Comments Posted By Jeff V
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DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: SHUT YOUR YAP!
The problem scientists have with the entire ID movement is that it likes to use estimations of probabilities of how likely it is for life to evolve the way it has and pass this off as scientific experimentation. The problem is the fundamental assumption used by ID, that there was some outside force that influenced the development of life on earth cannot be tested.
Let me say that again. The fundamental idea of an "intelligent designer" cannot be tested, constrained, and above all else, disproven. All scientific theories and even the "Laws" of gravity, thermodynamics, and motion, have undergone rigorous scrutiny through experimentation and observation and what we have now in science is the result. Hey, ten years ago, astrophysicists didn't even consider there was such a thing as "Dark Energy", but observations imply that it does exists and even though they still don't have a clue what it is, but they have the means to run experiments, make observations to try to figure it out. Evolution is the same way. The theory is not static, its ever changing, being modified to explain the available data. It is science.
Sure, its probably true that its highly unlikely that life developed as it did on earth. But show me another planet to compare it to. You can't, because we haven't found life elsewhere, but we've only 100 large celestial bodies in our solar system to look at. If we do find life, then there's something we can test. Its highly unlikely that a photon can travel 10 billion light years to us without encountering on of the 10^22 hydrogen atoms that would absorb it, but it does, because we can observe it and have a physical description of why it happens.
Until an experiment can be developed to prove, disprove or constrain the existence of this "intelligent designer," be it God, aliens, time-travelers, whatever, it remains a hypothesis, an idea, but not one that can be tested, and must be taken on faith. It is not science, and should not be taught alongside evolution. But by all means, discuss it, talk about it, have a class in philosophy on it. Truth doesn't equal fact, and facts are what scientists deal with.
Comment Posted By Jeff V On 3.08.2005 @ 14:18
