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Teach the Irony

I?m going to do something very uncharacteristic of me: I?m going to agree with religious conservatives on something. I think Intelligent Design should be taught in science classes. Now, before you peg me as some sort of holy roller, let me explain. Most people do not understand how science works. They nod their heads in ignorance while creationists preach that evolution is ?just a theory,? even if they themselves are not creationists. It?s time to teach people what science really is.

In science, theory is all we have to work with. Science is based on limited degrees of certainty. Unlike religion, science never claims to be 100% certain of anything. Thus, even the most valid scientific inferences still fall under the category of theory. A valid theory must explain observable phenomena. It must make testable predictions. And it must be falsifiable. By this, I mean that it must be able to be proven wrong. Evolution, for example, could be falsified if we were to find rabbit skeletons in the Pre-Cambrian. A theory can be supported by the evidence over and over again, but it only takes one valid piece of evidence to prove it wrong. No such hard evidence against evolution has been produced, despite what phony ?creation scientists? may tell you, so it still stands as a valid theory.

Now, what about Intelligent Design? Is it a valid theory? No. That?s not to say it?s necessarily wrong. It?s just unscientific. Intelligent Design says there are things in nature which are too complex to have evolved by chance, and therefore must have been subject to outside intervention by an intelligent designer. So how could we test this? What predictions does this make? The answer: none. It doesn?t tell us anything we can look for in the fossil record to support it, nor can it be falsified. It does not tell us that we will or will not find certain features in specimens, but simply claims those features to be improbable(but they happened anyway).

So here we get to why I would like to see Intelligent Design taught in science classes alongside evolution. Intelligent Design is a perfect example of pseudoscience. Rather than keeping it out of the curriculum, it should be taught to help students understand the difference between science and pseudo-science, so they can discern other forms of pseudoscience when they come across them in the future. If the children are taught why Intelligent Design is not scientific, they can better understand what science is, and gain an appreciation for its methods. The irony of it all is that an honest examination of Intelligent Design and its relation to science would be the last thing the creationists would want to see.

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Paradigm 

Divided_Sky said:

I see this as a thinly guised battle between materialism and spirituality. As a matter of fact we know that the earth was not created in 7 days, but that does not mean there isn't a higher level of knowledge or awareness behind it all. I don't think that established science proves a materialist/nihilist philosophy, which is just that : another philosophy.

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The hypothesis that the earth was created in 7 days is the same as ID. They both explain everything with a simple word "God". They both say something about the way things started without asking the why question to a deeper level. ID is not a result of the scientific method, but a result of fantasy. It is nothing more than fantasy. It's a matrix theory; cool, possible, but not part of science. I can make up millions of fantasy theories about the creation of the universe, some may sound more logic than others, but there is no way to actually tell which of my theories is more likely. And it would be stupid to just pick one and believe in it, wouldn't it? 

Science does not express reservations about the truth of theories.

Science is not a religion. I do not believe that any scientific theory is the ultimate truth, that would make it a religion. But I do believe that we can get the best understanding of how the universe works by use of the scientific method. Beside that, it's just the most fun. Scientific theories are fucking great to read and think about, but that's just my personal opinion

kotik said:

unfort, the intelligent design being spread today has nothing to do with higher knowledge, and everything to do with teaching christianity in school.

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Annom said:

Paradigm
The hypothesis that the earth was created in 7 days is the same as ID. ...

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the other is a collection of mechanisms that are directly observed repeatedly and consistently not fully understood - being an open case for ongoing investigation.

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Paradigm said:

Intelligent Design does not teach Young Earth Creationism. It doesn't even deny that evolution occurs. It simply posits that an "Intelligent Designer" must have intervened with evolution at certain points in order to create the level of complexity we see today.

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However as to whether the universe is theistic or non-theistic is not a question that human science has the capacity to answer.

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Yes, that's why it's fantasy if we make a theory about it. I like matrix theories. I like philosophizing about higher consciousness etc, but there is no reason to believe in ID. All kind of god theories are possible. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that a theory is the 100% ultimate truth though.

My problem with ID:



ID solves a problem by saying that it is something we will never be able to understand, so they call it god. It is the easiest way out and there is no fun left to explore and explain things with more elegant theories than "god".

If all people believed that the best model to explain the motion of the planets was "god", we would not have Newtons model. I think it's sad to explain something we don't yet understand by saying it must have been god and not think about it anymore.

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Vedante philosophy is Intelligent Design, the idea that all the universe is an infinitely complex dream in the mind of God. In Buddhism a Buddha or Enlightened one because inseperable with a transcendental and eternal consciousness. Are those philosophies 'psuedoscience' as well?

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Divided_Sky said:

it seems to me that most people assume that the big bang/evolution and intellifent design are mutually exclusive. Why should this be? I fail to see how evolution being a factually supported theory negates ID which is more of a philosophical speculation.

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