Intelligent science vs. intelligent design

[immaterial]

I find the commonly used argument "ID is not a science since it cannot be investigated, explained, or proven scientifically", very peculiar. it doesn't make any sense.

Why? Because: The very basis of ID is the active use of intelligence. The very basis of all science is the active use of intelligence.

So to say that science and ID are not compatible is ridiculous. ID is in fact more compatible with science than most other scientific subjects, since they share the exact same basis.

Could the reason for this idea be that science does not have any clear definition of that very intelligence it's so dependent on itself? I have asked many scientists for such a definition, but no one have been able to come up with one. Some even claim it's impossible to define the concept clearly, which just reveal their confusion.

A rather peculiar situation that the most important tool in science is not understood by science itself, isn't it?

Therefore it's no wonder either that science seem to be unable to see any signs of intelligence in nature's processes. How can you expect to find signs of anything if you don't even know how to recognize that which you're looking for?

--

 

[CFLarsen]

ID is Creationism in disguise. ID is a religious argument, not a scientific one.

What is so scientific about ID?

 

[Araneus]

I find the commonly used argument "ID is not a science since it cannot be investigated, explained, or proven scientifically", very peculiar. it doesn't make any sense.

It makes perfect sense. If something cannot be proven scientifically, it has no place in science. End of discussion.

Why? Because: The very basis of ID is the active use of intelligence. The very basis of all science is the active use of intelligence.

A complete nonsense of an argument; it is the Scientific Method and the analysis of evidence that forms the "basis of science", not just the application of intelligence. Pianists use their intelligence to create music, but this does not imply that playing the piano is part of science.

 

[Jocky]

It doesn't make any sense. Why? Because: The very basis of ID is the active use of intelligence. The very basis of all science is the active use of intelligence.

This is a specious argument. One could just as well say "The very basis of Sudoku puzzles is the active use of intelligence. The very basis of writing a good novel is the active use of intelligence. Therefore if you can solve Sudoku you can win the Nobel Prize for Literature."

The word "Intelligent" in ID refers to a hypothetical supernatural intelligence. OTOH, the intelligence which drives science is very real and very human. Hence, your argument is a false analogy.

The fact that science is still questing for good ways to understand human intelligence is not a weakness - it is a strength. Science constantly seeks to scrutinise and improve on current thinking in order to advance the sum of human knowledge. This is real human intelligence at work.

Intelligent Design OTOH seeks to shut down a vital branch of scientific enquiry with the simple-minded and unsupported assertion that it was God what dunnit. What's so intelligent about that?

 

[pauldmin]

The very basis of ID is the active use of intelligence.

If I say that there are herds of unicorns in my garden, who created the universe, am I using my intelligence or my imagination?

With science, someone uses their imagination to come up with a theory, then uses their intelligence to try and prove it. They then invite others to try and do the same. Any solid counter-example to the proof will form the conclusion that it is false.

Proving my theory about the unicorns would be very difficult, as the little devils are very fast and not possible to catch. Also, any counter-example would be impossible.

In conclusion, Intelligent Design is a very interesting theory, but impossible to prove.

 

[Brainache]

I'm just a bloke who isn't a scientist, but who has read a fair bit about the subject and I think you are about to be educated. Brace yourself.

For my part I'll say that ID is not science because it starts from a conclusion and then tries to find evidence for that conclusion. It disregards any evidence that doesn't fit.

Whereas science looks at evidence and then tries to form a conclusion based on that evidence. When new evidence comes to light, a new conclusion might be needed to replace the old one.

It is not science to say, "I know what the conclusion is, so I will go and look for something which confirms my idea".

It is science to say, "well I've seen this thing and that thing, maybe it means such and such." Then later some other scientist will say, "but look at this, I've seen this other thing and it doesn't fit with your conclusion." So they argue back and forth untill they(or some new bright spark comes along) can find a theory that fits the observed phenomena.

ID is based on faith, not science. ID presupposes its own conclusion. The people who call themselves ID scientists are not doing science, they are doing something, but it isn't science.

OH well, I don't know if that made any sense. I'll now leave you to the experts.

