Glenn's post below reminds me of a question that rolls around in my head
from time to time. Some might argue that there's a lot of room for rolling
around in there so maybe that's where this question comes from!
Can a scientific theory be developed based primarily on explaining what
happened or must it develop by making hard predictions about what will
happen (in a given experimental set up) and then testing those predictions?
I guess I'm thinking that coming up with a plausible history of things is
not really science but rather an activity that may (or may not) use science
as a tool.
I'm thinking here of the difference between the way theories are developed
in things like geology and the way that theories are developed in areas
like physics. (note that I don't really know much of geology outside of the
class I took as an undergrad, and not even so much of that, so apologies to
all the geologists) In geology the theory seems to be developed under the
guise of trying to reconstruct what did happen not what will happen. While
in physics the main idea seems to be developing a theory for predicting the
future (in terms of experiments that could be carried out in the future).
Even physics contains a heavy element of describing past experiments but
in this case it seems reasonable that the experiments could be performed
again with the same results (though not necessarily in astronomy I
suppose).
As a disclaimer, I'm not convinced that the differences I've expressed are
real. This does, however, seem like an issue in regards to classifying a
given theory (such as intelligent design or evolution) as science or some
sort of scientific spin-off that also requires a large degree of
philosophizing (not to imply that such spin-offs are not interesting or
worthwhile).
I guess I'm really asking what the definition of science is and if this
definition indicates that science must be developed under the requirement
of predicting future observations.
On the other hand I could just be subconsciously trying to make all the
"soft" sciences (which are really the hard sciences when it comes to doing
experiments and making predictions) into non-sciences simply because they
are not physics, or at least they aren't yet :)
-----Original Message-----
From: glenn morton [SMTP:mortongr@flash.net]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 12:23 PM
To: James Mahaffy; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Possible impact of ID
In order for ID to make an impact on modern science they simply are going
to
have to actually offer a scenario for what happened. They can't hide from
the Big Ogre, that eats all scientist wanna-be's and
pretenders --observation. I feel the ID movement is basically a bunch of
people playing pretend science. What they offer has no observational
support, makes no predictions and takes no risks. It also can't be
falsified in any way shape or form. So until they grow up, and take the
same
risks that all other scientists do, how on earth do they expect to make an
impact. I would suggest that their real target is not science, it is the
non-scientific laity as you suggested.
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