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Author | Topic: Does ID follow the scientific method? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi Coyote.
Coyote writes: What is your set of rules for distinguishing design from non-design? Since you work in a field that specializes in scientifically differentiating designed things (i.e. artifacts) from non-designed things (i.e. rocks), you're probably in a unique position to explain how actual scientists do distinguish design from non-design. What sorts of criteria do archaeologists and anthropologists use to determine if a given piece of rock is, e.g., an arrowhead, rather than just a broken rock? This would give us a way to establish what ID should be doing in order to find design in nature. Maybe then we could easily determine whether that is what they're doing. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Bluejay (I'm replying to myself).
Bluejay writes: What sorts of criteria do archaeologists and anthropologists use to determine if a given piece of rock is, e.g., an arrowhead, rather than just a broken rock? I have an idea or two to add here. There are situational clues that make intelligent design a plausible explanation in certain situations. Stone-flake objects (tools) are found in the spatio-temporal vicinity of human/hominid remains. In addition, humans/hominids are clearly capable of the hammering, flaking or carving motions that would produce the objects. These situational clues form the basic reasoning that leads to the "archaeological hypothesis of intelligent design." This means that they provide a reason to bring the intelligent design hypothesis to the table. From there, we can see how stone tools fit within the continuum of human technological development that archaeologists and historians have documented. This increases the plausibility of the intelligent design explanation. I still have a series of questions, though: Are there non-design processes that can shape rocks in similar ways to human manufacture?If so, how do archaeologists decide which hypothesis (design or non-design) is better? If not, are they basing their conclusion on the absence of alternatives? Is this scientific? More importantly, do IDists do this too? What distinguishes what they do from what archaeologists do? -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Coyote.
I figured you would have some good information on that stuff. It seems that the criteria are pretty situation-specific. By that, I mean you don't use any universal principles of design to decide whether an artifact was designed, but you rely on context and the details of the technique in question. In order for ID to work the same way you do, they would have to obtain some information on the context or technique of the purported design in order to show that design is a plausible hypothesis. Or, they would need to find some universal principles of design that could be applied in some way. They seem to favor the latter approach. And, I think all of their thought experiments and mathematical models related to these alleged universal principles of design could count as science in a sense (ecology has a lot of modeling based on hypothetical, universal principles, for example), but it fails in that it retains the premises after many lines of reasoning based on those premises are shown to be inaccurate. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Dawn.
I would like to do one thing. I would like you to write a post containing four lines. This is what I would like to see on those four lines:
If you can provide examples of all of these steps, then I would say that ID has at least passed the barest minimum standards of the scientific method. I suspect that most scientists would require more than just this bare minimum, but it would at least be a start. Can you do this much? -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Dawn.
Dawn Bertot writes: You need to ask me to give you an example of IDs methods that preceed its conclusion, which is Intelligent Design That's exactly what I did. Why do you think this isn't what I did? -----
Dawn Bertot writes: The scientific method cannot pass any of these tests because you are looking for test that prove the conclusion of evolution, by asking me to demonstrate ID, which is also a conclusion. I think you're just nitpicking my way of phrasing the question. Let me rephrase it then. This is what I would like you to provide:
An example of a researcher making observations of the natural world. An example of a researcher formulating an ID hypothesis based on those observations. An example of a researcher experimenting to test that ID hypothesis. An example of a researcher forming an ID theory based on the results of the experiment. For purposes of comparison, I will provide an example of the scientific method in action with the following paper:
Observations: Web-building spiders are physiologically sensitive to temperatures, and physiological condition can impact web construction.
Hypothesis: Spider silk output is affected by temperature (one of several from this paper).
Experiment: Placed spiders in different temperatures to compare how much silk they produce.
Theory: There is an optimal temperature for silk production by spiders. Now, it's your turn. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Bertot.
Dawn Bertot writes: Dawn Bertot writes: It tests and evaluates thier structures, such as DNA, to study its organization to produce a living thing that operates in a logical and harmonious fashion, based on the previously observed order in its substructure Now will you demonstrate why my response does not meet the criteria of the above question. I don't understand why you think this is a sufficient answer. It's a generic, baseless assertion. In order to meet the criteria of the question, it needs to be specific, and supported with evidence. Please model your responses after the example I gave in Message 141: doing so will amply demonstrate your point, if indeed your point is true. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Marc.
You've got several responses already, so I'll keep this (relatively) short.
marc9000 writes: quote: Biologically reasonable quickly swerves away from any ‘scientific method’. Reasonable to whom? To those in the scientific community who are mostly atheists, or to the general public (that funds them) who are mostly religious? You're getting hung up on wording (having seen Coyne speak in person, I also have problems with his way of saying things, and this is no exception). "Biologically reasonable" isn't meant to refer to an audience, so your question---"Reasonable to whom?"---is not important. As Coyne and Orr define (bolded portion in the quoted text), "biologically reasonable" refers to something that occurs under natural conditions, and thus, is a reasonable thing to propose as an explanation for a novel situation. -----
Example: It is reasonable to propose male-male sparring as the use of Triceratops horns, because this usage of horns can be readily observed in nature.
Example: It is reasonable to propose evolution as the explanation for a given feature of an animal, because evolution can be readily observed under conditions that occur in nature. ----- This is an important part of the scientific method. After evidence has accumulated for a certain theory, it becomes reasonable to use this theory as the basis of a new hypothesis about a novel situation. We can then test this hypothesis in the same way we would test any other. This is the whole reason why we want to make theories: because they help us make new hypotheses and predictions. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Bertot.
Dawn Bertot writes: My experiment involved simply unpluging the computer from the wall and plugging it back into the same outlet, that is before trying to simply turn it back on Now the point is this, while I was conducting my scientific experiment, I stopped short in any further investigation because the methods that I employed were sufficienct to come to a conclusion that was valid and solve the problem Does this mean my investigation was not a SM, becuase it did not display every single on of the methods advocted by yourselves? Absolutley not? Even in your truncated example, you followed all the steps of the scientific method: observation, hypothesis, test, conclusion/theory. The extra steps Straggler added, that you shaved off, were repeated applications of the entire scientific method, not individual steps of the scientific method. In your ID argument, you are not shaving off entire cycles, but are removing steps from within individual cycles. This is not the same thing. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined:
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This is getting a bit ridiculous. I didn't think it would be this hard for people to recognize the scientific method after several of us have spelled out the steps pretty clearly, but, this far into this thread, not only has nobody been able to produce a legitimate example the follows the clear outline we've provided, but there is still at least one IDist/creationist who claims that nobody has been clear about what the scientific method actually is. I'm flabbergasted and a bit disappointed by this.
Since the IDists/creationists haven't been very successful, I've decided to provide an example of the IDM on my on. So, I googled. Yes, I googled. This is what I googled: intelligent design scientific method .
Here is the first link that comes up with those search terms. It's an FAQ page on the IDEA Center website (I'd never even heard of the IDEA Center before this Google search): it's actually a pretty clever acronym ("Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness"). Here's a snippet:
quote: They also provide a long answer, and then some tables with further examples, but you can go the link above and read that for yourselves. Ignoring the vagueness of it, this could arguably count as following the scientific method. If an IDist had provided this example on this thread, I would have accepted that it meets the most basic requirements of the scientific method as I presented them in Message 91. However, it falls short under closer scrutiny. Here's my commentary, organized by step in the scientific method:
Observation: Intelligent agents produce complex, specified information (CSI). I'm almost okay with calling this an observation. The only problem is that there is an implicit assumption in it that only intelligent agents produce CSI. This assumption should have been tested as a hypothesis in another round of the scientific method before it was included as an observation in this round of the scientific method. One caveat: if intelligent agents are meant to have designed everything, as in traditional creationism, then this assumption/hypothesis is untestable. Hypothesis: If objects were designed, they will contain CSI. This isn't really a hypothesis: it's just a restatement of the "observation." The hypothesis in this experiment is actually "X is designed." The statement, "X will contain CSI" is actually a prediction based on the hypothesis. Experiment: ID researchers can then experimentally reverse-engineer biological structures to see if they are IC. This is actually a good experiment, provided that the hypothesis that CSI only comes from intelligent design is first supported. Conclusion: Design. This conclusion rests entirely on the assumption that only intelligent agents produce CSI. It is only valid if that assumption can be supported by experimentation using the scientific method. As it stands, this conclusion is just affirming the consequent, a logical fallacy. Whatever standards one sets for science, logical fallacies surely cannot be seen as adhering to the scientific method. ----- This is one example of the kind of thing I was referring to when I said, "I suspect that most scientists would require more than just this bare minimum...": having put up an example of all four steps doesn't necessarily mean that you have followed the scientific method in its entirety. In this example, it's important to note that where you start using the scientific method is not chosen arbitrarily. That is, you can't just cram assumptions into the "observations" step and then claim to be following the scientific method because you use all the steps from there out: you have to be consistent, and to test everything that needs to be tested. But, with enough effort, I bet we could find at least one example of a true scientific method in use by IDists or creationists, but I suspect that the findings of it will be parochial and only indirectly relevant to ID. I await the efforts of IDists to demonstrate that I am incorrect. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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Blue Jay Member (Idle past 2727 days) Posts: 2843 From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts Joined: |
Hi, Paul.
PaulK writes: Thus the problem is not the assumption that only designed things contain CSI, the problem is the claim that CSI has been discovered in living things. Ah, good point. I was ignoring the issue of the accuracy of their claims in order to get at the methodological points, since this thread is about methodology. Still, I agree with you that CSI and IC are problematic in other ways. -Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus) Darwin loves you.
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