a)There is no scientific reason to reject the possibility of the existence of a higher power. No, we cannot conclusively measure it or quantify its existence. But quantum mechanics arrived a long time ago, and hardly anyone believes in limitless powers of observation anymore. In other words, the fact that we can’t measure it does not mean it doesn’t exist. There are a lot of things we can’t measure that are certainly real enough… the other side of the event horizon comes to mind. (And according to many physicists, reality includes such mysteries as M-theory, the Higgs boson, et cetera.)

b) The theory makes sense. Having a higher power create the universe certainly solves a lot of problems; it makes the entire question of origin a great deal simpler. How did penguins survive more than one generation in Antarctica before they evolved the group dynamics to form a working relationship between the mother and father for the survival of the chick? If we accept the possibility of intelligent design, it is obvious that the birds were created for life in Antarctica. There is no mental gymnastics, trying to fit the observed world with a certain theory.

I am not a religious fanatic, and I try to be scientific. But the face of science is changing, and what was once considered the hobby of dreamers is now accepted fact. What would Galileo, with his rigid adherance to the experimental method, think of what is now modern science? Newton might or might not be ready for relativity. And we might or might not be ready for what very well may be out there.

Meanwhile, if, however unlikely it may seem, ID should eventually pass the science criteria, which would take precedence - upholding a law based on good political reasoning or upholding the truth? (assuming bona fide science is truth)

The “who designed the designer?” argument is dispensed with by the creationists’ transcendent God that exists “out of time” - in eternity - and therefore requires no explanation in terms of origin.

The problem with this explanation is that it leaves us with a “transcendent God that exists out of time”- in other words, it is no explanation at all, but simply the positing of a rug we may not look under.
For a solution that doesn’t involve eternal Gods, or an infinite stack of turtles, check out my exclusive interview with the Designer of God, Mrs. Tibbit.

The strength of the hypothesis-prediction-testing-observation chain is questionable (IMO). How do we protect observation from paradigm-contamination? How do we deal with predictions that can’t be meaningfully tested because observation alters results? And what do we do with hypotheses (dealing with unavoidable subjects) that are mathematically sound but are incapable of making testable predictions?

I don’t wish to suggest that anyone in this thread is doing this, but there has been a fairly continuous stream of suggestions coming out of the Discovery Institute and some of its associates along the lines of the evolution of the scientific method. Behe even mentioned it in his Dover testimony, after which he was forced to agree that, under his evolved definition of the method, astrology would qualify as a science.

We have lots of other things that will immediately qualify as science once one changes the definition of science: religion; superstitions; belief in the paranormal; and even the wishful thinking of well-intentioned scientists. The scientific method is what distinguishes science from such ideas.

The “who designed the designer?” argument is dispensed with by the creationists’ transcendent God that exists “out of time” - in eternity - and therefore requires no explanation in terms of origin. It’s only recently that mainstream creationists have felt it necessary to go scientific, perhaps that’s because, as you say, they feel it’s a way around legal barriers.

Eugene:
Can’t we just regulate it away?

Ah, the Unified Theory of Bureaucracy!

The “thought experiment”, always a mainstay in philosophy, is more and more necessary to the development of scientific hypotheses (Relativity, QM); in this sense alone, scientific methodology is evolving.

I would argue the opposite — thought experiments are becoming less and less useful in the development of scientific hypotheses, both because they can lead to wrong conclusions in counterintuitive fields like quantum physics (cf. Einstein and QM), and because modern physics is moving even more toward non-intuitive (not even counterintuitive) theories because of its heavily mathematical nature.

On the other hand, classical physicists like Newton could easily employ thought experiments to help develop theories, and likely did.

Can’t we just regulate it away?

(Ok ok I keed!)

Too bad that ID has been hijacked by fundamentalists.

Not so much “hijacked by,” as “originated by in order to evade the Supreme Court decision on teaching creationism.”

Essentially, though it hasn’t been proven valid science, it’s not an unintelligent inference.

Uninformative, though. If you allow an intelligent designer, it then becomes necessary to ask “who designed the designer?” And then, “who designed the designer’s designer?” Ad infinitum. Pushing the difficulties and complexities off somewhere else, rather than explaining them, is not much of a scientific theory.

Any hypothesis that turns out to be good was good before its predictions were tested in the “material” world; it simply wasn’t validated. As physics delves deeper and deeper into the quiddity of the world, it may have to rely more and more on “unproven” bridge hypotheses and theories whose predictions can’t be tested for practical reasons (including the limits to our abilities to make observations).

In any case, I still maintain that the scientific method can evolve; if it can evolve, it can evolve into something very different from what it is today.

Things would be a lot different if there were some, you know, actual evidence of supernatural intervention; and I’m sure that many scientists would rise to the occasion to study, hypothesize, and test those interventions. But unfortunately, what claims there are turn out to be 99.9% bullshit; it’s not much of a leap to conclude that the other
0.1% is bullshit as well.

Perhaps we’re all just blindly overlooking the obvious evidence that the planets are guided in their orbits by multitudes of angels. Amazingly enough, those angels seem to be just incredibly apt at simulating newtonian gravity.

As for string “theory”, belief in it is just that: belief. If no way is found out of the landscape picture, that’s a terminal condition. In that sense, strings could indeed be said to have moved their supporters closer to creationism - and in equal measure, further away from science.

The argument that the world was created a moment ago and that we are deluded in believing otherwise is a variation on the old (and tough to crack) solipsistic idealism. The trouble with this approach is that it makes all assertions/beliefs equally suspect, including the assertion/belief that it’s all in our minds. (I know, I know - it’s much bigger than that)

You’re right, of course, to be dubious about objectivity, but that’t a very big discussion.

Science, as we hope it’s taught in the lower levels of the academic pyramid, should be neutral on ultimate cause - as you indicate.

Incidentally, for all we know, string theory may succeed and bring us closer to some form of creationism.. but you’ve probably already considered that possibility.

And, for sure, ‘unscientific’ isn’t synonymous with ‘wrong’.

I don’t think we’re in disagreement here.. yet. I agree that some things are probably beyond the reach of the scientific method in its present state, but science’s methodology itself may evolve into something very different from what it is today and then - who knows?

Apologies for the delays in responding, but I can only afford sporadic visits.

Regards,
S