Re: Evolution and faith in God: is there any contradiction?

Rusty Sites wrote:
dkomo wrote:

John Wilkins wrote:

TomS <TomS_member@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"On Fri, 5 Oct 2007 01:16:13 +1000, in article
<1i5hh6c.dc379c1xzoyluN%j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxx>, John Wilkins stated..."
[...snip...]

If it can be measured, it can be studied by science, and only that which
can be measured can be studied by science.


[...snip...]

That seems to be a rather strong statement. (It seems to be
offering a solution to the "demarcation problem".) (I hope
that I am not reading this out of context.)

On the one hand, I would question whether everything that is
the subject of science can be measured. "Measured", I take
it, means "given a real number value". That seems to be overly restrictive. What about symmetries which do not take
real number values? What about logical relationships?

On the other hand, I would question whether everything that
can be measured is the subject of a science. The one example
that immediately comes to mind is economic data.



I intend it to be a strong statement. But it does not imply that
measurement is ipso facto science. Carpentry uses rather exact
measurements, and is not science. Nor does it imply that all of science
is measurement or deals with measurement, although I am hard pressed to
think of an exception right now.


Is this science:

"Transcription is the process through which a DNA sequence is enzymatically copied by an RNA polymerase to produce a complementary RNA. So to say, it is the transfer of genetic information from DNA into RNA. In the case of protein-encoding DNA, transcription is the beginning of the process that ultimately leads to the translation of the genetic code (via the mRNA intermediate) into a functional peptide or protein. The stretch of DNA that is transcribed into an RNA molecule is called a transcription unit. Transcription has some proofreading mechanisms, but they are fewer and less effective than the controls for copying DNA; therefore, transcription has a lower copying fidelity than DNA replication."

Does it involve measurement?


If the statement can be said to be true, then yes. How could, "Transcription has some proofreading mechanisms, but they are fewer and less effective than the controls for copying DNA", be stated as fact without some measurements to back it up? Everything stated in the paragraph has to be backed up by observation. Every observation can be stated as a numeric measurement. Yes or no is a binary measurement. The statement is a narrative constructed from the observations of science and I call that science.


Groan. Say something is black on this ng and up will pop some people to argue that it is white. But you're right, of course, about my example, which I carelessly choose. The roots of molecular biology are quantitative. At the very least, xray crystallography is used to determine the structure of macromolecules like DNA and proteins.

Let's look at another example in biology and you tell me if it is science, and if so, whether it demonstrates a qualitative or quantitative science. This passage is taken straight out of the Raven and Johnson biology textbook:

"A vascular plant consists of a root system and a shoot system (figure 34.2). The root system anchors the plant and penetrates the soil, from which it absorbs water and ions crucial to the plant's nutrition. The shoot system consists of the stems and their leaves. The stem serves as a framework for positioning the leaves, the principle sites of photosynthesis. The arrangement, size, and other features of the leaves are of critical importance in the plant's production of food. Flowers, other reproductive organs, and, ultimately, fruits and seeds are also formed on the shoot.

Four basic types of tissues exist in plants: meristems, ground tissue, epidermis, and vascular tissue. Each of the four basic tissues has its own distinctive, functionally related cell types. Some of these cell types will be discussed later in this chapter."

And the textbook goes on in a similar vein about different types of living things for hundreds of pages. These pages contain highly detailed colored diagrams and photographs (which is one reason these textbooks are so expensive). One can read entire chapters without ever once encountering anything numeric other than simple integers like the above "four basic types of tissues exist in plants".

I'm saying that this demonstrates that biology is largely a *qualitative* science. It studies the structures and functions of living things without necessarily reducing them to numeric data or mathematical equations. There are however, subdiscplines within biology which use mathematics a good deal, which doesn't negate the point I'm making.


--dkomo@xxxxxxxx


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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Evolution and faith in God: is there any contradiction?
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  • Re: Evolution and faith in God: is there any contradiction?
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  • Re: Evolution and faith in God: is there any contradiction?
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