[extropy-chat] against ID

[Eliezer S. Yudkowsky]

gts wrote:
> 
> Whereas science in Kansas once meant:
> 
> "seeking natural explanations for what we observe around us"
> 
> It now means:
> 
> "continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing,  
> measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to 
> lead  to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena."
> 
> The second definition seems on the surface to be quite reasonable, 
> perhaps  even an improvement on the first, but it lacks the requirement 
> that  science be about *natural explanations*. In Kansas, *any* 
> explanation for  natural phenomena now qualifies as science, including 
> for example  astrology as an explanation for human personality.

The reason ID isn't science is that it doesn't *work*, not that it's not 
"natural".  If someone invents a mathematizable ghosts-and-spirits 
explanation that produces precise predictions bourne out by the 
evidence, superior to the existing theory, then yay ghosts.

If the genes had been written by a cognitive process analogous to a 
human computer programmer, then ID would be the scientifically correct 
explanation.  But they weren't so it's not.

"Natural" is a meaningless term.  Whatever is, is natural.  Since the 
beginning, not one unnatural thing has ever happened.

"The important difference between magic and science is not that one 
deals in chants, incantations and crystal balls and the other deals in 
equations, computer code and electron microscopes. The difference is 
that one works and the other does not."
	-- John K Clark

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence