Is science starting to misrepresent itself?

[Sherlock Holmes]

Over the past thirty, perhaps even forty years, it's become increasingly clear to me how what is sometimes presented as "god vs science" or "creationism vs science" and so on, is actually the root of many of the perceived problems with these two areas of human thought. Because these are presented as contrasting, as alternative ways of interpreting the world, many people just assume that there is an underlying incompatibility.

But there is no incompatibility at all, there never was and the false implication that there is arose quite recently in fact. The vast majority of those who contributed to what we today call the scientific revolution and later the enlightenment, were not atheists - this might surprise some but it is true and should be carefully noted.

The growth of militant atheism (recently spearheaded by the likes of Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens) has seen increasing effort placed on attacking "religion" and discrediting those who might regard "god" and "creation" as intellectually legitimate ideas, by implying that the layman must choose one or the other, you're either an atheist (for science) or a theist (a science "denier").

It is my position that there is no conflict whatsoever, for example God (an intelligent agency not subject to laws) gave rise to the universe (a sophisticated amalgam of material and laws) and we - also intelligent agencies - are gifted by being able to explore, unravel and utilize that creation.

There is nothing that can disprove this view, there is no reason to imply that those who adopt it are deluded, incompetent, poorly educated or any of that, that attitude is a lie and its reinforced at every opportunity in this and many other forums.

[Sherlock Holmes]

Private messages from people thanking me for my posts.

How does "people thank me for my posts" translate to "my posts will affect the way science is practiced"?

Some of those people are scientists.

And what do you think they will do differently in their work, after having read your posts?

separate fact from fiction.

[Jose Fly]

That makes no sense. If "maybe the gods are tricking us" applies to the age of the earth as you claimed, it applies to everything, which obviously means we can't really know anything....IOW, solipsism.

Here you go again, the wheels are coming off again Jose! - I never ever ever wrote "maybe the gods are tricking us", go back and find out what I actually did write, then we can discuss.

Yes, here we go again. The last time we did this you completely bailed after I showed where you said the things you denied having said.

Post #90: "Not me, but given an appropriate set of beliefs one can support the argument, the fact is nobody can be sure, there's no way to prove it wasn't just created 6,000 years ago and appears to us to be old."

Post #92: "If we choose to NOT assume uniformitarianism then we can say that around 6,000 years ago the earth was created by God and the laws of nature were created by God, they did not exist until this time. The laws allow the future state to follow the current state and follow nice smooth mathemitcal rules. So from the instant the earth was created the laws began to operate but to assume they always operated that way and the the earth is very very old is wrong."

So as I said, you've invoked the notion that we cannot really know the age of the earth because maybe the gods have manipulated things. I had been assuming that you also feel that concept applies to everything else (i.e., not just the age of the earth), but perhaps that was hasty. Do you feel what you described applies only to the age of the earth, or do you think it also applies to everything?

[Jose Fly]

separate fact from fiction.

Like what?

[otseng]

Sorry, I can't address such pleonastic posts.

More wining. More excuses. More avoidance.
Q: Why come here to debate if its too hard for you? Go play with toys.

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[alexxcJRO]

That makes no sense. If "maybe the gods are tricking us" applies to the age of the earth as you claimed, it applies to everything, which obviously means we can't really know anything....IOW, solipsism.

Here you go again, the wheels are coming off again Jose! - I never ever ever wrote "maybe the gods are tricking us", go back and find out what I actually did write, then we can discuss.

Yes, here we go again. The last time we did this you completely bailed after I showed where you said the things you denied having said.

Post #90: "Not me, but given an appropriate set of beliefs one can support the argument, the fact is nobody can be sure, there's no way to prove it wasn't just created 6,000 years ago and appears to us to be old."

Post #92: "If we choose to NOT assume uniformitarianism then we can say that around 6,000 years ago the earth was created by God and the laws of nature were created by God, they did not exist until this time. The laws allow the future state to follow the current state and follow nice smooth mathemitcal rules. So from the instant the earth was created the laws began to operate but to assume they always operated that way and the the earth is very very old is wrong."

