Panspermia

[hmkpoker]

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A good example of a scientific theory that is open to investigation and validation. In contrast to God made us a we are 5000 years ago rot


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Panspermia is science and ID isn't. Um, ok.

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If I may steer this in a different direction, is ID falsifiable?

[garion888]

I have to agree with Not Ready here. I don't see what the possible predictions of panspermia are. Did anyone else read a prediction in that article? While this may be falsifiable, it kind of falls into the useless bin just like ID does.

[NotReady]

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If I may steer this in a different direction, is ID falsifiable?


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We're discussing this in the thread "The argument that convinced me etc". My position is that falsifiability is a slippery concept and often used to exclude discussion. It can be phrased by either side to obtain the results desired. I think there are elements in both evolution and ID that can be falsifiable and elements that can't. I haven't read the inventor of the concept, Popper, but I understand he abandoned it as a touchstone for the definition of science. In the end it just begs the question. The real and only question is how well do the facts fit a given theory, and if they don't, then what needs to be changed about the theory. Isn't that what science does?

[hmkpoker]

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If I may steer this in a different direction, is ID falsifiable?


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We're discussing this in the thread "The argument that convinced me etc". My position is that falsifiability is a slippery concept and often used to exclude discussion. It can be phrased by either side to obtain the results desired. I think there are elements in both evolution and ID that can be falsifiable and elements that can't. I haven't read the inventor of the concept, Popper, but I understand he abandoned it as a touchstone for the definition of science. In the end it just begs the question. The real and only question is how well do the facts fit a given theory, and if they don't, then what needs to be changed about the theory. Isn't that what science does?

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I think it's the other way around; they gather the empirical facts, then a theory emerges from them.

[UncleSalty]

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If I may steer this in a different direction, is ID falsifiable?

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Sure! God could come down and tell us how it REALLY happened!

[DougShrapnel]

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Panspermia is science fiction and ID is historical fiction.

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FYP

[Trantor]

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I have to agree with Not Ready here. I don't see what the possible predictions of panspermia are. Did anyone else read a prediction in that article? While this may be falsifiable, it kind of falls into the useless bin just like ID does.

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Panspermia is quite claerly a scientific theory. http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9909013

I haven't looked into it but one possible prediction of panspermia, I would tentatively suggest, is that complex molecules having the same bases as life on earth's RNA/DNA will be found in the vicinity of our solar sytem.

[Trantor]

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The book by Coppedge was my starting point, but after pursing the idea for awhile I came across panspermia and realized atheists have an out even if evolution on earth were shown to be statistically impossible.

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Evolution and atheism are independent concepts. If evolutionary theory were ever surplanted it would not mean the rug had been pulled away from under the feet of atheists. An "out" wouldn't be needed. Atheists were around a long time before Darwin etc were on the scene!

[NotReady]

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Atheists were around a long time before Darwin etc were on the scene!


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Darwin wasn't the first evolutionist. It goes back to the Greeks at least. Darwin was the first popularizer to offer a scientific explanation.

[garion888]

I sit corrected, there is a prediction...