On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 15:54:42 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:



The short answer is that scientists say that largely, if all this is the
will of God, they have, and they gave done it by ignoring Him.

Because only by pretending - if you must - that god plays little or no
part in the way the world works, have we been able to actually proceed
at all.

That is only true if you are taking the position that considering the
possibility (to the extent of little up to complete acceptance)
prevents thought, investigation and development.

I certainly think that that accusation can be levelled against some or
all organised religions at one point or another in time - for some
perhaps a lot of the time.

However, if an individual considers the issues and takes a position
for himself, then I think that that is quite a different matter.

You don't quite get to the shades of meaning I am trying to convey here.

I do. You are making comparisons based only on what you term
fundamentalist religion.

There are a much broader range of comparisons that can be made than
that.



What you are telling me to countenance, is like saying that I should
include an opinion in what the game is all about, when trying to deduce
the rules...but what I am telling you, is that it doesn't affect my
analysis one way or the other. MY aim is NOT to get off the field
covered in glory, or mud, its to stay playing as long as possible and
whack the ball through the goalposts as often as I can. That's why I am
here.

I have made my choice...and when time is called, I will take whatever comes.

That's your choice, as you say. I prefer not to allow myself to
limited in that way.




Because NOTHING in the analysis of the game leads me to believe it has
any real purpose whatsoever.
But even if it has, thats not what I as a scientist, am bothered with.
My purpose is to analyze the game, not to get involved with what this
may, or may not, have to say abut who, if anyone, put the game together.

Science is trying to work out the rules.

Religion is trying to work out the purpose.

Science tries to answer 'how?'
Religion tries to answer 'why?'

When sciences answers 'why?' it comes up with 'why not?'




When religion answers 'how?' it comes up with 'by divine intervention'

Neither of these are satisfactory answers.

That's too simplistic. There are many "why" questions that science
attempts to answer. It is only the more difficult one where it
fails.




Your proposal that we extend science is tantamount to saying that we
extend it to answer 'why' not 'how' - my rely is that science cannot
address that question.

It isn't tantamount to that at all.




Scientists would say that asking 'why the Universe? ' is a meaningless
question.

Religious people insist that it is in fact the only question worth
asking and having an answer to.

I suggest that THEIR answerer glorifies man way beyond what is
justified: Its suggests that the world is there at god's behest for the
sole purpose of creating men to worship him.

I suggest that is childish and dangerously stupid.

It has been said that someone who believes in God just in case is
hedging his bets with respect to his afterlife.

My response is that someone who believes in god just in case is
compromising his survial in this one.

You takes yer choice


I think that you are thinking in black and white extremes. There are
a whole spectrum of views in between.






They creaked at Sheldrake..I personally think he is just about in the
realms of science still..others don't.


OK. In that sense, science isn't an exact science. It does take
time, even within the scientific realm for ideas to be accepted and
replaced (or not). Inevitably at the edges, the question is and
should be asked, "does this count as science or not?", and on that,
views will vary.


Yes, thats why Popper is so invaluable. He - like Occam, whose Razor
provides another crucial test - gibes an unequivocal way to reject
certain theories completely and forever.

Popper is relatively recent. Science managed perfectly well before
him and would have done without him. In the future it's possible
that there will be a different approach to his area completely.




If creationists were to make a DEFINITE statement about god, one that
couple be tested, then at once that fall under th remit of science. If
they said 'if you recite "agabagawombatturd, give me money and a bird"
and every time money, and the woman of your choice appeared by the
bed..well then we could investigate that. Scientifically. We might vary
the incantation, and see if it worked still- whatever.

But they are careful to restrict themselves to that which cannot be
tested. 'god made the world in 5 days'

That may well be what creationists do. There are many other
perspectives than that.




It remained in three separate ways implicit in the modern mind..

- as the philosophical 'god of the gaps' - the prime cause in a causal
universe..as a way to name something that had no name..to explain the
(currently) inexplicable.

- as a curious artifact of the way the mind seems to work, in that we
treat the world implicitly (and science is the purest form of that) AS
IF we were disembodied intelligences on another plane of existence,
observing the world without actually taking part in it, other than to
measure it.

- as a curious 'personal guardian angel' with whom we can have
conversation, and who will guide us through life.

Now the first and second definitions are entirely metaphysical. They do
not apply to science, because that takes them as read, in the second
place, and as irrelevant, in the first.

The third aspect is more amenable to scientific inquiry, and indeed has
much to recommend it. Though whether it is a philosophical,
psychological, or biophysical study is not really clear..

This is a convenient compartmentalisation that suits the scientist and
metaphysicist.


No, its a the way it appears to be to human beings

It's the convenient compartmentalisation that I already described.

The structure of what is and what isn't considered to part of science
at the time, has changed continuously over millennia.

There is no basis for assuming that that cannot ever change in the
future.




If you are going to deny any validity to discrimination, and choose
whatever suits your agenda, you are a creationist at heart, and belong
in a cult.

Or are you a fully paid up member already?

Once again you are taking extreme examples and making incorrect
deductions about what I have both said and meant.

It isn't going to work.



You are just saying 'maybe'
sure maybe anything within the power of your imagination.

That won;t make it true, or make it happen.

I have not said that I have anything specific in mind, any timescale
or the degree.

In effect, this is simply to say that I will not absolutely reject
possibilities. It does not mean that I am saying that they will
happen, that I want them to happen or anything specific at all.

Therefore to suggest, as you have been doing that I want this or that
to happen or for it to happen in the forseeable future is based on
what you have extrapolated - not on what was said or meant.



Science is concerned with making things happen. God has proved to be
useless at making things happen.

I thought that you said that science was in the business of explaining
"how?" Where does making things happen come into it?

You also said that that you thought that God cannot be proved or
disproved. How can He have been proved to be useless at making
things happen?




By concentrating on the bits of the world that are as far as we can tell
entirely godless, that are amenable to rational inquiry, we get what we
want without having to bother with god at all.

This is far more safe and certain - i.,e. we tend to test bits of stone
metal and wood, and build a bridge over a river, rather than say three
hail Mary's and jump off the bank..because experience has shown us that
the godless approach works more reliably.

Exactly my point. It is safe and certain (as far as we can tell).

That does not provide licence to disregard what is not safe and
certain. Had we done that, we would not have progressed as you put it
earlier.

No one is disregarding what is not safe and certain, what they are
disregarding is stuff that is proven (by dint of it never having worked
or had any effect before) to have no relevance to what they are trying
to achieve.

If you consider past situations, there are plenty of examples where
something is disregarded as not being possible and through some
discovery becomes possible.






The trouble with God, is that you can't trust him. One day he'll build
you an ark that can magically take every single species off of a billion
square miles in the twinkling of an eye, the next he won't even let you
install Linux properly.

That's because you didn't believe in the relevance of penguins in the
equation..... :-)


If you want to call science the analysis and use of the godless aspects
of the Universe, I won't stand in your way..:-)

I hadn't thought about it in those terms.

Science aims to predict. God cannot be predicted. Therefore where chaos
reigns and God Incarnate stalks the (quantum?) universe, we tend not to go.


God would appear not to be able to be predicted based on the current
state of our knowledge. I wouldn't be more definitive than that.

but God is the name we put on what we do not understand, and is not
predictable

It's the name that some people use to describe that.

You are again making assumptions about other people's perspectives.




You cannot have it both ways.

You seem stick in a dilemma of your own making.

On the one hand you want to achieve at least acceptance for some sort of
theological ideas that would limit god to the status of some fairly
normal natural force.

On the other hand, you want to preserve the mystery of an infinite and
mysterious Being wot made it all up


There's no dilemma at all because I haven't suggested either.




I didn't say that this was a comfortable area of thinking.


I am perfectly comfortable in it. I have spent a lifetime working out
why lines are drawn and where they are drawn.

I happen to be gifted with a brain that works fast enough to see logical
flaws when they are presented, without having to ponder a lifetime and
still get it wrong.

I don't have a problem with religion giving meaning and emotional
comfort in a meaningless and comfortless world..I do object to it
insisting that the price we pay for that comfort and meaning is to deny
the validity of the one technique we have successfully used to actually
achieve real physical comfort.

I haven't suggested that it should. You are trying to describe the
space outside your definition of science as "religion" and then to
attach a set of characteristics to it that always apply.

I don't see it in that limited way.



I am not scared of creationism. I am scared of creationists.


Generally anything with "ist" or "ism" on the end suggests (to me at
least) something with a formulaic set of beliefs, rituals, etc. which
others find to be a convenient way to pigeonhole people.

I prefer the a la carte menu to the table d'hote.







Fine. By all means call it a grand plan. It changes nothing in science
if you do that. Its IRRELEVANT.

I disagree. It could be highly relevant depending on what you think
the scope and methodologies of science are or have the possibility to
become.

wrong wrong wrong.

The scope of science is with the rational.
if it aint rational, it aint science.

True. However it may be that there is not a rational way to explain
something today, but for which one becomes possible tomorrow because
of new discovery.





All I am saying is that science has learnt to rely on what works, and
divine guidance doesn't. Least ways I've never built a computer based on
that principle.

I don't see science and divine guidance as necessarily having to be
mutually exclusive.

Thats because your thinking is muddled, and you are a closet faithful,
and you depend on believe, not logic and observation.

My thinking isn't muddled at all. I simply don't limit myself in
regard to future possibilities concerning things that can't be
explained today because we don't have the means or information to do
so.




Time and time again you confuse a metaphysical proposition with a
scientific hypothesis.

No I am not. I am raising the question as to whether the definitions
of these necessarily have to be the only way to describe the issues at
hand.

And I am saying that they have to be.
Otherwise we are not talking science, but simply having flights of fancy.

We would be today. This does not mean that it is certain that that
will always be the case.





You are trolling badly. Science is what it is because thats what it's
defined to be. Define it in another way and it is not science..there
comes a point at which something ceases to be what it is, if you change
the definition far enough You are not fiddling with a minor change, you
are smashing the definition to pieces.


I have not suggested anything that involves considering these issues
in the extreme way that you are suggesting that I have.

Obviously if you take the suggestion that the definition of science
could change in the future far enough, then of course the whole thing
has changed. However, this was your supposition, not mine.

