Intelligent Design - a Pretender of Science

This video deals with why Intelligent Design isn't science. It also discusses two arguments that fail to make an adequate objection as to why ID isn't science:
1) "No designer worth his salt" argument
2) ID is unfalsifiable

This is a continuation of my series on the Philosophy of Science, and is the second of a multi-part video about "The Pretenders of Science."

Other videos in the series include:
Science and its Hypotheses - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OzFth...

Parapsychology - Pretender of Science - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIqK5WignVU


Sources:
Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn. "How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age" (Chapter 7 "Science and Its Pretenders")

Elliot Sober. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH INTELLIGENT DESIGN?" The Quarterly Review of Biology.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Intelligent
• Design
• Philosophy
• of
• Science
• critical
• thinking
• atheist
• evolution
• agnostic
• science

[Venaloid]

7:40 - Watch "The Origin of Genes" by cdk007

[crazypills2]

@Venaloid "7:40 - Watch "The Origin of Genes" by cdk007"

Thanks.

[LatiasDita]

I am the sister of Latiasdita, hi, and you did not tell me how my belief that this intelligent designer made all the processes of science function the way they are to create whatever exists is false? I know you said its how I "escape" your arguement, but tell me why this escaping of my arguement is wrong.

[crazypills2]

@LatiasDita - "... you did not tell me how my belief that this intelligent designer made all the processes of science function the way they are to create whatever exists is false?"

That wasn't the intent of this video. This video was created to show how ID cannot be considered science.

I cannot disprove the hypothesis because I cannot test it. But, as a pragmatist, I do not believe it survives the criteria of adequacy. Therefore, I dismiss it as a bad hypothesis..it explains nothing.

[migkillertwo]

"ID is unfalsifiable"

Falsifiability? BAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Philosophers of science dont REALLY take this seriously. Falsificationism is plagued with problems. To start, it doesn't account for the positive knowledge that Science gives us. Furthermore, it doesn't allow us to infer certain laws of nature.

[crazypills2]

"Falsificationism is plagued with problems. " - migkillertwo

Exactly. This is why most philosophers of science agree that testing is a comparative process using something like the criteria of adequacy. The evidence alone does not dictate which hypothesis is more rational to choose. We might hold to some hypotheses in the face of adverse evidence simply because they perform better in other areas, such as scope, fruitfulness, simplicity and conservatism.

[tubewatch59]

There may be other reasons as to why ID is in fact not science, but I don't think they have been put forward yet. I'm saying that as far as we can tell at the moment, it does seem to be the case that ID is science.

But I did think your video was one of the better anti-ID videos on youtube. It completely avoided the ad-hominem arguments and insults (verbal and/or pictorial) that frequently come up in this type of presentation. Well done for that.

[tubewatch59]

By the way, just to be upfront about it, I'm a YEC. But not an unreasonable one. I know that YEC has quite a few "unhandled exceptions". :-)

[tubewatch59]

The point I'm making is that once you get to that point, of claiming that physical laws themselves give rise to CSI, then whether or not you claim that the physical laws contain CSI themselves, or not, you can't argue for the existence of God scientifically because there is no "gap" from "noCSI" at time(n-1) to "CSI" at time(n) that could be evidence of an intervention by a designer.

Believing in a "no-intervention" designer, is scientifically equivalent to considering a designer superfluous.

[tubewatch59]

The theistic evolutionists do not make a scientific claim about the existence of a God outside of space and time. In fact they specifically say they're making a faith claim. Mary Schweitzer (who discovered dinosaur bones that seemed to be young - thus of great interest to YEC's) made a statemnt something like: "I think it's amazing how God set up the universe to do this and that yet left no evidence of doing so. How cool is that?"

She is a theistic evolutionist, and DOES think it's "cool"!

[tubewatch59]

The reason ID as it has come to be defined is different to theistic evolution, is because ID does make a claim that denies the possibility (if ID is correct that is) that life could have come from natural unguided natural processes. The ID claim is this:

"Intelligent design is the claim that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."

[tubewatch59]

But if science can observe the origin of CSI all the way back to where CSI emerges from natural laws, then ID muist become the equivalent of theistic evolution. Theistic evolutionists hold that God "somehow" oversaw the emergence of life from non-life through the agency of natural laws alone. But they deny ID.  In fact they claim that there is no legitimate scioentific evidence for a creator. Rather the knowledge of a creator comes not from science, but from faith. (NOMA and all that.)

[tubewatch59]

I disagree with your video's statement at the end (time 9:17)

When science can explain the origins of CSI (complex specified information) right back to the known start of the universe, then ID becomes a matter of faith, rather than a matter of an observeable "gap" between an observation of (CSI + physical laws) at time t(n), and the observation of (physical laws alone) at time t(n-1).

Such a gap indicates (for IDists) a legitimate argument for the intervention of an intelligent designer...

[groovyengineer]

I.D. , Intentionally Deceptive. Outside space and time, would be outside reality. Anything outside reality is not real by definition. Science has nothing to say about things that are not real. I.D. fails on every level even if you move the bar back to the begining.

[DarthMocha]

The no designer worth his salt argument is a good argument to disprove a designer that is talked up to be perfect. A perfect being would only be able to create perfection, not the overwhelming flaws we see today. I use the analogy of building a house. If I build a house for a family and it collapses due to poor building and foundation, is the house to blame, or am I to blame? Of course I am the one to blame. It shows a lack of building knowledge and a crappy rush-job. Not perfection.