From: keithd@well.sf.ca.us (Keith Doyle)
Subject: Re: Science is inadequate
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 05:00:43 GMT



cotera@woods.ulowell.edu writes:
>Science is pretty good at describing natural processes.  Gravity, heat
>transfer, particle physics, etc.

Glad you agree.  BTW, Evolution is one of these.

>  However, it fails miserably when attempting to explain supernatural
>phenomena.

So?  Evolution is not a supernatural phenomena, so there's no problem
there.

>  So evolutionists claim that science supports their view.
>But we know that the creation of the universe was a supernatural process.
>Science will yield erronious results when attempting to describe
>creation because creation was supernatural not natural.

Say what?  How is "faith" a source of knowledge here?  What if you have
"faith" the Earth is flat?  Does that mean you "know" that the Earth is
flat and that science will yield erroneous results when attempting to
describe the shape of the Earth?

If science says the Earth is not flat, but your faith says it is,
doesn't that imply that the supernatural entity involved in your
faith is deceptive?

Similarly, if creation was supernatural, doesn't that imply that
the scientific "erroneous" results are only erroneous because the
creator is being deceptive?

>  You see
>science has a serious flaw: it is a self-correcting method.  This means
>that until we know everything, we can't be sure of anything.  Therefore
>we must take everything on faith.  And faith, and therefore evolution,
>is not science.

Faith has the serious flaw here: it provides no mechanism for correction.
This means that if we think we know something, we have no way whatsoever
to sanity-check it.  The Reverend Jerry Falwell said it rather aptly:

   "I feel most ministers who claim they've heard God's voice are
   eating too much pizza before they go to bed at night, and it's
   really an intestinal disorder, not a revelation."

Faith has no means of differentiating intestinal disorders from
revelations, or revelations from delusions or daydreams.  It is such
a serious weakness that it can hardly be said that anything is
"known" through faith.

Science's self-correcting method is what keeps the minds of scientists
open to new evidence.  The faith to which you refer merely closes the
mind to all evidence.  Faith in this context is pure irrationalism.

Keith

P.S. I'm beginning to get the distinct feeling that creationist posts
such as this one, are merely belched out at random intervals by the
"faithful" who don't bother to hang around to see the results,
gleefully figuring that should keep us busy for awhile.  "Chew on
this gibberish for awhile".  This is based on some personal experience
with a creationist I work with where I find when he sees that he's
beginning to enter into an area of the argument that he has no
effective response, he'll change the subject, suddenly get busy,
or otherwise attempt to avoid the situation ahead of time, rather
than be put in a position where he might be have to admit he
doesn't have a good counterargument (but is not planning on changing
his view in any event, thus revealing his closed-mindedness).

"There is no place in a fanatic's head where reason can enter."
	- Napoleon I