Posted on 09/18/2007 10:23:38 AM PDT by spirited irish
Interesting that you would think so, but no.
what math and science both have that philosophy and theology lack is a combination of usefulness, internal consistency, and cross cultural consensus.
Math and science are the same in China, Pakistan, Iran, Brazil, Canada and the United States. The only exceptions seem to be in subcultures that reject science because of religious dogma.
But oh! did you ever "get the goods" on Lewontin, out of his own mouth!
Q.E.D.
That's a "keeper" for sure!
Thank you ever so much, my dearest sister in Christ, for the link!
And for your outstanding essay/post!
Agreed, js. But to draw this conclusion respecting our humble little work, you would have to recognize that the history of science begins in ancient Greece -- with thinkers such as Leucippus, Democritus, Heraclitus, and most notably Aristotle. But that is not the fashion, these days.
That would be our presupposition. And how far science has come from there! But it never falsified its beginning -- before Laplace at least.
Thanks so much for writing, js1138!
[me from before:]Does mathematics not do this more then any other branch of philosophy?
Interesting that you would think so, but no.
what math and science both have that philosophy and theology lack is a combination of usefulness, internal consistency, and cross cultural consensus.
Uhm, to the extent that mathematics and science came from philosophy, this is self contradictory. But granting your desired partition of the words your statement is still on shaky grounds.
Theology seems to be more cross cultural then science. Long before any cultures had science, just about all of them had theology. Specifically all cultures have many people who believe in the supernatural and had some kind of story that went with it. Not all cultures have people who even understand what science is.
Science and higher math (beyond simple arithmetic) are the same in China, Pakistan, Iran, Brazil, Canada and the United States, precisely because they were spread by Western style institutions. I would venture that Catholicism is the same in all the cultures it has spread for similar reasons. But I would not take this to indicate that Catholicism is therefore cross culturally universal in the same sense that you were trying to argue for science.
The only exceptions seem to be in subcultures that reject science because of religious dogma.
Before science came along other cultures didn't have science because it simply wasn't part of the culture. Who knows if and when it might have become part of any other culture without Western influence? How can we know then, what combination of things keeps science from blossoming when introduced?
Christianity isn't accepted everywhere the same either. Nor ping pong, nor soccer.
But back to my original point about mathematics. It is designed specifically to be internally consistent. Every axiom is simply accepted at face value. Every conclusion is derived by deductive reason alone without regard to anything at all in nature. And indeed, despite its highly contrived nature and complete disregard for empirical evidence, it is, as you have admitted, extremely useful in helping us understand nature.
In view of this, let us reexamine your claim:
"Logic is of little value when you set up your definitions so you can’t lose an argument."
Math uses logic, and with painstaking care sets itself up to be unassailable from counter argument, and you admitted it is useful. Seems an excellent counter example. The plausibility that your disdain for theology is rational no longer seems viable to me.
Thank you for the link to your additional comments on the thread!
This is where the article jumps the shark. If it can't be touched, seen under a microscope, etc. does not mean it doesn't exist. If scientists are looking for something, and can't fine it it often can mean there is evidence to suspect something exists but it hasn't been discovered yet. Therefore the quest continues to find ways to quantify it in order to show that it in fact does exist and can be proven. Only after proof can be shown that there is no evidence to support something is it declared that something doesn't exist. Science is very methodical that way.
Funny how these little details get ignored in order to be sure a point is made.
That would be our presupposition. And how far science has come from there!
In the early planning phase, we called it a "double helix" because there are two related threads throughout the dialogue and the conversation bounces between them. On the one hand, culture/philosophy and the other theology/science.
Throughout the dialogue, the Frog character (a composite) is bounced between the two threads, with each Bird character leading the discussion on a thread. The fourth character is St. Timothy himself who is essentially guiding or moderating the discussion.
No wonder the book agent said it was two books in one. LOL!
At any rate, Timothy is not intended to be an exhaustive discussion of the history involved nor is it a textbook. It doesn't propose final answers except for proclaiming Christ, of course.
