Resolution: Intelligent Design is not a Scientific Theory

I'm glad to see that CON was able to find time for such a thorough response. I'd like briefly address a few of the arguments that my opponent made before reaffirming my initial position, which I believe remains unchallenged. Before moving on to rebuttal though I would like to make the point that the development of the scientific method is a process that, as my opponent rightly pointed out, played itself out over the course of several centuries of thought and experimentation. Being that, due to circumstance, we've only been allotted one round of argumentation and one of rebuttal in what is certainly a thorny if not overly-complex topic, I would be happy to rehash this conversation in a more complete manner regardless of the outcome of this debate if my opponent feels at his position has not been as completely presented as he would wished. ON TO IT My opponent has made several claims around Intelligent Design and the philosophy of Science, but has only indirectly addressed the initial claim rather than directly refuting it. Briefly, he begins from the position that "any area that teaches us about the world around us ... should be considered science" .... a claim that is clearly fallacious. The reason that we have different words for different disciplines is precisely because they are different. A Jackson Pollock painting may teach us a good deal about the world around us, but it most certainly should not be referred to as a scientific work. [1] Similarly, the metaphysics of Aristotle, the arguments of Aquinas, and even this very conversation, while based observation and logical argumentation and while striving to "teach about the world", are more rightly considered philosophy than science because they do not follow the scientific method. That is what distinguishes Science from the Arts, Philosophy, Religion, Logic and Mathematics, and other realms of higher thought. NEWTON My opponent, in his treatment of Isaac Newton also neglected to mention that he and many of the other great scientists of his day were also avid alchemists. Their value to the history of scientific thought notwithstanding, I think that you'd find few laymen or experts willing to argue that alchemy is as scientifically valid as modern chemical theory or that the steps of transmutation should be taught alongside the periodic table simply because Isaac Newton was an alchemist. [2] Isaac Newton is well known not because of his work in biology or chemistry, but in the physical sciences. TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE The distinction between empiric and forensic science is here a manufactured division. In my opening argument I made the point that a scientific idea can be tested either directly or indirectly. The theory or general relativity, for example, was originally created to explain some observations of Mercury's orbit that classical mechanics couldn't explain, it wasn't however, considered a validated theory despite its explanatory power until 1919 when Arthur Eddington tested a prediction made by general relativity that the gravity of the sun could cause light to bend. [3] Through this indirect mode of testing (experimentation based around a prediction of the theory ... not the specific considerations of the theory) the general theory of relativity was verified ... particularly after a follow up experiment in 1922 confirmed Eddington's observations. Similarly, the idea that would become the modern big bang theory was hotly contested in the scientific community and deemed by many to be unscientific philosophical speculation until 1967 when the cosmic microwave background radiation (a prediction of the big bang theory) was accidentally discovered by two scientists trying to conduct radio observations. [4] In this case again, indirect empirical evidence lines up with the predictions of the theory. If the radiation had not been discovered, or if Hubble's Law turned out to conflict rather than confirm the predictions of the big bang and inflationary theory [5] They would have been discarded as unscientific regardless of implications about cosmic origins. Again, in line with the scientific method, these ideas are checked at every stage by observation and falsifiability. If at any point a bit of data had conflicted fundamentally with their predictions, the theories would need to be restructured to take in the new data or discarded for new theories. That is how science works. I would challenge readers still taken by the possible distinction between forensic and empiric science to do a google search for "forensic vs. empirical science." The one source that pops up is a creationist website followed by several referring to the forensic science we're used to watching on Law and Order or CSI. [6] The distinction is not recognized by the scientific community. If an idea cannot be directly or indirectly tested than it is not science. INTELLIGENT DESIGN VS EVOLUTION? My opponent has referred throughout his argument to "creationism" and "creationists." I would like to remind any readers that this debate is not about classic creationism per se. It is about intelligent design. Both intelligent design and evolution by natural selection accept that the origin of species is explained by evolution from single celled organism to the modern diversity of living species today (due to the overwhelming evidence and consistent reconfirmation of evolution itself and its predictions). Creationism ... a thoroughly and unambiguously religious idea that the earth and all its animals were created by a divine creator is much easier to distinguish as religious than the more deistic notion of an intelligent designer using natural processes to craft the diversity of life. Both, however, have the common element of an unfalsifiable explanatory principle at their center. Creationism vs. evolution is another debate that I would be happy to take up with CON at a later but it is unfortunately only tangential to the current conversation. CONCLUSION I will restate my original point as it remains unchallenged: this deistic idea is not a scientific idea. In order to be scientific it would have to meet the criteria of a scientific theory. My opponent has provided an alternate definition of science that is clearly fallacious and ignores the point that we use categories to distinguish between different things. My opponent has provided an argument from authority. My opponent has asserted as a blunt fact a distinction between a science that deals with the past and a science that explains present phenomenon while ignoring that both are, in fact, based on empirical evidence (either direct or indirect). I will restate that this distinction is not recognized by the scientific community at large and would probably even be rejected by many intelligent design proponents. My opponent has not, however, shown that my initial argument is anything other than true. If anything, his final assertion (a philosophical argument of causality) only serves to underline the distinction between philosophy and science. Both use logic and induction to teach us things about the world, but they do so by different methods. Philosophy accomplishes by argumentation based on logical rules and axioms. Science does this by argumentation based on observation and experiment. The Big Bang is a scientific theory. His syllogism is a philosophical idea ... as is intelligent design. Neither can be experimentally verified at this time and so are unfalsifiable. This does not make them bad ideas. It simply makes them philosophical rather than scientific in nature. Vote Pro. [1] http://ss0326.blogspot.com... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] http://bit.ly...