Dear The Barbarian,
Your patience with me is appreciated. I should warn you that I learned stubbornness from some old-time Jesuits.
quote=The Barbarian;4856976]I guess you can think of predictions that way. But the point is, the theory is considered a good one, because it has made so many predictions that were later verified.
To clear up another remark. Evolutionary theory is a good one that has always fascinated me. It doesn’t matter if I write with a creationist, ID, Catholic, protestant, analytic, philosophical view, it is still the same theory that I am addressing. It is my free-spirit nature that reacts unfavorably toward being labeled.
No. Science is merely interested in finding out what is true about the world. It is intended to be useful, although it so frequently is, people tend to confuse scientists, who merely discover the truth, with engineers, who find ways to apply that truth to make things better for us.
Could one substitute philosophers for engineers? This is probably granny semantics but I consider that finding out what is true about the world is a universal goal of humans and thus it is also a “goal” of science.
Again, you should be thanking engineers, as well as scientists.
As I am in a spiritual crisis regarding prayer, I am now putting a post-it note on my printer to pray a prayer of thanksgiving for engineers as well as scientists and poets, etc.
There shouldn’t be any goals at all, except to figure out what happens.
To me figuring out what happens is a very important goal.
Most of that was done by Linnaeus, long before Darwin.
I am sure everyone here realizes that I am in the midst of catching up with all you intellectuals. I’ve found some interesting remarks about people before Darwin e.g., they did not assign a cause to evolution whereas Darwin did. I just starting checking Carolus Linnaeus on Google. It sounds like what I remember from high school biology which at times was a wee bit different. While other students dissected their rats in a normal way, I skinned mine first because its pelt was beautiful and then I brought the pelt home.
I’m not sure what you mean by that.
I’m interested in the branches of the tree of evolution.
Yeah, plumbing is like that, too. Science is, by its methodology, limited to the physical universe. It is a major limitation, but it works very well within those limits. As you just observed, science can’t talk about the spiritual, but scientists can.
Bingo!
Quote from granny: Am I saying that science should subject my soul to the empirical method? Of course not. But when I analytically look at what evolutionary science has accomplished and what it still doesn’t know, it seems it would be practical to allow that something else is operating in addition to the physical
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Reply from The Barbarian: Something is, but science can’t get to it. Which is all right. Turns out that God operates nature by consistent laws, so we don’t have to wonder if He’ll change the settings today.
Meaning something is conspicuous by its absence from scientism:shrug:
One time, I had to research a major donor’s ancestors because a fact, conspicuous by its absence, was missing from her biography. The fact regarded which side of the civil war they were on. Besides learning that the joy of politics permeates everything including charitable giving, I learned that looking at “missing” information can be important. Using available sources within a small time frame, I could not find the civil war answer. My answer that the family allegiance was unknown was acceptable, but that did not preclude further research by other interested parties…
(To put this in its historical perspective, I did not have the benefit of computer technology and Google. I worked in the days when we had a “breaking” news story we called a taxi to deliver it to the media.)
The point is that today’s technology promotes immediate gratification and instant knowledge. While this benefits science, it also works against science when there is missing information.
My intention is not to point fingers, but I get the impression that the general public believes that missing scientific information is because the particular missing piece does not exist. It seems to me that this occurs because some scientific findings are presented in such a dogmatic way, that others don’t look at what is missing. I probably should add “for the time being” since the grandchildren of the above donor probably know, through ancestor dot whatever, which army uniform their ancestors wore.
I once read, in “Woman’s Day” or some such, (doctor’s office, and nothing else to read) a column by a woman who criticized a father who explained to his daughter how leaves turn colorful in the fall
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I am thankful that I am interested in how nature works and have also rediscovered the beauty of metaphysical poetry.
Blessings,
granny
Human beings are part of the mystery of God’s plan.