Non-biologists look away for a couple of lines.

. . . but in general, go read his post because it will help you understand how science works.

Thanks to Black Knight for the trackback and the link to his excellent post.

Non-biologists look away for a couple of lines. For some reason I got distracted by left-handed DNA earlier. It’s a bit of a science geek joke, with a serious point. Okay, you can look back now. I then wanted to……

“Another argument, which may be closer to Henry’s view, is the fine tuning argument. This argument is that natural processes are finely tuned to enable the emergence of complexity, and therefore we postulate that a designer set up the very laws of nature themselves.”

As with the anthropic principle, finetuning come in many variants. Most aren’t finetuning that is needed for life as we know it, which is the real definition. Complexity appears over much wider scales. The remaining finetuning is simplest described by chance.

Finetuning is incompatible with ID which trivially demand an unnatural designer.

“Whether or not cosmological fine-tuning (for example) is physical evidence is a matter of conjecture—since neither cosmological ID nor the only other explanation, multiverses, can be put to the test.”

Several cosmologies are under testing, for example WMAP has found basic inflation (which creates multiverses) the most promising and has ruled out others. By further studying inflation at the bigbang and possibly at the wormholes which creates new universes we could possibly get direct evidence for a multiverse.

“What is the scientific theory known as “the string theory landscape

Besides, the ID crowd are now feverishly disowning their own religious roots; so it’s perfectly okay for persons of fatih to disown them.

After posting my last comment I spent a little time looking around the web. I’m not even close to being a physicist, but I do enjoy reading articles about it, and having been told by David Heddle that I misunderstood what looked like a pretty straightforward set of points about from an article, I was interested in whether this was something similar to Jorge’s claim taht I completely misunderstand intelligent design, to wit, the assumption that if I disagree, I must not understand the topic.

I was quickly reminded of the headline currently on AntiEvolution.org–Are ID Advocates Required to Lie Once a Day or More?, and Wesley Elsberry’s comment that “if the ID advocate claims that the sky is blue, their next step had better be to look out the window to see for themselves.”

Why do I say this? As soon as I started looking I find two things. First, there are scientists questioning whether string theory landscape is scientific, on the grounds it cannot be falsified, (String Theory and Intelligent Design) and others arguing that indeed it is science and can be falsified (Intelligent Design and String Theory and associated references).

String theory landscape is being held to the same standards as are being expected as ID, and the evidence is all over the place. It seems you didn’t quite present the facts accurately, did you?

Henry, you have not read it right.

Do you mind if I don’t take your word for it?

The landscape theory predicts nothing (that can be tested), and even its leading proponent admits it. Regarding its lack of Popperian falsifiability, Susskind commented to Nature (January 4, 2006 online article)

At the same time if some measurements can be either consistent or inconsistent with it, then it’s better than ID.

Imagine if Behe said that about ID.

I’d be surprised if an ID proponent would be that honest.

I find it interesting that I find plenty of references to controversy about this topic, including some people who claim it’s not science. It looks like some people are saying it’s not science. Sounds much like what they are saying about ID.

But unlike string theory landscape, ID proponents want to get in the door without going through the process, which again emphasizes the relevance of my original question.

Does string theory landscape have a political movement that is trying to get it added to high school science textbooks before it’s accepted by the scientific community? Does it have a religious agenda behind it?

No?

Oh well.

“Susskind, too, finds it “deeply, deeply troubling” that there’s no way to test the principle. But he is not yet ready to rule it out completely. “It would be very foolish to throw away the right answer on the basis that it doesn’t conform to some criteria for what is or isn’t science,” he says.”

Imagine if Behe said that about ID.

Not that I’m aware of. That is relevant, how?

Well, supposing that “the string theory landscape” was actually just a piece of speculation that was not testable. If that were the case, and scientists discussed it as speculation, then I’d have to ask what you mean by getting “treated as science.” If it’s simply batted around between scientists who are working on the cutting edge, what’s the problem?

The problem with ID is not simply that it’s not science. Its proponents want it accepted as science without them having to do the work. They want it taught as science in high school science classrooms without it having gone through the rigorous testing that is involved in publishing scientific research.

Was is not clear that I am pointing out that some things (such as the string theory landscape) get treated as science when they are no more science than ID?

Well, it was clear that you were trying to do that. It was equally clear that you are pretty vague on what you mean by “treated as science.”

But as a non-physicist (my field is Biblical languages), I had only a vague knowledge of what the string theory landscape might be. So I decided to go look it up. I found an article The string-theory landscape that discusses this theory at a level I can follow fairly well. It comments that:

The inflationary model solves many of the cosmological problems of the Big Bang model, and has also received strong support from the latest measurements of the cosmic microwave background. In addition to describing inflation, de Sitter space also provides an explanation for the acceleration of universal expansion.

Wow! Here we have certain measurements that seem to accord with this theory, and it provides an explanation for something. There are two things that it does that ID fails to do. ID explains nothing, and is supported by no measurements whatsoever.

Then it continues:

Obtaining a de Sitter solution is therefore a major challenge for string theory, which has been the main candidate for a fundamental theory of the universe for almost 20 years. String theory is believed to be a unique theory that unifies all the particles and forces in nature – including gravity – by treating them as infinitesimal 1D strings (see “Superstrings”).

Wow! A challenge for development of the theory! It provides fruitful areas for further research and development.

So if I read this article right, and I admit that as a non-physicist it’s possible I do not, this theory is not only science, it’s a pretty fruitful theory. Note however, that it is not accepted as true yet–it is viewed as facing certain challenges before it can be accepted. And it appears to be based on work that started close to 100 years ago. But I’m supposed to believe that ID, which explains nothing, predicts nothing, and offers no fruitfual areas of research is only rejected as science because of a Darwinist conspiracy?