So as I said, you've invoked the notion that we cannot really know the age of the earth because maybe the gods have manipulated things. I had been assuming that you also feel that concept applies to everything else (i.e., not just the age of the earth), but perhaps that was hasty. Do you feel what you described applies only to the age of the earth, or do you think it also applies to everything?

Maybe he thinks Satan manipulated whole Earth somehow that all the dating methods show consistently an old Earth when its in fact young.
I had Christians told me Satan put transitional fossils in the ground.
Some say God wants to test us by tricking us.
Its so ridiculous.

[Bust Nak]

Well I started to consider it dogma when militant atheists like Dawkins referred to evolution being a "fact" (it is a hypothesis)...

But it's not a hypothesis, we observed evolution both in and outside of the lab, by "fact" we are referring to experimental results, not the theory. Also, the theory of evolution itself is well beyond a hypothesis, having survived 150+ years worth of scientific scrutiny.

No other branch of the sciences operates in this manner.

No other branch you say? Off the top of my head, physics does that re: Perpetual motion; astrology does that re: flat Earth.

Why? I am a creationist, [someone who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will.]

That is a position I and a huge number of people, many of them science professors, teachers and so on, hold, that simple, so it is other people who need to educate themselves when they use words like "creationist" in a disparaging manner.

Well, that's not likely to happen. Meaning changes over time. You call yourselves a creationist, you are gonna be lumped in with the likes of Ray Comfort and Kent Hovind.

What is your criteria for deciding there's no controversy regarding the claims of evolution? What is your definition of the "scientific community"?

The criteria is the consensus of the scientific community, who are mainly the academia, plus the few commercial scientists who publishes their research.

if we must use it it should be all those who have achieved science related degrees and PhDs at accredited universities nothing more.

That's a good enough a definition for me.

The controversy is specifically between fanatical evolution advocates and everyone who does not share their dogma.

So stop feeing this controversy, if you don't want the "religion vs science" perception to persist.

Right so the "way" you see it reflects your knowledge, what you've learned, what you believe and so on. It is quite rational to believe the earth is ancient, that is a reasonable way to look at it but it is not the only rational way.

Someone who believes the earth to be 6,000 years old uses different knowledge, different assumptions and therefore reaches a different conclusion. There's no sound argument that the they are wrong either.

Okay, but there is a sound argument that they are not scientific.

You might be right but that is the reality, if we are honest then we must accept that even our "advanced" understanding and explanations are also ultimately also based on pure assumptions. It is a huge error in science education to imply or teach that the way we perceive things scientifically is the "correct way", the "true way", there are many other ways of perceiving and understanding the universe.

We teach it that way as to not confuse young kids. "The Earth orbits the Sun" is just that much simpler than "according to the consensus, the Earth and the Sun orbit around the centre of gravity of the whole system." Better this so called "huge error" than to have kids coming out of primary education not understanding basic science, don't you think?

But I don't carry that kind assuredness, I am (I hope) open minded, I am always prepared to have my world shaken, if someone can present a reasonable argument for the earth being flat then I should evaluate that argument not prejudge the argument prejudicially. I'm not afraid to be wrong, not at all. I do try to see an argument from the other person's standpoint, my approach is not one of defending my beliefs but rather trying to dispassionately evaluate their argument.

Ah huh, and have you dispassionately evaluate flat Earther's arguments? And if so, how then can you maintain your dispassionate stance?

Where do you suggest I look?

I've already mentioned Answer in Genesis, now you have two more names you can look up re: Comfort and Hovind.

What is this "inconsistency of the creationism side" you speak of?

Focusing narrowly on a few topics, but not all despite them being roughly equally supported.

I disagree, all of these scientists were - technically speaking - "creationists". Each of them by definition regarded it a fundamental truth that what they were exploring was a created thing, that the laws and structures and patterns and symmetries were the work of an intelligent creative agent. So for all of these people the "explanations" for the many many things they worked on, was quite simply "God" and that caused no problem for them or the growth of scientific knowledge in general.

And yet every single one of them stuck to materialism, that should cast doubt over your claim that they didn't give it a second thought.

For you perhaps but not me, not for a great many people - including certificated scientists and mathematicians.

