[Flipside]

Occams Razor is a theory anyway, and like all theories will be pushed as hard as it can to see if it breaks, regardless of ID, a scientists dream is to prove one of the 'Great Theories' wrong.

That is the difference, if ID were considered as a science, it would be under constant attack, it's encouraged in the scientific community, if we'd taken what Newton said for granted and never questioned it, we would still have massive gaps in our knowledge. Those attacks would eventually, in fact rapidly disprove it for lack of substantial evidence. Religion does not cope well with constant questioning, assuming it is lack of faith, Science is the art of constant questioning.

[karajorma]

That's the thing most creationists don't get about science. Experiments are occasionally carried out to prove stuff we've known for years is still true.

One of the things the astronauts did on the moon was to drop a feather and something heavy (A rock or a spanner or something) to prove that acceleration under gravity is the same for both. We've know that's true for over 300 years but yet it was still done.

[Edward Bradshaw]

Occams Razor is a theory anyway, and like all theories will be pushed as hard as it can to see if it breaks, regardless of ID, a scientists dream is to prove one of the 'Great Theories' wrong.

Its not really a theory, rather its a philosophy science.

Ed

[Flipside]

Oddly enough, there are lots of ways to get a scientist to say 'We don't know' as well...

'Why does Water disobey the laws of physics at 4'C, and expand? A fact that is utterly vital to life.'
'How did monomers become Polymers in an aqueous solution, a reaction required in the creation of life and yet completely unexplainable using our current knowledge of chemistry?'
'Why has particle physics dissapeared so far up it's own rectum they now happily talk about 15-dimensional strings that even the people that theorised them don't understand?'

Theres no doubt whatsoever, there's a lot still to learn and a lot of misconception in science. It took American scientists until well into the late 1950/early 60's to accept Tectonics, scientists aren't without their hang-ups

It's not about having all the answers, it's about not giving up and saying 'God Did it', and instead trying to find those answers.

[aceofspades]

Also...the idea that Occam's razor says that the simplest explanation is correct is ridiculuous.
"Ah, but Mr. Fellow Scientist, how do you explain *set of evidence*?"
"God decided so."

Except that you've missed the fundemental flaw in your argument. God is not simple. If you want to claim God did it you have to explain God.

Considering that mankind has spent thousands of years trying to do that and isn't one iota closer (in fact we're further away according to most faiths) I don't think you can make any reasonable argument that God did it is simpler.

Actually, God is very simple. You're missing my point by lightyears. You're talking about some kind of pseudo-theological understanding of God. I'm talking about natural laws. Explaining scientific evidence using God has practically no entropy, because you can use it to explain anything the same way once you let go of science. Science says, for example, using a classical Newtonian-style exposition: "You have such and such scenario with objects x and y. x has quantities x_1 and x_2, and y has quantities y_1 and y_2. What will happen is such and such, and results in the new quantities x'_1,2 and y'_1,2. In fact, we can even describe this using formulae A and B."
When you allow God to control the structures of the world to his choosing, the point is that those quantities are changing without any order to them. There are no formulaes, no controlled scenarios that repeat themselves. "How come object x did that?" "Oh, it was a holy object. God saved it." The point isn't that, say, we don't know why God chose to save that and not this. The point is that is no scientific description possible in a world with miracles. 

Also...the idea that Occam's razor says that the simplest explanation is correct is ridiculuous.
"

Like I said a page back Occams Razor makes perfect logical sence, the simplest explanation that explains all the evidence IS usually the correct one. And that means not resorting to unverifiable supernatural explanations.

I know. I'm supporting your side.

It's funny that the same argument has been used at least one page back, and I answered it with my own, but the only response has been the repetition of the original argument by several people.
Also...the idea that Occam's razor says that the simplest explanation is correct is ridiculuous.
"Ah, but Mr. Fellow Scientist, how do you explain *set of evidence*?"
"God decided so."
Roughly same thing for why calling ID a scientific theory is wrong. Imagine if Einstein has been thinking about the Michelson/Morley 1887 results in 1905 and had said...
"Well, this is obviously pretty complicated. A complex law like this could only be designed by an intelligent agent."

Ah, but Occams Razor is based on observable evidence.  God is only possible as an explanation if there is actual, proper evidence of God, and there isn't.

I know. I'm supporting your side.

Oddly enough, there are lots of ways to get a scientist to say 'We don't know' as well...

'Why does Water disobey the laws of physics at 4'C, and expand? A fact that is utterly vital to life.'
'How did monomers become Polymers in an aqueous solution, a reaction required in the creation of life and yet completely unexplainable using our current knowledge of chemistry?'
'Why has particle physics dissapeared so far up it's own rectum they now happily talk about 15-dimensional strings that even the people that theorised them don't understand?'

