What Is Science?

AiG ^ | Roger Patterson

[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...

[ColdWater]

I did.

[metmom]

I see you have reading comprehension issues as well.

I answered your questions. Too bad you can’t comprehend them.

[tpanther]

There’s a difference between presenting both sides and bashing conservatism.

You really could use a clue.

[metmom]

Nope. No answer to that question. As usual, only an answer to something I never asked.

[allmendream]

Government spending on science is not the same thing as science.

I need not defend government spending to defend science.

The only work I ever did for the Government was as an Airman not as a scientist.

[tpanther]

What religious classes are taught in public schools in your area?

This I’d like to see!

[tpanther]

WHAT religious courses?

[tpanther]

Nope, following the teachings of Christ isn’t it Buck.

And come to think of it Buck, Christ I think would rejoice in people that might be seen as annoying if it meant to the point that people actually understood what Christianity is!

I found the whole process somewhat annoying and even to a point quite disturbing before I was saved myself.

[tpanther]

Ummmm...not even close to the question asked allmendream...not that a soul is shocked!

Again.

The question was why is there such a lack of lawsuits to silence the mutiverse theorists...

the string theorists....

the scientists studying the outcomes of prayer...

the pseudo-scientists asserting mand made global warming...

While there are myriad lawsuits to silence creationists?

[CottShop]

[[only an answer to something I never asked.]]

Ah- but were you htinking it? That is the real quesiton

[allmendream]

What lawsuits to “silence” Creationists? I hear this garbage all the time. Creationists never seem to shut up, so who the heck is suing them to silence? What cases are you talking about tpanter, the ones the voices tell you about? The same voices that whisper “ACLU, NEA, liberal strawman”?

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Darwinism in the schools is like I remember grits in the cafes in Georgia.

Darwinism should not be taught in schools. One reason is this: natural selection presupposes the truth of the Malthus population principle. So, when your kids emerge from state-enforced Darwinism brainwashing, they are firm believers in Malthusianism, whether they are aware of it or not. And, as you know, this is indeed a damnable and pernicious doctrine. There is no way it could ever be taught to public-school students except clandestinely, disguised and buried as part of the "biology" curriculum, without parents knowing it. But Malthus is part of the deal and that's what the students ingest when they are fed natural selection.

[ToGodBeTheGlory]

As I’ve said before, evo-atheists want us to believe that most organisms that are born die before they reproduce, a la Malthus. What a damnable doctrine indeed. Anybody can see that God would be a cruel and vicious God if He allowed that kind of carnage to exist in His Creation. Nature is not “red in tooth and claw”.
The evo-atheists want us to accept Malthus because they want to be the ones to “cull the human herd” to stop the imaginary geometric growth that Malthus said would happen if reproduction were to be unchecked. They want to be the un-natural selectors of death for those they deem “unfit”

[whattajoke]

[Darwin would] be more amazed I think that because certain animals share similar DNA, people are gullible enough to believe this can only mean they share a common ancestor based on sheer conjecture and nothing more.

Perhaps. But then he's delve into the mountains of other evidence that was discovered before DNA analysis and match it all up and would be quite proud of his theory.

It's crystal clear to people that aren't caught up in the God-hating cult that's clearly hijacked the theory now taught as fact by secualar humanist liberals.

... And Christian conservatives and Jews and scientists of all stripes and flavors.

you take money from Christians to pay for your failed godless debacles after running them off.

Whatever you say.

[aruanan]

"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

Dr. Todd has it right.

The intellectual tool of science is designed only to make sure that one's measurements be as accurate as one's technology permits, that one's measurements use the appropriate tool for the quantity to be measured, and that one's conclusions follow logically from one's premises.

If one works very diligently, then one may be able to separate what one hopes or believes is out there from what actually is out there. That is, one may be able to systematically eliminate one's misconceptions about what is out there in the world by the practice of science and, as a result, be able to exercise control over it and then use it for one's ends. This is the power of science.

The choice of both premises and ends, though, lies outside the field of science because science is limited to reasoning and experimentation based on measurable quantities. The biggest error of the past three centuries has been the assumption that since everything that can be measured exists, nothing exists if it cannot be measured. The belief is that since measurement is but the extension of our senses by technical means, there is nothing that exists apart from that which is open, at least in principle, to our senses; ie, "seeing is believing" or, ostrich-like, "If I can't see it, it doesn't exist." Accordingly, personality, thought, love, and free will are just smiley faces we put on biochemical processes that are irrevocably part of a chain of cause and effect that we only think we control.

It's scientific to say that one should make sure that one's instruments should provide accurate measurements. But it's not scientific to say that nothing exists except that which is, at least in principle and via instrumentation, open to observation by our senses. It's scientific to say that effects have causes. It's not scientific to say that effects can have only materialist causes.

Thus, if it is true that there exists a reality that is ontologically discontinuous from our reality but which is able, at will, to interact with it and to effect changes in it, the naturalist has put himself into a position of being unable to make an accurate assessment of cause and effect. He has done this because he has, from the beginning, simply declared certain possibilities not to exist. He doesn't do this upon a scientific basis, but upon a philosophical one.

[Buck W.]

“Nope, following the teachings of Christ isn’t it Buck.”

Do me a favor then—go to AiG or one of the other first-to-react echo-chamber sites and tell me what the definition-du-jour of Christianity is. I mean, surely they have a new spin based on whatever the vogue scientific objection to creationism happens to be.

It’s incredible that to creationists the definition of Christianity has to be reduced to a set of crisis-sensitive talking points.

[Buck W.]

“Nope, following the teachings of Christ isn’t it Buck.”

Do me a favor then—go to AiG or one of the other first-to-react echo-chamber sites and tell me what the definition-du-jour of Christianity is. I mean, surely they have a new spin based on whatever the vogue scientific objection to creationism happens to be.

It’s incredible that to creationists the definition of Christianity has to be reduced to a set of crisis-sensitive talking points.

[Buck W.]

“If you think that there’s no difference between a lie and an allegory and you believe that the Bible is an allegory, what exactly do you believe?”

I do so enjoy the “komodo dragon” argument approach that creationints take. What’s the komodo dragon approach, you ask? Well, here’s a hint for you to start you research: I’m Bob and you’re Ray. Now, go to YouTube.

[count-your-change]

That Malthus population principle is at the heart of the environmental/deep ecology movement also. A doctrine of “reduce the population by some means because there will never be enough for all.”

And as you say, pernicious because it seems logical. Draw a graph with lines showing this and such, all very reasonable looking and wrong.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

A doctrine of “reduce the population by some means because there will never be enough for all.”

Malthus's theories have been modified or adapted in various ways by neo-malthusians and communists. But Malthus's original full-strength theory is the insanest of all, and it is that theory which Darwin relies on for natural selection to work. You see, Malthus believed that populations are not just tending toward their maximum level of sustinence. The geometric growth is such that populations are always at their maximum level of sustinence, and, as a consequence, they are plunged into inescapable vice and misery when they go beyond it. Right now the paupers are beyond their maximum level of sustinence and that's why they are miserable and vice-ridden. Any more babies they have incurrs more punishment of this natural law that doles out more misery and vice to them. This isn't a catastrophe to happen in the future. It is supposed to be happening now and always. The purpose of his theory was to explain why the rich class existed alongside a huge class of miserable vice-ridden paupers in England, and what to do about it.