So Just How is ID's Supernatural-based Science Supposed to Work? (SUM. MESSAGES ONLY)

In Message 296 of the should creationism be taught in schools? topic, I responded to Beretta thus, but the thread closed before he responded: I hereby call upon Beretta to respond with his description of how this "paradigm shift" that he's pushing for and in full support of is supposed to produce a new science that actually works. I call upon Beretta to describe this brave new science that he wants to impose upon us and to demonstrate that it would work.Of course, if any other ID advocates would like to contribute, they would be more than welcome.Here is basically how science currently works. We observe the natural world and form hypotheses to try to explain what we observe. Then we test those hypotheses by using them to make predictions and then either conducting experiments or making further observations. Those hypotheses which prove correct are kept and subjected to further testing, while those that don't pan out are either examined for what's wrong with them and they either get discarded or a correction is attempted which is then subjected to further testing. Out of this process we develop a bundle of hypotheses which are used to develop a theory, a conceptual model of the natural phenomena in question and which describes our understanding of what that phenomena are and how they operate. That theory is used to make predictions and it is tested by how good those predictions are; thus the theory undergoes further testing and refinement and correcting. And that testing is not performed solely by the developers of the theory, but also by other members in the scientific community who have a vested interest in finding problems in that theory because they may be basing their own research on that theory -- if that theory turns out to be wrong, then they want to know that before they start their own research based on it.Now, an extremely valuable by-product of all this hypothesis building and testing is questions. In science, the really interesting and valuable discoveries are the ones that raise new questions. Because questions help to direct our research. Because by realizing what we don't know and what we need to find out, we know what to look for and we have some idea of where to find it. Without those questions, science loses its direction and gets stuck.Science cannot use supernaturalistic explanations, because they don't explain anything. We cannot observe the supernatural either directly or indirectly; we cannot even determine whether the supernatural even exists. Supernaturalistic explanations cannot be tested and hence cannot be evaluated nor discarded nor refined. They cannot produce predictions. They cannot be developed into a conceptual model that could even begin to attempt to descibe a natural phenomena nor how it works. And supernaturalistic explanations raise absolutely no questions and so provide absolutely no direction for further research. "Goddidit" explains nothing and closes all paths of investigation. Supernaturalistic explanations bring science to a grinding halt.In Message 245 I wrote: In Message 250, Beretta replied: I contend that Beretta is dead wrong. ID's goal is to reform science to be based on supernaturalistic explanations, or at the very least to include them. It is the inclusion of supernaturalistic explanations that will kill science.The task before Beretta and any other ID advocate is to prove that ID will not kill science. A required component of that proof is a detailed description of just how ID-based science is supposed to operate. Certainly their ID idols have already provided them the answer. And if even they haven't come up with a description of how their brave new science will function, then why not?Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add the "(SUM. MESSAGES ONLY)" to topic title.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984) Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML) Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles) Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32) It is a well-known fact that reality has a definite liberal bias.
Robert Colbert on NPR

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

* bump *

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

You know that the oft promised evidence won't be provided, don't you?If it does I'll buy you a hat and we can go to dinner.

If it does, I'll eat the hat, then I'll marry him.I expect we'll get the "nothing complex can exist" argument.This goes: Nothing above a certain undefinable level of complexity can exist without a designer designing it, therefore, the inevitably complex designer can't exist, therefore nothing complex can exist.Or the "if it has a superficial appearance of design, then it could be designed" argument.Incidentally, why should the proposed designers of life be invisible?Why wouldn't invisible designers just design invisible things?And why always design within the parameters of evolutionary possibility? What's wrong with doing a rabbit in the Cambrian, as Haldane (I think) once put it.

Nothing to add, but "best bump subtitle evah."

Or to go further,why does this designer, after many millions of years, just deletes 3/4 of his designs? What, did he run out of room on his hard-drive and deleted them to free up space?

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other

This is easy even I can answer it. The world was sinful so the intelligent designer killed off most of the creatures on Earth with a world wide flood. Only those that went and stayed on Noah's Ark were spared by the intelligent designer.

