Your Friday editorial about the Intelligent Design (ID) debate refers to ID as a theory. ID is not a scientific theory.
A scientific theory or law is a hypothesis that has been rigorously confirmed through repeated experimental tests. It has predictive power, meaning that it predicts observations before you make them. It is falsifiable, meaning that some hypothetical observation could show the theory is wrong.
Intelligent Design has not been subject to experimental tests. No rigor has been applied. Since all possible observations are consistent with ID, it has no predictive power and it is not falsifiable. There is no way to tell whether the data supports ID or not. ID is not a scientific theory.
ID advocates such as William Dembski offer pseudomathematical nonsense to dress up what they would like to be a theory, but won’t subject their work to peer review. They themselves admit much work remains to be done.
Feel free to pursue ID as a philosophical enquiry, but it is not science.
Rich Baldwin
Bothell
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