From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. (dfsiemensjr@juno.com)
Date: Thu Aug 21 2003 - 16:53:31 EDT
Sondra,
Let me respond to the tenor of your post and Jay's general outlook. He,
as a lawyer, will argue every side, including what shouldn't be there. I
trained in logic, where precision in the logical connectives is vital.
Conjunction, inclusive disjunction and exclusive disjunction should be
straightforward: "and"; "and/or" and "xor" or "or, but not both" are not
ambiguous to most people. But a look in /Words and Phrases/, a standard
legal reference, makes a total hash of common sense through what lawyers
and judges have made of these apparently simple terms.
Another approach is definitional. I do not accuse Jay of this, but Phil
Johnson defines all naturalism as necessarily materialism, i.e.
metaphysical naturalism. Anyone with a modicum of integrity recognizes
that methodological naturalism is not metaphysical naturalism, but Phil
continues to propagate his lie.
Philosophy attempts a total overview of all things human. Ideally, it
must have a place for art, morals, math, science, and every other aspect
of human activities. Tests for philosophical views are consistency and
comprehensiveness, so it is unusual for empirical evidence to upset a
position. Even Hegelians and those who turned Hegel on his head,
Marxists, whose predictions turn our to be false, can argue that the
problem is not with the foundational beliefs but with erroneous
applications or derivations from them. A different gambit, that of the
Logical Positivists, whose foundation was self-stultifying. was to
declare them "protocol statements" outside of the restrictions of the
theory. Among the problems of philosophy are that it cannot be tested
empirically, and that its notions are often confused with claims in other
areas. Provincial notions are the normal foundation of what I call
Premise Number One because of its popularity: Since you disagree with me
on this ethical matter (substitute any other area), you are wicked,
perverse, depraved (or any other pejorative term).
Formal disciplines, notably mathematics and logic, are testable by
consistency alone. There are an infinite number of different number
systems, though none of the modular numbers is of much use in balancing a
checkbook. There are also various geometries. Some of these calculi are
found to be useful in developing a scientific area. Without Riemannian
geometry, Einstein's Special Theory would be at least difficult.
Sometimes mathematical developments make possible scientific advances, as
with complexity (chaos) theory. In logic, Aristotelian and mathematical
logics have different presuppositions and, consequently, applications.
For example, "All dragons are fire-breathers" is true in modern logic,
unacceptable in Aristotle's.
Any scientific discipline has to be based on empirical observations, but
idealizes them. The most careful measurements of falling bodies will not
exactly match the formula, but will fall in a normal distribution around
the formula-predicted value. Theories may become rather distant from
observation, the case with string theory and M theory currently. As new
observations are made, older theories are modified or replaced. Newton's
work became the limiting condition in relativity theory. Cytoplasm is
quite different from the best that was known a half-century ago. Indeed.
one nursing program specified that, if the requisite course in biology
had been taken more than two years earlier, it had to be repeated.
When we combine scientific and philosophical/theological views, we find
plausibility the general test. But what is plausible to one person is
implausible to others. That's why Dwayne Gish can declare that no
evidence could change his mind about recent creation. I was taught that
view and believed it until I read some of the journal papers and
discovered that radiological dating might be off by a small factor but
not by several orders of magnitude. I learned that there were empirical
measurements of half-lives that were virtually unaffected by natural
events, and later that theoretical computations backed up the empirical
measurements. If Gish is right, then it must follow that there were no
massive explosions at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and there are no nuclear
reactors producing power, for dating and fusion are part of a single
package. The earth is old. Other observations indicate that life on earth
has changed over eons.
Why life changed brings up additional considerations, especially with
religious notions. Some hold that God so endowed the original creation
that it developed totally within that original endowment. Others insist
that the original endowment was adequate only for cosmology, so that God
had to intervene to create every distinct life form (whether at species,
genus or family level). Between lie such claims as that God occasionally
intervened creatively; or that God guided every step, though we cannot
observationally distinguish his hand from random processes. The first
view sounds deistic, but may be theistic. The next pair fit OEC. The
fourth (and first) fit TE. There are, of course, additional variants.
My evaluation of these views is that the first does not emphasize divine
direction sufficiently. The second is incompatible with the number of
intermediate forms we find in the fossil record. Also, it's difficult to
reconcile a rational Creator with vast numbers of forms intended only for
extinction, or with the unity discovered in the genomes of all living
things. Additionally, this view is usually tied to a concordist
interpretation of Genesis 1, which is inconsistent with Genesis 2. The
fossil record is not complete enough to rule out the third. If divine
intervention was the insertion of new genetic elements into existing
creatures, it is currently impossible to rule out on the basis of genetic
continuity. The last makes theistic evolution observationally
indistinguishable from naturalistic evolution.
Finally, may I commend what purports to be a Spanish proverb: " A wise
man changes his mind, a fool never will." While we should tenaciously
defend what we believe, we must recognize our fallibility.
Dave
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Aug 21 2003 - 17:01:54 EDT