From: bsmart@bsmart.TTI.COM (Bob Smart)
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Reply-To: bsmart@bsmart.TTI.COM (Bob Smart)
Organization: Citicorp+TTI
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 01:41:51 GMT

In article <1272@tecsun1.etl.army.mil>, riggs@descartes.tec.army.mil
(Bill Riggs) writes:
> 	I would really like to know what your definition of a 
> "scientifically factual process" is supposed to be.

Read a 6th-grade science textbook, then report back and tell us what it
said.  This really isn't a secret (or if it is, it's a spectacularly
poorly-kept one), and easy-to-read descriptions and definitions of
science and of the scientific method are generally to be found within
the first few pages of the first chapter.

Despite your apparent mystification, science really isn't just another
mystery religion.  In fact, it's neither competition nor replacement for
religion at all, and doesn't claim otherwise.  For some reason, some
religious people insist on treating science AS IF IT WERE religion, and
not too surprisingly, this usually results in frustration for all concerned.

> If all theory (okay, wise guy, hypotheses) has/have to pass
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Wise guy?  This is not a trivial, hairsplitting distinction.

> muster in relation to previously "proved" hypotheses, is this 
> really science?

Why, no, it isn't.  Did someone tell you it was?  In fact, new theories
don't have to "pass muster in relation to previously 'proved'
hypotheses."  They DO have to ACCOUNT FOR OBSERVATIONS at least as well
as the previous theory, but it's quite common for a new theory to
explain old data in a completely new way--that's often what allows the
new theory to provide better (more accurate or more comprehensive) predictions.

And while we're on the subject, science isn't about "proving"
hypotheses.  The purpose of an experiment or other data-gathering
activity is to try and find enough evidence to REFUTE the hypothesis. 
If we fail to turn up enough evidence to reject the hypothesis, that's
not the same as "proof" at all--nor is it intended to be.  After lots
and lots of attempts to shoot down a hypothesis, if the hypothesis still
survives, then we might proceed on the provisional assumption that the
hypothesis is correct..but ONLY until somebody comes up with a better
explanation that accounts for the same observations (see above) or until
somebody finally succeeds in proving that the hypothesis was incorrect. 
The only "proof," then, is in REJECTING hypotheses, not in confirming them.

This element of testability, by the way, is one of the linchpins of the
scientific method.  If it's impossible to test (and potentially reject)
a hypothesis, then while it may in fact be correct, it ain't science.

In the context of Creationism, it is incumbent on Creationists to submit
evidence which contradicts some component of evolutionary theory in
order to disprove it.  Creationists also have the option of proposing a
new theory which can be shown to account for all the observed data AT
LEAST as well as evolutionary theory AND which is subject to empirical
hypothesis testing.  Such a new theory would not necessarily disprove
evolutionary theories, but if it provided better (more accurate or more
comprehensive) predictions about observations, it would render evolution
obsolete.  To my knowledge, no such Creationist theory has ever been
presented and survived these evidentiary tests.

The scientific objections to Creationism are not of the "disproof"
variety, since Creationism is by its nature not subject to empirical
testing and hence not subject to disproof.  Scientific objections to
Creationism generally have to do with failures of Creationist theory to
account for as many observed phenomena as other models, or with the
empirical contradictions between what Creationism says we should see and
what is actually observed in the natural world.  In fact Creationism,
with its inherent reliance on nontestable "revealed truth," can never
yield a scientific hypothesis simply because of its nontestability.

None of this has anything to do with whether Creationist explanations of
the Universe are right or wrong; this is simply an explanation of why
they are not considered "scientific."

> This is what Medieval scholasticism taught. It is
> quite possible to be logically consistent, intellectually balanced,
> and just plain wrong if you are working off the wrong data.  I would
> have thought this point to be relatively non-controversial.

I would have thought likewise, but apparently both of us would have been wrong.

---------

A fanatic is someone who does what he knows that God would do if God knew the
facts of the case.

Some mailers apparently munge my address; you might have to use
bsmart@bsmart.tti.com -- or if that fails, fall back to
72027.3210@compuserve.com.  Ain't UNIX grand?
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic