever considered.

At first, it is an idea that sounds rather akin to any other of the many "new agey"-feelgood but ultimately nonsensical and subjective ideas of the fuzzyheaded Deepak Chopra type gurus. But on further examination, it is an idea that reveals itself to be the exact opposite of that sort of thing. Its real. We really are living conscious beings that evolved over millions of years on a planet borne of billions of years of stellar elemental transformation. It's an idea that just gets better and truer the more you learn about how the universe works and how the evolution of life and finally self-aware intelligence fits so perfectly within the universe. It is a thought so deeply mysterious and wonderful that I think it is the closest I have ever come, or ever will come to experiencing a feeling that might be called "spiritual".

[hendric]

If I might, I would like to revisit ljk4's mention of Carl sagan's thoughts about us and our place in the universe. When I first read his idea that "we are the universe experiencing itself" (can't remember if it was in Cosmos or The Demon Haunted World) it immediately struck me as one of the most intensely beautiful ideas I had ever considered.

I prefer J. M. Stracyznski's version of it:

"We are star stuff. We are the Universe made manifest, trying to figure itself
out."- Ambassador Delenn, Babylon 5

Back to the subject, the one reason why ID is not, and never will be science, is this:

(Being as neutral as possible on this) Can someone who feels that the hypothesis of ID is correct, be convinced that it is incorrect given overwhelming evidence?

99% of the time, the answer is no. Therefore, it is not a hypothesis, but a belief, and as a belief, it is a part of a religion. ID-pushers will continue to believe in ID, not matter how much evidence exists to refute their claim. Just ask them, and they will tell you.

Science is creating a hypothesis, and testing if it is true or not. If it is not true, it is customary and normal to try and fix it, but only to a point. Eventually, you have to discard the hypothesis as wrong, no matter how much you have invested in it. This is a fundamental and necessary part of science. There are many stories of the sort like "I heard Xxx, thought it was complete garbage and did experiment Yyy to prove it wrong, but my experiment kept proving Xxx! I had to change my mind!" or "I spent years proving Yyy, but eventually had to give up because even I could see Xxx is correct." You will never hear an ID "scientist" say something like that because again, they are "proving" a belief, not a hypothesis.

As far as ID itself goes, the "theory" is so full of holes as to be ludicrous. An "intelligent designer?" Please. Who designed the designer? If the designer is everlasting and infinite, why not the universe? Why is there only one? Was there a committee involved? Was there a budget? Or, as is typical on the projects I am on, were the specifications written after the project was already done? How intelligent was the designer? I have some suggestions on improvements that could be done... Frankly, the Giant Spaghetti Monster is more credible.

Finally, the hypothesis that there has to be a designer because something is so "complex" is simply anthropomorphism; just because we can't understand how it was done does not mean that it wasn't done naturally, or is even hard to occur naturally! They say "look at life, it is sooo complex and hard to make", I say, "look at life, it must be ridiculously easy to make because it occurs so early in the Earth's history." Admittedly, extrapolating from one data point is its own bad science, but we gotta do with what we have, at least until Europa/Titan/Mars get fully explored.