Hi friends. 
I'm afraid I may not have been too terribly fair in the past in my treatment of the claims of intelligent design or creationism. I'd like to take this time to offer a challenge of sorts, for those who feel ID or creationism is a valid scientific view of the origin and diversification of life.
Evaluating a hypothesis' claims via the criteria of adequacy is the way in which scientists determine its scientific veracity. It is also the way in which a decision is made between two competing ideas that already meet it--that is, which meet the criteria more fully. The criteria are as follows:
Scope: is the hypothesis able to fully describe the diversity of our observations? If all other criteria are met equally between two competing hypotheses, which is able to predict more of what we observe in the natural world? (Think Einstein vs. Newton)
Simplicity/Parsimony: is the hypothesis as simple as possible to explain our observations, and does it refrain from invoking unnecessary entities to explain what we observe? (Think Ptolemy vs. Copernicus in terms of retrograde motion)
Conservatism: does the implications of the hypothesis maintain current established principles (that we would have no other reason to "throw out" except to accommodate the new theory)? To put it in the negative, does acceptance of the hypothesis require us to completely revamp all of our background knowledge for the mere purpose of accommodating it? (Think Von Donikin's UFO Pyramid hypothesis vs. all accepted Pyramid archeology)
Convergence: does the evidence cited to support the hypothesis converge with other types of evidence or evidence from other fields? To put it in the negative, must any established line of evidence be ignored in order for the hypothesis to remain plausible? (Think Holocaust Revisionism vs. all eyewitness, testimonial, census, physical and historical evidence that suggests the Holocaust did in fact occur)
Testability: does the hypothesis make predictions that are able to be tested? (Think novel predictions vs. ad-hoc hypotheses and other various non-testable hypotheses)
Fruitfulness: can the hypothesis offer successful predictions that tell us something new about the natural world? (Darwin's ideas predicted the necessity of a biological mechanism by which traits are inherited that also must allow for their diversification--DNA)
I would be interested in hearing how ID or creationism meets these criteria and thus should be considered scientific, as many claim. After this, I would be interested in hearing your take on why it meets these criteria better than evolution by natural selection. We can even discuss whether or not evolution meets these criteria as well, if you'd like--I encourage those in support of evolution to offer their arguments.
Thanks.
I'm afraid I may not have been too terribly fair in the past in my treatment of the claims of intelligent design or creationism. I'd like to take this time to offer a challenge of sorts, for those who feel ID or creationism is a valid scientific view of the origin and diversification of life.
Evaluating a hypothesis' claims via the criteria of adequacy is the way in which scientists determine its scientific veracity. It is also the way in which a decision is made between two competing ideas that already meet it--that is, which meet the criteria more fully. The criteria are as follows:
Scope: is the hypothesis able to fully describe the diversity of our observations? If all other criteria are met equally between two competing hypotheses, which is able to predict more of what we observe in the natural world? (Think Einstein vs. Newton)
Simplicity/Parsimony: is the hypothesis as simple as possible to explain our observations, and does it refrain from invoking unnecessary entities to explain what we observe? (Think Ptolemy vs. Copernicus in terms of retrograde motion)
Conservatism: does the implications of the hypothesis maintain current established principles (that we would have no other reason to "throw out" except to accommodate the new theory)? To put it in the negative, does acceptance of the hypothesis require us to completely revamp all of our background knowledge for the mere purpose of accommodating it? (Think Von Donikin's UFO Pyramid hypothesis vs. all accepted Pyramid archeology)
Convergence: does the evidence cited to support the hypothesis converge with other types of evidence or evidence from other fields? To put it in the negative, must any established line of evidence be ignored in order for the hypothesis to remain plausible? (Think Holocaust Revisionism vs. all eyewitness, testimonial, census, physical and historical evidence that suggests the Holocaust did in fact occur)
Testability: does the hypothesis make predictions that are able to be tested? (Think novel predictions vs. ad-hoc hypotheses and other various non-testable hypotheses)
Fruitfulness: can the hypothesis offer successful predictions that tell us something new about the natural world? (Darwin's ideas predicted the necessity of a biological mechanism by which traits are inherited that also must allow for their diversification--DNA)
I would be interested in hearing how ID or creationism meets these criteria and thus should be considered scientific, as many claim. After this, I would be interested in hearing your take on why it meets these criteria better than evolution by natural selection. We can even discuss whether or not evolution meets these criteria as well, if you'd like--I encourage those in support of evolution to offer their arguments.
Thanks.
