An educational angle we all could live with? (Philosophy of Science)

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I may be wrong, but I don't think is history is a science, but an art (one of the humanities): I've never heard of anyone gaining a BSc in history. It certainly applies to quantum theory, so far as we can observe events at that level.

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In a way, arent origin sciences and origin theories 'historical'? They piece together evidence and make a hunch, right?

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Could we know a little more about Mr Todd, and the context of the quote? A link would be nice.

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Scott C. Todd, A View from Kansas on that Evolution Debate, Nature 401.6752(September 30, 1999): 423.

It rather depends on how you 'piece together the evidence'. Biochemists and others who research these issues don't just sit in armchairs thinking up possible mechanisms. Instead they investigate what mechanisms might work in order to determine if they are tenable. Determining the exact origin of life and the exact mechansim by which it came about is, as you say, historical. But determining possible mechanisms of abiognesis is fully experimental, and when there are a number of plausible well experimentally supported putative natural mechanisms for abiogenesis why should one opt for a totally unsupported supernatural mechanism.We may never confidently know the historical origins of life on Earth but we can certainly come up with scientifically compelling scenarios which show that it is not the impossibility many creationists, or ID proponents, would have us believe.TTFN,WK

Ummm, I think you've just prooved ID isn't science. Have a cigar. Happily, Astrobiology (aka abiogenesis) and Evolution can both be tested in labs, so you're on you're own....Thanks for the Todd ref, I'll dig it out. Sounds interesting...

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in spite of the growing accumulation of evidence that suggests that evolution is, biochemically speaking, impossible.

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Really?Can you cite some papers from the peer-reviewed professional literature which supports this claim?I am only asking you because the essay you linked to doesn't have any footnotes or references to any research to back up the claims made.

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Well, then what are you so afraid of? Let the 'new kid on the block' try to show his stuff. MN is tough, it can take it.

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Great. What are the testable predictions?List a couple here.

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Well, Ill go ahead and tell the scientific community to let ID join the science club,

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All the ID folks have to do to "join the science club" is to provide a hypothesis that makes testable predictions and is falsifiable and is supported by positive evidence.That;s all anyone has to do to be scientific.So far, nobody in the ID camp wants or is able to do this.

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since only official club members can be taken seriously enough to have their predictions tested.

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But anyone can follow the scientific method. It isn't difficult. If the ID folks are "real scientists", then they can conduct their own experiments and if their methodiology is sound, they will be published.Remember, however, that it's not easy for anyone to get published.

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Cause if they arent 'members' then their predictions are rejected as 'pseudo-science', right?

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Well, remember that this ID arguemnt has been around a very long time; hundreds of years.It has already been tested quite a lot.(AbE)Imagine a game of baseball being played by professional baseball players.Now imagine a bunch of people dressed in baseball uniforms comes up and says thay want to join the league. They use the lingo, they are carrying bats and gloves, but then when you see them actually playing the game, they don't follow the rules at all.They claim that they can score runs without hitting the ball, and that when they are tagged out, they don't accept the umpire's ruling.They SAY they play baseball, they DEMAND that they be allowed to join the league, but clearly, they don't play by the same rules as everyone else.Can you tell me why this "pseudo-baseball" team should be allowed to join the league without following the same rules as all the other teams in the league?

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Sure would be nice is science fessed up and gave people a few good, solid ways to do this.

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Here you go, enjoy! link to evidences for Evolution plus potential falsificationsNow, I notice that you actually skipped several of my points, so I'll repost them here. This is the crux of the argument.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 05-18-2005 08:35 AM

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Obviously, then, naturalism is not a deduction from experimental observations but a defining philosophy, right?

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Which kind of Naturalism are you referring to?Methodological Natrualism or Ontological Naturalism?The first is the method that science uses, and the other is the philosophy.Scientists use MN in their work but may or may not personally adhere to ON.

I agree very strongly with EZScience that "naturalism" (or empirism) is the methodology of science, not a philosophy. Generally, I think we are abusing the term "philosophy" a lot. There is no such thing as "philosophy of science." Similarly, there is no philosophy of industry, there is no philosophy of art, there is no philosophy of religion. Philosophy is a separate field of human endeavor. People say "philosophy of" this and that, meaning, actually, methodologies accepted in various fields. Am I right? --Richard

Yes, the word philosophy gets abused a lot.
Like when Limbo speaks of naturalism as a 'defining philosophy' for evolution. That's wrong.
Methodology defines science and evolutionary biology, not philosophy.I think you *can* have a philosophy of science (Mayr's book on the philosophy of biology was inspiring to me) but it should be considered an external perspective on the discipline and its implications for other disciplines - not a defining principle of the discipline.This message has been edited by EZscience, 05-18-2005 10:59 AM

Well there is a specific branch of philosophy which is 'philosophy of science', but how relevant the connection between that and actual science in the lab is is arguable. I certainly know very few scientists who are liable to spend their lab meetings discussing Baconian Vs. Popperian models of science or the true significance of Kuhnian paradigm shifts.TTFN,WK

"Science" didn't say that. Richard Dawkins did.That quote is irrelevant anyway.

