the principles of world view

I challenge you to name one scientific theory that has been proven "true" -- by scientists. And that is claimed as such -- by scientists. You might consider the definitions I have included below in your answer.Otherwise, you really should drop this "proven to be true" and "true science" nonsense. That is just the latest scheme cooked up by creationists to denigrate the theory of evolution. It might work with sympathetic school boards, but scientists know the difference--even if you don't.

Proof: Except for math and geometry, there is little that is actually proved. Even well-established scientific theories can't be conclusively proved, because--at least in principle--a counter-example might be discovered. Scientific theories are always accepted provisionally, and are regarded as reliable only because they are supported (not proved) by the verifiable facts they purport to explain and by the predictions which they successfully make. All scientific theories are subject to revision (or even rejection) if new data are discovered which necessitates this.

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Proof: A term from logic and mathematics describing an argument from premise to conclusion using strictly logical principles. In mathematics, theorems or propositions are established by logical arguments from a set of axioms, the process of establishing a theorem being called a proof.

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The colloquial meaning of "proof" causes lots of problems in physics discussion and is best avoided. Since mathematics is such an important part of physics, the mathematician's meaning of proof should be the only one we use. Also, we often ask students in upper level courses to do proofs of certain theorems of mathematical physics, and we are not asking for experimental demonstration!

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So, in a laboratory report, we should not say "We proved Newton's law" Rather say, "Today we demonstrated (or verified) the validity of Newton's law in the particular case of..." Source

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Truth: This is a word best avoided entirely in physics [and science] except when placed in quotes, or with careful qualification. Its colloquial use has so many shades of meaning from ”it seems to be correct’ to the absolute truths claimed by religion, that it’s use causes nothing but misunderstanding. Someone once said "Science seeks proximate (approximate) truths." Others speak of provisional or tentative truths. Certainly science claims no final or absolute truths. Source

And lest you think I am just making up these definitions and that "true" sciences such as physics would never agree, check out the source for the latter two.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I think this overarching statement requires some qualifications.It is the knowledge of biology and geology which primarily supports an old earth and the theory of evolution. Those engineers who reject biology and geology are likely compartmentalists who know little or nothing outside of their given field due to a lack of curiosity. I have certainly encountered many who have the blinders on when it comes to the rest of the world, be it engineers, computer scientists, mathematicians, economists, psychologists, 'professional educators' and so on.Also it is important to add one can be self-taught if one has the desire.My first college degree is in geological engineering. To me the geology part forces the engineering part to know the earth is old.There is of course science in engineering, unfortunately some lack an understanding where the basic principles of engineering come from. Most the actual scientists and engineers I personally know see the natural sciences as mutually supporting in virtually every detail without any noticeable difference in specialization. Edited by anglagard, : better sentencesEdited by anglagard, : just to make it better

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

So, you whole argument revolves around saying "this high degree of certainty I will accept, but this high degree of certainty conflicts with my a priori assumptions so I will reject it?As my old Philosophy of Science tutor would say, "...epic fail..."

I'm fairly sure this all started somewhere around Message 20, but there isn't a single perpetrator. In case people had forgotten, this is a thread in Faith and Belief, this is not a debate about science, what constitutes scientific evidence or anything along those lines.This thread is about...well the OP isn't the most clear in the world, but I think a closer interpretation would be "the impact on culture and morality vis a vis the pessimism of materialism vs optimism of Christianity with some focus on the contrasts between the implications of evolution or special creation".I'll give everyone the benefit of the doubt to make one more post by mistake/to close up their current discussion. If you are itching to carry it on - go to Proposed New Topics. Please keep it friendly, or if that is to hard at least aim for respectful. If it appears nobody is actually interested in this topic but continuing whatever argument they are currently in I'll close the thread for 24 hours and hand out suspensions for the worst offenders.That should just about do it.

I will correct my "opinion" on certain matters of how atoms work when we finally "discover" how they really work. Until then, I and most nuclear physicists rely on the things we do understand concerning how atoms work and have proved to a high degree of accuracy.The same is true for most doctors. They may not know everything about how the human body works, but they rely on the things they have learned about the human body from doctors and sceitists who have gone before them and proven what works, and then old and new doctors continue the process of expanding that knowledge into even better knowledge of how the human body works. This they do in labs and in the field with real science as they help humans will all manner of illnesses, not with theories of evolution that cannot help an ameoba get any better.

