|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Creation science or not? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: So, what you are saying is that if I attach the word "science" to any qualifier, doing that makes it "science"? If I were, for example, have a religious belief that magical pumpkins were the source of all life and the Universe, and I wanted to promote this view through appearing to have scientific backing even though I did not follow any of the rules of "regular" science in my reasoning or my research, and I called the resulting efforts "Squash Science", does that then mean that "Squash Science" should be considered on equal footing with regular science?
quote: Hold on, when have I ever said that? I believe you are seriously mistaken. In fact, I have said exactly the opposite. I have said that scientists who follow the scientific method properly are doing proper science regardless of their motives. The motivations of a scientist are irrelevant to if his or her work qualifies as scientific.
quote: No, that is incorrect. The creation of the atom bomb was, indeed, very well-done science, because it, form your wiki definition, :
Scientists use observations, hypotheses, and logic to propose explanations for natural phenomena in the form of theories. Predictions from these theories that can be reproducibly tested by experiment are the basis for developing new technology. Creation science does not do the above, especially it avoids the second sentence, in bold. Therefore is is not science.
quote: Creation Science folks never question "if it is God or not". They decide ahead of time that they know that it is God, and that nature must fit their interpretation of certain parts of a certain non-scientific holy book. Again, this does not in any way fit your definition of science.
quote: Sure, they can be investigated, but that doesn't make it science.
quote: Science goes where the evidence leads. In this way it is completely open-ended. Creation science, by contrast, begins with a conclusion that MUST be found, regardless of where the evidence points.
quote: This makes no sense. The evidence IS the support (proof).
quote: There is no scientific evidence for God, only subjective faith.
quote: Creation Science doesn't even meet the basic criterion for being science, as your own Wiki definition shows. They do not make "predictions from these theories that can be reproducibly tested by experiment".
quote: Did you ever wonder why Origin of species is so incredibly long? It's because of the evidence Darwin lists for his theory of descent with modification and natural selection. You have it backwards, just like the Creation Science people do. The overwhelmingly abundant evidence was pointing towards the hypothesis that Darwin came up with. It was by looking at the evidence and trying to come up with a logical explanation for why it appeared as it did that led to his theory. Theories are simply ways to explain and organize the evidence. They are born out of the observation of the evidence, not dreamed up independently of the evidence like Creation Science does.
quote: Not if the suppression and marginalization of science continues. Remember what happened to Russian agriculture when they forbade their scientists form using Evolutionaty principles in their work?
quote: But all science that has ever produced anything of use has followed the same method. Creation Science does not produce anything of use, because it does not follow the scientific method. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-13-2006 08:33 AM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: That's what I've always thought.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: How does this jibe with the scientific tenet of tentativity?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Sure, they can be investigated, but that doesn't make it science. quote: Sorry, I wasn't clear. HOW one investigates something is the important point here. Scientific investigation follows a very specific methodology. Creationists do not use this specific methodology, so they cannot be said to be doing science.
Science goes where the evidence leads. In this way it is completely open-ended. quote: The part that says science goes where the evidence leads.
quote: Yes, but they do not decide ahead of time that the cure for cancer is to drink a gallon of orange juice every day and hop on one foot for 15 minutes out of every hour, and then look for evidence to support this conclusion and ignore all the rest. Cancer researchers use the observed and inferred evidence from nature to ask questions and develop ideas about the origins and development of cancer, and then they design experiments to try to disprove their ideas; to test them. They are not constrained in their methodology, as Creationists are, by the need to reach a specific conclusion about the origins and development of cancer. They go where the evidence, and the results of their testing, leads.
Creation science, by contrast, begins with a conclusion that MUST be found, regardless of where the evidence points. quote: No, that is not a correct analogy. An accurate analogy would be if a specific cure for cancer must be found, such as my orange juice and hopping cure above. Creationists start with the specific treatment before looking at any evidence. They ignore any and all evidence that suggests that drinking a gallon of orange juice every day and hopping on one foot 15 minutes out of every hour doesn't cure cancer, and instead conclude that they must be making an error in understanding. After all, their holy book says that this MUST be the cure.
quote: This makes no sense. The evidence IS the support (proof). quote: Any theory, not just the correct ones, can make predictions. It is the testing of the logical consequences of the theories which tell us which ones are most correct.
quote: Yes. Scientists also try as hard as they can to falsify their predictions. They search high and low and do many experiements to try to "break" their hypothesis. In this way, they are testing it. This is another thing that Creationists do not do. They never propose testable predictions of their hypothese.
There is no scientific evidence for God, only subjective faith. quote: The conclusions about the supernatural that you derive from your feelings are certainly subjective.
quote: Well, first you have to provide a testable, falsifiable theory complete with positive evidence that God exists, and then you must provide a testable, falsifiable theory complete with positive evidence that He made everything.
Creation Science doesn't even meet the basic criterion for being science, as your own Wiki definition shows. They do not make "predictions from these theories that can be reproducibly tested by experiment". quote: All of the "major sites" are "creation science on the whole", rat. If AIG, DI, ICR, and the others listed here aren't the whole of Creation "science", then what other organizations or people are you referring to?
It's because of the evidence Darwin lists for his theory of descent with modification and natural selection. quote: No.
quote: It can likely explain why we have feelings, yes, but not how you should act upon them.
