The evolution of science

[Jbuza]

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[August]

How could reason, logic and science have evolved, aren't they immaterial?

[Jbuza]

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[August]

Check your PM.

[Kurieuo]

I have a few comments and then a question that I would really like to hear some views on. Since I believe that God created man in his image, I believe that man was created perfect.

What does being created perfect mean, that is, what is "perfect"? I see that while Genesis says we were created in God's image (not we are God's image), that God "saw" His creation was good and very good, but never perfect.

I believe that reason, logic are gifts from a loving creator, and that science reflects the order of the mind of God.

I'd agree with this, and our reasoning ability is just one ways I believe we have been made in God's image.

From an evolutionary standpoint wouldn't reason, logic and science also have evolved? Wouldn't the neanderthals proported to exist by evolutionism have had lesser reason and logic powers? Wouldn't science have evolved? Did the order of true science exist at the proported evolutionary begining? Did gravity evolve?

I assume these questions are more so focused towards the laws of nature in general and where they came from? Science may be able to explain the world around us, but it could never offer up an explanation regarding why physical laws of nature (which unlike logical laws could have presumably been otherwise) are the way they are since these laws are its starting point. I think this part of a the teleological design argument is one that can't be gotten around, although the response by non-theists is to simply assume the universe and the laws within it are brute fact with nothing more to be said about their significance.

Kurieuo

[Jbuza]

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[Kurieuo]

I don't believe that God created us flawed, perhaps that is what I meant by perfect. God's image must be a perfect image. In any event we are fearsome made and in his image. No need to split hairs here.

True, I only made that point because I thought you were leading to somewhere else (i.e., why we or things aren't more perfect). But this was before I read the rest of your post.

while I also believe that the natural laws are static and embedded within science, from an evolutionary standpoint they must be fluid and a result of eons of happenstance. Perhaps in eons past there was no gravity ??!! or perhaps at some point (and this is a biggie) the conservation of matter and energy did not apply.

I think you might be stretching the concept of evolution beyond what most advocates would embrace. I see many Naturalists who I think wouldn't and don't extend the concept of evolution to cover that of natural laws. So I'm not quite sure what your reasons are for assuming such people would, or have to believe, such laws evolved rather than just are?

Kurieuo

[Jbuza]

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[Blob]

*inserts 2 cents in slot*

Personally I consider scientific laws to be constructed by people and cultures. I don't think they exist to be discovered. One reason I believe this is because scientific laws change all the time - if they were discovered they would stay the same it seems to me.

For example Newtoninan mechanics has been superseded but is not out and out wrong. It still has many many applications that work very well. It is an invention of the mind - one that is very fruitful and that I admire profoundly. But a cultural construct not a "true description of reality" nonetheless.

[Kurieuo]

So I'm not quite sure what your reasons are for assuming such people would, or have to believe, such laws evolved rather than just are?

When Copleston asserted to Bertrand Russel (in their much popularised 1948 debate) that the universe is gratitous if God does not exist. Russel responded, "I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all." Thus, Russel accepted the universe itself as an ultimate explanation, requiring no further explanation. Perhaps if you look at it in this way, as we accept that all explations for things end at God and no further explanation needs to be given for God, Russel saw that all explanations ended with the universe and so no explanation needs to be given for the universe.

Yes, there are very good arguments (I think) for not accepting that the universe is just a "brute fact" that come in the form of certain cosmological arguments and the significance of the many things in the world around us including the physical laws which govern our universe could have been very different (i.e., gravity reversed, or physical laws acting in a random and unstable manner, etc). Why are they the way they are?

But if someone does not consider such arguments persuasive, and refuses to see any significance within the world around us and the way things are, then what are we do? Now I think that Russel's position essentially can't be gotten around, not because it has merit, but because if someone takes such a position then nothing more can really be said on the matter to them. As Copleston pointed out, "if one refuses even to sit down at the chess-board and make a move, one cannot, of course, be check-mated."

Kurieuo

[BGoodForGoodSake]

*inserts 2 cents in slot*

Personally I consider scientific laws to be constructed by people and cultures. I don't think they exist to be discovered. One reason I believe this is because scientific laws change all the time - if they were discovered they would stay the same it seems to me.

For example Newtoninan mechanics has been superseded but is not out and out wrong. It still has many many applications that work very well. It is an invention of the mind - one that is very fruitful and that I admire profoundly. But a cultural construct not a "true description of reality" nonetheless.

Actually Newtonian Physics is out and wrong. It turns out to be an approximation of more current theories. However in the everyday world this approximation suffices so it it still used.

As to the evolution of science and thought. If you really consider this it all requires language. There is a tribe of people who have no real concept of large numbers because it is not in their language.

Discover
Counting Without Numbers
By Susan Kruglinski
March 09, 2005 | Mind & Brain

[Blob]

Actually Newtonian Physics is out and wrong. It turns out to be an approximation of more current theories. However in the everyday world this approximation suffices so it it still used.

I agree with your sentiment entirely. However by your definition surely all theories are "out and out wrong" because a more refined approximation is always at least conceivable. If a theory is considered "right" or "wrong" simply because it is the current best approximation, then aren't the terms right/wrong rendered relative (at best) or redundant (at worst)?

[BGoodForGoodSake]

Actually Newtonian Physics is out and wrong. It turns out to be an approximation of more current theories. However in the everyday world this approximation suffices so it it still used.

I agree with your sentiment entirely. However by your definition surely all theories are "out and out wrong" because a more refined approximation is always at least conceivable. If a theory is considered "right" or "wrong" simply because it is the current best approximation, then aren't the terms right/wrong rendered relative (at best) or redundant (at worst)?

In the paradigm of science yes, this is the case. A theory even an accepted one is never the absolute truth.

[Jbuza]

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[Jbuza]

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