|
|
|
|
ktesibios
SFN Regular
USA
505 Posts |
 Posted - 07/07/2002 : 20:51:41
|
So, the "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense" has made it over to netslaves.com. I was reading that thread when I ran across another version of the "only a theory" remark, which always makes me see red from a fella who had previously hit the same theme by claiming that our state of knowledge 100 years ago had been invalidated by progress.
I got P.O.'ed enough to try a response, and I thought I'd share it all with the gang, so that you all can have some fun finding the flaws in my thinking and writing:
quote:
u******r said:
What does this have to do with anything? My point was that for all our supposed scientific wisdom we still do not understand the fundamental forces of our environment. Everything we know is just a theory. Every 50 years or so these theories get blown out of the water by some new theory. So to suggest that creationism can be dismissed by science seems a bit premature.
Kindly stop confusing the meaning of "theory" in the vernacular with the meaning of "theory" as it's used in science.
Also, to flit back to one of your previous posts, exactly how has all the knowledge we had in 1902 been "blown away"? Just thinking of a few examples, orbital mechanics seems to have survived, with a few little tweaks from relativity- and it was based on math from the 17th century.
Electrical science? The differential equations which describe the behavior of resistance, reactance, voltage and current are just as valid today as they were in 1902, even though the electron as charge carrier was unknown during most of the history of humanity's investigation of electromagnetism. E= L*di/dt + I*dL/dt remains demonstrably true irrespective of what mental model of voltage, current and inductance you use to visualize the invisible. In fact, the discovery of the electron didn't "blow away" exisiting electrical theory- it added to and expanded it. Circuit analysis works just as well whether you use conventional current flow or electron current flow. Maxwell's mathematical description of electromagnetic fields is still finding application despite having been worked out in the 19th century and despite his idea of a "luminiferous aether" having been disproved. The descriptive and predictive power of his equations remains even though the conceptual model doesn't.
Relativity didn't "blow away" Newtonian mechanics- it provided a more general model of which the Newtonian view is a special case applying accurately to relatively low velocities and weak gravities- and it provided a theoretical basis for Newton's law of universal gravitation (NB: a law describes but does not explain; a theory explains).
Sometimes hypotheses and theories have to be abandoned; this happens to new ideas as well as old ones, if they don't stand the test of having their predictions verified against reality.
But to think of science as an edifice which is destroyed and rebuilt from scratch every fifty years or so is a fallacy.
The evolutionary model of the history of living things has, unlike the creationist model, been painstakingly framed by people who were not seeking to support a politico-religious preconception but seeking a coherent framework for understanding a set of observations of the real world. Like most of the rooms in the house of science, it will very likely undergo some interior changes- the rug might be replaced with a more durable one, the lighting might be improved, the windows made to open more smoothly- but the room itself, which is tied to and draws structural support from the entire building, isn't likely to disappear.
"All things foul and ugly, All creatures short and squat. Putrid, foul and gangrenous, the Lord God made the lot." -Monty Python
|
|
|
@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
 Posted - 07/07/2002 : 21:52:18 [Permalink]
|
Hey, this would be a cool thing to stick in our Creation/Evolution section. Even the title should make it easy to find and it is something i have been thinking about for some time. This needs to be addressed and packaged in an easy to understand way and placed so that everyone can find it. let me know if you would like to see it in there.
Thanks
 @tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
 |
|
|
Rift
Skeptic Friend
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2002 : 08:49:06 [Permalink]
|
Good job, Ktes... I really like the "house of science" analogy. :) I'll have to steal it some time...
I think the "just a theory" thing is the most aggravating argument there is too. The bad thing is most scientists, me included, have no problem switching from the vernacular use to the scientific use. I've started to try to be more careful about it, but we're apparently more able to tell by context which meaning is meant then these morons...
"Ignorance has caused more calamity then malignity" H.G. Wells |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
