Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: WildHorseCrash
The theory of evolution starts with neither assumption, but, consistent with the fact that it is science, with a methodology that looks to natural phenomena and facts in the natural world.

What you are doing here is denying any assumptions while making a major one in the same sentence. Methodolgies cannot be employed without subjective, philosophical underpinnings. Undertaking science with the assumption that only natural phenomena can be considered or observed is undertaking science with a particular philosophical point of view. It is a choice you and other observers have made from your own experiences. It is a stance incapable of objective, emprical testing in and of itself.

268 posted on 01/31/2006 11:59:41 AM PST by Fester Chugabrew
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 262 | View Replies ]


To: Fester Chugabrew
What you are doing here is denying any assumptions while making a major one in the same sentence. Methodolgies cannot be employed without subjective, philosophical underpinnings. Undertaking science with the assumption that only natural phenomena can be considered or observed is undertaking science with a particular philosophical point of view. It is a choice you and other observers have made from your own experiences. It is a stance incapable of objective, emprical testing in and of itself.

You are mistaking the definition of science with its methodology. Reaching conclusions based only on natural phenomena and the facts of the natural world is what science does; it's what science is. It is oxymoronic to say that one can do "science" but consider supernatural elements.

You can reach conclusions by including supernatural elements in your reasoning process, but you are not doing science. You are doing something else; theology, probably.

The methodology of science has been, over the last 500 years or so, so effective in producing tangible results that it has developed a cache of a type that it appears that any statement of fact must at least attempt to disguise itself as science or risk losing credibility with the public. But calling non-science "science" doesn't make it science. (You can call a "tail" a "leg", but that doesn't mean that dogs have five legs.)

273 posted on 01/31/2006 12:17:21 PM PST by WildHorseCrash
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 268 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson