ID and infinite regression

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by loinburger
They'll certainly look like fools if they insist that their "facts" are absolute. However, in my experience scientists (experienced ones, at least) don't make this error. Agathon's statement may be the result of having had to teach one too many Ashers in philosophy of science courses. It may also result from an erroneous belief about how scientists view the work of past scientists -- even when learning about "aether" and "phlogistan" and similar outdated theories in my physics courses it was never stated that the scientists who came up with these theories were stupid.

lawyers deal in "facts" scientists do not. I think we agree that aggy is wrong that todays scientists will be regarded as idiotic fools for relying on the scientific method to conduct their investigations.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, I'm finally getting a chance to dig into the Greeks. I've got a great prof in one of my courses who seems to be doing a good job of outlining the various frameworks set up by the Greeks that still form the basis for much of our thoughts and discussions today.

I guess a good way of looking at it is that empirical sources of knowledge and observation have advanced, however it is questionable whether we have done any work along the line of reasoning to advance what was done by the Greeks.

[Ben Kenobi]

I think we agree that aggy is wrong that todays scientists will be regarded as idiotic fools for relying on the scientific method to conduct their investigations.

It's useful, however the limitations of the knowledge need to be understood.

As for the philosophy of science, I have to question how much knowledge science students have of the debates and discussions surrounded the concepts which they rely upon today. Generally, I would think most see science as Bacon did, that it has lead to the progress of knowledge continuing unabated. I don't see many questions as to why we should undertake certain investigations, beyond the thought, that if we can, we ought to pursue.

[Whaleboy]

I don't see many questions as to why we should undertake certain investigations, beyond the thought, that if we can, we ought to pursue.

Conversely, I should find it extraordinary that we might propose that knowledge of a certain phenomenon ought to be denied.

however it is questionable whether we have done any work along the line of reasoning to advance what was done by the Greeks.

To a point, I would agree, except for three; Hume, Kant and Wittgenstein in terms of causal logic.

But it's often stated that people like the Presocratic philosophers were stupid, even though the same argument applies to their work.

Personally I always considered their questions to be far more pertinent than their answers.

Ok my take on ID:

Firstly, principle of sufficient reason. We're here, which instantly biases our investigation in favour of a conclusion which includes our presence; any enquiry will therefore tend toward the anthropic principle because of that premise, and we are therefore more likely to be taken by the illusion of logic that is intent, that is to say we might account for the anthropic principle by postulating a designer.

Related to this is our habit of finding a designer where there is none. I like Douglas Adam's famous example of the puddle:

(paraphrased) A puddle of water wakes up one morning and thinks "this is a rather interesting world... an interesting hole I find myself in... fits me rather well, perfectly in fact!". He looks around and thinks "that it would fit me so well is so unlikely an event that it must have been designed for me", despite the fact that it couldn't have been any other way for him to ask the question.

Note that it's not a case of chaos, rather structure... but then complexity is another illusion of perspective. If you look at every little stage of the evolution of life, you'll see that what you originally thought of as fantastically complex is a result of you not looking close... look close enough, from the point of view of the participating molecules and it all becomes rather deterministic; cause and consequence.

Early man sees the world he lives in. He's freezing his arse off. He see's the woolly mammoths thick warm coat that evolution has given it and thinks "i'll have that!". So he fashions a weapon and kills the mammoth, and creates himself a nice warm garment so that he can spread across the Earth without having to wait for his genome to catch up with the day-to-day struggle of finding food in a changable environment. The man sits back after a happy days' killing and clothemaking, looks at the world and realises that it all fits him rather well, he is the master of it with his designed tools, and this world serves him so well he's forced to consider "so who made this for me then?".

He looks at the tools he's designed and realises that for this world to exist, like his tools, it had to exist as a concept before its creation, and this concept has to exist in the mind of someone more complex than it. He feels very small, so this being has to be enormously powerful. God is born.

One of the big fallacies of that argument of course is that fantastically simple causes can have fantastically complex outcomes.

Complexity to me is no evidence whatsoever of intention. I find the irreducable complexity argument somewhat half-baked, considering it relies upon the assumption that things in their current form could not work any other way, and components thusly could not work independently. To refute that, one merely seeks a functional combination, not an exact one... and it doesn't have to be toward the same end either.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Odin
My "Philosophy of Science" is that all theories are approximations of reality, and that the point of science is to get better aproximations. I think a major problem is that speculation ends up becoming dogma too way too easily if the scientist doing the speculating is well respected.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
As for the philosophy of science, I have to question how much knowledge science students have of the debates and discussions surrounded the concepts which they rely upon today. Generally, I would think most see science as Bacon did, that it has lead to the progress of knowledge continuing unabated. I don't see many questions as to why we should undertake certain investigations, beyond the thought, that if we can, we ought to pursue.

I personally never had any philosophy of science while studying sociology and political science in Germany The only reason why I have some concepts is because I had philosophy courses in an unrelated cursus.