Re: [asa] Polkinghorne and 'natural' science [was evolutionary process]

Gregory
Assume you and I were walking through a mature forest and came upon a
cleared, mowed grassy area containing a well defined cedar hedge maze.
If I remarked that the maze was not natural, you would know exactly what
I meant, ie that the maze was created by humans and was not the normal
pattern that one would find in a forest. This is the use of "natural"
you assume in your note below?

However, at least for me "natural" can also not only include the sense
of natural above but also (almost) all of mankind's activities and
characteristics. Natural in this case would be contrasted to
supernatural.

Which definition is dependent upon context although sometimes one needs
to define what one means by natural.

IMHO most of the disciplines you mention are very difficult to study
beyond the stamp collecting stage. Not that stamp collecting is not
valuable. Formulating and testing theories is very hard in these subject
matters. As an outsider I might classify some as still immature or
proto sciences still awaiting great advances such as a Newton or Galileo
produced in understanding of the physical realm.

Dave W

Gregory Arago wrote:
> “Causes have to be natural to qualify as science, that’s all.” – Dick
> Fischer (Sun, 11 Nov 2007 09:33:55 -0500)
>
> Does this mean that anthropology, philology, economics, sociology,
> culturology, history and psychology (among others) do not qualify as
> ‘science’ in your estimation? They all study non-natural things. Yet the
> ASA welcome acknowledges them as ‘scientific.’ Who can untwist that?
>
> G.A.

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Received on Mon Nov 12 18:01:18 2007