Prior to Popper

[billwald]

Prior to Popper there was no decent definition of "science." Science is or should be restricted to experimental investigations that are falsifiable and are predictive in the sense that the theory always produces the same result. Investigations that are about historical matters are philosophical problems, not science problems.

Most people fail to differentiate between the scientific and the historical components of the topic of evolution. It is immaterial that technical insturments are used to investigate historical problems. An anology might be that understanding the history of art and music does not make one an artist or a musician - only a historian.

Investigating the history - actually prehistory because "history" requires written material- of evolution makes one a historian (prehistorian), not a scientist.

Prehistoric evolution is mostly a classification study based on visual appearances. Classification is a logical problem, not a scientific problem.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

nonsense.

yesterday is history.
so is last week.
what is the difference between yesterday and 10Kya? quantitative or qualitative? your claim is that history is qualitatively different than the present and therefore unaccessible.

are you telling me that science fails to understand the past because it has no access to it, in the present?

Let's see what that really means.
I would have to repeat every experiment, everyday (actually every moment, but we can neglect that aspect) since there is no real quarantee that essential things haven't changed overnight.

we would have to recapitulate everything for ourselves because it is history by the time anyone else's research reaches us.

we would have to open all the prisons and let everyone go and not ever try to hold anyone accountable for their actions because that is history and inaccessible to us.

etc
etc
etc


all just to make this false dichotomy between origins and operational science? pretty steep price.

are you telling me that science fails to understand the past because it has no access to it, in the present? nonsense. the past leaves footprints in the sands of the present and those footprints are certainly accessible to science. Plus most of what you think is memory, memory is history, are you going to challenge every memory in your head because it is not accessible to you since it is from the past.
nonsense.

 

[sfs]

Prior to Popper there was no decent definition of "science."

Popper also did not provide a decent definition of science: very few philosophers of science find his ideas useful, and almost no one in the field thinks that he provides a criterion that distinguishes science from non-science.

Science is or should be restricted to experimental investigations that are falsifiable and are predictive in the sense that the theory always produces the same result. Investigations that are about historical matters are philosophical problems, not science problems.

You are free to make that distinction if you like, but no one in science is going to pay any attention to you if you do. Scientists themselves treat both historical and experimental studies as integral parts of science, using many of the same methods, and many do both. They're not going to stop just because you tell them to.

Prehistoric evolution is mostly a classification study based on visual appearances. Classification is a logical problem, not a scientific problem.

I don't want to be rude here, but have you ever read a single scientific study of evolution? Studies of prehistoric evolution include both fossil and genetic evidence, and investigate a wide range of empirical questions: e.g. mechanisms of speciation, rate of speciation, rate of morphological change, rate of genetic change, reconstruction of specific lineages.

 

[impeachbush08]

lol

 

[busterdog]

I don't want to be rude here, but have you ever read a single scientific study of evolution?

Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

The OP makes the mistake of assuming that the study of evolution involves only the study of the past. The scientific study of evolution is all about understanding the world as it is today and this does invovle analytical testing. If evolution is not science, then why do most major universities have departments (within thier faculties of science) devoted to the study of evolution?

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

You know, many theologins and biblical scholars consider it wrong to take biblical quotes out of context like that.

 

[CyberAnth]

whose Popper?

 

[CyberAnth]

can you post a link to him?

 

[theFijian]

whose Popper?

There's more than one?

 

[Assyrian]

 

[notto]

Prehistoric evolution is mostly a classification study based on visual appearances. Classification is a logical problem, not a scientific problem.

Apparently geology is not a science either.
Nor is the study of the spread of infectious disease.

It is clear that your singling out of evolution above all other science that work exactly the same way is religiously motivated.

I find it hard to take religiously motivated claims about what is or is not science seriously.

 

[billwald]

Karl Popper. An interesting commentary on Popper (and Wittgenstein) is "Wittgenstein's Poker," by Edmonds and Eidinow.

I have concluded that the tendency to classify all investigations as "science" is because for the typical graduate, a BS degree pays better than an AB degree.

Stuff that is current events to me is ancient history to my grandkids. Current events fade into history fades into myth.

 

[billwald]

>Apparently geology is not a science either.

Some is, some isn't. Real time geology is going on all the time. A new island just appeared off Tonga.

>Nor is the study of the spread of infectious disease

Diseases spread in real time and the process can be observed.

 

[Deamiter]

>Apparently geology is not a science either.

Some is, some isn't. Real time geology is going on all the time. A new island just appeared off Tonga.

>Nor is the study of the spread of infectious disease

Diseases spread in real time and the process can be observed.

Not at all. Scientists have NEVER observed a bird infect another bird with bird flu. They have never observed a bird infect a human, nor a human infect another human. Yet they've concluded that all these things have happened.

