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Re: Queen mother (of Britai...

Graeme
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SubjectRe: Queen mother (of Britain) has died
FromGraeme
Date2002-04-11 08:34 (2002-04-11 08:34)
Message-ID<20020411023411.28285.00003155@mb-fe.aol.com>
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Newsgroupsalt.fan.tolkien
FollowsThomas Brenndorfer
Totally wrong. Science is not about fixed beliefs, but about presenting

hypotheses and testing them, and in fact rigorously challenging them and trying to falsify them.

I wasn't talking about science there, I was talking about human nature. Humans do not always treat all ideas equally, even if they believe they should. There are usually some that will be guilty until proven innocent and some that are regarded the other way around. If a question this big is indeterminate, there will be people clinging to all positions, so long as they can't be positively disproven.

This is just as ridiculous as the argument that evolution can never be proven

because no one was around to see it.

Well, *scientific* proof is based on exactly that. Being able to observe and repeat your data. Evolution will probably never be proven in that sense. Though there are other types of proof.

By analogy, the whole justice system is based on evaluation of evidence even when they are no eyewitnesses (and being a "witness" is not always the most reliable proof). Forensic investigation using reliable scientific techniques is enough to put people away and to produce reasonable certainty that a particular set of events took place.

I think we're probably arguing semantics here. A jury does not *scientifically* prove a person's guilt. Though it's true that scientifically proven principles may play a part in their judgement in cases like that.

Historical events are never proven scientifically, even though of course ALL historical events are shaped by forces and processes that can be scientifically measured.

Or in other words, the hypotheses about abiogenesis (life from non-life) is intended to provide a guidepost to scientists to examine the evidence about the chemistry behind such processes. If abiogenesis is true, then one should expect certain conditions to have existed-- and we are still a long way from demonstrating anything.

Yes, and I don't see that we're disagreeing on much here.

However, every year more evidence is being shown that the early earth was filled with organic molecules of some complexity, and that the earliest known life forms represented a point when life was at its most simplest (evidence is hard to come by because of the lack of preservation of such evidence).

I believe here that you're arguing against the so-called Young Earth Creationist. That's certainly not me. Yes, I'm aware that the earth is almost certainly much older than that, though where it came from and how it got to be in the shape it is now, I'm a bit more fuzzy on.