Jonathan, with whom I have, BTW, very little disagreement, posted, in
part:
"This is true. But one should not fault a table for not being a chair.
Nor should people who have never seen chairs presume to instruct those
who make them until they have seen and sat on) a lot of them."
If I come to your house and you offer me a table to rest my 69-year old
bones upon, although I cannot make a decent chair, I may still comment
upon the inability of your table to seat me comfortably.
Me:> Coming, as Moorad does, from a background in physics, I think I >
understand his position, although I am not about to call another person's
> field of expertise "bad science." Well -- in the case of JB Rhine,
maybe. < G >
>
>But I have always been concerned about the level of quantification in
the evolutionary theories. That does not make them "bad," of course, let
alone "untrue." But "uncomfortable" is a word that does come to mind.
Jonathan went on to say: "Perhaps you need to be more specific. By
evolutionary, do you mean "organic evolution by natural selection",
"descent with modification" or any theory of the earth and universe that
involves naturalistic origins?"
A fair question. I was thinking in generalities, of course. I have no
problem with any of the three categories above, however, as a person
trained in quantitative physics, I am uncomfortable with the lack of
quantification in the first two of these. By "uncomfortable," I do not
mean to denigrate, only to understand that I don't really know how to
defend them (the various theories) without a quantitative model to appeal
to.
Since evolutionary biology is far outside my area of expertise, it may
well be that I have simply not studied those theories adequately. I can
live with that assessment. It also may be that evolutionary biology is
inherently a science in which quantification is simply not possible to
the extent I'd like to see it. Certainly meteorology and economics fall
into this category. And That's OK too. I would have to say I am
"uncomfortable" with both of these sciences too -- much on the same
basis. As for psychology and such -- no, I'll refrain from addressing
these. I'm in enough trouble already.
It is very likely the case that as a physics student, too many years ago,
I was brainwashed into thinking that physics is the "queen of the
sciences" and that all other fields of science are, somehow, second rate.
I know I did believe that once; I am older and wiser now. Well -- older,
anyhow.
Burgy (John Burgeson)
www.burgy.50megs.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Apr 04 2001 - 11:42:31 EDT