The SEAL conference had quite a bit of discussion of this topic, related to the particular question of "Is Intelligent Design theory science?" I think the question is a bad one. People used to ask,"Is economics a science?" in the spirit of "Is economics a science yet ?" Nowadays, though, economists have enough confidence in their field not to bother with that question. Our attitude is "Call it science, or humanities, or philosophy, or whatever--we don't care. Our theories are sound, and that's all that matters." In fact, we are often uncomfortable with labelling economics as "social science," because that (a) suggests we look on science as something superior to us, and (b) makes us neighbors to disciplines such as sociology and anthropology to which we feel superior.
So why do people care whether Intelligent Design is called Science? For two reasons. First, if something is called Science, simple folk think it is true. Second, and more important, if something is called Science, it can be taught in public schools, but if the same thing is called Religion, it can't. That's what I discuss in my entry of yesterday.
At any rate, a view some people at the conference expressed was, "If it's science, it
can't admit anything supernatural." This takes us back to The Moon Monolith, with a bit
of a twist:
A first group of scientists adopts the new Unified Field Theory and the 3 billion year
age of the Earth. A second group rejects them, saying,"As scientists, we must ignore any
facts and theories that have a supernatural origin, even if they explain the world
better than our current thinking."
Which group of scientists is more "Scientific"?
The Moon Monolith. We discover on the moon a stone
monolith saying "Jehovah created the world at 6 a.m. in the year 3 billion BC," and
also describes a Unified Field Theory that works.
I think a better approach would be to forget about motives, origins, or credentials,
except insofar as they are relevant to whether factual claims are correct. If an
Islamist says that he has done a survey and found that 19 out of 20 Moslems think
the Koran supports killing civilians in jihads, then we are entitled to wonder if the
survey was well and honestly done. If he cites a Gallup survey, or if he introduces a
new theoretical argument for why the Koran supports bombing civilians, we should not
dismiss his citation or his argument merely because he is biased.
I found a Natural History magazine website that lists some of the cast of characters in Intelligent Design. The Discovery Institute is the organization of the ID people, who include Michael Behe, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, and Phillip Johnson.
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