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To: Doctor Stochastic
Both Creationists and Postmodernists claim special knowledge that is superior to scientific inquiry and this special knowledge is to be preferred in the case of conflict?

Postmodernism I don't know.

I am sure from a nonbelieving point of view that is an accurate description. But there is a difference between what scientific inquiry reveals and what it implies. Gravity, F=MA, V=IR, are all observable. Macroevolution is not. The Big Bang is not.

It is like sitting in a room and seeing strong light come through the door. A reasonable assumption may be that it is morning, but if you can't see out the door you don't really know if it is morning or strong artificial light.

I don't reject science, I count on it. But for some things, there will always be missing data. I can't trace my genealogy back 30,000 years or even 3000. Maybe 300 with many, many holes.

Those who claim to know with absolute scientific certainty the origin of the universe and the origin of man are abusing science. Science stops speaking and they babble on endlessly. However you may put it, the supposition of the supernatural supercedes science. It isn't a question science can address except in the directly observable.

"Special knowledge" may be complete gibberish, or it may be exactly correct. Science can only judge special knowledge when it claims to affect something science can observe.

If I claim that my special knowledge enables me to step in front of a moving bus, then science may safely conclude my special knowledge was wrong as it mops up my quite mashed carcass.

If on the other hand, I claim that I will go to heaven when I die, and that neither heaven nor my going there has an observable effect on the natural world, science has no dog in that fight. Nothing is observable.

That is why I don't buy creation science. I believe that if faith was observable, it wouldn't be faith.

223 posted on 01/28/2004 6:24:37 AM PST by hopespringseternal
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To: hopespringseternal
It is like sitting in a room and seeing strong light come through the door. A reasonable assumption may be that it is morning, but if you can't see out the door you don't really know if it is morning or strong artificial light.

In either case you don't really know. Regardless of how much evidence you accumulate, you are just making your best interpretation of the data. The science you are dismissing has hundreds of independent lines of evidence accumulated over hundreds of years, with tens of thousands of people adding their critical thoughts to the interpretation.

224 posted on 01/28/2004 6:38:14 AM PST by js1138
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