Why are mathematicians even relevant here? As for these scientists, ask them why they think an empirically demonstrable entity wouldn't qualify as "natural."

No, these are philosophical statements you are making, not scientific statements. You cannot use science to prove that everything can be explained within the confines of science and its assumptions, for example how can one explain the existence of science using science?

I am not presenting scientific statements though, nor trying to prove science with science. Philosophy of science is a thing.

I don't think that's fair. What if the explanation for some natural thing was found to not be natural? should we stop exploring? should we reject it?

"Found to not be natural" how? What's stopping me from just saying "cool, we have a new natural explanation?" Anyway, to answer your question: if there is a non-natural, yet true explanation, then I would accept it as true but unscientific, much like how I treat certain philosophical positions as true but unscientific.

But I do not agree that what has been called "science" for centuries ever restricted the scope of explanations. Like I showed you above huge numbers of scientists for centuries all regarded "God" as the explanation for a scientifically structured world even being here.

How is the fact supposed to help support your claim that science has never restricted the scope of explanations? I note that you said "explanation for a scientifically structured world" as opposed to "scientific explanation for a structured world." That sounded a lot like accepting that God is not a scientific explanation.

But all scientific arguments today are already unscientific! Everything is explained using reductionism, that is the "explained" things are explained in terms of unexplained things and this is unavoidable and we either say this truly goes on for infinity or there is a non-material non-deterministic agency as the source. The infinity belief is unscientific because nothing can ever be explained and the god belief is unscientific because it abandons laws, determinism and so on.

A crude analogy might be Goidel's incompleteness theorems which in essence says there are claims we can make within rule based system the correctness of which cannot be established using only those rules.

Okay, science does all that, but it's not clear what's so unscientific about reductionism or basing explanation on unproven philosophical assumptions.

Lets recap my contention here is that the definition of science for most of recorded time has not placed any epistemological restriction on what explanations might arise (go and dig out some definitions form the past). The AAAS definition is trying to pretend that science means the same thing as materialism.

Okay, but where in any of this, did you see people defining or pretending or implying that science is the only source of truth? If it's not there, then why keep telling us that it isn't the only source?

How do you know that every scientist takes that for granted? look at the list I shared earlier, none of those scientists took materialism to be true!

I know they do by how they act, doing experiments in particular. They don't accept materialism as true yet they still committed to materialism.

I disagree, science is (historically) much more concerned with seeking patterns, establishing laws, discovering mathematical relationships it does not need to assume materialism is true. It is a mode of inquiry where hypotheses are formed, tested and revised.

Forming falsifiable hypotheses and testing them empirically, sounds like materialism to me. You are right about science not needing to assume materialism is true, but you are missing the second half, it needs to follow materialism regardless if it is true or not. As I keep pointing out, you don't have to be a materialist to commit to materialism.

Well Newton (and many many others, Galileo etc) all regarded "God" as the explanation for the thing they were unravelling, so I don't think they'd agree that God "played no part in their scientific explanations" God played no part in the material aspects of their explanations...

Why do you think Newton considered God as part of his scientific explanation but not the material aspect (as opposed to God is part of their explanation but not the scientific aspect?)

IMHO there's no epistemological purposed served by the AAAS addition, it does nothing helpful at all, it is clearly a way of discouraging dissent with respect to evolution, science never needed such language and does not need it today.

It does today because it's under attack.

[Sherlock Holmes]

That makes no sense. If "maybe the gods are tricking us" applies to the age of the earth as you claimed, it applies to everything, which obviously means we can't really know anything....IOW, solipsism.

Here you go again, the wheels are coming off again Jose! - I never ever ever wrote "maybe the gods are tricking us", go back and find out what I actually did write, then we can discuss.

Yes, here we go again. The last time we did this you completely bailed after I showed where you said the things you denied having said.

Post #90: "Not me, but given an appropriate set of beliefs one can support the argument, the fact is nobody can be sure, there's no way to prove it wasn't just created 6,000 years ago and appears to us to be old."

