Re: [asa] PvM's View of What Science IS

You were right George, people, rather than focusing on the arguments
seem to be calling instead for ad hominem approaches to my
contributions, including having my presence on ASA be called in doubt.
I do understand that to some, the question of what is science, which I
believe is a useless question, has some long history. However, rather
than attempt something which will cause inevitable discussions about
demarcation problems and other irrelevant philosophical musings, why
not accept a much simpler approach to look at the a posteriori
contributions of ID. Does it present a research program which is
fertile or degenerative ? For this I am also following Haarsma's
suggestion in PCSF 07

On 9/18/07, George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>
>
> I already apologized for accidentally letting my post to Pim go to the whole
> list. But since that happened, I should point out that I was not calling
> "strike 3" against Pim as far as issues related to ID are concerned. I was
> simply saying that the approach he was taking to the debate wasn't working.
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Gregory Arago
> To: George Murphy
> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 3:48 AM
> Subject: Re: [asa] PvM's View of What Science IS
>
>
> Please excuse that I will not have time to follow up on the discussions,
> probably for a couple of days at least. Let me only agree with George's Off
> List post that somehow made it to the ASA list, that a Strike Three for Pim
> was called. Pim's statement that 'ID is scientifically vacuous' is itself
> vacuous - without content - because Pim provides NO POSITIVE REFERENCE
> against which the proposed 'science of ID' could be compared. As George
> wrote 'that simply doesn't work.'
>
> The claim by Pim 'ID is scientifically vacuous' is hereby disqualified from
> the ASA list. For me, that is the end of the story and Pim's negative
> contribution has been adequately exposed.
>
> Since George and I have differences of opinion about science and nature,
> e.g. as for the legitimate the place of disciplines like biology, physics,
> anthropology, culturology, sociology, etc. in the constellation (or
> hierarchy) of the contemporary academy (and I didn't include theology as
> 'in' the academy simply because in Russia where I live it is mainly not 'in'
> the academy but in the seminaries), it is something encouraging to me that
> we do actually agree on this. Likewise, let me affirm that 'taunting' is not
> appreciated, especially on a list like this where honest, open and critical
> discussion takes place by experienced scholars and scientists with the
> appropriate amounts of salt displayed, so that we should be without fault
> (Philippians 2: 15). If Pim (or for that matter a certain someone in England
> with a cynical sense of humour) cannot aspire to a higher level of dialogue,
> more respectful than attackful or taunting (e.g. calling someone's view of
> science 'worthless'), perhaps this list isn't the place for him.
>
> Warm regards for your discussions of what science is and isn't, while future
> posts should probably change the title to 'What Science IS' rather than
> 'PvM's View of What Science IS' because the latter title has been exhausted.
>
> Gregory
>
>
>
> George Murphy wrote:
>
> OFF LIST
>
> Pim -
>
> I am in fairly broad agreement with you about the issues related to ID but,
> after observing the non-exchange on the "PvM's View of What Science IS"
> thread, I have to say that you're putting your case in a rather poor light.
> You are insisting that you can show (or have shown) that ID is
> "scientifically vacuous" without being willing to say what you understand
> "science" to be & that simply doesn't work. It would be OK if there were
> general agreement on what science is but it's clear that that isn't so,
> especially on this list. If you don't want to discuss that, fine, but then
> what are you doing on the asa list? I'm afraid I get the impression that
> you just enjoy taunting people like Gregory or Peter who disagree with you
>
> Shalom
> George
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
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Received on Tue Sep 18 10:41:23 2007