Posted by Jim Lindgren:
Karl Popper & Intelligent Design.--
Rand Simberg has a good [1]post on Intelligent Design (ID) (tip to
[2]Instapundit):
How science works is by putting forth theories that are
disprovable, not ones that are provable. When all other theories
have been disproven, those still standing are the ones adopted by
most scientists. ID is not a scientific theory, because it fails
the test of being disprovable (or to be more precise,
non-falsifiable), right out of the box. If Hugh [Hewitt] doesn't
believe this, then let him postulate an experiment that one could
perform, even in thought, that would show it to be false. ID simply
says, "I'm not smart enough to figure out how this structure could
evolve, therefore there must have been a designer." That's not
science--it's simply an invocation of a deus ex machina, whether
its proponents are willing to admit it or not. And it doesn't
belong in a science classroom, except as an example of what's not
science.
I've made my position on this subject quite clear in the past. ID,
and creationism in general should be able to be taught in the
public schools. Just not in a science class--they need to be
reserved for a class in comparative religions.
I agree both with Simberg's view of Intelligent Design and (generally)
with his view of science, though Simberg is talking about the older,
traditional view of how science works (the Karl Popper view). More
common these days is the Kuhnian view of science (anomalies, rather
than strict falsifiability)--and there are still other views of
science that are more akin to postmodernism. Much theorizing in the
social sciences these days follows more or less Milton Friedman's test
of a theory--whether it fits the data. One occasionally sees other
views, such as the plausibility or truth of the premises.
One thing that strikes me about Intelligent Design is that it must
have been much more intuitively appealing before the failure of
socialism. Socialism in the 1920s--1940s was in part based on the idea
that the world had become so complex that central planning was
necessary to deal with this complexity. Yet [3]Von Mises was arguing
just the opposite, that as the world became more elaborate, no one
could plan it. ID seems to be based on an assumption that most
conservatives reject in the economic sphere--that as the economy gets
more elaborate, to work well it must be the product of the intelligent
design of a master planner.
References
1. http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/004752.html#004752
2. http://instapundit.com/archives/020097.php
3. http://www.econlib.org/library/Mises/msStoc.html
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[email protected]
http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
