RE: [asa] Two questions...

Bill said:
"What if science's success is engendered by the ability of mathematics to model anything and nothing in particular?"

Mathematics can model nothing in particular??? Where I work, we design computer chips and simulate them before they are even built, based on all kinds of models (there are logic models, timing models, and manufacturing models (modeling resistance, capacitance, etc). Sure- it isn't perfect, but the models are very specific and allow us to fix bugs in a device before it even exists. This power explains how/why things in technology is developing on a seemingly exponential scale, rather than linear. Faster and more powerful computers are enabling faster time to market, enabling faster computers- behind all of which is much science. I've heard there are devices being built down to the precision of being just three atoms thick.

...Bernie

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Powers [mailto:wjp@swcp.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 2:51 PM
To: D. F. Siemens, Jr.
Cc: Dehler, Bernie; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...

Well, I suppose that depends as to whether it really matters.
If we say science is "true" or "nearly true" what do we mean? What is
it that is "nearly true"?

Is it that given certain antecedent conditions we can predict with
reasonable accuracy what will follow? -- some form of pragmatic truth.
I don't mean "false" in the sense of the last decimal place, but in the
sense that the conceptions themselves are fundamentally flawed, or
perhaps even that "reality" is incapable of an exact mapping to human
mathematics, i.e., the mapping of empirical quantities to mathematical
regularity.

The argument against my suggestion is the realist flair: how else could
you explain science's success? What if science's success is engendered
by the ability of mathematics to model anything and nothing in
particular?

I simply suggest that we expect too much of the scientific method, and
think we've got more than we do.

bill powers
White, SD

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009, D. F. Siemens, Jr.
wrote:

