A post at Telic Thoughts entitled The Uniqueness of Our Solar System caught my eye (HT: Bradford). Referencing a blog post and an online article, the post goes on to say:
"Paradigms change with time. The one advancing the belief that we inhabit a not very special solar system having an ordinary star is being challenged.
Intelligent Design has a cosmological component. If life arising is an unusual event in our universe, the formation of solar systems, with planets having earth-like conditions, might be rarer still."
A couple of not-so random thoughts:
1. When looking for a level-headed argument, I usually head over to Dr. David Heddle's blog, He Lives. It is interesting to note that while he does not think much of biological ID, he does fully support cosmological ID**. So let me do an experiment. When mentioning biological ID or IC, I get a huge response.
UPDATE (03-Sept-2008): So let me throw this out at you:"Cosmological ID is science". I am curious what the response will be. (Note: While Dr. Heddle is sympathetic towards Cosmological ID and says it is on more firm scientific ground than Biological ID, he never explicitly stated that it is science. - HT: freelurker)
UPDATE 2 (03-Sept-2008): It's always best to get it from the source (thanks Dr. Heddle).
2. I have always been intrigued by the stark differences in the various solar systems, but I have never come across a comprehensive listing of these extrasolar systems. I would like to see the following in such a listing: parent star spectral type and mass, planetary mass and diametre***, orbit details (eccentricity, closest distance to star, furthest distance to star, etc.), and comparison (both tabular and graphical) to our solar system.
*Let's face it: family, work, and my lawn will always take priority over EE. I could probably add barbecuing, football and hockey.
** To save you time, Dr. Heddle's cosmological ID posts are here, here, here, here, here, here, and probably more before 2005.
*** One must include diametre along with mass since Newton's equation for gravitational force comes into play for determining the likelihood of life - simple or complex - on these planets.
Being supportive of cosmological ID is not the same thing as claiming that it is science.
ReplyDeleteHeddle in 2006:
"The only thing, in my opinion, that can save ID is to acknowledge that it is not science but a science-based apologetic. Its purpose is to demonstrate that science is not incompatible with the bible and that Christians have nothing to fear: science is not the enemy anymore than archeology. Neither physics experiments nor Holy Land excavations are going to disprove God or the bible. ID, like all apologetics, should have as its primary audience believers, not unbelievers."
Welcome back! I certainly missed you. I am the other way around. I think the idea that the Earth is noplace special became obvious with the death of geocentricism, and the rise of heliocentricism.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, we are obviously special, but the fact that the Earth revolves around the sun raises legitimate questions.
But than again, you actually need faith to know that the Earth revolves around the sun, since I have never measured parallactic shift, and when I went to the equater, we certainly didn't seem to be traveling at 1,000 mph.
(Point being, heliocentricism, like intelligent design, isn't exactly intuitive to some people).
Replace than with then and any other grammar/spelling errors please!
ReplyDeleteWW
ReplyDeleteGood to see you here.
You have unfinished business, however, on this other comment thread.
Here
Thanks
Who is Dave, and who said I get to respond to the evolanders?
ReplyDeleteWW weaseled: Who is Dave, and who said I get to respond to the evolanders?
ReplyDeleteRespond or not, it's your choice. Lack of response to a simple question might mean a lot of things, but I won't speculate here.
As for who is Dave, here ya go.
OK, where was I? Oh yes...
ReplyDeletefreelurker, I see your Heddle in 2006 comment and raise you this Heddle comment:
"Cosmological ID is based on two facts:
The fine-tuning of the universe
The uniqueness of the universe
I have argued many times that cosmological ID is falsifiable, by disproving either of these points."
So not only is Heddle claiming Cosmo ID is based on facts, but it is falsifiable. Sounds like science to me. This is also a position he has consistently maintained with regards to Cosmo ID. Biological ID and the IDM are different stories.