I didn't attach any scale, probability or timescale. You did.



Once we step into the ocean, a bicycle is not a lot of use...we MAY be
surrounded by deep seas..but science is about nailing down the dry land.

But is the dry land always of fixed size? To extend the analogy, it is
possible for the boundaries to be changed under our control and beyond
our control.

Of course, but that is not what you are proposing.

I haven't proposed anything beyond that or even suggested the
possibility..




And since we have very few boats apart from those in our imagination,
scientists are forced to stay there..because imagination that in;
confirmed or refuted by actual tests is not science.


Who says that our fleet has to remain the same size, or that the type
of boats and navigational instruments on them can't change?


Nothing whatsoever, but that is not what you are proposing

You are getting confused between what you have incorrectly deduced
that I am proposing and what I said and meant.




You have said where you stand, at least for the purposes of this discussion.

I haven't at all in the way that you are suggesting.


lie all you like...

It's no good making those accusations either.




They want a world ruled by fear and faith. We want a world rejoicing in
freedom and exploration.


So do I, which is why I have been explicit on what I think about
organised religion.

However, what an individual chooses to accept (and that includes that
which is backed with analysis under current scientific principles)
should be a matter for him.

Sure, but don't then propose that we should also let him change our
principles, because that is something HE finds part of what he accepts


I am with Mark Twain.

"I guess a rattlesnake ain't responsible fer bein a rattlesnake, but ah
puts mah heel on him jess the same if I ketch him round mah chillun"


Talking of rattlesnakes, I thought that his line about bank managers
was better.



--

..andy


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On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:44:34 +0000, Rumble .@. wrote:

Andy Hall said the following on 31/01/2006 04:25:


Who is to say that the boundaries of what science should or should not
include should remain fixed.

Andy, this is where you are missing the point about what science *is*.

There are *no* "boundaries of what science should or should not include"

The word "science" is a handle which is used to describe a rubric
(mindset or approach) to understanding the universe, but it is
fundamentally *not* a list of subject matters which is open to debate or
modification.

"Hard" science is a rubric along the lines of: -

1. making observations*.
2. formulating theories based on those observations.
3. making predictions based on the theories.
4. devising experiments that test the predictions.
5. modifying the theories if observed results don't match the theories.
6. throwing out the theories if they prove to be untenable or someone
else comes up with a better theory (which more completely explains and
predicts how some aspect of the universe works).

*Observations must be objective and independently repeatable. Every
effort should be made to ensure that the observations are definitive
(you are sure of *what* you are measuring and take an account of the
influence of the measuring system on the property being measured) and
accurate (preferably traceable to an international standard).

There is no place in "hard" science for subjectivity or blind faith.

Scientists (any everybody else in the world) do, of course, hold
subjective opinions about the way the universe works and they discuss
and promote those opinions at length, but the scientific community is
generally very careful to distinguish "hard" science from
untested/unproven ideas, opinions, theories and conjectures.

... and should continue to do so.



*Any* area of study which lends itself to a rigorous "hard" scientific
approach is fair game to be called science - always has been and always
will be.

You seem to be taking a position that we should be open changing this
rubric - but if we changed the rubric, then we would be describing a
different rubric and the new rubric would need a different name to
differentiate it from science.

An example. There are some that say psychology is pseudo-science and not
pure science, because there are no instruments which can definitively,
repeatably, completely and accurately measure the "state" of a human (or
animal) mind and therefore psychology fails the above rubric because any
observations are necessarily (at least partly) subjective, not objective.

This is one example of something that is on the edge of science and is
described in various ways depending on which aspects one wishes to
consider.

Our understanding of the human mind changes almost continuously and
there are aspects of it which can be measured and influenced
chemically and electrically, for example. Thus, that which might,
by the definition of strict measurement, have been considered outside
the realms of science a century ago, would now be considered to be
inside it.

The question is then, what do you do with something that is part and
part like this? Completely eliminate it from consideration in the
context of science, carve it up and study only the bits that can be
accurately measured, or treat it as part of science and try to
discover new methods to measure?

None of these is ideal. I think that it is better to look at the
whole thing in the context of science (note that I don't think that
this precludes it being looked at in other ways) than to rob it of the
analytical skills that may make a positive difference.

It was really this notion that was behind what I was suggesting in
terms of considering things in a scientific context.






--

..andy

On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 11:57:55 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


I don't think you're quite getting the problem. The creationists are demanding
equal time for their religious ideas to be presented as science by science
teachers in science lessons in the USA where it is forbidden to teach RE in
schools. They are also making headway in some schools in the UK (and
elsewhere). They want to teach your kids and they want to present ID as
science to your kids and the 'science' they want to present is their literal
interpretation of Genesis.

That's a different matter entirely, and that is what takes us into the
realms of how much air time there should be and who makes the
decisions on curriculum content.

I deliberately have not gone into the issue of whether I personally
feel that ID , creationism or evolution have more or less merit.

However, if the former two were to be taught in schools under the
umbrella of science, it would be entirely reasonable to test them
under current scientific principles as part of that education. It
would also be reasonable to test evolution under the principles of RE.


BUT they cannot BE tested. That's the POINT.

I guess you are with the majority of people in todays education system
that considers that exams that no one fails, means that we are all
suddenly smarter and better educated than we used to be..

Hardly. On previous threads you will note that my position on that
subject is quite the opposite to what you are suggesting.



And as for testing evolution under RE's rules, its bound to fail innit?

because God is DEFINED to have created the world in 5 days flat.

No. That is only what is stated in Genesis.

If you are describing this from the perspective of somebody who
accepts verbatim/literally what is written in the old and new
testaments that is the closest to a "definition" that there is -
essentially fundamentalism.

However, it is incorrect to suggest that that is the *only*
perspective that it is possible to take.



End of
story. Evolution is simply impossible. Anything that looks like
evolution is simply a mistake in understanding.

????

Again that can only be from a certain fundamentalist viewpoint. There
are people who believe in divine creation, but not in 5 days followed
by evolution and people who believe in evolution taking place because
of divine influence. Those are not incompatible views and there are
a myriad of others.

It's a mistake to assume that as soon as somebody talks about creation
that they automatically have a fundamentalist perspective.





And in fact anything at all other than ditching your rational mind and
acting purely on faith, is a mistake in understanding...god doesn't
require that you do anything other than trust and believe.


There is nothing incompatible between taking some issues or aspects of
issues in the context of faith and looking at others analytically.

Furthermore, there is nothing to say that something that somebody
might accept on the basis of faith today won't have an analytical
explanation tomorrow as new discoveries are made.





Now. My question. Where do *you* put your money?

That's the enigma isn't it?

As you know from previous threads, I am very much a believer in the
scope and aspirations of the individual as opposed to wanting to allow
any organisation (whatever it is) to organise my life and thoughts for
me.

I also meet a lot of people from and in different countries and
different cultures.

Taking these things together means that I am exposed to a broad range
of ideas and values.

I prefer to acknowledge those as long as the person holds them
sincerely, whether or not I accept them for myself.

I also prefer to have an analytical view of things and in some
respects that makes life easier. However, I also will not let that
prevent me from thinking outside the box on occasions and questionning
the very basis of the analysis. That comes naturally from having an
individualistic view of things rather than necessarily accepting what
is handed out.

Well learn to analyse properly then.

I am. I am simply doing so in a different way, not taking extreme
black and white views on things and as a result eliminating them from
consideration totally.

I can certainly differentiate between things that can be measured and
things that can't. However, I prefer to keep things that could be
possible with future discovery on the edge of consideration rather
than sweeping them off the table on the basis that their status of
measurability could never change.

It's legitimate to say that they can't be measured today and leave it
at that.




This may appear to be a position of self conflict, but it works well
for me and does not cause me stress.


It appears to cause you self delusion though.

I'm not at all deluded. You are applying your preconceived ideas
and making assumptions that are not correct.


--

..andy

On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 19:07:12 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:

Well you can redefine pottery to include nuclear weapons if you
like..but it seems a little odd.



I don't see that as the same thing at all.


I know. Thats the problem

I don't suppose you can see why a 109% efficient boiler could not, in
principle, be constructed, either.

We had that discussion. The explanation is quite clear on it. The
apparent conundrum is because of the systems of measurement used.





If you want to learn science as it is defined in the curriculum today,
you go to science classes.

You consider that ID isn't science and therefore don't think that it
should be in science classes.

I don't know because I haven't looked at it, so I am not taking sides.

The proponents believe, that according to their definitions, it is
science and should be included.

Its not their decision in terms of true science, if it is their decision
in terms of political power, it will be the worse for them, their
country, and for science.

OK. So apply the current scientific tests and go from there.


I didn't say that ID, creationism or anything else should be taught as
being equivalent to 1+1=2. Neither should evolution for that matter.

However, I do think that it's reasonable to set them side by side and
look point by point at what they each have to say on given issues.

Then apply the same set of tests to both and look at the results.

If it is as chalk and cheese as you suggest, then the results will be
very clear.







Now what?

Nothing.

The radical jihadists DO believe that you should be slaughtered as an
infidel, and your wives and daughters kept at home or wrapped in burkas
and follow two steps behind them.

Now what?

You may feel that a country full of Drivels who read and believe and
take on trust, but do not understand, to be a good thing. That is your
opinion. I differ.

That's another matter entirely :-)

It is not.

You are demonstrating entirely Drivelissh attitudes.


On the contrary. You are.

You appear to have taken the position that anything that is outside
what you understand the realms of science to be is in some way
fundamentalist - for example your comments on creationists and
jihadists.

I am not suggesting any support at all for their position - however
they do not represent the views of all adherents to their respective
faiths.






I haven't expressed a personal position on whether I think that
reading/believing/trusting is good or bad. However, I don't think
that if somebody treats issues in that way that one can say that it
excludes understanding, only that it is not understanding in the way
that you see it.

Thats because you don't understand how I see it. And why.


If I were to say to you that if you can have a 90% efficient boiler,
then obviously you can have a 110% efficient boiler, because its only a
minor change to a detail of the numbers, would you not be justifiably
irritated?

