markfiend wrote:sultan2075 wrote:Absence of evidence is not, necessarily, evidence of an absence.
Oh of course. But then again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Which of the two claims "the universe just is" and "the universe was brought into being by an outside force" is more extraordinary is a matter for much debate. We know that the universe exists (unless you want to go down the solipsism route) but we don't know that any "outside" exists. I would suggest that by Ockham's razor, we can excise the "outside". Your milage may vary.
Right, but again claims require evidence, extraordinary or otherwise. Lack of evidence for a thing, however, does not
necessarily imply lack of existence, it simply implies lack of acquaintance with a thing. In some cases, so-called common sense offers a good guide--I've no evidence that a giant ant lives beneath Number 10 Downing Street secretly running the British government; I can safely conclude that this is not the case, and remove my tinfoil hat--British ant-minions are likely not attempting to read my thoughts. However, cosmology is not something susceptible to common sense. It is far broader or higher a subject than that which is appropriate for our pragmatic everyday reasonings (Aristotle makes a distinction between theoretical reason and practical reason that might be useful on this point).
markfiend wrote: sultan2075 wrote:Furthermore, the determination of whether or not there is an "outside" would necessitate a different epistemological position than that open to us as moderns/postmoderns--and some would argue, as human beings. By rejecting metaphysics, we have limited the scope of our inquries.
I'm not sure what metaphysics has to do with it; if there is an "outside" that interacts in any detectable way with the "inside" then it is in principle open to examination and investigation with the scientific method.
Well, as to my first point, I would simply suggest that determining if there is an 'outside' in any meaningful way presupposes the ability to transcend subjective empirical experience (for the ancients and medievals, this is what reason could, in its highest function, do). The moderns place severe limits on that (cf. Descartes, Locke, and Hume, although they're taking their cue from the Machiavellian refounding of philosophy as
practical science). This is classical metaphysics--an account of the principles of the whole. This is why what we might call the proto-physicists of the middle-ages still thought of their project as philosophic rather than scientific. The distinctions we make between the two today didn't exist--the physical or scientific account of nature was part of the larger project of giving an account of the whole. This larger account was necessarily metaphysical in character--i.e., concerned with that which is true always and everywhere, independent of experience. Thus, while 'science,' for example, asks 'how does A cause B?' metaphysics asks 'what is causality? What does it mean to be?'* The hard sciences today are concerned with mechanism or the 'how' of things; metaphysics philosophically addresses the 'why' of things. A metaphysical statement, then, is a statement about the nature of the whole--'cause precedes effect' is a statement about the nature of reality, thus it is a metaphysical statement. A causes B may be true, but it is of much more specific a character. Metaphysics cannot be escaped--even the scientific project has underlying metaphysical propositions: 'cause precedes effect,' for example, 'the cosmos is ordered in such a fashion that it is rationally knowable,' for another.
*not in a angst-ridden Hamlet sense, but in the sense of 'what do all existing things have in common?'--a question to which 'existence' isn't necessarily an adequate answer.
markfiend wrote: sultan2075 wrote:It might also be worth pointing out, to the general audience, that modern science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God; it has nothing to say about it one way or another
While this is true as far as it goes, modern science
can rule out
certain conceptions of gods; there are no Greek Immortals living on the summit of Mount Olympus for example, at least not in this world.
Perhaps they're just very tiny, and adept at hiding? From a philosophic perspective, the conception of the Greek gods has always been a problem--Socrates was killed for impiety after all.
markfiend wrote: sultan2075 wrote:--modern hard science is concerned with the accurate description of observable (sometimes via an apparatus) and describable phenomena. It concerns itself with mechanism, and mechanistic accounts of reality. Science has proved itself valid over and over again, in these terms, but that does not mean that it is broad enough in scope to answer all possible questions.
Indeed. But it's difficult for me to understand why people are willing to
reject the answers that science can and does provide on its own terms (with the acknowleged
caveat that all scientific answers are tentative and subject to modification if new evidence is found) on the basis of their own prejudices.
Some people seem to have an anti-science bias without realising that the scientific method is really only a more rigidly codified version of the system everyone unconsciously uses to understand the world around them.
My flippant answer? They reject it because it's easier than confronting claims about reality that may not jibe with their understanding. Also, the fact is that many people aren't equipped to deal rationally with these questions--they're very complex. Look at various fundamentalists, for example--there is a tendencey to think that the Bible is a literally true text, and if it comes into conflict with reason or science, you reject reason or science for the sake of adherence to authority. Compare that to the understanding that someone like St. Thomas would have--for Thomas, science/reason and scripture are both
true, and as such, they
cannot conflict. So, if evolutionary theory is
true, and you've done your science well, what does Thomas say about the account of creation in Genesis? He would say, on his own principles, that the so-called conflict between reason and revelation stems directly from a misunderstanding of revelation. In other words, if the science is good, and it still conflicts with scripture, it's because you don't understand scripture. Of course, this answer doesn't really work for the fundamentalist (unless the word has a different meaning in Points East)--it's an article of faith that the Bible is literally true. St. Thomas is a filthy heretic to them. Of course, that's why the Vatican has an observatory, Fordham University, Catholic University of Louvain, various Pontifical Institutes for various sciences, a massive library and Pope John Paul II hung out with people like Gadamer, Habermas, etc, while American fundamentalists have...Bob Jones University.
markfiend wrote:
A summary of the scientific method for the general audience: Observation leads to hypothesis, the hypothesis is then either rejected or accepted on the basis of further observation, a hypothesis that has not been rejected after many rounds of testing graduates to become a theory.
An example from every day life: Observation: I see a particular pattern of light and dark and colours. Hypothesis: I am seeing my friend Robert's face. Further observation: I am now hearing a particular pattern of sounds. Corollary hypothesis: I am hearing Robert's voice. etc. etc. After a while I can develop the theory that Robert is sitting across the room and talking to me.
Our brains naturally use this theory-building process without us even being aware of it; the scientific approach is merely more rigorous in testing; experiments are usually designed to limit the number of variable factors which could affect the scenario about which we are hypothesising.
This is curious to me. I must confess, it doesn't seem like an adequate account of consciousness and mental phenomena to me.
I meant first law.
(don't know if anyone else said that, couldn't be arsed to read through all those huge posts and just did a quick scan TBH 