Post #92: "If we choose to NOT assume uniformitarianism then we can say that around 6,000 years ago the earth was created by God and the laws of nature were created by God, they did not exist until this time. The laws allow the future state to follow the current state and follow nice smooth mathemitcal rules. So from the instant the earth was created the laws began to operate but to assume they always operated that way and the the earth is very very old is wrong."

So as I said, you've invoked the notion that we cannot really know the age of the earth because maybe the gods have manipulated things. I had been assuming that you also feel that concept applies to everything else (i.e., not just the age of the earth), but perhaps that was hasty. Do you feel what you described applies only to the age of the earth, or do you think it also applies to everything?

Well thanks for quoting me, I do appreciate accuracy when discussing science.

Right, so where did you get the idea that God was "tricking" anyone? I certainly did not say it. If one misconstrues something, misinterprets information, that is not the same as "trickery". Everyone who did infer the earth was 6,000 years old will not have been "tricked", why is that do you think?

[Sherlock Holmes]

Well I started to consider it dogma when militant atheists like Dawkins referred to evolution being a "fact" (it is a hypothesis)...

But it's not a hypothesis, we observed evolution both in and outside of the lab, by "fact" we are referring to experimental results, not the theory. Also, the theory of evolution itself is well beyond a hypothesis, having survived 150+ years worth of scientific scrutiny.

This comes up quite often, a source of much confusion.

That bacteria left to their own devices for several billion years with no human/intelligent input can eventually lead to humans is a hypothesis, this claim has never been tested, it is also unfalsifiable for that reason, I assume you agree with this?

Theories in the sciences have predictive value, this is the case in physics for example where laws and initial conditions can be used to compute a future state, this is routine in most of the sciences but not in "evolution".

There's no way to predict at what point fish would arise from worms for example, there's no law allowing such a calculation.

There's no way to determine if fish could arise from worms given sufficient time, there's no way to show that stasis is not an inevitable result.

Because of this I and many others (e.g. Berlinski) do not regard "evolution" as a conventional scientific theory, unless you've truly studied real theories (as I have) like those in physics, engineering and so on, you'll likely no grasp what I'm saying.

No other branch of the sciences operates in this manner.

No other branch you say? Off the top of my head, physics does that re: Perpetual motion; astrology does that re: flat Earth.

"perpetual motion" and "astrology" are not scientific theories, not branches of science.

Why? I am a creationist, [someone who believes in a god who is absolute creator of heaven and earth, out of nothing, by an act of free will.]

That is a position I and a huge number of people, many of them science professors, teachers and so on, hold, that simple, so it is other people who need to educate themselves when they use words like "creationist" in a disparaging manner.

Well, that's not likely to happen. Meaning changes over time. You call yourselves a creationist, you are gonna be lumped in with the likes of Ray Comfort and Kent Hovind.

Only by those who do not know the definition of "creationism", that the misinformed might misunderstand is not my doing.

What is your criteria for deciding there's no controversy regarding the claims of evolution? What is your definition of the "scientific community"?

The criteria is the consensus of the scientific community, who are mainly the academia, plus the few commercial scientists who publishes their research.

if we must use it it should be all those who have achieved science related degrees and PhDs at accredited universities nothing more.

That's a good enough a definition for me.

In which case there is no consensus, look here and here for example.

The controversy is specifically between fanatical evolution advocates and everyone who does not share their dogma.

So stop feeing this controversy, if you don't want the "religion vs science" perception to persist.

Stop what exactly? what exactly do you think I should stop doing?

Right so the "way" you see it reflects your knowledge, what you've learned, what you believe and so on. It is quite rational to believe the earth is ancient, that is a reasonable way to look at it but it is not the only rational way.

Someone who believes the earth to be 6,000 years old uses different knowledge, different assumptions and therefore reaches a different conclusion. There's no sound argument that the they are wrong either.

Okay, but there is a sound argument that they are not scientific.

What is that argument then? can you present it here to us?

You might be right but that is the reality, if we are honest then we must accept that even our "advanced" understanding and explanations are also ultimately also based on pure assumptions. It is a huge error in science education to imply or teach that the way we perceive things scientifically is the "correct way", the "true way", there are many other ways of perceiving and understanding the universe.

