Yes, I know, nobody does this kind of distinctions, but I suggest you do.

And I would like to point to the funny spyder that his “gravity as intelligent design” was actually a theory many years ago: planets and stars were supposedly made of a substance different from earth, wind, fire and water, the four “materials” in vogue, called the “quintessence” or fifth essence. Its properties? Well, the main one was that it did not fall, like the other four substances. That is why Newton’s ideas were so startling: the heavens and earth were united, because they were made of the same stuff.

Finally, ID does make some falsifiable predictions: mainly that I am intelligently designed. ID can not explain the human embrionic evolution with gills and tail, the appendix, the senility, and all the inherited defective traits that an intelligent designer should eliminate from my body. And I am not fat nor ugly, or my complains would be louder, because the guy has had 15 billion years to get rid of those things… For an almighty being this seems to be a quite lazy design ID advocates predict I should be perfect, or they have no intelligent designer behind life. And I am not even talking of diseases, death and the Superbowl TV ordeal…

Read what (physics?) students, after they read the introductions to chapters 1 and 2 of Feynmans Six Easy Pieces, write on approximate and “slightly wrong” physical laws: When is a law not quite right?. I find this interesting as I’ve asked during m…

KANSAS CITY, KS-As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held “theory of gravity” is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

“Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, ‘God’ if you will, is pushing them down,” said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

Burdett added: “Gravity-which is taught to our children as a law-is founded on great gaps in understanding. The laws predict the mutual force between all bodies of mass, but they cannot explain that force. Isaac Newton himself said, ‘I suspect that my theories may all depend upon a force for which philosophers have searched all of nature in vain.’ Of course, he is alluding to a higher power.”

Founded in 1987, the ECFR is the world’s leading institution of evangelical physics, a branch of physics based on literal interpretation of the Bible.

According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God’s Word For Teens!, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise.
The ECFR, in conjunction with the Christian Coalition and other Christian conservative action groups, is calling for public-school curriculums to give equal time to the Intelligent Falling theory. They insist they are not asking that the theory of gravity be banned from schools, but only that students be offered both sides of the issue “so they can make an informed decision.”

“We just want the best possible education for Kansas’ kids,” Burdett said.

Proponents of Intelligent Falling assert that the different theories used by secular physicists to explain gravity are not internally consistent. Even critics of Intelligent Falling admit that Einstein’s ideas about gravity are mathematically irreconcilable with quantum mechanics. This fact, Intelligent Falling proponents say, proves that gravity is a theory in crisis.

“Let’s take a look at the evidence,” said ECFR senior fellow Gregory Lunsden.”In Matthew 15:14, Jesus says, ‘And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.’ He says nothing about some gravity making them fall-just that they will fall. Then, in Job 5:7, we read, ‘But mankind is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upwards.’ If gravity is pulling everything down, why do the sparks fly upwards with great surety? This clearly indicates that a conscious intelligence governs all falling.”
Critics of Intelligent Falling point out that gravity is a provable law based on empirical observations of natural phenomena. Evangelical physicists, however, insist that there is no conflict between Newton’s mathematics and Holy Scripture.

“Closed-minded gravitists cannot find a way to make Einstein’s general relativity match up with the subatomic quantum world,” said Dr. Ellen Carson, a leading Intelligent Falling expert known for her work with the Kansan Youth Ministry. “They’ve been trying to do it for the better part of a century now, and despite all their empirical observation and carefully compiled data, they still don’t know how.”

“Traditional scientists admit that they cannot explain how gravitation is supposed to work,” Carson said. “What the gravity-agenda scientists need to realize is that ‘gravity waves’ and ‘gravitons’ are just secular words for ‘God can do whatever He wants.’”

Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.

“Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the ‘electromagnetic force,’ the ‘weak nuclear force,’ the ’strong nuclear force,’ and so-called ‘force of gravity,’” Burdett said. “And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus.”

Source: http://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2

In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion. – Carl Sagan

How ’bout we take a step backward and try to establish a comprehensible definition of “science”? So far I haven’t found anyone literate (which I use as a baseline of age & education below which such discussions are useless) who doesn’t seem to get it when I say science deals only with what can be measured and tested.

This has several advantages, including that it concedes there is much of reality (religious devotion & other emotions, concepts like “America”, etc) that exists but is not in the realm of science. The “measurement” part also points to the actual daily work of science (as opposed to the Hollywood version), and the “testing” part implies the process of building & checking hypotheses, if the conversation continues in that direction.

Best of all, in present context, the question, “What in (whichever variant of) the idea of creationism can be measured or tested?” – whether in a friendly chat or a heated debate – leads one’s audience to a much better understanding of why science advocates draw the lines the way we do.

I don’t have a problem with areas of a scientific endeavour being ‘unscientific’, as I see the description as being representative of the overall whole. ID, though, just isn’t scientific in nearly any degree. The more different falsifiable statements we can make from our theory, the better, I say. I think that some areas of investigation will lend themselves better to this than others, but the damning thing about ID is that it effectively represents an attempt to try and avoid asking falsifiable statements but the IDers still put it forward as a ’scientific alternative’.

My knowledge on this, as on many things, is severely limited. Here I am mainly regurgitating my impression of Myers knowledge on http://pharyngula.org/ . He is a biologist and an energetic evolution proponent. Read him directly for superior knowledge in this.

On the specific term ‘evolutionist’ my impression is that Myers thinks:
-creationists reads the same evangelical texts were terms like ‘Darwinist’ and ‘evolutionist’ is misused.
- he is a biologist and evolution is just one well established theory in this area that every biologist use. The specialist on evolution are probably called just that.

However, regarding falsification I heartily sympatice with your intentions. Falsificability gives trust to theories and efficiently kills faithbased reasoning; I know hands on of examples. But I don’t think that it is realistic to think that every statement of a theory must be falsificable. I don’t see why at least a single central falsifiable statement is not enough to lend trust.

I also think the ‘god of the gaps’ argument shows that one must acknowledge missing knowledge and less trustful ad hocs, else one open up a backdoor for faithbased reasoning anyway.