Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [RELIGION] creation myths

[Stephen Montgomery-Smith <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Mike Miller wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Dec 2005, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
>
> > But I really feel that you have ducked the main question.
> >
> > How is it that we really rigorously know that the scientific method is 
> > going to work?
>
>
>
> Work?  Work in order to accomplish what end?
>
> It is not possible to prove things about the real world.  Proof exists 
> only in human-generated domains of logic and mathematics.  Science can't 
> prove things in that sense, but neither can anything else.  I'm not 
> saying that you have to have "faith" in anything.  What I'm saying is 
> that there are matters of degree in "knowing" or "believing," and these 
> degrees of knowing/believing are based on *evidence.* Science is all 
> about evidence -- how to design studies or experiments to collect better 
> evidence, how to evaluate evidence, how to contrast the evidentiary 
> support for various theories, etc.  I would use the term "scientific" to 
> refer to any approach to systematic collection of evidence or any valid 
> method for using evidence to compare hypotheses or theories.
>
> Science works by eliminating ideas that are contradicted by strong 
> evidence.  It moves us forward by clearing away the bad ideas.
>
> Science does not work by proving anything to an absolute certainty.
>
> It seems to me that alternatives to science are all nonsense.  One 
> example is to simply believe something because you like it and to ignore 
> evidence. That approach is called "faith."  Faith doesn't move us 
> forward in knowledge or technology because it is fixed and it cannot 
> adapt in the face of evidence.
>
> Mike

Alright, I think this is good.

Let me try to paraphrase what you have said into my own words.  I am 
going to slightly distort the meaning of what you have said, but not 
much, and maybe you will agree with my version as well.

The way we determine what is "true" or "false" is to make our best 
effort to fit an explanation to our experiences (the evidence).  There 
is nothing we can know with real certainty - as your quote from Bertrand 
Russell put it, for all we know we have only existed for five minutes 
and our memories are simply illusions.

But it makes no sense to live life in this Russellian fashion.  We have 
to eek out the life we have, and so it makes sense to make basic 
assumptions, like our memories are reasonably correct, our minds work in 
a reasonably logical fashion, and what we experience with our senses 
corrolates reasonably well with the reality that exists outside of 
ourselves.



It is from this perspective that I became a Christian.  The scientific 
method follows this approach, but ultimately can only determine certain 
facts that occur in a systematic or universal fashion.

But if someone like me has had certain experiences that cannot be 
communicated in a systematic or universal fashion to the satisfaction of 
his listeners, does that make his experience any less valid?

--

Stephen Montgomery-Smith
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://www.math.missouri.edu/~stephen

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