Theres no doubt whatsoever, there's a lot still to learn and a lot of misconception in science. It took American scientists until well into the late 1950/early 60's to accept Tectonics, scientists aren't without their hang-ups

It's not about having all the answers, it's about not giving up and saying 'God Did it', and instead trying to find those answers.

I know. I'm supporting your side.
However, I'm not sure what you're trying to say by the above scientific questions. Are you trying to say that science is clueless about these things? Granted, you're right there's a lot to learn, but I think your choice of at least the top two of your cases is misguided/misinformed. Water behaves that way because of how the hydrogen bonds produced by its molecule cause those molecules to arrange themself. This is also responsible for water having the surface tension it does. As to the polymer thing, I'm not on strong footing here, but I believe from my bio course that there is also a chemical cause for these behaviors, involving once again the way that charges are distributed in different parts of the molecule.
By your third case, all you're really doing is using words indicating the image of that science as 'weird'. I don't think that makes much of a point.

[Flipside]

What needs to be borne in mind is that one of the most powerful engines in Evolution is radiation, which is utterly random, due to the nature of Electrons being impossible to 'pin down', the centre of the Earth is pretty hot radioactively speaking, most of the heavy elements sunk when it was still cooling, it's that radiation that helps to create random mutations, and a lot of those mutations are so minor that they have no effect on the organism whatsoever and get passed onto the next generation.

Evolution is random because the cause of mutation is a chaotic system, most mutations are either too small to be detected or, if larger, fatal and often rejected or miscarried by the parent.

Lack of knowledge as to the whole of the answer doesn't mean that God did it, because we don't know why Nature behaved in that manner. We are trying to look millions, sometimes billions of years into the past to find answers to these questions.

The simplest solution is usually the right one, not because it's easy to understand but because Nature abhors waste, molecules will bind together, for example, depending on energy levels, not the will of the observer.

[Flipside]

As far as the whole water and ice thing is concerned, there is a lot of theory about it, but even given the natural tendency of water to be sticky still doesnt explain how something that is losing energy can expand. Yes, the skin on water is fully explainable, but whilst there are theories on how it works, no-one has ever produced a testable demonstration. Low energy levels should not, according to our knowledge of physics allow for expansion, molecules should be less reactive when at low energy levels not actively seeking out extra bonds. It obviously does, those bonds do exist, but no-one actually knows why they do so at such a low energy level.

The second question causes a lot of consternation to scientists because of the mass action law, its like putting granulated sugar into a glass of water and expecting it to create a sugar cube. Once again theories exist, but no testable proof.

As for the third question, yes, thats exactly what I am saying, physics in particular has started to move so far into the realms of the theoretical that it makes no sense even to those who are studying it...

Allow me to quote Michio Kaku on Superstrings...

'The Heterotic string consists of a closed string that has two types of vibrations, clockwise and counterclockwise, which are treated differently. The Clockwise vibrations live in ten-dimensional space. The counter-clockwise live in a 26 dimensional space of which 16 have been compactified (we recall that in Kazua's original five-dimensional, the fifth dimension was compactified by being wrapped up into a circle).'

It just seems to me that Particle Physics, in particular has pretty much lost the plot and is making stuff up as it goes along on a sub-atomic level.

I'm simply trying to make the balance that science cannot explain everything, however, simply because it cannot, that doesn't mean it's invalid, it simply means there's a lot more to learn.

[NGTM-1R]

Particle physics has basically reached the point where they've managed to explain everything they can test.

[Flipside]

Aha! Looks like my knowledge of Water is 2 years out of date...

The reason that water expands upon freezing is because of the strong hydrogen bonding between the water molecules. Water is polar having a positive end nearest the Hydrogens and a negative end nearest the Oxygen atom. Therefore The positive ends of some water molecules attract the negative ends of other water molecules. When water reaches 4 degrees Celsius the molecules have been pushed as close to one another as they will be. Below 4 degrees the water molecules begin to align themselves into the crystal structure of ice. This requires the water molecules to widen the angle between the Oxygen Hydrogen single bonds from the usual 104.5 degrees. When this happens the water molecules take up more space hence expansion.

