Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Foxfyre wrote:

ID is one of those things we cannot prove or disproved through any known scientific principle and that is why it should not be taught as science. It is also why it should not be denied, at least to his/her students, by a science teacher.

In one sentence you state that ID should not be taught in science class because it can not be proven or disproven.

By stating that, you effectively equate ID to all other forms of non-scientific speculation, wild or tame (it's no different from a theory about Gnomes and Fairies).

But then in the very next sentence, you try to give ID validity as something better than Gnomes and Faries by noting that it can not be disproven.

You can't have it both ways.

Teachers can validly tell their students that ID has no more scientific validity than the Tooth fairy of the Easter Bunny, and they would be correct. Asking teachers to hide that fact from their students by hedging about the philosophy of truth is disingenuous.

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rosborne979 wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
My post was directed to an issue of experience, not theory; of empirical evidence, not scientific law.

Your experience is not empirical evidence.

It is for me and frankly, sir, you are in no position to know what evidence is inherent in my experience or what it has or has not taught me. Smile

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I wouldn't challenge the fact that you "experienced" something, but I would challenge any claim that your "experience" was proof of anything.

I certainly would not challenge any claim that you experienced something and I wouldn't challenge your claim that your 'experience' was proof of anything either--to you. If skeptical of your honesty or judgment, I might insist on experiencing for myself before buying into the truth of something. But I am pretty sure I can be sure of certain realities evidenced in my own experience. As can you.

Quote:

You seem to think that the conviction you feel about your experience somehow validates it within science, but it doesn't.

Again, my friend, you are in no position to know what information my feelings or my experience validates about anything any more than I can know what your experience has proved valid to you. Those of us who have shared experiences, however, are in a better position to emphathise with what the other person feels and to understand what the other person knows.

That I (and everybody else in the world) acquire knowledge empirically should not be confused with empiricism that is something quite different. I don't think we have to experience something to know that something is true. But like my example of the elephant a few days ago, experience can add a whole new dimension to what we know.

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Foxfyre wrote:

rosborne979 wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
My post was directed to an issue of experience, not theory; of empirical evidence, not scientific law.

Your experience is not empirical evidence.

It is for me...

No Fox, it's not. For you it's just conviction, not empirical evidence. You're simply using the wrong definitions of words if you claim that your conviction is empirical evidence.

Foxfyre wrote:

... and frankly, sir, you are in no position to know what evidence is inherent in my experience or what it has or has not taught me.

Frankly Mam, I 'am' in a position to understand the meaning of phrases like empirical evidence. And that seems to be where we are going astray here.

Maybe if you provide your definition of empirical evidence, and then explain how your personal experience qualifies as empirical evidence, then we'll understand what you're trying to say.

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Fox wrote: "...what evidence is inherent in my experience ..."

Sounds to me like psycho-babble if I ever heard one.

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From Merriam Webster

Quote:

Main Entry: em·pir·i·cal
Function: adjective
Pronunciation: -i-k&l
Variants: also em·pir·ic/-ik/
1 : originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical>
2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory

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Foxfyre wrote:

From Merriam Webster

Quote:
Main Entry: em·pir·i·cal
Function: adjective
Pronunciation: -i-k&l
Variants: also em·pir·ic/-ik/
1 : originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical>
2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory

I see you focused on the word Empirical, without regard for the meaning of the phrase Empirical Evidence. Then you left out the definition which applies to the phrase:

3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment <empirical>

The point is that you can not claim that your personal experiences are empirical evidence for anything. When a 'cloud of witnesses' claim to have seen some supernatural event, they have not proven anything from a scientific standpoint.

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A dictionary in one hand, a bible in the other, and nothing in between; you're all set!

