[Marxism-Thaxis] Islamic creationism- Boston Globe; definition of science; law and atheism
This article prompted me to look at the wikipedia article on intelligent design. The struggle with the intelligent design advocates pushes the scientific community to arrive at a succinct definition of science, copied below. Also, the fight forces the federal courts to take a side in the dispute. As I think about it, doesn't this also force the federal courts to make explicit that the law is atheistic ? When the federal judge defines science as not have religious or supernatural aspects this has significance not only for what is taught in science classes in schools, but for what is permissible as evidence in court certainly in cases that involve scientific expertise. But doesn't it have significance for cases that don't involve scientifc expertise ? I have often said on this and other lists, that (American ? Western ?) law is materialist. Also, at the origin of modern natural scientists use the law as a metaphor for natural science fundamental ideas, such as natural laws. Indirectly, the dispute between the intelligent designers and natural scientists flushes out the law and courts as atheists and materialists. God or other supernatural claims are not admissable as evidence in courts. Of course, the usual legal case concerns much more mundane matters than the origin of species - landlord-tenant, murder, illegal dumping, contract disputes, personal injuries, divorce, perjury. Yet, God or supernatural causes is not pleadable in law or facts in these. In divorce, the fact that a parent regularly takes children to church or another religious place can be a factor favoring them for custody over the other parent, but that is very small exception and confined to the earthly non-supernatural activities of religion. Also, interesting in this discussion, the intelligent designers refer to the natural scientists' underlying philosophy as materialism. Of course , they intend it derogatorily, but it is a revisiting of the old terminology of the dispute Feuerbach, Engels and Marx, et al., had with the idealists many of whom were theists, materalism vs idealism. Charles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design -clip- Defining science The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena and acquiring new knowledge of the natural world without assuming the existence or nonexistence of the supernatural, an approach sometimes called methodological naturalism. Intelligent design proponents believe that this can be equated to materialist metaphysical naturalism, and have often said that not only is their own position scientific, but it is even more scientific than evolution, and that they want a redefinition of science as a revived natural theology or natural philosophy to allow non-naturalistic theories such as intelligent design.[170] This presents a demarcation problem, which in the philosophy of science is about how and where to draw the lines around science.[171] For a theory to qualify as scientific,[172][173][174] it is expected to be: Consistent Parsimonious (sparing in its proposed entities or explanations, see Occam's Razor) Useful (describes and explains observed phenomena, and can be used predictively) Empirically testable and falsifiable (see Falsifiability) Based on multiple observations, often in the form of controlled, repeated experiments Correctable and dynamic (modified in the light of observations that do not support it) Progressive (refines previous theories) Provisional or tentative (is open to experimental checking, and does not assert certainty) For any theory, hypothesis or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, and ideally all, of these criteria. The fewer criteria are met, the less scientific it is; and if it meets only a few or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Typical objections to defining intelligent design as science are that it lacks consistency,[175] violates the principle of parsimony,[176] is not scientifically useful,[177] is not falsifiable,[178] is not empirically testable,[179] and is not correctable, dynamic, provisional or progressive.[180][181][182] Critics also say that the intelligent design doctrine does not meet the Daubert Standard,[183] the criteria for scientific evidence mandated by the US Supreme Court. The Daubert Standard governs which evidence can be considered scientific in United States federal courts and most state courts. Its four criteria are: The theoretical underpinnings of the methods must yield testable predictions by means of which the theory could be falsified. The methods should preferably be published in a peer-reviewed journal. There should be a known rate of error that can be used in evaluating the results. The methods should be generally accepted within the relevant scientific community. In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, using these criteria and others mentioned above, Judge Jones ruled that ... we have addressed the seminal
[Marxism-Thaxis] Islamic creationism- Boston Globe
