Re: Possible impact of ID

From: Moorad Alexanian (alexanian@uncwil.edu)
Date: Tue Mar 21 2000 - 08:56:09 EST

  • Next message: David Campbell: "Re: Possible impact of ID"

    The best way to understand something is to know what it is and what it is
    not. ID states that the whole thing did not come without the aid of a BIG
    BRAIN! It is the role of science to incorporate that knowledge into their
    tool box. At least that would avoid a lot of nonsense being said about how
    the universe and man came into being. That is already an important
    contribution, even if it were to be the sole contribution.

    Moorad

    -----Original Message-----
    From: glenn morton <mortongr@flash.net>
    To: James Mahaffy <mahaffy@mtcnet.net>; asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
    Date: Monday, March 20, 2000 9:15 PM
    Subject: Re: Possible impact of ID

    >
    >----- Original Message -----
    >From: "James Mahaffy" <mahaffy@mtcnet.net> wrote:
    >>But to have a strong impact ID would have to undermine
    >> the mechanism/materialism to the degree that it causes a shift to
    >> another paradigm. But I fear that at the most, ID in our pluralistic
    >> postmodern era may be seen as another minor and perhaps legitimate way
    >> of doing science. That in itself is a step forward, but unless that ID
    >> science shows itself as a better science program producing better
    >> science, I am not sure why the mainstream science will leave its
    >> mechanistic world for one that allows a designer.
    >>
    >> So I guess I am asking for the farsighted seers to suggest how ID could
    >> be attractive to the mainstream scientists as a program that would allow
    >> him to do better science or if someone sees it being able to offer a
    >> critique like Kuhn, that made scientists see that their science is not
    >> entirely rational and should be replaced by ID or a paradigm influenced
    >> by ID. I am not interested in this degenerating into a pro/anti ID
    >> discussion but what may be the impact of ID and why it could have that
    >> impact.
    >
    >In order for ID to make an impact on modern science they simply are going
    to
    >have to actually offer a scenario for what happened. They can't hide from
    >the Big Ogre, that eats all scientist wanna-be's and
    >pretenders --observation. I feel the ID movement is basically a bunch of
    >people playing pretend science. What they offer has no observational
    >support, makes no predictions and takes no risks. It also can't be
    >falsified in any way shape or form. So until they grow up, and take the
    same
    >risks that all other scientists do, how on earth do they expect to make an
    >impact. I would suggest that their real target is not science, it is the
    >non-scientific laity as you suggested.
    >
    >



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