This stems from discussion from
YEC approaches to empirical investigation .
I think EvC could use a place where highly structured investigation into developing hypotheses could be done. A place where the scientific method is not followed per say, but where empirical observations are attempted to be resolved with other ideas or data that is not scientific in any way.
By providing a place for YECs to investigate hypotheses, I want to promote the serious use of evidence, and the serious interaction of deducing predictions from premises and comparing those premises to known observations, by people who do not consider themselves scientists.
By providing a highly structured environment, I want to eliminate highly randomizing debate that involves:
1. Debating whether YECs are "doing science."
2. Debating whether the claims of the bible are "true" or not.
3. Debating whether or not a particular interpretation of the bible is justified or not.
There's places to discuss all those things. I want a special forum just for this, with very specific rules laid out. Here's a proposal on the rules:
1.
All faith-based hypotheses must be stated up front in the OP. (no pulling a "well, God could have done XXX" random, unsupported-by-the-bible assertion to "work through" a problematic empirical observation). Allowing such assertions would completely undermine the "empirical" part of the enterprise. This also includes a statement of what type of interpretation of the bible (literal, etc) they're taking (rahvin's suggestion).
2.
There will be NO discussion as to the truth or falsity of these premises. They are taken as GIVEN for the duration of the debate. All debate to that end should be taken to the "The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy" forum.
3.
NO dodging evidence. Evidence that is presented must be dealt with directly. Any evidence that cannot be
4.
NO stating of alternate theories. Alternate theories are not arguments against hypotheses, any more than the purported failure of evolution would be evidence for creation. Extract the relevant DATA from alternate theories, and present them.
5.
An admin must be assigned to monitor one of these threads. These threads are really maintenance-heavy, as we have all seen. Somebody needs to be on top of keeping things on track, of being the ultimate arbitrator in disputes, and in keeping track of information (see below). I think a thread like this REQUIRES a "Great Debate"-esque handling by the admin team. I also anticipate that, since the demands on the YEC are great, there will not be too many threads being started here. And even if there are... to ease workload on the admin team, I'd say only keep one such thread active at a time, and keep any other threads waiting in PNT until any previous ones die out.
I also propose that any evidence that cannot be accounted for, and is "passed" on by the person developing a hypothesis, is tracked somehow. I'm not sure how we could do it. Maybe the admin in charge can keep a personal tally, or maybe the admin can keep track of it in their post 2 (traditionally only used for the message "Moved here from the PNT forum")
I understand that this may be outside of what Percy's looking for on this board; in fact I've read where he says he specifically isn't interested in such discussion. I think there are reasonable goals from Percy's perspective on why such a structured approach could work. Not the least of which is in trying to get YECs to use better methodology, and to be more aware of what their methodology is. Secondly, to provide a place where progress in a thread is guided by an admin, rather soley by the posters themselves. The posters simply have shown they can't handle keeping things productive on their own.
If this idea is accepted, I have an idea how to restructure the forums a bit to accommodate this idea and keep things relatively clean. But first things first. I'm looking for some admin feedback on whether or not this is a fruitful idea, or at least feedback on what I need to show you to convince you it could be fruitful.
This message has been edited by Ben, Monday, 2005/09/12 03:27 PM
This message has been edited by Ben, Monday, 2005/09/12 03:31 PM