Is ID scientific ? Yet another approach to the question.

edit 6-9; changed the text a bitI know the core reasoning of the "rebuttal" below is present in many of these arguments, but I haven't seen it worded exactly like this. Probably also because it is worded a little more simplistic than usually (due to me being a relative layman and not English-speaking). But (if it makes enough sense) it could be a useful approach towards a public of people who are less knowledgable in some of the rocket-science that is used to fight around ID?My reasoning goes like this:First of all, we have to acknowledge that,IF ID is true, then the final consequence inevitably is that some questions simply can't be tackled by science. And the reason is, that the answer "intelligent designer" is an end-point. The answer "it was designed" is a black box, with no opportunity to ask further questions. What further questions are there to be asked? There simply aren't any openings left, any hooks available. You could think of it as a roadblock: "Do not tresspass; further investigation is futile. What lies behind this, is unknowable". This, of course, resembles a lot the infamous "God of the Gaps".Yes, ID-proponents who don't want to be labeled as religiously inspired, might point towards the possibility of for example extraterrestrials in the role of "designers". But in the end that is just a relocation of the problem, not fundamentally changing the issue. It's either ending up in an infinite regression of different extraterrestrials designing each other, or putting "God" at the end to break through the vicious circle, and thus setting up the "roadblock"The first obvious thought is of course that this is very untypical for science. Absolute "roadblocks" aren't exactly a motivating idea, and quite opposite to what we normally recognise: an answer that is produced by science, tends to cause a whole lot of new questions, which we didn't even know could be asked before. In some sense, science that way continuously increases our ignorance, since it probably produces more questions than answers, reducing the ratio of answers to questions... But at first sight, one could argue that there needn't be anything impossible, in principle, about finding out inherent limits to science (the "roadblocks") through science itself. Maybe that is indeed possible, and ID has discovered one of those "roadblocks"? After all, Gdel's Incompleteness Theorem kinda does the same for mathematics.I guess that is exactly what ID claims, although it doesn't like focussing on it this way. ID likes to focus on the fact that they found an answer ("design"), not on the fact that the answer is of a type that excludes future questions.The fundamental problem that I see with it, is this:History shows, and surely the prominent ID'ers will (have no other choice but to) agree, that science has faced quite a few situations in the past where "final answers" or "roadblocks" turned up. Only to find out that this was misleading. In fact, right here and now there are probably thousands of unanswered questions standing open. So, clearly, the discovery of one "roadblock" does in no way indicate that all the currently open questions can be expected to ALSO be "roadblocks". In fact, from experience we can say that most of them (or even ALL of them if you accept that ID is the only exception thus far) will not be "roadblocks" at all.How can we discern currently unanswered questions that coincide with a "roadblock" (like ID supposes to identify) from the questions that DO have answers waiting to be discovered just behind the corner?Since we do not have some magical source available which tells us where the "roadblocks" are, continuing the scientific inquiry is the only available option. You simply have to continue asking the questions and trying to answer them. There is no other option, because there is no absolute certainty in science. Every conclusion is tentative. The nature of science is such, that it keeps driving and HAS to keep pushing. When it stops, it stops being science.This of course means that, if ID is science, it also can't claim to be infallible or absolutely certain. Which, in turn, HAS to leave open the possibility that it is a flawed conclusion. Which, in turn, means that it can not possibly adapt a stance of "that was it, we've had it!".One would think that, seeing how many of the supposedly "irreducibly complex" structures have been explained in a plausible way since they were first proposed, ID would recognise this. Instead, its main goal seems to be to stiffle the increase of understanding. What ID seems to be aiming at is nothing more but giving a negative proof of the ToE, and leaving it at that. There is absolutely no interest in making progress. Establishing a "roadblock", no matter what shape it takes on, seems to be the single most important goal that ID is working towards.If, on the other hand, ID were science, it would consider itself as a preliminary conclusion that should not stand in the way of continued research. In fact, the possibility that ID might be a final answer, shouldn't in any way be supposed to discourage further attempts to remove that "roadblock".Therefore, it is abundantly clear that ID can not be considered scientific. Even without anything like a detailed look into the arguments presented. In practice, the ID argument is reduced to a "roadblock" that is always on the move (it moves a step back with every next plausible explanation that science offers). As such, it is pretty much meaningless, vague and useless in the scientific sense. It is simply "God of the Gaps" dressed up differently.This message has been edited by Annafan, 06-09-2005 10:49 AM

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