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[Phys-L] Re: ID defenders (response Part I)



The issue is not that scientists guess about things, but that the
guesses are testable, and that when they are found to be wrong,
they are abandoned.

But, Hugh, they AREN'T all testable. For a long time, many of
Einstein's predictions were untestable. I don't know how you would
go about testing string theory or any number of other things that we
lump into "science".

This is simply not true.

As with all scientific theories, both GR and string theory rigorously
RULE OUT almost every conceivable observation. (As just one example,
GR rules out observing that masses attract each other in inverse
proportion to their separation raised to the 1.852 power.) As a
result they are instantly "testable" with the already available data.

Now perhaps you don't find it particularly compelling that a new
theory specifically predicts observations that have already been made
AND rules out those that have already been ruled out. You might even
note, correctly, that the theories were specifically constructed to
do so and hold that fact against them. If so I'd suggest that you
reconsider your stance; constructing theories that agree in a
precisely quantitative manner with the available evidence is an
extraordinary and increasingly rigorous requirement.

What you mean, I think, to say is that we already had (or have)
theories that made the same predictions in the range of parameter
space that had (or has) been explored, specifically Newton's law of
universal gravitation and quantum chromodynamics so that choosing
between them was (or is) not immediately possible. But GR and string
theory did (and do) make specific predictions that are unreconcilable
with these older theories and that most certainly are testable even
if the technology for performing those tests was (or is) currently
unavailable.

The situation with ID could not possibly be more different. Because
it rules out nothing, it is untestable even in principle.

To summarize:

1. ID is not science BECAUSE it is invulnerable to evidence.

2. GR, string theory, and evolution are science because they are
vulnerable--indeed, exquisitely so--to evidence.

John Mallinckrodt
Cal Poly Pomona