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Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

Ha Ha

I think this an excellent point. One of the critiques used by YEC's regarding the various theistic evolution beliefs (and OEC to a point as well as day-age and gap theory) is that the loving and merciful god of the Bible would not use competition, death, and/or extinction because those are anti-life. (I just re-read Morris' 1974 Scientific Creationism and he has a section about this).So in the same vein as your question. Since over 90% of everything that has ever been alive is extinct, and nearly all of those are only found in 'Flood deposits' this means that a creator that wouldn't use evolution to produce modern diversity (because it is cruel) would use drowning and burial to destroy 9 out of 10 parts of that creation!

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"I have seen so far because I have stood on the bloated corpses of my competitors" - Dr Burgess Bowder

Of course, good point, and Lithodid-Man's elaboration on it, as well.But I just wanted to make a technical point. I think we should say designers, not designer, because the statistical chances of there being only one entity involved are so slim. The I.D. people should do this, as well. Use of the singular is a sure giveaway of people from monotheistic cultures trying to stick their God in a science classroom, and they claim not to be doing that.So, picture lots of busy elves, a bit like Santa's, and you get the picture. (Sorry, Dwise1, just trying to keep you entertained while you wait...and wait.....and wait.......)

bluegenes, does that mean that the world was obviously designed ... by committee?You know, that would explain a lot!{grin}

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)

Yes. All the apparent indecision, but also the obvious variety in taste and method.I like to think that I, personally, was designed by a female designer, the expression of her dreams, but I may be flattering myself.

Exactly -that's what we would do only we would allow for other possibilities other than the current evolutionary-based possibilities.
For example -instead of assuming that radiometric decay has been carrying on for millions of years at the same rate as it now occurs, we would investigate the possibility of accelerated radiometric decay in the past. I believe the research by the 'rate' group would be an example of that. They looked into the reasons why helium in the atmosphere is so low compared to the levels that it should be if the evolutionary interpretation of past events is correct.
Instead of a priori acceptance of millions of years as the only option, we could look at it from a different angle - how could it have happened short term if it did. Theorize according to both models of what might have happened in the past.Looking at geological formations such as the Grand Canyon, we would look at the possibility of lots of water, little bit of time.Instead of seeing evolution when we look at the fossils in the rocks, we could look at the possibility that most of the fossils formed in one big disaster and that most of the fossils show catastrophe and rapid destruction rather than hundreds of millions of years of slow death.We could compare and contrast the possibilities that many layers of sedimentary rock formed rapidly rather than slowly.We could allow for the possibility that the fossils present in the Cambrian explosion represent the first things to be covered in sediment at the lowest levels of the geologic column and that they were all created which is why we can't find their precursors at lower levels.When we find fully formed birds below the level of archeopteryx, we could allow for the possibility that birds were always birds instead of looking for a better and more appropriate missing link between birds and their supposed precursors via the evolutionary assumption that they evolved at all.This approach would allow both sides to present their case and compare their results and thereby see which was more feasible given the facts in every case or question.We could look at the stars exploding and their supernova remnants and work out the rate at which it is occurring and the numbers present and accounted for and then decide whether they show millions of years or thousands.We could look at the human body and instead of assuming certain things are vestigial or redundant ,we would try to find their function on the assumption that if things are designed, they should have a function - what is it?The way I see it is that so many more possibilities would be available for investigation and who knows we may find out things we never would have contemplated given evolution as the only acceptable route.Your basic scientific method would remain the same but different conclusions may be arrived at given different models to work with and explain results against.It's not so scary airy fairy a proposal if evolutionists weren't so determined to shut other the possibilities out.Scientists that didn't want to acknowledge the possibility of a creator might want to prove that their predictions are better and so be it -show us that those interpretations produce better predictions.Lots of new avenues of investigation would be opened using a new model as an alternative explanation.

Here's the curious thing. Creos, cdesign proponentists, and anti-science types of various stripes have been arguing for many or most of those points for at least 30 years. If there were even the slightest scintilla of evidence supporting any of them, wouldn't we see it by now? More importantly, given that real scientists accepted creation as the prevailing paradigm for hundreds of years before Darwin, why didn't they turn up any evidence of them?

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat