Over at this post, I found this commentary about Intelligent Design:
Suppose Fred and Barney find a funny-shaped rock and Fred says that the rock is natural while Barney says that it is man-made. Fred can't just end the argument by saying, "I'm sorry, the theory that the rock is man-made is not falsifiable so that is not a scientific theory."Is that right? If Fred does say that, is that science?
And by the way, do I have to be a raging fundamentalist Xtian to even pose the question?
While I'm sure that the illustration was well-intended, it doesn't really capture the argument in favor of Intelligent Design.
Allow me.
Fred and Barney, two associate professors of geology, are walking along the Giant's Causeway, looking at the amazing polygonal basalt pillars. Barney points out that so many exactly regular pillars must have an intelligent designer, because that kind of regularity is traditionally associated with man-made objects. Fred replies that while it is true that regular polygons are often made by humans, they can also be formed by processes that are entirely unintelligent, and in fact the mechanism by which these pillars formed into regular polygons is well understood. Fred goes on to point out that just because something "looks like it should be designed" doesn't mean that it must be.
Barney points to a particular column that has seven sides, instead of the usual six, and demands to know, then, why this particular pillar has seven sides instead of six, if a well-understood natural process created them. Fred says that he doesn't know why this particular pillar has seven sides, but the process by which the sides vary is not the least bit unusual.
Barney cries out in triumph! "Well, there's a huge gap in your theory, my friend! You can't explain why this pillar has seven sides, so your entire theory about crystalizing lava is full of holes, and isn't the least bit scientific! It's just dogma!" Fred, a very patient man, points out that even if this was an example of a gap in understanding, which it really isn't, a gap in knowledge is not the same thing as clear contradictory data, and that it would be absurd to throw out all of vulcanology because of a gap in data.
Further, Fred explains, even if a truly contradictory data point is discovered, it is rarely the case that such data requires an entire scentific theory to be discarded in its entirety, as Barney is proposing.
"Well, there's at least a controversy, and I demand that you teach the controversy!" Barney says. Fred points out that the only reason the "controversy" exists because Barney has created it, and that's not the same as an honest dispute between opposing theories. If every single possible supposition, no matter how, ah, non-standard was taught in school, science class wouldn't get beyond whether or not to do your exams in pen or pencil.
"You're just being blind and dogmatic!" Barney cries out, and races off to publish papers about how the pillars were clearly designed by intelligence because they look like they should be. Barney is denied tenure and the papers aren't published, because they don't add anything to the science of geology. Barney claims that this is a clear example of the dogmatic anti-Christianity of the scentific establishment, even though he's the one who brought up the whole Christian thing and he claims that his theory isn't the least bit Christian, anyway.
Barney does, however, go on Fox, where the interviewer pats him on the head and tells him how horrible it was that he was denied tenure because of anti-Christian bias, even though later in the same program the interviewer complains about "moonbat" professors that can't be gotten rid of because of the stupid system of "tenure."
The Missouri Board of Education passes a regulation requiring that both views of how the Giant's Causeway was created be taught in school. The Board claims this has absolutely nothing to do with religion, even though they have never expressed any interest whatsoever in any other scientific "controversy," real or imagined, and they kept trying to get the "God Created the Giant's Causeway" hypothesis taught before the Supreme Court slapped them down.
Fred, tired of spending his time explaining to reporters why there is no real controversy among scentists instead of actually doing research, moves to France. "Good riddance!" cry the Intelligent Designers. The USGS closes down its earthquake prediction programs due to lack of qualified geologists, and Missouri is devastated by an 9.0 earthquake on the New Madrid fault.
Scientsts everywhere, reading about this earthquake, wonder if there might be something to this intelligent design stuff, after all.
posted 07:49