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rosborne979 wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
From Merriam Webster

Quote:
Main Entry: em·pir·i·cal
Function: adjective
Pronunciation: -i-k&l
Variants: also em·pir·ic/-ik/
1 : originating in or based on observation or experience <empirical>
2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory

I see you focused on the word Empirical, without regard for the meaning of the phrase Empirical Evidence. Then you left out the definition which applies to the phrase:

3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment <empirical>

The point is that you can not claim that your personal experiences are empirical evidence for anything. When a 'cloud of witnesses' claim to have seen some supernatural event, they have not proven anything from a scientific standpoint.

Your #3 definition applies to things as Empirical Law or did you overlook that minor detail in your effort to honestly portray my position here? Evenso #3 doesn't necessarily contradict #1 or #2. If the stove is hot to me, it is likely to feel hot to you too. And then we agree on our empirical experience.

If I cannot consider my personal experience as evidence for my personal convictions then neither can you make any evaluation of what you see, hear, feel, taste, imagine, etc. This is perhaps your more absurd argument yet.

If you touch a stove and feel that it is hot and the next 10 people who touch it report that it is cold while the 10 following them report it is hot, which 10 do you believe to be telling the truth? Without knowing what anybody's else's experience is, you can arrive at an informed opinion based on empirical evidence alone.

That first group of 10 may do their damndest to convince you that you're wrong or convince others that you are daft or a liar, but you know the truth. And you can also relate to the experience of the other 10 who report the stove is hot and be affirmed in your initial conclusion.

Empirical evidence is even more persuasive--to you--if you and 10 others report that the stove was hot while others who have never touched a hot stove insist that such a thing does not exist because they've never seen or felt a hot stove or simply do not want to accept that such a thing could be.

Empirical experience also informs me that no matter how many times I say that my experience cannot be proved or disproved scientifically, there will likely be somebody who will keep making the argument that there is no scientific proof for my experience and pretend that he's actually arguing something different than I am arguing. Smile

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foxy

Quote:

It is for me and frankly, sir, you are in no position to know what evidence is inherent in my experience

You cannot use "experience" and
"evidence" together . One needs to be able to repeat such information gleaned through experience and repeat it to a to a dispassionate observer before it can be ruled as data and then finally as any kind of evidence. Youre just mixing the meanings of terms for your own amusement.

Empirical evidence usually means that we aimlessly wander about until something happens and we experience it, despite the fact that we may have been doing something else entirely. Then . That experience becomes an "Observation" which, in order to have a modicum of use, must , again, be applicable and repeatable to , etc etc.

An empiric-is somebody who is basically a fraud. They practice a craft without any training, so, IMHO "empirical evidence" is actually a contradiction in terms until it has been tested and not found wanting. So you may experience angels coming out your sockets but thats certainly not evidence that angels do indeed exist. Get a few hundred people to stand by and watch your sockets and take pictures, then we can talk, should they see any wings.

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from foxy's own dictionary we take this definition of empirical

Quote:

relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory

, or training or knowledge or "a clue".

Quote:

evidence-something that tends to prove

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FM writes

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You cannot use "experience" and
"evidence" together .

Yes I can, do, and will continue to do so. When I touched the hot stove, I had evidence that the stove is hot. If I touch the stove a second or third time and it is still hot, it reinforces my conclusion that the stove is hot, but even if the stove has cooled the next time that I touch it, I will still believe that it was hot the first time I touched it.

Unless the stove is glowing red, I cannot prove to you that the stove is hot. You will either believe me or not or check for yourself or not. If the stove is cold by the time you touch it, you could likely disbelieve me; however if you then subsequently found it hot, you would rethink what I had told you previously. You would have strong evidence without being able to scientifically test what I had reported to you.

Wandel understands perfectly that all that is real and/or is truth cannot be tested or proved or disproved scientifically.

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I'm trying to catch up.

ros wrote-

Quote:

Maybe if you provide your definition of empirical evidence, and then explain how your personal experience qualifies as empirical evidence, then we'll understand what you're trying to say.