If you read Gould closely you can find him say rather "within" (not 'without'). Irrelevant to what?

Ok I know the response is amess below but yous all are moving on without learning what I said in the pastYou had said previously

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philosophy has nothing to do with biology or theology

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and you followed that up with a much more detailed explanation of the same that I was able to follow the logic of.

Gould just didnt see it this way. VERY IMPORANT PAGE from The Structure of Evolutionary Theory Harvard 200TwoI can see that ID if not at odds with creationism generally (what to do about the aposteriori nature of the probability spaces) that it provides a LARGER frame from which intellectual explorations of hierachicalizations can be platformed. However if you or someone else thinks like the main man in Jersey Girl who says that "dad" said there are only two ways of thinking (New York and New Jersey) then you might retain your logic indeed and develop a workable philosophy associated with the method that need not see to possible extensions to the branching (which is really a condensation intuitvely) whether motived by creationism or some firinge science based on computer geekeyness say. This way of thinking IS deeply ingrained in some people. As a teenager who quickly learned how to seperate nearly a 100 local species in my brain, I rather cagely asked my father (who was in public relations) , "how many ways is it possible to think?" He defintely and definitvely answered, "two" and exclusively two. I ASKED him AGAIN how if he couldnt think in MORE ways and he said NO again that he could only think in the two AFORSAID SINGLE division. I of course was thinking in more ways but it was indeterminate and hard to pin point. It is this uncertainty in the enumeration of the ways that makes hierarchialization a mental possiblity and a frustatingly difficult thing to psyche one self into. The reason I stress the USE of creationist thought patterns is because they are Outside this framework and offer at least to my mind a diversity from which I can often times associate larger groupings mentally. Yes the discipline ID it self is rather sparce but I am evaluating the effect it has in mind. Gould thought in twos and that is how he probably came to the magestria. He certainly was a little too dichtomous when it came to his ideas on systematics in the fox, and magister's pox book. Only bring Gould into it because he was already on the scene and unlike Dakwins who will survive or die of his own volition Gould HAS actually changed the way some people think about evolution and I HAVE to deal with that regardless of my interest like his of hierarchicalizing biological praxis. I would have had not much to comment about your logic except that no one seems to have taken up Woodger much on his axioms of biology. Why is it that there is not Hilbert program for biology? Is that not the philosophers fault and not the scientists??You dont need to answer this question.If one starts to foucs on the difference betweent he origin of genetic information and biochemistry which is the hub of the difference of opinioin be tween ID and creationism this is a level of organization where it becomes difficult to understand the individuality of it all. One can be very quickly uncertain as to whether the less individuality is simply a goal of biophyisical superposition, a different view on premature deaths as analyzes by wallece in a POPULATION that is made up of ‘populations of microstates , or something again indeed more radically different one might be tempted to associatwith the natme albert einistein.So the problem in the wording of Kitcher, in my words is, IS the energy individuated enough that given a guess at the information we can extract it from a creatures form.

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Creationists are very vauge about exactly where evolutionary theor contradicts the second law

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Let us be completely clear about the logic of the situtation

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They do not point to some particular feature of Darwinian histories and show that that feature presupposes a system that thermodynamics disallows

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Evolutionary theory would contradict the second law if (and only if) the construction of Darwinian histories required us to suppose the existence of thermodynamically clsoed systems in which entropy does not increase

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However, it may help to dissolve any lingering worries if we look at life on earth from the perspective of classical thermodynamics. Since the earth receives large amounts of energy from the sun, we cannot think of the earth as a closed system...Classical thermodynmaics tells us that, within this vast closed system, entropy increases. It says abosolutely nothing about entropy variation at the the locla level.

