[Vision2020] Kai's False Dilemma (Was "Dennis Avery. . .")

[Nick Gier]

Hi Kai,

I find your calling me "Doc" just as offensive as Doug Farris calling 
me "Teach," so please cut out that crap. I address you as "Kai," so 
please address me as "Nick."

You, along with millions of other Americans, do not know how science 
works.  The best scientists are known for their humility and 
acknowledgment of the limits of their wonderful methods.  There is no 
"dodging" involved at all.  It is simple methodological honesty, 
something sorely lacking in intelligent design proponents.

As Paul nicely explained, the Big Bang is a theory that best explains 
the evidence, some of which Paul laid out for us.  You may remember 
that Fred Hoyle's "steady state universe" theory lost out to the Big 
Bang in the 1960s.  The empirical evidence simply did not support steady state.

Paul was also correct in saying that questions about what happened 
before the Big Bang and where matter and energy came from are not 
scientific questions.  As I always told my philosophy students, 
scientific disciplines are not required to prove the existence of 
their respective subject matters.  (Did you ask your biology teacher 
what "life" was?) That is where philosophy of physics and philosophy 
of biology come into play.

God is not a scientific hypothesis (a title of one of my columns at 
www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/design.htm); rather, God, matter, and 
energy are metaphysical hypotheses.  These concepts can be approached 
with speculation and logic.  The principle that matter and energy can 
never be created or destroyed is an axiom, not something that can be 
proved empirically.

Yes, you are correct: the ancients developed some amazing knowledge, 
most likely by quasi-scientific trial and error, certainly not by 
divine revelation.  The fact that today's scientists are confirming 
this knowledge only confirms the powers of keen observation and 
intelligence on the part of our distant ancestors.  It does at all 
mean that their myths are true.  The fact that the ancient Tibetans 
knew the diameter of the earth and the distinction between deep sleep 
and REM sleep is amazing, but it does not mean that Tibetan Buddhism 
is true or scientific because of this.

You say you'll take your chances with the "wisdom of the ancients," 
but you surely you must place some conditions on that sweeping 
claim.  (That means that you will take subordination of women and 
castes along with the Hindu zero and Chinese science???)  I'd rather 
side with the scientists and critical philosophers who take what 
checks out empirically or conforms to current views of universal human rights.

Nick

>No false dillema, Doc.
>What happened "in the beginning"?
>Paul's statement that the big bang theory doesn't try to explain 
>"the beginning", may be true, but is still a dodge.
>Any scientist worth his, or her, salt would ask "What happened 
>before that? And before that? Why? How?"
>How did that "something" get there? What came BEFORE the big bang? 
>HOW did matter originate?  What caused it to go bang?"
>Most, if not all, of the cultures on the face of this planet have a 
>creation story. Those stories predate the written word, like it or 
>not, those stories are a part of of humankind's collective memory; a 
>memory that stretches back thousands of years.
>Modern science dates back, what, three, maybe four hundred years?
>Remember, modern science is just now tapping into the knowledge and 
>collective memory of indigenous peoples in search of medicines. At 
>one time science laughed at these same people as being backwards and 
>unsophisticated, as it turns out their knowledge/memory, which 
>reaches back into the earliest of times, may very well hold the key 
>to cure many of our ills.
>Yet, creation stories are tossed off like so much chaff and we are 
>to believe in science without question.
>While I'm not particulary religious, and I AM fascinated by our 
>universe, I'll take my chances with the wisdom of the ancients that 
>there was nothing before a Greater Being created something.
>
>
>----------

"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to 
human affairs."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each 
part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole 
and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our 
intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between 
science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the 
sum of its various parts." --Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/home.htm
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
http://www.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ift.htm

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