From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Aug 29 19:33:19 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD71F37B400 for ; Thu, 29 Aug 2002 19:33:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from directvinternet.com (dsl-65-185-140-165.telocity.com [65.185.140.165]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5553E43E9C for ; Thu, 29 Aug 2002 19:33:16 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nwestfal@directvinternet.com) Received: from Tolstoy.home.lan (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by directvinternet.com (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id g7U2XCGd037578; Thu, 29 Aug 2002 19:33:12 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nwestfal@directvinternet.com) Received: from localhost (nwestfal@localhost) by Tolstoy.home.lan (8.12.5/8.12.5/Submit) with ESMTP id g7U2XBnZ037575; Thu, 29 Aug 2002 19:33:12 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: Tolstoy.home.lan: nwestfal owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 19:33:11 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" X-X-Sender: nwestfal@Tolstoy.home.lan To: Terry Lambert Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? In-Reply-To: <3D6EA0D1.BC94AE8D@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <20020829191145.E37029-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Terry Lambert wrote: > "Neal E. Westfall" wrote: > > > One's definition of many words is governed by that. That won't > > > make them into the consensus definition. > > > > On the other hand, the question arises, what makes the consensus > > definition correct? > > The inability to communicate otherwise. 8-). Okay. > > > [ ... "Creation Science" ... ] > > > is not actually a science, because it violates the first principles > > > of science. > > > > Correction: it violates the first principles of science as defined by > > naturalists, not science as defined by creationists. See, it's all > > worldviews. Contrast "evolutionary" science with "creation" science. > > Why does one qualify as "science" while the other does not? Do they > > not both bring philosophical baggage to the table? Is it even possible > > to step outside one's worldview to evaluate the evidence? Is not the > > way one evaluates the evidence conditioned by one's philosophical > > prejudices? Is there some independent criteria for judging between > > the two that is not arbitrary? > > Yes. Starting from first principles, can you build a working > light bulb? Seems a bit arbitrary to me, besides the fact that both are likely to claim to be able to do this. However, let's talk about those first principles. What if the reason that both can build useful things such as lightbulbs is that one of the two options is relying on concepts which only make sense given the other's worldview, and in fact is borrowing those concepts from that other worldview? Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message