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Originally Posted by Biochemist
It IS equally valid if it is consistent with the observed, reproducible facts as demonstrated via the scientific method.
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Equal weight in data consistency and parsimony results in equally "valid" theories.
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So you're saying that anything goes, and the only thing that should be used to distinguish science and the pseudo variety should be "data consistency" and parsimony? Be careful here, because the Principle of Parsimony is a guide, not a proof, and it in fact is highly subject to interpretation. Who are you to say that the Angel Theory of Flight is extraneous or more complex than Aerodynamics? Why? Normally parsimony is applied to this because in science, naturalism is preferred to spiritualism because it allows for reproducible testing. The "Angel Theory" also contains no data, so none of it is inconsistent!
More importantly however is the point that you passed over from my previous post that many of these pseudo-scientific theories there is indeed a jump into spiritualism with the invocation of "therefore it must have been designed" or "it must be Angels" which by definition can't be tested, and is only backed up by computational "impossibility" which by definition can't show anything more than "we don't know yet," and in the case of Angels was certainly true in the past, although now we do.
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Originally Posted by Biochemist
There are many valid and/or falsifiable experiments that could be used to tease apart the ID view from the conventional view. Let 'em have at it.
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Originally Posted by Southtown
Well, (IMHO) allowing other ideas into schools, no matter how idiotic or biased, will give students an opportunity to discern for themselves which theories are most supported by the evidence. That IS what they're supposed to be learning isn't it: HOW to think and not WHAT to think.
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So again this brings back the issue that's really key here is education of the masses. Or as I like to put it "is there in beauty, no truth?" As a public policy issue, it is impossible to conceive of a society in which the masses are told "you cannot believe anything you hear. you must decide for yourself and do all your own experiments. all opinions are equally valid and there is no truth." To keep the "experts" honest and have an open and progressing society, everyone must have the *opportunity* to do so, but to have a situation where there is no voice of reason or authority means that we can have little opportunity for consensus. If everyone was as smart as you guys are, then there'd be no problem at all with this approach. The problem is though that in the real world, most people to depend on experts, but what you're advocating is a public education policy of "trust no one." Is that really a good approach? Especially as our technology and science goes far beyond the ability of even really really smart people to understand a small fraction of everything to any level more than basics?
I think there's a strong argument that says that its good for the experts to thrash things out until there is a consensus of opinion by the people who *do* have the ability to understand all of the relevant nuances. This should not be done by some exclusive club, and everyone should be invited to join in on the interpretation. But when it comes to school curricula, its a good idea to teach "what we think is true" and why, along with critical thinking, so that people learn to "trust, but verify". Without that trust we do limit our ability to progress. Does every individual need to re-prove gravity?
I agree more than anyone that critical thinking is one of the most important things we can teach. Our schools are in fact being pushed away from this oddly enough, and its not because of scientific dogma! The question you have to ask if you think ID or String Theory ought to be taught to 8th graders is *because* it will teach critical thinking, is will simply presenting two opposing view points of any topic in a fair and balanced view without criticizing either side result in building critical thinking skills? Generally critical thinking is tought by presenting the two views and then *showing how one is correct*. Unfortunately, that is not the goal that is being sought by ID politicians, although the string theory folks have no problem with the notion that the subject should be left for grad students.
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Originally Posted by Biochemist
That certainly refutes the fact, doesn't it? Who cares who believes it? It is interesting to note that this is categorically untrue (since I am not an ID proponent)...
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Ya have a bunch of us fooled Bio!
This was not intended by itself as the refutation by any means, in fact the only point which I guess you missed was that its quite possible to phrase arguments that are purposely intended to gloss over the intricacies of the counter-arguments, and this phrase happens to do so as I explained by making "speciation" an absolute which the current conflicts between morphological and genetic typologies makes very clear. I'm very sorry you took it so personally...
Cheers,
Buffy
