Your patience with me is appreciated. I should warn you that I learned stubbornness from some old-time Jesuits.
It’s OK. I’m a very patient guy.
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.
Barbarian observes:
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?
I can’t think of a philosopher whose done much with science to make our lives better, although an unknown ionian genius apparently invented a complicated calendar/astronomical device before Christ. He might have been a philosopher.
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.
Yes, I guess it is. Science just works better than other things.
Barbarian observes:
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.
I’m not an engineer, but I have great respect for those guys. Scientists find things and engineers put them to use. I suppose when I was doing safety analyses and ergonomics, I was being a sort of an engineer. And I felt much more fulfilled, making people’s lives better.
Barbarian on common descent:
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.
When people call me an “intellectual”, they never seem to mean it as a compliment. Something odd about American culture, I think.
I’ve found some interesting remarks about people before Darwin e.g., they did not assign a cause to evolution whereas Darwin did.
That was his discovery. Evolution was not random, but had discoverable causes.
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.
Linnaeus was pleased to find a nested hierarchy of living things. He tried to apply the concept to minerals, and found it didn’t work. We now understand why.
I’m interested in the branches of the tree of evolution.
It looks more like a bush.
Barbarian observes:
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.
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
Practical , yes. But science can’t do it for you.
Barbarian observes:
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
And science, too. But it’s OK. We have other ways to learn about that.
(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.
No. It is critical to science to know what it is we don’t know. That’s how progress happens.
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.
The secret nightmare of every scientist is the day we know all of it. For then, science is dead.
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.
Often, the short answer is the one people have time to read. The long answers are more complicated, and found in the literature.
Barbarian observes:
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
.
I am thankful that I am interested in how nature works
Curiosity is a blessing from God.
and have also rediscovered the beauty of metaphysical poetry.
I write very bad poetry. Love poems to my wife, who loves them because she knows it’s not something I would do apart from my love for her.
