Why Intelligent Design Isn't a Scientific Theory

[Jacurutu]

Intelligent design is not a scientific theory for several reasons.

1) Any scientific theory must falsifiable. This means that it has to be something that can be tested and proven wrong if it is indeed wrong. There is no means of doing this with the "theory" of intelligent design.
2) Any scientific theory must be parsimonious, in the sense that it must be the simplest and most realistic explanation. Now, I know that many people might say that it doesn't get more simple than saying "God created everything." However, based on scientific observation, does it seem more probable that the universe and all living things were spontaneously generated at once or that modern life is the result of the processes of natural selection and random mutation over the last three billion years? We can rule out the first simply by the chemical law that mass and energy are neither created nor destroyed (although they may be interchanged). The second possibility is supported by mounds of empirical evidence.
3) Any scientific theory should allow you to make predictions. With evolution, you can do this; with intelligent design, you cannot.
4) Any evidence must be reproduceable. There are countless experiments testing the tenets of evolutionary theory; for example, you could test random mutation by inducing mutation in yeast with UV radiation (the same radiation that comes from our sun) and observing the phenotypic variation after plating these samples and allowing colonies to grow. Likewise, you can induce mutation in more advanced animals and observing the phenotypic effects of those mutations. The results of these tests will be consistent over time. The other bases of evolution are quite testable and reproducable as well.

Anyway, I've seen plenty of people claim that evolution and intelligent design are equally viable scientific theories, but intelligent design does not meet the qualifications to be considered a scientific theory.

My question is: how do people still want to call ID a scientific theory and teach it alongside evolution when one is faith and the other is a true scientific theory?

[trillian]

Sure, but it tends to raise people's awareness of the fact that observations of apparent providence easily fool us into thinking there's a wilful intelligence behind it all. Evolution by natural selection leaves all the design-work at the drawing board to the individual organisms themselves in a free-market economy of life and death. Both wonderful and awful (terrifying) "designs" emerge from this process which clearly has no guiding scruples other than those created on the ground as it goes along.

As I replied in my previous post, the origin of the dynamics of the universe that permit all this busy evolution on the ground is something that evidently arises from Spontaneous Symmetry breaking -- a process that couldn't be more removed from the careful manipulation of some divine hand. The merging of electromagnetism and weak nuclear forces into the electroweak force already represents a successful restoration of one primitive symmetry, and the merging of the electroweak with quantum chromodynamics will make the restoration complete -- a goal otherwise known as "grand unification" which, if it can be made to include gravity, will represent a "theory of everything". Note however that we don't have to wait for all that to happen as it's the identification of an arbitrary process (spontaneous symmetry breaking) that argues strongly against a concerted attempt to engineer a particular set of particles and forces.

Stepping outside of our apparently Intelligently Designed universe we might see one of two things which both have an identical array of powers to create all that we see around us today: one is the hyper-intelligent designer-creator God (with no origin of his own) the other is a landscape of other kinds of universe that have crystallized out of some pure form (perfect vacuum perhaps)

In general relativity, spacetime can be empty of matter or radiation and still contain energy stored in its curvature. Uncaused, random quantum fluctuations in a flat, empty, featureless spacetime can produce local regions with positive or negative curvature. This is called the "spacetime foam" and the regions are called "bubbles of false vacuum." Wherever the curvature is positive a bubble of false vacuum will, according to Einstein's equations, exponentially inflate. In 10-42 seconds the bubble will expand to the size of a proton and the energy within will be sufficient to produce all the mass of the universe.

The bubbles start out with no matter, radiation, or force fields and maximum entropy. They contain energy in their curvature, and so are a "false vacuum." As they expand, the energy within increases exponentially. This does not violate energy conservation since the false vacuum has a negative pressure (believe me, this is all follows from the equations that Einstein wrote down in 1916) so the expanding bubble does work on itself.

As the bubble universe expands, a kind of friction occurs in which energy is converted into particles. The temperature then drops and a series of spontaneous symmetry breaking processes occurs, as in a magnet cooled below the Curie point and a essentially random structure of the particles and forces appears. Inflation stops and we move into the more familiar big bang.

The forces and particles that appear are more-or-less random, governed only by symmetry principles (like the conservation principles of energy and momentum) that are also not the product of design but exactly what one has in the absence of design.

