http://www.economist.com/world/na/displ ... id=9261747

i and a buddy of mine from my course found it amusing, my other friend Alex found it nauseating.

... your opinions?

... i personally think the place should and/or will be considered a source of shame by both religion and science, but the quote at the end was just brilliant. I'm inclined to argue that the world needs more stuff like this, purely so i can laugh at it. though possibly that money could be better spent on... iunno... re-educating those people who believe that scripture and science should be mixed.

Mathematical interpretation and observation of the physical world shouldn't be mixed.

Specific canonical text and personal faith shouldn't be mixed.

Yes clearly some people want to mix scripture and science too.

The problem is that THEY are the ones who don’t know how to mix. Expression of THEIR belief "should be...a source of shame" "purely so I can laugh at it".

Because in the words of the great Kripke about philosophical theories including those theories that justify the action of “re-educating those people who believe that scripture and science should be mixed"…

Well, I’ve said too much already.

^_^

and here was me thinking you hated that quote.

you've turned around =D

it's nice to know we agree, actually.

(and the justification for re-education of those who seek to mangle two creeds? is pragmatic, not philosophical; it reduces tensions. tensions are bad for scientific progress and the survival of faith at the hands of those who mix and mangle considerations such as text/personal faith, though one could ask if the two are even distinct, since most faiths involve texts. i'm not taking a standpoint, just saying it's an interesting question. Kripke's quote = unapplicable. not all thought, after all, is 'philosophy', not all considerations 'philosophical'. any 'line in the sand' distinction between mathematical 'a priori' truth and empirical observation is possibly ignorant of the decidedly blurred issues such attempts at distinction present. after all, how does one learn to count, apply concepts to numbers so as to apply to syntax, etc. *shrug* and stuff. but that's just fact bastardised by opinion, think of it what you will.)

I think it's a good idea. It's simply presenting another view of how we got here, nothing wrong with that. And as for mixing religion with science, what's the big deal? Religion offer's a plausible theory for how we got here, so why not include it as a valid theory?

When we try to guess where we came from, since we really don't have a hard, solid evidence that could point us in any one direction, any theory that is even remotely intelligent is considerable.

I didn’t actually state a quote or say that I agreed with a quote, I merely said, “in the words of the great Kripke…â€

@Phoenix - iunno... i personally don't consider the Creation Museum's treatment of the debate concerning the origins of everything to be intelligent, as much as i consider it to be engendering all kinds of presumptions.

"It is likely that God brought young adults. Being smaller, they would be easier to care for."

^ has no place in scientific method or practice, which is basically what delineates science and non-science. so it's not really a merge between science and religion, it's psuedo-science and religion. is that ok?

imo it's neither science, nor religion; it's a horrific chimera. 'real' scientists will be ashamed of it (and Bo, i never said I would be, or that those who believe what the creation museum should be ashamed. i said that scientists would be, just like my friend Alex who studies Physics and has a well-defined set of beliefs regarding what should and shouldn't be done... a set of rules of fair play, basically. he considered this museum a travesty. and i am not particularly respectful for science. so yeah... guess i was insufficiently clear. also, you were on your part perhaps... just a tad ambiguous in your reference to Kripke? just a thought.)

Your last response doesn’t seem to be fully consistent with the above.



If I understand you correctly, my ambiguity was for the sake of time. We discussed before Kripke’s “all theories are wrongâ€

Why would a non-pseudo scientist care about this museum?
Why would a truly faithful Christian care about this museum?

the problem is in presentation. it's being presented as science when it isn't, it's trying to rationalise faith in a way that basically conforms only to the nature of the faith of a select group of christians.

that really is objectionable. that is why i believe and see scientists and christians caring about this; because it is putting itself forward as coherent with their faith and their science, when it is not. it is because it misrepresents them so shamelessly that it would be a source of shame.

i don't laugh at their beliefs. i laugh at this whole damned thing, Creationism is such a horrible mess. not the doctrine of creationism, the debate over it. it's almost as bad as the way genuine and psuedo-science theories concerning the environment are able to mingle.

but of course there's no way to stop those creationist views being expressed as scientific ones.

i believe that people who are prepared to mix opposing doctrines in such a fashion, in order to strengthen a belief in God, are in need of further education. not conversion to another belief system. just to an awareness that Hume made a good point when he argued that;



1) even if beliefs are psuedo, then, it probably means nothing more than a lot of people are taking philosophy too seriously. though that said, most of the philosophers i've met, the real ones... they... heh. they were more having fun, than taking things as true. playing the 'is this one defensible' game.

so the psuedo/non psuedo properties of beliefs may not make much difference, to me anyway. that's the reason i can laugh at this debate.


