I hope this post will enlighten you to how even what appears on the surface as a sound article is really very agenda driven. It does not find its source in truth, but more so to silence the attacks of evolution as a legitimate science. I am not sure who opened it, but the debate was ushered in hard core when a fundie evolutionists attempted to compare evolution with the law of gravity. We may never know who the originator of this fallacious argument was but they unleashed a barrage of misinformation to cloud the issue on what category the study of evolution, or creation for that matter, really falls into and what we can expect when it comes to "proofs".
NP, you are allowing Hawly's constant propaganda barage to cloud your judgement of me. While I do subscribe to many of the Discovery Institute Articles, more than 3/4 of knowledge on science comes from unbiased sources and I have never visited the ICR website or Harun Yahya, unless it was by accidentally clicking on one of Hawly's links. (FYI, my spelling of Hawly's name is a dig against her spelling "gawd". Classic.)
I would appreciate it if you try and do the same when posting articles for reference to an argument you have presented if possible. Sometimes in the case of ID theory, it is not possible. Your Atheist websites, just like some Creationists websites, are many times clouded by their agenda, which gives them a slant. Your article above would have you believe Historical Science is on the same level as Emprical Science. It is not. Neither evolution nor ID theory will ever live up to the same burden of proof that the empirical sciences can and most Historical Scientists would protest if you held them to the same level of proof. I thought it fitting to quote this article from Berkley, since it is obviously as Lib as colleges come, and no one can say I am using biased sources.
"B. Formal Sciences
1. Logic and mathematics
2. Both define their own universe.
3. Because they do, they can initially speak of absolute "true" versus "false."
a. 2 + 2 = 4. Why? Because we all agree upon it.
4. This sounds like belief knowledge. However, it differs in one critical element — once you establish an initial premise (which must have rigor), you have to follow the research protocol to investigate its effect and validity.
5. These disciplines are often seen as the epitome of science — an exact, fully logical, brick by brick process.
C. Empirical Sciences
1. Deal with objects and observations
a. Takes the world as it is and tries to understand it.
b. Here there can be NO truth, no right or wrong, only observations and hypotheses about the natural system.
2. Empirical Science may be roughly divided into two camps:
a. The Experimental Sciences: e.g., Chemistry, Physics and allied subjects.
(1) Here the subject allows the creation of controlled experiments in the laboratory.
(2) The objects under observation (e.g., atoms, molecules) are assumed to all be the same and to lack individuality.
b. The Historical Sciences: e.g., most of Biology, Geology.
(1) Here the objects under observation increasingly possess individual characteristics, such as single historical events or the individuals in a species. Optimal controls and laboratory experiments become increasingly difficult.
(2) Paleontology exhibits the "worst" of this in that it concerns organisms (which have individuality) in historical circumstances (where the coincidence of factors at any one time may NEVER be repeated) and all of this occurring in the distant past.
3. This distinction between Experimental and Historical Sciences sets up a false debate in public. Paleontologists are often compared with physicists and then faulted for not producing scientific data as measured by the standards of physics. We paleontologists simply cannot!
4. As we progress from experimental to historical sciences, we pass into a realm of the critical establishment of probability. "Good Science" becomes a matter of eliminating as many variables — while entertaining as many alternate interpretations of the observations — as possible."
What Is Science?
I believe this explanation to be spot on. I'm sure you could cite many experiments you have done in a chemistry or physics class that could be repeated over and over and achieve the same result as long as rigorous controls were in place. This can never be the case with predictions or hypotheses about events that occurred in the distant past. We can never know with 100% certainty that what believe about events in the past are absolutely true. We can only eliminate as many variables as possible. This is what you miss in Meyer's argument and you would note if you read his book. He attempts to eliminate as many competing hypothesis about the origin of information in dna as possible by arguing against some of the more prominent hypotheses put forth on the subject. This too is what you may miss in evolutionary biology. Darwin's tree of life has been shredded by genetic evidence, so new hypotheses have been introduced, like lateral gene transfer, to deal with the new evidence. When these types of discoveries net different results than what Darwin originally predicted, the IDers and Creationists have a field day, and rightfully so.
