Bush approves of ‘Intelligent Design’, we hear, a theory that’s gaining popularity
amongst some Christian groups as a competitive scientific approach to the theory of natural selection. It specifies that while evolution has occured, it was guided by an intelligent
force.
But the thing that it’s fans repeatedly fail to notice is that it isn’t a demonstrable scientific theory. To be considered as a scientific theory, it has to be
impirically demonstrable, at least in theory, to be false. Evolutionary Theory can be proven false, because theories of evolution state that they could be
proven false by the discovery of any single species who’s history can not be explained by it’s own terms. Intelligent Design’s “fail” demand is that it is proven to be
incorrect for every species. Just like theories that both “God exists” and “God does not exist”, Intelligent Design can not be proven false, and therefore is untestable and
unscientific!
I have no problem with the existance of a theory of intelligent design: in fact, I’m honestly surprised it’s taken so long to get a foothold, as it is a great theological explanation
for the way species have been (so far) proven to be while maintaining creationistic ideas… but it is not, by definition a ‘scientific theory’.
It’s been a long day.
On the up-side, Egg have stopped writing to me to tell me I am over my credit limit and instead, today, wrote to me to tell me they were bored of
telling me I was over my credit limit and so they have increased said limit. Go Egg!
