science

sciences in general, what they are and their methods

Being and becoming

Naturalism is a philosophy that looks to science to fill in the details.  It is based on putting becoming before being, contrary to the classical and Christian assertion that being precedes becoming.  We have to know what or who something is before we can understand how it got that way, or what we’re even talking […]

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General correspondence principle

Niels Bohr is credited with first asserting a correspondence principle with respect to quantum mechanics, though the general idea surely predates him. As Wikipedia puts it: “In physics, the correspondence principle states that the behavior of systems described by the theory of quantum mechanics (or by the old quantum theory) reproduces classical physics in the

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Old theories

Newton’s theory of gravity was superseded in the 20th century. Orthodox Popperians should therefore throw it on the dustbin of history. But Newton’s theory is not rejected because his laws are still valid within a limited range that is very useful. Similarly, we still speak of the sun rising and setting even though absolute geo-staticism has been

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Reductionism and kinds

Reductionism goes beyond naturalism to say that biology is reducible to chemistry which is reducible to physics.  The acid of reductionism turns fixed kinds into temporary kinds and differences in kind into differences in degree. The paradigmatic example of differences in kind is the periodic table of elements.  This structure is fixed and unchangeable.  But

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Flawed scientific method

The idea that science begins with hypotheses instead of data arose in the 19th century, first in the work of William Whewell, and was very influential on Charles Darwin.  It is scientific orthodoxy today but is a flawed methodology.  Here are three flaws: Positive bias: It’s virtually impossible to demonstrate a negative empirical conclusion because

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Scientism and creationism

Scientism asserts the superiority of natural science over all other sciences, disciplines, or teachings. Mikael Stenmark proposed the expression scientific expansionism as a synonym for scientism. That’s a good suggestion because scientism is essentially a boundary-breaker. Scientism says that science is superior wherever it goes and it goes anywhere it wants. (That’s analogous to the word

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Origins links

Evolution Evolution in Stanford Encyclopedia National Center for Science Education Society for the Study of Evolution Talk.Origins Archive Understanding Evolution Intelligent Design Access Research Network Discovery Institute Intelligent Design Network Origins Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity Progressive Creation God and Science Reasons to Believe Special Creation Answers in Genesis Creation on the Web Creation

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Nature, creation, and science

“Nature” commonly means creation apart from any consideration of God or transcendent reality. So one could say nature is creation as if there were no creator. “Naturalism” is the doctrine or belief that the world and all that is in it are completely natural, that is, there is no creator external to nature. So naturalism

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Explaining everything

Eureka! I found it! What is it? A principle that proves every mathematical theorem! Amazing, isn’t it? Now mathematics is completely solved. Everything is proved–everything. How is this done? Well, it turns out to be quite simple. No, I’m not a math genius. And you don’t have to be a math genius to understand it,

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The creation paradigm (2)

Simply put, an historical paradigm is a storyline of history. A storyline is a theme that similar stories have. Compare this with what Imré Lakatos called “research programmes”: For Lakatos, what we think of as a ‘theory’ may actually be a succession of slightly different theories and experimental techniques developed over time, that share some

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