WW, geocentricsim also had a philosophic side which was the Earth was the cosmic sump of the universe. Copernicus et al elevated Earth's status with heliocentricism. Two things I'll note from this:
1. Copernicus, Galileo and others still thought Earth had a special place in the universe.
2. Elevating Earth to planetary status opened the door to contemplation of life elsewhere (which I believe Kepler did).
Also WW, please extend the utmost respect to Dr. Dave Rintoul. We may not see eye-to-eye on a lot here, but he does deserve your respect as a hard-working and highly educated professor.
Dr. Heddle specifically included cosmological ID in the 2006 posting. He says this about the "'ID is science' mantra" :
ReplyDelete"Except that by ordinary standards of science it isn't. ... Even the falsification experiments in the The Privileged Planet, which in my opinion is the ID book on the most solid scientific ground, don't smell like real experiments: Search for intelligent life on a planet without a large moon. This is not to say that experiments cannot be ID inspired, I believe they can be and are--in fact all experiments are ID inspired in the sense that they presuppose two facts in evidence: i) nature is orderly, i.e., governed by laws and ii) although we have no reason to expect it, it would appear that humans are able to uncover and understand these laws.
Heddle is one of the more articulate people writing about ID. If he held the position that cosmological ID was science then he certainly would have made that clear. I choose to go by what he wrote, not what his position sounds like to you.
It's possible that his judgement that ID cosmo ID is not science solidified after the 2005 comments you quoted and before the Sep 2006 posting I quoted.
"Also WW, please extend the utmost respect to Dr. Dave Rintoul."
ReplyDeleteRespect is earned, and it is not earned with untruths such as Dr. Rintoul's: "That's not unexpected; in my two forays on his blog I left comments that have never been allowed to be read by his readers."
Since I review all posts flagged as spam by my spamfilter, Dr. Rintoul is, I'll assume, confused.
Furthermore, he certainly seems to be attempting to play "gotcha" instead of having a reasonable discussion (e.g., focusing on my use of the term Darwinism, which at worst is colorful, while ignoring the points about the very important and central roles played by Darwin's evangelicals who promoted his theory.
WW- Since I review all posts flagged as spam by my spamfilter, Dr. Rintoul is, I'll assume, confused.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, you are calling me a liar.
Indeed, respect is earned. You're going backwards down that road.
For the record, I did not post "spam" on your blog, unless you define spam as anything that you disagree with. Although neither one of us can ever prove this (those posts are disappeared), both of us know the truth.
Furthermore, he certainly seems to be attempting to play "gotcha" instead of having a reasonable discussion (e.g., focusing on my use of the term Darwinism, which at worst is colorful, while ignoring the points about the very important and central roles played by Darwin's evangelicals who promoted his theory.
I think a reasonable discussion can best be had without the use of pejoratives. I think that "Darwinist" is used as a pejorative, rather than as an historically accurate term, in just about every blog post or comment made by WW. I think that his current statement (using the past tense "promoted") is at odds with his previous definition, where he defined Darwinism as a religion practiced in the current time. Therefore I submit that this is not a "gotcha question" at all, but an attempt to bring clarity to a topic which has always confused me, and about which WW himself has sowed confusion in two different comments.
WW, if you want to have a substantive discussion, drop the pejoratives, drop the pretense that you delete only "spam" on your blog, and then we can start down that road toward mutual respect.
Allow me to clarify my position on Cosmological ID.
ReplyDeleteI am a big supporter of CID, an I think it can be falsified, not in an official Popperian sense, but in a practical sense. That is, speaking for myself only, either of these would make me abandon Cosmological ID:
1) It was demonstrated that habitability is not, contrary to as it seems now, surprisingly sensitive to the fundamental constants.
2) Another universe with different physics was detected.
But that does not make CID a science. For it to be a science it has to make a testable prediction. I know of no experiment that says: measure this and if Cosmological ID is correct you'll get result A, if not you'll get some other result.