Apologies

[aceofspades]

Thanks Flip, that was exactly what I was referring to when I disputed your original statement. It's refreshing to see an issue be resolved by a person revising their position by themselves, something that usually doesn't happen in this war-torn forum 
I still think you're a bit off on the 'strangeness of physics' thing. I'm sure a person from around Newton's time or later would have said the same thing about Newtonian physics. Whether or not something seems esoteric to you is all about how much you're initiated into the subject. This stuff is pretty cutting edge, so despite attempts to popularize it it's still often very weird to most. But if you look at Newton or perhaps even up to Einstein, nowadays that's been so ingrained in our culture everybody is used to some of the terminology, effects, etc. of the field. People generally don't go blank when you talk about mass and energy being equivalent because of E=mc^2. And I'm pretty sure that in a couple of centuries at most, people will talk about superstrings and compactified dimensions.
As to the polymer thing, I believe your reference to the sugar-in-water is equally or more appropriately described as the famous Second Law of Thermodynamics. Also, there is a difference - chemical bonds can form polymers from monomers, it's more a question of how much it happens. Obviously, there are large molecules that are stable and don't dissociate rapidly and spontaneously all the time. There are even other reactions that happen spontaneously. So I think that there could be a chemical reason for what on the surface seems to be a weird event, just as you found out with the water thing.

[Flipside]

Heh, yeah, probably, I just hate reading something and not being able to understand it, really drives me wild I can just about cope the half wave half particle behaviour of electrons.

Quarks annoy me the most, not because of behaviour but because of the naming conventions (or Flavors) it's pretty self evident they were discovered during the phsychadelic era

[Ace]

Well they gave such naming conventions partially to reinforce that "these are arbitrary names for these properties."

Mainly because a few people take the arbitrary labels given to electromagnetic properties (positive and negative charge) a bit too literally.

[TrashMan]

Technicly, God allways did it...since he put hte laws of physics there in the first place.. LOL

But I agree.. It's one thing saying "God did it" or "God might have done it" but not even trying to investigate further is another.
Just becouse God did something doesn't mean its unexplainable, as he might as well decide to act TROUGH the physical laws...

anyway, if you belive in the what happened in Međugorje and the Ladys 10 messgaes, we can expect a unmistakable sign of God's presense in the next few years..

[aceofspades]

<snip>
anyway, if you belive in the what happened in Međugorje and the Ladys 10 messgaes, we can expect a unmistakable sign of God's presense in the next few years..

...

[aldo_14]

<snip>
anyway, if you belive in the what happened in Međugorje and the Ladys 10 messgaes, we can expect a unmistakable sign of God's presense in the next few years..

...

It's a place in Croatia.  bunch of peeps claim they were given 9 messages (so far) by God, and when they get the 10th the world will end, etc etc.

[TrashMan]

Nah...they got 10 messages(secrets)  but they can't disclose them yet (alltough some of hte messages are rather bad for us).

I say we're gonan hear them soon becouse accoring to them the Virgin Mary will inform them when the time is right for the secret 10 days before it's fulfilment. They will pray for 7 days and their reverend will then reveal the secret to the world.
I say soon becoause the reverend is pushing his age...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me%C4%91ugorje

[aceofspades]

<snip>
anyway, if you belive in the what happened in Me?ugorje and the Ladys 10 messgaes, we can expect a unmistakable sign of God's presense in the next few years..

...

It's a place in Croatia.  bunch of peeps claim they were given 9 messages (so far) by God, and when they get the 10th the world will end, etc etc.

In the (admittedly narrow) interest of preserving the world, then, I vote to cut off all internet access to Croatia.

[WMCoolmon]

<snip>
anyway, if you belive in the what happened in Međugorje and the Ladys 10 messgaes, we can expect a unmistakable sign of God's presense in the next few years..

...

It's a place in Croatia.  bunch of peeps claim they were given 9 messages (so far) by God, and when they get the 10th the world will end, etc etc.

*Changes e-mail display name to "God" and sends a message to Croatia about herbal viagra*

[TrashMan]

Hardy har-har.....

[aldo_14]

Thanks to the magic of the spiritual medium, I can exclusively reveal the Ten Messages

1/ Hello
2/ Um...what, you want ten messages?  Well, allright.  I'll do it before dinner.  Time passes slowly up on the celestial planes, you know.
3/ Bit parky for it, isn't it?  Sure you should be out?
4/ Well, at least put on a jumper or something
5/ Ah, bit nicer today.  Did I leave the oven on?
6/ Well, I'm sure I had an oven somewhere
7/ Look, I don't care what scriptures say, I had a nice Zanussi model with a hotplate and everything
8/ Oh, wait, that was Martha Stewart, wasn't it?
9/ I do have an oven right up here, though.  We get all the best designers, because they're dead.  Hmm.  Been here a bit.  wonder how far along dinner is.
10/  Oh, bugger it then.  That's my quiche ruined.

I will now accept your platitudes and money.  Money preferred.  Souvenir T-shirts are available in the lobby gift shop.