I for one would like to elaborate upon the philosophical implications of any world view now that this thread has my attention. Sorry, I am just multidisciplinary by nature and hope this does not provide too great an obstacle.ABE - One footnote is that my mother will soon die because she was denied treatment for Parkinson's due to conservative politics. To me it seems important to discuss any 'world view' as it has real life implications. Edited by anglagard, : BITE ME

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

Biologists will tell you that it is evolutionary theory that underpins all biology, and fortunately, it effects their way of thinking. In order to develop both the first injected and the first oral polio vaccinations, it was necessary to use organisms related to those on whom the vaccination would be used in ways that would be difficult or impossible ethically to involve humans. But, for creationists, only humans are related to humans.Fortunately, the biologists were evolutionists, so they knew where to look. So, John, when you thank those biologists for their science that you say you believe in, you could also thank our simian cousins for the role that they played. And you could reflect that countless lives were saved not only because we have close relatives in the wild, but because modern biologists, thanks to the work of people like Darwin, are well aware of that fact.Now, you try and think up some practical value in teaching so called "creationist science" in schools.There are not only the "principles of world view", as this thread's title would have it, but there are the vastly different practicalities of different world views.

Given that Linnaeus grouped monkeys and apes most closely to Humans some hundred years before Darwin penned The Origin of Species, and apparently believed in the immutability of the species he was identifying, can it really be said that Evolution is required to recognise similarity?

Not to recognize, but confirm it.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Linne's groupings were based on phenotypical similarities. He grouped dolphins and fish together as well.The point is, chimps and humans may look similar. But that does not necessarily mean that we are related. And if we are not related, then any research done on chimps to improve human medicine is a fool's errand.

I thought someone might say something like that. However, if you look at my post, I said that organisms that were related to those who would receive the vaccines were required, not organisms that were "similar". That, however, you could quite reasonably point out, is a post-Darwin view, with the knowledge that "similarity" and "relatedness" are essentially the same things.Considering the thread "world view" title, the interesting thing is why Linnaeus didn't come to the obvious conclusions that we now see from his work. If he had not come from a culture with a creationist world view, wouldn't the obvious have occurred to him?You've got a good point, but I still hold that it would be much more likely for post-Darwin researchers to think of using monkeys than it would have been before.

True. Linneaus erred on various groupings, and included a number of mythological entities in his scheme. However, that Dolphins were not fish is a fact originally recognised from their physical morphology not from any application of evolutionary theory. What makes the research useful or not is not whether we are related but whether the systems relevant to the study are similar. Which is why, for example, developmental biology studies done on fruit flies have proved useful in understanding the development of human babies and some disorders thereof.While relatedness provides a useful proxy for similarity (because of evolution) it's really simularity, not relatedness, that matters.

Similarities relating to physical morphology can be misleading.For example who would've guessed that a whale is more closely related to a cow than a walrus based on physical morphology alone? But to get to the underlying similarities, those similarities that are more than superficial, do we not need to understand relatedness?AbE - I have just read this topic through in more detail and it would seem that my above comments and this line of debate are essentially off-topic. So I won't carry on this conversation here. Apologies. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

No. You need to measure similarity. By similarity I don't just mean looking at brute physical traits, I also mean looking at metabolic pathways, protein structure, genomes, etc.When it comes down to it, you don't need to understand evolution to deal with notions of more or less similar or establish which species are useful models for what features of humans (although, frankly, you'd have to be blind not to deduce evolution from what you find).

Hi John 10:10, still not getting it. Curiously that was NOT the question. Try again, with the added words in caps for clarity: NOT you - somebody else, say someone like Paris Hilton, somebody without your experience and education in the field trying to tell you how to run things in a way that you KNOW from your experience in the field is just plain wrong ... can that person's uninformed opinion change the facts of nuclear physics? Let me contrast this with your earlier statement in this post: In other words YOU are operating on the basis of theories, because you admit right there that we don't know how physics REALLY WORKS.And if you are really interested, yes the theory of evolution can help sick amoebas get better. They can do this in labs and in the field with real science, just as they help humans will all manner of illnesses. The information provided by evolution on illnesses is one of the great leaps forward in medicine in the last 50 years, and the reason for this is genetics. Genetics just would not work without evolution.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : plastered paris

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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