This is another interesting section of the wiki intelligent design article, which, by the way , is obviously written by an opponent(s) of intelligent design. CB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design#Defining_science Intelligence as an observable quality The phrase intelligent design makes use of an assumption of the quality of an observable intelligence, a concept that has no scientific consensus definition. William Dembski, for example, has written that Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic signature. The characteristics of intelligence are assumed by intelligent design proponents to be observable without specifying what the criteria for the measurement of intelligence should be. Dembski, instead, asserts that in special sciences ranging from forensics to archaeology to SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), appeal to a designing intelligence is indispensable.[201] How this appeal is made and what this implies as to the definition of intelligence are topics left largely unaddressed. Seth Shostak, a researcher with the SETI Institute, refuted Dembski's comparison of SETI and intelligent design, saying that intelligent design advocates base their inference of design on complexity—the argument being that some biological systems are too complex to have been made by natural processes—while SETI researchers are looking primarily for artificiality.[202] Critics say that the design detection methods proposed by intelligent design proponents are radically different from conventional design detection, undermining the key elements that make it possible as legitimate science. Intelligent design proponents, they say, are proposing both searching for a designer without knowing anything about that designer's abilities, parameters, or intentions (which scientists do know when searching for the results of human intelligence), as well as denying the very distinction between natural/artificial design that allows scientists to compare complex designed artifacts against the background of the sorts of complexity found in nature.[203] As a means of criticism, certain skeptics have pointed to a challenge of intelligent design derived from the study of artificial intelligence. The criticism is a counter to intelligent design claims about what makes a design intelligent, specifically that no preprogrammed device can be truly intelligent, that intelligence is irreducible to natural processes.[204] This claim is similar in type to an assumption of Cartesian dualism that posits a strict separation between mind and the material Universe. However, in studies of artificial intelligence, while there is an implicit assumption that supposed intelligence or creativity of a computer program is determined by the capabilities given to it by the computer programmer, artificial intelligence need not be bound to an inflexible system of rules. Rather, if a computer program can access randomness as a function, this effectively allows for a flexible, creative, and adaptive intelligence. Evolutionary algorithms, a subfield of machine learning (itself a subfield of artificial intelligence), have been used to mathematically demonstrate that randomness and selection can be used to evolve complex, highly adapted structures that are not explicitly designed by a programmer. Evolutionary algorithms use the Darwinian metaphor of random mutation, selection and the survival of the fittest to solve diverse mathematical and scientific problems that are usually not solvable using conventional methods. Intelligence derived from randomness is essentially indistinguishable from the innate intelligence associated with biological organisms, and poses a challenge to the intelligent design conception that intelligence itself necessarily requires a designer. ^^^ CB: I'd say the problem with this approach is that there _is_ a designer, the programmer, initiating the whole thing and even designing the undesigning aspects ( randomness, selection ,mutation) . Intelligent design people can say, see there is a designer ultimately behind your whole thing there and substitute God in for that ultimate human designer in this computer model. Cognitive science continues to investigate the nature of intelligence along these lines of inquiry. The intelligent design community, for the most part, relies on the assumption that intelligence is readily apparent as a fundamental and basic property of complex systems.[205] ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Islamic creationism- Boston Globe
Islams Darwin problem In the Muslim world, creationism is on the rise By Drake Bennett October 25, 2009 Three weeks ago, with much fanfare, a team of scientists unveiled the fossil skeleton of Ardi, a 4-foot-tall female primate who lived and died 4.4 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. According to her discoverers, Ardi - short for Ardipithecus ramidus, her species - is our oldest known ancestor. She predated Lucy, the fossilized Australopithecus afarensis that previously had claimed the title, by 1.2 million years. The papers announcing the find described a transitional specimen, with the long arms and short legs of an ape and strong, grasping big toes suited to life in the trees, but also a pelvis whose shape allowed her to walk upright on the ground below. That, at least, is what one discovered by following the coverage in the Western press, or by reading the scientific papers themselves, published in the journal Science. If you learned about Ardi on the Arabic-language version of Al Jazeeras website, however, you discovered something else: The find disproved the theory of evolution. (Read more here: http://tinyurl.com/yzqzqal) Best Weight Loss Program - Click Here! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTFoYdBZ9pPGkfMXtXjRrmJhOjXvWCa5ifvcmLgrGF5VQcrHKOZ7Qc/ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
