What IS Science And What IS NOT Science?

Yes, the so-called definition of science is one big conspiracy by secularists.Please vouchsafe unto us the TRUE definition of science, so that we may be enlightened. Either that or carry on derailing a thread you just started, either way's good.

I must have missed the bit where you stated what your hypothesis is and how you tested it. Anything specific, or just weather in general?I think both sides of the debate can agree on the existence of weather. And this is evidence for a worldwide flood how? You read of a worldwide flood in a book with a talking snake in it, let's be realistic about this. "I heard it in church" is not a basis for science. Did it occur to you to ask for references? Ah, you see this is where you went wrong. Instead of saying this to yourself, you should have tried to prove it. This would involve framing a definite hypothesis, working out its logical consequences, and comparing them with observation. Saying things to yourself is not part of the scientific method. I must have missed the relevant passages in the Book of Genesis. When you say you "go figure", you do not, of course, mean it literally. No math was involved, was it? No study of meterology? No calculation of how much water would have to be "upstairs" (what the heck do you mean?) or what temperature would be required to keep it there. No science. Again, merely thinking things is not a method of proving them. Where is the science? Which bit of that was secularist science? The fact that your description of these processes is simplistic and vague does not make these processes simple. Scientists don't deduce hypotheses. They make deductions from them. Then they test the deductions.You haven't even tried to do science. Your post is one long confession of that. And you haven't noticed this deficiency, because you don't know what science is.* Frame a hypothesis.
* Use logic to deduce the consequences of this hypothesis.
* Compare observations of the real world to observations predicted by the hypothesis.That's how it works. You may in principle arrive at your hypothesis any way you choose. You can read it in the Bible, or you may pull words at random out of a hat. Practicing scientists usually arrive at their hypotheses after years of painstaking study and observation, but I see that this route has not appealed to you.You have not even gotten so far as to offer a precise hyothesis. What do you mean when you say "the water was upstairs"? How much water? What was the temperature? This is apparently meant to be a critique of real science, but it is too vague to make sense of it.

So, can you give links to anyone who has framed a definite hypothesis: how much water, what the temperature was, what you mean by "upstairs"? No, that is not what it implies. When we say that they aren't doing science, we mean --- they aren't doing science. They shouldn't have to argue in favor their ideas? How convenient for them. They shouldn't have to debate with the likes of scientists? Well, I can see why they wouldn't want to do that. You provide no reasoning to support your assertion that a worldwide flood would skew all dating techniques. This isn't science, this is making stuff up as you go along. Go and read my three-line summary of the scientific method until you understand it. I understand that perfectly well. Rather, you should figure out the consequences of your premise and test them against observation. Otherwise, you are not doing science. No. As I said, you are perfectly free to take your hypothesis from the Bible. But if you wish to confirm it through science, that requires that you do some actual science. You see nothing unscientific about a hypothesis which says "the water was upstairs"?Where is the science?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Jar is quite right. If you are not prepared to abandon a theory when it doesn't fit the facts, you are not doing science. This is why the dictionary definition of science says "knowledge", not "wilful ignorance"; and "general truths" not "known falsehoods".

As I have pointed out, you have not given any reason to question the dating methods. This is one of the many things which distinguishes flood geology from science.

So what observations do they say would falsify flood geology? What exactly is their theory, and what does it predict? They "may"? Oh good. What are these reasons? If I wear a ten-gallon hat and say "Howdy pardner", am I a cowboy?

Yes it is: it's about science. The question of whether flood geologists have reasons for their assertions is relecvant to the question of whether they're doing science. While you refuse to answer my questions, I cannot tell you whether or not they are doing science. But that fact that you refuse to answer them suggests that they are not.

Yes. The concepts of theory and prediction are highly relevant to the question of "what is science?" in the same way that the concept "four" is relevant to the question "what is two plus two?" I believe that the answer "no, it isn't science" is clearly implied by your refusal to answer any questions on the subject. So, you're not going to answer any of my questions?

To answer that, we need to know three things.* Do they have a hypothesis?
* Have they used logic to deduce the consequences of this hypothesis?
* Are they testing these consequences against observation?For example, do they have a hypothesis as to how a worldwide flood would skew all dating methods? What are the consequences of this hypothesis? Have they tested this hypothesis against observation? Did the results support their hypothesis?If you refuse to tell us these things, then we, for our part, cannot tell you whether their claims about dating methods are scientific, or merely a wish-fulfilment fantasy dreamed up by a bunch of reality-dodgers frightened by the facts.The fact that you are unable or unwilling to answer any such questions strongly suggests the latter.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, there's no difference between the scientific method and the everyday method of finding something out.For example:Hypothesis: this car gets so many miles to the gallon.Prediction: if I drive until the reading on the mileometer has increased by such-and-such, then this will use such-and-such a quantity of fuel.Observation: drive the car.We call someone a "scientist" if they apply this method to certain areas of inquiry.---What did Kuhn have to say about Popper?