We teach it that way as to not confuse young kids. "The Earth orbits the Sun" is just that much simpler than "according to the consensus, the Earth and the Sun orbit around the centre of gravity of the whole system." Better this so called "huge error" than to have kids coming out of primary education not understanding basic science, don't you think?

I think we should also teach kids how to reason and discover things on their own too, more self reliance in how they decide what they believe.

But I don't carry that kind assuredness, I am (I hope) open minded, I am always prepared to have my world shaken, if someone can present a reasonable argument for the earth being flat then I should evaluate that argument not prejudge the argument prejudicially. I'm not afraid to be wrong, not at all. I do try to see an argument from the other person's standpoint, my approach is not one of defending my beliefs but rather trying to dispassionately evaluate their argument.

Ah huh, and have you dispassionately evaluate flat Earther's arguments? And if so, how then can you maintain your dispassionate stance?

Yes of course, anyone who's studied the history of cartography will be well versed in these early and reasonable beliefs.

Where do you suggest I look?

I've already mentioned Answer in Genesis, now you have two more names you can look up re: Comfort and Hovind.

What is this "inconsistency of the creationism side" you speak of?

Focusing narrowly on a few topics, but not all despite them being roughly equally supported.

Focusing "narrowly" is not to be "inconsistent" - do you or don't have a specific example of a true inconsistency?

I disagree, all of these scientists were - technically speaking - "creationists". Each of them by definition regarded it a fundamental truth that what they were exploring was a created thing, that the laws and structures and patterns and symmetries were the work of an intelligent creative agent. So for all of these people the "explanations" for the many many things they worked on, was quite simply "God" and that caused no problem for them or the growth of scientific knowledge in general.

And yet every single one of them stuck to materialism, that should cast doubt over your claim that they didn't give it a second thought.

So you agree, creationists can make perfectly good scientists?

For you perhaps but not me, not for a great many people - including certificated scientists and mathematicians.

Why are mathematicians even relevant here? As for these scientists, ask them why they think an empirically demonstrable entity wouldn't qualify as "natural."

Science rests upon mathematics, the laws of nature reveal mathematical truths embodied in physical form, all theoretical physicists are to a large extent mathematicians, so I don't see how you can exclude them.

No, these are philosophical statements you are making, not scientific statements. You cannot use science to prove that everything can be explained within the confines of science and its assumptions, for example how can one explain the existence of science using science?

I am not presenting scientific statements though, nor trying to prove science with science. Philosophy of science is a thing.

I don't think that's fair. What if the explanation for some natural thing was found to not be natural? should we stop exploring? should we reject it?

"Found to not be natural" how?

We can return that but for now just pretend we did have a way and we did find something that cannot be explained by recourse to the laws of nature, what should we do?

What's stopping me from just saying "cool, we have a new natural explanation?"

Nothing you could say that if you wanted but what if it was clear it cannot be natural?

Anyway, to answer your question: if there is a non-natural, yet true explanation, then I would accept it as true but unscientific, much like how I treat certain philosophical positions as true but unscientific.

Very well.

But I do not agree that what has been called "science" for centuries ever restricted the scope of explanations. Like I showed you above huge numbers of scientists for centuries all regarded "God" as the explanation for a scientifically structured world even being here.

How is the fact supposed to help support your claim that science has never restricted the scope of explanations? I note that you said "explanation for a scientifically structured world" as opposed to "scientific explanation for a structured world." That sounded a lot like accepting that God is not a scientific explanation.

Yes, God is not a scientific explanation but that does not mean that science cannot reveal God as the explanation, science does have its limitations and we should not be afraid when we encounter these.

But all scientific arguments today are already unscientific! Everything is explained using reductionism, that is the "explained" things are explained in terms of unexplained things and this is unavoidable and we either say this truly goes on for infinity or there is a non-material non-deterministic agency as the source. The infinity belief is unscientific because nothing can ever be explained and the god belief is unscientific because it abandons laws, determinism and so on.

A crude analogy might be Goidel's incompleteness theorems which in essence says there are claims we can make within rule based system the correctness of which cannot be established using only those rules.

Okay, science does all that, but it's not clear what's so unscientific about reductionism or basing explanation on unproven philosophical assumptions.