And "experiments" such as CID predicts you'll never detect a parallel universe or CID predicts you'll fail to prove fine tuning is an illusion don't count.
I think that everything I have written about cosmological ID even back to 2003 when I started is consistent with this, although they way I express it may have evolved. The bottom line is no, I do not think CID qualifies as science.
Please note the update above. Thanks for me keeping me honest, freelurker.
ReplyDeleteRegarding your supposed posts, you must have hit the submit and not the preview. As I said, if it had been labeled spam, it would have been personally reviewed by me.
ReplyDelete"I think that "Darwinist" is used as a pejorative, rather than as an historically accurate term, in just about every blog post or comment made by WW."
I bet you were the type of child who would take his ball and go home if others did not play exactly the way you wanted.
The term Darwinist in the context of Darwin's contemporaries and evangelical promoters of his theory is a reasonable description. The same term may also be reasonably applied to the big mouth Darwinists of today such as can be found at PandasThumb, TalkOrigins, NCSE, AAAS, et al.
Between Thomas Huxley and now, we've had Julian Huxley and his made up religion, and before Thomas Huxley, we had the Culte de la Raison.
But T. Huxley found in Darwin's theory a club, and this club has been wielded by a type of evangelical.
I don't claim that Darwin or his cohorts invented anti-religion sentiment, but Huxley was certainly instrumental in promoting Darwinism, and the tactic is alive and well today.
"My working men stick by me wonderfully, the house being fuller than ever last night. By next Friday evening they will all be convinced that they are monkeys--Thomas Huxley"
But take your ball and go home (figuratively speaking, since, the blog owner here seems to enjoy your company) just don't expect others to believe you're doing it out of a sense of fairness. Truth is not on your side, and you seem to want to force others to use language in a way that masks that fact.
Darwinists exist, past and present. Deal with it.
Or preview and not the submit.
ReplyDeleteWW:"Respect is earned"
ReplyDeleteLet me approach this from a different angle. Jesus gives us love and grants us our dignity, even though we don't deserve it. In return, He asks that we do the same to others. This is what I try to follow (not always successfully) here at EE. Name-calling and saying liar, liar detracts from the discussion.
I don't know the specifics of any issues you are experiencing at CT, but here at EE, Dave has been a thoughtful and exurberant commenter, and has not crossed the line as to warranting a deletion of his comment.
I also don't believe in deleting comments. Rather, I would black out all ad hominem comments in a similar manner as to what can be done on Word. (i.e. when you highlight it, you can still see the comments, but on normal view, it looks like a black stripe). I call this a Sharpie pen policy. Once I figure it out, it is something I'd like to put forward to Blogger.
WW - Regarding your supposed posts, you must have hit the submit and not the preview. As I said, if it had been labeled spam, it would have been personally reviewed by me.
ReplyDeletethen Or preview and not the submit.
Whatever you need to justify your deletion of comments that disagree with you, I'm sure you will use...
then: "I think that "Darwinist" is used as a pejorative, rather than as an historically accurate term, in just about every blog post or comment made by WW."
I bet you were the type of child who would take his ball and go home if others did not play exactly the way you wanted.
This is, as I'm sure you understand, NOT a response to my statement. You do use "Darwinist" as a pejorative. And speculating on my behavior as a child is NOT a denial of that statement, nor is it even relevant.
As for the rest of your post, my synopsis of it is short. Darwin, Huxley, atheism, waaaaah! Toss in a couple of red herrings and you'll have yourself a nice salad. But not an argument.
If you have an argument about the IDEAS and how they apply in the modern world (not how they upset your religious sensibilities), please wander over to this comment thread and tell us your thoughts. See if you can avoid using the word "Darwinist" for just one comment.
thanks
hmmm, I think I need a program to keep track of the Dave's/David's around here and the blogosphere ;)
ReplyDeleteDr. Heddle, thanks for your comment clarifying your position on Cosmo ID. I apologise if I misrepresented your position.