Theories are simply ways to explain and organize the evidence. They are born out of the observation of the evidence, not dreamed up independently of the evidence like Creation Science does. quote: Then please repost or link to where I missed it.
Remember what happened to Russian agriculture when they forbade their scientists form using Evolutionaty principles in their work? quote: From the wiki. Also see entries on Lysenkoism and Lamarckism In December 1929, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave a famous speech elevating "practice" above "theory", elevating the judgment of the political bosses above that of the scientists and technical specialists. Though the Soviet government under Stalin gave much more support to genuine agricultural scientists in its early days, after 1935 the balance of power abruptly swung towards Lysenko and his followers. Lysenko was put in charge of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union and made responsible for ending the propagation of "harmful" ideas among Soviet scientists. Lysenko served this purpose faithfully, causing the expulsion, imprisonment, and death of hundreds of scientists and the demise of genetics (a previously flourishing field) throughout the Soviet Union. This period is known as Lysenkoism. He bears particular responsibility for the death of the greatest Soviet biologist, Nikolai Vavilov, at the hands of the NKVD. After Stalin's death in 1953, Lysenko retained his position, enjoying a relative degree of trust from Nikita Khrushchev. However, mainstream scientists were now given the ability to criticize Lysenko for the first time since the late 1920s. In 1962 three of the most prominent Soviet physicists, Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, Vitaly Ginzburg, and Pyotr Kapitsa, set out the case against Lysenko, his false science and his policy of political extermination of scientific opponents. This happened as a part of a greater trend of combatting the ideological influence that had held such sway in Soviet society and science. In 1964, physicist Andrei Sakharov spoke out against Lysenko in the General Assembly of the Academy of Sciences: he is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudoscientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists. The Soviet press was soon filled with anti-Lysenkoite articles and appeals for the restoration of scientific methods to all fields of biology and agricultural science. Lysenko was removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences and restricted to an experimental farm in Moscow's Lenin Hills (the Institute itself was soon dissolved). After the dismissal of Khrushchev in 1965, the president of the Academy of Sciences declared that Lysenko's immunity to criticism had officially ended, and an expert commission was sent to Lysenko's experimental farm. A few months later, a devastating critique became public and Lysenko's reputation was completely destroyed in the Soviet Union, though it would continue to have effect in China for many years. Lysenko's political success was in part because of his striking differences from most biologists at the time, being both from a peasant family as well as an enthusiastic advocate of the Soviet Union and Leninism. He was also extremely fast in responding to problems, although not with real solutions. Whenever the Party would announce plans to plant a new crop or cultivate a new area, Lysenko would come up with immediate and practical suggestions on how to proceed. So quickly did he develop his prescriptions”from the cold treatment of grain, to the plucking of leaves from cotton plants, to the cluster planting of trees, to odd and unusual fertilizer mixes”that academic biologists could not keep up and did not have time to demonstrate that one technique was valueless or harmful before a new one was adopted. The Party-controlled newspapers inevitably applauded Lysenko's "practical" efforts and questioned the motives of his critics. Lysenko's "revolution in agriculture" had a powerful propaganda advantage over the academics who urged the patience and observation required for science. Lysenko was admitted into the Communist Party hierarchy and put in charge of agricultural affairs. Lysenko used his position to denounce biologists as "fly-lovers and people haters," and to decry the "wreckers" in biology who he claimed were trying to purposely disable the Soviet economy and cause it to fail. He furthermore denied the distinction between theoretical and applied biology. This is why we worry about antiintellectualism in America, why we worry about the Creationists getting into the schools, why we worry about attempts by Creationists to change the definition of science to include them, and why we worry about the influence in our culture of all kinds of pseudosciences including Scienctific Creationism.
quote: quote: Whatever. What does this have to do with Creation science being considered scientific?
quote: quote: Mmm hmm. Does the way you study God qualify to be science?
quote: 'Sallright. This message has been edited by schrafinator, 03-14-2006 10:12 AM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: I am right with you, Phat. I just stated the above to make a point to the Rat.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: In my mind, this makes you an agnostic athiest, not just an athiest. (I consider myself an agnostic athiest, btw) The athiest believes that there is no God or gods. The agnostic athiest doesn't know if God or Gods exist or not because there is no evidence for their existence.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
quote: Well, yes, when the topic is a supernatural, possibly all-powerful and all-knowing entity, then yes, the rules are different. It's not just that I don't see any evidence of God, it's that is it possible that God exists but we have no way of detecting God, just as invisible pink unicorns exist but I have no way of detecting them. Therefore, I cannot say that they definitely do not exist. To be intellectually consistent, I MUST say that I don't know if they do not exist or not. I cannot make a positive claim for the non-existence of a thing using a lack of evidence for that thing.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nator Member (Idle past 2200 days) Posts: 12961 From: Ann Arbor Joined: |
Now, Behe, the leading creo advocate of IC, has suggested blood clotting and bacterial flagella are IC. Unfortunately for him, evolutionary histories for both of these things have been suggested. In fact, unless I'm mistaken, blood clotting systems have been found with fewer than all the elements that Behe said were necessary. quote: The glaring error Behe makes here is that he assumes that the elements of complex "irreducably complex" biological systems were added sequentially; "a + b + c + d = IC system". That's not at all how evolution has happened, or has to happen.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024