Why is ID not a scientific hypothesis?

[CosmicJoghurt]

Greetings.

My knowledge on science is quit... small, so sometimes I find myself wondering about things I don't know about and can't seem to find a definite answer for. Here's the thing:

I always thought a scientific hypothesis was a proposed explanation for some observed phenomenon. Then I see people claiming that Intelligent design isn't a scientific hypothesis. I mean, I, personally, am an atheist, but I don't see how ID isn't such a thing. Is it not an explanation, assuming there is a God, for the phenomena that is, for example, the variety of life forms?

Could someone tell me what makes it not a scientific hypothesis, in case it is, indeed, not one?


Sorry if I'm asking the obvious, but... controversial subject = a bigger mess than the BIble.


Cheers!

 

[Pulsar]

Could someone tell me what makes it not a scientific hypothesis, in case it is, indeed, not one?

It's not testable, and therefore not falsifiable.

Unless The Creator suddenly decides to show up, which I consider rather unlikely, to put it mildly.

 

[barboft]

It may be controversial, but all science is controversial at first.

 

[AdmiralPeacock]

It may be controversial, but all science is controversial at first.

There's controversial and there is untestable inconsistent mumbo-jumbo.

 

[barboft]

Indeed.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Greetings.

My knowledge on science is quit... small, so sometimes I find myself wondering about things I don't know about and can't seem to find a definite answer for. Here's the thing:

I always thought a scientific hypothesis was a proposed explanation for some observed phenomenon. Then I see people claiming that Intelligent design isn't a scientific hypothesis. I mean, I, personally, am an atheist, but I don't see how ID isn't such a thing. Is it not an explanation, assuming there is a God, for the phenomena that is, for example, the variety of life forms?

Could someone tell me what makes it not a scientific hypothesis, in case it is, indeed, not one?


Sorry if I'm asking the obvious, but... controversial subject = a bigger mess than the BIble.


Cheers!

If it makes you feel better to call it a scientific hypothesis, then feel free to do so. It is certainly a failed hypothesis so far, and the nature of the hypothesis makes it unlikely to even be tested in a scientific manner.

Let's leave out the religious aspect, and pretend that the "intelligent designer" could be an advanced alien species. How could we determine that life on Earth was designed? We can look at the watchmaker argument, Paley's formulation unless you prefer a different one:

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (...) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. (...) Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.
- William Paley, Natural Theology (1802)

That's the idea that ID rests upon, and it is very obviously flawed. We know that a watch is designed and a rock is not for several reasons. We can go out and meet a watchmaker, and download schematics online to make our own watches. We also know the watch is designed by contrasting it with the natural world, which is where Paley really falls down. A watch is an obviously built thing, and a tree or a bear is clearly NOT a built thing. When you see a watch you assume a watchmaker. When you see a painting you assume a painter. When you see a field of weeds, you don't assume a weed-builder of some sort. You don't look at a bear and assume that there's a bear factory somewhere besides a mama-bear's belly.

Beyond that issue, there is the problem of the scope of ID. ID proponents cannot tell you which things in nature are designed, and which ones aren't. They can't hold up two biological systems and say X was designed while Y wasn't. Unlike the comparison you can make between a rock and a watch, there's no designed versus undesigned comparison to be made. And in the case of the "honest" ID proponents who admit that they are suggesting a deity of some sort, they are claiming that EVERYTHING is ultimately designed. In that case, the hypothesis certainly becomes untestable because they will claim that things that look designed and don't look designed are BOTH designed on some level.

That's the scope issue: when you claim that EVERYTHING is designed, you've made the scope of it so big that it becomes meaningless. It is the same as when people claim that "God" answers all prayers with "yes, no, or not yet", which covers all circumstances and is indistinguishable from coincidence and no "God" at all. When you claim that everything is designed, you're ultimately unable to add anything to our knowledge of the universe because you've already got your answer before you start asking questions. Things that look designed are designed. Things that don't look designed are evidence of our lack of knowledge, or that "God works in mysterious ways" or "Adam and Eve introduced sin into the world" or any other answer besides a scientific one.

