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Talk:Falsifiability of Creation (view source)
Revision as of 15:09, October 26, 2008
, 15:09, October 26, 2008no edit summary
: Yes, history does to a fair extent follow the scientific method, but only up to a point. It relies to a large extent on ancient documents, and historians have to make value judgments on the reliability of those documents. There's few opportunities to do scientific tests in cases like that. Sure, one can put the stone tablet under a microscope or test its chemical composition to determine that it is authentic, or that it came from a certain culture, or whatever, but what sort of scientific tests does one run on the content of the writing? But then you admit that "testing these hypotheses becomes difficult to impossible", which is another way of saying that they are not really falsifiable, which means that they don't really qualify as science. As for evolution being tested in different ways, what I recall you saying in that other discussion is that evolution is "tested" by how ''plausible'' it is, which is different from testing whether or not it's correct.
: Yes, history does to a fair extent follow the scientific method, but only up to a point. It relies to a large extent on ancient documents, and historians have to make value judgments on the reliability of those documents. There's few opportunities to do scientific tests in cases like that. Sure, one can put the stone tablet under a microscope or test its chemical composition to determine that it is authentic, or that it came from a certain culture, or whatever, but what sort of scientific tests does one run on the content of the writing? But then you admit that "testing these hypotheses becomes difficult to impossible", which is another way of saying that they are not really falsifiable, which means that they don't really qualify as science. As for evolution being tested in different ways, what I recall you saying in that other discussion is that evolution is "tested" by how ''plausible'' it is, which is different from testing whether or not it's correct.
: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 10:10, 26 October 2008 (EDT)
: [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 10:10, 26 October 2008 (EDT)
You raise a number of very good points, and as I have exhausted my rather slim technical knowledge (as opposed to personal knowledge) of the Bible, I would be foolish to try and continue. I have been taught and have come to agree with the idea that the creation stories are meant to be taken figuratively. Others have been taught and have come to agree with other perspectives, and that is fine.
You do mention the importance of placing something in context, and I would argue that the Bible must itself be placed in an historical context. Even if you accept the Bible as the literal word of God, then we still have the idea that He was speaking to people of a different time and place. Times have obviously changed, and although Truth hasn't, I think it may be possible (not certain, only possible) that He would tell us Truth in a different way nowadays.
One last thing that's somewhat related: all science is tested by plausibility. However, plausibility is not something which is determined by how logical an idea sounds. Its plausibility is determined in many controlled experiments, and it is judged plausible if the effects match the expected results 95% or more of the time. That's a lot of uncertainty, which is why science is contstantly reworking past ideas...we don't like uncertainty, but we have to deal with it.
I truly enjoy debating with you, Mr. Rayment, as your thoughts are always well-reasoned and thought-out, but I am afraid "real-world" matters will be occupying my time for a while. Hopefully, I will soon be able to continue, and I look forward to it.--[[User:Thinker|Thinker]] 11:09, 26 October 2008 (EDT)