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Nov. 19, 2005 Imagine that you left the house a mess, you know, nasty. You didn’t flush the toilets, all your dirty close were out, half eaten food was rotting on dirty plates on the counter, and your dog had poop on the floor you hadn’t cleaned up. You come home after work, like a pig returning to a sty, open up the door and…da dah, spotless! I mean Mary Poppins spoon full of sugar clean, Mr. Bald Head Clean clean, brand new car smell clean. So naturally you wonder what happened, I mean you have no idea, so you go out and you see two of your neighbors both of whom said they watched your house the whole day. You ask the first neighbor what happened, and he says, “Man there was a serious earthquake right under the foundation of your house. When your house was shaking, I saw a UFO beam down and alien. It flushed the toilet, dumped a mop out that shook over the floors and cleaned them, dumped the dishes in the sink and caused the water to rinses them off and the flipped them back in the counter and beamed back up. That is why, homie, your house is so clean.” You ask your second neighbor and he says, “Man, I saw your mom go in there this morning, she was in there for a minute, then she came out with a bunch of garbage and stuff and bounced.” Now out of these two theories, both of which in a world of infinite possibilities can potentially occur, which one is more likely to have happened, the earthquake theory, or the mom came and cleaned up your nasty mess theory? It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to select theory number two. At it’s core, this is the basics of what is known as the principle of Occam’s Razor, which serves as the cornerstone of the scientific method. Occam’s Razor states: “given two equally predictive theories, choose the simpler.” With Wikipedia stating: “Because there are an infinite number of theories which fit any body of evidence equally well, and all make radically different predictions, if science cannot choose between them, then science can never determine any useful theories. So far the only known way to usefully choose between the infinite number of theories which fit a body of evidence is Occam’s Razor. For this reason Occam’s razor is seen as an indispensable aspect of science, without which science ceases to function entirely. (Wiki)” In reading much of the debate and discussion on intelligent design, one thing is for certain and that is most people have no idea what intelligent design is. Many of the arguments against intelligent design are based upon defeating a premise that intelligent design doesn’t hold to, and that is that you can prove who and what God is. You have heard them, even in here, “ID isn’t science, it isn’t capable of proving God, and therefore ID belongs in a philosophy class instead of the science class”. They are correct, the finite nature of humanity can not prove NOR disprove who and what God is outside of faith, and if that was the intent of intelligent design, I would agree with their argument on philosophy class versus science. But that is not the nature of the ID argument. This is the nature of the ID argument according to one of its leading scientist and proponents, William Dembski: “…in Signs of Intelligence claims “Proponents of Intelligent Design regard it as a scientific research program that investigates the effects of intelligent causes. Note that Intelligent Design studies the effects of intelligent causes and not intelligent causes per se.” In his view, questions concerning the identity of a designer fall outside the realm of the idea, since one cannot test for the identity of influences exterior to a closed system from within.” Now of course there are many scientific theories behind why he, among other scientist advance this theory, and I won’t bore you with them, but the core principle of ID is NOT to prove or disprove who and what God is, but to point out and study the effects of what CAN be studied, which is systems theory and behavior and deductively reason, as good theories do, as to why these patterns exist. Does intelligent design have its critics at all levels of the game, of course. As a point of fact though, what theory doesn’t have critics? The simple critique of the theory by other scientist doesn’t preclude a theory from being true or false as the nature of most theory is that it can not be definitively true or false, but simply predictable and reasonable based upon the facts. Again, according to Wiki a theory is: “In various sciences, a theory is a logically self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of a certain natural or social phenomenon, thus either originating from observable facts or supported by them (see scientific method). In this sense, a theory is a systematic and formalized _expression of all previous observations made that is predictive, logical, testable, and has never been falsified.” So the question has to become has either evolution or intelligent design been falsified? I would argue no. In terms of evolution, every time a critique, such as the huge gap in the fossil record, better known as the absence of transitional fossils, occurs, the scientific community who believes in evolutionary theory adjusts the theory to beat the critique. In the attacks on ID it is cast off pompously as junk science, and there have been legitimate critiques on its underpinning theories, but neither has definitively been deemed false. So now we have an argument between those who wish to teach intelligent design in the school system along side the theory of evolution. This idea is deemed so offensive and wrong by some not because of scientific principles, but because ideological positions, and slippery slope arguments that fear intelligent design as a sneaky way to convert their child to religion. I understand that fear, but I disagree, if taught in a tasteful way, similar to the way we don’t expect evolution to be taught to advance atheism, then it is what it is, just another advanced scientific theory amongst the millions that are out there. What’s the fuss? Is it simpler to believe that infinite causation created life, and that life amazingly, and luckily through adaptation, spawned from a simple single cell organism to the millions upon millions of plant and animal life that we see on the earth? That each species we see, including man, occurred by macro adaptation and chance, to the point where we are now? Or is it simpler to believe that order is the process of intelligence, and that what we see in the numerous plant and animal species was purposefully created and designed by something intelligent? Hummm…was it your mom, or the alien and the earthquake that cleaned your house? Occam’s Razor. ------------ About the author: Dell Gines is a columnist for the Omaha Star, Nebraska’s only black newspaper, and blogs at www.dellgines.com. Email: dellgines@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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