ID proponents will sometimes say that they accept some parts of science, but not other parts. They'll accept "micro" evolution but not "macro" evolution. Unfortunately, we run into a similar problem to the issue of scope. In this case, we cannot get any sort of dividing line between what parts of science they accept, and which they don't. There's not even a rough outline of how to make these decisions about where evolution stops and ID begins. If you want real fun, ask them where they draw the line on species, or "kinds" and the Bible folk like to call them. The point is, without a clear definition of ID it cannot even rightly be called a hypothesis in the scientific sense, any more than "stuff falls down somehow, looks like something invisible is dragging it down" counts as a scientific hypothesis of gravity. Without a single solid definition and a way to test the definition, there's nothing about ID that counts as science.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

If there is anything that ID doesn't do is explain things. Giving excuses to explain things away isn't the same thing has explaining how things actually are.
To better exlain the contrast I am going to give 2 popular examples of what is a scientific theory and what isn't.

Take for instance gravity, you have the observation that things fall on earth and then you have things like the planets orbiting the sun and the moon orbiting the earth, and using the equations that describe gravity you are able to explain exactly where do the planets move in the sky, at what specific moment in time, you can even use it to predict where and when are the planets going to be in the future with a remarkable precision even before it actually happen (and with a great cofidence that it will actually happen). You can use it for instance to predict in exactly what way you can put a sattelite in the sky and you know the way it moves over time. So with gravity you can derive the expressions from observation, if you give the same facts to a different group of seperate scientists they are able to arrive at very similar conclusions independently, and you can also use that new information to predict events that didn't even happen yet and be right on the outcome (so in a way it is usefull). You couldn't say for instance that the force of gravity is very different from the inverse square law and proportional to mass, you could have tryed to say that the force of gravity changes linearly with the distance instead, you would still be able to explain why things fall on earth and why the planets orbit the sun. But if you used the linear model you tried to use it to predict the exact path of the orbits of things you would find that you would almost invariably fail, you would allways have to fidle with correctional parameters or propreties that are supoused to be inherent to objects and yet they change all the time when they shouldn't.

Now take a rather alternative hypotesis, which was an actualy propoused scientific hypotesis where it was employed the use of deamons to try and explain the osmotic effect.the idea would be that you have very small demons sitting on a membrane that would simply close or open the holes on the membrane very fast dependently if the molecule of water was going into one direction or the other. Now this doesn't allow you to predict for instance what would be the pressure on one side of the membrane compared to the other (because that would somewhat fall under the wishes of the demon, it is just what he happens to chose at the tim), or if it would work for instance with alcoohol. Demons were forward but it could might aswell be that it was pixies, lepricans or unicorns doing the selection process instead, it could have been something else entierly it could have been that the molecules of water are like litle people trying to get into fancy parties and you could even exlain the pressure by trying to quantify how smashing the party is on each side of the membrane. Of course the actual explenation is, because there is saults diluted in the water which can not cross as easy the membrane as the water can and the water as an electrical afinity to the ionized salt molecules because water is a bipolar molecule. So because one side of the membrane has a bigger concentration of salts then the other, the water is simply sucked by the salts to the other side of the membrane. And you can use this to predict how much pressure would you feel on each side of the membrane given that you know the quantity of salts and water you put in on each side even before it happened, you could predict for instance why would the process not work as well with alcoohol. And you can show that the real answer must be at least very very close to that explenation and nothing something else entierly different.

Comming by with an hypotesis to explain way some fenomena is the easiest thing in the world, but that doesn't mean that they are any good much less scientific.
What ID simply says is God "something inteligent" did it just the way how things are. No rime nor reason. You can say why would do certain things rather than others, why are some animals the way they are, you can't even tell how it was done or what exactly God "something inteligent" did to make them. further if you go the rabit hole and had the snippet that ID also states that the ofspring of an animal can not be much difference then its predecessores no matter how farly related they are, then it is simply wrong because we contradicts the facts that we do see (like instance of speciatons in laboratorie conditions).
So ID not only explains nothing as it also goes contrary to what the hypotesis claims to explain. And I am sorry to tell you but this is just wrong.

 

[kenandkids]

For ID to be a scientific hypothesis it must first have an observational question. One can't simply sit and think about something to question, observation leads to "proper" questions. If you wonder why I say that, please tell me whether or not Schrodinger actually had a cat in a box. Just thinking leads to philosophy, not science.