 

[Kotatsu]

Could the reason for this idea be that science does not have any clear definition of that very intelligence it's so dependent on itself? I have asked many scientists for such a definition, but no one have been able to come up with one. Some even claim it's impossible to define the concept clearly, which just reveal their confusion.

Does it necessarily? Can one not interpret their reluctance as a sign of the field (or term) being more complex than you seem to presuppose?

 

[DeviousB]

I'm just a bloke who isn't a scientist, but who has read a fair bit about the subject and I think you are about to be educated. Brace yourself.

Not a bad effort.

One point to make though is that testing a hypothesis pretty much is starting from a (presumed) conclusion and trying to find evidence for it.

The sequence would be, I observe A, B and C. I infer a mechanism that would explain A, B and C. This mechanism also predicts D. I look/test for D and either; (i) I find D, confirming my brilliant hypothesis, or (ii) I don't find D, disproving my grad-student's stupid hypothesis.

Where ID does not cut it as science is in the testing of its hypotheses.

A typical 'prediction' of ID might be, "structure X is irreducibly complex and has no evolutionary explanation". Great, all we need to do to falsify this is find an evolutionary explanation for X, right?

Well, if we do all's well and good, but what if we don't? ID's prediction isn't confirmed because "has no" is not the same as "don't know of a"; in fact, ID's prediction can never be confirmed.

Falsifiability in science means that it should be possible, in principle, to devise a test that confirms the hypothesis with one result, disproves otherwise, i.e. disproved unless confirmed. ID wants its predictions confirmed unless disproved.

No deal.

 

[rjh01]

Suggest people do a search for other posts by immaterial. Warning - It is very depressing reading.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Suggest people do a search for other posts by immaterial. Warning - It is very depressing reading.

Hey it might be depressing, but at least it is not long and depressing like searching all of some peoples posts would be.

 

[Josh Redstone]

Like someone else said, the intelligence in ID is meant to describe the mechanism of creation, not the inelligence we use to experiment and research in the fields of science.

 

[Cuddles]

Where ID does not cut it as science is in the testing of its hypotheses.

It's even worse than that. ID does not explain the initial observations and does not have a hypothesis to test. All it says is "I don't understand evolution, therefore it must be wrong.". Even if evolution did somehow turn out to be wrong, ID could never replace it because it is defined as an opposition to the theory of evolution and says absolutely nothing in the absence of this theory.

 

[GregC]

ID is not science, it is a default position. IDist's believe that if science can't explain it, then it has to be, by default, ID.

Science says that if science can't explain it, there is not a current explanation.

Big difference.

 

[Jocky]

Like someone else said, the intelligence in ID is meant to describe the mechanism of creation, not the inelligence we use to experiment and research in the fields of science.

Yeah, that was me. But as rjh pointed out, we're probably wasting our time here ...

There is another contradiction in the OP along similar lines: science is criticised for mot fully understanding the nature of intelligence - but of course ID makes great play of being totally unable to identify the nature of the intelligent creator, denying like mad that it can be positively identified as God in any of His Many Wondrous Guises.

 

[blutoski]

I find the commonly used argument "ID is not a science since it cannot be investigated, explained, or proven scientifically", very peculiar. it doesn't make any sense.

Why? Because: The very basis of ID is the active use of intelligence. The very basis of all science is the active use of intelligence.

I think you misunderstand what ID is: it is the following argument:

P1. if we can find an artifact (ie: a biological structure) that could not have evolved, we can conclude that it was designed
P2. things that are designed are designed by an intelligent designer
C. therefore, there is an intelligent designer

There are two problems with this:
a) Notice how P1 starts with "If". IDers gloss over this and assume that Premise one is true, without justification.
b) When you finally corner them for examples of P1, their findings are weak. For starters, they're trying to prove a negative - they're trying to prove that something *didn't* evolve. They do this by simply repeating the claim "It's self-evident" or "It's too complicated" &c. These are philosophical arguments at best, but not scientific.

Further: there are ways to measure how 'complex' some things are: units such as bits. ID's main theme is to compare how complex things are. They never use units, do not measure complexity except to decree things complex in their opinion, &c. There is no science here. Ask them what they use to measure the complexity of, say, a cell, and what are the units?

So to say that science and ID are not compatible is ridiculous. ID is in fact more compatible with science than most other scientific subjects, since they share the exact same basis.

