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What Makes a Theory Testable, or Is Intelligent Design Less Scientific Than String Theory?

Abstract.

I compare the theory of intelligent design to string theory to see on what basis, if any, only the former can be justifiably excluded as being scientific.We shall see that the classic criterion of testability or falsifiability is sometimes not so straightforward, and that there are other criteria to help us make such a distinction.

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Correspondence to Robert Ehrlich.

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Ehrlich, R. What Makes a Theory Testable, or Is Intelligent Design Less Scientific Than String Theory?. Phys. perspect. 8, 83–89 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-005-0279-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-005-0279-6

Keywords.

  • intelligent design
  • irreducible complexity
  • evolution
  • string theory
  • anthropic principle
  • theoretical testability
  • falsifiability
  • Michael Behe
  • Leonard Susskind