THE MECHANICS OF TESTING A THEORY IMPLICATIONS FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN1 J Kirk Fitzhugh Ph D 2 Research Collections Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County 1 This article is available at http www nhm org research annelida Mechanics of Testing htm 2 email kfitzhug nhm org 1 organisms also exhibits this quality of immunity As the goal in any field of science is the ever increasing acquisition of causal understanding ID cannot be subjected to the critical testing that is consistent with that goal INTRODUCTION n my article Evolutionary Biology versus Intelligent Design Resolving the Issue3 I briefly outlined the nature of hypotheses and theories Hypotheses are explanatory constructs suggesting past causal conditions that might account for effects observed in the present while theories are established or generally accepted explanatory concepts or set of concepts that we apply to our sense perceptions to give us understanding of what we do or might perceive An important aspect stressed in that article is that hypotheses refer to specific events in the past and effects in the present whereas theories are spatially and temporally unconstrained Theories are intended to apply to the past present and future on this planet in this galaxy and beyond Given the differences between hypotheses and theories the protocols for critically assessing their veracity by way of the procedure of testing also show distinct differences The most obvious is that the testing of theories has the quality of an experiment where one must be in a situation to witness the causal conditions stipulated by the theory as well as subsequently observing the effect s from those conditions As will be discussed next it is this experimental character that imposes distinct limitations on what theories can be critically evaluated in the realm of science providing the criterion for demarcating the theories comprising evolutionary biology from any theory of intelligent design ID The principle implication to be identified is that any ID theory is immune to testing A related implication is that a hypothesis derived from an ID theory especially pertaining to I THE STRUCTURE OF THEORY TESTS I noted earlier that the testing of a theory requires that one be in a position to know and or observe the causal conditions under which a particular theory is claimed to provide understanding The act of testing determines whether or not the causal relations stated in a theory manifest themselves The basic format of any theory as a general statement of cause and effect relations has the following form 1 Theory When causal conditions of type x occur effects of type y will occur Developing a test of theory would involve the derivation of specific predicted effects that should follow from the stated causal conditions The basic format of a potential test of theory would then have the form 2 Potential test of theory If the causal conditions of type x1 are encountered then an effect of type y1 should then be observed The actual test of theory would then have the form of an experiment be it under laboratory or natural conditions during which causal conditions of type x1 are produced and effects subsequently observed If effects are as one predicted then the effects provide confirming evidence for the theory giving one reason to conclude that the theory has at least for the moment some worth as a tool for acquiring understanding Such a test would 3 Available at http www nhm org research annelida eb vs id html 2 have the form the theory actually manifest themselves If an intelligent agent cannot be discerned then any ID theory is immediately immune to being tested contrary to the test conditions stipulated in 3 and 4 As a consequence there could be no observed effects that could serve as confirming evidence for an ID theory By the same token it would not be possible to claim any ID theory to be disconfirmed by any observed effects As an intelligent agent cannot be witnessed during some set of test conditions that agent could not be ruled out as having some part to play in the conditions that are witnessed Recall once again that theories assert cause and effect relations e g 1 The goal of testing is to evaluate the veracity of the claim of such relations This requires that causal agents conditions and or events be available to observation If such agents conditions and events cannot even be introduced into the realm of testing a given theory then it is not at all possible to subject that theory to testing Let s look at an actual example of the difficulty of testing an ID theory In his book Darwin s Black Box Behe 1996 Free Press New York introduced the notion of irreducible complexity Irreducible complexity is the view that some biological structures are too complex to have been developed naturally through the processes of random mutations and natural selection Additionally there is the contention that since such complex structures cannot function if critical components are missing then natural selection could not have operated on intermediate stages leading to fully functional structures Thus we are compelled to consider that these features are not the products of evolution but an intelligent purposeful designer The example of such intelligent design offered by Behe 1996 is the bacterial 3 Actual testa of theory instance of confirmation A causal condition of type x1 was created in the lab at time t0 and an effect of type y1 was observed at t1 Theory is currently accepted as a construct for providing causal understanding Alternatively if the effects that follow from the known causal conditions of type x1 are not those predicted by the theory then this is potential evidence disconfirming the theory 4 Actual testb of theory instance of disconfirmation A causal condition of type x1 was created in the lab at time t0 and an effect of type y2 was observed at t1 Theory does not appear to provide relevant causal understanding potentially leaving consideration of other theories or revision of theory In other words the cause and effect relations claimed by the theory do not appear to hold The theory might either be in jeopardy and in need of being replaced or it might simply require revision to some extent IMPLICATIONS FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN THEORIES Given the mechanics required for testing theories what are the implications for critically evaluating any ID theory The most serious impediment to testing an ID theory is the simple realization that it would never be