No. This is because I know, at least to the extent of the knowledge
we have today (and to a very high degree of probability, to the point
that I would not spend any significant time considering that it might
not be) that in absolute terms, efficiency cannot be greater than
100%.

When I investigate, I learn that the number exceeds 100% because of
the method of measurement.

The reality is that the word "efficiency" has been poorly and loosely
applied. Actually if you look at the Viessmann explanation, you will
read the phrase "standard efficiency" which is related to the DIN
standard.

In the UK we have the SEDBUK measurement method which does something
else. However, the term "efficiency" is bandied around for that as
well.






What you fail to grasp is that in some matters the world is not smooth
and uniform..it has sharp edges. Step over some lines and you fall off
completely.

In some matters that is true, in others not.



Science has sharp edges, and they can't be moved.

In some aspects the edges are not as sharp as one would like.

They have been moved in the past and on that basis, it would not be
reasonable to suggest that future change is impossible.

For example, alchemy was once considered to be a branch of science;
then transmutation of the elements was considered to be impossible,
etc...







Undecidable propositions cannot be decided upon. No amount of shilly
shallying about the 'rules' of decision making can make an undecidable
proposition decidable.

This assumes that the proposition will *always* be undecidable.



Because once you have made a decision, it ceases to BE an undecidable
proposition.

You appear to think that ID and creationism are merely 'different'
theories of the same sort. That is not the case, they are different
SORTS of theories.

I don't think and haven't suggested anything of the kind. I already
told you that I haven't looked at ID, so how could I possibly think
that it is the same as or different to creationism?



You are struggling to find a way to make them acceptable - give up,.
They simply are not acceptable. Because the way they are framed makes
them INHERENTLY unscientific.


I'm not struggling to do anything.




At some point we have to identify whether or not you believe that the
world is simply the sum total of peoples opinions,. or whether it has
some existence independent of them.

Yes of course it has an existence independent of people's opinions.



If the latter, then you have to accept that some things are right, and
some opinions are just wrong.

While some things are right and some things wrong, I don't accept that
notion in this context.

It is entirely possible to apply the same set of tests to both things
and examine the results.

You may then be able to say that one passes most of them and the other
passes few or none.

However, that is today's set of tests, based on the current state of
our knowledge. It does not mean that those tests might not be
different in the future however low or high that probability might be.






I didn't say either that I thought that alternative positions or
theories should get the same air time as what is already there.

However, if they are excluded from any discussion in a side by side
comparison, they can't be debunked either other than by being
dismissed out of hand.


They are dismissed out of hand, for one good reason..there is no more
that can said about them. They exist as statements that have meaning of
a sort, but whose veracity or otherwise can never be established.

This is making the assumption that nothing more can be said ever.
There are countless examples of phenomena that could not be explained
in the past, but which now are.

It is reasonable to apply a set of tests that are appropriate as we
understand applicability to be today and to say that something fails
all those tests.

Fair enough. One can then say that because of that, it should not be
considered further at present.



But that is complete anarchy. Jesus in domestic science. Nuclear weapons
in pottery..why bother to have subjects at all? lets just discuss any
and every crackpot notion in every class, rather than it he cutely named
'liberal studies' that we had..

That's taking it to extremes and was not what I was suggesting could
be done at all.



But you were. You were suggesting that logically empty statements be
taken and taught as completely valid alternatives to logically rich, and
eminently falsifiable theories as if they were somehow of a similar order.

You are suggesting that certain things are logically empty. There
are, of course logically empty things. However, it is not correct to
assume that because something can't be proven one way or another today
and you don't believe that it ever can be, that it is an empty
statement.



ID is best discussed in a philosophy or general studies type of arena,
because it isn't science. Its just dressed up that way to pretend to th
feeble minded that it is.

Then aspects of science should also be discussed in the same arena and
same context in so far as they relate to the subject matter (in this
case - loosely - how we got here.)

Of course, and they are, because in that sense they are not actually
science at all.

Once again this logical disjunct in your mind that prevents you from
seeing the difference between a scientific theory and a metaphysical one
is a complete emotional block with you.

There is no emotion in this at all as far as I am concerned.

The mental block is yours for wanting to assign something to being
logically impossible when it can't be measured either way today and
you don't believe that it ever can be.




You have been taken in by the snake oil salesmen, and there is an end to it.

This is actually your being unwilling to accept that other people may
have a different perspective to your own and not being prepared to
dismiss something as impossible ever because they can't measure it
today.



Perhaps, considering the religious nature of this (and I mean the
ritualistic aspects here since both sides have entrenched positions),
a general studies environment would represent a neutral place.


Possibly..but there is a difference between someone stating with utter
certainty that a square is not a circle, and someone insisting that god
made the world in 7 days.

Quite.

I am not suggesting that the idea of god creating the world in 7 days
should be presented as a fact.







However, I do think that the topics of evolution, creationism, (ID if
you want) be discussed together side by side and comparisons made.


Yes, but that is not a discussion that belongs in science. It belongs in
a philosophy study.

It can belong in both.



Science gets to the simple conclusion that ID and creationism are simply
not scientific, and that is the end of it.

All that one can say is that that is the case based on the tests that
are defined within the realms of science today.

It would be quite reasonable to attempt to perform those tests on ID
and creationism.

The list of tests and their justification can be presented.

It may be that most or even all would fail.

One could then say that they are or are not valid scientific theories
today based on these tests.

Then the same set of tests should be applied to the conventional
scientific theories - evolution etc.

The whole thing may well be a 30 minute exercise - depends on the
level of detail.

The point is that the methods of science are applied to the theory.

I made the point that both should be tested using the principles of
RE. I perhaps was not as clear as I could have been about what I
meant by that.

That was that having applied the methodology of science to two
apparently competing theories in a science lesson; one should then
apply the tests that would be made in a religious context. I tend to
think of religion in a broader sense than ritual, tradition etc. In
that sense, I was thinking in terms of somebody with free choice of
faiths to follow, what each has to say about creation or whatever
other explanation is given if any, and then to compare these and
additionally look at evolution on the same comparative basis.

Obviously this is not a comparison in the scientific sense, but does
form a useful exercise in contrasting how science goes about comparing
ideas and theories as against how this is done in the context of
different faiths.







Science is i the business of deciding wahich of many decidia=ble
propositions are

- simple
- effective
- calculable

If you want to decide which of several undecidable propositions you want
to place your trust in,that is an entirely different matter.

There is a time factor in whether something is decidable or not, as
I've already explained.





Consider.

God made the world in 7 days
The Glorts farted the universe out of globstrach in a sexual frenzy in
20 billion years
The world just appeared exactly as we see it, this very moment.

Prove to me that ANY of those are WRONG. Or even just show me how I
could go ABOUT proving any of them wrong.

Any of them MIGHT be completely correct. I doubt it, but they might.
I have NO WAY to decide on a rational basis.

YOou make instinctively feel that the first proposition is correct, and
that the other two are not, but science is not about feelings..its about
hard testable things, and these propositions though hard, are not testable.


This wasn't the point that I was trying to make. All that you can
say is that you have no way to decide today (because you can't measure
today).






Once you allow discussion of non scientific theories AS SCIENCE, the
door is open to just about anything.

That wasn't what I was suggesting at all.


Yes it was.
ID and creationism ARE NOT SCIENTIFIC THEORIES. They are undecidable.
End of story

It may be the end of your story.

I am not suggesting that these theories have any merit or likelihood
of passing the tests available today in the scientific realm.

However, it is an extrapolation to say that that can never ever be the
case.




One idea was to discuss alternative theories to evolution.

There are plenty around, but they do not fit the data as well as evolution.

Of course ID fits the data, but it isn't scientific..

In that case, the right thing to do educationally, would be to explain
the basis on which that is the case, if it is.





I think
that it is reasonable to include those in a science lesson as long as
the basis of them and principles are explained. Students can form
their own opinions from a side by side comparison.

well with respect, that's because you are a bit of a dick, and do not
have a first clue about what science is actually all about.


It's rather disappointing that because you are unable to consider that
others may have valid alternative opinions as to scientific principles
and tests being applied to a theory, that you have to resort to
remarks like that.






The other issue was to raise the question (in general) about the
compartmentalisation of science, metaphysics etc. as well as the
definitions of what constitutes science and what does not.
I don't see a basis for saying that those could never change in the
future since there has been such change in the past.


Actually there really hasn't. Not at the fundamental level.

The definition of "fundamental level" being?



As a result of that, something that is considered to be outside the
realms of science today could be within it tomorrow.

yes, but ID isn't one of them. Not in its present form.
Creationism never ever could be.

What is the basis for the assertion that it *never* could?




This does not mean that I was suggesting that all boundaries be
removed immediately or anything of the kind, or even that it could
impact on ID being considered to be science any time soon.

However, to say that something should be rejected out of hand as being
crackpot, unprovable for all time and that it could never fall within
the bounds of science, is not consistent with the notion of science
itself.

Yes it is. Totally consistent.

It may be for you.


With what the best scientists can in their best moments come up with as
a definition of science.

Science is not the only subject in the classroom.

Why must *Creationism go in there ? why not in pottery? why not in
music? what is it that makes you feel it has ANY place in a science
class, rather than philosophy, or RE, or domestic science..

Because in some aspects it is an alternative to evolution.

I think that the two should be compared in the context of science
using scientific methods and then in RE based on methods appropriate
in that environment.

The point is to illustrate how each addresses validity.



* it has been noted that removing the AO** from creationism, gives you
cretinism.

** Artificial Obfuscation.

It's interesting that as soon as the extension "ist" is added to a
word it takes on a ritualistic and organised religion dimension.

In that sense, evolutionism is organised religion as well, just of a
different form.

dogmatist.
Don't be such a dick.

If you can't discuss something sensibly, kindly leave the issue alone
rather than using silly insults. I think that you are better than
needing to do that.





Each wants to have its ideas in play to the exclusion of the other or
on an equal footing basis.

No, that is the province of dogmatists.

Yes, and in that sense each sees the other as just that.




--

..andy

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 17:41:48 -0000, "Fergus O'Rourke"
wrote:

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Andy Hall wrote:
[snip]
I'm questioning the assertion that these should be a fixed thing and
preclude other ideas from being discussed and considered according to
a number of different frameworks.



well the answer is yes, certain things are fixed. And keeping science
scientific is one of them. And they should be fixed,
[snip]

Mmmm... normally when one hears a plea for anything to be fixed in this
context, it is the religious types who are uttering it.

