Comments on: The Disenchanting http://telicthoughts.com/the-disenchanting/ An independent blog about intelligent design Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:07:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: edarrell http://telicthoughts.com/the-disenchanting/#comment-400 edarrell Sun, 05 Jun 2005 17:25:41 +0000 http://telicthoughts.com/?p=107#comment-400 I'm sure the Discovery Institute hopes evolution will die a death by a thousand pricks -- hence their frantic search to find a thousand people to sign their anti-Darwin letters. You keep forgetting, as Kuhn did not, that intelligent design is the old paradigm, and evolution the new. Probably the side with the fewest pricks wins. ;-) I'm sure the Discovery Institute hopes evolution will die a death by a thousand pricks — hence their frantic search to find a thousand people to sign their anti-Darwin letters.

You keep forgetting, as Kuhn did not, that intelligent design is the old paradigm, and evolution the new.

Probably the side with the fewest pricks wins. ;-)

]]> By: tom_kbel http://telicthoughts.com/the-disenchanting/#comment-384 tom_kbel Fri, 03 Jun 2005 05:33:33 +0000 http://telicthoughts.com/?p=107#comment-384 I believe you mean Quine and Duhem, not Quine and Durkheim. The Quine/Duhem hypothesis was known to Popper, who developed his theory accordingly, a fact distinguishing his falsificationism from the naive falsificationism with which it is normally confused. Popper's student, Imre Lakatos, extended Popper's ideas in a way making them very similar to those of Thomas Kuhn. Importantly Kuhn (but not Lakatos) claimed that different theories were incommensurable. But Lakatos realised that different "research programs" (equivalent to Kuhn's "paradigms") were rationally comparable. Progressive research programs are marked by its growth, and the discovery of stunning novel facts. Degenerative research programs are marked by lack of growth, or growth of a protective belt that leads to no novel facts. Measured independantly of the desires of protagonists, it is clear that evolution, but not ID, is a progressive research program. Every month new facts are published in papers that make intimate and explicit use of evolutionary theory in the discovery. The ID movement has yet to disover of a single novel emperical fact. No wonder 95% plus of scientists are sticking firmly with evolution, while ID is running second to Young Earth Creationism in getting articles published in scientific journals. If you wish to appeal to paradigm shifts in defence of ID, you should first check to see whether the paradigm of working scientists has actually shifted. I believe you mean Quine and Duhem, not Quine and Durkheim.

The Quine/Duhem hypothesis was known to Popper, who developed his theory accordingly, a fact distinguishing his falsificationism from the naive falsificationism with which it is normally confused. Popper's student, Imre Lakatos, extended Popper's ideas in a way making them very similar to those of Thomas Kuhn. Importantly Kuhn (but not Lakatos) claimed that different theories were incommensurable. But Lakatos realised that different "research programs" (equivalent to Kuhn's "paradigms") were rationally comparable. Progressive research programs are marked by its growth, and the discovery of stunning novel facts. Degenerative research programs are marked by lack of growth, or growth of a protective belt that leads to no novel facts.

Measured independantly of the desires of protagonists, it is clear that evolution, but not ID, is a progressive research program. Every month new facts are published in papers that make intimate and explicit use of evolutionary theory in the discovery. The ID movement has yet to disover of a single novel emperical fact.

No wonder 95% plus of scientists are sticking firmly with evolution, while ID is running second to Young Earth Creationism in getting articles published in scientific journals.

If you wish to appeal to paradigm shifts in defence of ID, you should first check to see whether the paradigm of working scientists has actually shifted.

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