epistemology, science, kinds of knowledge, methodology
Reference: Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, tr. by Stillman Drake, Anchor Books, 1957 Galileo wrote a letter in 1615 “to the most serene Grand Duchess Christina.” In his second sentence Galileo notes his opponents were “academic philosophers” who held “physical notions” he contradicted. They were not ecclesiastical authorities as is so often claimed today. He asserts […]
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Aristotle laid much of the foundation for modern science but failed to take the final steps. He articulated the logic, the four causes, sensory realism, and the importance of observation. But he didn’t have the Bible when he tried to start with final causes and used philosophical speculation instead. Bacon and the early modern scientists
While the early scientists expected God’s creation to be orderly and show God’s lawfulness, that is certainly not the case with conventional science today. While we can say that’s because of the Enlightenment, there’s more to it than that. There’s something called the ontological inversion. Basically, at first science is very empirical: what is real
The evolution paradigm begins by doubting ancient peoples and ancient history. They’re all seen as primitive peoples with worthless myths. Compared to modern societies and technologies, they don’t have anything to offer us. We should dismiss them, ignore their writings, and start from scratch. It’s no wonder we come up with evolutionary theories that place modern society
“Creation ex nihilo” means creation from nothing, which signifies that creation means bringing into being out of non-existence. Creation from nothing is beyond what humans can do no matter what degree of talent they possess. . But the usage of Hebrew (bara or asah) and English (create or make) include both creation from nothing and
We’ve heard of evidence-based medicine and science in which test data are the standard of comparison. But what about testimony-based science? This means testimony is the standard of comparison, as is done in courts of law. A prosecutor cannot just put objects or data in front of a jury. There must be a witness who introduces
“Secularity” is often distinguised as “what is secular” compared with “secularism” which means the promotion or the expansion of secularity. The problem is not what is secular but an expansive meaning to what is secular. Historically, “secular” meant of an age or of this world (as opposed to the age or world to come) or civil or
The key to explaining everything in a domain is to project the data onto an explanatory space that is intuitively clear. So evolutionists project all life onto an axis defined by the extremes of law and chance. If they are presented with evidence of design, they just analyze it onto law and chance and say
People often fail to distinguish different types of creation. Primary creation is creation from nothing. It requires not only a supernatural ability but a transcendent being — one who is beyond creation. Secondary creation is creation from something but that requires supernatural abilities such as super-strength or super-intelligence. Tertiary creation is one that happens via
The confusion and disagreements about creation models shows the need to have accurate terminology. Accordingly, I suggest some standard terminology such as the following to distinguish types of Christian teaching on creation: The Creation Chronicles (CC) are the actions and events explicitly recorded in the Bible regarding the beginning and earliest years of the created