2) people, such as Alex who i mentioned, and my mum (a Roman Catholic who teaches RE) are genuinely sickened by creationism. purely because it bastardises two doctrines, and then tries for force a reconciliation between them on it's terms. in doing so, creationism is essentially telling both the non-creationist religious person and the believer in evolution that they are effectively mistaken, in not upholding creationist beliefs. but creationism is itself not science. and in it's reliance on facts to form 'belief', many religious people believe it to be dissociated from faith. Like Hume said in On Miracles (google it, it's an interesting read), you can't 'prove' faith justified through reasoning. it doesn't work.

and i'm inclined to agree, with all of those who dislike creationism for those reasons.

any clearer this time? ^^;; sorry if not.

Everyones perseption of religion is different.
Maybe its what some people believe in.

Hehe, ^___^ I like that one. V Polite.

but hey, why not non-secular museams?

heh... it's not really debating their right to believe what they choose to. you can't really (imo) argue that, and if i've expressed myself clearly i have at no point tried to.

I suspect that what annoys the people i've spoken of and amuses me is that it presents 'non-science' of a particularly laughable kind as science. St George vs. T Rex, anyone?

Unless this quote was directed at someone else, I never said people should be ashamed at what they believe. If someone feels evolution is a more plausible explanation for our origins then by all means, they should be allowed to beleive in that. Conversely, if someone wants to believe a God created us, then by all means, they should be able to believe that.

My perspective on all of this is that the Creation museum Is only offering it's view on our origin. If you mix two things together, it's clearly not the same thing anymore. If a person mixes science with religion, then it's a new thing entirely, and if they view that new thing as being true, then they should have every right to believe it.

If I felt that we were created by aliens who died off and left us here, I should have every right to go off and found a museum with stuff in it that would support that theory. If people want to come by, look at it, laugh and say it's a bunch of bull, let them. Same thing goes for this, if people think it's silly, then they can laugh at it, but it still deserves to exist.

@phoenix
My previous quote was directed to regal. Sorry for the confusion. I agree with you in general.



@Regal
I'll restate a rephrased version of my question.

Do you consider Christianity to be a compromised mix (a pseudo version) of Judaism and Paganism, with a pinch of historical record.

Would there be a Regal back in the day saying, "you can't mix Judaism with Paganism! We insist on purity! After all, this pseudo-Judaism (Christianity) is not THE Judaism as Jesus the Nazarene is not the messiah.â€

*sigh*

i'm not telling people what to and not to believe, instead i'm asking where you stand in this debate.

as i have said before, it's scientists believing that Creationism should not be sold as science (as it is being), that is objectionable. now, it's an interesting question as to who gets to decide the criteria for a thing being scientific. consider reading some Popper, Kuhn and/or Lakatos for some interesting viewpoints here.

science is not 'primarily a philosophy', or at least, neither scientists nor philosophers believe that (those with academic places and nobel prizes, if you want criteria. also myself who does philosophy, and my housemate Alex, who does physics =P). you might, but you'd be in the vast minority. there is instead the 'philosophy of science'. while the sciences are descended from what could loosely be termed philosophical thought, that's like saying that because we're descended from ameoba, we ARE ameoba. on the contrary, like science, we are exceedingly complicated (and often self-contradictory).

if christianity had been advertised as judaism, or as paganism, your analogy would have a point. it wasn't, so i fail to see what you're gesturing at. you might want to try considering Tarot, paganism and science, it's a closer example and would better support your argument, because Tarot often IS portrayed as scientific.

i'd agree that it's tricky to set parameters. but i was more interested in why BOTH the scientific and the religious will often rise up in arms over Creationism.

any ideas?

