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 ...
As you will...you projected.
Ultimately, one must discern the source of the truth used in their assumptions. If God intends to reveal any facet of knowledge to us in any area where we might be mistaken, one has to discern how He would do that. Appealing to science as the final arbiter of truth, places faith in the Creation rather than the Creator.
The miracles recorded in Scripture aren't allegorical. Changing large pots of water into wine involves something considerably more than simple phase transformations. Wine is organic and the carbon atoms in the wine had to come from something which water doesn't have.
Raising from the dead, then walking through walls after resurrection isn't easily explained by science.
Fundamentally, the Christian way of life is a supernatural walk with God through faith alone in Christ alone. Science is a useful tool of empiricism and rationalism to explain many natural phenomenon and to calculate anticipated natural events, but fails miserably when attempting to describe, explain, or even document the supernatural through faith in Christ.
This doesn’t mean one abandons science, but it does indicate there is something beyond science which science is wholly inadequate to grasp.
The Malthusian theory is like Marxism, in the sense that it has a lot of stamina in the face of real-life refutation. Which is ironic, because (so the story goes), Malthus formulated his theory as a weapon against utopian socialism. Just as Marxism has been refuted to the exact degree it has been applied anywhere, so has Malthusianism been refuted. But it won't die. And it will not die for a reason which has nothing to do with its scientific merits of course, since it has none -- again, just like Marxism.
Aside from the fine examples you provide in your post, we can say that Malthus's theory is false even for the very case for which his theory was formulated to explain in the first place: the poor of England. Everything that Malthus said about them, about their hopless, un-helpable condition, and about his proposed solution (ie, the promotion of spinsterhood as glamorous, and other idiocies) has turned out false.
What is the connection between Malthusianism and socialism? It is this. Both theories hate the poor, and offer not the slightest "scientific" reason or motivation to help them. In the Malthusian system, one who tries to alleviate the misery of the poor breaks the laws of nature. In the Marxist system, one who alleviates the misery of the poor is a counter-revolutionary. The poor should be made more miserable, not less. In the Malthusian world-view, making the poor more miserable serves to discourage their multiplication. In the Marxist perspective, making the poor more miserable sows class-hatred, which is good. So, in a sense it was only a matter of time before these two philosophies discovered that they were allies, not enemies. The most extreme totalitarian socialists (Julian Huxley) were also the most extreme Malthusians.
Among Malthus's many errors was this one: the treatment of paupers and upper-class as if they are two seperate hereditary variants of man. This ludicrous error was fully absorbed into Darwinism to an almost comical degree. Galton, Pearson, Fisher, Davenport, and Julian Huxley all talked that way. Darwinians, though, were troubled by a fact that -- to put it simply -- refuted their theory. The paupers, who were considered unfit, were more prolific than the upper-class, who were supposedly more fit. It was Fisher's greatest achievement to harmonize Darwinism with this annoying fact (where others had failed) by means of convoluted population statistics, genetics, and ideas borrowed from actuarial science. This formed the substance of his book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. And in a sense it's not even a "fact" that he was trying to reconcile with a priori absurd theories of Darwinism-Eugenics, because paupers and upper-class are not evolutionary variants of man to begin with. Here then we have a century of scientific effort wasted on harmonizing nonsense (Darwin, Malthus, Eugenics) with with nonsense (hereditary pauperism.) And all this, of course, having deeply injurious effects on mankind, because as you know, these theories are the life-blood of the Culture of Death. Achievement for science? More like shame.
Just to prove the Darwinian commitment to the Malthusian ideology, I point out the case of T.H. Huxley, Julian Huxley's grandfather. At the time when Booth founded the Salvation Army, there were some 3,000,000 "paupers" in England, and to get a full picture of the grinding misery of this "Darkest England" you really should read Mayhew's London Labour and London Poor. As a response to the foundation of the Salvation Army, T.H. Huxley put his mind to a long and bitter character assassination of Booth in the papers. He was helped along by other evolutionists and Monistic philosophers.
Why do many people believe the Malthus theory and its derivatives? Because they really want to. A scientific-sounding theory that relieves a man's conscience of any concern or empathy for the his less-fortunate fellow humans appeals strongly to certain types of minds: atheists, anarcho-capitalists, oligarchs, plutocrats, socialists, Nazis, and the like.
Excellent post! This is possibly the single most comprehensive post I have ever seen on this topic.
As if it were not difficult enough to seriously consider materialistic theories that explain our existence through mindless processes, you have upped a knotch of insanity by saying these processes aren't even caused by anything. So now, not only are we here by a mindless mechanical process, there isn't even any reason why it happens. Why not just say that your theory requires the total abdication of reason as a prerequisite? It would be more honest if you did.
Evolution doesn’t need Darwin
You didn't answer my question so I'll ask again: have you read Origin, specifically the part were Darwin explains natural selection? I'm asking this because I would like the readers to see firsthand what extent your responses are based on actual knowledge of the subject, and to what extent they are simply made up as you go along -- pulled out of thin air or (what amounts to the same) your imagination.
Speaking of the poor of England, let me recommend Memoir on Pauperism by Alexis de Tocqueville. It’s a very small volume, little more than a pamphlet really, and it enjoys the added benefit of a brilliant introduction by the incomparable Gertrude Himmelfarb. It can be obtained at book stores. It can also be found on the 'Net.
Another interesting and well written article. Thanks for posting.
There is at least some merit in the article’s distinction between “Operational (Observational) Science” and “Historical (Origins) Science.” I think evolution and cosmology are clearly much more speculative than chemistry and basic physics.
Perhaps some grey area exists. I sometimes refer to the (unsatisfactory) early experience of the Jamestown colony, and also the Pilgrims, with communal operations in farming, sewing and mending, etc. This is history. However, I accept past testimony much as I would accept current observation. Grey area aside, I think the distinction is useful.
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