Is Logic a Valid Science in the establishment of ID as Scientific.?

It is in Merriam-Webster, but the problem is that there are several very different meanings of the word science, in which case your point is a valid one.By the way, as someone with some mathematical training (and who teaches mathematics), I don't classify logic as a branch of mathematics; rather mathematics is the pure application of logic. But that's a quibble.At any rate, logic is definitely not a science in the same way that physics, biology, and astronomy are sciences; science is generally used on this board to mean the application of the scientific method as a means of acquiring knowledge about the real world, of which logic is just one part of it.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Since I don't agree with your premise, your argument is unsound.- Since I don't agree with your premis, your argument is unsound.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Hello, DB. Welcome to EvC. We have to be careful about what we mean by the word science. One meaning is that science is a body systematized knowledge; with this meaning, logic is certainly a science.However, on this board, most of us are using the word science to mean the systematic acquisition of knowledge through the testing of hypotheses and theories through empirical investigation. In this case, logic is definitely not a science -- logic concerns itself with the examination of an argument to determine whether or not the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises, and not directly with the acquisition of any knowledge.- And this is the problem; the proponents of ID are trying to pass it off as a science in the second meaning I gave in the previous paragraph, that is, that the hypotheses of ID are amenable to testing and refinement by the scientific method. In this case, logic isn't going to help much; in order to qualify as a science in the meaning used to denote the content of science courses in schools, then the hypotheses of ID need to be tested. That is, new hitherto unobserved phenomena need to be predicted, and those phenomena then need to be observed.Now logic, as has already been pointed out, does have a place here. Namely, the predictions are basically conclusions deduced from the hypothesis, which serves as a premise to the logical argument. But logic itself cannot be used to determine whether or not ID is a reasonable hypothesis -- that can only be made through empirical investigation by the scientific method.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

This is true (with the first meaning of the word science given in my last post). But the "science of valid reasoning" is solely concerned with determining whether or not a conclusion is a necessary consequence of the premises. It is not concerned with whether or not the premises are valid; as I tell the class when I teach logic, whether or not the premises are valid is the subject of their other courses: chemistry, biology, history, and so forth. In logic, the premise are always assumed to be true; one then tests to see whether or not the conclusions are a necessary consequence of the premises. Logic gives us tools (truth tables, for example, or the rules of inference) that allows us to determine this.This is where logic is used in science. For example, in biology, logic allows us to determine that from the premises of common descent and natural selection acting on small randomly occurring inheritable variations, a necessary consequence is that the species should exhibit a nonsubjective nested hierarchical pattern. Then, once the conclusion has been determined (called a prediction), it will be tested against observation. If a nonsubjective nested hierarchical pattern to the species cannot be observed, then the conclusion has empirically been determined to be false; since the conclusion has been derived as a necessary consequence of the premises, then one or more of the premises must be false. But ultimately, we are relying on empirical evidence to acquire knowledge (in this case, the truth or falseness of the theory of evolution).- Well, you can, according to the meaning of proof used in the "science" of logic. To prove something simply means to show that the conclusion follows as a necessary consequence from the premises. Here is a proof of the existence of God:If all ravens are black, then God exists.
All ravens are black.
Therefore, God exists.This proof is logically valid; it is a form called Modus Ponens, which is known to be a logically valid form. This, in turn, can be demonstrated quite simply to be valid by means of a truth table.But have I "proven" anything in the everyday colloquial meaning of "prove"? No, of course not. The argument is not sound. We have no real reason to believe that all ravens are indeed black; in fact, since not every raven that has ever existed or ever will exist has been observed, there's no way of knowing that all ravens are black (although, if one non-black raven is ever seen, then that will show that this premise is false). Also, one may feel that the first premise, "If all ravens are black, then God exists," is not true since the existence of God and the blackness of ravens are not necessarily related.But this is the problem with real life. All logical arguments rely on the acceptance of the premises as true; but in the end we may never know whether or not any given premise is true. The best that we can do is try to use empirical observation to give some insight as to the truth of a premise.-And this is part of your problem, I think. You are using words like science and prove, which have several different meanings, and it's not clear which meanings are intended, or whether the intended meanings are appropriate for the context in which the words are being used. In fact, I suspect that you yourself are using the words with the various different meanings at the same time, a fallacy called equivocation; certainly, your audience is interpreting these words with different meanings from what you might be intending.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