I must say that I never thought that this sense of "fixed" would come up
in this n.g.


This was my point exactly. Well, one of them.



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:25:06 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 19:08:07 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:

I think that it is possible that today's definitions for requirements
for scientific theories could change in the future, simply because I
would not want to take the position that it could never happen.
Whether I think that it *will* happen or *should* happen is quite
another matter.
Well you are intrinsically wrong. Squares will never become circles, no
matter how much you pretend they are.


The analogy that you have made is intrinsically wrong because it is
too simplistic

So is what I am referring to, you just choose not to look at it in that way.

Science that included theories like intelligent design, or creationism,
simply is no longer science, in the same way that a circle with vertices
on it, is no longer a circle.

It's not comparable.

Circles can be measured and defined mathematically. We already
discussed the principles of mathematics in this context.

There are probably few scientific tests that can be applied to the
principles of creationism today.

It is not impossible for further phenomena and tests to be discovered
in the future which could support or disprove some of the aspects of
creationism or perhaps assign more or less probability to them




--

..andy

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
I think that you are thinking in black and white extremes. There are
a whole spectrum of views in between.

And you're choosing to turn white into black. Has it clicked yet?

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
What happens when there are competing theories within the realms of
science as currently understood?

Once you understand the (boring) basics we could get onto the interesting
questions like this. But don't try running before you have sorting out
crawling.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
It's a mistake to assume that as soon as somebody talks about creation
that they automatically have a fundamentalist perspective.

And if they talk about ID?

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:10:39 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:


Yes you have, you have proposed extending the definition of science to
include the redefinition of science on an ad hoc basis.be

No I didn't. I simply suggested that it could be considered. I didn't say
when, that it should or to what degree.

OK You *considered* the possibility of redefining science to turn it into
something else.

I didn't say anything about redefining science to turn it into
something else either. I simply suggested the possibility that
definitions might be extended or changed in the future. I didn't say
when or to what degree.

This does not amount to turning it into something else.


Now having considered that for a couple of seconds can you
move your brain-cells on and try getting them to do something sensible. Typing
"oops - all that lot was a bit stupid" would be a good start.

Unfortunately, in your rush to attempt to make a point, you have read
far more into what I said or what was meant in it.

Before making suggestions that I alter what I said, I would suggest
that you consider what you did first.




That is a recursive operation that utterly invalidates science of any
sport, and rational thought of any sort.

It seems to me that the notion that the definition and scope of science has
to remain fixed for all time is also recursive.

You weren't discussing exactly how strictly the rules of science should be
applied - you were talking about removing them altogether.

I was most certainly not.


Even though I may dispute the reasonableness of the results of many games
against MU I can still distinguish between real football and your version. can
we please keep real science?

Absolutely, as long as you realise that the basis and context of it
could change in the future as it has in the past.



[Snip]

You have not differentiated between what I actually said as opposed to what
you imagine my positions, if any to be.

You don't know what you have said.

I know precisely what I have said. I also know precisely what the
meaning was as well.

If you wish to extrapolate those points to something that was never
said or intended, that's up to you. However, please don't then
suggest that that was my position.

Everyone else understands it - and that you are arguing like a plonker.

You are simply trying to divert attention away from the fact that you
read far more into what I said and the meaning behind it than there
actually was. I don't think that this leaves me in the position of
arguing like a plonker.




There is no agenda and no end other than to suggest than to raise the
possibility that the boundaries and definitions could change in the future.

Do you (now) accept that changing the boundaries sufficiently to incorporate
ID as a science would totally destroy the concept of science?


I wasn't talking about ID specifically in the first place.

I was simply making the point that the boundaries of science could
change in the future as they have in the past.


--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:11:35 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:



I would. We live in a city under siege by barbarians. You're enjoying city
life by knocking the walls down from inside - 'just to see how they were
built'.

Oh come on. That's nonsense.

Isn't it. I would never believe that a sane man would do such a thing - but
you are.

Is that really the best that you can do?



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:17:11 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
I've already said several times that I am not particularly interested
in what the supporters of ID might seek to do.

But you deliberately prepare the ground for them. Why?


I've done nothing of the sort.

You are suggesting an intent to do so which simply isn't there.



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:19:18 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 09:36:14 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
I'm simply bringing you back to where I came in and said that all of
the subject matter is, in one way or another, theory.

I then raised the possibility that scientific perspectives could
change in the future.

In the context of bringing ID within science.

No. You put in that context. I certainly did not address my
comments specifically to it or anything else specific.

That's the context of the discussion that you joined. If you are now saying
that you have been discussing something totally different then your words are
doubly without sense.

In fact, if you go back to the start of the thread, you would realise
that I made a comment on one aspect under discussion.


The main part of the thread may well have been about ID - that is
beside the point. Quite frequently in newsgroup threads, a particular
comment or aspect in an article is picked up on and discussion on that
ensues, sometimes diverging quite markedly from the original.
There is nothing different here.

My original point was in context with a point that was being made when
I came in.

It's not my problem if you decide to jump in with both feet and
despite being told several times that I do not have an opinion on the
merits or not of ID, seek to imply that I have and that all of my
subsequent comments are based on that.




--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:16:26 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:13:05 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:27:43 +0000, Capitol
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:

Even more.

Andy, I think you need to stop digging. NP and John have given some
superb reasoning for their viewpoints, I feel that you are failing to do
so.

Sorry, but I don't regard myself as digging at all.

I was thinking of changing the subject to 'well-making'. ;-)

That's up to you. I don't limit myself to your definitions.

Or reality. ;-(


Is resorting to cheap remarks really the best that you can do?


--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:33:04 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:29:09 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:

The point where reason ends and faith begins depends depends, as far
as I am concerned, on the individual and their perspective of what is
reasonable and what is not.

Then you are indeed a total relativist.

I'm not a total anything.


Hmm. Not even a total human being by the sounds of it.

Do you *have* to reduce the discussion to that level?




--

..andy

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
I didn't say anything about redefining science to turn it into
something else either. I simply suggested the possibility that
definitions might be extended or changed in the future. I didn't say
when or to what degree.

Your comment was an irrelevant load of ******** unless it was in context - and
the context was ID pretending to be science.

Put as simply as possible - You're bloody well wrong.

[My excuse is that logic and philosophy failed to get through. ;-( ]

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:52:42 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 09:28:06 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
You're asking to accept any idea as science.
I haven't said that at all.
You have. That's why you need to do some background research.

No I haven't. That was what you chose to deduce from what I said.


Yes you have, it was implicit in your statements.
No deduction was required.


It was not implicit at all.


--

..andy

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:11:35 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:



I would. We live in a city under siege by barbarians. You're enjoying
city life by knocking the walls down from inside - 'just to see how
they were built'.

Oh come on. That's nonsense.

Isn't it. I would never believe that a sane man would do such a thing -
but you are.

Is that really the best that you can do?

You've ignored the better comments.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:46:34 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 09:30:40 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
That is not the case. The case is nowhere near where you put it. Stop
trying to be a philosopher - you can't make it. If you want to discuss
further then read up on what is actually happening. Find out what
science is and find out what the creationists are trying to do.

That's a rather patronising reply and is not appropriate in the context
of what was said

'Understand the context' of what you are discussing is not patronising. If
you have a degree in Philosophy then say so and we'll stop trying to
simplify our language - neither of us is very good at that.

You are the one who is suggesting that I am presenting myself as a
philosopher, not me.

To then attempt to criticise me for doing something that I didn't set out
to do is a nonsense.

In that case stop trying to be a philosopher. Do your reading.

It is you who has been attempting to position what I have said in ways
to suit your argument, including this.

Sorry, but it won't work.

--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:15:32 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
Crap. We are not talking about the tests being appropriate; we are talking
about removing them altogether.

You're talking about removing them altogether, I'm not.

Yes you are. If you think you are not then by all means state clearly what the
absolute maximum change could be - and still define it all as science.

Once again. I am not. That's clearly as impossible to do for the
future as it was, beforehand, in the past.

--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:23:08 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:



You are.
If you feel that perhaps at some future date ID and creationism be
considered 'scientific'

Which point you have been belaboring all along.

I have not said that at all.


All that I have said is that it may be possible that phenomena or
tests discovered in the future could be used to prove/disprove some of
the points.

It is you who has taken the extreme perspective and extrapolated it
into saying that this means that *all* of it could be.


I did say that I thought that it was reasonable that these theories be
examined in the context of science education. That does not mean
teaching them as though they are fact - simply applying the same tests
for them as for theories currently within the realms of science.

This is a very long way from saying that they should be considered as
part of science.



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:21:46 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:

Yet you say that it is not possible for the definition and boundaries
of science ever to change (if I have understood you correctly - please
correct that if not).

No, because there are boundaries and boundaries.


Yes, and I wasn't specific about what those might be.




This is the point you steadfastly refuse to accept: To change the
'boundaries of science' to include creationism and ID is to turn it into
something that is no longer science..it is simply not POSSIBLE to teach
ID or creationism as science, because it simply _isn't_ science.

I was not suggesting doing that.

I simply suggested that it may be in the future that the boundaries of
science will change, as they have in the past, when new information or
ways of looking at the issues become available.

I was not suggesting that the whole basis of science be changed to
accomodate ID, creationism or anything else, so why you persist in
suggesting it, I don't know.



Of course nothing prevents you or any other creationist from gaining
control of the educational establishment, declaring that creationism is
science, but as I have pointed out to you several times, that is just
Bandar Log speak..Its Orwell's 'Ministry of Love' all over again.


I think that this demonstrates the whole basis of the way that you
have approached this discussion. You have incorrectly applied labels
and then attempted to argue against points that someone with that
label (e.g. creationist) might say.

First of all the label is wrong, and secondly I didn't suggest that
creationism was science.



I can't be responsible for your inability to see what is patently clear.

I do see what is patently clear. You are making an argument about
creationists and attempting to suggest that I hold the position of a
creationist. I don't.