Reductionism either ends at something that's irreducible or it never ends. If it never ends then there is always something scientifically unexplained at the bottom of the stuff that is "explained". If it reaches something irreducible then again it's not scientifically explained because scientific explanation are always reductionist. So reductionism is fine but it never can really explain anything.

Lets recap my contention here is that the definition of science for most of recorded time has not placed any epistemological restriction on what explanations might arise (go and dig out some definitions form the past). The AAAS definition is trying to pretend that science means the same thing as materialism.

Okay, but where in any of this, did you see people defining or pretending or implying that science is the only source of truth? If it's not there, then why keep telling us that it isn't the only source?

Well materialism means that everything can be expressed as material, forces, laws etc., that is there are no truths other than expressions comprised of material variables. Now, the AAAS insertion "seeking only natural explanations" imposes the burden that only materialist explanations can be sought when pursuing science, I disagree, I see no need to include this it serves no epistemological purpose.

How do you know that every scientist takes that for granted? look at the list I shared earlier, none of those scientists took materialism to be true!

I know they do by how they act, doing experiments in particular. They don't accept materialism as true yet they still committed to materialism.

You cannot be both a creationist and materialist.

I disagree, science is (historically) much more concerned with seeking patterns, establishing laws, discovering mathematical relationships it does not need to assume materialism is true. It is a mode of inquiry where hypotheses are formed, tested and revised.

Forming falsifiable hypotheses and testing them empirically, sounds like materialism to me. You are right about science not needing to assume materialism is true, but you are missing the second half, it needs to follow materialism regardless if it is true or not. As I keep pointing out, you don't have to be a materialist to commit to materialism.

No, materialism means there can only ever be material reasons for what we observe, science does not impose that and never did. Science is a means of inquiry, that it reveals material explanations is true but that does not mean there can be no non-material explanations for things.

Well Newton (and many many others, Galileo etc) all regarded "God" as the explanation for the thing they were unravelling, so I don't think they'd agree that God "played no part in their scientific explanations" God played no part in the material aspects of their explanations...

Why do you think Newton considered God as part of his scientific explanation but not the material aspect (as opposed to God is part of their explanation but not the scientific aspect?)

I never said Newton regarded God as part of a scientific explanation, only that he likely recognized/accepted that science itself, the sum total of material knowledge, cannot itself be explained without God, that God is the reason there is science, laws etc.

IMHO there's no epistemological purposed served by the AAAS addition, it does nothing helpful at all, it is clearly a way of discouraging dissent with respect to evolution, science never needed such language and does not need it today.

It does today because it's under attack.

I'd call the AAAS itself an attack!

[Bust Nak]

That bacteria left to their own devices for several billion years with no human/intelligent input can eventually lead to humans is a hypothesis, this claim has never been tested, it is also unfalsifiable for that reason, I assume you agree with this?

Absolutely not. Unicellular life evolving into human over billion of years is a falsifiable theory, its predictions tested and affirmed over and over again since the 1860's, cementing it as one of the most substantiated theory in science.

There's no way to predict at what point fish would arise from worms for example, there's no law allowing such a calculation.

Not so, we can go by fossil records, morphology and genetics to make predictions and test them.

There's no way to determine if fish could arise from worms given sufficient time, there's no way to show that stasis is not an inevitable result.

Stasis in what sense though? Living fossil are in stasis in the sense that they resemble their ancient, long extinct ancestors. That kind of stasis is consistent with the theory of evolution.

"perpetual motion" and "astrology" are not scientific theories, not branches of science.

Physics and astronomy are branches of science; the laws of thermodynamics and Spherical Earth are (part of) scientific theories. Yes, there was a typo.

Only by those who do not know the definition of "creationism", that the misinformed might misunderstand is not my doing.

That's just one definition out of many, here is another "the belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account, rather than by natural processes such as evolution." Who made you the arbiter of the English language?

In which case there is no consensus, look here and here for example.

Why would these indicate that there is no consensus?

Stop what exactly? what exactly do you think I should stop doing?

Stop perpetuate creationism.

What is that argument then? can you present it here to us?

Sure, the argument is "not falsifiable therefore unscientific."

