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To: donh
scientists is who we should properly consult about the nature of science

And FedEx drivers should set the policy for when packages are delivered.

Do we really need to go back over this? Scientists do science, they do not define it. Science is defined by philosophy. Scientists can make the case for why they do what they do. They can argue whether something is consistent with their approach. But when you begin debating the methodology itself, you are in the realm of philosophy.

Explain how to develop the scientific method by following the steps of the scientific method. Show me how to falsify the demarcation of falsification. No one else has ever done this, but go ahead and show me.

The problem is your unwillingness to admit that an acceptance of evolutionary theory predisposes the scientific community to propose and select hypotheses which affirm this view. Further, data must be interpreted (from this vantage point) with the presumption that any generally accepted part of evolutionary theory which is not the immediate subject of scrutiny, must be assumed true when drawing conclusions (interpretation of data). You fail to acknowledge this or the fact that it is circular reasoning (when it comes to the debate over whether the assumptions of evolution are correct).
616 posted on 06/09/2006 1:10:37 PM PDT by unlearner (You will never come to know that which you do not know until you first know that you do not know it.)
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To: unlearner
Do we really need to go back over this? Scientists do science, they do not define it. Science is defined by philosophy.

So you laughably say. Prove it.

618 posted on 06/09/2006 2:52:52 PM PDT by donh (U)
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To: unlearner
The problem is your unwillingness to admit that an acceptance of evolutionary theory predisposes the scientific community to propose and select hypotheses which affirm this view.

No, that's not the problem. I readily admit it. Established scientific paradigms rule to a certain measure on their own momentum, and tend to choose to look at things that said paradigm implies.

However, as history shows--that is not a mechanism that ultimately allows creaky or false paradigms to survive forever. Eventually the cracks in the dam get to be too much to bear. And, once again, we have circled back to my first line of defense. When doubters who've done their homework, and can stand up in the scientific court and give witness without effective counterargument, then science turns the crank and moves on.

When people who haven't done their homework, and therefore can't hold their water in a technical scientific discussion demand consideration, they are quite properly ignored, because that's exactly what makes them useless, annoying cranks. All you have pointed out, to demand a hearing, is that science relies on imperfect, prejudiced, inductive tools--big deal, we already know that--that's why we run technical journals the way we do. Unfortunely for your case, you have nothing better to offer. Despite your incredibly wordy, dismissive take on this subject.

622 posted on 06/09/2006 3:39:19 PM PDT by donh (U)
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To: unlearner
Explain how to develop the scientific method by following the steps of the scientific method. Show me how to falsify the demarcation of falsification. No one else has ever done this, but go ahead and show me.

That might be an interesting argument, if you were demanding that the mechanism of mathematical proofs be proved flawless. However, you are applying the argument to natural science, which stops far short of claiming that it's conclusions, or it's mechanism, is flawless. The perceived reliability of natural science doesn't derive from it's theoretical underpinnings, it derives from specific results from specific observations that have proved fruitful. The theoretical top of the science tree has proved kind of flexible, but the important successful experiments have survived these philosophical earthquakes largely intact--demonstrating, for those who care, that Bishop Berkeley, and the rest of the various schools of solipsistic, subjective uber-alles probably have their heads tucked neatly up their sphincters. There really is stuff outside our perceptions. And, more particularly, demonstrating that the purity of our abstract models do not run the science show--what stuff actually does is what runs the science show. Putting it another way--experiment and observation are what is, in the long run, at the controls of the science train, not human prejudices, or grand idealistic abstractions.

623 posted on 06/09/2006 3:53:34 PM PDT by donh (U)
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To: unlearner
the presumption that any generally accepted part of evolutionary theory which is not the immediate subject of scrutiny, must be assumed true when drawing conclusions (interpretation of data). You fail to acknowledge this or the fact that it is circular reasoning (when it comes to the debate over whether the assumptions of evolution are correct).

This is yet another over-reach. Some aspects of the relations between various scientific schools of thought are derived from each other, but to claim that you can therefore dismiss great gobs of science due to circular reasoning is extremely fey. Let's look for example, at the killer case. The micro-biological tree derived from the mutational clock is the result of of work in a field pretty functionally isolated from the tree of life derived by paleontological geologistss and zoologists. And the claim that the mutational tree and the paleontological tree are somehow myopic co-dependant illusions is pretty hard to demonstrate: they look at parts of the biota that aren't in the least apparent from the related mophologies of preserved dead creatures, and the tools and intellectual constructs they look with do not cross-pollinate to any significant degree.

This is a dramatically pursuasive example of functionally independent routes to the same conclusion--and, a prime ingredient of good science: there was every likelihood that, if evolutionary theory is a delusion, the mutational clock would not have matched up. This is a prime example of why tangible experiment trumps meta-theorizing about how science works to re-enforce our confidence in any given theory. If you like, there is a third "experiment" in this sequence. If all the "kinds" of creatures on the earth had a separate genesis, you'd think it wouldn't be the case that they can all eat each other with, at most, one or two intermediaries on the food chain. Obviously, God didn't have to make our body parts of stuff polio virus finds tasty, so that our children could die long, agonizing deaths from polio, but he did. It doesn't make a lot of sense--unless God actually just whipped us all up with one fancy miracle, instead of hundred's of thousands of nearly identical miracles--as most scientists, including Darwin, consider a reasonable take on the question.

625 posted on 06/09/2006 5:13:52 PM PDT by donh (U)
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To: unlearner
scientists is who we should properly consult about the nature of science

And FedEx drivers should set the policy for when packages are delivered.

Post Hoc, ergo propter hoc. You have not demonstrated your thesis that scientists are mere delivery boys for philosophers. The proper equation is FedEx drivers = lab clean up crew.

644 posted on 06/10/2006 12:20:47 PM PDT by donh (U)
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