A cat is a cat because it has a catlike boundary. Science is science
because it has scientific boundaries.
Why, of all the places to discuss creationism, do the creationists pick
science? Because it is the one place that has the respectability they
crave.

Why does it have that respectability? Because it is a diligent, very
throughly tested and very widely applicable area of human thought and
knowledge.

Which creationism simply is not.


My point was that it should be discussed in the environment of a
science class so that the appropriate tests can be applied to this as
well as to evolution.

If the situation is as you say, then it will fall down pretty quickly.

This is *not* the same as suggesting that it should be taught as
thought it is factual.

The point was to make the comparison on an equal basis and illustrate
the methodology used.

That is why I further said that the two should also be compared in an
environment such as RE where the basis of comparison is different.




--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:31:10 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:






Whereas the theories you would have us countenance, are unscientific,
untestable, and therefore worthless. In science.

They are untestable at the current state of our knowledge

No, intrinsically untestable.
Untestable and unfalsifiable is a logical thing, not relative to knowledge.

Defining the cause of everything as an undefinable, is simply a logical
fallacy. An empty statement.

Unless you throw logic away, it can never have any logical inference
drawn from it.

Nobody's throwing logic away. What aspect(s) are you saying is/are
always going to be untestable?






I then raised the possibility that scientific perspectives could
change in the future.

But they can't. Not on the matter as to what constitutes a scientific
theory. Not in the way you mean anyway. Its not an issue of dogma, its
an issue of impossibility.


Based on our understanding today.

Based on the way logic works.

You are simply in the end saying that there is nothing anywhere that has
substance or meaning or existence outside of our capacity to conjecture
its existence. Its all in our minds.

I'm not saying that at all.

I said that scientific perspectives could change in the future. You
chose to read into it what you thought I meant by that.



If you want to believe that, be my guest, but it leads rapidly to a
worldview in which nothing can ever be attempted whatsoever.

I wouldn't care about your delusions, except they are socially dangerous.

It may well, but that isn't what I believe or said at all.

--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:32:43 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 18:05:08 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

John Cartmell wrote:
In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
However, if an individual considers the issues and takes a position
for himself, then I think that that is quite a different matter.
You're weaseling out. I don't blame you - but the whole of this thread is
about a group of people trying to hijack science lessons in order to promote
their own religious ideas.

..and cover them with the same respectability that they think science has..

Thus conversation reminds me of one I had with a Swazi who worked in the
same company I worked in, in Johannesburg..

"Why do the white people all have swimming pools and Mercedes cars?"

"Because they can"

"Well, come the revolution, all the black people will have swimming
pools and Mercedes cars"

"No, they won't. There isn't enough water or money in South Africa for
that to happen"

He didn't have to reply..I knew he was thinking 'white man's lies' as I
spoke...

However, some now do.

This demonstrates that things are not absolutes.


Some is not all. And that was the point of the anecdote.


Exactly.

The only true statements in the conversation were

"Because they can"

and

"No, they won't. There isn't enough water or money in South Africa for
that to happen"



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 17:18:32 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:





Creationism is another one.

"God made the world in 6 days" "The world is 5000 years old"
Since no one was there to make a video, its hard to disprove it.





All we can say is that if we assume the laws of nature have not varied
over time, a combination of things - for example - leads us to the
tentative conclusion that the world was probably made in about 10-67
seconds..about 13.7 billion years ago.

Now we are clear about the assumptions here..that the laws of nature
have to remain constant over that period.

If the laws themselves, and everything else, were replicated to simulate
EXACTLY what science predicts would have been its condition 5000 years
ago, then yes, God COULD have made it all 5000 years ago. But
essentially it makes NO DIFFERENCE to science. The two explanations are
functionally equivalent, and the big bang is far far simpler..so Occam's
razor is used to throw out creationism as being really far too complex
to be of any practical USE.

Hmm..... two thoughts.

To avoid confusion, I am not suggesting that the laws of nature can be
altered at all...... BUT.... if we say that they *could* have been,
then they could in other areas as well.

If that were true, then in other areas it might well matter to
science.

Why, therefore, doesn't it matter in the big bang/creation debate?


Second. Does science *always* throw away the more complex theory in
favour of the simpler one?





One may say that the probability is extremely low - to the extent that
for practical purposes it is impossible.



No. We are not talking about things that are subject to what data we may
or may not have in the future. Like actually finding a unicorn.

We are talking about a class of postulates that can never ever be
falsified, because the lack of falsifiability is inherent in the
definition of them.

God is one such postulate, by including power of infinite dimension to
Him, and making him subject to no rules except His own, any time we fail
to find evidence for him can simply be explained as his desire to remain
hidden.

That assumes that that is how you define Him.


--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 17:21:33 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

John Cartmell wrote:
In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:

That's up to you. I don't limit myself to your definitions.

Or reality. ;-(


It ain't that funny. Implicitly that is precisely what Andy does.

Ignore reality when formulating theories about theories.

I'm not ignoring reality at all.


What he will not accept, however, is that that is a subject called
metaphysics, not science.

I didn't suggest otherwise. That was your assumption.



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:54:38 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
First of all just because something is or isn't falsifiable or not or
testable or not today, doesn't mean that there is no way that it can
*ever* be.

You are failing to understand all this at a very basic level. We're not
suggesting that ID isn't falsifiable because we haven't come up with a
clever-enough test. ID doesn't come up with a prediction that could be tested.
Ever.

Again. I wasn't talking about ID specifically anyway.



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:49:59 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 18:16:33 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
All that I have done is to question the
notion of whether the basis of science is complete and correct for all
time. One can accept that possibility or not.

You may think you can.

John and I know that we can't. We actually understand that basis, and
its as immutable as Gods will is claimed to be.

Then you are setting your own limitation.



If only...thats where you are mired. YOU think that like the Bandar log
if enough people think it, it must be true.

I haven't said or thought that at all.



Science is ultimately a practical exercise, one is limited not by some
dogmatic adherence to the creed in some dusty book, but by what works,
and produces results. There is little enough that does, without
introducing stuff that patently doesn't and can be fairly quickly proved
in a time indeterminate fashion, CAN never work or produce results.

The only dogma a true scientist has, is that he takes the world as he
finds it. He trusts in the world, and evidence of it gained via his sense.

He is also open minded.



His discipline is to organize his experiences into meaningful practical
and utile categories.

If he breaks that discipline, and ceases to apply only those categories
that are supported by experience, and are meaningful and utile, he
ceases to be doing science.

This whole thread has been about the implications of doing just that,
and we are perfectly clear on that point.

You insistence is that its possible at some future date that science
could be extended to include any theory that strikes our fancy.

I didn't say that at all. You extrapolated it.


Irrespective of its relation to the world of experience, utility, or
practical value. I say at that point it is not science.

You cannot have it both ways. Science is a particular thing. To make it
include other things, is to change its definition. Change its definition
far enough and it ceases to be science.

I gave no indication as to degree of change.



A square is not a circle, and n amount of human knowledge and
understanding will ever make it so. The definitions are not time
variant, and the definitions are mutually exclusive.

Obviously not, but that was not the point being made.





To manage to get science and religion in the same box, requires you
break one or both of them.

I didn't suggest that either.




The only difference is that religion claims that it is the box to end
all boxes, which science never can do..and that is the problem. Science
is content to be a subject among subjects. Religion is not.

That depends on your understanding and definition of religion.


--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:49:43 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:10:43 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
How would you deal with the situation where there are a number of
theories within the currently understood realm of science, but where
there is one which you personally believe is *the* one and another you
believe to be crap?

Would you (or even could you) treat them all equally?

When? As a teacher? - it would depend on the age of the pupils. To younger
pupils I would be objective. To sixth formers and above I would lay out
the alternatives and may point out that I favoured one explanation over
another.

In any case I would make it clear what answer they need to give in an
examination - and where appropriate that they might gain an extra point
for mentioning the alternative.

To colleagues I might call one crap.

Exactly. This was my point about floating ideas for others to
consider, where I may or may not have my own view, and not introducing my
own position into the discussion.

And the others have told you that you have failed to take critical matters
into account,

The matters may have been critical to you in how you wished to frame
the discussion - they weren't in mine.


that you don't know what you are talking about (and you have
admitted that),

If you are referring here to the specific topic of ID, I told you at
the outset that I had not studied it specifically and it was not part
of the point that I was making.

Once again you are attempting to bend what was said.



and the scope of your proposals is eaither larger than you
presupposed (and the whole thing is a nonsense) or is less (and your
intervention in this whole discussion is inappropriate).

You extrapolated what I actually said into what you thought it should
mean.

The scope that I gave was quite specific and I was also specific that
it was not directed specifically towards ID.

It was and is completely appropriate for me to comment on that basis.
I don't have to do so based on some imagined set of rules that happen
to suit you. Sorry.




Thank you for your diversionary contributions.

Likewise.


--

..andy

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 11:58:46 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:


Therefore, I don't think that we should teach our kids to think in a
way that is restricted to the scientific/analytical/engineering
approach - sometimes referred to as being left brained.

All aspects of learning and understanding should be used. What must not be
done is promote 'beliefs without evidence' as examples of good science.

I completely agree. To be clear on this point, I am not suggesting
that that should be done.



[Snip]

It was really from that perspective that I made the point that
somebody who takes a position on evolution to the point of excluding
the possibility of complementary and alternative ideas is, in a way,
being as religious as someone who refuses to believe anything other
than or in addition to fundamental creation.

The creationists rely on your fair dealing to get their belief accepted, as
the science that it isn't, by kids at an impressionable age.

That's another matter. I already gave you my comments on the
Arkansas museum. I did not say that I was advocating the teaching
of ID, creationism or anything of the kind in a science class on the
basis of it being presented as scientific fact.

All that I said was that I thought that it would be useful to compare
it with evolution etc. in a science class using the methods and tests
that science uses.


There is no
reason for science to exclude anything as long as evidence is available - but
it must reject (as science) anything which presents no evidence.

That's true, but the statement that it presents no evidence has to be
on the basis of today's knowledge. This is and was a general
comment, just as your statement is.






Try reading
last week's New Scientist for ideas of complementary medicine (including the
positive possibilities of belief and the placebo effect) for that.
Interestingly it points out that patients do better if they pray - or know
that others are praying for them - but not if others are praying for them
without their knowledge.