The so-called "anthropic coincidences," in which the particles and forces of physics seem to be "fine-tuned" for the production of Carbon-based life are explained by the fact that the spacetime foam has an infinite number of universes popping off, each different. We just happen to be in the one where the forces and particles lent themselves to the generation of carbon and other atoms with the complexity necessary to evolve living and thinking organisms.

Why postulate a difficult concept like an intelligent designer when so many well-understood principles of self-organization are known about today? Surely the excuse was only valid prior to the physics of the 20th century?

Well - maybe one last post on this issue. As I assumed you have read all of my previous post - that essentially, there is no material evidence for either intelligent design or non-intelligent design. Well done to yourself for concluding that there are really only 2 ways of defining creation. You now have a choice - we have free will don't we? (or is it destined that you will be forever atheist because "apparently" every cause and effect can be predetermined by calculation oh physical properties at any point in time?).

I choose to believe in an intelligent designer because I know that God exists and I am now convicted of this belief as I believe in my own existence. Intelligent design is a concept so profound and yet so simple but in perfect unison. I have gone into atheism far enough to know that well known concepts which you speak of still fall very short of explaining the most important questions of our lives. You may continue waiting for proof/disproof but you will eventually discover that God cannot be proved or disproved in any theoretical or practical scientific sense. As I have found for myself, at the peak of atheism, you will find God.

cheers

trillian

[Goat]

I choose to believe in an intelligent designer because I know that God exists and I am now convicted of this belief as I believe in my own existence. Intelligent design is a concept so profound and yet so simple but in perfect unison. I have gone into atheism far enough to know that well known concepts which you speak of still fall very short of explaining the most important questions of our lives. You may continue waiting for proof/disproof but you will eventually discover that God cannot be proved or disproved in any theoretical or practical scientific sense. As I have found for myself, at the peak of atheism, you will find God.

cheers

trillian

And that is why 'Intelligent Design" is not science, but it is faith and religion. Science only deals with what there can actually be evidence for. Religion deals with faith.

[McCulloch]

You now have a choice - we have free will don't we? (or is it destined that you will be forever atheist because "apparently" every cause and effect can be predetermined by calculation oh physical properties at any point in time?).

There is a vast difference between not having free will and not knowing the future. Until there is some evidence that there is any free agent in the universe, I must remain a determinist. However, I do not know if I am destined to remain an atheist or that you are destined to remain faithful. There are way to many unknowns and variables to even estimate the probabilities of either of these outcomes.

I choose to believe in an intelligent designer because I know that God exists and I am now convicted of this belief as I believe in my own existence.

Might I suggest that this is an hyperbole. You cannot doubt your own existence. You can at least remember when you did not believe in a God, or imagine what it is like not to believe in a God.

Intelligent design is a concept so profound and yet so simple but in perfect unison. I have gone into atheism far enough to know that well known concepts which you speak of still fall very short of explaining the most important questions of our lives.

Science does not give meaning to life, therefore religion is true?

You may continue waiting for proof/disproof but you will eventually discover that God cannot be proved or disproved in any theoretical or practical scientific sense.

Yet you assert that the existence of God can be known with absolute certainty. In what sense other than theoretical, practical and scientific, have you proven God?

[Confused]

You are confusing religion with science. You yourself said the Nobel winners of 2006 proved there was a beginning to the universe. To do this, they must have used some method of science: cosmology, physics, archaelogy, paleontology, chemistry, biology, etc..... Great. But then never asserted what initiated the beginning because based on the scientific method, we cannot currently test such a hypothesis. That doesn't mean future technology won't be able to.

Now, that being said, read over all the posts in this thread and learn that what you postulate: God created the means for evolution and show me where you can provide scientific proof for this. If you cannot, then intelligent design isn't a theory. It is nothing more than dogma. For it to even be considered a hypothesis you need to first find facts from observations. Where are the direct observations to the witness of God? (not some mythical story in a book that cannot be correlated with validity or reliabilty using the scientific method). Where can I go to visually observe this God?

You are confusing science with theology. For ID to be considered science, it must adhere to the scientific method and meet the criteria set forth in the amicus curiae. It fails.