And that leads us to why I chose the screen name I did. The ultimate goal of science is to describe ultimate reality. Scientists are always trying to determine what is REALLY REAL. Even without my Theistic views, I would have a very hard time believing that evolution, not adaptation, is true based on the evidence. Once you learn to see many of the manipulations for what they are I liken it to the point in the matrix when Neo starts to see the code, instead of the simulation. I am not trying to put you down when I say you are not yet attune to it. There is SOOOOO much misinformation out there now with the proliferation of the internet. I wouldn't call it the information age. I would call it the misinformation age. Even when I did a google search for articles about the empirical sciences versus the historical sciences I was inundated with articles obviously written by evolution supporters to discredit the discrediting being done by the Theists. I can see the code now and I am not fooled by it.
All I see here, again, is an attempt to discredit a competing theory so that your hypothesis will have more of the stage. You attempt this from every angle imaginable, including, attacking the fundamental validity of evolutionary biology, on the grounds that it is "only a historical science."
Wow, you obviously missed the entire point, which had nothing to do with ID, but shows that evolutionary science will never be on the same level as physics or chemistry, ever. And it uses induction for many of its competing hypothesis. Strawman. I have not claimed this. I have only claimed that evolution and ID are equally legitimate historical sciences based on Darwin's and Lyell's methodology. Well, I should say, equally legitimate with the exception of evolutionary theory that proposes made up narrative explanations which are not based on any past or presently observable phenomena.
I dismissed it with what could be the most non-biased article I could find, written by a historical scientist studying evolution. Wrong. Your real world example has atheist fundamentalism written all over it.
Strawman. Your bias infers this claim. I wholeheartedly agree. Now we are getting somewhere! Yes, and they apply equally to ID and Evolution, but not the empirical sciences. I totally agree!!
Wrong again!! Any science that attempts to describe events that occurred in the distant past, whether they be the theories on the origin of male and female, cosmological arguments about the solar system, or postulates on the origin of the digital code in DNA, is a historical science. Wrong again. What evidence from the past do you have for how abiogenesis occurred?
I believe this is the pitfall of ID. Therefore, you are constrained to evidence we have today, and the only thing you have is, the language of another mind: digital code. Therefore, you must make an inductive argument to reach your conclusions: DNA is a complex, specifiable code. Digital code is the same. Digital code is made by intelligent minds. Therefore, so is DNA. There is no evidence for this conclusion, other than looking at another code, and assuming it was formed in the same way. This is pure inductive reasoning. There is no direct evidence for DNA being created by an intelligent designer, because that would require looking to the past, but you have blocked off that avenue for yourself. It seems that IDers have trapped themselves logically.
Everything you just said in the last 10 or so sentences is totally fallacious. See my comments prior to all these incorrect assertions. What Meyer has done is no different that what Darwin did. Your claim that ID doesn't refer to past evidence is fallacious. We can rightfully assert that at some point in the distant past, based on fossil evidence, that the information in DNA originated long ago. Just like Darwin asserted that different species arose long ago. Darwin can't point back to evidence to actually show natural selection in action in the distant past. He attempted to use "causes now in operation", like finch beaks, to make predictions about what happened long ago. I'm not sure why you keep missing the similarities. Confirmation bias I guess.
If this is really the only argument or "evidence" you have for ID, then it is really hard for me to understand why you think this is convincing, at all. The only reason it is, is because you already believe that there was an intelligent force behind creation. The "science" of ID is not otherwise convincing to anyone else. ID is simply a contemporary version of the teleological argument. It is nothing new, and nothing special.
Wrong again. What you keep strawmanning and what you think you know, is that ID claims the intelligent designer was the Judeo-Christian God. As far as ID goes, the intelligent agent that originated the digital dna code could have been an alien race. It is a religious belief by some ID Theorist, not a scientific one, that the intelligent agent is God. However, ID theory never identifies who the intelligent agent is, because that would be impossible to do in light of current evidence. It only draws the logical conclusion that intelligence is responsible, because of the cause now in operation producing digital code.