Its intent is summed up in this phrase from the title "Don't let science get you down, Timothy" - namely, to encourage the reader to look and see.
The phrase out of the title is a paraphrase of this passage:
Its intent is summed up in this phrase from the title "Don't let science get you down, Timothy" - namely, to encourage the reader to look and see.
From the excerpts you have posted, and your general comments over the past year or so, it sounds like Timothy is religious, and anti-science. Certainly your proclamation in the above post that the final answer is religious in nature ("proclaiming Christ") does nothing to accredit this as a work of science. Rather, it does the opposite.
You seem to be doing pure apologetics. Why can't you just admit it, and give up any pretense of doing science?
What math and science both have that philosophy and theology lack is a combination of usefulness, internal consistency, and cross cultural consensus.
Science is to philosophy what chemistry is to alchemy. It is a descendant, but it is also a new thing. Alchemy provided a number of useful observations, but chemistry has developed methods and theories that make its parent discipline obsolete.
Philosophy provides numerous questions worth pursuing, but no means of resolving them or validating resolutions.
Mathematics has much more going for it than internal consistency. It has applications. It is the applications rather than the internal consistency that make it cross cultural, and the same applies to science.
Both math and science are judged primarily by their usefulness.
DaG..This is where the article jumps the shark. If it can’t be touched, seen under a microscope, etc. does not mean it doesn’t exist. If scientists are looking for something, and can’t fine it it often can mean there is evidence to suspect something exists but it hasn’t been discovered yet. Therefore the quest continues to find ways to quantify it in order to show that it in fact does exist and can be proven.
Irish..And until so-called ‘scientists’ can find ways of empirically determining that man’s imagination and dreams do in fact exist, we must take their word that they do not, and are in fact merely illusions caused by brain secretions? The sheer absurdity of evolutionary humanism knows no bounds.
Coyoteman..it sounds like Timothy is religious, and anti-science
Irish...Webster’s “American Dictionary of the English Language” (1828) defines science as: “In a general sense, knowledge...the comprehension or understanding of truth or facts by the mind...”
Note that science is all about the metaphysical or immaterial realm. The reductionism of evolutionary humanism has reduced man’s immaterial mind and its immaterial capabilities to the material, that is to say, man’s immaterial mind is reduced to a material brain while the minds immaterial capabilities have been reduced to brain secretions, brain waves, and genetic material from bacteria, fish, lizards, apes, etc. As for science, it too has been reduced. It now languishes within the anti-intellectual and anti-truth strait-jacket of the sensory realm. Science, in other words, is now scientism, a religiously held ideology awash in mysticism, hypocrisy, out-right lies, deception, etc., which on principle, cannot account for how it ‘knows’ anything, which is the reason why it is awash in mysticism, etc.
I know that this is a difficult concept for you, Coyoteman, but it is nonetheless true that one can be religious yet NOT "anti-science" at the same time. Take Isaac Newton for example.... Faith and reason just naturally go together.
Or to put it another way, the claim “oppositions of science” is false.
Or to put it another way, faith and reason are complimentary – but reason cannot substitute for faith.
Or to put it another way, the physical Creation is a revelation of God the Father – the least of His revelations, by the way. But we will be held accountable for noticing it!
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: - Romans 1:20
Truly, from the ancient Greeks thinkers forward, the original context of science was philosophy. And especially with the philosopher Plato, that quest was to understand the “beyond” – or what we might call the mind of God.
Science wasn’t wrestled away into an independent discipline until much later. And only recently does man attempt to elevate the knowledge gained by the scientific method as more valuable, more certain, than anything else – most offensive to Christians, elevating it above the more important direct revelations of God the Father as outlined above.
It is as if some would reverse the order of God the Father’s revelations to physical Creation above all else. And should the person allow for any other insights, he might perhaps, just maybe, consider the other revelations.
That of course turns the order of wisdom on its head – context is lost – most importantly, the great hierarchy of being: God, Man, World (nature, the universe), Society.
