Two types of science

For something to be considered science, it is supposed to be something that the scientific method is applicable to. Here's the first paragraph at Wikipedia that defines the scientific method;

quote:

---

The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."[3]

---

Scientific method - Wikipedia"The scientific method is a body of techniques" - The purpose of this thread is to show that some science, such as deep space speculation, age of the earth speculation, etc. have a much smaller "body of techniques" available to study them, than do current day applications of science, such as medical study, or any present day workings with present day materials.When working in present day time and activity, all 5 human senses can be used to do all the empirical testing, measuring, and falsifying required by the scientific method to come to conclusions that can overcome personal beliefs and worldviews. Other things that are considered science, such as conclusions about what happened millions of years ago, or what's going on hundreds or thousands of light years away, the scientific method can only vaguely, or partially be applied. Little more than the sense of sight, for example, can be used to come to conclusions about space exploration.There are two distinct differences in some types of science versus other types. Naturalists like to blend them, to make them appear as virtually the same thing. Sometimes they are successful, but their naturalistic worldview, their desire to "weaken the hold of religion" as they've been instructed to do by Nobel prize winner Steven Weinberg, causes them to claim evidence that isn't always accepted by everyone of all worldviews. Science isn't the only source of knowledge, and I'll be glad to detail other sources of knowledge as the thread progresses.

Yes, but if one is limited to fewer human senses, the scientific method, in some peoples' opinions, could become too vague to draw conclusions worthy enough to become politically established in a diverse society. I think it's a difference in character, when the number of angles of exploration is so low that testability and falsifiability become weakened to the point of non-existence. After all, that is the reason the concept of Intelligent Design has failed in court cases. I'm not Faith, if she said that unwitnessed past is totally unamenable to naturalistic study, then I would disagree with her. My opinion is that it could be partially possible to study it from a naturalistic standpoint, but not thoroughly enough to be considered scientific in the public domain. I think it's relevant because if the application of the scientific method is weak enough, then other sources of knowledge (like mathematical improbability, or historic writings) would become comparable. That's the only way I'm willing to discuss it, and it's not important to me if it's in one of the science forums or not. If you won't promote it that's fine, but it may indicate that what Boulder-dash opened this thread with could have some merit.

I don't think the 5,064 figure conflicts with the book of Genesis, or any western worldview for that matter, so in this case you,ve demonstrated actual science.If you want to go into some other things that go a little deeper into attempted falsifications of Genesis, or global warming, etc. go right ahead. Make them as detailed or concise as you like (I prefer concise myself) and I'll apply some other sources of knowledge to them, and we'll see how it all goes.

It was only an opening post, intended to be brief and readable. Your questions allow me to go into more detail about my position. I'm not saying that anything that is only observable by one human sense cannot be scientific, I'm saying that if something is observable by only one human sense, and ALSO involves millions of years in the past, hundreds of light-years away, or conflicts with the basics of Christianity or U.S. foundings, then it may become too vague to be thoroughly enough analyzed by the scientific method. Testability and falsifiability are the two key words. They were established only to shout down the concept of Intelligent Design, so they should apply to other forms of science as well. "Reasonable doubt"? Who is doing the reasoning? We'll be exploring that as the thread moves along. Then you should be able to have lots of fun showing me just how that knowledge is tested, and how it could be falsified. I just went to the Intelligent Design forum here, and randomly picked out three topics, and before getting very far, (6 or 7 posts) the term "Wedge Document" came up in two of them. It's seldom possible to discuss Intelligent Design without the Wedge Document becoming front and center to the whole discussion. What Weinberg said about "weakening the hold of religion" is very comparable to the wedge document, actually even more of an issue with science than the wedge document is to Intelligent Design, or any non-naturalistic worldview. I'll briefly compare them, to make that clear.There seem to be slightly different wordings of what Steven Weinberg said, but they all pretty much say the same thing; (he probably said it several times)

quote:

---

I think one of the great historical contributions of science is to weaken the hold of religion. That's a good thing.

---

Steven Weinberg - I think one of the great historical...The Wedge Document was written by one man, Phillip Johnson, a lawyer, not a scientist. Weinberg is, of course, an award winning scientist. There's no indication that Intelligent Design, has, or possibly could, succeed with its "wedge strategy" as it described. Yet there's every indication that weakening the hold of religion really is a priority of much of the scientific community. The evidence is in the fact that there is so much metaphysical science going on in universities and even high school textbooks today.

