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Subject: You've hit the nail on the head.

Author:
Duane

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Date Posted: 09/29/04 2:56am
In reply to: Damoclese 's message, "Is it?" on 09/28/04 2:28pm

>On the other hand, in everyday languange people have
>taken the word "theory" to mean basically what the
>word "hypothesis" means in science. It basically means
>that they have a guess as to why things are as they
>are, allbeit an unvalidated guess.
>
>We have to ask ourselves how well ID meets the
>criteria to be a scientific theory, and we find it
>doesn't do a very good job because it fails to meet
>any of the stringent requirements that a scientific
>theory has to mandatorily accomodate.
>
>That only leaves one category; the commoner definition
>of the word. ID theory is more like a hypothesis than
>a theory. It simply isn't well defined enough to even
>begin to be a theory. It's just out there in a nebular
>way.

You're exactly right. It really isn't a scientific theory. It's a hypothesis.

An instructive example would be to look at the efforts of the ID community. Do they spend more time doing work in the lab, trying to scientifically validate their claims, or do they spend more time arguing with people, trying to CONVINCE them that their re-interpretation of the data is correct?

>The way I see it, ID has been and never will be a
>scientific theory, and that's why we can't treat it as
>though it's a scientific theory.

And that was my point. (though you managed to say it in much less time or space than it took me...)

Duane

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Why not a scientific theory?	Wade A. Tisthammer	10/ 9/04 6:46pm

Things I'd consider	Damoclese	10/ 9/04 8:12pm
Scientific theory or good scientific theory? -- Wade A. Tisthammer, 10/16/04 3:12pm Comments -- Damoclese, 10/16/04 5:44pm My comments -- Wade A. Tisthammer, 10/31/04 2:44pm