On 11/26/08, Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu> wrote:
> Would someone tell me what "Consider All the evidence" really means? What
> evidence? How acquired?
>
A fair question. When I learned those two principles, I had the
concept that there were only two kinds of evidence, objective and
subjective, and that -- in science -- only the objective could be
used, IOW it had to be data that was available to anyone.
Polyani has suggested a third category -- "personal knowledge," which
I am favorably disposed to. I certainly have personal knowledge that
is mine alone, not even in principle available to you, which I must
use in ascertaining the probable truth of some matters. But that
cannot be "science." Perhaps it is a form of metaphysics, but that
does not do the concept justice either.
So "Consider all the evidence" means objective evidence. And one "sin"
of some scientists, including at least some YECs, is that they don't
follow that principle. Some people call that cherry-picking, which is
as good a term as any, I guess.
As I understand Timeous, he seems to adhere to both principles.
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Wed Nov 26 17:38:15 2008
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Wed Nov 26 2008 - 17:38:15 EST