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To: betty boop
But often enough it seems debates get stalemated, not over definitions, but over intransigent, irreconcilable world views.

The debate may stall over these views. (It's usually irretrievable in the form of "my view plus the select few who "get it" and all the others".) Science at most levels doesn't concern itself with these views because it is performed at a very specific or local level. Constant claims of world-views and skewing of interpretation of scientific data notwithstanding, research is not concerned with metaphysical world views. That is, the questions in science are not of the kind whether there's a God or greater meaning to all of this. In fact, most of the questions in research are not about the large theories but about very specific local questions. The interpretation of results at that level is rarely dependent on big theories and even less so on world-views. For instance, a typical question in biology concerns protein function. The design and interpretation of the study is independent of world view.

Research is not even overwhelmingly theory driven, but, among others, a combination of method, instrumentation, and theory.

The impact of world-view on science is most profound at the funding level.

558 posted on 06/26/2003 7:26:02 PM PDT by Nebullis
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To: Nebullis; Alamo-Girl; unspun; Phaedrus; gore3000
That is, the questions in science are not of the kind whether there's a God or greater meaning to all of this.

And yet, Darwin's having provided a way to provide design without a designer was obviously a great comfort to Richard Dawkins, who remarked that natural selection permitted him, "for the first time," to become "an intellectually fulfilled atheist." And Darwin congratulated himself on his success in getting rid of "special creation" (i.e., the designer). There seems to be a certain "animus" or personal bias at work here; yet I think we'd both recognize these two mean are (were), in fact, scientists.

It just seems disingenuous to me, Nebullis, to suggest that scientists are always completely neutral with respect to matters of faith, or successful in preventing their personal biases from intruding on, and perhaps significantly shaping, their theories. Scientists are, after all, human.

572 posted on 06/27/2003 9:03:43 AM PDT by betty boop (Nothing is outside of us, but we forget this at every sound. -- Nietzsche)
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