Posted on 03/13/2004 11:53:26 AM PST by js1138
Note that I was making an assertion, not cutting and pasting someone else's words. And there's no reason for you to be unfamiliar with the evo position by now, Elsie.
No you couldn't and that's the whole point.
You may believe that God designed the universe, and you may very well be right. But once the universe is in motion, the only way science can operate is to assume that day to day affairs are not tampered with, and that ordinary processes and phenomena work according to initial laws and conditions.
A lot of IDers like to cite the existence of a modern jetliner, and ask how do you suppose it came into existence. When you answer this question you are drawing on knowledge and experience. Obviously the first time isolated tribes saw an airplane they had no frame of reference from which to answer.
The same is true of how biologists go about answering the question of how species come into existence. Someone with no grounding in molecular biology, or someone who believes that physical processes are tampered with on a regular basis, will have a different conjecture from someone who believes the laws of nature are constant over time.
The assumption that the laws of nature are constant is the heart and soul of science. You can't do science without believing that the phenomena you observe are the result of regular and untampered processes. You might well be the world's greatest lab technician, but as a researcher you will never be able to ask original scientific questions.
As is born out by the following comment from Ned Wright's Cosmology website:
Variable Constants?9 Jan 2004 - Chand et al. (2004) present data on the time variation of the fine structure constant alpha that contradict previous claimed detections of a variation. The latest result is -0.6+/-0.6 parts per million for the change which is consistent with zero and much more accurate than the claimed -5.4+/-1.2 parts per million variation. So this constant appears to be constant.
Source: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog.htm#News
I hereby nominate the Tedster for the post of High Commissar of Ohio for Careening Planets & ASCII Bats.....
Holden! Holden! Holden!
Though the streams are swollen!
...
(Don't know where that came from ...)
Ah.... "The Turtle of Special Pleading".... catchy phrase; sounds like the name of an obscure avant-garde Jazz/Philosophy band -- I'll have to remember that.
"Holden! Holden! Holden!
Ego big and swollen...."
The absence of scientific arguments against evolution points out the autodeterminacy in the conclusions of a system of thinking. This determinacy began to be a problem in philosophy (after Kant) and proceeded into historical and natural sciences, and, especially in the '20s and on, in physics. This determinacy comes in the form of a limit: the tool finds only what it is designed to find.
When in human thought the starting set of postulates or assumptions are adopted, no refutation to any of its natural conclusions exists, theoretically, because the assumptions stand. No non-Euclidean geometry--it's not geometry. And the irony of the school board's curriculum is that it forecloses criticism from without.
This treats the question foreclosed as to what constitutes scientific knowledge. But more than that that only this kind of scientific knowledge is necessary concerning questions about origins and descent theories.
This is why it is always safe and comforting keep from venturing out of one's own field.
No, I don't think so. I understand Islam is very deterministic.
On the other hand, free will does not grant us the ability to change physical laws.
More than that, you'll either run like hell or grow fangs when threatened by historical conscience and other non-dogmatic features of human existence.
Probably not a red herring, since I suggest this kind of thinking of yours in #173.
The trouble with the Ohio situation and others like it is that those convinced of the importance of the IDist assumptions want to change science to include it. It isn't science and the whole point of it is that it isn't science. The scope of science isn't limited in the way you describe. It is sufficiently large to accommodate all sorts of fields.
The IDists are not satisfied with exploring the world with new assumptions and then disseminating the findings. Probably, because they don't have any findings. They made the assumption that an "intelligent designer" designed life as we know it, and conclude that evolution must, then, be wrong and should no longer be taught in the schools. The comparison to non-euclidean geometry is at most premature.
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