This should have been answered for you in message 16. As one against many, I'm not going down rabbit trails - searches for cosmological papers. It would be more appropriate for you to show me how any detailed conclusion about something outside our solar system is testable or falsifiable, by means other than repetitive study by telescope. I DID think of it myself, but since Intelligent Design is declared not science because it doesn't measure up to the rigors of the scientific method, or is too vague to be tested or falsified, then it's legitimate to inquire if other things have that same problem. Yes, I've been seeing them lately in other threads that I've participated in. I'm told that if we didn’t believe in a billions of year old earth, we wouldn't be able to explore for oil. If we didn't believe in common ancestor atheism, we wouldn't be able to cure disease, etc. Claims like this are everywhere in todays science. Years ago on another forum, someone actually told me that if we didn't believe in a billions of year old earth, we wouldn't be able to purify and distribute clean water! Yes, actual science, and metaphysical science. Metaphysical being the kind that can't meet the standards that were set for ID, the kind that generally interests no one except atheists, the kind that seems to only have one purpose, to "weaken the hold of religion". Yes again, the conspiracy to try to sweep Weinberg's remark under the rug, as if it's irrelevant to what's going on today. There is evidence that it's a major desire of today’s scientific community and its followers. The "hash" I've made of it all fits together, if I'm permitted to present it. That's the reason I couldn't allow my o/p to be more narrowly focused. I don't need to do that, I'm formulating a criteria solely by what I see on forums such as these, combined with what I see in the news, and writings by those on both sides of the creation/evolution controversy.

Of your list, I prefer "public opinion" the most. (Public opinion is also very important in how U.S. founders intended for the U.S. to be governed) The public can get its knowledge from several sources, such as;Perception
Reason
Introspection
Memory
Testimony Here is where that list comes from, with a paragraph of detail about each one.So you'll disregard all that and go with only one thing, science, being reported to you by a special interest, led by the National Academy of Science, (about 93% of whom are atheists). Here’s what another link has to say about knowledge;

quote:

---

How can we determine which facts are true? As human beings living in the 21st Century we are surrounded by a wealth of information but not all of it is trustworthy, so we must find a way to double check fact-claims. We must learn some-how to screen out the fictions but let in the facts. On what criteria can we decide what are facts and what are false claims?

​

How can we determine which facts are important? However, it is not enough to simply determine which facts are true, we must also consider which facts are useful. A correct catalogue of the size and shape of every blade of grass on my lawn may well be factually true but it will not be as useful as knowing that my lawn is on fire and about to engulf my house. Given the overwhelming number of facts available to us, what criteria can we use for deciding what is more important, what less?

---

More detail on all this later, as it's requested, but it's immediately clear that knowledge other than science goes far deeper than "Bible stories" as I was told in another thread. To show that there's a difference between Bible stories and Christian teachings, here's a brief quote from a daily devotion I receive by email, called "Word For Today". This came to me two days after I proposed this thread;

quote:

---

While the Bible clearly teaches self-worth, it also denounces self-interest. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He said that we were to love God with all our hearts, and love others with the same concern that we show for ourselves (See Mk 12:30-31). When we obsess over ourselves, we lose the meaning of life, which is to love and serve God, and love and serve our neighbors. In a 2003 report, Hardwired to Connect, thirty-three research scientists discovered that we are biologically primed to find meaning through relationships. Chuck Colson said: After nearly eight decades of living, I can vouch for this. My single greatest joy is giving myself to others and seeing them grow in return. You cannot discover that without commitment. I first learned it by watching my parents care for my dying grandparents in our home...I later saw it in the Marine Corps. You cannot command forty-five men to go into combat, as I was trained to do, if you aren’t committed to one another. You are going to die if the man next to you does not cover your back...By abandoning commitment, our narcissistic culture has lost the one thing it desperately seeks: happiness. Without commitment, our individual lives will be barren and sterile. Without commitment, our lives will lack meaning and purpose. After all, if nothing is worth dying for, then nothing is worth living for. Jesus taught that the only way to live abundantly is to die to self-interest and give yourself fully to God, and to those who need what God has given you.

---

Concerning the part I bolded, I wonder if those 33 research scientists lost their jobs? Possibly not, but one thing's for sure, those findings never will make it anywhere near a science textbook, because it could clash with what atheist prophet Dawkins said about selfish genes. I don't think Chuck Colson is a scientist, does that mean we should completely disregard what he said?

Here is some more detail for you. William Dembski is a mathematician. While he doesn't directly apply the following to anything in particular, it shows anyone with an open mind that increased complexity can increase astronomically the improbability that something can happen without purpose, without any planning for future function;

quote:

---

Probability can be viewed as a form of complexity. To see this, consider the combination lock. The more possible combinations of the lock, the more complex the mechanism, and, correspondingly, the more improbable that the mechanism can be opened by chance. For instance, a combination lock whose dial is numbered from 0 to 39 and that must be turned in three alternating directions will have 64,000 possible combinations. This number gives a measure of complexity for the combination lock but also corresponds to a 1 in 64,000 probability of the lock being opened by chance (assuming zero prior knowledge of the lock combination). A more complicated combination lock whose dial is numbered from 0 to 99 and which must be turned in five alternating directions will have 10,000,000,000 (ten billion) possible combinations and and thus a 1 in ten billion probability of being opened by chance. Complexity and probability therefore vary inversely: the greater the complexity, the smaller the probability.

