Re: [asa] Non-controversial science

On Aug 26, 2008, at 6:49 AM, Bruce Bennett wrote:

> I am not a scientist nor do I have a scientific background, so I'm
> a bit trepid in my remarks. But isn't it the conclusions of
> historical science that sometimes causes the greatest stir among
> many Christians? For me, I don't outright reject historical
> science as being a legitimate science; however, I do think their
> conclusions (say for example, the age of the earth) might be more
> questionable than those drawn from non-historical science.

In my experience, scientists rarely make a distinction between
"historical" and "non-historical" science. I believe this is mainly
a distinction made by some Christians (especially young-earth
creationists) who wish to minimize the claims of historical science
while not denying all of science.

I believe there IS a real difference that these folks are noting;
"historical" science is generally somewhat less direct and rests on a
longer chain of inference than many other types of science. But it
is not unique in this regard. Sciences such as astronomy and
particle physics are similarly indirect, dealing with things on
cosmic or microscopic scales.

Perhaps a better category than "historical" science would be "remote
sensing" science, where the "remoteness" may be either in time or in
space.

Kirk

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Received on Wed Aug 27 11:52:52 2008