> From: Bill Payne <bpayne15@juno.com> (In response to Keith
>
> I think schools should teach empirical data and stay away from
> interpretations, unless they are prepared to offer competing
> interpretations.
>
First, I must say to you Bill that I appreciate the fact that we have
you on the list and that you will voice things like this, particularly
given the fact that you proably do not have time to respond to the
barrage of questions coming your way.
The second thing, I say is that I don't think you really believe this
consistently in the sense that I don't think you will think this way
about interpretation in areas where it does not impinge on other
considerations (such as your understanding of Creation).
For example, is it a fact or an interpretation that the earth orbits
the Sun and not vice versa? How do we know without inferring it from
other data?
This is particularly relevant because 1) It was a point
that Christians (not just Catholics---Luther was not a Copernican)
resisted because it was thought to go against the plain teaching of
scripture. The reasons for believing that the earth orbited the Sun at
that time were strictly inferential. Though Copernicus's model gave
poorer empirical agreement with the observed data, it provided natural
explanations for the fact that the interior planets, mercury and
venus, are always observed to lie in the direction of the Sun, and for
the fact that retrograde motion of Mars (planet moved from east to
west through the stars rather than the normal west to east) always
occurs when Mars is opposite the Sun. These can obtained by a model
with the earth at the center, but the explanation is natural and clean
for the heliocentric (Copernican model). Interior planets must always
be close to the Sun based on geometry, exlaining why only two have
limited elongation (the technical term). Retrograde motion occurs
because the earth "runs past" mars when they are at their closest
point, which occurs with the Sun is opposite from the direction of
Mars.
My point is that I think you will agree that it was reasonable to
believe that the Sun was the center of the solar system based on
interpretation of data. If that is true what is the distinction
between intrepation here and interpretation of the evidence for the
history of life.
Other examples of interpretation would be why would you call it a fact
that atoms have protons, neutrons, and electrons? These are all based
on interpretation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joel W. Cannon | (724)223-6146
Physics Department |
Washington and Jefferson College |
Washington, PA 15301 |
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