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Increasingly the only way I find that it is even possible to write a possible solution is if the mere analogy of Fisher’s fundamental theorem and phenomenological thermodynamics be given a new face. Prima facie this seems unlikely to spot out the whole field but it is the only epistemelogical way I can fathom to proceed with it all. I have always found that people dealing with the the whole thing are never proposing resolutions as broad. I am waiting for the day when the increased communication given to human kind by the internet surpasses my vision but this has not happened today. Part of the solution is that micro and macro states often carry the same symbols.So we have entropy variation a the local level being often cashed in without proper support for variation at the individual level and no means is provided in the literature to turn the corner of Wallace’s volumized rectangle. Biologists seeking truth claims are not going to answer this. I had hoped that theoretical biology was going to but if people just think like Simon Levin and Ian Steawart it wont either. Simon told me that my approach of using incidence geometry to mediate the motion on Wallace’s line was too philosophical and so even thought I think ICR types are in the more rightful place on creation and biology I try to find the intellectual whereas that could entrust IDists with this job that goes undone. I don’t have a sense of their community to know if that is the fools errand but given now the third year of Wolfram’s new kind of science it seems that given that that is not a mere blip there can be some work for ID apart from my own interest in a job well done. And on a personal note I do think that it has been the influx and influence of philosophers that had caused me to not get on with biology at Cornell. I have always been more dedicated to truth claims than this speculative posting attitude on evc but I cant understand apart from these cultural differences why it was that my interest in truth prevented others from helping me when the society refused to support the job order form. I need an answer about any changes made to "probability spaces" without that, the writing indeed appears equivocal. That is the fault of experinence not understanding.This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 05-18-2005 03:06 PM
The Kitcher quotes are from "Abusing Science" out of MIT1982-96This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 05-18-2005 03:24 PMThis message has been edited by Brad McFall, 05-18-2005 03:25 PM

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Well there is a specific branch of philosophy which is 'philosophy of science', but how relevant the connection between that and actual science in the lab is is arguable. I certainly know very few scientists who are liable to spend their lab meetings discussing Baconian Vs. Popperian models of science or the true significance of Kuhnian paradigm shifts.

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That's very true. Not many scientists would describe what they do in terms that fall within the formal definitions of various philosophies of science. But, at those lab meetings (or, more often, over morning coffee or a beer in the bar at a conference) scientists will discuss the latest experiment they're putting together, and ask questions about the design and whether or not it'll be able to distinguish between different possible theories. They may not be using the language of philosophies of science, that doesn't alter the fact that that is what they are doing.If we'd been given a basic introduction to the philosophical approaches we instinctively use would we be better scientists? Maybe, I don't know. But I'd bet it would reduce the level of arrogance some scientists seem to display (a few hours thinking through the issues really is illuminating in terms of illustrating how little science can actually prove). And, if the members of society who aren't practicing scientists had that same basic introduction it might help them hold science in a more healthy perspective (not just re: religious issues, but the various scares about food additives and the like too).

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And, if the members of society who aren't practicing scientists had that same basic introduction it might help them hold science in a more healthy perspective

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I think the thing that should be gotten across is that if you approach science with a strict, methodological approach, you will get results that are consistant with a naturalist philosophy.Explain to the students that design or supernatural cause isnt looked at because its dismissed a priori, and so they are intellectually free to interprete the results in a manner consistant with thier philosophy or religion.If they want to believe a designer is behind life, they are free to do so...and tell them why science cant confirm or deny a designer.If this isnt stressed, assumptions creep in.This message has been edited by Limbo, 05-19-2005 05:31 AMThis message has been edited by Limbo, 05-19-2005 05:32 AM

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if you approach science with a strict, methodological approach, you will get results that are consistant with a naturalist philosophy.

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Of course you will get results consistant with a naturalist philosophy. You also won't get results that are inconsistant with a theistic philosophy. The thing that it would be helpful for people to realise is that scientific methodology is not a subset of either naturalistic, theistic, deist or anyother overarching philosophy. It stands on its own, more or less independant of these broader philosophies.Yes, scientific results can be wheeled out as evidence in favour of one philosophy or another. So, Dawkins can produce the neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution and go "ta da! God isn't needed", and I can produce exactly the same neo-Darwinian Theory of Evolution and go "wow! Look at how ingenious God is in his creative activity".One scientist may say "the Heavens declare the glory of God" and spend his life studying the stars making astounding discoveries about astrophysics. Another may say "there's no God" and devote his life to examining the stars to show how they could have formed without God. Both of them will present their work at the same conferences, be respected by their peers for the quality and importance of their work, and probably both will use the results of the other to support their religious views.

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Yes, scientific results can be wheeled out as evidence in favour of one philosophy or another.

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If the public felt that scientists were really and keenly aware of this, we might not have so many problems.The way it looks now, its as if mainstream science insists its favorable interpretation of the evidence is the only possible one. The arrogance, ridicule and hostility toward other interpretations is appauling.