Posted on 03/24/2002 7:03:09 PM PST by scripter
I tried. Don't I at least get partial credit for trying? Okay, I failed, but there's still the effort...
scientific propositions can never be proven.
So it hasn't yet been proven that the earth revolves around the sun?
No, this has not been proven. That is to say, there are no arguments or observations that entail with logical necessity that the Heliocentric Theory is true.
Don't get me wrong, the evidence for the heliocentric theory is very, very, very strong, such that it is perverse to deny it confident, if formally tentative, assent. But a very, very, very strong case is not the same as a "proof". A proof is a demonstration that a proposition is not merely irrefutable as a practical matter, or on the basis of present knowledge, but rather that it must be true, regardless of any possible future discoveries.
NO scientific claim has this characteristic. ALL scientific claims are subject to revision, replacement or abandonment as may be required by future discoveries, or the creation of stronger theories. In this light, btw, it should be noted that the heliocentric theory when intially proposed was, in fact, much weaker both in evidentiary support and predictive power than the prevailing geocentric views, and that it was significantly modified subsequently (most notably in Kepler's substitution of elliptical orbits for circular ones).
I should note, just for the record, that there are still creationists who insist on Geocentrism. A quick search turned up the following web pages:
GALILEO'S HERESY (same site as the preceeding)
Association for Biblical Astronomy
So it hasn't yet been proven that the earth revolves around the sun?
That is a fact. Facts can be proven.
I have to disagree with both of these sentences.
1) A fact is a confirmed observation. No one has observed heliocentrism as a singular (or even a complex) fact. What we observe is that a light in the sky (a planet) traces such and such a path of polar co-ordinates across the night sky. Granted that this condition has been considerably augmented in recent decades by observations from space craft, but these observations still comprise a large collection of individual facts/observations. It is because these facts are uniquely consistent, among available coherent views, with the heliocentric view that we conclude that heliocentrism is true, but it is still an inference rather than a fact itself.
2) Facts are not proven. If a fact is a "confirmed observation" then we must always be open to the possibility that disconfirming observations may come to light in the future. As a specific example, it was "a fact" (a confirmed observation) until 1956 that there where 48 human chromosomes. After that time improvements in staining techniques corrected earlier observations, and the number of human chromosomes "changed" to the currently accepted number of 46. See History of human cytogenetics.
Descriptive laws usually do preceed corresponding explanatory laws theories.
That's the only part I need to know. It opens untold possibilities that fit the hypothesis.
These are a considerable number of trained mathematicians, statisticians, and scientists. They say they have correctly applied their model. Their opponents say they haven't.
If I can find an alternate explanation for the opponent's (evolutionist's) refutation of their work, then it is admissible by the rules of evidence. That alternate explanation is: religio/philosophical differences. Historically, that is a strong incentive to demean emerging theories. The evolutionists have, then, a philosophical and financial reason for opposition that requires the grant of some leeway to the IntelDesign folks.
If you're interested in fairytales I'd recommend Pushkin; the kind of thing you describe is a system of fairytales for grown people. Moreover, it's a system of fairytales based upon a patently idiotic theory which has known and unavoidable pathalogical social and political consequences, and that theory is being held at present, despite overwhelming disproofs having been presented, for essentially religious reasons by scientists who should know better. Moreover, the adherents of this theory are continuing to insist that it be taught as a fact in public schools at public expense and make all possible efforts to suppress scientific dissenting opinions using every agency of American government and jurisprudence available to them.
Like I say, that kind of fairytale has no particular appeal to me. The question will ultimately be settled in courtrooms and ballotboxes and that is proper, since it is basically a political issue.
Well, medved answered you in post#60, but I guess you want me to do it: 1. Mendellian genetics - he proved it himself with a bunch of peas, has been further verified by many breeding experiments. 2. Gravity - by the American landing on the moon. All the calculations were made using the theory of gravity.
3. Relativity - the atom bomb, the hydrogen bomb.
Just about every single invention you see around you is proof of some scientific theory - from the bridges you ride over, to your tv, to the computer you are using. The natural sciences - unlike what evolutionists like to say - do provide proof, they provide experimental proof, predictive proof, practical proof. That is why one theory is able to build upon the discoveries of others and why science keep advancing our knowledge and our way of life. That evolutionists have to smear science in order to excuse the failures of their theory is abundant proof that evolution is not science.
What predictions did he make that were proven? I know quite a few statements that he made which have been proven wrong by real science:
1. that the brachyo-cephalic index means anything.
2. that fossils would prove evolution - after 150 years and 100 times more fossils than we had then it still does not.
3. that the genes of the parents "meld" in the progeny - refuted by Mendellian genetics.
Your statement is self-contradictory and silly. If it can be proven that a set of characteristics which work together gradually evolved then ID is refuted, period. Evolution cannot "design" anything, it is a mindless force, it has no intelligence, no memory, no brain. Whatever it does, however it does it, cannot be called design.
How would this falsify intelligent design?"
It would falsify intelligent design by demonstrating that different characteristics can coevolve to create a functioning system which requires different organs, genes, proteins, etc. to work together. Of course, to say such a thing is totally ridiculous and is the reason why Intelligent Design disproves evolution.
With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
Darwin, "The Descent of Man", Chapter V.
Yes, that is what ID shows - systems that are irreducibly complex. Now to disprove that claim evolutionists have to show that they could have been created by gradual step by step changes, which they cannot. That is why evolutionists hate intelligent design. It proves evolution to be bunk.
As opposed to the fairy tales from the first bullet? At least the evolution tales weren't made by the same people who believed the Earth to be flat and the stars to be set in an Earth-covering dome with a heaven beyond.
Moreover, it's a system of fairytales based upon a patently idiotic theory which has known and unavoidable pathalogical social and political consequences
Political and social problems have nothing to do with the validity of a theory. The heliocentric theory begat serious political, religious, philosophical, and social problems, yet there aren't too many people challenging it anymore.
and that theory is being held at present, despite overwhelming disproofs having been presented,
If overwhelming scientific (not religious pseudoscience) disproofs existed, evolution theory would have fallen and the disprover would be a very famous and probably rich person. This is the way science works.
You're talking "he" rather than the theory, which is rather limiting, and many scientists throughout evolution theory and many other theories have made hypotheses that turned out not to be true -- this is the nature of science. These hypotheses are then not taken as part of the theory. However, PatrickHenry already gave you the link to many predictions come true.
Let's not go ad hominem, or we could have a field day with most of the Bible's characters.
Didn't Hitler get his idea for the treatment of the retarded from one of the U.S. states; Gorgia, I think
We still do involuntary sterilization, but we call it The Pill. And if that fails, we call it Choice.
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