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

To: allmendream
They KNOW that Science only can test, measure, accept or reject things that are the result of natural and predictable forces.

Actually, not. Read what you wrote carefully.

The material world can be the result of supernatural forces, or maybe extra-natural would be a better word; but that doesn't mean that it still cannot be tested or measured by the same scientific method used when the assumption is made that the world is the result of *natural* forces.

The scientific method is useful for collecting and organizing data collected. It's useful in that it gives scientists a universal guideline to follow so that another's work is reproducible and there's some sense to it.

It does not give scientists any reason to make philosophical assumptions about the world in which we live. Those assumptions are subjective and the result of philosophy. The assumption that everything has only a natural explanation is just that. Since science only deals with the *natural* and not what it labels the *supernatural*, then making philosophical determinations is way outside the scope of what science is capable of, therefore there's no basis for those determinations.

185 posted on 09/11/2008 4:47:54 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 176 | View Replies ]


To: metmom
Yes, and any philosophical assumptions made by atheists who happen to also be scientists are as groundless as any other philosophical assumptions.

Philosophy is Philosophy, and despite Science once being called “natural Philosophy” it is distinct in that it can explain and predict natural phenomena based upon natural causes.

I had a great Molecular Genetics teacher once, a Russian anti-Lysenko exile who would ‘bless Ronald Reagan every day in my prayers’. He said ‘it seems to me that when you don't have any facts or a theory to explain them, all you can do is wax philosophical’.

You have no explanation for why a bacteria would intentionally increase its mutation rate in response to stress. The theory of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation has an answer at the ready. Science assesses theories based upon their explanatory and predictive powers. Evolution through natural selection of genetic variation has VAST explanatory and predictive powers.

186 posted on 09/11/2008 4:59:13 PM PDT by allmendream (If "the New Yorker" makes a joke, and liberals don't get it, is it still funny?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 185 | 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