Do you honestly believe some asian scientist has carefully watched every germ particle in an asian market in order to directly observe transmission vectors?!?

Scientists have made conclusions (and good ones) based on knowledge of how genes mutate, and study of what conditions are likely to transmit a disease. Can you name one thing that epidemiologists do or use in making their conclusions that is fundementally different from what evolutionary scientists use to make conclusions about common ancestry?

 

[oncelost]

what is the difference between yesterday and 10Kya? quantitative or qualitative? your claim is that history is qualitatively different than the present and therefore unaccessible.

mmm... Maybe one difference is that, of yesterday, we have countless reliable eyewitness in addition to our own independent recollection. 10Kya ... not so much. Your interpretation of prerecorded history is less reliable than your interpretation of yesterday. In fact, what happend yesterday is fact; what happened 10Kya is an interpretation fact. Hey...that's a qualitiative difference.

Can you name one thing that epidemiologists do or use in making their conclusions that is fundementally different from what evolutionary scientists use to make conclusions about common ancestry?

I'm no epidemiologist, but a suppose their conclusions about how bird flu may spread (based on evidence in the recent past) is far more reliable than their conclusion of how epidemics spread a few thousand years ago, and especially 10Kya.

Likewise, evolutionary theory is far more reliable about its conclusions about genes changing over time within observable limits (which no one disputes) versus its conclusions about common anscestory. Again, there's a qualitiative difference between science of our world as observed today versus prerecorded history.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Originally Posted by rmwilliamsll
what is the difference between yesterday and 10Kya? quantitative or qualitative? your claim is that history is qualitatively different than the present and therefore unaccessible.


mmm... Maybe one difference is that, of yesterday, we have countless reliable eyewitness in addition to our own independent recollection. 10Kya ... not so much. Your interpretation of prerecorded history is less reliable than your interpretation of yesterday. In fact, what happend yesterday is fact; what happened 10Kya is an interpretation fact. Hey...that's a qualitiative difference.

i don't think you see the strength of the observation. How can there be a qualitative difference between yesterday's memories and 10Kya? where exactly is the qualitative boundary? at recorded history? where is that boundary? why is recorded history any more reliable than say a bronze artifact? in fact, you know that written material contains lies because we have all experienced being lied to in writing. why should you make it the qualitative boundary?

if you make the boundary your memories. what evidence do you have that they are reliable? since i have no access to your memories why should i trust what you say you remember? besides no ones memories extend back more than 110 years or so, does that make this the qualitative boundary?

why do you believe that many eyewitnesses are more reliable than a few? or more reliable than the artifacts in the ground? you have no eyewitnesses more than 110 years ago, so is everything earlier than that not factual?

this whole process is deeply problematic, but to solve it by making an unjustifiable qualitative boundary will not solve any problems but create even more.

btw.
what exactly is "prerecorded history"?

 

[sfs]

I have concluded that the tendency to classify all investigations as "science" is because for the typical graduate, a BS degree pays better than an AB degree.

Please post the evidence you used to reach this conclusion. Right here will do:

 

[oncelost]

where exactly is the qualitative boundary? at recorded history? where is that boundary? why is recorded history any more reliable than say a bronze artifact?

Reliability is a function of many factors. Contemporary memorilization is a strong factor. A bronze artifact is not history, it's evidence. The story you tell about it is history. If the story is that it was once buried in a certain area, then that's probably reliable. If the story is that it was used by a certain people for a certain function, I'd want to see more evidence.

if you make the boundary your memories. what evidence do you have that they are reliable?

No one suggested that. You wanted a qualitiative difference. That's one. Where's the boundary between science and history, you ask? I dunno. Where's the boundary between beauty and obscenity? Just because you can't pinpoint it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. In terms of evolution, I'd say when you interpret evidence to suggest something that 1) you've never observed and 2) no one else has ever recorded being observed, you've entered the realm of something less reliable.

why do you believe that many eyewitnesses are more reliable than a few? or more reliable than the artifacts in the ground? you have no eyewitnesses more than 110 years ago, so is everything earlier than that not factual?

Do you really believe you can rely on your version of history 100Mya just as much as you can rely on the historical event that the Dems swept Election Day last week? Come on. And I'd say Paul of Tarsus and Josephus were pretty good eyewitnesses to historical phenomenon more than 110 years ago.

btw.
what exactly is "prerecorded history"?

History prior to man's memorialization of it. "Prehistory" always seems oxymoronic to me.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Do you really believe you can rely on your version of history 100Mya just as much as you can rely on the historical event that the Dems swept Election Day last week?

you misunderstand, my point is that there is no QUALITATIVE difference, the only difference is amount of evidence and maybe types of evidence. Both memories of yesterday and ideas of what happened 10kya are formed in the same basic way, by investigating the evidence. the notion of a boundary is no more than a bad epistemological lead in to the false YECism distinction between origins and operational science.