From: Brian D Harper <bharper@postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Hello Brian,
>At 11:49 PM 5/2/00 +0100, Richard wrote:
>>On the other hand, I don't agree that science must reject ideas like
demonic
>>spirits and omnipotent creators out of hand. It should reject them because
>>they are poor explanations (they explain very little), and science is
about
>>find the best (most explanatory) explanations which are consistent with
the
>>facts.
>
>I disagree here. It is not that science rejects these ideas, science simply
>cannot address them at all. It is impossible to evaluate them as good or
>poor.
Why can't science address them (in principle)?
>If one were to adopt explanations which are consistent with all the
>facts, then Last Thursdayism (God created the world last Thursday)
>would have to be a serious contender.
Last Thursdayism should be rejected because it's an extremely poor
explanation (about as bad as you can get). Superficially, it may seem like
good explanation, in the sense that it accounts for everything. But the
value of a scientific explanation is not in how many phenomena it can
account for, but in how testable it is (which means how well it can draw a
line between those phenomena which will be observed and those which won't)
and how little it appeals to complex unexplained mechanisms. Last
Thursdayism is extremely poor on both counts: (a) it does not rule out any
phenomena, and (b) it requires a very complex unexplained mechanism capable
of creating last Thursday's universe from nothing and giving us false
memories.
Richard Wein (Tich)
Please note my new email address <rwein@lineone.net>
and web address <http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/>
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