Could the reason for this idea be that science does not have any clear definition of that very intelligence it's so dependent on itself? I have asked many scientists for such a definition, but no one have been able to come up with one. Some even claim it's impossible to define the concept clearly, which just reveal their confusion.

A rather peculiar situation that the most important tool in science is not understood by science itself, isn't it?

Therefore it's no wonder either that science seem to be unable to see any signs of intelligence in nature's processes. How can you expect to find signs of anything if you don't even know how to recognize that which you're looking for?

--

The rest of your post is gibberish.

 

[Dave1001]

I find the commonly used argument "ID is not a science since it cannot be investigated, explained, or proven scientifically", very peculiar. it doesn't make any sense.

Why? Because: The very basis of ID is the active use of intelligence. The very basis of all science is the active use of intelligence.

So to say that science and ID are not compatible is ridiculous. ID is in fact more compatible with science than most other scientific subjects, since they share the exact same basis.

Could the reason for this idea be that science does not have any clear definition of that very intelligence it's so dependent on itself? I have asked many scientists for such a definition, but no one have been able to come up with one. Some even claim it's impossible to define the concept clearly, which just reveal their confusion.

A rather peculiar situation that the most important tool in science is not understood by science itself, isn't it?

Therefore it's no wonder either that science seem to be unable to see any signs of intelligence in nature's processes. How can you expect to find signs of anything if you don't even know how to recognize that which you're looking for?

--

I think your argument is very reasonable. Although Intelligent Design is most commonly a trojan horse fundamentalist religious argument, that doesn't make it wrong.

I think it was Kurzweil who pointed out that the odds may be much greater that we exist in an intelligently created simulation than spontaneously evolved universe because we demonstrate that intelligence can exist in a universe and can run simulations, and the evidence is that soon intelligently designed, faux intelligent agents in faux universes will far outnumber the real ones. So are we ourselve faux intelligent agents that were intelligently designed? If so, it it faux intelligent agents (almost) all the way down? The way things are trending, if Kurxweil is right in his predictions it may very well be.

So I think the jury is still 100% out on, even if some original universe came to being spontaneously in a big bang, whether we are living in a somewhat simplified intelligently designed simulation of it, the intelligent designers themselves whom were intelligently designed in a simulation, and so on asymptotically approaching infinity.

Occam's Razor may actuall cut in THAT direction.

 

[RichardR]

Therefore it's no wonder either that science seem to be unable to see any signs of intelligence in nature's processes. How can you expect to find signs of anything if you don't even know how to recognize that which you're looking for? --

That is one of the problems with ID - why it's not science. The IDists cannot say what would determine if there was design. Ask them - they can't define it.

 

[blutoski]

That is one of the problems with ID - why it's not science. The IDists cannot say what would determine if there was design. Ask them - they can't define it.

That's what I was trying to cover in my post. ID's focus is on the scientific-ness of 'designed'. OK: how do they measure it? Answer: "Well, it's self-evident that a human has more design than a rock." Really? How can they tell? What sort of dipstick do they stick into the rock and say "this has 400 desigknots in it, whereas when we stuck it into my knee, it measured 500 desigknots."

They don't do this. It's all just filosofizin. Good old-fashioned apologetics and Rhetoric. It's a contemporary re-hash of the 19th century watch-on-the-heath argument.

 

[Dr Adequate]

"The basis of science is intelligence. It would require intelligence for aliens to make crop circles. Therefore, it is scientific to say that aliens make crop circles."

 

[DeviousB]

P1. if we can find an artifact (ie: a biological structure) that could not have evolved, we can conclude that it was designed.

[...]

When you finally corner them for examples of P1, their findings are weak. For starters, they're trying to prove a negative - they're trying to prove that something *didn't* evolve. They do this by simply repeating the claim "It's self-evident" or "It's too complicated" &c. These are philosophical arguments at best, but not scientific.

Personally, if they can find a gene coding for a functional and essential protein that folds into a precise representation of Bruce Chapman's head, then I'll take their claims more seriously.



PS. Obviously, Chapman could achieve this by hitting himself in the face with a mallet until he resembles acetylcholineesterase. Just a thought, Bruce...