Re: preposterous

From: Moorad Alexanian (alexanian@uncwil.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 05 2001 - 15:14:21 EDT

  • Next message: Howard J. Van Till: "Re: preposterous"

    Astronomy is observational, physics is experimental and so it was more
    Galileo than anyone else. I have published papers on the Big Bang but I
    must say I do not know how all came into being. I am more at easy with
    experimental science rather than forensic science. Delbruck and
    Schrodinger paved the way for the double helix, which is fundamental to
    making biology more like physics. Moorad

    -----Original Message-----
    From: george murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
    To: Moorad Alexanian <alexanian@uncwil.edu>
    Cc: Jonathan Clarke <jdac@alphalink.com.au>; asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
    Date: Thursday, April 05, 2001 11:02 AM
    Subject: Re: preposterous

    >Moorad Alexanian wrote:
    >
    >> I have always said that physics is the prototype of science and I do not
    >> know of any reasonable argument against that. The proof of that is the
    >> historical order in which the different sciences achieved maturity.
    Imagine
    >> biology, historical biology, etc. without the experimental scientific
    method
    >> developed by the likes of Kepler, Newton, Galileo, etc. By knowing what
    >> science is, then we are in a position to know what it is not. For
    instance,
    >> it is self-evident to me that the fundamental question of origins is not
    a
    >> scientific question, the answer lies outside of science. It is foolish to
    >> attempt to find a theory for it. I never said that other sciences
    cannot
    >> teach physicists something new. But it is true that the people who did
    big
    >> things in biology were physicists, viz., Schrodinger, Delbruck, etc.
    >
    > 1) Your historical argument is problematic. It is really
    astronomy
    >which came first as a science
    >able to give any really precise predictions. That gave a great deal of
    stimulus
    >to physics, which has now of course pretty much subsumed astronomy. But
    without
    >Copernicus & Kepler, Newton would have had a lot tougher time of it.
    > 2) What is "the fundamental question of origins"? If it's really
    >fundamental - i.e., Why is there something rather than nothing? - then it's
    >indeed beyond science. But is the origin of a star or of planetary systems
    >outside astrophysics? Doesn't standard big bang theory do a pretty good
    job of
    >explaining the origin of light nuclei? Darwin & Wallace's theory may not
    be
    >able to explain the origin of species with the kind of precision that we
    have in
    >predicting ~25% He-4 but that doesn't mean that it says nothing at all.
    > 3) You've been pretty selective in listing "the people who did big
    >things in biology", leaving out a few minor players like Mendel, Darwin,
    >Wallace, Morgan, &c. Of course if "did big things" means "bringing the
    insides
    >of physics to biology" then your statement is tautologous.
    >
    >Shalom,
    >
    >George
    >
    >George L. Murphy
    >http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
    >"The Science-Theology Interface"
    >



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Apr 05 2001 - 15:14:33 EDT