I think we should also teach kids how to reason and discover things on their own too, more self reliance in how they decide what they believe.

That's fine, kids do basic scientific experiments in primary education. You say "also" here, does this response mean you accept that it is okay to teach science as facts during primary education as to make science easier for children?

Yes of course, anyone who's studied the history of cartography will be well versed in these early and reasonable beliefs.

Ah huh, what about modern day flat Earth arguments?

Focusing "narrowly" is not to be "inconsistent" - do you or don't have a specific example of a true inconsistency?

Okay, it's not just focusing narrowly, but rejecting selected topics while accepting others, where these topics are roughly equally supported.

So you agree, creationists can make perfectly good scientists?

Sure, they can. All they have to do is make a commitment to materialism.

Science rests upon mathematics, the laws of nature reveal mathematical truths embodied in physical form, all theoretical physicists are to a large extent mathematicians, so I don't see how you can exclude them.

If a mathematician is also a scientist (or have relevant link to philosophy of science) then they would be included. I exclude those who are not in the relevant field. Either way, why don't you think an empirically demonstrable entity qualify as "natural?"

Yes, God is not a scientific explanation but that does not mean that science cannot reveal God as the explanation, science does have its limitations and we should not be afraid when we encounter these.

I don't understand the distinction between "X being a scientific explanation" and "science reveals X as the explanation." Sounds like the same thing to me.

Reductionism either ends at something that's irreducible or it never ends. If it never ends then there is always something scientifically unexplained at the bottom of the stuff that is "explained". If it reaches something irreducible then again it's not scientifically explained because scientific explanation are always reductionist. So reductionism is fine but it never can really explain anything.

Okay, but that doesn't really answer my question. I asked you why it's unscientific and here you are just telling me that it never really explain anything. Is that enough to make it unscientific in your book?

Well materialism means that everything can be expressed as material, forces, laws etc., that is there are no truths other than expressions comprised of material variables.

That's one definition of materialism. Here is another: "acquiring knowledge of how the universe function based on what we can observe, test, replicate and verify."

Now, the AAAS insertion "seeking only natural explanations" imposes the burden that only materialist explanations can be sought when pursuing science, I disagree, I see no need to include this it serves no epistemological purpose.

But what's the harm in adding it though? Earlier you suggested that it implies that there can't be non-material explanations, which I have addressed. Is that the only reason?

You cannot be both a creationist and materialist.

Okay but you can be a creationist and commit to materialism, as defined by me above. (As an aside, why can't there be some sort of creator god that can be reduced to energy and matter?)

No, materialism means there can only ever be material reasons for what we observe, science does not impose that and never did.

Not according to the definition I provided. The one I used means that science reveals material explanations but does not mean there cannot be any non-material explanations.

I never said Newton regarded God as part of a scientific explanation, only that he likely recognized/accepted that science itself, the sum total of material knowledge, cannot itself be explained without God, that God is the reason there is science, laws etc.

Great, so why did you think Newton hadn't made a commitment to materialism, given that he has only appealed to the material in his scientific explanations?

I'd call the AAAS itself an attack!

Same as above, how is adding "seeking only natural explanations" an attack?

[Sherlock Holmes]

That bacteria left to their own devices for several billion years with no human/intelligent input can eventually lead to humans is a hypothesis, this claim has never been tested, it is also unfalsifiable for that reason, I assume you agree with this?

Absolutely not. Unicellular life evolving into human over billion of years is a falsifiable theory, its predictions tested and affirmed over and over again since the 1860's, cementing it as one of the most substantiated theory in science.

There's no way to predict at what point fish would arise from worms for example, there's no law allowing such a calculation.

Not so, we can go by fossil records, morphology and genetics to make predictions and test them.

There's no way to determine if fish could arise from worms given sufficient time, there's no way to show that stasis is not an inevitable result.

Stasis in what sense though? Living fossil are in stasis in the sense that they resemble their ancient, long extinct ancestors. That kind of stasis is consistent with the theory of evolution.

"perpetual motion" and "astrology" are not scientific theories, not branches of science.

