It is impossible for me to do science or just be a plain, ordinary human
being and not believe in a Creator. That is the tenure of my first sentence.
The statement I make is that the data for science is collected solely by
non-human devices, viz. mechanical, electrical, etc. Needless to say,
humans design those devices, which are theory laden, but the data itself is
still collected by devices that do not include man as a "detector." Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: george murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
To: Moorad Alexanian <alexanian@uncwil.edu>
Cc: Lucy Masters <masters@cox-internet.com>; asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Thursday, May 24, 2001 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: [Fwd: [Fwd: Griffin #2]]
>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"
>
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