You said in your first post things like you personally think that science and religion should find the museum to be a source of shame. That means that you are taking a personal stand both regarding what is properly scientifically and religious. You also indicated that money would be better spent reeducating those who think scripture and science should be mixed. I guess we can agree to disagree with your comment above.





From Wikipedia:

Science:
In the broadest sense, science (from the Latin scientia, 'knowledge') refers to any systematic methodology which attempts to collect accurate information about the shared reality and to model this in a way which can be used to make reliable, concrete and quantitative predictions about events, in line with hypotheses proven by experiment.

Methodolgy:
Methodology refers to more than a simple set of methods; rather it refers to the rationale and the philosophical assumptions that underlie a particular study.



I mostly disagree with your comment about the opinion of philosophers if it is regarding their philosophical opinion rather than their personal preference.
I agree with your comment about the opinion of scientists but I already addressed that.
I don’t care too much about meritocracy in endeavors where argumentation as opposed to knowledge is of critical value.
I also “doâ€

nah, i said that if science and religion are acting consistently with the way i have observed them to act in similar cases, then they'd find the C.M a source of shame. no personal position required.

mhmm. the rationale and methodological assumptions are questions raised within philosophy. that means that a branch of philosophy concerns itself with science. not that science is a branch of philosophy. I'd be inclined to consider that a mistake in applying the entailment.

a degree in philosophy doesn't make me an expert in the field of biology. fortunately, we're not exactly in that field here. we're purely talking about the presentation of belief systems, and you seem to want to introduce philosophy. does a degree in biology render you an expert in philosophy?

...i'm not trading qualifications with you, though. i refuse to start arguing that you 'don't know philosophy' because you don't have the right degree, because when it gets down to it, i believe i 'don't know' philosophy either. my reference to me and Alex doing science and philosophy was purely a joke. did you get it, or should i maybe take this as another reminder to curb my sense of humour within debate in future?

IM(fairly commonly held in the PofSci)O, the body of science is a collection of theories, and a collection of unified methodologies. Primarily.

i'd say that you can call the new belief A, or B, even if it's a hybrid of both. even if it more resembles B, you can call it A. YOU can call it anything you want. just don't expect the people who hold A or B to agree with you. that is my point; 'if you want them to stop harrassing you, get yourself a new name.'

i'm not convinced, actually, that the scientists (or more accurately, those who operate within the PofSci) can find the criteria, though they have had a decent go at it, and many scientists seem to almost be operating as though the criteria are somehow written in stone. i suppose that if you seek after knowledge, you have to take your starting point to be at least reasonably useful to that end.

but, i'd basically agree with you. the negative reaction i generally see to creationism is essentially grounded in a dogmatism that is... at the very least, unhelpful.

I still maintain that science is primarily a philosophy. From that point of view, “philosophy of scienceâ€

heh... i'd disagree. with the idea of tests to establish the scientific status of a method, you're applying concepts developed in the philosophy of science. but to me, saying that that means science is a philosophy is like saying that a qualification in automobile engineering qualifies one to drive a car. furthermore, science is made of both methods and theories. if you can explain how individual scientific theories are anything more than in passing philosophical, i might be slightly more persuaded. i doubt that such can be done, however; how can you call what Kuhn refers to as 'normal science', the process of supporting and entrenching one's paradigm through laborious grunt work, philosophical?

unified by coherence. it's a tricky subject, you must already know that the main issue within Phil of Sci is that these criteria seem to work in a rather bizarre way. if at all. the field essentially exists for methodological questions, to a large extent.

the idea is that they have all been taught how to be physicists; how to operate by methods which are referred to as scientific. the criteria for them being qualified is that there is an overall opinion within scientific communities as to what correct scientific methodology is. you can see it in peer review processes. how would they be possible without shared understandings of correct method?

it's not that what they know about their field qualifies them. it's that they are in accord with the rest of their community. students of science are taught a body of information which informs them essentially by induction as to the kind of information that is and isn't scientific, in the same way that the body of scientific knowledge is scientific.

