Re: Warning Labels
George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Sun, 16 Nov 1997 17:01:40 -0500Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:
..................
> >> A MESSAGE FROM THE ALABAMA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION ..................
> >> No one was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any
> >> statement about life's origins should be considered as theory, not fact.
..........................
> > This contains "we can't see the past" argument, the use of which
> >is _prima facie_ evidence of incompetence.
>
> Exactly what part of this statement are you taking issue with??? Are you
> suggesting that "any statement about life's origins should be considered as
> fact?" That would certainly be an unusual use of the term "fact"....
My objection was to the idea that knowledge of the past is
necessarily more "theoretical" than knowledge of the (approximate)
present & thus qualitatively more uncertain. Combined in this statement
seem to be the ideas that
a. we can't observe the past, &
b. there are bare facts which require no theory for their
observation, & probably
c. that theory is just speculation.
All of these are wrong.
George Murphy