Friday, January 28, 2005
Devout agnostics
The word that may prove most troubling of all to the biblical literalists who have temporarily set aside Genesis in favor of a tract on intelligent design is:
Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. If the deductions are verified, the hypothesis is provisionally corroborated. If the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis is proved false and must be abandoned or modified. Hypotheses can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.
What they call theory -- Intelligent Design -- does not even rise to the level of working hypothesis. Why? Because they are unwilling to make even tentative statements that might lead to deductions that could be tested.
As an aid to my friends in the ID movement, I'm supplying the following suggestions for the development of testable hypotheses that might guide ID reasearch:
1. The designer is _____? (fill in the blank)
2. Creation of the universe/solar system/earth took place _____ years ago. (fill in the blank)
According to the Discovery Institute -- the ID think tank -- "the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design." ID isn't science, it's sophistry. That's why there's no research to support its claims, and proponents have no real plans to conduct any.
Hypothesis: A tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. If the deductions are verified, the hypothesis is provisionally corroborated. If the deductions are incorrect, the original hypothesis is proved false and must be abandoned or modified. Hypotheses can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations.
What they call theory -- Intelligent Design -- does not even rise to the level of working hypothesis. Why? Because they are unwilling to make even tentative statements that might lead to deductions that could be tested.
As an aid to my friends in the ID movement, I'm supplying the following suggestions for the development of testable hypotheses that might guide ID reasearch:
1. The designer is _____? (fill in the blank)
2. Creation of the universe/solar system/earth took place _____ years ago. (fill in the blank)
According to the Discovery Institute -- the ID think tank -- "the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design." ID isn't science, it's sophistry. That's why there's no research to support its claims, and proponents have no real plans to conduct any.
