In correspondence via e-mail, I made mention of what I saw as the
limitations of science, and I may well have not reflected well
the teachings of my younger self! In essence, I suggested that the
laws of science were "descriptive," rather than "descriptive" in a longer
discussion. The discussion continued:
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Correspondent, talking about what would convince
him to be a Christian, or, at least, a theist:
"Anything that clearly and unambiguously violates
fundamental laws of physics would do."
Me:
" But how do you know what those "fundamental laws" are?
Only by observations do we see data; we construct equations
which describe the data, and we construct theories to describe the
equations."
Correspondent: "Oh no! You're referring to the old vision of
science as a collection of
data from which laws are deduced. The scientific method is much richer
than that, and it entails a dialectic exchange between theory and
observation. For example, Newton's law can now be derived as a
consequence of general relativity and of quantum mechanics, so it's now
*independent* of the original apple..."
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I don't see anything much "wrong" with what he says -- or what I say
either.
What am I missing?
Burgy
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