Posted: Jun 06, 2017 9:09 pm
Pebble wrote:Science starts by identifying the underlying patterns and working to explain those patterns. Looking for the outliers and trying to explain them without having understood the underlying pattern in the first place is a fool's errand that can only end with magical explanations.
Heh, yeah. And magical explanations invariably fail to explain anything when it comes down to it. They usually amount to the platitude "It is the way it is because God did it that way". Oh, well fuck me. There isn't anything that couldn't be "explained" by that.
Suppose life didn't exist at all. Why would things be the way they are then? Well if God made it so, then it would be true in the exact same sense. "It is the way it is because God did it that way".
Suppose every planet, moon, asteroid or even stars had life on them. Suppose there was an infinite number of universes with an infinite variety of physical laws and arrangements, and with an infinite diversity of life among them. Why would things be the way they are then? Well if God made it so, then it would be true in the exact same sense. "It is the way it is because God did it that way".
The God-did-it "explanation" has no actual explanatory power in the sense that term is used in philosophy. Nothing is actually explained. It's just a platitude. A band-aid you put on things you don't really know how to answer.