Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!OAF%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA From: OAF%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Newsgroups: net.physics Subject: net.origins? Message-ID: <14575@sri-arpa.UUCP> Date: Tue, 13-Dec-83 18:30:00 EST Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.14575 Posted: Tue Dec 13 18:30:00 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 17-Dec-83 01:00:30 EST Lines: 44 First, re asserting that A is scientific and B is religious may be hubristic: Beware the temptation to confuse an empty mind with an open one. Second, ------------------------------------------------------------ I think it would be good not to burden the readers of net.religion with the technical details of theories of origins. ____________________________________________________________ I don't know why. Third, I vote AGAINST net.origins - it will polarize into war between the creationists and the creationist-baiters. I hardly imagine anyone contributing factual statements to such a list. Your suggestion (for net.origins) bothers me for another reason. I think it represents a tactical triumph of creationism, which claims that science education (typified by the theory of evolution, as well as physical methods of dating the earth's origin by radioisotopic and astronomic means) is some kind of dogma, and unproven. But that is not the issue - those theories are examples of scientific method, and though the particular results may be presented as "established facts" there is a string of logical and empirical support for them, extending back to first principles and verifiable observation by humans using human senses. That logical grounding is qualitatively different from the type of "analysis" used by creationists. It spells the difference between what is science and what is not. Since the creationists are unwilling to play that game and take their lumps on the questions of refutability and logical consequences, they have no place in science education. As a result, setting the question of origins as a scientific question to be discussed among creationists and anti- creationists has no meaning. Establishing net.origins with that stated purpose concedes ahead of time something WHICH ISN'T TRUE, namely that creation "science" is science. It makes further debate specious. That is why I oppose net.origins. Replies welcomed. Oded Feingold ARPA: OAF@OZ Snail: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory 545 Tech Square Cambridge, Mass. 02139 Phony: 617-253-8598