Posted: Feb 23, 2016 10:41 pm
Weaver wrote:Hobbes Choice wrote:Weaver wrote:The difference being, of course, that with Christians, they start with the "theory" (unscientific usage) of divine creation, then search for data to support it, whereas with the theory (scientific usage) of uniformitarianism, the data was collected and analyzed, then the theory was developed to explain the data.
What you say of Christians are true, but what you claim for science is by and large a naive view.
You keep asserting that assumptions about uniformitarianism preceded the theory, but you have yet to actually demonstrate it.
Instead of being argumentative with people who do not simply blindly accept your assertions, why not try backing them up with reasoned argument and relevant citations?
It's taken humans thousands of years to work this one out.
It was not until Lyell formally asserted it, that it became a massive trope and established itself as paradigm. Why not start with the Wiki entry - its not too bad for a wiki entry. But I'm not going to rehearse my entire knowledge of Intellectual History.
The idea that uniformitarianism was not always accepted is a no brainer; as is the idea that science just blindly collects pure data and then and only then develops a theory is a school boy simplification. All experiments assume a theory; it more like a hermeneutic circle, of testing re-testing, and refining.
You might also like Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. His main concern it demonstrating the resistance to change in science, and moments of big shifts in its history; but for the most part "Normal science does not aim at novelties of fact or theory and, when successful, finds none." Thomas Kuhn.
He also talked about "Theory Ladenness".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-ladenness