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[Phys-L] Re: ID defenders



I had written:

If the big bang was true, certain things should be observable in the
current universe and other things should not. If evolution
was true,
certain things should be observable in the current universe
and other
things should not. Are you saying that this does not count as
testable? Or, are you saying that the big bang and evolution make no
predictions about what should be observable in the current universe?

to which Jim Green responded:
Pardon me, Robert, for smiling broadly. Are you saying that
the exact same
phenomena aren't predictable by a picture of ID? Wow!

Thank you, Jim, for pointing out (in your own way) that my statement
was too vague. Perhaps I should've written:

If the big bang was true, certain things should be observable (that
were not used in the creation of the theory) in the current universe
("current" meaning "after the creation of the theory") and other things
should not (i.e., would not be consistent with the theory if they were
observed).

Brian Whatcott also responded, writing:

I see that I have $27 in my wallet.

If it were true that a dollar bill started to materialize
each day in my wallet, starting on the last day of July, and
it turns out that
I do in fact have $27 in my wallet, as I just confirmed,
is this not a demonstration of a testable theory?

That's science then, much to my surprise!

Thank you also to Brian for providing a nice example that can
illustrate the distinction I am trying to make. Your theory
(of a dollar bill materializing each day) can be used to explain
the observation that you have $27 in your wallet. The observation
($27 in your wallet) was used to create the theory and, as such,
is no longer a current observation.

If your "theory" simply explains where the $27 came from and makes
no predictions about what may be in your wallet today, it is not
scientific, whether or not it is "correct".

To be scientific, you must use the theory to make a testable prediction.
For example, does the theory predict that you should have an additional
dollar in your wallet today? If so, we can test it by examining your
wallet. If it does, your explanation is supported by the test.
Otherwise, it isn't. If, for the next 30 days, one additional dollar
continues to materialize in your wallet, I'd say you have a
well-supported explanation. I'd call it Brian's law because, though
I have no idea why it should hold, it certainly appears to hold.

Let's now make the situation a little trickier by saying that one
dollar materializes every millennium, not every day, and it started
(for some strange reason) 27,000 years ago. Waiting a couple of
days, we'd see that it still only has $27. Do we have to wait 1000
years to really test it?

Well, an important point that seems to be frequently missed is that
waiting for future events is NOT the only way scientific theories are
tested. A really good theory would not only explain where your $27
came from but also the money in everybody else's wallet. Further, it
should be able to predict how much money is in everybody else's wallet.
That way, to test the theory, I simply need to go to someone else's
wallet and see if they have the predicted amount of money.

Evolution and the big bang are scientific because it not only says
where the $27 came from, but it also predicts how much money should
be in someone else's wallet. The existence of the background
radiation was already provided by someone else in the thread as a
test of the big bang. We don't have to go back in time or wait a
really long time to test the theory.

____________________________________________________
Robert Cohen; 570-422-3428; www.esu.edu/~bbq
East Stroudsburg University; E. Stroudsburg, PA 18301