> A case may be made that science is false because the results of formulas
> is ideal, to an exact number with an infinite number of places, whereas
> the best actual measurements give a Gaussian distribution. Additionally,
> our normal language is rather coarse. To say that something is green may
> refer to any shade between yellow-green and blue-green, or even yellow
> and blue, and between near white and near black. Where we put the split
> between colors is quite arbitrary. Does it really matter?
> Dave (ASA)
>
> On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:21:00 -0800 "Dehler, Bernie"
> <bernie.dehler@intel.com> writes:
>> Bill said:
>> "I believe it is possible, and actually likely that all science, no
>> matter how mature, is false."
>>
>> Bill- do you recognize the advanced state of health care we have
>> now, compared to 100 years or more ago? If so, why is it? How is
>> it that we have cures and more efficient surgeries than ever before?
>> Isn't it all due to modern science, which you said is false? If
>> false, how did our society advance so technically in the last 100,
>> esp. last 50, years?
>>
>> Do you think that because some things are fuzzy or unknown (such as
>> how life arose), that ALL science is in the same way fuzzy and
>> subject to change, such as how to build transistors and control them
>> in a CPU?
>>
>> If science is false, then how is it able to get us to pack over 2
>> billion transistors into a computer chip? See this for scientific
>> progress impacting real life- because it is real:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count
>>
>> Yes- it takes scientists to figure out how to do this- determining
>> which elements in the periodic table to use and how to combine them.
>>
>> ...Bernie
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Bill Powers [mailto:wjp@swcp.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 7:05 PM
>> To: Dehler, Bernie
>> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
>> Subject: RE: [asa] Two questions...
>>
>> Bernie:
>>
>> Where to begin? It is apparent that our understanding of science
>> and
>> faith are vastly different. But where to begin?
>>
>> You are apparently persuaded that science as presently configured is
>> a
>> reliable method for determining the truth. Actually, I think you
>> believe that it is more than merely reliable, but I'll leave it at
>> that.
>>
>> Whereas, I believe that science is an attempt at establishing
>> objective
>> practices for adjudicating contrary claims. I believe it is
>> possible,
>> and actually likely that all science, no matter how mature, is
>> false.
>> The history of science surely would support that claim. But even
>> should
>> science reach some asymptotic end point, all natural phenomena
>> coherently explained by beautiful, simple deductive models, I
>> believe it
>> could all be false.
>>
>> Being false is quite easy. So I'm not sticking my neck out very
>> far.
>> But I think the problem is more fundamental than that. Our
>> confidence
>> in the derivatives of science is built, it seems to me, on two
>> things:
>> coherence with our empirical data and internal coherence. Crudely,
>> we
>> can liken it to our confidence that we live in a three dimensional
>> spatial world. Our experience of this world is at most two
>> dimensional,
>> and often one dimensional. It is by the unity of these disparate
>> experiences that we construct a three dimensional space. This unity
>>
>> appears to us as coherent, say in walking around a chair.
>>
>> The coherence of QM in being able to predict and explain a vast
>> array of
>> seemingly disparate phenomena is surely persuasive and gives us
>> confidence that something must be very right about it.
>>
>> We ought to ask ourselves how right does it have to be? How many
>> vastly different constructions and conceptions, even empirically
>> different data would be possible? The answer to
>> that question has something to do with what we think science is
>> about. Is
>> science's aim to know the truth? What truth? The truth that
>> relates some
>> antecedent conditions with some consequent? Must it be true in all
>> its
>> various aspects, including theoretical entities, and otherwise
>> false?
>>
>> A while back I was reading some philosphy of Schrodinger and I had
>> occasion to ask myself something that I'd never asked myself before:
>> do I
>> believe in electrons? For my 30 years of life as a physicist I have
>> been
>> working with and around electrons. To my surprise I answered no.
>> Permit
>> me to clarify what I mean.
>>
>> There is an interesting book titled Representing Electrons: A
>> Biographical
>> Approach to Theoretical Entities by Arabatzis in which he studies in
>>
>> detail when the electron was discovered. Yes, this is a trick
>> question.
>> Did the Bohr model speak of electrons? This is a tricky question
>> for
>> anyone who has tried to track these things down. What is an
>> electron is
>> constantly changing, and is still changing. How can we be certain
>> we are
>> talking about the same entity? His suggestion is to think of an
>> electron
>> having a biography, just like a person. While a person's biography
>> changes over time, we still have some sense, some accepted practice
>> for
>> establishing that it is the same person we are speaking of.
>>
>> This book was interesting for me because I've been studying how we
>> "see"
>> invisible entities, not merely electrons and quarks, but God. It's
>> a
>> little like Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit, or Hanson's Patterns of
>> Discovery.
>> Something that wasn't there suddenly is there, and we can only see
>> the
>> rabbit and not the duck. The data remains unchanged. It's our
>> seeing
>> that's changed. Or is it? Does the data change too? Whenever we
>> describe and event, we must already have in mind an explanation for
>> the
>> event.
>>
>> So I think electrons are a powerful tool and if I understand being
>> at all,
>> and I'm not certain (after Kant and Heidegger) that I do, I think
>> there is
>> some-thing like an electron. But do I think any theory of an
>> electron has
>> reality about the throat? That, to me, seems patently absurd. How
