Allen & Diane Roy wrote:
> I was surprised when Bill supplied the correct answer -- Nothing is
> missing because it is complete as I wrote it. Wayne and Stein gave
> the typical answer and Glenn came up with something original: commas.
>
> Contrary to Glenn's statement that "this is a case where a conclusion
> can be drawn only if one limits the possible answers," the question
> "what is missing?" is really a leading question. The question leads
> one to assume that something is missing when there is nothing missing
> at all. It prejudices or biases any answer developed. The problem is
> not the data but the question. The proper question should be: "What
> do you see?" When we ask proper questions, we are able to push ahead
> with better understanding. This is science, is it not..to see what is
> there?
>
> What is missing? Nothing. It is the wrong question and the only way to
> answer it is to bring the question into question. This encourages
> better thinking, better observation skills..something we can all use.
> We need to sharpen our skills at listening and observing and develop
> reasonable responses when people ask incorrect questions.
>
> As Bill said: "To say that a 4, or commas, or anything else is
> missing is to assume that we can read the intentions of Allen, or that
> we can delimit for Allen his range of possibilities....Only if Allen
> tells us what the series is supposed to look like, will we be able to
> know what, if anything, is missing." When it comes to studying
> nature, can we apply our own range of possibilities or do we look for
> what God has defined for us?
When Uranus was found not to follow its predicted orbit, some astronomers
decided that something was "missing" and used Newton's laws to discover Neptune.
When there were gaps in Mendeleev's periodic table some chemists searched and found the
"missing" elements. When there seemed to be energy "missing" in beta decay physicists
theorized the neutrino & found it after a 25 year search.
The task of science is not just to record & organize observational data but to
discover patterns - i.e., rational laws. The test of those laws is not just that they
explain what we already know but that they are able to predict novel facts. Simply
discerning some regularity is not enough: The anomalous motion of Uranus could have
been "explained" by making a slight change of the exponent in Newton's inverse square
law, but nobody with any deep sense for pattern would have been satisfied with that.
But don't we have to just take what God has defined for us? Well, of course we
have to take the universe we inhabit as a basic datum, & our theories ultimately have to
correspond to it. But if the claim is that we have to use Genesis to tell us the age of
the earth or something of that sort, the answer is "No". That negative answer is
supported
a) theologically, by the fact that God's action in the world is hidden,
corresponding to the divine self-limitation of Phil.2:5-11, and
b) empirically, by the fact that science _sans_ Bible works.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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