Re: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?

Yawn. Instead of repeating yourself please please learn about the subject
and its methods

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2006 10:07 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?

> It may be best to characterize paleontology & astrophysics as
> observational sciences that use the results of experimental sciences to
> make sense of their observations. Certainly, astronomy is the best example
> of an observational science.
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> Sent: Sat 9/9/2006 3:50 PM
> To: Alexanian, Moorad; asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>
>
>
> I grant that we can't do controlled experiements on the whole universe &
> that if "Nature" does such experiments they are (at least at present)
> inaccessible to us. But we can learn a great deal about our own universe
> by
> means which are experimentally testable
>
> But you haven't clarified the things I asked about. Do you want to
> include
> the word "other" under points 3 and 4 below? I.e., can paleontology &
> astrophysics be included under the heading of "experimental science"?
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2006 2:21 PM
> Subject: RE: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>
>
> When it comes to cosmology, the only way one makes an experimental science
> out of it is by considering parallel or multiple universes and so get rid
> of
> the difficulty associated with the fine-tuning necessary for life to
> arise.
> In general, experimental sciences deal with conscious, rational beings
> setting up experiments and have Nature take over from there. Is there a
> conscious, rational mind behind the experiments "done" by Nature?
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> Sent: Thu 9/7/2006 5:55 PM
> To: Alexanian, Moorad; asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>
>
>
> My numbers refer to Moorad's responses below & in turn to my earlier
> points.
>
> 1. You often have enough evidence to average over lots of different
> individual
> members of species, different species of genera, &c. That's sufficient.
> That's really all you need in order to say that paleontology is a science
> in
> the same sense as chemistry &c. It's only if one would start to make
> statements
> about "the biosphere" as a whole that the analogy with cosmology would
> apply.
>
> Bondi is kind of what I cut my teeth on as a cosmologist but it's been
> awhile since I read the book. I may be wrong, but on looking again it
> doesn't seem to me that he really questions whether or not cosmology is a
> science. What he deals with in connection with the uniqueness of the
> universe (Section 1.3, 2d ed) is what kind of science it is. In any case,
> it isn't its historical character that concerns him there, it's the fact
> that this uniquenesss
> "rules out the usual inductive approach."
>
> 2. & as below, I would add "astrophysicists."
>
> 3. OK, maybe I'm being overly suspicious but when you say "from the
> experimental sciences," do you simply mean "from the OTHER experimental
> sciences," which would be consistent with what you said in 2 above? Or
> are
> you continuing to distinguish historical and experiemntal sciences, in
> spite
> of 2 above?
>
> 4. Again I raise the same question: Do you mean "other experimental
> scientists" or are you distinguishing astrophysicists from experimental
> physicists - in spite of the fact that the former are in fact (as you
> agree
> in 1) experimentalists whose experiments are done for them by "Nature"?
> (Needless to say I leave a place for theorists as scientists too but
> that's
> not the point now.)
>
> If under 3 and 4 you do indeed mean "other experimental
> sciences/scientists"
> then we are in complete agreement - & should agree that there is no basic
> distinction between "experimental" and "historical" sciences.
>
> I don't think you have an ulterior motive. I thought I had understood
> your
> point - that there is an important difference between "experimental" and
> "historical" sciences. But given your agreements - or what seem to be
> agreements - with me, I don't see why you think that.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 3:13 PM
> Subject: RE: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>
>
> George,
>
> 1s, There is no disagreement here. The same is done in stellar evolution
> where one studies many stars and so determines the typical lifespan of a
> generic star. However, the description of the whole history of the
> occurrence of life on earth is a different matter. There is no average
> that one can take over observed occurrences of life elsewhere. For
> instance, whether cosmology is a science or not was an issue raised by
> Bondi in his book Cosmology.
>
> 2d, Paleontologists and forensic scientists can do experiments; there is
> no problem with that. Who does the repeatable experiments is not
> relevant.
>
> 3d, One is referring here to a division a labor. Paleontologists want to
> reconstruct history according to extant data and results from the
> experimental sciences. That is all I am saying and I believe that it is
> obvious. It seems that people read what I write and imagine that I have
> some ulterior motive for saying what I say!
>
> 4th, There are aspects of astrophysics that are historical like the
> origin of galaxies, stars, etc. In fact, astrophysics is like making a
> sandwich with stuff that experimental scientists make available to them.
>
>
> I do pay attention and very much appreciate your posts.
>
> Moorad
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
> Behalf Of George Murphy
> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 11:09 AM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>
> Presumably you mean that the "historical sciences" such as paleontology
> are
> more like forensic science than physics, but the analogy is not that
> clear.
>
> 1st, paleontologists are not concerned just with the development of one
> organisms whose fossil they've found but with the development of entire
> species or even higher taxa. Thus much of the contingency in what they
> study is averaged out.
>
