Rand Simberg has a good post on Intelligent Design (ID) (tip to Instapundit):
How science works is by putting forth theories that are disprovable, not ones that are provable. When all other theories have been disproven, those still standing are the ones adopted by most scientists. ID is not a scientific theory, because it fails the test of being disprovable (or to be more precise, non-falsifiable), right out of the box. If Hugh [Hewitt] doesn’t believe this, then let him postulate an experiment that one could perform, even in thought, that would show it to be false. ID simply says, “I’m not smart enough to figure out how this structure could evolve, therefore there must have been a designer.” That’s not science–it’s simply an invocation of a deus ex machina, whether its proponents are willing to admit it or not. And it doesn’t belong in a science classroom, except as an example of what’s not science.
I’ve made my position on this subject quite clear in the past. ID, and creationism in general should be able to be taught in the public schools. Just not in a science class–they need to be reserved for a class in comparative religions.
I agree both with Simberg’s view of Intelligent Design and (generally) with his view of science, though Simberg is talking about the older, traditional view of how science works (the Karl Popper view). More common these days is the Kuhnian view of science (anomalies, rather than strict falsifiability)–and there are still other views of science that are more akin to postmodernism. Much theorizing in the social sciences these days follows more or less Milton Friedman’s simpler test of a theory–how well it fits the data. One occasionally sees other views, such as the plausibility or truth of the premises of a theory.
One thing that strikes me about Intelligent Design is that it must have been much more intuitively appealing before the failure of socialism. Socialism in the 1920s–1940s was in part based on the idea that the world had become so complex that central planning was necessary to deal with this complexity. Yet Von Mises was arguing just the opposite, that as the world became more elaborate, no one could plan it. ID seems to be based on an assumption that most conservatives reject in the economic sphere–that as the economy gets more elaborate, to work well it must be the product of the intelligent design of a master planner.
UPDATE: At Blurred Brain is an interesting post pointing out something that pro-capitalists have been saying for at least a century, that capitalism is all about planning–planning by millions of planners in an economy.
More at Rite Wing TechnoPagan, Catallarchy, and a Physicist’s Perspective, who points out that not all science fits the Popper criteria, which is why I mentioned other theories of science and stated that I “generally” (not completely) agreed with Simberg. Imago Dei argues that “We can have knowledge of things without falsification.” Ambivablog asserts:
But, Jim! The whole point is that “divine” intelligence, or whatever you want to call it, is everywhere at once and can be trusted. (Like Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand?) Only humans would be stupid enough to come up with the idea of central planning!
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