Created by me, your new God. Everybody pissed? Good. Now, let's do some detective work instead of bickering.
Question:
Let's assume that God the Intelligent Designer designed all the living creatures of the world according to His plan. This is our model. Now, what predictions could we make about such a world using this model? That is, how would we expect living things in the world to appear, or behave, or be designed, etc..., if they were designed by God?
The answer to this question should be a prediction of what we should find, not a description of what we do find. That part comes later, after we've established what our model predicts. Note that in real science, you get to revise your hypothesis to explain all the data, so a "wrong" answer here doesn't kill the model.
Originally posted by FabianFnas Please - no religion in Science Forum!
There is a Spiritual Forum for religios topics.
No, we're actually going to do some science here. We're going to see if we can raise the status of the Creationist claim to a hypothesis, with some testable predictions. If we can't, then we can't consider Creationism to be a reasonable alternative to evolution because it will be unverifiable.
Originally posted by PBE6 No, we're actually going to do some science here. We're going to see if we can raise the status of the Creationist claim to a hypothesis, with some testable predictions. If we can't, then we can't consider Creationism to be a reasonable alternative to evolution because it will be unverifiable.
We can even pretend the creators are us, say 1000 years from now assuming continued scientific development.
So we found a nice clean slate planet and we want to start life anew, what would we do?
Originally posted by PBE6 Created by me, your new God. Everybody pissed? Good. Now, let's do some detective work instead of bickering.
Question:
Let's assume that God the Intelligent Designer designed all the living creatures of the world according to His plan. This is our model. Now, what predictions could we make about such a world using this model? That is, how would we e ...[text shortened]... the data, so a "wrong" answer here doesn't kill the model.
Get cracking, Creationists!
We cannot know what it is that 'God', or whatever you're referring to as a creative source, has at its disposal. What tools or methods are being employed? What is not being used? How would we know?
We can't know, so as much as you might want to not engage in describing what we find, I don't see how that's logically feasible. I think you're setting up impossible constraints on the unknowable.
Originally posted by PBE6 Let's assume that God the Intelligent Designer designed all the living creatures of the world according to His plan. This is our model. Now, what predictions could we make about such a world using this model? That is, how would we expect living things in the world to appear, or behave, or be designed, etc..., if they were designed by God?
The answer to th ...[text shortened]... l the data, so a "wrong" answer here doesn't kill the model.
Originally posted by PBE6 No, we're actually going to do some science here. We're going to see if we can raise the status of the Creationist claim to a hypothesis, with some testable predictions. If we can't, then we can't consider Creationism to be a reasonable alternative to evolution because it will be unverifiable.
In the first two postings your hypothesis is that god exists. Then it's no science. You cannot ever use scientific methods to prove god's existance. You cannot bring science into religion. Therefore this thread is about religion.
Bring this to Spiritual Forum, dear moderators! Please...
Originally posted by sonhouse We can even pretend the creators are us, say 1000 years from now assuming continued scientific development.
So we found a nice clean slate planet and we want to start life anew, what would we do?
We could, but it would be equally improbable. Besides, I'm running this show!
Originally posted by Badwater We cannot know what it is that 'God', or whatever you're referring to as a creative source, has at its disposal. What tools or methods are being employed? What is not being used? How would we know?
We can't know, so as much as you might want to not engage in describing what we find, I don't see how that's logically feasible. I think you're setting up impossible constraints on the unknowable.
Well then, it seems that Intelligent Design can never be brought to the level of a hypothesis, because we can't know what God thinks! Exactly the point I was trying to make.
Originally posted by Nemesio Sorry, PBE6. I don't understand the question.
My question was intended to follow the form of a Socratic dialogue, but Badwater short-circuited the process as a happy accident.
But the main thrust of the question is that any hypothesis must make predictions about the world we see. Proponents of Intelligent Design miss this point every time. Their claim that God created all the creatures we know and love, including ourselves, can never be proven or disproven because Intelligent Design says nothing! I wanted to try and make the Creationists develop their model into something that makes predictions, and only after having done that compare it to what we observe in the real world. I also wanted to make sure we permitted changes to the hypothesis, because without doing so the only thing we would be discussing is a "gotcha!!" question, something I find patently unfair and infuriating more than illuminating.
Originally posted by FabianFnas In the first two postings your hypothesis is that god exists. Then it's no science. You cannot ever use scientific methods to prove god's existance. You cannot bring science into religion. Therefore this thread is about religion.
Bring this to Spiritual Forum, dear moderators! Please...
Sometimes you miss the mark by a country mile, Fabian. The entire point of this thread is to show why Intelligent Design isn't science, and the best way to do that is to apply the scientific method and see where Intelligent Design comes up short.
Evolution of the evolution threads...
09 Oct '08 21:14
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