Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 08:24:38 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Joshua Lee <yid@softhome.net>, <dave@jetcafe.org>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020907081044.U44831-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <3D79A471.FA17DAF6@mindspring.com>
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On Sat, 7 Sep 2002, Terry Lambert wrote: > "Neal E. Westfall" wrote: > > Who is second-guessing the scientific method? I happen to think it works > > quite well, when allowed to truly work. Problem with evolution is that, > > almost 150 years later, it is no more closer to being empirically verified > > than it was in 1859. So lets drop it and get on with something else > > already. > > The scientific method never verifies, it only falsifies, so asking > that something be empirically verified, whether it be the old theory > of evolution, the current theory of puctuated equilibria, or that > gravity is related to the curvature of space, is asking for the > impossible. Science can only demonstrate the invalidity of ideas, > not their validity. Okay, then lets stop pretending that creation is "unscientific" while evolution is "scientific". Neither one of them can be falsified, so either *both* of them are scientific, or neither of them are. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you claim an explanation must also be "naturalistic", I charge you with providing a justification for such arbitrariness. > > Actually you have that exactly backwards. It is my brand of protestantism > > that made the constitution possible. 8-) > > ??? > > FWIW: Most of "the founding fathers" were Deists. Protestants > were a monority for a very long time. False. Of the 55 writers and signers of the Constitution, 29 were anglicans, 16-18 were calvinists, 2 were methodists, 2 were lutherans, 2 were roman catholic, 1 was a quaker, and there was only 1 open Deist (Ben Franklin) who himself attended practically every kind of Christian worship. The constitution was based on the model of state constitutions, which were in turn based on the presbyterian form of church government. Try again. > > And you are making assumptions again. I do not expect Christianity to > > be taught in public schools. I just don't want evolution dogmatically > > taught as "the truth" when there are other explanations that better > > account for the data. Is that too much to ask for? > > Science never teaches anything as "the truth"; although teachers > who don't understand science might do that, it's a corruption of > the process for them to do so. What science teaches is *theory*, > stories which explain empirical observations. The stories science > tells are just that -- stories. Science is an art critic, if it > is anything, in that it prefers simple stories to complex ones. I don't know if you realize it or not, but here in California if you try to teach a theory of origins other than evolution, you *will* be fired. So what happended to all the "open-minded" attitudes and academic freedom? Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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