RE: [asa] historical science?

The laws in the hard sciences---physics, chemistry, experimental
biology, etc. ---are all generalizations of historical propositions.
Surely, all phenomena that are studied by man have happened primarily in
the past. The key is that the data is constituted by a multitude of
similar experiments whose behavior is generalized, if possible, into
laws.

The distinction from the historical sciences is that they deal with
unique events. There is only one universe and its corresponding unique
history. Of course, there may be many stars or galaxies and viewing them
all we can make some generalizations about the history of galaxies and
stars. The same is true in forensic science where one uses the results
of the experimental sciences, the hard sciences, to develop a theory of
unique past occurrences. There is something new in forensic sciences and
that is the behavior of criminals of a certain type. Witness the notion
of profiling, which does not follow from the hard sciences themselves.

This is the fundamental difference between the historical sciences and
the hard sciences. Surely, in all endeavors, the human mind is used
equally but the subject matter may be quite distinct and how one
extracts new kind of knowledge from the data has to be clearly
delineated.

Moorad

________________________________

From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 8:41 AM
To: Ted Davis; asa@calvin.edu; michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk;
Alexanian, Moorad
Subject: Re: [asa] historical science?

I've been arguing on another thread that the importance of terminology
shouldn't be overrated but I do think that classifying cosmology &
geology as Geisteswissenschaften would be rather odd. According to
Pannenberg (in Theology and the Philosophy of Science, p.72) the term
goes back to Dilthey who used it to include "the totality of the
sciences which have as their object historical and social reality."
While "historical" is included, it seems pretty clear that human history
is in view, as is clear from the fact that "human sciences" is used as
the corresponding English term in the English translation of
Pannenberg's book. & anyway, doesn't it seem strange to call geology a
"science of the spirit"? (The breadth of the German word Geist should
also be noted: It can mean "mind" as well as "spirit.") I see also
that Cassel's defines Geisteswissenschaften as "the Arts (contrasted
with the Sciences)" - which also seems strange.

As to the substantive question, I think it would be simple enough to say
that an "historical science" deals with phenomena that have happened
primarily in the past. The qualification "primarily" is needed because
of course geology (e.g.) does of course consider the present state of
things even though a great deal of its work is inference about the past.

The distinctive difficulties in such a science have to do with the facts
that (a) the phenomena that are studied are in the past and (b) in most
cases controlled experiments can't be done on the phenomena in question.
Neither of these makes these sciences qualitatively different from a
science like chemistry. We can observe the past via light signals &
"time capsules" like fossils. The data from such observations is theory
laden but that is true of all data to a greater or lesser extent. &
while we can't do controlled experiments on, e.g., stars, there are so
many stars of different types, ages, environments &c that the
experiments have in effect been done for us.

There is some point in talking about "historical sciences," though for
geology & astronomy it might be better to say "natural historical
sciences." But the notion that there is some fundamental difference
between them and other natural sciences is spurious.

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

----- Original Message -----

From: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu <mailto:tdavis@messiah.edu> >

To: <asa@calvin.edu <mailto:asa@calvin.edu> >;
<michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk
<mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> >; <alexanian@uncw.edu
<mailto:alexanian@uncw.edu> >

Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2007 10:37 PM

Subject: [asa] historical science?

>>>> "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu <mailto:alexanian@uncw.edu>
> 09/09/07 7:01 PM >>>asks
> Michael Roberts:
>
> Some time ago, I asked for a definition of historical science and none
was
> forthcoming. Why not advance a definition so that we know what you
mean by
> the term "historical science?"
>
> ***
>
> Michael of course can answer for himself. Why don't I simply note
that in
> one of his final books, Ernst Mayr said that he regards evolutionary
biology
> as one of the Geisteswissenschaften (sciences of the spirit, such as
> history), not one of the Naturwissenschaften (sciences of nature). To
the
> latter belong physics, chemistry, molecular biology, and the like; we
can
> observe everything now and repeat it. To the former, cosmology,
geology,
> and other "historical" sciences.
>
> This particular distinction is pushed to the extreme by YECs, and
somewhat
> less but still strongly by some IDs. The fact that Mayr regarded it
as
> having some legitimacy is very interesting, though he surely would not
have
> pushed it as far as even the IDs. Mayr's view is, incidentally,
referenced
> in at least one version of the science education standards advocated
by the
> "Intelligent Design Network," which is technically not related to TDI
(which
> hasn't copyrighted the term, ID) and is dominated by YECs, but
sometimes the
> resemblance is close.
>
> Ted
>
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Received on Mon Sep 10 10:23:48 2007