Re: Ben Stein's Movie EXPELLED - Could we have been "designed"

Bill Bonde ( 'the oblique allusion in lieu of the frontal attack' ) wrote:
> 
> David Johnston wrote:
>> On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:58:31 +0000, "Bill Bonde ( 'the oblique
>> allusion in lieu of the frontal attack' )"
>> <tributyltinpaint@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>
>>>>> So there's no possible way to discuss ID scientifically? What if
>>>>> space aliens did affect the earth's biote? In this hypothetical,
>>>>> you are excluding what actually happened from study. That doesn't
>>>>> sound like what science is about.
>>>> If you can't detect it, you can't study it.  Science requires
>>>> observations, not merely truth.
>>>>
>>> What you are saying is that detection is impossible even in
>>> principle, or you'd be arguing similarly against string theory.
>> String theory is a different but not particularly more complicated
>> interpretation of the same observations as I understand it.
>>
> The reason that "string theory" meshes with reality is that there
> are an infinite number of string theories and they just pick one
> that fits all observations.

Maybe you should read up a bit. What ALL string theories must be able to 
do is explain the known facts. Since it is maths, and since string 
theory as a whole tries to combine and include all other theories of 
physics, it cannot exclude one.

M-Theory (the latest one, and combining the other string theories) must 
do this as well. It includes the older theories of physics and can be 
used to explain the three space and one time dimension we experience. It 
  itself uses eleven dimensions.

I don't understand the maths used. I guess there are only a handfull of 
people on this globe that do understand it.

> That's very close to the "God did it"

Yes and no. Yes, because since string theory is not yet and won't be in 
the foreseeable future falsifiable in practice (although it is in 
theory), it is argued that it is not really science.
Also, up until now, as I understand it, it doesn't make any testable 
predictions.

Note, that SCIENTISTS argue this. They THEMSELVES argue this.

So far, string theory is basically maths.

And No, because whatever the theory does or does not do, it must include 
  the know observations. It strives to combine the other theories of 
physics, and in that must be capable of doing the other calculations of 
those theories.

> idea because every time you give a Creationist some observation,
> say fossils, he changes his "theory" to mesh with that, "God put
> the fossils in there to trick us, he did."

Weeeell, not really. The way I understand it, if you find some part of 
the theory that doesn't add up or is contrary to what is known, the 
theory is out.

The creationists don't really have a theory. "goddidit" is not a theory. 
It doesn't allow for predictions (ok, so M-theory doesn't do that as 
well. That's why it is not really a scientific theory). It doesn't 
include the other theories, in fact, goes contrary to them in parts.

>>  Aliens
>> on the other hand are a complication to the basic question that
>> doesn't actually answer the question of how life originated.
>>
> But you don't get to define where and how life originated.

It is not a question of "definition" or only in the way that you have to 
define "life". It is a question of finding out.

  It could
> be that we came from alien DNA but that aliens evolved like we
> figured we'd evolved.

Could be, yes. Btw, you mixed up evolution and abiogenesis again.


> You don't get to decide what happened.

Nobody "decides". The question is what really happened. Not that we have 
that great a chance to find out, really, but we can at least TRY.

Even IF they manage to produce a living cell (or pre-cell) in that lab 
(and they are pretty close to that), that doesn't mean that this is what 
actually happened. It just means that this way of abiogenesis is 
POSSIBLE. It doesn't even say that this happened on earth. It might have 
been somewhere else in the universe.
But then we'd have a bunch of other tricky questions to answer: How did 
these "lifeforms" or how did just the DNA from these lifeforms end up on 
earth? You know, DNA is not that durable as a whole.

Interesting questions, of course.


Tokay



-- 

"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. 
Dance like nobody is watching."

Vinny D.