that is how i'd argue that just by learning evolutionary biology or theoretical physics, one is shown also what scientific fact should and shouldn't be. corroboration, for instance.

look at St George vs. T-Rex. i don't see any corroboration there, do you? it's one of the reasons i've heard cited for the invalidity of the 'science' presented by the Creation Museum.

and just as you can argue that the biologist is biased, it makes equal sense (if not more, in a world where every scientist is peer-reviewing most of the others through journals) to ask why we should be assuming bias, anyway? Any respectable scientist who displays biases which the entire community does not display is going to be considered unprofessional. who'd take the risk of such discredit in the community? scientists run on money just like everyone else, after all.

since the philosopher doesn't really know much, or at least can't show much, i'm not really sure how much of a place he even has at the table during this debate. at least the scientists know that they believe something, and have an at least moderately unified point of view (unified, i say again, because the scientific community is just that; a community). Every philosopher spends his time arguing with every other philosopher, forming alliances on very specific terms and within certain grounds. no real unity. no real voice.

just thinking aloud, there are possibly some faults in there somewhere. i'm interested to know what you make of it.

@Regal

Sorry that this response has taken so long.

An object is not science, it is an object.

Measuring an object is not science, it is measuring an object.

Measuring an object and forming a hypothesis is not science, it is measuring an object and forming a hypothesis.

Measuring an object and forming a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, and repeating the test, is likely science in that it fits the criteria of the scientific method.

The scientific method, however, is nothing more than set of individual steps. I maintain that that science is primarily philosophical because one has to agree (philosophically) that this set of steps has theoretical significance, otherwise the individual results of each test (i.e., measuring, hypothesizing, experimenting) are not part of a coherent framework to extrapolate meaning.

You could still effect the world through feedback, but to UNDERSTAND how you are effecting the world SCIENTIFICALLY requires you to subscribe to the philosophical implications of the importance of unifying each individual step of the scientific method.

As far as peers go, peer review is significant, but it is constrained to canonical limits. While one might argue an implication from a result with another peer, peers do not have the power to rewrite the scientific method as they will always be referred to inconsistency with the ‘science’ of their common education which led them to be worthy of the designation, ‘peer’.

So if one wants to expand on the meaning of ‘scientific’, a ‘peer’ can argue that this new meaning is inconsistent with the peer review, but the only reason that the peer maintains what he/she does is because if he/she didn’t, another peer would say he/she is inconsistent with peer review, unless they are referring to the philosophical merit of the scientific method, which is what peer review is ultimately or fundamentally about, even if it is not obvious in the immediate sense.


Even if I cannot persuade you with the above, I would like to understand how you resolve the issue regarding the proper designation of ‘peer’ in the following example:

An applied physics demonstration can show a ball role down a track at an initial starting position and start time. At the same time, another ball can be dropped above a point, and by knowing all the initial conditions of mass, distance, force of gravity, etc. one can mathematically predict that the balls will collide at a given position. This is calculated, observed, repeated, etc.

Now in a second example, one can find a primate skull in one place, find a second primate skull in a different place, and observe the evolution of actual species of flies, as well as provide a reason why evolution ‘makes sense’ with what tends to be witnessed biologically in a modern species. The difference is that (in this example) there is no mathematical framework per se, only a conceptual one that is not much more than speculation, there is no ability to demonstrate observably that the hypothesis that the species of the first skull evolved into the species of the second skull unless you start with the notion that you can rely on the evolution of flies to indicate that the evolution of these skull species must have happened (yet you can never observe it in the way you can observe the balls colliding at a point, let alone a mathematically predicted point), and lastly you can never repeat a test to see whether these first skull species evolved into a second skull species.

If the ‘peer’ is as good as the scientific criteria, then to me, the applied physicist and the evolutionary biologists are NOT properly considered peers. If the ‘peer’ is discipline dependent, then an applied physicist cannot tell en evolutionary biologist what is properly ‘scientific’ within the evolutionary biological discipline. If that is the case, however, how can the evolutionary biologist tell the creationist what is scientific within the creationist discipline?

Enough said...

On a more serious level, I completely agree with Regal.