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To: general_re
Scientific observations have their limits. A bird watcher in an observation post may see 10,000 white swans over a 20 year period and conclude that all swans are white. That bird watcher may have missed the 10,001 swan that went by his observation point and was black. It is difficult for scientific observation to come to an irrefutable conclusion. The best that can be done by scientists is to come to a working hypothesis. Foe example, Albert Einstein stated that his theory of relativity was not irrefutable, just that it worked better than Newtonian physics.

Mainstream science also works from naturalistic presuppositions that may cloud their objectivity, as I discussed in previous posts.

500 posted on 12/20/2004 12:52:06 PM PST by Wallace T.
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To: Wallace T.
The best that can be done by scientists is to come to a working hypothesis.

No, the best that can be done are laws and theories -- much stronger statements.

503 posted on 12/20/2004 12:54:04 PM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: Wallace T.
Mainstream science also works from naturalistic presuppositions that may cloud their objectivity ...

It's a common error to assume that all scientists are philosophical naturalists. Or materialists, I've seen both terms. By that I mean the philosophical position that only the material world exists. The techniques of science are necessarily limited to the material world, so the practice of science requires procedural naturalism. If there were a way to objectively observe, measure, and test spiritual phenomena, science would leap at the chance.

506 posted on 12/20/2004 12:57:21 PM PST by PatrickHenry (The List-O-Links for evolution threads is at my freeper homepage.)
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To: Wallace T.
It is difficult for scientific observation to come to an irrefutable conclusion.

It's damn near impossible for any sort of inductive process to come to an irrefutable conclusion, but I'd bet good money that you don't let that stop you from employing the process in other parts of your life. You can put your hand on a hot stove and get burned 10,000 times in a row, and it's still not irrefutable proof that you'll get burned on the 10,001'st try - you never know for sure, really. But I bet you only had to do it once to take a single experience as proof enough and modify your behavior appropriately.

Forget science - you don't get certitude anywhere in real life, and yet you surely believe in all sorts of things that are fundamentally uncertain. You can certainly object to the nature or the amount of evidence, but if you object to it on grounds of a lack of certitude, then you also have no legitimate right to believe almost anything you currently believe to be true. You don't know for an irrefutable fact that your house is still going to be there when you leave work tomorrow, but I suspect you believe it will be there anyway, based on the evidence available to you.

511 posted on 12/20/2004 1:10:26 PM PST by general_re ("What's plausible to you is unimportant." - D'man)
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To: Wallace T.

You are exactly correct. Nobody here has ever claimed that there is conclusive proof of evolution. What the creationists want is for their ideas to be taught as science. If that's what you want, then come up with an alternative SCIENTIFIC theory which does better than evolution at explaining the observed data. For it to qualify, it must make predictions, and those predictions must be consistent with all known evidence. The predictions must be such that if it is found that the predictions aren't true, the theory will be modified or abandoned. It also should be able to explain why it is that the theory of evolution does such a good job of explaining known data even though the new theory is better.


828 posted on 12/21/2004 7:52:50 AM PST by stremba
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