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To: Stultis

There are scientists who believe in creationism and not Darwinism. What do you do about them? They're still scientists aren't they?


822 posted on 10/18/2006 8:39:37 AM PDT by Marysecretary (Thank you, Lord, for FOUR MORE YEARS!!!)
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To: Marysecretary
There are scientists who believe in creationism and not Darwinism. What do you do about them? They're still scientists aren't they?

I don't do anything about them.

What scientists say or "believe," on any/either side of this issue (or any other) is irrelevant to determining the content of science. What matters, and the ONLY thing that matters, is what scientists DO. That is to say, what theories, laws or principles they actually employ or implicate in the conduct of ongoing, productive and original research.

For instance Einstein, one of the greatest physicists of all time, famously disbelieved in quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. However Einstein's disbelief did nothing to change the content of science. The only way he could have done that was to come up with a deterministic theory that explained the relevant facts better than QM, and on that score he failed.

Because scientific research is reported in a professional literature -- e.g. science journals and the proceedings of learned societies -- it is usually possible to objectively determine, by consulting this literature, whether or not a given idea is part of science in the sense that it is being used to actually DO science.

On this objective criteria evolution is part of science, and creationism and ID aren't. Creationism isn't and can't be science until and if someone comes up with a creationistic theory that can be and is applied to advance knowledge. It's not enough, for the purpose of genuinely making it part of science, to just defend creationism (or attack evolution). You have to DO creationism. So far there's no good or compelling case of anyone DOING creationism as science.

As I was suggesting before, the only legitimate and acceptable way that creationism or ID can come to be included in science curricula is on the basis of demonstrated merit. Anything else is just intellectual affirmative action and intellectual relativism.

828 posted on 10/18/2006 10:10:14 AM PDT by Stultis
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