He makes some very interesting comments, and also this point, which I think is worth making:
I know for a fact that evolution cannot be falsified; it can only be replaced.
“Falsification” has become kind of shibboleth that in my view has outlived its usefulness as a criterioin for what is, or is not, science. We don’t actually proceed by what people usually mean by “falsification” in science, IMO, we proceed by replacing existing models with better ones (in that sense, of course, all models with a better fit to data than a previous model “falsify” the previous model – but that’s not what people usually mean). So I think Todd, as so often, is right here. Of course I think he is radically wrong about the age of the earth, but that’s another story!
He also makes this comment about ID:
You know, when ID was picking up steam in the nineties, I was really excited. I thought that this sort of research program could be incredibly fruitful and helpful. Maybe I misunderstood its beginnings, but somewhere along the line, the movement seems to have lost its way. It went from an interesting research program to a populist anti-evolution campaign that often recycles arguments directly from vintage creationism. Maybe that’s my naïveté shining through again, but I really don’t think that ID was intended to be just a disguised form of creationism to circumvent court rulings against religion in science classrooms. I’m certain that many of the good folks in the ID movement really do want to help develop a good alternative to evolution, and I applaud them for that. I hope that ID can find its way again. I really do.
Again, I think he’s right. My own hunch is that the Dembski and Behe in the early days really thought they had an argument. I find it hard to believe that they aren’t aware of the problems with their arguments now.
Biologists are often convinced that the last word in philosophy of science is Karl Popper, with his view of observations falsifying hypothesis. If they would go talk to philosophers of science, they would find that among them Popper is regarded as outdated, his work superseded by several more recent philosophers.
I work on inference of phylogenies. There it turns out that no observation absolutely falsifies any tree, as whatever pattern of characters you see, there is a (perhaps very small) chance that it could arise on that tree. Probabilistic frameworks of statistical inference are viable in such a case; Popper’s framework is not.
I’m not sure whether falsification has become a shibboleth so much as an exaggeration. I think falsification is a useful tool at what I call the foundational hypothesis layer of a scientific theory. That is, when a phenomenon is first described and some aspect of the phenomenon is explained and tested, that aspect can be falsified. However, if the theory is a product of a variety of different associated phenomena all with numerous aspects that have been tested, the theory itself moves above a state of simple falsification. However, I submit there are plenty of aspects of various evolutionary hypotheses aspects that could still be falsified, but none of those falsifications could – by themselves – falsify evolutionary theory at this point.
What ID advocates want to be true is some variation of No-Kin-To-Monkeys. The debate hasn’t changed in 150 years. It’s still about human exceptionalism, the common denominator of all ID advocacy. Everything else is a red herring. All the discussion of origin of life and the origin of taxa is just flak, hoping to weaken mainstream science as an authority.
The “theory” of evolution cannot be falsified because it cannot be tested. Everything that is being debated is not able to be replicated- ie unique one-time events.
No way to test the claim of endosymbiosis leading to the origin of eukaryotes.
No way to test the claim that any flagellum evolved from a flagella-less population.
This is what the teachers have to answer to if they want to push the “theory” of evolution.
I like popper, but meta-Popperians would expose the larger framework to scrutiny. What is the current thoughts on the demarcation criterion?
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-3257
You’ve just contradicted your claim on another thread that science says that the universe has a beginning. Replicate that.
Hypotheses can be tested against observations, and observations in the present can be made that relate to “unique one-time events” of the past.
Observations about how Stonehenge was formed, for example. 😉
I find it more useful to think in terms of testability, rather than falsifiability. In general, if someone says an assertion can’t be falsified, what they mean is that there is no good way to test the claim, for purposes of either replacing it with a better one, or supporting it as being probably correct. Maybe “improvable” would work just as well.
As for ID, I must disagree with both Wood and Elizabeth, and agree instead with Judge Jones that the concept cannot be decoupled from its religious basis. At best, ID is kind of the passive-voice of religious faith – rather than making a positive claim that can’t be supported, it attempts to make negative claims that can’t be shown to be wrong. Attempts to flip it positive, to get some ID advocate to actually get specific about how, when, who, and where ID occurred or occurs, have all been met with complete silence. ID simply MEANS “goddidit”. And Wood expected a research program demonstrating that? Good luck.