When you've noticed something like all of the loose rocks on your favourite hiking path share an odd colour, then you have a reason to question. And so you do. This begins the scientific method.
1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7. Publish results
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method )

In the case of ID, there is no original question. Goddunnit is the answer to everything extra-biblical and people are trained in this from birth. The only reason ID exists is because other people doubt and therefore it threatens the training of their own clones... eerrmm kids.

Effectively, the ID concept uses these steps:

1) Learn hypothesis

2) Declare hypothesis to be the only valid hypothesis

3) Complain about others not "respecting" your hypothesis

4) Demand that your hypothesis be considered equal to others that have followed the previously mentioned steps.

 

[RigelKentaurusA]

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

For ID to be a scientific hypothesis it must first have an observational question. One can't simply sit and think about something to question, observation leads to "proper" questions. If you wonder why I say that, please tell me whether or not Schrodinger actually had a cat in a box. Just thinking leads to philosophy, not science.

When you've noticed something like all of the loose rocks on your favourite hiking path share an odd colour, then you have a reason to question. And so you do. This begins the scientific method.
1. Define the question
2. Gather information and resources (observe)
3. Form hypothesis
4. Perform experiment and collect data
5. Analyze data
6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7. Publish results
8. Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method )

In the case of ID, there is no original question. Goddunnit is the answer to everything extra-biblical and people are trained in this from birth. The only reason ID exists is because other people doubt and therefore it threatens the training of their own clones... eerrmm kids.

Effectively, the ID concept uses these steps:

1) Learn hypothesis

2) Declare hypothesis to be the only valid hypothesis

3) Complain about others not "respecting" your hypothesis

4) Demand that your hypothesis be considered equal to others that have followed the previously mentioned steps.

That and everything before and after you pretty much cleared everything up, thanks, all of you.



Cheers!

 

[lrkun]

This is not accurate; because one can argue that the former represents induction and the latter represents deduction. If the latter drawing, instead, said it this way, these are the conclusions, what can we make up as facts for them, I would agree.

 

[Memeticemetic]

This is not accurate; because one can argue that the former represents induction and the latter represents deduction. If the latter drawing, instead, said it this way, these are the conclusions, what can we make up as facts for them, I would agree.

...not really. The former is not really specific enough to make the distinction between deduction or induction. Science properly uses both; and both require a set of facts to determine a conclusion. I'm not sure if there really is a word to describe arriving at a conclusion and then trying to support it. Well, besides creationist, that is.

 

[lrkun]

This is not accurate; because one can argue that the former represents induction and the latter represents deduction. If the latter drawing, instead, said it this way, these are the conclusions, what can we make up as facts for them, I would agree.

...not really. The former is not really specific enough to make the distinction between deduction or induction. Science properly uses both; and both require a set of facts to determine a conclusion. I'm not sure if there really is a word to describe arriving at a conclusion and then trying to support it. Well, besides creationist, that is.

If you start from the end, working your way back in order to figure out how the end came about, it is called analysis.

If you start from the beginning, working your way forward, towards the end in order to see if the end will come about, it is called synthesis.

The first image is akin to induction because it is based on facts and it seems the persons involved wants to make a conclusion based on those facts.

The second image, even though they are using the genesis, can be seen as a hypothesis, such as when they try to recreate what happened, working their way back, seeing if there is something within their realm of knowledge in order to support it. Yes, it is scientific to do so.

The problem with the image is that it does not properly contemplate what a creationist must prove. It is not to support the events with facts; but only to prove that their god exists.

So, I don't agree with the comic.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

I always thought a scientific hypothesis was a proposed explanation for some observed phenomenon. Then I see people claiming that Intelligent design isn't a scientific hypothesis. I mean, I, personally, am an atheist, but I don't see how ID isn't such a thing. Is it not an explanation, assuming there is a God, for the phenomena that is, for example, the variety of life forms?

Could someone tell me what makes it not a scientific hypothesis, in case it is, indeed, not one?

Here's the thing... if you offer up a hypothetical "designer" as the reason for something, that alone is not much of an explanation. You haven't really offered exactly how anything happened. You've simply assigned it to an agency.

