Maybe my history isn't any better than my biology but the stuff we
commonly call science was origionally called philosophy. Thought
experiments, not lab experiments were preferred. It was a big deal when
Galen discovered blood flow because no one had bothered to look.
Alchemy that preceeded science in the west was mostly witchcraft and
philosophy. Only the Arabs were collecting hard data. Seems to Bacon
defined science along the lines of Popper.
>Popper takes an extreme view of what is meant by "science". By this
view, no
>theory about past events can be scientific, which rules out the
historical
>parts of the theory of evolution and geology, not to mention creationism
and
>ID. But few (if any) scientists take such an extreme view of science.
I agree with Popper. Geology is a science with respect to soils science,
continental drift measurements, and other current observations. It is
predictive and useful in various engineering situations. Evolution is a
science with respect to current observations. It is predictive to the
extent that creatures have been observed to change physically because of
environmental pressure instead of dying out. There are no currect changes
being observed with respect to 7 day creationism and no predictions are
being made. I can't think how lab experiments or field observations could
differentiate between theistic evolution and naturalistic evolution.
From
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/falsify.html
interesting article:
>Popper also accepted the legitimacy of metaphysical statements, but
denied they were any >part of science. Popper's view (a variety of
logical empiricism) was called 'falsificationism', and >in its mature
versions held that something is scientific just so far as it
>(i) is liable to be falsified by data;
>(ii) is tested by observation and experiment, and
>(iii) makes predictions.
This is approx what I recall from Bacon. Other ways of collecting and
analyzing data may provide truth but they don't need to be called
science.
We stopped a back woods cafe and the special was "Beef Stroganoff." It
was OK but looked and tasted like hamburger and white sauce over rice.
Maybe we were the only people who knew the difference. I suspect that
beef stroganoff sells better than hamburger and rice, just as science
sells and pays better than philosophy. Everyone wants to be a scientist.
>Real Scientists Make Predictions. This was the True Scientific Method. A
minor quibble should >be dealt with - Popper knew that the Falsification
Principle could not be falsified. It was openly >metaphysical.
Doesn't matter, it is axiomatic like a point only having location and a
line having only length in plane geometry. Every system starts with
unprovable assumptions. If someone doesn't like it they can start their
own system but there is no need to steal the name.
>It is significant that, although it is often claimed that Darwinism is
unfalsifiable, many of the >things Darwin said have in fact been
falsified.
This is silly. Like saying cake baking is falsified because one recipe is
bad,
________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Apr 17 2000 - 18:09:21 EDT