---

The 5 direction, 0 to 99 lock isn't billions of times more complex than the 3 direction, 0 to 39 lock. Other than having a few more moving parts, it's virtually identical. But it helps show that recent biological discoveries like DNA, the bacterial flagellum, etc. have less probability of falling together by purposeless natural processes. This means nothing of course, to naturalists. But they're ignoring another source of knowledge, and it isn't a Bible story.

I have about a dozen messages to respond to tonight - I won't be distracted by any cut ins. I'll try to respond to anything anyone else posts tonight sometime next week, if it's worthy of a response.

Sure, but I'd have to see how it's defined - if there's any trickiness involved in just what the principle of falsification is.

Here is a link about a recent conflict going on in Kansas, that seems to be somewhat typical of other states from recent times.(From the link), one side says;

quote:

---

The state’s job is simply to say to students, ‘How life arises continues to be a scientific mystery and there are competing ideas about it,’ said John Calvert, a local attorney involved in the case.

---

and the other side says;

quote:

---

They’re trying to say anything that’s not promoting their religion is promoting some other religion, he said, going on to deem the discussion silly.

---

These are typical statements from these types of cases, we all know which sides we're on, and this thread isn't really about a lot of detail about that discussion. But the fact is, these conflicts have been going on, are going on, and will continue to go on. The fact that the scientific community and 99% of its followers are ALWAYS militantly on one side should at least initiate some discussion about the possibility that two types of science exist, and there may be evidence that double standards exist in the scientific community.Here's how Conservapedia describes the National Center for Science Education;

quote:

---

The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is an atheistic creature of the US Congress, established as a non-profit organization. It advocates forcing the teaching the theory of evolution in U.S. public schools, to the exclusion of scientific creationism and intelligent design, which it erroneously contends is a form of creationism. The NCSE acted as a consultant for the plaintiffs in the 2005 Kitzmiller vs. Dover Trial [1]

​

The NCSE is responsible for "Project Steve", a propaganda campaign based on a logically-fallacious argument ad populum.

---

The NCSE has at least some unopposed CONTROL of what's being taught as science in public schools. I realize that liberal atheists always consider conservapedia to be wrong. But liberal atheists aren't always automatically right. Barbara Forrest, an atheist activist, serves on the NCSE's board of directors.

Unless science is funded by the public.When I first started posting here 4 years ago, you actually used to lock horns with other naturalists a little bit, concerning liberal politics, though you never seemed to last long against them. You seem to be completely over that now, have you been de-programed? Though it's largely forgotten today due to lack of education, the 10th amendment still exists. Do you know what it says about public opinion?

I know what Dawkins says about the "blind, pitiless indifference" of nature, the obvious beliefs of naturalists that human emotions are not scientific.

It's this straw man, this lie, that probably more than anything else, inspires millions of people all across the U.S. to take issue with what the science education establishment is doing. Christians in the U.S. who question science don't want their own religious rituals established in science, they want to get the atheism out. If they could, they'd vote to make sure atheist activists like Barbara Forrest weren't members of anything that makes decisions about what their children will be taught. The book of Genesis has been confirmed repeatedly by many more independent and competent observers than anything concerning Darwinism. Your answer makes no sense. What makes more sense of what facts are useful is a parallel of what the above paragraph states; A correct catalogue of the size and shape of every star in the Milky Way galaxy may be factually true, but it will not be as useful as knowing that if we don’t quit wasting time and energy doing this type of exploration, the U.S. may find itself in so much debt that its infrastructure completely collapses. Evidence shows that you do, which facts are true and which facts are useful to promote atheism.Edited by marc9000, : No reason given.Edited by marc9000, : No reason given.

"Any process at all", including random mutation and natural selection? As far as I know, evolutionists will grudgingly admit that nature cannot have a purpose, and cannot plan for future function. Without purpose and a plan, anything complex had to have come together by pure randomness.

As I said, he probably said it several times, turns out he did. Here's what he said at another time, in its complete context;

quote:

---

There are those whose views about religion are not very different from my own, but who nevertheless feel that we should try to damp down the conflict, that we should compromise it. I respect their views and I understand their motives, and I don't condemn them, but I'm not having it. To me, the conflict between science and religion is more important than these issues of science education or even environmentalism. I think the world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief; and anything that we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilization.

---

As we can clearly see, he intends for it to be an on-going process. There's evidence that it is. Do you have evidence of any mainstream scientists who have taken any notable action to oppose his position on this? If anyone interested in Intelligent Design has to be tied to the Wedge Document and the Discovery Institute, does it not logically follow that anyone interested in evolution must also be tied to Darwin, Huxley, and Herbert Spencer? If not, why not? Because ID is not as old as Darwin’s following? Evolution has moved on from much of Darwin's ideas (about the simplest forms of life for example) why is ID not permitted to equally move on from the Wedge Document? No, it's a code for "a political establishment of atheism", something forbidden by U.S. foundings every bit as much, if not more, than "separation of church and state".