Say, for instance, that nobody has an explanation for how a particular structure could have evolved (of course, the ID crowd has yet to offer such a thing, but we'll just say there is one for the sake of argument).
Simply saying that it had to be a designer doesn't really explain anything because you haven't actually described how a designer could do it in the first place. You haven't actually shown a mechanism, and you haven't actually shown something like a causal chain going from a designer's action to the final result.

Now with the way a lot of science is presented to the layman, there's a fair bit of hand-waving, so we don't always get the full story, but in reality, there is a pretty extreme level of detail to how well these roads are laid out. ID has nothing of the sort. If pressed, they say "that's still to be determined" and argue that with any scientific principle, there's always future work to be done. The difference is, they haven't even gotten to the point where they have a model at all. If they ever get to that point, then you can start calling it a hypothesis, but until then, they're not even eligible to be considered one, let alone one that stands on an even keel with any accepted scientific theory.

Even without attacking any of the actual claims, you can't escape the fact that there is no actual model. Just to show that ID is unscientific, you don't have to go any deeper than that.

On the point about falsifiability, one of the things about ID is that it cannot offer any degree of specificity in anything. Because the nature of the proposed "designer" and all of that "designers" capacity and/or tendencies to act are undefined, they are, in effect arbitrary by nature. So for any given set of data, the only thing that can be said is that that's simply the way the designer made it. Take for instance, the classic example of human chromosome #2... Now because there's a discrepancy in the count of chromosomes between humans and other primates, there are a few possible explanations for this. We may have lost a chromosome in our ancestry, or other primates gained one, or we experienced a fusion event, or other primates experienced a chromosome split/duplication. Based on what we know about genetics, though, we can rule out a few possibilities.... though it still leaves duplication and fusion, probabilistically, fusion is the most likely. Sure enough we found that, but that's a separate point. The main point I have in bringing up this case is that the notion of common descent specifically DEMANDS that it had to occur. If there was no such evidence, then common descent is wrong.

Face with the same anomaly, ID would not be able to rule out any possibility because the designer is simply capable of anything. If there was a fusion... "that's the way the designer made it." If there was a chromosome duplication that got inherited through the other great apes and monkeys... "that's the way the designer made it." If there was a chromosome split on the side of the other primates... "that's the way the designer made it." But at no point can you actually say through ID that the designer had to make something a certain way. At no point is there any such limit or definition as to what the designer can or cannot do nor is it described how he/she/they/it is able to do anything at all. There is no prediction you can offer about what should be seen. ID folks can only describe the known state of the data, and describe it in terms of their own personal awe and then say that's magical. At no point is there a description according to some model of how it got to be that way. Now, one of the arguments I've heard on this particular example is that the chromosome fusion is still consistent with ID since it doesn't contradict anything proposed by ID. While it doesn't contradict anything, that doesn't mean it's actually consistent with the ID proposition. It's saying that all answers are possibly correct and when an actual answer is found, they say "see? I told you so!" ID doesn't actually have, nor can it possibly have, any position on what the outcome should have been based on the observed discrepancy in chromosome count. You can't be consistent with the absence of a position.

 

[Laurens]

Could someone tell me what makes it not a scientific hypothesis, in case it is, indeed, not one?

It starts with a bias i.e: The Bible is true, and seeks evidence to confirm that bias. This is not how we do science.

 

[Squawk]

For me it's a question of semantics.

I tend to rank proposals into three broad catagories where science is concerned.

Conjecture
Hypothesis
Theory

Conjecture would generally be thought of as a possible explanation, but in the very early stages. It's the sort of ideas that might get thrown around when new data comes in from the LHC, say, in the first couple of days before anyone really knows much. Ideas that are plausible, but not really evidentially supported yet. Note the word plausible.

A hypothesis I tend to consider as being a well formuated and structured explanation that explains a given phenomena, subject to further verification.

A theory is simply a hypothesis that has stood up to a sufficient level of scrutiny.


At best one could argue that God is conjecture, but I would go as far as to say that it doesn't qualify as scientific conjecture. To include God as scientific conjecture, one would also have to include Santa Clause. My conclusion is that it cannot be considered a scientific idea even at the level of conjecture, and thus I relegate it to the status of make believe.

 

[Andiferous]

I went over some of the basics in the philosophy forum, and thank you kindly for the reply, btw.

This is what I am thinking:

Arguments for Intelligent Design rely on the " truth" of the existence of god. Until God can be proven in solid logic, god is a flimsy basis for any further argument and won't be acceptable in scientific theory. This even precedes the idea that god is not testable - as there are other untestable concepts that we still respect in science and keep in theory - but those concepts have some logical basis. God remains speculative and no arguments as of yet ring "TRUE" upon analysis.

Secondly, many and most arguments for god depend on the idea that god is physically separate from our world, and I presume in some way, not answerable to logic or science. If the entity itself doesn't exist in the realm of logic or science, is not observable or accountable to either, there is really no possible way to test the theory by either measure.

So if that is the case, god can never be scientific.

 

[Deleted member 619]

ID is nothing more than a fallacy of stolen concept written in huge letters. It's a fatuous attempt to disprove valid science... using science!!!

The only problem is that it fails, not least because there is a core assumption that is not scientific. Any attempt to demonstrate the veracity of a previously held assumption is counter to the principle upon which science operates. A real scientists attempts to disprove his hypotheses, because science isn't in the business of proving things, but falsifying them. Even our most successful theories are tentative, and the best that can be said of them is that they haven't yet been falsified, so we accept them as the best model that currently agrees with all the data. As soon as data become available that falsify our hypotheses, they are discarded or modified to account for those data. ID most certainly does not do this, and nowhere is this made more explicit than in the words of cretinist fuckwit Henry Morris, when he stated 'No geological difficulties, real or imagined, can be allowed to take precedence over the clear statements and necessary inferences of Scripture'. In other words, where reality and doctrine differ, reality is wrong and doctrine is right.

ID is nothing more than creationism in a stolen lab coat.

 

[Царь Славян]

Arguments for Intelligent Design rely on the " truth" of the existence of god.

No they do not. There is absolutely nothing in any of ID literature that would suggest that.

Until God can be proven in solid logic, god is a flimsy basis for any further argument and won't be acceptable in scientific theory.

Which would follow if your premise was correct, but it's not. So this is pretty much irrelevant.

This even precedes the idea that god is not testable - as there are other untestable concepts that we still respect in science and keep in theory - but those concepts have some logical basis. God remains speculative and no arguments as of yet ring "TRUE" upon analysis.

Again, God is not an integral part of ID, but an intelligence. And intelligence is known to exist. It is a known cause.

Secondly, many and most arguments for god depend on the idea that god is physically separate from our world, and I presume in some way, not answerable to logic or science. If the entity itself doesn't exist in the realm of logic or science, is not observable or accountable to either, there is really no possible way to test the theory by either measure.

But the effects of intelligence can be described by logic. And intelligence has empirical effects, tehreofre it can be tested by the scientific method.

So if that is the case, god can never be scientific.

If god is intelligent then by definition his effects can be tested in the natural world if has acted within it.

 

[Rumraket]

Arguments for Intelligent Design rely on the " truth" of the existence of god.

No they do not. There is absolutely nothing in any of ID literature that would suggest that.

Until God can be proven in solid logic, god is a flimsy basis for any further argument and won't be acceptable in scientific theory.

Which would follow if your premise was correct, but it's not. So this is pretty much irrelevant.

This even precedes the idea that god is not testable - as there are other untestable concepts that we still respect in science and keep in theory - but those concepts have some logical basis. God remains speculative and no arguments as of yet ring "TRUE" upon analysis.

Again, God is not an integral part of ID, but an intelligence. And intelligence is known to exist. It is a known cause.

Secondly, many and most arguments for god depend on the idea that god is physically separate from our world, and I presume in some way, not answerable to logic or science. If the entity itself doesn't exist in the realm of logic or science, is not observable or accountable to either, there is really no possible way to test the theory by either measure.

But the effects of intelligence can be described by logic. And intelligence has empirical effects, tehreofre it can be tested by the scientific method.

So if that is the case, god can never be scientific.

If god is intelligent then by definition his effects can be tested in the natural world if has acted within it.

Oh lol, look who turned up here. Hey Tsar, what happened over at ratskep?