It leads to strange ideologies such as equal rights for animals, infanticide which flows from that belief and more – such as a loss of personal culpability since the mind can only be an epiphenomenon of the physical brain – and epiphenomenons cannot cause anything to happen. There are many other such “received doctrines” which follow the worldview that “all that there is” is “matter in all its motions.”
But when one surveys the achievements of modern science in the classical meaning of “science” – then he knows that the assertion “opposition of science” is false per se. A Christian should never let science “get him down.”
Timothy explores that point using a variety of examples – and our next book, God and the Observer Problem will take it even further.
A few examples:
Order cannot arise spontaneously in an unguided physical system. Period. There are always guides to the system whether self-organizing complexity, cellular automata, etc. At the very minimum those guides include space, time, physical laws and constants.
All cosmologies – every one, whether big bang/inflationary, cyclic, ekpyrotic, multi-world, multi-verse, hesitating, etc. – rely on space/time for physical causation. That there was a beginning of real time is the most theological statement ever to come out of science. In the absence of space, things cannot exist. In the absence of time, events cannot occur. The only possible uncaused cause of space/time and therefore, physical causation – is God.
The metaphysical naturalists ‘bet the farm’ on matter which has not yet been created or observed by Fermilab and CERN despite several attempts. CERN will be trying again to find the illusive Higgs field/boson – so we’ll see. But even if they succeed, the Higgs only addresses ordinary matter which constitutes 5% of the critical density of the universe. The others are 25% dark matter (space/time indents such as the center of galaxies) and 70% dark energy (effectively space/time outdents such as the area between galaxies.) New theories suggest that particles in our four dimensions (3 space, 1 time) are massless and instead shadow momentum components of extra dimensional activity and/or are multiply imaged from as little as a single particle in a fifth time-like dimension.
Man is a denizen of space/time – he is always part of his own observations and has a tendency to project himself onto whatever he observes. In the extreme, biologist Lanza suggests that physical Creation itself is the product of observation.
Notwithstanding Lanza’s speculations, only God is timeless and spaceless per se. Only He sees “all that there is” altogether all at once. Only He speaks Truth.
And so why should a person ever be intimidated by the declarations of anyone whose entire concept of “all that there is” is a reduction, a product of the imagination?
This is especially true with Christians.
We believe that Jesus Christ is God enfleshed, born of a virgin, died on a cross for our sins, resurrected and sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven and will come again. We believe that while He was enfleshed, He walked on water, raised the dead, healed the sick and so on. We believe everything that was made was made by Him and for Him.
We believe all of this – why should we ever be troubled by the Lewontins and Dawkins who declare that miracles cannot happen, the soul/spirit is an illusion, that God does not exist?
Indeed, as I Timothy 6:20-21 suggests, we should dismiss the “oppositions of science” as false per se - because we know, each and every one of us personally, at least some part of the mind of Christ:
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
But God hath revealed [them] unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. II Cor 2:6-16
If anything, your post simply confirms my statement.
You seem to be doing pure apologetics
***I lost a lot of valuable time many years ago when I first ran across that word, “apologetics”. My initial impression was, “why would someone need to apologize for their belief, what a waste of time & effort”. But for the purposes of helping some other souls that might struggle with the same viewpoint and lose that valuable time, I will point out that modern christians tend to use the original Greek meaning of the word, rather than the connotation of being sorry for something. The word “apology” comes from the Greek “Apo”, which means Clear, and “Logos”, which means Word. So it is Apo + Logos, A Clear Word, an explanation with solid rationality.
You are correct. The word "apologetics" means defense of a position, but it has come to mean defense of religion. If you search google for "define:apologetics" you will see almost all pertinent definitions refer to defense of religious beliefs.
Then can we surmise that your post to Alamo Girl was basically saying, “You seem to be doing pure ‘defense of religious beliefs.’” ?
Examine post #175, above, as a further example. That is not what most folks would consider to be science.
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