nwr wrote:
I doubt that philosophers had much influence on the meaning of "science".
Since you don't trust Wiki all of a sudden, I'll quote them and then Discover magazine.
Wiki wrote:
This article is about the field of philosophy. For the album by Borknagar, see Empiricism (album).
In philosophy generally, empiricism is an epistemological concept, or a theory of knowledge, emphasizing the role of experience and evidence, especially sensory perception, in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas.
In the philosophy of science, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to evidence, especially as formed through deliberate experimental arrangements. It is a fundamental requirement of scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Hence, science is considered to be methodologically empirical in nature...
...Some important philosophers commonly associated with empiricism include Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricists )
Discover Magazine wrote:
Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena. This revolution entailed the rejection of the appeal to authority, and by extension, revelation, in favor of empirical evidence. Since that time period, science has been a discipline in which testability, rather than any ecclesiastical authority or philosophical coherence, has been the measure of a scientific idea's worth. In deliberately omitting theological or "ultimate" explanations for the existence or characteristics of the natural world, science does not consider issues of "meaning" and "purpose" in the world. While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science. This self-imposed convention of science, which limits inquiry to testable, natural explanations about the natural world, is referred to by philosophers as "methodological naturalism" and is sometimes known as the scientific method. Methodological naturalism is a "ground rule" of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.
(
http://discovermagazine.com/2005/dec/in ... 0flagellum )
nwr wrote:
The current usage of the word ``science'' dates from the 18th century.
Yes I agree...
nwr wrote:
Your appeal to 12th century usage is an example of the pervasive dishonesty that we find among the intelligent design religious apologists.
It is quite the other way round in my opinion. The original meaning was changed by the apologists of materialistic anti
theistic apologists.
nwr wrote:
I am calling bullshit on that.
Well I can appriciate your skepticism, but it is a fact of history. Many of us were decieved by these philosophers, including myself. Now that you have factual reason to turn your skepticism on the
philosophy of naturalism, you can research it some more for yourself. But if you want naturalism to be true for existential reasons, then you are free to forget everything I am saying.
Empiricism (naturalism)is not science and philosophy. It is only
one attempt to engage in philosophy and science. The most scientific (or logically philosophical) interpretation, is the one that proves to be the most logical, i.e. coherent, i.e. consistent theory. That is if you are interested in being logical. You appear to be more motivated by emotion and the existential desire for the conclusion to be predetermed to deny divinity.
One of the most defining and notable figures of that time was the philosopher David Hume. Let's apply the skeptical lens to him for a moment.
David Hume wrote:
"When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, ‘Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number’? No. ‘Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence’? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."
( David Hume / An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding / sec. XII, pt 3 )
Ravi Zacharius explains that Hume’s logic is fatally flawed because his own statement does not contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number. Nor does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence. The empiricists like David Hume missed something vital. And the best way to see the illusion is to ask the question Dr. Zacharius asked when faced with Hume’s remarks. He asked, “How do we make a meaningful statement that is metaphysically stated, in order to tell us that metaphysics is meaningless”?
In case you had trouble with that, I’ll put it another way. ‘How do we propose a philosophy that says that philosophy is meaningless?’ It’s like saying, ‘English is unintelligible’, or ‘words do not have any meaning’. Fascinating! It takes a spirit to deny spirit. It takes an intellect to deny intellect. And that is what we should expect, since the empirical world does not deny intellect. If anything, the rocks cry out that, ‘God is not mocked’.
Our propositions concerning the empirical world must also support our own propositions as a real insight and as meaningful, otherwise we are all just speaking empty, dead, and incoherent gibberish.
C.S. Lewis said it well, "To be ignorant and simple now - not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground - would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether." ( C.S. Lewis / Learning in War-Time 1949, pg51 )
A good deal of this argumentation (and documentation) is available here:
http://rob-lock.livejournal.com/nwr wrote:
It seems to me that the way people actually reason is what "defines" what reason is. And often logic is not involved.
I call him Charles Manson (or that type). and no-one except you considers him in any way reasonable. I already gave you the definitions of the words that show that reason and logic are related. No logic= no reason.
nwr wrote:
It seems to me that you have made logic into a deity, and are thereby violating the ten commandments.
Yes... yes... very good nwr. I am very much making that case. And it is a very Biblical idea as long as we understand the nature of God.
Logical coherence (non-contradiction) must be assumed to be reality (God), in the triune sense extrapolated to us by the apostle John. But before we analyze John’s witness, let’s bear in mind that the Greeks had several ‘terms’ for the English term ‘Word’. The one that John used is
‘logos’ which assumes ‘reason’ as part of its meaning. The term
logos is also the etymological root of the English term
‘logic’.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the
logos, and the
logos, was with God, and the
logos, was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men…14 The
logos became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
This next quote speaks for itself!nwr wrote:
Natural science is not applied logic, though it does apply logic.
Rob wrote:
Neither is a Compact Disk massless.
nwr wrote:
A compact disk is not information, either. The information is represented on the CD, but is not the CD. That's the abstractness property that I expect of information. But we don't find that with DNA. Rather, we find that the DNA is part of a causal mechanism.
I already said that the CD is not the information. And neither are the amino acids in DNA. It is the arrangement or pattern.
As for causal mechanisms, I don't know where you got that term, but I think you're a bit confused. Both DNA and CD's exchange information to be changed into another form. So both of them are causal mechanisms if that's what you want to call it.
This might help you a geart deal:
http://rob-lock.livejournal.com/ wrote:
Listen to how Paul Davies (theoretical physicist / Arizona State University) admits the real history of science, yet still dodges the implication.
“The worldview of a scientist, even the most atheistic scientist, is that essentially of Monotheism. It is a belief, which is accepted as an article of faith, that the universe is ordered in an intelligible way.
Now, you couldn’t be a scientist if you didn’t believe these two things. If you didn’t think there was an underlying order in nature, you wouldn’t bother to do it, because there is nothing to be found. And if you didn’t believe it was intelligible, you’d give up because there is no point if human beings can’t come to understand it.
But scientists do, as a matter of faith, accept that the universe is ordered and at least partially intelligible to human beings. And that is what underpins the entire scientific enterprise. And that is a theological position. It is absolutely ‘Theo’ when you look at history. It comes from a theological worldview.
That doesn’t mean you have to buy into the religion, or buy into the theology, but it is very, very significant in historical terms; that that is where it comes from and that scientists today, unshakably retain that worldview, as an act of faith. You cannot prove it logically has to be the case, that the universe is rational and intelligible. It could easily have been otherwise. It could have been arbitrary, it could have been absurd, it could have been utterly beyond human comprehension. It’s not! And scientists just take this for granted for the most part, and I think it’s a really important point that needs to be made.”
So science is faith. And it is faith in logic. And that is a very interesting observation since now we must remember that, any logical equation or test requires at least two entities (or witnesses). The coherence of at least two entities becomes the third element in the equation. Assuming the entities involved achieve coherence, then theory + evidence = knowledge. All scientific observation is therefore triune in principle. There is no escaping this reality. No claim is scientifically valid without the testimony of at least two witnesses. If an idea is not testable, repeatable, observable, and falsifiable, it is not considered scientific. All of those qualities assume the law of contradiction to be valid and are dependant upon its application.
Logic is systemic by its very nature. Although our knowledge based upon this faith in logic is not comprehensive, it is our only light. We simply have no other authority for any form of objective revelation. That is not an ecclesiastical proclamation, but is the profound quality of self evident and logical propositions.
So science is indeed a triune and monotheistic affair. Paul Davies understands the history of scientific thought very well. Even so, it appears that the connection is far more implicit than he, or many of us bargained for. Logic has always been so, long before we discovered its power and recognized its whole nature. Logic is our only authority. Without its coherent order, all things would become unintelligible philosophically, and fall to pieces materially.
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (cohere).
Non-contradiction is the law of laws and reflects the logical and intelligible character of the living triune God. The coherent quality of His work is the intelligibility behind the physical laws, and the power and certitude of our moral laws (love thy neighbor as thy self). Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
