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

I give up. Clearly you're deeply committed to the belief that there is a
basic distinction between "historical sciences" and sciences such as
physics )in spite of the fact that one of the branches of physics is an
historical 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 8:22 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?

George,

I already indicated in a previous post that if we observe suns at different
stages of their lifetime, then we could surmise the historical development
of a particular sun. Of course, that did not stop us from developing
nuclear/hydrodynamic models of suns, which was strongly linked to the
development of nuclear weapons.

I suppose the same could be said of the history of life on earth if one
could make observations of such developments in other planets. Of course,
this will not stop scientists from attempting to "create" life in the
laboratory, which would be the best guess of how life arises in general.

Parev (Armenian for peace)

Moorad

________________________________

From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Sat 9/9/2006 7:38 PM
To: Alexanian, Moorad; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] What causes students to move from faith?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
To: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2006 5:07 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.

Why might this be best? I thought we had agreed that paleontology &
astrophysics could be considered experimental sciences because "Nature" has
provided them with a great number of relevant entities (fossils, stars &c)
under different conditions & thus in a sense "done the experiments" for
them. If this is not the case, can you explain why? If it is the case, can
you explain why your restatement above is preferable.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

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Received on Sun Sep 10 21:18:49 2006