Moorad Alexanian wrote:
> The inference that all things are designed by God is not based on faith but
> on the study of the data that describes what nature is and how it works. Of
> course, without faith there can be no form of knowledge. But I suppose you
> mean something more akin to religious faith when you invoke the word
> "faith." The data is not subjective since it is gathered by non-human
> devices, albeit made by humans. The inference of design is subjective but is
> compelling from the data. As I sit in my office and look around, everything
> in it is designed. Why not so in nature? Operationally I define as objective
> the data gathered by non-human devices and subjective is the inferences that
> man makes. Most people find in more self-evident that there is a Creator
> than not. Moorad
I think your first sentence is wrong but I've said enough about such
arguments - cf. my post on "Natural Theology."
But I also think that the distinction between objective & subjective in
your penultimate sentence somewhat naive. The "objective" data that a high
energy physicist has may be a lot of swirly curves in a photographic emulsion.
There's some "subjective" inference required to say that this is a photo of an
event in a bubble chamber, and a lot more needed before anything can be said
about its connection with elementary particles and their interactions. All
data, as is often said, is theory laden. & of course in turn, all theories have
to be tested against data. & there isn't anuy cookbook formula that tells us
how to keep those two requirements in balance.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Dialogue"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 24 2001 - 10:22:12 EDT