Dover Judge Rules Against Intelligent Design

[Abram]

My desk is also not a theory, does that mean that my desk is a fact? Jeez oh man, you are really stretching your Durex thin credibility to its maximum here.

B.

Maybe you missed the little guy laughing next to that comment?

Besides your desk is not a fact, it's only a digital simulation your mind has created to look like a desk. It may feel and look like it but it's only a bunch of Atoms connected that can be proved that there is more air mass then matter there.:biglaugh:


Now that's stretching the Durex real thin. "besides I wear magnums"

 

[linwood]

Science will stop being naturalistic the minute there is scientific evidence of the supernatural.

Actually I think it`s the opposite.
The moment there is evidence of the supernatural it will become part of nature.

 

[Æsahættr]

Actually I think it`s the opposite.
The moment there is evidence of the supernatural it will become part of nature.

Yes, that's probably a better way to think of it. I wonder in the hypothetical circumstance that science proves the existance of something that is fundamentally impossible to describe using science, whether that could be deemed to be part of the natural world or whether that would class as supernatural. But then again, if it can be proved to exist does that mean it must be possible to describe it to some degree? Hmmm.... yeah I think I'll go with you.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Actually I think it`s the opposite. The moment there is evidence of the supernatural it will become part of nature.

Very helpful! In fact, a good functional definition of the "supernatural" is that which is inaccessible to the tools and methods of scientific enquiry.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Maybe you missed the little guy laughing next to that comment?

Maybe you missed the question. Now, for the fourth time, you claim that:

"evolution is still a theroy. Just like ID is still a threoy"​

Please supply ID's "falsifiable hypothesis [that] can be generated and tested through controlled experiments, or be verified through empirical observation."

 

[Abram]

Maybe you missed the question. Now, for the fourth time, you claim that:

"evolution is still a theroy. Just like ID is still a threoy"​

Please supply ID's "falsifiable hypothesis [that] can be generated and tested through controlled experiments, or be verified through empirical observation."

please go see post #175... Thanks

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

please go see post #175... Thanks

You mean where you wrote:

So if it's not a theory then it must be fact... :biglaugh:

I think I've had just about enough of our discussions, Abram. I much prefer honest debate ...

 

[MdmSzdWhtGuy]

Naturalism isn't a basic premise of science as such. Science only assumes naturalism until proven otherwise, because it is the default position. The premise that you are reffering to is that science uses Occam's Razor, and places the burden of proof upon those trying to prove that something exists, rather than those trying to prove that it doesn't. Science will stop being naturalistic the minute there is scientific evidence of the supernatural.

Well then science appears to be safe, as there has never been any shred of scientific evidence for anything supernatural.

B.

 

[ChrisP]

Very helpful! In fact, a good functional definition of the "supernatural" is that which is inaccessible to the tools and methods of scientific enquiry.

This is true of Supernatural things. I think a better explanation of Linwoods point is that, what we consider to be supernatural now IS natural. We just don't understand how it interacts with the things we do understand.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I think a better explanation of Linwoods point is that, what we consider to be supernatural now IS natural. We just don't understand how it interacts with the things we do understand.

No. It is not.

 

[michel]

No. It is not.

I know that you are wiser than I Jay, but, what about the following hypothetical scenario:

Take a country which has not been explored; man lives in tribes deep in the forest. There has been no contact whatsoever between this tribe and the outside world. One day a group of them see a helicopter over the trees; one shouts "Magic!!!" and most likely they fall to the ground fearing this apparition ?

Feasible ? - I draw the example from one I actually know of. When in Africa, Dad had a friend who only had one eye; he had a prosthetic one, and a spare. One day, after cleaning the spare, he noticed his servants looking at the eye carefully and somewhat cautiously.

Being a quick thinker, he left his eye out in the middle of the house the next time he spent more than a day away (far down the railroad, mending tracks). When he came back, for the very first time, no food had ' misteriously disappeared' from his fridge, as it did whenever he had previously left his house in the hands of the servants.

One of the servants actually one day asked how he had managed to have a third eye, that he could leave unattended, and see through......

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Take a country which has not been explored; man lives in tribes deep in the forest. There has been no contact whatsoever between this tribe and the outside world. One day a group of them see a helicopter over the trees; one shouts "Magic!!!" and most likely they fall to the ground fearing this apparition? Feasible?

Yes. Therefore?

 

[michel]

Yes. Therefore?

Magic is synonynous with the supernatural ? sipernatural (The meaning that doesn't include a reference to God)departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit).

Would the natives not be thinking that the helicopter is supernatural ? - We know it isn't because whe know how a helicopter works.........but they don't Yet.


I was responding to your "Very helpful! In fact, a good functional definition of the "supernatural" is that which is inaccessible to the tools and methods of scientific enquiry."

 

[ChrisP]

No. It is not.

I'll take your word for it

You must spread some Karma around before giving it to michel again. Re: post 193

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Would the natives not be thinking that the helicopter is supernatural?

