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On Dec 20, 2010, at 9:11 PM, John Denker wrote:
On 12/20/2010 02:20 PM, ludwik kowalski wrote:
" Unfortunately, the words "why" and "how" are in our languages. They
are used by all people, including deists and scientists.
We can agree that words exist. However, I suggest that we
should be mainly concerned with the /meaning/ of words, not
the mere existence of words.
By way of analogy, suppose you hear a public service announcement
that says "please conserve energy" ...
-- its notion of energy is wildly different from the physics
notion of energy.
-- its notion of conservation is wildly different from the physics notion of conservation.
Similarly there is a metaphysical why, which bears virtually
no resemblance to the physical why or how.
Galileo pointed this out nearly 400 years ago. Galileo
divorced physics from metaphysics and philosophy, and this
is considered the epoch, i.e. Day One of modern science.
The classical laws of motion ought to say what happens. They
may or may not say how it happens. They rarely if ever say
why it happens.
In relativity there is a scientific notion of causality, and
in thermodynamics there are scientific notions of spontaneity
and irreversibility. These are, once again, wildly different
from the metaphysical notions of why and how.
In epidemiology there are elaborate protocols for distinguishing
coincidence from honest-to-goodness cause-and-effect. These are
taken very seriously, as they should, because lives hang in the
balance. Many lives, and many billions of dollars.
This is serious business. Keeping religion and metaphysics out
of epidemiology is at least as important as keeping them out of
astronomy and biology.
Not only should deism be kept out of science; science should also be kept out of deism. These two fields of knowledge have different methodologies of validation. Recognizing this fact, people active in these two fields of knowledge can respect each other. This is more desirable than endless attempts to show, often violently, that "we are better than you are."
Most people are neither professional scientists nor professional theologians. Some of them believe only in what theologians say, while others belive only in what scietists say. Some accept the authority of both and some are indifferent to both. Peaceful coexitence is threaten by those who attack theologians pretending to be scientists and those who atack science pretending to be theologians. It is also threatened by politicians who exploit people’s beliefs (to promote wars and revolutions).
Ludwik
http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html
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