Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!cs.tcd.ie!tcdmath!ftoomey
From: ftoomey@maths.tcd.ie (Fergal Toomey)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Creationism in our schools and the Anti-Dogma statement
Message-ID: <233@maths.tcd.ie>
Date: 17 Jan 89 13:02:41 GMT
References: <8558@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <2630002@hpcilzb.HP.COM> <13338@cup.portal.com> <206@maths.tcd.ie> <1884@buengc.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: ftoomey@maths.tcd.ie (Fergal Toomey)
Organization: Maths Dept., Trinity College, Dublin
Lines: 61

In article <1884@buengc.BU.EDU> bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>In article <206@maths.tcd.ie> ftoomey@maths.tcd.ie (Fergal Toomey) writes:
>>
>>The way I see it, the difference between Creationism and Darwinism is
>>essentially the difference between pseudo-science and science.
>
>Which you then proceed to contradict.
>
>>Just what is so scientific about Darwinism
>>and so unscientific about Creationism? To date, nobody has managed to pin
>>down this difference (if it exists).
>
>Some clews:
>
>/-------------------------------------------------------\
>|   Darwinism		  |	Creationism		|
>--------------------------------------------------------|
>| Collect evidence.	  |	What evidence?		|
>|			  |	(Oh, you mean those	|
>|			  |	dogmatically prepared	|
>|			  |	gedanken experiments	|
>|			  |	and ancient legends...) |
>|			  |				|
>| Fit hypotheses to data. |	Fit data to hypotheses. |
>\-------------------------------------------------------/
>
>				--Blair
>				  "I can feel myself evolving
>				   even now..."



Sorry about the contradiction: what I should have said was that trying to
formally differentiate between Creationism and Darwinism is just as
difficult as trying to differentiate between science and pseudo-science.

As regards the clues you mention above:
	Creationism's position is just a little bit , but a significant little bit
	stronger than you suggest. A Darwinist will take his evidence from
	observation, and a Creationist will take his from the Bible. Which 
	evidence is stronger? Common sense and some healthy cynicism tells
	us to believe the Darwinist in preference; but how can we prove
	that his theory really stands on firmer ground?

	Religionists and pseudo-scientists of all types have often been
	accused of 'sticking to their guns in the face of contradictory
	evidence', but the fact is that many theories which have been
	'disproved' are still considered to be scientific theories
	although no self-respecting scientist would claim that they
	are valid (eg. Newton's theory of light, which claimed that
	light is a stream of particle's, is considered scientific in
	nature, although disproved). So why isn't Creationism,
	also considered to be an invalid theory by many scientists,
	not thought of as scientific?

	But this is wandering a little too far for this newsgroup;
	if you want to continue this discussion, I suggest we do so
	elsewhere, perhaps in sci.philosophy.meta.

			Fergal Toomey
				TCD