I'm not confusing science and religion at all, they are inherently related and inseperable. Yes, my assertion that God created everything has no material proof whatsoever in the context of modern science and it would be considered illogical or lunacy. But what I am trying to get at for the post I was replying to is that evolution cannot be used to explain creation - even when I was atheist - I knew evolution did not suffice for creation. As to you, my belief in God is an assumption but so is anyone else's theory about the big bang or other explanation. like yourself - there was a time when I was not willing to accept the God answer even if it meant that i would leave it unexplained. Because essentially, both sides of the argument are assumptions we can never get anywhere unless there is scientific proof. As far as scientific methods go today - the answer is that we don't know and there should be an extremely large consensus here within the atheist community. Will it be a matter of time/tech advancement before there will be a proof /disproof?

I'll leave it there and I concede at this level that we won't get anywhere in terms of proving anything. But I personally think you need to be atheist for a bit longer to believe in God - sounds like an irony but it's not, that's what happened to me. I use to think exactly like you did, I had the same arguments, same tone, same scientific reasoning (i'm a programmer), same everything except there came a day when my atheist beliefs collapsed before me and what was illogical became logical. What was logical became illogical. According to Richard Dawkins, a virus has plagued my brain and I'm a lunatic but I'm as healthy as ever.

I hope it happens to you as well and you will fully understand what I just said. I'm happy to leave it at that.

Evolution doesn't try to explain the creation of the universe. That is more in the realm of theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, cosmology, etc... Your entire premise fails in that one statement.

Do I think you are a lunatic, no. I don't make assumptions like this without some valid proof. You haven't posted enough yet for me to make an assumption one way or the other. Regardless, even lunatics can make valid points. So even if at some point I consider you to be one, I will still look to find value in your posts. So we can negate that here and now.

Now, in regards to science and religion being inherently related and inseparable, can you show me how relgion meets the criteria of the amicus curiae to be even vaguely related to science. Or can you show me how science meets any criteria in the bible to be considered vaguely related to religion?

As for my foundation in atheism. I am glad you found a foundation other than it to make you at peace. However, that hardly makes it real or logical. I don't read much of what Dawkins writes in regards to your "virus". I can only say that if God is what has made you enjoy life, be happy, find purpose and meaning, then your path is set and everything you considered illogical is now logical will ascribe to this train of thought. I don't say this in a negative tone. It is merely truth that our beliefs will affect our truth. Sometimes this is positive, sometimes it is negative. Sometimes it is both. If you have evaluated all the evidence and come to the conclusion you have reached, then be at comfort with it. But if you wish to post to me, expect me to challenge you on it. Not to try to discredit you (please don't read anything into my posts other than what I write, they are seldom attacks, but when they are meant to be sarcastic I will denote such) but to evaluate my own truths to see if they are still logical and valid. The point of debating is to seek truth, not to win or lose. I look forward to your future challenges.

[QED]

Well - maybe one last post on this issue.

Hey! You're free to come and go as you please here

As I assumed you have read all of my previous post - that essentially, there is no material evidence for either intelligent design or non-intelligent design. Well done to yourself for concluding that there are really only 2 ways of defining creation.

I know that natural sources of creation are plentiful. If I had never seen natural creativity in action I might be tempted to think that all creativity stems from the same sort of intelligence that conscious beings possess. This raises my awareness of the potential for a natural design processes in a way that couldn't really be envisaged a hundred years ago.

You now have a choice - we have free will don't we? (or is it destined that you will be forever atheist because "apparently" every cause and effect can be predetermined by calculation oh physical properties at any point in time?).

Oh I'm sure we have free will thanks to the principles of Quantum Mechanics. I'm not quite so sure it's appropriate for me to be labelled an Atheist though. If you define atheism as not believing in a "personal God" then I guess I'll have to go along with you for now.

I choose to believe in an intelligent designer because I know that God exists

That, I assume, is one of those things where "everything seems to fall into place" right?

and I am now convicted of this belief as I believe in my own existence.

Which implies that you "experience" God in a similar way to the way you experience everything else. Yet you already said that you agreed there is no "material evidence" of God for us to experience. Please forgive my slowness here but I'm left wondering if there's any real meaning in your statement.

Intelligent design is a concept so profound and yet so simple but in perfect unison.

ID says "we think this or that structure couldn't have gotten here without the intervention of a intelligent, thinking, agency to help it along." It doesn't say why natural ordering processes wouldn't be adequate, nor can it even point to a general principle whereby we should expect natural ordering to fail. It's simply a hangover from pre-Darwinian times when nobody could see how self-organization could work.

I have gone into atheism far enough to know that well known concepts which you speak of still fall very short of explaining the most important questions of our lives.

