Re: Dominant Theory
- From: Bill <bil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:28:43 -0700
On Jul 26, 10:33 am, "Dana Tweedy" <reddfr...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Bill" <b...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1185422852.143231.170200@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jul 25, 8:19 pm, Bob Casanova <nos...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:43:47 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by Matt Casey
<mattcaseym...@xxxxxxxxx>:
Which is the dominant theory? Evolution or creationism?
There is no Theory of Creationism, and never has been.
--
Bob C.
"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless
Sure there is. It states that life originated by a deliberate act of
creation by an intelligent Creator.
That's not a theory, it's a religious belief. Please note that the term
"theory" here means a scientific theory, not the more common meme of
"theory" as being conjecture or guess.
A theory shouldn't be characterized because of its ramifications; it
is either valid or invalid based on a set of particular conditions.
Even if those conditions are met there may be only the structure of
validity without the theory being "true". It all more a function of
logic than accuracy.
The conditions science requires for a valid theory are not necessarily
those required to know something about reality. In fact those
conditions may impede the acquisition of knowledge if they include
unprovable assumptions. All the scientific method ensures is that
speculation about nature be consistent with itself and any data
invoked in its defense. It does not ensure that this or that
speculation is correct. The 19th and 20th centuries are littered with
examples of this phenomenon.
Everything we experience now is a
consequence of that. An alternative theory is that life sprung from a
happy sequence of lucky chemical accidents.
Yet no one who researches abiogenesis assumes it was a "happy sequence of
lucky chemical accidents". Exactly how life began is not known, and there
is, at present no scientific theory that explains how life began. There
are several lines of research that may lead to a workable theory, but no
theory right now, and it's possible there will never be a theory of how life
began.
That doesn't mean, however, that there is no theory of how life diversified.
There are two theories then, the origins of life and the development
of life. One, as you say, is not really a theory since it has no data
while the other is an attempt to interpret data. In either case
knowledge derived from these theories exists in the interpretation of
what is loosely described as data. An interpretation requires a human
interpreter, someone to collate the bits and pieces into something
coherent - to a human mind. We are left to trust in the sufficiency of
logic and the competence of those applying it.
Either notion is absurd on
its face so there's no real benefit in defending one or the other.
Neither 'notion' is absurd, but the idea that life was created by a
supernatural being is not science, because science doesn't deal with the
supernatural.
Is it then, false? Isn't the condition that, "If it ain't science, it
can't be true." assuming a knowledge of reality that has already been
ceded as unattainable? In order to know the extent and substance of
reality we must first know the extent and substance of reality. Surely
no one's claiming that.
Why can't we possibly have the knowlege of how life began? As long as
humans can examine the evidence, there's always a chance that scientists
will be able to unravel the mystery. Maybe they won't but there is always
the chance.
What might happen is that life may be duplicated through the methods
of science and clever engineering. It may happen that life can be made
to conform to the existing theories of evolution. It doesn't follow
however that the original mechanism of origins has been discovered. It
would only mean our mechanism works - not that there is no other
possible mechanism for creating the same effect. Knowing how something
can be done is not that same as knowing how it was actually done.
Bill
DJT
.
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