Moorad Alexanian wrote:
> At 02:52 PM 10/7/98 -0500, Glenn R. Morton wrote:
> >At 01:58 PM 10/7/98 -0500, Moorad Alexanian wrote:
> >>I fail to see how evolutionary theory is a la par with basic physics. That
> >>sort of comparison pretends a scientific respectability for evolutionary
> >>theory which it clearly does not possess.
> >
> >Considering that most scientists (in most disciplines) are evolutionists, I
> >fail to see who it is that doesn't give evolutionary theory respect. Can
> >you document who and what percent of scientists don't respect evolutionary
> >theory?
> >glenn
>
> There all sorts of "scientists," political scientists, social scientists,
> etc. Therefore, we have to be careful of whom we mean. My statement still
> stands that evolutionary theory is not on equal footing with physics. I do
> not know of any theory of evolution that can be written down and what is
> written down makes predications which can be verified in the future. In
> physics what is written down is in mathematical form. I seriously doubt that
> such a theory can ever be found. I really do not believe that evolutionary
> theory can ever be falsified. Phenomenology is the term we use for ideas in
> physics that do not qualify as theories. I do agree with you that most
> scientists in the hard sciences do consider evolutionary theory a
> respectable theory. But my criteria of what constitutes science is based on
> physics as the prototype of science.
>
> Moorad
You seem to be implying that there is a hierarchy of respectability among
sciences, with physics at the apex, and dubious disciplines like evolutionary
biology or palaeontology lower down. The assumption of this is that there is
only one scientific method of which physics is epitome. Other disciplines are
judged by how closely the conform to the physics template. Hence your statement
that "evolutionary theory is not on equal footing with physics." Shades of the
old adage "physics is science, the rest is stamp collecting"! These areguments
cut both ways. As a geologist I could say that physics is not on the same
footing as geology, because it is unable to answer the type of questions that I
can routinely answer from the geological record. However, utterances of this
type are unfair and unhelpful in the end
I would argue that there are many different types of science - theoretical
(mathematics) experimental (physics/chemistry), observational
(astronomy/ecology) historical (geology, archaeology), human (sociology,
anthropology). These divisions are somewhat arbitrary, but show, believe, that
it is dangerous to too strictly use methodological criteria from one discipline
to judge another.
In Christ
Jonathan Clarke