[Osx-nutters] The separation of church and state.

[Mark Smith]

On 04.12.2007, at 03:18, Chris Gehlker wrote:

>
> On Dec 3, 2007, at 2:28 PM, Stefano Mori wrote:
>
>> But as for the scientists, it is a worry--their arguments are turning
>> into scientism--if they simply _believe_ that Darwin explains all of
>> evolution, rather than demonstrating arguments for why it does.
>
> Exactly.

Exactly not. This is also a creationist postulation. Scientists do not  
blindly accept *ANYTHING* anyone who does, even if they are blindly  
accepting a piece of generally accepted science IS NOT A SCIENTIST.


> Wikipedia says:
> 'The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that "intelligent
> design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of
> life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do
> not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their
> own.'
>
> The problem I have with that is that it leaves out astronomy, huge
> swaths of biology, lots of the human sciences and a lot of physics
> since string theory came along.

It doesn't. String theory is admittedly beyond the edge of what we can  
test, but as long as we continue to recognize that it is an  
unsubstantiated hypothesis, the rules are not broken.

Cataloging information is also a part of science. The quote from  
Wikipedia does not tell you everything that science is, it tells you  
what makes it different from creationism and other political  
approaches to philosophical issues.

Mark.