You're reply seems to be just saying, "nuh-uh!" I'll await until you have more time to compose a more substantive reply.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Hi, DB. Looks like you're going to be one of the fun ones, aren't you? Do you always interpret disagreement as having excited "emontions"? I suggest that you spend less time trying to psychoanalyze people and put more effort into writing cogent responses.- Clearly you haven't understood what is being said. I'll try to explain. Hopefully you won't let your "emontional" response get in the way of comprehension.There are several different meanings to the words that are being used. These meanings are different. If people who are discussing these issues are using the words with different meanings, then no communication is taking place; if A is using one meaning, but B is using another meaning, then B will not interpret what A is saying correctly.Furthermore, we have the possibility of equivocation; if you are using a word with several different senses in the same argument, then your argument isn't going to be valid.Now, on this board, science refers to the acquisition of knowledge about the real world through the empirical testing of theories. That is how we are using the word science, and if you try to use the word science in a different sense, then confusion is bound to erupt because people will misunderstand your meaning, and I suspect that you will misunderstand our meaning. The other senses of science are perfectly fine in their proper context; there is no problem with going to your cooking class and talking about the science of gourmet cooking. However, if you are going to use the word science, especially in discussing a scientific study like evolution or quackery that tries to pass itself off as science like ID, then using the different meanings of science is going to cause confusion.Suppose that Bob is sad. One can say that Bob is blue.
We also know that the sky is blue.
So now we can say that Bob is like the sky. Except that it's absurd; the problem is that blue is being used with different meanings, and so a comparison between Bob and the sky based on the use of the same word is inappropriate.In the same way logic may be a science according to one meaning of the word science; however, just as Bob is not like the sky, so logic is not like physics or geology of biology or astronomy. It is much more like mathematics, which also is not a science, at least not with the same meaning that physics and geology and biology and astronomy are sciences.In fact, logic has several different meanings. If logic has any practical use in rigorous intellectual endeavors, then it must be logic as defined as the determination of whether a conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. Now you can use the word logic with other meanings, but not only are you going to cause confusion to those of us who have studied and teach logic, but you are clearly mixing up different meanings in your own posts. At any rate, it isn't very clear that you understand what you are trying to say.- Logic simply cannot establish facts. It is not the purpose of logic; I'm not sure where you got the idea that logic can establish facts. Perhaps you should take a few college courses rather than get your information from old science fiction series. All logic can do is use facts to determine whether one's premises are logically true. That is the purpose of logic.It is not the purpose of logic to determine the truth of conclusions. All logic can do is determine that a conclusion is necessarily true when the premises are assumed to be true. Then empirical investigation can determine whether the conclusion is true in real life, and then one can then determine whether one or more of the premises are true or false.The rest of the quote, demonstrable and evidence and such, refer to empirical investigation. Logic alone cannot establish what are facts and what are not; one cannot use logic alone to acquire knowledge. In the end, one always needs some sort of empirical confirmation.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

People are, but unfortunately most of what you are saying is gibberish. We're trying to explain why, but you are resisting any sort of discussion that doesn't confirm what you want to believe.- Actually, I will have accomplished my task if you will start to communicate clearly. To do that, you have to be aware of the meanings of the words you use and how your intended meaning may be different from what your audience is expecting. If your intended meaning and your audience's expectations differ, then miscommunication is going to result.- And I've already explained that this is false. Your repetition of a false statement will not make it true.- Except we haven't yet established the meaning of the word scientific. The adjective scientific does refer to the use of the scientific method, that is, the use of empirical data to test hypotheses and theories. When you use scientific as an adjective, it doesn't refer to the other meanings of the word science -- in this case, logic alone will not suffice for a scientific demonstration of the possibility of a designer. For that you will have to posit a hypothesis of a designer and then test it through empirical investigation. That is what a scientific demonstration would be.- Actually, I don't. Personally, it appears to me that you don't understand any of the meanings of the terms.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Hi, CK.Good suggestion. Do you want the honors of trying to talk DB through the process of presenting something?

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Welcome to EvC, JB. He is kind of fun, though. I, for one, am enjoying reading his, um, "contributions".

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Well, the ID people do. They are trying to claim that it is a fact that an Intelligent Designer designed stuff in the physical world.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Instead of answering other posts, why don't you just develop the idea from your OP:

quote:

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The inclusion of Logic as a science, would greatly enhance the understanding of ID as a science, if it is understood in its prpoer context and usage.

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Ignore the other posts for now. Just explain how the incluson of logic as a science would greatly enhance the understanding of ID as a science.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Well, you certainly are no worse an apologist than anyone else I've seen around here.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

I love it when they start commenting on the emotional state of their opponents.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

Hi, Ned.Good post, but I have to point out a minor error in terminology: You really want to say "logically valid". An argument is valid if the conclusion follows from the premises regardless of whether the premises are true.An argument is sound if it is valid and all of the premises are true.Sorry to belabor this, but the differences between validity and soundness is one of the issues of this, um, "discussion", so it seems to me.Right! Carry on!

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr

I especially like the way that the statements of a fictional character in a low budget science fiction TV show over 40 years ago forms an important part of your argument.

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Progress in human affairs has come mainly through the bold readiness of human beings not to confine themselves to seeking piecemeal improvements in the way things are done, but to present fundamental challenges in the name of reason to the current way of doing things and to the avowed or hidden assumptions on which it rests. -- E. H. Carr