> 2d, when you say that forensic scientists use "the results of
> experiments
> done by chemists &c" the implication is that they don't do experiments
> themselves - & by implication that paleontologists don't. But this is
> misleading. Forensic scientists do experiments (on decay of animal
> carcasses e.g.) & criminals do lots of other experiments for them. & if
>
> you'll excuse a misleading personification, "Nature" has done many
> experiments for paleontologists, the results being all the fossils that
> are
> found &c. Of course the controls aren't as precise as they'd be if
> scientists could arrange those experiments themselves but the number of
> fossils formed under all different conditions makes that a relatively
> small
> problem.
>
> 3d, Paleontologists of course make use of more basic sciences such as
> physics - but so do chemists & biologists. Different branches of
> science
> are at different levels in that sense but the distinction there is not
> between "operational science" (or whatever you wish to call them) &
> "historical" ones.
>
> 4th, the questionable character of a sharp distinction between physics &
>
> "historical sciences" becomes obvious when you realize that astrophysics
> is
> an "historical science." Everything I've said above about paleontology
> can
> be said, mutatis mutandis, for astrophysics.
>
> Moorad, you keep trying to make this distinction on the list & every
> time
> you do I or someone else demonstrates that it doesn't work, but a couple
> of
> weeks later you say the same kind of thing. Are you paying any
> attention to
> what we're saying?
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "Michael Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>; "Ted Davis"
> <tdavis@messiah.edu>; <asa@calvin.edu>; "James Mahaffy"
> <Mahaffy@dordt.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 9:44 AM
> Subject: RE: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>
>
>> Can you tell the difference between a physicist and a forensic
> scientist?
>> The former studies Nature experimentally and creates laws that
> summarize
>> the result of all the experimental data. The latter finds out if O. J.
>
>> Simpson did it or not using results of experiments done by chemists,
>> physicists, biologists, etc. Do you now see the difference?
>>
>>
>> Moorad
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: Michael Roberts [mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk]
>> Sent: Thu 9/7/2006 2:25 AM
>> To: Alexanian, Moorad; Ted Davis; asa@calvin.edu; James Mahaffy
>> Subject: Re: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>>
>>
>>
>> Please learn a little bit more about historical science before
> repeating
>> your previous errors on the subject
>>
>> Michael
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
>> To: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>; <asa@calvin.edu>; "James
> Mahaffy"
>> <Mahaffy@dordt.edu>
>> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 1:32 AM
>> Subject: RE: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>>
>>
>>> The laws of Nature that are based on experimental science are
>>> generalizations of historical propositions, viz., data obtained from
>>> repeatable experiments. Historical sciences rely on results obtained
> in
>>> the experimental sciences, thus the use of the word science in
> historical
>>> science, but deal with a single, unique event. One is not
> characterizing
>>> one kind as being more or less legitimate than the other but the
>>> distinction must be made to shed light in the so-called war between
>>> science and religion.
>>>
>>> Moorad
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________
>>>
>>> From: Ted Davis [mailto:tdavis@messiah.edu]
>>> Sent: Wed 9/6/2006 5:50 PM
>>> To: asa@calvin.edu; James Mahaffy; Alexanian, Moorad
>>> Subject: RE: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu> 09/06/06 4:07 PM
>>>>writes:
>>> Experimental science has nothing to say regarding any particular
>>> historical event.
>>>
>>> Ted responds:
>>> Not exactly. True, experimental science can't rule in or out
> something
>>> like the resurrection or the virgin birth. Those events, if they
>>> happened
>>> (as I believe they did), are forever beyond the realm of scientific
>>> confirmation or refutation since we can't rerun the history itself
> and
>>> subject the phenomena to scientific study.
>>>
>>> However--and this is a very important however--the YECs and some
> (perhaps
>>> many, I'm not yet clear on this) IDs make much hay about the very
>>> distinction you are using. In their view, the historical sciences
> (such
>>> as
>>> geology, cosmology, evolutionary biology) do not have status as
>>> legitimate
>>> sciences, or if they have some legitimacy it is quite small relative
> to
>>> experimental sciences. This particular move, in fact, is perhaps the
>
>>> most
>>> important way in which they keep Galileo's approach to the Bible (in
>>> relation to modern astronomy) out of the garden of Eden. I recently
>>> completed an unpublished essay with almost exactly that title
> (Galileo
>>> and
>>> the Garden of Eden).
>>>
>>> One could say a great deal more about this. But I'll add only this.
>>> Experimental science *does* have something to say about some
> historical
>>> events, perhaps even a whole lot of them. I offer the following
> example.
>>> We know experimentally/empirically (I fudge the difference here) that
>>> Greenland has not been completely submered under water in the past
>>> 100,000+
>>> years. We know this from evidence buried in ice cores from various
> parts
>>> of
>>> that continent. I call this an experimental/empirical claim, even
> though
>>> it
>>> has an historical component. We have a continuous record buried in
> the
>>> ice,
>>> and it has no evidence of a massive flood. THus, we can conclude
> that
>>> those
>>> who interpret Genesis to require a worldwide flood submerging all of
> the
>>> land a few thousand years ago cannot be right. That particular
>>> interpretation of world/biblical history is wrong.
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
>>> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
>> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Sep 9 18:24:02 2006