So figure out the science in that one. Did it give a theory as to
how?



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 23:40:06 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
I didn't say anything about redefining science to turn it into
something else either. I simply suggested the possibility that
definitions might be extended or changed in the future. I didn't say
when or to what degree.

Your comment was an irrelevant load of ******** unless it was in context - and
the context was ID pretending to be science.

That was your context. It wasn't mine.



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 23:14:03 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
I think that you are thinking in black and white extremes. There are
a whole spectrum of views in between.

And you're choosing to turn white into black.

That is not what I was suggesting at all.



--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 23:15:34 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
What happens when there are competing theories within the realms of
science as currently understood?

Once you understand the (boring) basics we could get onto the interesting
questions like this. But don't try running before you have sorting out
crawling.

In other words, you don't know.




--

..andy

On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 23:16:45 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
It's a mistake to assume that as soon as somebody talks about creation
that they automatically have a fundamentalist perspective.

And if they talk about ID?


Then they may do.


--

..andy

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 11:50:05 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:

I can also understand the point that theories without evidence and
explanation not be accepted. However, that is from the perspective
of, and with the qualifier that the evidence and explanation is scoped
by current scientific understanding.

I don't believe that that has to remain fixed for all time.

Well thats because you are embroiled in belief.

Where you get that from, I have no idea.

From the evidence of my senses, as evinced in your posts.

Let me demonstrate ONE last time a hypothesis that can NEVER be
scientific, no matter HOW much the scope of science changes.


There exists an entity, whose effect on any thing you can ever detect is
immeasurable, such that this entity - although the cause of everything -
can never ever be detected actually doing anything that could not be
explained in some alternative way.


When framed in the way that you have here, of course I have to agree
and willingly do so.

However, that is to suggest that such an entity *could* never be
detected in a measurable way. I am not so bold as to think that
that is an abolute certainty.


That is not true. Because its imlicit in the definition that it can't be
detected. Ever.


Therefore I am uncomfortable with the idea of explicitly excluding
theories, even if one finds them lacking in evidence (on one's own
principles) or distasteful.

Once again, its not the lack of evidence, its the impossibility of
falsification, that marks the theory out as unscientific. Its a logical,
not a data, flaw.

What happens when there are competing theories within the realms of
science as currently understood?


You apply the criteria, Occam's Razor, Poppers criteria, and in the
limit - as with the wave/particle issue with photons, you let two
distinct and separate theories coexist because both add something to the
mix, although they seemingly contradict each other.



Have you heard the one about the man in the train, tearing up
newspapers and throwing them out of the window?

When asked why he was doing this, he said 'it keeps the unicorns away'

On being informed that there were no such things as unicorns, he replied
'I know, its incredibly effective isn't it?'




Now I know you have trouble thinking logically, but please try and see
the point here.

I have no difficulty at all. I am simply not excluding
possibilities, however small the probability.

In logic, there are certainties. Either you scrap logic, or you don't.

Once you scrap logic, science is meaningless. Thats all I am saying.




Science cannot be in the business of speculation about things it can
logically never ever have any chance of disproving. It has enough
trouble with things it can disprove.

This makes the assumption that there will never be any means to prove
or disprove.


Yes, thats right. The rules of logic are inflexible and immutable and
eternal. Thats the assumption that science has to make to be science.

When we state that A is A, that does not mean that there exists a finite
probability that A one day will be NOT A.

Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "Tournifreak"
saying something like:

What religion would you teach your children then? Secular humanism?
Atheism? Universalism? Your worldview (like it or not) is your
religion.

Not so.

You might not believe in a god, but you still believe in a
set of principles that govern the way you lead your life.

True, but that is *not* a religion.

How then, would you define "religion"?

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 11:57:55 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


And as for testing evolution under RE's rules, its bound to fail innit?

because God is DEFINED to have created the world in 5 days flat.

No. That is only what is stated in Genesis.

If you are describing this from the perspective of somebody who
accepts verbatim/literally what is written in the old and new
testaments that is the closest to a "definition" that there is -
essentially fundamentalism.


But its the creationists and their snake oil version called ID that are
requiring their version to be taught in Science classes.

That is what this thread is all about.

Trying to weasel ID back in under the guise its not creationism, won't work.


However, it is incorrect to suggest that that is the *only*
perspective that it is possible to take.



Sometimes only one perspective exists. Then it is the only perspective
one can take.


End of
story. Evolution is simply impossible. Anything that looks like
evolution is simply a mistake in understanding.

????

Again that can only be from a certain fundamentalist viewpoint. There
are people who believe in divine creation, but not in 5 days followed
by evolution and people who believe in evolution taking place because
of divine influence. Those are not incompatible views and there are
a myriad of others.

It's a mistake to assume that as soon as somebody talks about creation
that they automatically have a fundamentalist perspective.



I think not. Creationism is the fundmentalist fundamental principle.

I posted a poll on an international web site asking how many people
believed in the utter and complete historical truth of the bible


30% of the US respondents said they did.


And in fact anything at all other than ditching your rational mind and
acting purely on faith, is a mistake in understanding...god doesn't
require that you do anything other than trust and believe.


There is nothing incompatible between taking some issues or aspects of
issues in the context of faith and looking at others analytically.

There is, in the sense that you cannot mix and match the methodologies
and get a picture that is free from errors, contradictions and hypocrises.

When you put on the Christian faith hat, you take off the science hat.

If you do not, you are not a true scientists or a true Christian.




Furthermore, there is nothing to say that something that somebody
might accept on the basis of faith today won't have an analytical
explanation tomorrow as new discoveries are made.

Not at all. I have no problem with that in the general sense, however to
be accepted scientifically it has to pass the tests first.


Well learn to analyse properly then.

I am. I am simply doing so in a different way, not taking extreme
black and white views on things and as a result eliminating them from
consideration totally.

You actually are.
But because you have never seemingly been exposed to logic and
intellectual discipline, you appear not to realise it.

Its as if a small child were saying 'can I walk off the edge of a cliif'
and being told, 'no, you will fall and hurt yourself' and then you
reply. but if I can walk 5 feet that way, why can't I walk 5 inches that
way'

And the answer is that there is a discontinuity in the earths surface
called a cliff.
Your thinking only includes smooth linear things: You know about slopes
but you don't understand edges.

You appear to think its possible to half fall out of a window.

There is nothing wrong with stepping off the island of rationality and
using a boat of faith to navigate the unreasonable, but science begins
and ends on the island.

Thats all.



I can certainly differentiate between things that can be measured and
things that can't. However, I prefer to keep things that could be
possible with future discovery on the edge of consideration rather
than sweeping them off the table on the basis that their status of
measurability could never change.

But if they are inherently undecidable, you do.

The moment they have at some time some remote possibility of being
decidable of course they are subject to valid consideration.

What you fail to realize is that ID and Creationism do not have that
property.

Let me give you the reverse side of the coin

"The sun will always rise in the east every morning"

Now this is an utterly valid scientific hypothesis. One you rely on
every day.

Yet it can never be proven that one day, the sun will not rise, or rise
in the west.

Indeed that fact that it COULD, conceivably, and yet never DOES is what
makes this a theory so useful that we call it a scientific
truth..shorthand for 'been tested so many times and never come up
wanting that it has a very very high probability of always being right'

So propositions like "Tomorrow the sun will rise in the east" are
scientific, because they can be tested. They fail the test, and are
discarded.
Propositions like "ONE day the sun will rise in the east" are
unscientific, because no matter how many times they are tested, they are
not proven false, because in an infinite span of time, there exists the
possibility that they might, one day,still be correct.

To you the two statements doubtless appear almost identical...just a
minor change from 'tomorrow' - a definite time..to 'one day' ..an
indefinite time.

But a change like that UTTERLY changes the logic of the proposition..it
moves the proposition absolutely OFF the map of scientific
falsifiability. You have stepped over the cliff of reason, into lala land.



It's legitimate to say that they can't be measured today and leave it
at that.



Your proposition that there might one day be a logic that makes todays
illogic logical, is in itself a completely unscientific statement.

You have fooled yourself in a huge recursive loop. A huge 'think of a
number' game.




This may appear to be a position of self conflict, but it works well
for me and does not cause me stress.

It appears to cause you self delusion though.

I'm not at all deluded. You are applying your preconceived ideas
and making assumptions that are not correct.



I am sorry..you may think you can step off a cliff and just find it
'slightly steeper.

I invite you to test it.

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 19:07:12 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
Well you can redefine pottery to include nuclear weapons if you
like..but it seems a little odd.


I don't see that as the same thing at all.


I know. Thats the problem

I don't suppose you can see why a 109% efficient boiler could not, in
principle, be constructed, either.

We had that discussion. The explanation is quite clear on it. The
apparent conundrum is because of the systems of measurement used.


Exactly.

To talk about a 109% efficient boiler in terms of thermal efficiency
violates the conservation of energy.

Throw that away and is not just a matter of 9% on a figure, its
rewriting the whole of physics.


The proponents believe, that according to their definitions, it is
science and should be included.
Its not their decision in terms of true science, if it is their decision
in terms of political power, it will be the worse for them, their
country, and for science.

OK. So apply the current scientific tests and go from there.


We have, Its wanting. End of story.


I didn't say that ID, creationism or anything else should be taught as
being equivalent to 1+1=2. Neither should evolution for that matter.

However, I do think that it's reasonable to set them side by side and
look point by point at what they each have to say on given issues.


It is, if you are in a philosophy of science class, for about 5 minutes,
and then let the matter rest. It has no place in a 12 years olds class.

I mean, if people like you have trouble grasping the concepts required,
what hope has a 12 year old?

Which is of course precisely why the creationists want ID in that 12
year olds class..it takes a very acute understanding of logic that 12
year olds don't have to spot the fallacy.


Then apply the same set of tests to both and look at the results.

If it is as chalk and cheese as you suggest, then the results will be
very clear.


They are, and it has been done, but we are handicapped by people's
inherent feelings that things are simpler than they are, and the current
political vogue that implies that anyone with half a brain is as fully
qualified to judge something as someone who has spent his life honing
his intellect to a razors edge in order to be able to decide these
things in as unbiased and objective way as possible.

In todays Nu Laber, not only is it possible for a deaf dumb and blind
idiot to fly a jet plane, but we ought to legislate to make it easier
for them to do it.

Otherwise we have not given them proper equal opportunity.

I suggest you would be the first passenger on board.




You are demonstrating entirely Drivelissh attitudes.


On the contrary. You are.

You appear to have taken the position that anything that is outside
what you understand the realms of science to be is in some way
fundamentalist - for example your comments on creationists and
jihadists.


Indeed. Possibly I do. All I am saying is that the same class of thought
process you are advocating as reasonable, is their justification for
behaving as they do.

They act as though undecidable propositions, were proven fact, and kill
in the certain knowledge that an imaginary reward will be theirs if they do.

I invite you to join them, and see for yourself where the thin end of
your wedge thickens out to.



I am not suggesting any support at all for their position - however
they do not represent the views of all adherents to their respective
faiths.


That is totally irrelevant.

I am pointing out to you that the flaw is in their thinking. To once lay
yourself open to any irrational crap, no mater how well disguised as
science it is, is to in the end lay yourself open to the whim of any
member of the Bandar Log who comes along. Once you accept the principle
that there are things that cannot be proved..ever..but must be taken as
read because you are told they are true...you are open to any snake oil
salesman whose arguments seem superficially more convincing to your
simple mind, especially if it flatters your ego, and makes you feel more
than you are.

That is why science and logic proceed with utmost care from the most
basic and limited of assumptions, in the full knowledge that those
assumptions may in fact be wrong, but knowing also that without them
nothing can be achieved...

Logic proceeds from the assumption, that things can be categorised, and
that If you DEFINE a category to exclude something, it will never
include it.

Science proceeds on the assumption that if there appears to be a
category that fails the test of logic the fault lies not in logic, but
in the means of assigning the categories.

You want to posit a logic that makes the flaw *in the logic*..can't be
done. The rules of logic preclude it.

If I were to say to you that if you can have a 90% efficient boiler,
then obviously you can have a 110% efficient boiler, because its only a
minor change to a detail of the numbers, would you not be justifiably
irritated?

No. This is because I know, at least to the extent of the knowledge
we have today (and to a very high degree of probability, to the point
that I would not spend any significant time considering that it might
not be) that in absolute terms, efficiency cannot be greater than
100%.

When I investigate, I learn that the number exceeds 100% because of
the method of measurement.

The reality is that the word "efficiency" has been poorly and loosely
applied. Actually if you look at the Viessmann explanation, you will
read the phrase "standard efficiency" which is related to the DIN
standard.

Exactly, and that is why when we examine the 'theories' of ID and
creationism, we find that the word has been loosely applied.

They are not theories in the strict sense of science. Ergo, they do not
belong in science classes.


What you fail to grasp is that in some matters the world is not smooth
and uniform..it has sharp edges. Step over some lines and you fall off
completely.

In some matters that is true, in others not.


This is one such matter.

Science has sharp edges, and they can't be moved.

In some aspects the edges are not as sharp as one would like.


Indeed, but whilst we may not actually be able to define the cliff edge
to a nanometer, we can definitely sat that some points are miles over
it, and some are miles inside it.

They have been moved in the past and on that basis, it would not be
reasonable to suggest that future change is impossible.

Not in the sense of logical impossibility they haven't. Not once, not ever.

There are three realms of knowledge, the undecidable, the possibly
decidable, but not decided yet, and that which has been decided. At
least until something comes along.

we can play all around the seashore of that which hasn't been decided,
but we cannot ever venture into the undecidable, and take the tools of
science with us, they simply don't work. And that is not because there
exists the possibility that one day they might. Undecidable means just
that. Undecidable, today and forever.


Other things may, and indeed I am a great user of undecidable
propositions myself..but science it ain't.



For example, alchemy was once considered to be a branch of science;
then transmutation of the elements was considered to be impossible,
etc...



Alchemy IS largely science...just based on a very different set of
entities..I have no problem teaching alchemy in chemistry classes, and
indeed I WAS taught it, briefly, as part of the background to modern
chemistry.

It fails to actually meet the data - that was why it was discarded, not
because it was full of undecidable propositions.





Undecidable propositions cannot be decided upon. No amount of shilly
shallying about the 'rules' of decision making can make an undecidable
proposition decidable.

This assumes that the proposition will *always* be undecidable.


They are that way because they are that way, and no amount of shilly
shallying will make and undecidable proposition decidable.

This isn't a question of measurement, its a question of the very basis
of the way we think.

I mean, let the dead speak forth - what? The dead don't speak?..well one
day they might...well in that case they aren't properly dead are they?

If you define a category of 'dead' that includes 'not speaking' as a
property, science doesn't suddenly say that the dead speak because some
corpse mumbles and asks for a double brandy..they merely reclassify the
corpse as 'not dead'

Its as much a semantic issue as anything else..if you define thigs one
way, you cannot thereby create a category with te possibility that it
might change. Its defined not to.

I have no doubt that science will change, in scope in language and in
the quality of the entities that firm its hypotheses, but it cannot
incorporate undecidables into its hypotheses and remains science.




Because once you have made a decision, it ceases to BE an undecidable
proposition.

You appear to think that ID and creationism are merely 'different'
theories of the same sort. That is not the case, they are different
SORTS of theories.

I don't think and haven't suggested anything of the kind. I already
told you that I haven't looked at ID, so how could I possibly think
that it is the same as or different to creationism?


So you are merely airing opinions about something you know nothing
about..on the vague basis that you feel that you are qualified to
comment on them..that you feel that you can wave your hand from the back
of the class and say 'surely sir, there can't be anything that at some
time in some way we can't understand'

And the master has said.

"Sorry son, that is exactly what we are saying. Now can we move on"



You are struggling to find a way to make them acceptable - give up,.
They simply are not acceptable. Because the way they are framed makes
them INHERENTLY unscientific.


I'm not struggling to do anything.



Let me be the judge of that.


At some point we have to identify whether or not you believe that the
world is simply the sum total of peoples opinions,. or whether it has
some existence independent of them.

Yes of course it has an existence independent of people's opinions.


Right then. That's a start.




If the latter, then you have to accept that some things are right, and
some opinions are just wrong.

While some things are right and some things wrong, I don't accept that
notion in this context.


Then your thinking IS divorced from reality...unless you are going to
let the reality of what we are and what the world is, form and guide
your opinions, you have stepped of the edge of reason.

It is entirely possible to apply the same set of tests to both things
and examine the results.

You may then be able to say that one passes most of them and the other
passes few or none.

However, that is today's set of tests, based on the current state of
our knowledge. It does not mean that those tests might not be
different in the future however low or high that probability might be.


You simply don't know what you are talking about.

Black will never be white, no matter how often you tests it, or what
tests you use. The basic quality of blackness is that it is defined to
be not-whiteness.



They are dismissed out of hand, for one good reason..there is no more
that can said about them. They exist as statements that have meaning of
a sort, but whose veracity or otherwise can never be established.

This is making the assumption that nothing more can be said ever.

Its not an assumption. Its inherent in the definition of them.

Change the definition, and they cease to be what they are.

One will never be two, unless you change the definition of one and two.
Not today, not ever.

If you change the definition, you are not a mathematician. You are
Gordon Brown, and I claim my £50 billion.



There are countless examples of phenomena that could not be explained
in the past, but which now are.

That is not what we are talking about here.You are simply spouting the
ID argument, whether you know it or not.

ID is not a phenomena. Its is a hypothesis. They do not exist at the
same level of logic.



It is reasonable to apply a set of tests that are appropriate as we
understand applicability to be today and to say that something fails
all those tests.

Fair enough. One can then say that because of that, it should not be
considered further at present.

Logical tests are time invariant, if time is not specified in them. If
they fail today they will always fail.


But you were. You were suggesting that logically empty statements be
taken and taught as completely valid alternatives to logically rich, and
eminently falsifiable theories as if they were somehow of a similar order.

You are suggesting that certain things are logically empty. There
are, of course logically empty things. However, it is not correct to
assume that because something can't be proven one way or another today
and you don't believe that it ever can be, that it is an empty
statement.

Its not a question of belief. Its a question of definition.


science at all.

Once again this logical disjunct in your mind that prevents you from
seeing the difference between a scientific theory and a metaphysical one
is a complete emotional block with you.

There is no emotion in this at all as far as I am concerned.

Thats how good you are at deluding yourself.


The mental block is yours for wanting to assign something to being
logically impossible when it can't be measured either way today and
you don't believe that it ever can be.

No, its that you have failed to grasp, I suspect because of a deep
seated understanding that it would invalidate most of the way you live
your life - the basic proposition that whilst we can frame seemingly
meaningfully statements, and even live our lives as though they were
true, we have no hope ever of finding any evidence one way or another to
prove or disprove them.

"God Exists" is one of them. Its such a generalized statement that it
really says nothing of any substance.




You have been taken in by the snake oil salesmen, and there is an end to it.

This is actually your being unwilling to accept that other people may
have a different perspective to your own and not being prepared to
dismiss something as impossible ever because they can't measure it
today.

It is not. Come up with a decidable testable proposition, and we can
test it. Come up with woolly minded 'well it might be' or 'we should
consider the possibilty' or 'perhaps one day' and sorry, you get the
order of the boot.

Perhaps the earth WAS made as an experiment by white mice, and
Slartibartfast made the Fiords. How the hell can we tell?

THAT is why these speculations belong in philosophy, not science,
because philosophy attempts to answer that very question 'how can we
tell if the world was made by white mice?

We can look at the statement, investigate what the words mean, and see
if it is possible to devise tests to detect white miceness in the
world..but since white mice as we ordinarily understand them, do not
habitually seem to be in the habit of world construction, we have to
conclude that

- they didn't.
Or..

- our understanding of white mice is flawed.

I.e. they are really pan dimensional super beings of a quality we can
only guess at.

