No one denies the regularity of nature with the amazing ability of man to
describe it with the aid of created mathematics. The conclusion of this
ought to be the existence of an intelligence far beyond ours in capacity and
ability. But for scientists to conclude from their meager achievements that
man can explain everything and even have their explanation, somehow, bring
the whole thing into existence is what I am disagreeing with. I am not
taking away from the achievements of scientist, what I am indicating is
humility on the sight of such achievements.
Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: George Murphy <"gmurphy@raex.com"@raex.com>
To: Moorad Alexanian <alexanian@uncwil.edu>
Cc: mrlab@ix.netcom.com <mrlab@ix.netcom.com>; Allan Harvey
<aharvey@boulder.nist.gov>; asa@calvin.edu <asa@calvin.edu>
Date: Wednesday, March 08, 2000 10:03 AM
Subject: Re: ID (fwd)
>Moorad Alexanian wrote:
> ....................
>> However, such a
>> theory cannot even bring anything into being, theories are descriptive
not
>> prescriptive.
>
> I often see & hear the phrase "theories are descriptive, not prescriptive"
>used as a kind of mantra. Of course our theorizing doesn't compel the
universe to
>do anything, even when it's correct. But the phrase encourages people to
neglect
>the fact (supported by the great predictive success of science, &
especially of
>mathematical physics) that there is a mathematical pattern underlying the
universe
>which _is_ prescriptive, & that our "laws of physics" give us better and
better
>approximations to that pattern. Successful quantitative predictions are
not themselves
>prescriptive but but indicate that some prescribing is going on.
> There's a story that when Einstein was asked what his reaction would have
been
>if the 1919 eclipse observations had disagreed with the general relativity
prediction of
>the bending of starlight by the sun, he said, "Then I would have been sorry
for the dear
>Lord!" Certainly (if he really said it) Einstein didn't think he could
bend starlight
>by sitting in Berlin & writing equations. But he was confident that he'd
achieved some
>insight into the basic structure which "the dear Lord" had given the
universe.
> But the question remains - why is this pattern, & not another, "activated"
in a
>real universe? & that's a question science _qua_ science can't answer.
> Shalom,
> George
>
>
>George L. Murphy
>gmurphy@raex.com
>http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
>
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