Maybe ros, she had an experience which her knowledge of animal life gleaned from nature films, Attenborough type things, had convinced her that the females of the rest of creation had not even come close to, judging by their body language, and thus thought, quite reasonably, that it was divinely inspired because she couldn't imagine a mechanism by which it could have been the result of millenia after millienia of gradual and exceedingly boring changes responding to temperature and pressure and such like mundane gobbledygook.

Maybe your diffused misogyny is clouding your vision.

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spendi--Time to return to the Mother Ship.

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Foxy quoted-

Quote:

2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory.

Especially not ros's systems and theories.

It is very easy to allow oneself to think that one's own favourite systems and theories are actually systems and theories applicable across all the range of potential experience.

That's fundamentalist misogyny.

He wants it on the cheap Foxy. Take no notice. Your experience means nothing to him.

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Quote:

Yes I can, do, and will continue to do so. When I touched the hot stove, I had evidence that the stove is hot. If I touch the stove a second or third time and it is still hot, it reinforces my conclusion that the stove is hot, but even if the stove has cooled the next time that I touch it, I will still believe that it was hot the first time I touched it.

Unless the stove is glowing red, I cannot prove to you that the stove is hot. You will either believe me or not or check for yourself or not

By only copying the smidgeon of my post , you misquote it. By your really silly example abover, I see that you sort of agree with me. Your "experience" is not evidence till its communicated or the experience is proven to others. Like a rule of evidence. You can keep touching the stove and experiencing the heat and further cripple yourself

. I, on the other hand, will look to see whether your hand is badly burned or I will directly measure the temp and decide whethre you need hospitalization. Your examples are sometimes kind of fattuous there foxy. Try to work on better examples.

Angels coming out your sockets is much better becasue it requires some handy dandy evidence collecting to turn experience (or "visions") into some sort of evidence of reality.

Your tales from experience could just be myth to me, unless youve got evidence more compelling than your word of mouth. You know Im gonna keep testing your experience (I mean if I really cared to) until I find that its got merit or its hokum. Science is able to test temprature but not angels coming out your sockets

Ive stated before that ID is hokum because it contains within it, its own seeds of falsification by direct evidence . (Sudden appearance, Irreducible complexity, intermediate species , genetic linkages among supra taxa).

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fm wrote-

Quote:

One needs to be able to repeat such information gleaned through experience and repeat it to a to a dispassionate observer before it can be ruled as data and then finally as any kind of evidence. Youre just mixing the meanings of terms for your own amusement.

Maybe she has done. She never ruled that out. Possibly time after time and with the same result each time. I hope so.

They think you are a dishwashing, etc , relief mechanism Foxy. Take no notice.

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spendius wrote:

Take no notice.

Advice not requiring any further action or thought.

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why dont you just go take in a few more pints spendi. Foxy doesnt need any of your "help" , shes making more sense than youve ever. She can get to the point and is accounting for herself.
SOmething that, about you, leaves me in grave doubt.

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fm wrote-

Quote:

why dont you just go take in a few more pints spendi. Foxy doesnt need any of your "help" , shes making more sense than youve ever. She can get to the point and is accounting for herself.
SOmething that, about you, leaves me in grave doubt.

At least the first and last sentence are not assertions.

Quote:

Your examples are sometimes kind of fattuous there foxy. Try to work on better examples.

It is a perfect example if it is read in a certain way. Whether Foxy intended it that way is another matter. It might have been fortuitous. It might not.

When you look at certain aspects of animal behaviour you have no reason to think some qualitative difference exists between your own experience and that of those animals. Thus you have no reason to posit any divine inspiration. Hence no male artistic muses and no Joe Lisa on the Louvre wall.

But it is difficult to elaborate for a couple of reasons one of which is that it isn't clear what the example means. It may well be symbolic and it may not be. It also isn't clear how you read it. If it is not symbolic then, as you suggest, instrumentation would settle matters. In actual fact instrumentation has been applied in the case of the symbolic possibilities.
But I think she mentioned a "dispassionate observer".

Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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