[extropy-chat] against ID

[Samantha Atkins]

On Dec 8, 2005, at 10:05 AM, Robert Bradbury wrote:

>
> On 12/7/05, gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This Kansas professor criticised ID and its proponents and plans to  
> offer
> a course titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design,
> Creationism and other Religious Mythologies" putting ID where it  
> rightly
> belongs: in courses about religion.
>
>
> Actually, I *hate* to burst your bubble :-; but ID could well  
> belong in courses on science related to whether or not we were (a)  
> setup as an evolutionary experiment (as I pointed out in various  
> MBrain discussiosn -- 'natural' evolution may be able to explore  
> certain computational development paths better than 'designed'  
> computation can); (b) whether the universe itself is based upon  
> cellular automata -- recently discussed by Kurzweil based on work  
> by Fredkin & Wolfram in TSIN; and/or (c) whether or not "we" are  
> completely running in a simulation (ala the Matrix et al) [after  
> all an MBrain can most likely support > 10^24 human brains].
>

  I am not seeing your point.  The above might make for interesting  
speculation but it is certainly not validated scientific theory as is  
evolution.  I don't see why the above should be taught in a biology  
class.  It might better fit in a philosophy of science setting.  Pure  
speculation is not science.

>
> It is worth pointing out that the above ID scenarios are *not*  
> going to make people falling into the "creationist" frame of mind  
> particularly happy.  Added to the discussion they do however turn  
> ID vs. Evolution into something which merits serious consideration.
>

That is not equivalent to saying that such speculations should be  
taught in high school biology classes or presented  as being on equal  
footing with well-established theory.

  - samantha
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