I'm afraid that someone's been lying to you.If all the theory of evolution said was that "things will change", then not even fundies could manage to object to it --- there must be some limit to their capacity for denial.And of course, if the theory of evolution "made no real predictions" then scientists would have noticed this at some time in the last 150 years. Again, this is just basic common sense.In fact, the theory of evolution makes many predictions in, for example, morphology, embryology, genetics, behavioral ecology, epidemiology, biogeography, paeleontology and computer science. I can't think of any other theory which makes such a wide range of predictions in such an assortment of fields; can you?

Of course not. I gave no account whatsoever of how people come up with hypotheses; my account is of how to test them: by calculating their consequences and comparing them with observation. Nor did I say nor imply that these observations should be few or simple. Yes. What of it?It was meant to be an account of how we test hypotheses, not an account of advances in automative engineering. I should like to thank you for being so helpful and informative, not only on my own account, but also on behalf of everyone else reading this thread who would like to know the answer.

As CS Lewis sardonically remarked, the proper response to someone who tells you that 2 + 2 = 4 is to reply that he is biased by being a methematician. No. However long a theory has been accepted as true, it is still possible to compare it to the evidence. I'm afraid someone has been telling you lies again.What's amusing is that the myth that scientists are giving up on evolution has been handed down through generation after generation of creationists.A creationist in 1894: "It is true that a tide of criticism hostile to the integrity of Genesis has been rising for some years; but it seems to beat vainly against a solid rock, and the ebb has now evidently set in. The battle of historical and linguistic criticism may indeed rage for a time over the history and date of the Mosaic law, but in so far as Genesis is concerned it has been practically decided by scientific exploration."A creationist in 1922: "The science of twenty or thirty years ago was in high glee at the thought of having almost proved the theory of biological evolution. Today, for every careful, candid inquirer, these hopes are crushed; and with weary, reluctant sadness does modern biology now confess that the Church has probably been right all the time."A creationist in 1984: "Despite all the bombastic books and articles, both by secular evolutionists and compromising evangelicals, which have opposed the modern literature on scientific Biblical creationism/catastrophism, the evidence is sound, and more and more scientists are becoming creationists all the time."They've been reciting this myth for over a century now, and it hasn't gotten any truer. Er ... there have in fact been creationists for the last 150 years. I suspect that if this was comprehensible, it would be wrong.The only sense I can make of it is that for some reason you think that macroevolution hasn't been confirmed empirically, in which case someone's been fibbing to you again.

I think you can get your hypotheses any place you please. Kerkule famously saw the structure of benzene in a dream or reverie; Ramanujan had mathematical formulae dictated to him in dreams by his village goddess.Schliemann went looking for Troy on the basis of a poem full of pagan gods doing miracles; Bacon (Roger) was quite right to take Aristotles' statements as hypotheses and test them (just as he would have been quite wrong to take them as unquestioned truth); "creation scientists", too, may take their hypotheses from the Bible, and we can't complain of them on that score.Or we might imagine a computer trying to fit formula after formula to a set of physical data until it finds one that fits; that would be a "brute force" method of generating hypotheses.The commonest method of getting a good hypothesis is to study lots of relevant data (and irrelevant data, 'cos you don't know a priori which is which); think about it furiously; get nowhere; and then have the idea which makes sense of the data just appear in your head while you're relaxed and thinking about something else entirely.So whereas there is a formal method (logic, math) for getting from hypothesis to observation, there is (and can be, since a general hypothesis is always underdetermined by observation) no formal method of getting from observation to hypothesis.(This is, I suppose, why creationists like to turn the scientific method on its head and pretend that the theory of evolution is an "interpretation" of the data.)

... then I would be the first to say so.The theory of evolution, on the other hand, has been confirmed by repeatable observations. No, it shows that there are still fundies prepared to climb on the soapbox.If it was hotly debated among scientists, you'd have a point. That would be the same Denton who abandoned his creationist beliefs, right? Michael Denton? The man who wrote, in the introduction to : "Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world - that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies." Oh, and Phillip Johnson, a lawyer. The absurd creationist pretence that scientists are abandoning evolution. No. Yes, my point is that people have been able to hear creationists banging on about the theory of evolution ever since it was first published. Of course not. I was merely trying to explain to you why scientists accept the theory of evolution. It should be obvious to you that they wouldn't do so if it hadn't been confirmed empirically. This is completely off-topic, but since you ask, here are some unambiguous intermediate forms. Enjoy.Now, since you seem to be stuffed to the gills with creationist nonsense, I suspect that this article will make you want to recite the usual dreary mass of incomprehension and falsehood creationists trot out on this subject.If you must, then be a good chap and start a new thread in order to do so.