September 27, 2005
Are the dinosaurs really extinct?
One of the problems that many have with intelligent design is that the theory uses indirect logic. So rather than applying indirect logic to origin of life experiments, lets consider its application to paleotology.
Scientists believe that the dinosaurs are extinct. But to actually prove that dinosaurs are extinct, scientists would have to find every animal on the planet and show that each of these animals is not a dinosaur. And of course, if anyone actually tried to accomplish this daunting task, they would fail. There are too many animals and the planet is too large. So how do scientists know that the dinosaurs are extinct?
They use indirect logic. The basic premise is that because nobody has ever seen a dinosaur they must be extinct. So rather than proving that dinosaurs are extinct, science has inferred that they are extinct. This inference is based on the observation that nobody has seen a dinosaur in modern times.
This situation is fully analogous to intelligent design. Because scientists cannot figure out how life originated in the primordial soup, and because this mystery has existed for over 100 years, it is logical to infer design. Granted one day science may solve the origin problem, just like someday an explorer may stumble across a dinosaur in the amazon jungle. Indirect logic is acceptable science because the inferences so drawn can be disproved. The inferences only become stronger as time passes. 500 years from now if the origin of life is still a mystery then the design inference will be much stronger than it is today. Likewise, 500 years in the future, scientists will even be more certain that the dinosaurs are extinct.
Comments
September 27, 2005
doctormark said:
I’ve never seen a supernatural being. Using the same “indirect” logic, can I infer that no supernatural beings now exist?
Administrator said:
If you assume that you should be able to observe a supernatural being while you are still alive - then yes you can use indirect logic to infer that no supernatural beings exists.
But you have no way of knowing if your assumption is true. For surely if the supernatural being does not want you to see him, then you will not. This is very different from the dinosaur example. For if they still existed, we do have many good reasons to believe that we would know about it.
Further, while nobody has seen a supernatural being today, 1 billion Christians believe that one was seen 2000 years ago by many people, and this further weakens the initial assumption required for your conclussion.
Finally, to further complicate everything, lets go ahead and assume that if a supernatural being exists, he would want everyone to see him. Then the fact that you have never seen one become very problematic. It creates a logical impass because we are left with no explanation for the origin of life and must believe blindly that given a few more thousand years science will solve the mystery.
January 4, 2008
localman said:
I agree with your general point about using indirect logic, but I don’t see how the ongoing mystery of how life originated lends any weight to intelligent design. A lack of proof for theory A only weakens theory A, it does not strengthen theory B.
More importantly, you’ve confused a question of “if” with a question of “how”. The dinosaurs are extinct. And life did start. But we don’t know for sure how either one happened. The fact that we don’t know how doesn’t say anything about what really happened.
To illustrate, taking the lack of knowledge about the origins of life as an indicator for intelligent design would be like saying that since we don’t know how or why the dinosaurs went extinct that they must have been called up in a rapture.
With respects.