Posted on 10/28/2006 3:22:14 PM PDT by betty boop
(: I love you so much!
"In such a view, it doesn't seem (as you point out) that science can be some sort of standalone endeavour, untainted or unaffected by human prejudices."
It would also vary in degree depending on the subject matter.When the subject matter is origins it seems (at least to me) to be in full tilt mode.
I've followed most of the crevo threads for as long as there's been crevo threads.99% of the time in lurker mode.To be honest I'm not up to arguing the topic and I would hazard a guess and say that neither are 99.9% of people.
In the end it boils right down to 'trust me'.
Great article bb.
God bless
That's a bias. Usually criticism are the kind that says you're wrong, show me the evidence, give me proof, and so on. But this is a bias that isolates the subject matter in a privileged way so that it bars evidence and frames the debate.
It's a bias, apologist, but not inherent or intrinsic to all theories of evolution. Dimensio never forgets to bait his hook.
I do not believe it an unreasonable conclusion that you were presenting what you believe to be my position as a means of mocking it, as evidenced by your comparison to Wolf Blitzer.
If the shoe don't fit, Dimensio, don't wear it.
You have yet to provide any evidence to show that my statement that the theory of evolution has no inherent bias is incorrect. Comparing me to Wolf Blitzer is not a substitute for providing actual evidence.
Indeed. In Dimensio's case, it appears to be a methodological bias (i.e., "methodological naturalism" or even "metaphysical naturalism"). But the one so biased rarely questions the adequacy or suitability of the method to the given question at hand. It is simply assumed the method is competent; that is, the method is simply taken on faith. Oftentimes it ends up being a filter that, as you say cornelis, "bars evidence and frames the debate."
Again, if the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.
The the motive for a "methodological naturalism" is in some instances warranted. There is an analogous method taught in literature classes, which the famous poet John Keats called "negative capability." It has something to do with suspending judgment for the sake of being open to observation. I guess the problem is that scholars get stuck in their method being so happy with their success. This is not particular to scientists. This is a habit of the mind, a particularly nasty one.
You wrote: "When the subject matter is origins it [prejudice] seems (at least to me) to be in full tilt mode." Oh, to me, too. But that stands to reason: On the question of origins, no one can say they really know anything, because no one was "there" to observe the origin.
Now the scientific method is based on direct observation and replicable experiments. Thus it would appear it really has no way to deal with origin events in the first place.
Neils Bohr suggested that the origin of life, for instance, is either "undecidable" or just flat-out "unknowable" on the basis of the scientific method.
But people constructing world views need to have an origin. Otherwise they do not have a comprehensive account of the world they view. So yes, they have to go into "full-tilt mode" to come up with an origin "theory" (which really would be simply a conjecture). The point is science is no help to them on that score, so ultimately they must have recourse to a "faith statement."
I'm not terribly willing to accept the "trust me" formula. Not for the benefit of people who play fast and loose with the limits of science.
God bless you too, Mitch!
I readily grant your point, and agree that "it has something to do with suspending judgment for the sake of being open to observation." IOW, to suppress "subjective" elements, so to enable a purely "objective" assessment of the data.
I have a funny story that sheds light on this issue. Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr were very close friends. Einstein as you probably know never accepted quantum theory, even though we was one of the earliest contributors to its development (i.e., his work on light). He used to tease his friend Bohr, who insisted that it is the business of science to make descriptions of observations, and you can't describe what you haven't actually observed.
On that basis, Einstein would say, "If Niels does not observe the moon in the sky, then for him the moon does not exist." Therefore, Einstein argued, Bohr was relentlessly subjective in his approach to science.
But this is to misunderstand Bohr, I believe. Bohr was amazingly epistemologically zealous -- presumably in the attempt to keep things as objective as possible. He emphasized direct observation as the sine qua non of scientific investigation. He knows the moon is up there in the sky. His point was he couldn't say anything about it as a scientist until he had observed it for himself. Only on that basis could a scientific description be made.
Bohr (and Einstein) offered some of the earliest descriptions of the so-called observer problem. It is evidently manifest in both relativity and quantum theory. However it seems clear to me that the observer problem is "alive and well" in science dealing with the Newtonian "macroworld" (our four-dimensional spacetime world) as well, by simple analogy.
If Bohr is right -- epistemologically speaking -- then it needs to be recognized (IMHO) that even such a widely-accepted theory as Darwinist evolution is to some degree compromised as science, because it rests so much on things that no one has ever directly observed. The accretion of subjective elements is bound to occur over time if that is the case. Thus philosophy inevitably gets smuggled in through the back door, in the end....
It seems in the long standing crevo wars, we have often written a benediction to a thread that ended with the conclusion that the two sides were hopelessly divided on universals. One side of combatants often take the Aristotle position looking down and giving a hand wave to "threeness" "redness" "treeness" as you say, pointing only to a particular tree or group of trees. The other side takes the Plato position, looking up to the forms themselves.
It is particularly disturbing to me (and fortunately, fairly rare) when mathematicians take the position that universals do not exist. After all, when they name a variable in a formula, they have declared the universality of the formula itself. The “radius” is the same thing or form regardless of what, where, how or when a particular circle might exist – or not. Thus the formula for calculating the area of a circle is portable across every domain.
The same is true with physicists whose concern is the universal theory itself which of course must be portable across every domain as well.
Often lost in the railing back and forth is the simple observation that mathematics is unreasonably effective in the natural sciences (Eugene Wigner) and vice versa (Cumrum Vafa) – S dualities, mirror symmetries, the Mandelbrot set.
The prime example of this phenomenon was that Einstein was able to pull Reimannian geometry off the shelf to describe general relativity. Reiman could not have known the physical universality of the math he discovered!
If a metaphysical naturalist were reasonable in the matter (as compared to ideological or political motived) – he would admit that the phenomenon squarely attests that universals exist and leaves the door wide open to theology and philosophy - in particular, Logos as betty boop has mentioned here.
IMHO, when the biologists invited the mathematicians and physicists to the table, it was a death wish.
Excellent insight/example of a (non-material) universal, Alamo-Girl! Kudos!!!
Hi Dimensio! Do you mind if we turn this question around, so that I might ask you: What part of evolution theory have you directly observed?
Am I to take it, then, that you agree with my statement that the theory of evolution has no political bias?
That's plain English. But not the whole story. The "facts" are never enough.
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