"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...

The way I look at it is that science can be useful for trying to explain
and predict the real world around us. For hundreds of years Newtonian
physics provided a pretty good model of the real world and useful for
making predictions about how things would work. Scientific evidence
today shows that Newtonian physics is incomplete for certain
environments. Who knows what other limitations of our understanding exist?

The limits to our understanding are infinite - which is precisely why the scientific
method never claims to have discovered "the unalterable truth" on any matter. It compiles
evidence and tries to make sense of it with hypotheses leading to structured theory sets.
Whenever a scientist says "here's the science" he's essentially betting on the best horse
in the running (or horses, if there are convincing alternate theories in the race).
Because of Occam's Razor, science doesn't like to bet on the long shots, such as the
possibility of ID. Many horses can be - and eventually will be - knocked out of the
running, but that doesn't mean that at any given moment there won't be an acknowledged
front-runner in a race that never will reach a finish line.

Your Newtonian example is frequently used in an attempt to undermine the theory of
evolution, but it's just a version of requiring science to prove a negative. "Science was
mistaken about Newtonian mechanics governing all motion, so now prove that its rejection
of ID isn't also wrong." Using that same principle, I can posit that we are surrounded by
invisible aliens from Zygorthia who are getting their kicks by being responsible for
everything bad that happens on earth (including TWA800, for those of you who remember that
set-to with the conspiracy theorists). The alternate or null theory, that they don't
exist, is well supported by hypotheses and data, so it supports a rejection of my theory.
But science can never disprove my theory. After all, they may really be there and we just
haven't discovered the means to detect them yet, just as "ID is/may be true, we just
haven't yet discovered the means to prove it".

For anyone who demands that ID be taught in science classes, I demand equal billing for my
theory that Zygorthians, and not the devil, are responsible for all the evil in the world.