>As a general rule in writing, I think that if one uses the words
>proof, or verification, or fact, or confirmation, or corroboration,
>or falsification, or justification, or any other word that has
>epistemological intent, then he or she should define the
>terms and specify what philosophical position is being
>assumed. In our postmodern context, If this is not done, I would
>have to conclude that the writer is either naive or is trying to
>put something over on innocent people. (For example, it's
>ok to be a naive realist, if you say so, but it's naive not to
>recognize that there are options.)
Ask and you shall receive. A view which predicts the existence of data
x,y, and z. If one goes and looks and finds X, the view is confirmed (not
proven). I one then finds y, the view is confirmed. If one finds z then
the view is confirmed. NOthing, will prove the view.
>
>However, unfortunately the philosophical language in common
>use here is out of date, its problems having been revealed
>in numerous subsequent books and articles. Popper's work
>is about 50 years old, and the Vienna Circle's is much older.
>Even Kuhn is finally becoming passe.
>
Would Imre Lakatos be acceptable? I like Lakatos' view of science as an
edifice which fits better what I do at work than Kuhn or the positivists.
However, even in Lakatos' view, one can't ignore confirmatory data as it is
essential to building the edifice. And disconfirmatory evidence which is
near the central supports of a theory is the most worrisome for the view as
it will knock out major supports of the theory. I agree with Lakatos that
peripheral disconfirmations don't hurt a theory very much (as the
postivists would have thought). But one can use the word falsified, if a
major support contradicts observational data.
By the way, I only cited the positivists because that seemed to be what Bob
was driving at. As I mentioned in my note earlier this evening, I am aware
of the positivist's demise. SHoot, they were gone before I did my graduate
work.
>In some ways I miss the old days of positivism, when as in the
>Cold War there was one clearly-defined enemy. That enemy
>collapsed upon itself. We are now faced with a new
>and more complex set of questions. It would be well for us to
>brush up on recent philosophy, because that is really where the
>battle is, not geology or biology, as Schaeffer emphasized.
>These philosophical issues are fundamental, so "fundamentalism"
>in the sense of getting to the bottom of issues should be our goal.
And here I absolutely disagree that the battle is in philosophy. I call
what most christians do 'The Retreat into Philosophy'. They can retreat
from the observational world. They don't have to deal with any data or even
learn anything in order to do modern Christian apologetics. All they have
to do is philosophize the problems away. They never have to explain the
data, just philosophize why the data doesn't say what it obviously says.
If we can't present a workable scenario that matches the data, then we
will never compete with the perceived naturalistic explanation of
life--evolution. They have a scenario which is presented in nearly every
science book, we christians don't have anything except philosophy and that
simply won't suffice! The atheists are teaching what actually happened,
THEY ARE NOT DOING PHILOSOPHY---THEY ARE EXPLAINING THE OBSERVATIONAL
DATA!!!!!!!!! We aren't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution