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

On Wed, 07 May 2008 13:39:37 +0000, "Bill Bonde ( 'the oblique
allusion in lieu of the frontal attack' )"
<tributyltinpaint@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>
>
>David Johnston wrote:
>> 
>> On Thu, 01 May 2008 23:36:13 +0000, "Bill Bonde ( 'the oblique
>> allusion in lieu of the frontal attack' )"
>> <tributyltinpaint@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 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. That's very close to the "God did it"
>> >idea because every time you give a Creationist some observation,
>> >say fossils, he changes his "theory" to mesh with that,
>> 
>> No, he doesn't change his theory at all.  God still did it.
>> 
>Right, but now with the added bit about how he did it by putting
>the fossils there to trick science.

No, putting the fossils there isn't part of the explanation for how
life happened.  

>
>
>
>> >>  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.
>> 
>> I do, however get to not care where life originated for this purpose.
>> It doesn't make a difference.
>>
>I'm not sure what the argument is then. 

Abiogenesis is about how life originated.  The argument is about the
attempt to avoid that question by invoking aliens.