Science Education

This is an excerpt from a post on one of my class' websites (following is my response): (ID is intelligent design).

In response to what distinguishes ID from Evolution, ID contains a premise that our universe or certain features of it, specifically humans, must be the way that they are in the present. The idea is that when you look at the complexity of such things as human life, you can roughly calculate the odds of such complexity evolving by random chance, and they are so small that we can hardly wrap our minds around it. ID would then say, "We obviously shouldn't accept an explanation that gives us such a small probability of attaining our current state," and go on to claim that we need an intelligent designer to help us bust those odds. In reply, we will make an appeal to the anthropic principle. We'll say, "Since human beings exist in the present, all the necessary prerequisites, including the values of physical constants and specific random mutations, attained in the past." To secure a place for an intelligent designer, ID must say, "Since human beings MUST exist in the present, all the necessary prerequisites MUST have attained in the past." So, ID rests upon a premise that the existence of human beings is necessary. This seems likely to be a difficult claim to justify. Those supporting ID would desire to appeal to the bible for support. Doing so, however, would be begging the question, as they would be employing their intelligent designer in a proof of his own necessary existence.

isn't it also reality that could be appealed to, to argue a "neccessity" of humanity?

Plantinga (in a similar argument), doesn't attribute the beings in reality as we know it as neccessary beings, (as they are contingent) but that given all possible worlds, only this possible world could have been actualised by the (effectively) very fact that other worlds were NOT actualised (at least not "here"). Thus for Plantinga, speaking of other possible worlds where we were not actualised it to speak nonsense, those other worlds contain inherent contradictions (which is why they were not actualised), and possibly even beg the question.

What I'm saying is that if you speak of science in terms of probablilities, you must next ask the question of what do Probabilities mean??

Do they mean that each outcome is undetermined or could they be determined? If you say they are indeterministic, then the next question I have is, what does that mean?

Let’s look at quantum theory and the human level of interaction in the world. The quantum level is inherently indeterministic (at least, most commonly agreed so), and yet on our level determinism seems to be the modus operandi. So can we say that the world as we know it is indeterministic or deterministic? Is the indeterminism of quantum consequential or (basically) just a neat thing to know? (Personally I believe it is consequential in a very specific case, but otherwise inconsequential).

Likewise, are the probabilities of any consequence or simply a neat thing to know about the facts of the matter? I can throw a ball across a five foot room and expect it to hit the wall… and you can work out all the probabilities of the ball hitting the wall, but they’re effectively useless as anything other than trivia. The fact of the matter is that the ball was determined to hit the wall by an outside agent. Sure you might argue there is the chance that I’d miss the wall, and thus probability does matter, but be realistic, if I was a perfect designer, there’d be no chance of me missing the wall, that problem there is not the analogy but fact I’m imperfect and can’t account for all possible outcomes and correct for them.

The interpretation of probabilities matters greatly. Are they descriptive or are they (basically) prescriptive? Do they describe or mandate events? And I’d argue that scientists that seek to say they’re being non-philosophical and even-handed letting the facts weigh themselves, are gravely mistaken about their own views… scientists DO believe in an interpretation of probabilities and various other things that are biased affect the work of scientists.

Which is why I believe scientist NEED to be educated (within the fields themselves) about opposing philosophical views, such that they can attempt to be less biased, and such that the philosophically biased language that already exists can be understood as just descriptions of one metaphysical possibility, and not as “that’s the way it really is”.