Posted on 02/19/2009 9:24:24 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
What Is Science?
"Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic."
—Dr. Scott Todd, Kansas State University, Nature 401(6752):423, Sept. 30, 1999
What You Will Learn
Many people do not realize that science was actually developed in Christian Europe by men who assumed that God created an orderly universe. If the universe is a product of random chance or a group of gods that interfere in the universe, there is really no reason to expect order in nature. Many of the founders of the principle scientific fields, such as Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, were believers in a recently created earth. The idea that science cannot accept a creationist perspective is a denial of scientific history...
(Excerpt) Read more at answersingenesis.org ...
Ping!
I gather then the Prof. Todd has trouble with the scientific status of archaeology, which is often concerned with distinguishing which things found in a dig were intelligently designed and which were not.
What if the universe is a product of just one God interfering in the universe?
Isn't this the essence of ID?
Isn't this a contradiction of everything else that follows in the essay?
It appears that the essay was not intelligently designed.
Thanks for the ping!
That would be “principal” scientific fields.
Hi Litekeeper. I notice that you have yet to respond to my request for your rationale regarding the beliefs we have been discussing. In any event, you may find this article interesting.
Cheers
“God does not publish science textbooks.”
Science is a closed system, in which by using the rules of science, an experiment can be conducted to achieve the same results by anyone else, anywhere or any time else, and achieve the same results, as long as they follow the established rules. It very carefully eliminates factors that might influence the experiment, that are outside of the rules of the experiment.
As such, it is little different than playing chess. If you follow the rules, then you have played a game of chess, nothing more. If you do not follow the rules, while you have done something, it is not played a game of chess. Even if you used a chess board and chess pieces, it is still not chess.
By being reproducible, science is rewarded credibility to its experiments. This credibility is incorrectly interpolated and extrapolated to things outside of science. While they might appear to still follow the rules, they are not scientific, per se.
There is no place for God within a scientific experiment, any more than saying that “God permits me to use my pawns like Rooks”, because neither God, nor God’s influence is reproducible by other people, in other times and in other places, on demand. Therefore God cannot be included as a variable or constant in a scientific experiment.
This is not to say that God does not act as a variable or a constant in scientific experiments, just that God is not in the rules of science.
Therefore, Intelligent Design accomplishes nothing. It does not follow the rules of science, and should not be taught to students in a science class, *not* because it is not true, but because it does not, and cannot, follow the rules of science.
If students and their parents therefore abhor science, in principle they should be allowed to avoid it in their child’s school instruction. And if they steadfastly hold this belief, then the study of science is unimportant to them as such.
But there is no place for Intelligent Design studies in a science classroom. If it is taught separately in an Intelligent Design class, that likewise is acceptable. But only on the strict basis that it is not scientific, because it does not obey the rules of science.
Evolution and Christianity are perfectly compatible.
“Isn’t this the essence of ID?”
No.
You’re confusion ID with deistic evolution which is interference.
You always say that. The Bible says otherwise though. If evolution is true, the God of the Bible is a liar.
The Bible says nothing of the kind. It is allegorical in places, including Genesis.
You are talking about operational science, not historical science. Historical science is based on inference, whether it be creation or evolution.
Says you. Who gets to decide what’s literal and what’s allegory? Society? Seriously, this is the very definition of Humanism which is the essence of Marxism.
I gather he also has trouble with the scientific status of genetic engineering, which is squarely within the context of his comment.
And that’s another thing. It’s easy to say evolution is compatible with Christianity if what you mean by that is where they conflict evolution is right and the bible is cute stories.
God gave us a brain to identify allegory as we gain a greater understanding of the natural universe. He’d be very disappointed if we didn’t use that brain.
A question for you: Is the bible exhaustive? That is, does it include everything that happened in ancient times?
“What Is Science?”
Nothing like a biased anti-science website to write an article trying to define science ...
Why do you find it pious to deny the capacity for rational thought that we all agree God gave us?
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