Debate:Can the science of evolution be separated from the philosophy of it?

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Some people say that the science of Evolution can be researched and studied without getting into any philosophical, metaphysical or religious issues. Others say that both research and study are too closely connected with other issues to be dealt with separately. Which is right, and why?

YES

yeah, it's a theory that says that we share a common ancestor and you can make scientific predictions from this, such as that we should share a great deal of DNA with closely related species. It makes no philosophical predictions.

That isn't the question, but in any event you have a larger problem: you cannot show that we would share any less DNA with any closely related species apart from evolution. Whether by chance or by design, the DNA sharing ratio might be the same, for this reason: when you've got something that works, you tend to use it again and again wherever you can. Why should that be any different for various forms of life from how it is for the machines that we build?

Therefore, even if you have a lot of shared DNA, you have not falsified creation or intelligent design if those two theories predict the same phenomenon. In order to falsify any given theory, you have to find something that it predicts that does not come to pass.--TerryH^Talk 14:55, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

I agree. It would be like arguing the philosophical implications of the fact that lithium reacts exothermically with water at standard temperature and pressure to form aqueous lithium hydroxide and hydrogen gas. (This is an unholy mating of two things, neither of which is a man or woman! Do we really want to teach our children about these things?!) Nrupert 13:55, 11 December 2008 (EST)

Philosophy underpins your theory of everything

The Theory of Evolution—and more particularly the paradigm of methodological naturalism of which it is a key pillar—is part and parcel of a philosophical movement. Therefore, one cannot separate the two.

Science has never truly been value-free. One's values, and one's worldview, inform one's interpretation of the data. Only the most obviously inexplicable findings (like, for example, the phases of Venus) can ever topple a widely-held worldview, and usually that toppling produces social upheavals that are almost seismic.

If, therefore, you want to believe that man is a close cousin to the great apes and has no higher purpose to serve than his own temporary existence, then the Theory of Evolution is for you.

If, on the other hand, you accept the idea that God created man in His own image and likeness, and gave man a definite purpose, then creationism is for you.

Now as it happens, the paradigm of methodological naturalism, that includes uniformitarianism, abiogenesis, and "common descent" (which is what the Theory of Evolution is all about), is already racking up a lot of "Phases of Venus" moments. I have documented several in my Solar System edits over the last few months. This while the creation paradigm is now producing models with definite predictive value.

But in order to understand creationism fully, you have to come to philosophical terms with it. Edwin Hubble refused to come to terms with the thought that our galaxy is at the center of the universe, and for that reason created a cosmology that says that the universe has no center. He had absolutely no warrant in his observations or in the laws of physics for that action. And he knew it, too, as John Hartnett clearly documents in his latest work, Starlight, Time and the New Physics. He defended his anti-centrism purely on philosophical grounds. Now if a man like Edwin Hubble couldn't get away from philosophy, what makes you think you can?--TerryH^Talk 08:56, 24 May 2008 (EDT)