First, thanks so much for your well-reasoned and thoughtful response.
>Anonymous wrote...I agree that the basic question of whether or not there was/is an intelligent designer is not falsifiable (not testable) in the strict scientific sense (cf. Karl Popper). Macro evolution--all new species arise from prior species through descent with variation--is a potentially falsifiable theory. One would only have to show one case in which a new species arose without benefit of evolutionary change; how to actually prove such a thing occurred is problematic however. On the other hand, to falsify intelligent design one would have to show at least one instance in which something was not designed, but arose without a designer, and how can one do that if the designer's involvement in such a process isn't verifiable? All that to say, "I understand your point, and I agree if we are treating theory in the strict scientific sense." But that's a big if.
1) I don't think you understand what "testing" ID would involve and why it cannot be done. The issue is that a hypothetical designer could do anything: make anything look like anything. Thus there is no way to _disconfirm_ the idea since anything at all can confirm or disconfirm it. Theories are only testible when they are limited in scope, and ID by definition has no limits and those no distinguishing characteristics.
When scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Stephen Gould, et al. talk about the theory of evolution they tend to lump the initial, unfalsifiable, non-scientific axiom in with the falsifiable scientific theory. To say it another way, it's sleight-of-mouth when they speak of the "theory of evolution," yet include the non-theoretical assumption of naturalism. Granted, that's not the fault of the Wired letter writer. He/she was correct in the strict sense, but the theory of evolution (as it's treated in the political controversy and in the Wired article to which the letter writer was referring) is not a theory in the strict sense because of the appended axiom of naturalism.
We should be comparing apples to apples. The real choice is not between the theory of evolution (falsifiable theory) and intelligent design (unfalsifiable axiom), it is between intelligent design (unfalsifiable axiom) and naturalism (unfalsifiable axiom). I'm using "naturalism" in the sense that everything is the result of natural processes, without reference to any supernatural intervention. Both are unfalsifiable, and therefore, unaddressable by scientific methods (again, using Karl Popper's clarifications).
Either initial assumption--ID or naturalism--would allow us to postulate and test the theory of evolution. I've heard people say that, "science is the process of finding out how God works in the natural world." The axiom is "God designs nature." When an evolutionary biologist says something to the effect that God had nothing to do with it, it is all the result of natural processes the axiom is "only nature, not God." So one could start with the assumption that God creates/designs nature and evolution is the natural process by which new species arise. The theory of evolution says nothing whatsoever about the initial axiom. BUT, that's not how people use the term "the theory of evolution." That's not how Gould or Dawkins or the Wired article--and by extension, the respondent--use the term.
The real issue for me is, how can we decide between those two axioms?
Anonymous wrote...
2) Speciation and evolutionary modification are very much testable. I think
you are laboring under the misunderstanding that tests on historical claims
can only be done by repeating history, but this is not the case. We test the
past by testing the evidence the past leaves behind: the direct implications
various events have for leaving behind this or that piece of evidence. All
science, in fact, works like this: all we EVER have is more or less evidence
supporting some claim via induction and inference.
I understand the difference between legal-historical proof and scientific proof. I must disagree with your statement that, "all science, in fact, works like this." Scientific proofs do not work like this. Legal-historical proofs work like this. And as I said previously, the value of science itself is not open to scientific testing, anymore than claims about an intelligent designer or naturalism. Based on your next sentence, you would appear to agree (?).
Anonymous wrote...I suppose I've responded to much of this already. I agree that we all require such axioms and we tacitly concede them every time we act. The question is, which axiom is true (if either)?
3) Science is indeed built on untestable assumptions. But these assumptions
are rather special: they are axiomatic, the very assumptions we ALL require
to act and function within the physical world. Merely by reading and
responding to my words, you concede those assumptions, as you do every time
you move and act in the physical world. So they are givens, not the sorts of
special additional claims that people make for their pet theories.
In summary, I agree with you and the Wired respondent if you are talking about the theory of evolution in the strict sense WITHOUT the inclusion of naturalism as an explanatory cause. But if we include the explanatory axiom in the term "theory of evolution" (as is done in the national debate, in Dawkin's and Gould's and others' writings, and in what most people mean when they say "theory of evolution"), then they are not talking about a scientific theory at all. They are talking about a belief system more akin to religion, that is, it is based on faith in an initial, unprovable axiom. That being the case, what separates the naturalist scientist from the intelligent design scientist?
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