Science particularly as related to creation and the creation-evolution controversy
What follows are excerpts from the book Science and Hypothesis by Henri Poincaré, translated (1905) from La Science et l’hypothèse (1902). p.xxiii The latter [definitions or conventions] are to be met with especially in mathematics and in the sciences to which it is applied. From them, indeed, the sciences derive their rigour; such conventions are […]
Contrariety is a property of pairs of propositions, but it also applies to pairs of terms or concepts. “Two general terms are contraries if and only if, by virtue of their meaning alone, they apply to possible cases on opposite ends of a scale. Both terms cannot apply to the same possible case, but neither
It is a Christian concept (or at least a theistic concept) that the world we inhabit is a universe. The existence of the universe requires there to be a perspective that encompasses the whole of the world, which is the perspective of a transcendent divinity. The universe is thus the whole of creation. It is
Taxonomy is the science of classification. Taxonomy applied to biology is a systematic approach to classifying organisms. It can be applied to all organisms at a particular time, throughout time, or within any context. Once a classification is determined, other questions arise such as whether there is an independent reason that organisms are in the
Begin with elements. Elements are a very general concept: they may be either members of sets or distinctions of classes. As a set is defined by its members, so a class is defined by its distinctions. So, the elements of sets are members and the elements of classes are distinctions. Sets may be divided into
There is a well-known alternation of induction and deduction in science (click to enlarge): The induction phase consists of data collection, data analysis, and model development. The deduction phase consists of taking the model, making hypothetical inferences, and following up with experiments that lead to new data collection. Then the cycle repeats.
The following (long) excerpts are from Isaiah Berlin’s article “History and Theory: The Concept of Scientific History”, published in History and Theory 1 (1):1 (1960). Republished in Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays. NY: Viking Press, 1979. (online here). HISTORY, according to Aristotle, is an account of what individual human beings have done and suffered. In
For previous posts on history and science, see here. History and science are different kinds of knowledge. History is based on the particulars that go into narratives. Science is based on the universals that go into theories. History is focused on the matter and science is focused on the form, in the Aristotelian sense. The
Societies have an intellectual hierarchy reflected in their academic hierarchy that exhibit their scale of concepts and values. There are basically three groups of intellectual disciplines: the study of divinity (theology), the humanities, and the sciences. There are six possible ways of ordering these three, which shows the intellectual state of a society. (1) Theology,
This subject was previously mentioned, e.g., here. James Hutton proposed introducing deep time into modern science in 1788. In the early 19th century it was accepted for the geologic time scale. Biologists followed with Darwinism in the late 19th century. Astronomers accepted it to explain cosmology. What’s wrong with the deep time postulate (DTP)? The
