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Intelligent Design Should Not be Taught as Science


Tormod

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Marvin Cohen, president of the American Physical Society (APS), has stated that that only scientifically validated theories, such as evolution, should be taught in the nation’s science classes.

 

lefthttp://hypography.com/gallery/files/5/upper_right_color_lores_thumb.jpg[/img]He made this statement in response to recently reported remarks of President Bush about intelligent design, which is a type of creationism.

 

"We are happy that the President's recent comments on the theory of intelligent design have been clarified,” says Cohen. “As Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger has explained, President Bush does not regard intelligent design as science. If such things are to be taught in the public schools, we believe they belong in a course on comparative religion, which is a particularly appropriate subject for our children given the present state of the world."

 

In comments to journalists in Texas on Monday, President Bush said that intelligent design should be taught side by side with scientific theories of evolution in the classroom.

 

Presidential science advisor John Marburger followed up on the President’s comments in an interview on Tuesday, stating that “evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology” and ''intelligent design is not a scientific concept.'' Marburger also said it would be over-interpreting President Bush’s remarks to conclude that Bush meant that intelligent design should be placed on an equal footing with evolution.

 

The APS governing Council has long expressed its opposition to the inclusion of religious concepts such as intelligent design and related forms of creationism in science classes. Two statements, passed by the Council in 1981 and 1999, can be found on the web at http://www.aps.org/statements/81_1.cfm and http://www.aps.org/statements/99_5.cfm respectively.

 

The American Physical Society is the world’s largest professional body of physicists, representing over 43,000 physicists in academia and industry in the US and internationally. Its President, Marvin L. Cohen, is University Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and received the National Medal of Science from President Bush in 2002.

 

Source: American Physical Society

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Any hypotheses attempting to venture before the big bang, into how or why space, matter, and energy came to be, will be unrepeatable and unobservable, and therefore unscientific, treading in the realm of religion.

Unrepeatable and unobservable, and unscientific does not necessarily mean religous, just unscientific. Anyone's faith that such a hypothesis is true would be religous.

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What is the purpose of a hypothesis if not to be held as true?

hy·poth·e·sis

 

1. A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation.

2. Something taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation; an assumption.

3. The antecedent of a conditional statement.

 

It can be assumed true for the sake of argument, that does not mean that it is true. Anyone who thinks that it is, does so by faith.

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What is the purpose of a hypothesis if not to be held as true?

 

The purpose of a hypothesis is to generate testable predictions. If the hypothesis can not generate testable predictions, it is not a good hypothesis.

 

When you test a hypothesis it can either fail, or it can pass the test.

 

If it fails the test(s), you either have to modify the hypothesis (most often) or scrap it completely.

 

If it pass the test, you device new tests that can falsify the hypothesis.

 

and so on...

 

Whether a hypothesis is good or bad does not depend on whether it is true or false, it depends on whether it is testable or not.

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hy·poth·e·sis

 

1. A tentative explanation for an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further investigation.

2. Something taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation; an assumption.

3. The antecedent of a conditional statement.

 

It can be assumed true for the sake of argument, that does not mean that it is true. Anyone who thinks that it is, does so by faith.

And hypotheses delving into the realm of "first cause" are naturally doomed to remain hypotheses, correct?

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And hypotheses delving into the realm of "first cause" are naturally doomed to remain hypotheses, correct?

 

Sure, because you can't test it. Anything that deals in non-caused event chains, such as the first cause in a causal universe, will never be testable with the scientific method, which can only test causal relationships.

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And further, invoking something like an "intelligent designer" naturally leads to two issues:

 

It is impossible to prove or disprove such a statement as "The intelligent designer designed the world so that we would not see him but by his works" by any logic or rational means, and therefore it must fall outside of science.

 

Secondly, it leads to the question of "What created or designed the intelligent designer?", which is again, unanswerable.

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  • 2 years later...

I inadvertently posted a thread under chemistry, but I intended to post under "general science".

There is a lot we can use the 4 processes of "the scientific" method to test miracles as interpreted by the ancients.

Please read shadetreecountryboy's thread under the chemistry forum.

Thanks.

1 thing for starters,"the Nile running red with blood", pissed off algae!

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And hypotheses delving into the realm of "first cause" are naturally doomed to remain hypotheses, correct?
Hypotheses form the basis of scientific discussion, brainstorming, speculation and experimentation. Many of them start out with the words, "what if..." Many of them are engaged in in an informal manner: scientists sitting around a table in the corner of their favorite bar, over glasses of wine and beer, drawing on table napkins, and making puns with the word, "entropy". I doubt that a scientist EVER suggested they go to the dictionary to determine if their conversation was a real "hypothesis" or not.

 

But as mentioned in other posts, the proper outcome of a proper hypothesis is at least one prediction -- and the design of at least one experiment to test that prediction.

 

As to "first cause" -- there is no such thing. It's a rhetorical word-structure invented by Aristotle:

Aristotle saw the primum movens (Gr. proton kinun) as the "mover unmoved" -- the prime mover. The question he worked on philosophically was the origin of existence and motion

But "first cause" pre-supposes, or assumes, a source of god-like powers. So, you cannot use it to "prove" the existence of god. Circular logic. If all processes have a cause, then how can there be a first cause. This violates your first tenet that ALL processes have a cause. Any cause is itself a process and must have a prior cause, etc, etc. Nasty stuff, circular logic.

 

Many hypotheses (conversations) do not result in predictions or in doable experiments. I don't know what you call that conversation in that case. I'm not sure anyone cares. At least, not anyone whose life work is heavily involved with creating hypotheses. I'm not sure it even matters.

 

In any circle of serious researchers with an abiding passion to understand our universe, to suggest an hypothesis based upon "first cause" will probably elicit gales of laughter. You might as well base it upon "the Flying Spaghetti Monster". It's funny, but it doesn't forward the conversation.

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