Yet you haven't responded to the observation that an uncaused, eternal, metauniverse has precisely the same properties as an uncaused, eternal God when it comes to having the capacity to serve-up a universe like ours. I'm afraid to say that "falling short" in this case looks very much like "failing to fulfill my wishes".

You may continue waiting for proof/disproof but you will eventually discover that God cannot be proved or disproved in any theoretical or practical scientific sense. As I have found for myself, at the peak of atheism, you will find God.

I'm trying to figure out how the "peak of Atheism" could be reached without ever understanding the implications of the Weak Anthropic Principle. I think this is significant because people typically walk around with the great weight of all the apparent providence in the world resting heavily on their minds. I suspect that you were never properly relieved of that unnecessary burden.

[island]

when so many well-understood principles of self-organization

QED, you're off your rocker if you think that anthropic selection effects define a "self organizing principle".

A cosmological principle would say that this is a stupid idea anyway, because universes would *not* tend to be different from each other... to the contrary they would tend toward uniformity... duh.

The multiverse is the single biggest cop-out on first principles and causality that science has ever assumed without proof.



Vic Stenger, the ideologically pre-motivated, said:
The so-called "anthropic coincidences," in which the particles and forces of physics seem to be "fine-tuned" for the production of Carbon-based life are explained by the fact that the spacetime foam has an infinite number of universes popping off, each different. We just happen to be in the one where the forces and particles lent themselves to the generation of carbon and other atoms with the complexity necessary to evolve living and thinking organisms.

But that doesn't explain how the observed configuration satisfies the least action principle.

Rather, it is a cop-out on the fact that science has failed to derive the configuration of the observed universe from first principles, so don't *pretend* that "selection effects" are a Cosmological Structure Principle, or you're in denial of the facts.

[Confused]

when so many well-understood principles of self-organization

QED, you're off your rocker if you think that anthropic selection effects define a "self organizing principle".

A physics principle would say that this is a stupid idea anyway, because universes would not tend to be different from each other... to the contrary they would tend toward uniformity... duh.

The multiverse is the single biggest cop-out on first principles and causality that science has ever assumed without proof.



Vic Stenger, the ideologically pre-motivated, said:
The so-called "anthropic coincidences," in which the particles and forces of physics seem to be "fine-tuned" for the production of Carbon-based life are explained by the fact that the spacetime foam has an infinite number of universes popping off, each different. We just happen to be in the one where the forces and particles lent themselves to the generation of carbon and other atoms with the complexity necessary to evolve living and thinking organisms.

But that doesn't explain how the observed configuration satisfies the least action principle.

Rather, it is a cop-out on the fact that science has failed to derive the configuration of the observed universe from first principles, so don't *pretend* that "selection effects" are a Cosmological Structure Principles, or you're in denial of the facts.

Wow, lots of strong assertions here. Care to back them up with some, oh I don't know, evidence?

[island]

Confused, I stated commonly known facts that I'm sure that QED is aware of, even if you think that it's okay to discuss this without knowing them.

[Confused]

Confused, I stated commonly known facts that I'm sure that QED is aware of, even if you think that it's okay to discuss this without knowing them.

Fair enough. I would only add one thing. In 2003 Susskind led a train of thought that now views the megaverse theory as one in which many pocket universes exist upon the Cosmic Landscape (name of his book, go figure) and that each of these can in fact have their own laws of physics, elementary particles, etc.... Granted, I am not as well versed in Quantum Mechanics as QED, so I will defer to him. I simply detest someone making inflammatory statements as to ones state of mind (off your rocker) without providing any proof that it is valid. But as this was an insult to QED, I will do as you request and allow QED to respond.

In regards to what is commonly known facts, if such was the case, then why exactly is it that QED obviously and quite blantantly ignored them? Or does he truly not know them?

[island]

While I'm at it, QED, I noticed the other day in the "Book Review Forum", that you quoted Stenger as promoting silicon based life as an alternative life form to carbon based life, but you should know that his ideological predispositioning means he isn't going to know that the observed universe is 10:1 carbon-rich, but carbon chains and molocules also form more readily when those conditions are reversed, (10:1 in favor of silicon)... like it is ON EARTH!

So there is absolutely no reason to say what ole Vic said, per the known physics.

Vic Stenger has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not an honest scientific source for refutation... which is not to say that refutation can't be done.