>> can an
>> idea, an idea that admittedly is for the most part a mathematical
>> variable, contain what it is to BE and electron. Absurd! Indeed,
>> why
>> stop at electrons? Can any of our ideas of reality really be
>> expected
>> to express what it is to be real? Is it surprising how simple a
>> mathematical entity an electron is, or is this merely what human
>> mathematics requires?
>>
>> Science is a model maker and no more, hopefully a good model maker.
>> God
>> has endowed us with the ability to make good models for the good of
>> our
>> neighbor. That an indifferent logical construct like mathematics
>> should
>> serve this purpose (and who is to say what else) is a miracle, for
>> the
>> confidence that it might is young indeed, supported by a Christian
>> view of
>> God.
>>
>> I do not, however, hold your confidence that God has endowed us with
>> the
>> capability of discovering "true" (meaning God-like) theories,
>> whatever
>> that might look like. Reason has great value, but not ultimate and
>> unrestrained value. Reason demands reasons, evidence, proof that
>> satisfies. As such, it can at best engender a conditioned faith,
>> not the
>> faith that God gives, nor desires. It engenders man's faith, but
>> not
>> God's.
>>
>> Well, duty calls elsewhere. Nice talking to you about things I've
>> thought
>> little about for some time.
>>
>> bill powers
>> White, SD
>>
>>
>> On
>> Wed, 11 Feb 2009, Dehler, Bernie wrote:
>>
>>> Bill said:
>>> "For this reason my non-concordist YEC position is not troubling
>> so much for me. What troubles me is how it troubles others, and how
>> in a day where science has replaced philosophy and theology as the
>> arbiters of what is reasonable and true, they shall faire."
>>>
>>> Personally, I feel that if people want to be in the truth, they
>> have to put truth above all else- including love and devotion to
>> God. This is because it may be true there is no God, and one would
>> never discover that, if true, unless they were willing to subject it
>> to the truth.
>>>
>>> God says in Isaiah "Come, let us reason together." Therefore, we
>> should never fear that reason will displace faith. And if it does,
>> it is not a faith worth having. God gave us brains, and I think
>> he's proud of us when we use it. I think He would be upset with us
>> if we didn't use the full capacity of our brains, and that includes
>> looking and analyzing the world with the best available science.
>>>
>>> The key in considering science is also determining what is true or
>> not, because some ignorant/misguided people report something as
>> science which really isn't. Some science includes solid facts, and
>> some is really vague- hypotheses subject to re-formulation. We will
>> never know the difference unless we look into it for ourselves.
>> Sometimes we have to trust scientists- but only after first
>> discerning their integrity (I'd trust Francis Collins over Richard
>> Dawkins, for example).
>>>
>>> I don't know what a "non-concordist YEC" is. Does that mean that
>> one says they interpret the Bible literally yet know it conflicts
>> with science and can't ever be reconciled with science? (For
>> example, thinking the earth is made before the sun because the Bible
>> literally says that, even though cosmological evolution says that
>> obviously the Sun was formed before the earth?) If that's the case,
>> I think the mind has been compromised, and it is the worst form of
>> superstition. Science is very good at demolishing superstition.
>> The younger generation won't put up with that. That kind of faith
>> will only survey in a cult (a small gathering of believers who think
>> they alone have the real truth... my prophesy for the future of
>> YEC'ism, if it isn't already there).
>>>
>>> ...Bernie
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
>> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of wjp
>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 6:09 PM
>>> To: Douglas Hayworth
>>> Cc: "" D.F.Siemens@ame8.swcp.com; Jr.""; mrb22667@kansas.net;
>> asa@calvin.edu
>>> Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...
>>>
>>> Doug:
>>>
>>> I think this non-concordist YEC position is closest to mine.
>>> I have always been uncomfortable with Ross' (RTB) position, sort
>>> of like a science-groupie. And although most of my
>>> evangelical friends are close to a concordist YEC position, I have
>>> always attempted to point out the weakness, and sometimes naivete,
>> of
>>> some of their arguments. It should be noted, however, that some
>> who
>>> are very serious about this task are significantly sophisticated
>>> (e.g., John Baumgardner).
>>>
>>> However, my concerns have always been more theological (I'm not
>> wholly
>>> comfortable with that word), let's say Christological, than with
>> any
>>> form of concordism.
>>>
>>> I am persuaded that Christian faith must always remain in tension
>> with
>>> the world. Hence, any fully successful concordism might represent
>> an
>>> attempt to tear down the wall of faith. On the other hand, the
>> occurrence
>>> of certain historical events are necessary (but not sufficient)
>> for
>>> Christian faith, as such it is evidential, and subject to attack
>> on those
>>> grounds. For this reason I am likewise uncomfortable with any
>> form of
>>> Bultmannian groundless Christianity. Scripture is all we've got.
>>>
>>> Like most practitioners of science, I began as a realist. In the
>> twenty or
>>> so years that I've been studying the philosophy of science, I have
>> increasingly
>>> adopted the "received" view, the anti-realist or instrumentalist
>> views of
>>> the vast majority of philosophers, finding Heidegger's the most
>> complex, and
>>> perhaps compelling.
>>>
>>> For this reason my non-concordist YEC position is not troubling so
>> much for me.
>>> What troubles me is how it troubles others, and how in a day where
>> science has
>>> replaced philosophy and theology as the arbiters of what is
>> reasonable and true,
>>> they shall faire.
>>>
>>> bill powers
>>> White, SD
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
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Received on Thu Feb 12 18:04:14 2009