Re: [asa] TE/EC Response - ideology according to Terry

George:

No doubt you are correct that individual scientists will always seek to know the why, or what's behind any theory. Indeed, if they did not desire to do so, there may be no science.

I wonder, however, whether such ruminations or "schools" of interpretation ought to be viewed as properly part of science.

When we think of science, abstracted from individual scientists, such views have, it seems, no relevance. The assessment and acceptance of a theory also tends to be indifferent to such interpretations. Where it likely carries significant weight is in that area of science never fully discussed and never taught: that is, in the individual acts of discovery.

bill

On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:56:20 -0400, "George Murphy" <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com> wrote:
> I want to comment just on the piece of Bill's post that I snip below.
>
> Of course we can believe, & have strong evidence for believing, that
> evolution has happened & is happening without knowing what makes it work.
> In the same way, one can regard Newton's law of universal gravitation
> simply
> as a well supported empirical rule with no attempt to understand why it's
> true. That is what Newton meant when he said "I do not make hypotheses,"
> not theorizing in general. He was not adverse to all hypotheses.
>
> But scientists are not satisfied with such positions. Some may argue that
> they should be but they generally aren't. They look for reasons why
> things
> behave in one way & not another. & when we find that our empirical rules
> run into probleems - when we realize that Newton's laws don't account
> precisely for details of orbital mechanics or if we start wondering why
> the
> coelecanth is still around - we're going to look for theories that will
> (a)
> broaden our original empirical rules & (b) at the same time tell us why
> those rules are approximately true.
>
> (The coelecanth example is perhaps a poor one. The YEC notion that its
> survival challenges evolution is of course nonsense. But it is natural to
> wonder why some species survive for a long time & others don't. & one of
> the deficiencies of merely saying "evolution happens" is that we have no
> way
> of getting at such questions.)
>
> Shalom
> George - unapologetic theorist
> http://home.roadrunner.com/~scitheologyglm
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bill Powers" <wjp@swcp.com>
> To: "Cameron Wybrow" <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
> Cc: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Monday, July 20, 2009 9:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [asa] TE/EC Response - ideology according to Terry
>
>
>> Cameron:
> ...........................
>> Now you come and say that Darwinian evolution is "weak" science. You
>> never doubt, it seems, that evolution has taken place. You simply
>> question the means.
>>
>> One needs to ask what is the significance of questioning the means. When
>> Newton proposed his theory of gravity, he refused to posit an opinion as
>> to how gravity acted, taking such an effort to be a remnant of
>> Aristotleian physics. Most of the questions that the Aristotelians
> asked
>> of him and other science are still unanswered and science has
> "progressed"
>> nonetheless.
>>
>> Naively I ask, to what extent does evolutionary science depend upon the
>> specific means of biological evolution? Chromosome fusion and the like
>> appear equally consistent with chance, lawfulness, and intelligence.
> ...........................
>
>
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Received on Mon Jul 20 23:43:56 2009