Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Forensic Science vs. Empirical Science: take 1

Wow, just think! Yesterday I could not even spell blogggger, and now I are one. I guess federal Judge Jones in the recent Dover, PA, school board case put me over the edge and into the blogosphere.

Anyway, I am really tired of seeing the creation and intelligent design movements slammed instead of fairly and carefully evaluated.

More about the recent Dover, PA, court judgment later. For now, one example a few months ago was Evan Cornog's polemic "A new wind to inherit" (Oregonian, August 22,2005). Cornog and the rest of his ilk (such as Dover's Judge Jones) don't get it. They are clueless about the distinction between empirical-operational science and forensic-historical science. Empirical science has to do with how things work day-to-day, requiring observability, repeatability, and falsifiability. Forensic-historical science seeks to understand the if and how of a one-time event (for example, to ask "Did O.J.do it?"). Evolutionists almost invariably make the fundamental error of insisting that only operational science ("natural" processes without intervention) can be used to explain origins. To make that error once could be excused, but to arrogantly perpetuate it is preposterous and fundamentally dishonest. More later.
Respectfully, D.U.

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