Yes. Is it possible that the advent of science has provided us with a better functional definition of "supernatural" than that available to members of some primitive and isolated tribe?

I was responding to your "Very helpful! In fact, a good functional definition of the "supernatural" is that which is inaccessible to the tools and methods of scientific enquiry."

No, actually you responded to (and quoted) my response in the following interchange:

I think a better explanation of Linwoods point is that, what we consider to be supernatural now IS natural. We just don't understand how it interacts with the things we do understand.

No. It is not.

ChrisP would have us accept the supernatural through the simple expedient of reclassifying it as natural. I maintain that the supernatural is delusion.

This is particularly true when we venture away from Eastern thought and toward the Abrahamic religions, each of which is predicated upon a Deity with the necessary attribute of being able to instantiate and arbitrarily abrogate natural law. The parallel here is not the tribal member who sees a helicopter, but his sister who makes trees uproot and levitate upon command. When ChrisP claims that "what we consider to be supernatural now IS natural", he is making a claim about YHWH/Jesus/ALLAH that I do not accept.

 

[ChrisP]

Yes. Is it possible that the advent of science has provided us with a better functional definition of "supernatural" than that available to members of some primitive and isolated tribe?

No, actually you responded to (and quoted) my response in the following interchange:ChrisP would have us accept the supernatural through the simple expedient of reclassifying it as natural. I maintain that the supernatural is delusion.

This is particularly true when we venture away from Eastern thought and toward the Abrahamic religions, each of which is predicated upon a Deity with the necessary attribute of being able to instantiate and arbitrarily abrogate natural law. The parallel here is not the tribal member who sees a helicopter, but his sister who makes trees uproot and levitate upon command. When ChrisP claims that "what we consider to be supernatural now IS natural", he is making a claim about YHWH/Jesus/ALLAH that I do not accept.

I make no such claim about YHWH or any other abrahamic god. I maintain that the world is a naturally occuring extension of energy flow. Anything that is formless and unassuming is obviously the greatest most intelligent thing there is.

 

[michel]

Yes. Is it possible that the advent of science has provided us with a better functional definition of "supernatural" than that available to members of some primitive and isolated tribe?

Yes, I would further suggest that every scientific discovery replace one 'supernatural' effect into an understandable scientic phenomenon.

No, actually you responded to (and quoted) my response in the following interchange:ChrisP would have us accept the supernatural through the simple expedient of reclassifying it as natural. I maintain that the supernatural is delusion.

Sorry, I see what you mean. However, you accepted the case of the helicopter, that was not delusional was it ?

This is particularly true when we venture away from Eastern thought and toward the Abrahamic religions, each of which is predicated upon a Deity with the necessary attribute of being able to instantiate and arbitrarily abrogate natural law. The parallel here is not the tribal member who sees a helicopter, but his sister who makes trees uproot and levitate upon command. When ChrisP claims that "what we consider to be supernatural now IS natural", he is making a claim about YHWH/Jesus/ALLAH that I do not accept.

As concerns YHWH/Jesus/ALLAH, I agree with you that there is no observable data.

 

[Fade]

No, evolution is still a theroy. Just like ID is still a threoy...

No, Evolution is a fact. Just because you are ignorant of the fact doesn't make you right. Yes there is a theory (a scientific theory) of Evolution put forward to explain the mechanisms of how evolution takes place. And no, ID is not a Scientific Theory.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I maintain that the world is a naturally occuring extension of energy flow.

<yawn> That's nice ... </yawn>

Anything that is formless and unassuming is obviously the greatest most intelligent thing there is.

:biglaugh: "obviously" :biglaugh:

 

[MdmSzdWhtGuy]

It is a bit sad, but probably inevetable, that these discussions always seem to devolve into 2 camps, one of which brings forth evidence which is falsifiable, or proven as much as possible by the scientific method, and another camp who generally wants to say "yeah, but I want to ignore all that and go with this fantastical story I heard on Sunday".

And before the theists jump down my throat, you have no idea how badly I want for there to be a God in the model of the New Testament God of Love mold. It is because I was not satisfied with what I was taught in church as a child and my observations of the hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty around me that I began my search into history and theology, logic and reason.

I began this search in the fervent hope that I would find the missing peices of the puzzle that would make all this stuff "click" for me, and allow me to come to know God. Sadly for me, the more I learned the farther I got away from the goal I was attempting to acheive. So far away, that I am now at the poin where I am baffled how anyone who has done any level of study into these subjects can say with any level of intellectual honesty that they are sure that there is an Abrahamic God and that He is a good or benevolent diety.

Back to the discussion at hand. Can anyone, anywhere prove to us that ID fits into the definition of a scientific theory? I think not. Haven't seen it here, haven't read about it anywhere else, but there are a ton of people out there who have been forced by science to admit that we don't have a young earth, who are still clinging to this ID stuff. How can clinging to a lie ever be a good thing? Positing that ID is science when it very clearly is not, is a lie. How can you, in good conscience, and with any degree of intellectual honesty say that ID needs to be in science class?

B.