Re: What goes around comes around

Pim

For obvious reasons Cornelius has ignored our comments. So long as he can
pretend historical science is inferior to empirical science he can continue
with his posturing and criticisms of anything evolutionary.

However I would like him to comment on whether or not geologists have a true
picture of our planet over the last 4 billion years.

I give Cornelius one question; Did dinosaurs go extinct at the end of the
Cretaceous which is about 65-7 my years ago? Also note that evolution has
nothing to do with the historical succession of strata (those who devised
the Geological Column were definitely not evolutionists) nor with the
calculations on the age of the earth.

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pim van Meurs" <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 08, 2005 8:05 AM
Subject: Re: What goes around comes around

> Michael Roberts wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>> Preston:
>>>
>>> I thought it was obvious that we were discussing truth claims of
>>> evolution,
>>> not operational science.
>>>
>>>> Cornelius,
>>>>
>>>>
>> Cornelius
>>
>> What on earth is operational science? It has no meaning in any proper
>> scientific discourse as it is just some rhetorical device invented by
>> certain American Christians who wish to discredit science.and make out
>> that historical science is in some sense not proper science.
>>
>> The whole mythology of operation and origins science needs to be rejected
>> as it is philosophical and scientific nonsense.
>>
>> This probably explains why those with scientific understanding on this
>> list do not buy into your ideas
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>
> Maybe this helps? I agree that these myths serve little to further a
> fruitful conversation but they help understand Hunter's position, however
> untenable. Using the term 'truth claims' further muddles how science is
> being performed. Cornelius seems to believe that discrepancies in data are
> somehow just being ignored or 'explained away' in a haphazardous manner.
> Somehow Cornelius sees these minor issues as 'significant problems' for
> evolutionary theory. It's the glass is 1% empty kind of approach...
>
>
> http://gofree.indigo.ie/~aoregan/gfi/science.htm
>
> The media and many scientists consistently fail to differentiate
> '*operational*' science from '*origins*' science. /Clarity in this area is
> crucial to understanding the creation/evolution issue./
>
> Operational science deals with the way the present world works, and
> generally concerns things that we can observe and repeatedly test. For
> example, we can consistently get the same undisputed temperature for the
> boiling point of water since we can observe and repeat the test
> conditions.
>
> Origins science, however, deals with how we apply observations made in the
> present to non-observable events in the past.
>
> http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/6149_science_and_religion_chris_3_1_1998.asp
>
> Echoing this approach, Meyer separates science into two kinds:
> "historical" and "operational" ("empirical"). Operational science is the
> familiar everyday science exploring the processes and mechanisms of how
> the universe works, and miracles are not expected to be discovered. Both
> theists and nonbelievers would conduct operational science in the same
> fashion. Historical science, on the other hand, deals with nonrepeating
> events such as speciation events in the fossil record, the explosion of
> the Pinatubo volcano, the appearance of a supernova and so forth. Of
> course historical sciences can be studied scientifically: there may have
> been only one observed eruption of Pinatubo, but there certainly can be a
> science of volcanic eruption that can be used to /explain/ Pinatubo.
> Similarly, only once in history did a population give rise to genus
> /Equus/, but we can still derive theories from this and similar events to
> explain macroevolution.
>
Received on Sat Oct 8 15:44:26 2005