Except materialism doesn’t have any testable hypotheses
LoL! Perhaps you cannot uncouple ID from religion but that is your problem. As for Jones, he still doesn’t know what science is and he sure as heck don’t know what ID is.
BTW the ONLY way to know the “how, when, who, and where” is by FIRST determining design and then studying it. THAT is how it is done in archaeology and forensics.
And that proves ID is not a dead end as it opens up new questions for us to try to answer.
But then again your position cannot answer anything about the how, when, where nor why. All it can say is something happened some time in the past and here we are.
AMEN. This is what YEC creationism has said forever. Origin subjects are not testable and so stick around until a new acceptable replacement arrives.
It all comes down to thinking anout received data.
New information will overthrow old stuff but thats obvious.
In fact there is no such thing as science.
Its just people thinking about things and then conclusions withstand or fall before corrections.
YEC says evolution is still here because one can’t sink ones teeth into its evidence.
Evolution is all about iisues unrelated to biological processes that are observable.
Evolution was always just a line of reasoning and then fossils, fossils, fossils.
No biological research using the “scientific” method was actually utilized.
Sigh. Another Joe. Everyone interested in playing “black knight” with a brick wall, step right up.
Robert Byers,
Evolution is about “change”, not “origins”.
By analogy, you are saying that a scientist studying puberty really should be studying the mechanisms of childbirth.
“unique one-time events.”
In that case, everything that you and the other IDiots assert about ID cannot be replicated, tested, or falsified.
By the way, precisely what are the “unique one time events” in evolution?
“It went from an interesting research program to a populist anti-evolution campaign that often recycles arguments directly from vintage creationism. Maybe that’s my naïveté shining through again, but I really don’t think that ID was intended to be just a disguised form of creationism to circumvent court rulings against religion in science classrooms. I’m certain that many of the good folks in the ID movement really do want to help develop a good alternative to evolution, and I applaud them for that. I hope that ID can find its way again. I really do.”
The ID agenda was ALWAYS (and still is) about imposing a dishonest dominionist creationist authoritarian theocracy on everyone on Earth, and it has never had anything to do with science and reality. Wood is way beyond naive.
It seems very doubthful that Behe even in the early days really thought he had an argument, at least not an argument that would provide a research program. ‘Darwin’s Black Box’ is a long diatribe against evolution, and fun reading as a classical textbook how to write propaganda, but it does not advance any ID research program whatsoever. Behe must have known that.
ID was intended to be just a disguised form of creationism to circumvent court rulings against religion in science classrooms – that’s all.
No, the problem is that you IDiots are lying about your agenda, and judge Jones was smart enough to see that. He also has the integrity to uphold the law, which is his job.
So, when are you IDiots going to get around to studying design and answering those questions? “God did it” or “the designer did it” is a useless answer.
Proves?
Are you claiming that biological evolution is archaeology and forensics? And who’s “us”? Your constant use of the words “we” and “us” must be because you want to believe (and convince others) that you are an important part of science, and that everyone else agrees with your bald assertions. Boy are you deluded.
Why don’t you tell “us” what questions you have ever actually answered about the diversity of life, the origin of life, the origin of the universe, the “orbital mechanics” of planets, moons, and stars, or ANYTHING else?
Actually, science has answered lots of questions about how, when, and where. Just for fun, why don’t you try answering the “why” questions? Why are there humans? Why are there spiders? Why are there planets? Why are there diseases? Why are there tornadoes? Why is there death? Why are you a muslim creationist IDiot? Why are you afraid of clowns?
I.D. implicitly claims that it does.
I note that you’ve avoided commenting on your contradiction. But this stuff belongs in the Sandbox anyway. /O.T.
Geez please present a testable hypothesis wrt materialism.
And I cannot comment on an alleged contradiction- especially one tat exists only in your mind.
Actually everything we say can be tested and falsified or confirmed.
Joe, the whole point about I.D. is that it regards materialism as not only testable, but potentially falsifiable. See my latest comment on the Sandbox.
You can’t say if the change was due to necessity and chance if the OoL was not due to necessity and chance.