Which is pretty much tantamount to calling them 'God' or 'the laws of
nature' according to your taste.
SO philosophy reduces that proposition to one that says 'calling, god,
or the laws of nature, white mice, or the intention of white mice, does
nothing to help us along our track, which is establishing what the laws
are and how they work, therefore we will disregard this hypothesis,
because it adds nothing'

Unless the fact that they are white mice, rather than god, adds some
quality to the world that we can detect, it is simply semantics.
This is roughly where ID is coming from. It hypothesizes that there is a
quality of intelligence in the way the laws of nature are put together.
Science doesn't deny the possibility, it merely says that it makes no
sense to introduce that quality, when it doesn't make for a theory that
is in any way different from the ones we have already, and indeed in
most cases it is significantly worse.

All it really does is to shift the study from something called 'natural
laws' to something called 'gods purpose'..which allows the creationists
to slide God in by the back door so to speak.

Occams razor says there is no need to introduce the word
intelligence..therefore we won't. It adds nothing,and it has many downsides.



Perhaps, considering the religious nature of this (and I mean the
ritualistic aspects here since both sides have entrenched positions),
a general studies environment would represent a neutral place.

Possibly..but there is a difference between someone stating with utter
certainty that a square is not a circle, and someone insisting that god
made the world in 7 days.

Quite.

I am not suggesting that the idea of god creating the world in 7 days
should be presented as a fact.


But ID to be considered seriously depends on the basic premise that we
consider that someone or something DID make the universe..possibly in a
nanosecond.

And its made with a PURPOSE. And that is the killer blow. Science does
not investigate the purpose of the universe. Because it is not equipped
to do so.

Science deliberately excludes purpose from its study of anything. things
are the way they are because of what has gone before, pure and simple.

There is a deeply interesting metaphysical point to be made there, but
unless you are smart enough to spot it, I won;t indicated it to you.

Call it a test.

Yes, but that is not a discussion that belongs in science. It belongs in
a philosophy study.

It can belong in both.


No it cannot. Not now, not ever. The set of science is deliberately and
for good reason defined to exclude the set of metaphysics. Change that
rule, and science is not science anymore,any more than calling black
white, makes black black anymore.

You might at best call it alchemy..

Or perhaps natural philosophy... ;-)



I made the point that both should be tested using the principles of
RE. I perhaps was not as clear as I could have been about what I
meant by that.

That was that having applied the methodology of science to two
apparently competing theories in a science lesson; one should then
apply the tests that would be made in a religious context. I tend to
think of religion in a broader sense than ritual, tradition etc. In
that sense, I was thinking in terms of somebody with free choice of
faiths to follow, what each has to say about creation or whatever
other explanation is given if any, and then to compare these and
additionally look at evolution on the same comparative basis.

I have no problem with looking at religion scientifically, but all you
will adduce from it is that religious propositions are not scientific ones.

At best they are metaphysical, at worst they are just patterns of
comforting brain activity. Or discomforting.

Now those are very valid and interesting thoughts...but they are not the
ones the faithful want to hear.



Obviously this is not a comparison in the scientific sense, but does
form a useful exercise in contrasting how science goes about comparing
ideas and theories as against how this is done in the context of
different faiths.


Been there done that.

There is a huge amount of scientifically interesting material in
religions. But I warn you, if you open that Pandora's box, you will
destroy most of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, a large proportion of
Hinduism and Buddhism in the process. Only perhaps esoteric Taoism
stands up to scrutiny.

Personally I think its a highly worthwhile project. Its time the world
grew up.

Aquarius dawns and all that ;-)





Science is i the business of deciding wahich of many decidia=ble
propositions are

- simple
- effective
- calculable

If you want to decide which of several undecidable propositions you want
to place your trust in,that is an entirely different matter.

There is a time factor in whether something is decidable or not, as
I've already explained.

No, as have explained, there is not.

Andy Hall wrote:
On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:25:06 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:
On Wed, 01 Feb 2006 19:08:07 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Andy Hall wrote:

I think that it is possible that today's definitions for requirements
for scientific theories could change in the future, simply because I
would not want to take the position that it could never happen.
Whether I think that it *will* happen or *should* happen is quite
another matter.
Well you are intrinsically wrong. Squares will never become circles, no
matter how much you pretend they are.

The analogy that you have made is intrinsically wrong because it is
too simplistic

So is what I am referring to, you just choose not to look at it in that way.

Science that included theories like intelligent design, or creationism,
simply is no longer science, in the same way that a circle with vertices
on it, is no longer a circle.

It's not comparable.

Circles can be measured and defined mathematically. We already
discussed the principles of mathematics in this context.

There are probably few scientific tests that can be applied to the
principles of creationism today.

We are not talking about scientific tests, we are talking about
philosophical tests.

It fails. It will always fail. Unless the theory is presented in a more
critically precise way. It failed because it is INHERENTLY untestable.
Not because the tests we have can't be done, but because no test could
be done ever.

ID was placed in its context extremely well by someone on the TV the
other night. I will repeat his arguments

Suppose you take a deck of cards. shuffle them and deal four hands.

The chances of those cards being dealt in the way they were is something
astronomically high. Nevertheless, thats they way they were dealt. You
might spend a lifetime playing cards and never see the same cards in the
same order come out of a pack.

To believe in ID is like believing that because there was such a small
chance that those cards would be dealt that way, there MUST be some
extremely sophisticated principle guiding the way they fell. Like
telling fortunes with cards, it relies on the principle that there is a
hugely sophisticated and magical mechanism at work in the world.

This is why we all use Tarot cards to beat the stock market and be rich.

SCIENCE merely says that there is no need to introduce magic to explain
what simple random distribution can. Once you deal the cards, every
single possible deal is equally improbable, but there is a 100%
certainty that ONE of them will come up.

Now I want to stress this point. Science does not deny the possibility
of magic. It merely requires that magicians be able to explain how they
can get the cards to deal the same way every time, without cheating...;-)

Do you not see that introducing magic to card dealing, merely muddies
the waters, and makes stupid people lose money praying for luck, when
sensible people win at cards by calculating mathematical odds?

In short, ID is LESS efficacious at predicting things, because it is too
general. It fails on the Occam's Razor principle, because it explains
nothing that evolution cannot, and introduces a needless entity, and it
fails Poppers tests of falsifiability, because there is no single way to
distinguish between blind fate and intelligence..unless you say
something more definite about that intelligence.

But no one wants to define that Intelligence do they? To say 'God won't
allow a new virus to mutate that will wipe out the human
population'..and test it..

When you dig deeper into ID, you find that it is not a theory developed
from observation, though it claims to be. It is a theory base in the
assumption that the world is a planned entity. Planned not by dint of
the cards just falling out that way from a random shuffle, but planned
with a PURPOSE.

An PURPOSE is something that is inherently a religious concept, applied
outside of the activity of animate objects.

Occam's razor says we don't need to introduce a purpose into anything to
explain it. And that is that.

And Occam's razor is there for a very good reason. Economy. Simplicity.
Functionality. Occam's razor says that scientific hypotheses are not
there to encompass all possibilities, they are there to let us
manipulate the world on the most simple basis we can organize.

Occam's razor is not a scientific test. It is a philosophical test.

It stands because to bypass it, is to open the door to a whole gamut of
crackpot theories of almost anything. Its there to keep out the
bathwater, and quite a lot of babies too, its true, but until those
babies explain something that CANNOT BE EXPLAINED IN A MORE SIMPLE WAY
they stay out in the cold.
Now, you may say that it is conceivable that ID might explain something
one day that evolution cannot. I say, not in its current form..not that
it HAS a form at all really - its just creationism by an other name,
adapted wildly by its proponents to fit whatever facts it needs to to
survive. :-)

BUT in order to survive it has to say something definite..something that
clearly pins down something about the NATURE of the intelligence so that
we can test reality to see if that NATURE will make things happen in one
way that is essentially DIFFERENT from evolution. For example it might
show that totally unfit people (creationists? :-)) can survive and
prosper by dint of some divine intervention..rather than off the backs
of a hugely technological society that tolerates their existence out of
the vague knowledge that occasionally a genius is born from stupid parents.

But understandably, the ID brigade are reluctant to pin down that
nature..all THEY want is acknowledgment of the possibility of such a
nature..and then the priests will do the rest.

Well we can of course acknowledge the possibility of SOME sort of
nature..but that is no different from saying 'we believe natural laws exist'

So ID can't be any use on that basis.

And there you have it. ID fails to be scientific because it fails the
philosophical tests of science. IF it is defined more precisely so as to
become a scientifically valid hypothesis, it either becomes simple
evolution by natural laws anyway, or it loses the thing its proponents
find most attractive, a sense of comfort in the thing being designed as
fit for purpose...though why they find that comforting, I do not know.
We have designed enough factory farms in our time..


It is not impossible for further phenomena and tests to be discovered
in the future which could support or disprove some of the aspects of
creationism or perhaps assign more or less probability to them



Indeed. but it would cease to be creationism as we know it, or ID as we
know it.

Sheldrake's theory of morphogenetic fields is a much more interesting
theory..one that birders on the edge of what is scientifically
acceptable. He proposes a sort of group pooled 'collective unconscious'
for the species..such that adaptations made by a single member can
propagate through tis field to allow rapid acquisition of survival
traits by all members of the same (or even other) species.

Now this does indeed go a little way to explaining some things..but it
is a huge leap to make to introduce this new entity, and it it doesn't
really produce any answers that CAN'T be produced by normal Darwinism.

I happen to think there is something in it, for reasons of my own, but I
fully accept that it fails to meet the criteria of science and is
therefore, not CURRENTLY scientific.

However it is of the class that you espouse..a theory that is
sufficiently detailed to be falsifiable, and at this point in time
undecided..but not intrinsically undecidable, nor yet unfalsifiable. It
fails on Occam's razor..because on balance it does not yet add enough
(if anything) to warrant the added complexity.

Andy Hall wrote:
On Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:10:39 +0000 (GMT), John Cartmell
wrote:


Yes you have, you have proposed extending the definition of science to
include the redefinition of science on an ad hoc basis.be
No I didn't. I simply suggested that it could be considered. I didn't say
when, that it should or to what degree.
OK You *considered* the possibility of redefining science to turn it into
something else.

I didn't say anything about redefining science to turn it into
something else either.

You did, it was simply said in a roundabout way to confuse the simple
minded non scientist..