RE: [asa] Can Science Test Supernatural Worldviews? by Yonatan I. Fishman

Gregory,
The hard sciences are usually the ones that deal with the simplest aspect of the whole of reality, viz. the physical. For instance, a human being is a very complicated entity; however, a free falling person obeys very simple laws owing to the interaction of the person’s mass with that of the Earth---only the physical aspect of the person comes into play. Therefore, the physical laws of Nature govern the time development of the fall.
If we deal, in addition, with the nonphysical and supernatural aspects of entities, then one is dealing with much harder problems for which the hard sciences can give no answers whatsoever. Sociology is a difficult subject since it deals with human beings in all its aspects, physical/nonphysical/supernatural. The issue is then what laws govern humans in all its aspects? I believe one has to bring in metaphysics and theology, which constitute the two domains of the ontological context.
Moorad
________________________________
From: Gregory Arago [gregoryarago@yahoo.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 7:21 PM
To: Bill Powers; Alexanian, Moorad
Cc: Bill Cobern; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: [asa] Can Science Test Supernatural Worldviews? by Yonatan I. Fishman

Moorad, Could you please list the 'sciences' that you consider to be 'the hard sciences,' as you call them? Or, alternatively, it would be helpful to know of the 'sciences' that you consider *not* to be 'the hard sciences.' - Thanks, Gregory

--- On Wed, 4/22/09, Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu> wrote:
From: Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu>
Subject: RE: [asa] Can Science Test Supernatural Worldviews? by Yonatan I. Fishman
To: "Bill Powers" <wjp@swcp.com>
Cc: "Bill Cobern" <bill.cobern@wmich.edu>, "asa@calvin.edu" <asa@calvin.edu>
Received: Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 2:50 AM

Bill,

Experimental science is quite successful in the hard sciences. I am not sure if
you can reduce answer to prayers to be an experimental science. If am not sure
that prayers addressed to God can be so systematized. I do not think fancy
Bayesian analysis would be useless here. Note that here we are dealing with free
will on the part of all concerned and so the system is not that simple.

Moorad

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Received on Tue Apr 21 20:24:45 2009