Comments on: Intelligent Falling

By: Michael Geissler

Michael Geissler — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 03:01:27 +0000

I don’t know where people get this idea that scientific ideas go through a hypothesis-to-theory-to-law progression – something like a bill going through parliament/congress/local legislative equivalent. You see people all the time arguing that this happens and that evolution is still stuck at the ‘theory’ stage and is therefore dubious. Does anyone out there know where this concept comes from?

By: Irishman

Irishman — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 21:23:26 +0000

Wrong, Sean. Theories don’t become Laws – they are two different items.

A Scientific Law (sometimes a Principle) is a description of how something behaves. Newtons’ Law of Gravitation describes the mathematical pull between two objects. It is a description. It does nothing to explain why gravity pulls the way it does.

Theories are explanations – explanations that match the data and provide a framework for why the Laws work. Theories are built around laws. Newton’s Gravitational Theory had to do with body forces. Gravity theory now is based upon Relativity and curved spacetime. Relativity replaced Newtonian gravity. Newton’s Law is still valid for most applications – only in the extreme conditions does Relativity differ.

Example: the Germ Theory of disease – that bacteria and viruses are the causes for many diseases. That’s still a Theory, even though we have confirmed the existence of bacteria and viruses and shown how they invade, how they spread, and how to prevent them and treat them. It is not the “Germ Law” of disease.

And I think you are thinking of Newton’s Laws of Motion. I’m not aware of a “1st Law of Gravity”.

By: Sean

Sean — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 16:38:22 +0000

Gravity is a Law, 1st law of gravity, so forth and so on. It was originally published as a theory. It became a law when it became provable. Versus, evoluation which remains theorized based on supposition.

By: Irishman

Irishman — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 22:05:45 +0000

Excellent point, Ken!

By: Ken Gayley

Ken Gayley — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 05:30:48 +0000

As I see it, the main problem with intelligent design is the lack of a definition of intelligence. The word design has no problems, clearly many biological systems are designed. The issue is, were they designed by natural selection, which ultimately relies on random processes, or were they designed by some intelligence. The problem is, since we have no real idea what intelligence is, we cannot be sure that intelligence itself is not governed by random selection processes. How do brains work, after all? Probably by selecting, out of many possible random processes, those that actually do something useful. Thus intelligence, as we know it, may itself be intimately related to random driving
forces. After all, human intelligence showed up pretty late in the “design process”. And if the intelligence implied by ID is something more than human intelligence, then what definition can be suggested for it, other
than the tautological one: intelligence is that attribute which is capable of producing results that show design. But using that definition, intelligent design is so self-explanatory that even Darwinian evolution can be classified as an intelligent process. So after it all, we find ID is both correct, and meaningless.

By: Leon

Leon — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 17:18:00 +0000

And why my hair is getting thin.

By: Chris P

Chris P — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 01:17:24 +0000

I’m a middle-aged man. If I am the product of “Intelligent Design,” can someone please explain why I have nipples?