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With all due respect to Profs. Ryan and Moody, they seem to be seduced by a naive Popperism. The difficulty seems to this scientist to be the question of falsifiability vs. utility. Perhaps mathematics is the only discipline where utility can be ignored, although I write from ignorance, and mathematicians would be well-justified in clobbering me on this one. Thus, I can propose a theory that is eminently falsifiable but ultimately useless (Elliott Sober's "theory of shirts" for example- I simply list the shirt colors of everyone in the room. Falsifiable, certainly, consistent with the evidence, of course, but useless in terms of prediction, or of insight into a general mechanism.) I submit that theories are judged by scientists, not on falsifiability criteria but on utility. Vitalism may or not be falsifiable, but it is totally useless in terms of the goals of Biology. So we don't consider it. Likewise, evolution by natural selection is not in Popper's strictest sense falsifiable, hence his famous misstatement that it isn't science. But, as he himself admitted later, it is definitely useful and clearly scientific. (Some of Popper's difficulty may be due to the fact that he was trained as a physical chemist, and falsification is a clearer path in some aspects of that discipline. Alas, I don't think he knew borscht about modern biology.)

Even given that ID is potentially falsifiable (not an obvious point to the practicing scientists in this forum) it fails the test of utility utterly. No ID-theorist has ever proposed an experiment or way to look for data that are enhanced by their assertions. If they wish to discuss the statistical problems of assembling life forms from inanimate matter, let them get in the fray and do some real work. Their "conclusions" about the difficulty of the process are well known to those in the field and predate them. When they come up with something new and useful, we will be happy to take them seriously - in the meantime, their political successes (see today's New York Times) will be entirely due to a propaganda campaign. And basing science on propaganda is a clear way to self-destruction (see Lysenkoism and Aryan Biology).

: -- Frank Schmidt, Prof of Biochemistry (posted 2/11, 10:40 a.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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