[extropy-chat] against ID

[kevinfreels.com]

What is especially interesting is that the Catholic Church officially agrees
that ID does not belong in the classroom. :-)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "gts" <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 2:50 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] against ID


> On Wed, 07 Dec 2005 22:32:56 -0500, spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >> These anti-evolutionists are calling evolution-science/naturalism a
form
> >> of "religion," and suing teachers for using tax dollars to promote the
> >> so-called "religion" of evolution.
>
> > Ja, I anticipated that the fundies would eventually
> > discover this line of reasoning.  This may actually
> > be a bigger threat to US science education than is
> > the whole ID business.
>
> Absolutely, the idea that empiricism amounts to a type of religion is a
> huge threat to public science education wherever there is a separation of
> church and state. This debate is not only about evolution. It is about
> science itself.
>
> I'm a little embarrassed to admit that some 15 years ago I defended
> metaphysical idealism against empiricism by criticising the empiricist
> idea of logical positivism.  Positivism, the doctrine that propositions
> are valid only if they can in principle be verified empirically, is easily
> refuted by pointing out that the positivist proposition cannot itself be
> verified empirically.
>
> It is impossible to prove empirically that propositions are valid only if
> they can be proved empirically. Positivism thus fails its own test for
> meaning, and so must by the positivist's own standards be a meaningless
> proposition or a statement of religious belief.
>
> At the time I did not question the validity of science or evolution, but
> arguments similar to my own are now surfacing in the public debate about
> evolution vs Intelligent Design. In Kansas, proponents of Intelligent
> Design have succeeded in redefining science itself.
>
> 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.
>
> Fortunately for clear thinkers, the 'religion' of positivism is not really
> essential to science. I misled my interlocutors when I implied otherwise
> in my defense of idealism. Popper's philosophy is I think a superior
> philosophy of science, better than positivism, and one that does not rely
> on anything resembling religion.
>
> Not coincidently, Popper's evolutionary epistemology is an extension of
> biological evolution into the world of science and ideas. Science is not
> about finding true beliefs about the world. It is about finding workable
> conjectures that solve problems.
>
> -gtso
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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