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"Scientists - the specialists in discovering what is true".
Really? What is "true". I always thought we determined what was untrue.
Actually we do neither. We create consistent models to be able to explain
physical things. These models are not true because it is recognized that
they all have limitations, and they are one way of explaining what we
currently view as being the "facts". Facts are also not necessarily true
because as you delve deeper there are often modifications to them. A
particular model may be only true for limited circumstances such as
Hooke's
law, or more generally applicable such as Newton's laws. Often a model
that
is considered to be fairly general can't be used in certain circumstances,
so we must use another model which is acknowledged as being more limited.
All of these models use physical evidence and do not admit supernatural
agents.
What I have said certainly rehashes much old ground and is not news to the
members of this list. I think that if we all presented science in this
light, most of the debate about ID, creationism... would vanish.
This definition also gets rid of the contentious word "theory". If
we then substituted model for theory in our writings, people with
any religious faith would be far more comfortable with science.