RE: [asa] Non-controversial science

Forensic science is a good prototype of a historical science. It uses
the findings of experimental sciences but does not necessarily
contribute to it. This is not too minimize the importance of historical
sciences but to make it clear what we are talking or writing about

Moorad

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Kirk Bertsche
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 11:51 AM
To: Bruce Bennett
Cc: Michael Roberts; ASA Affiliation
Subject: 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 12:01:53 2008