Physics and astronomy are branches of science; the laws of thermodynamics and Spherical Earth are (part of) scientific theories. Yes, there was a typo.

Only by those who do not know the definition of "creationism", that the misinformed might misunderstand is not my doing.

That's just one definition out of many, here is another "the belief that the universe and living organisms originate from specific acts of divine creation, as in the biblical account, rather than by natural processes such as evolution." Who made you the arbiter of the English language?

In which case there is no consensus, look here and here for example.

Why would these indicate that there is no consensus?

Stop what exactly? what exactly do you think I should stop doing?

Stop perpetuate creationism.

What is that argument then? can you present it here to us?

Sure, the argument is "not falsifiable therefore unscientific."

I think we should also teach kids how to reason and discover things on their own too, more self reliance in how they decide what they believe.

That's fine, kids do basic scientific experiments in primary education. You say "also" here, does this response mean you accept that it is okay to teach science as facts during primary education as to make science easier for children?

Yes of course, anyone who's studied the history of cartography will be well versed in these early and reasonable beliefs.

Ah huh, what about modern day flat Earth arguments?

Focusing "narrowly" is not to be "inconsistent" - do you or don't have a specific example of a true inconsistency?

Okay, it's not just focusing narrowly, but rejecting selected topics while accepting others, where these topics are roughly equally supported.

So you agree, creationists can make perfectly good scientists?

Sure, they can. All they have to do is make a commitment to materialism.

Science rests upon mathematics, the laws of nature reveal mathematical truths embodied in physical form, all theoretical physicists are to a large extent mathematicians, so I don't see how you can exclude them.

If a mathematician is also a scientist (or have relevant link to philosophy of science) then they would be included. I exclude those who are not in the relevant field. Either way, why don't you think an empirically demonstrable entity qualify as "natural?"

Yes, God is not a scientific explanation but that does not mean that science cannot reveal God as the explanation, science does have its limitations and we should not be afraid when we encounter these.

I don't understand the distinction between "X being a scientific explanation" and "science reveals X as the explanation." Sounds like the same thing to me.

Reductionism either ends at something that's irreducible or it never ends. If it never ends then there is always something scientifically unexplained at the bottom of the stuff that is "explained". If it reaches something irreducible then again it's not scientifically explained because scientific explanation are always reductionist. So reductionism is fine but it never can really explain anything.

Okay, but that doesn't really answer my question. I asked you why it's unscientific and here you are just telling me that it never really explain anything. Is that enough to make it unscientific in your book?

Well materialism means that everything can be expressed as material, forces, laws etc., that is there are no truths other than expressions comprised of material variables.

That's one definition of materialism. Here is another: "acquiring knowledge of how the universe function based on what we can observe, test, replicate and verify."

Now, the AAAS insertion "seeking only natural explanations" imposes the burden that only materialist explanations can be sought when pursuing science, I disagree, I see no need to include this it serves no epistemological purpose.

But what's the harm in adding it though? Earlier you suggested that it implies that there can't be non-material explanations, which I have addressed. Is that the only reason?

You cannot be both a creationist and materialist.

Okay but you can be a creationist and commit to materialism, as defined by me above. (As an aside, why can't there be some sort of creator god that can be reduced to energy and matter?)

No, materialism means there can only ever be material reasons for what we observe, science does not impose that and never did.

Not according to the definition I provided. The one I used means that science reveals material explanations but does not mean there cannot be any non-material explanations.

I never said Newton regarded God as part of a scientific explanation, only that he likely recognized/accepted that science itself, the sum total of material knowledge, cannot itself be explained without God, that God is the reason there is science, laws etc.

Great, so why did you think Newton hadn't made a commitment to materialism, given that he has only appealed to the material in his scientific explanations?

I'd call the AAAS itself an attack!

Same as above, how is adding "seeking only natural explanations" an attack?

Consider:



If I connect some of the dots to end up with a wire outline of a car, does that justify the claim that the original set of dots was trace evidence of a genuine prior image of car and not something else entirely?

How can we distinguish between that claim and the claim we have a large number of disconnected dots and we merely chose to interpret it as traces of an image of a car?

How can we show that the relationships between the dots we choose to connect represent actual historic relationships?