I want to make a distinction between "here and now" science and science of the past. I need better terms for these and maybe someone can help me there. But what I call "here and now" science could also be called "demonstrable" science. An example would be mixing chemical A and chemical B to get chemical C which when taken by a person has a positive medical effect. This can be repeated over and over. And even if we don't understand WHY the drug has the effect it does, we can still observe it.
Evolution is different in many ways.
1) The time frame for evolution is thousands or millions of year and this cannot be demonstrated in a lab.
2) Even Biological process that can be demonstrated today are still only "possible" explanations (What COULD have happened) and not conclusive proof of what DID happen.
Even CSI type science (criminal science) can't PROVE what happened last week. It gives evidence of what might have happened, what could have happened, and what could not have happened. But the Science itself doesn't draw a conclusion, the jury does. If science can't prove definitively what happened last week, why do we think it can proof what happened millions of years ago?
Another point I was trying to make is that like religion science also has certain beliefs that are held to be true without proof. These are called AXIOMS.
Axiom
My point at lunch was not to defend or attack any particular issue or theory, but merely to point out the similarities between some aspects of science (namely science of the past) and some aspects of religion (which is many cases is based on documents or events of the past).
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Demonstrable Science (and Axioms)
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2 comments:
From: Perritt, Eric K
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 4:29 PM
To: Gardner, Michael S; Simpson, Morgan S; Bush, David R; Parris, Matthew; Stroh, Vanessa L; Bengoa, Alex J; Mrozek, Kimberly L
Subject: RE: demonstratable Science
I concur with your assessment that science also requires some faith and yes there are the 4 options.
The only difference I see is that leaders in the scientific community continually question, reassess, and test theories in the attempt to understand the universe. And as they learn new things, they adjust their theories to account for new information. Then test again to see if the new theory fits with factual data.
As much as I hate to say it, in general "creationism" supporters are not continually testing the Bible or Koran. From my viewpoint, most religious leaders accept the words in those books and consider it the absolute truth. There isn't much testing going, just "faith" in those words written by human beings from 2000 years ago. One is supposed to "trust" what is written, not test it or question it.
When I have to choose between the two points of view, I'm going to put more "faith" in the side that questions itself and continually reassesses its theories, than the side that believes it holds the absolute truth.
From Michael
I am not defending "Creationism" as pure science, nor accusing "evolution" of being an actual religion.
However, since humans have developed both of these, they share common "human" elements, and BOTH are valid "human" explanations of how and why we got here.
You have made the choice to put more "faith" in one explanation for your own reasons. That doesn't mean that other people will (or should) make that same choice.
How much "testing" does the first chapter of the Bible need? I think it has been "tested" as much as any document can be in that people have taken great efforts to find the oldest and best copy and toughly investigated and worked on a proper translation. "Creationism" is NOT the first chapter of the Bible. It merely takes that as a starting point and then interprets (or tries to interpret) what we see today through that lens. Evolution is just a different lens, a different starting point from which to interpret the SAME observations.
If Evolution had its flaws and inconsistencies (which do exist) pointed out as publicly and with as much "ridicule" as "creationism" or "intelligent design" does, I think the options would appear more equal and valid than you realize.
Since both creationism and evolution are dealing with the distant past I'm not sure how much "testing" either can do. How can you test something that takes millions of years to occur? And if you did, all you would prove is that it COULD have happened, not that it DID happen.
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