| "Science and Truth" by Clark
In reply to Clark's article Science and Truth someone said: Quote:
I haven't read the other articles (not got round to them yet), but the Science and Truth essay is working on an obsolete model of the scientific method. Verification as a principle of science was abandoned for precisely the reason the author identifies (affirming the consequent is a logical fallacy). Falsification - a currently accepted model of the scientific method - works upon denying the consequent, which is logically valid. The author is using a straw man to put his point across, which is hardly an intellectually honest thing to do.
Essentially the argument in that article distills itself down to "science can never be 100% certain of anything, so scientifically derived 'facts' must be false." This is a non sequitur: the conclusion does not follow from the premise. We could say "science can never be 100% certain of anything, so a scientifically derived 'fact' could be false," but the principle of falsification ensures that those "facts" that are found to conflict with observation are weeded out.
| As he lost me in the first sentence have you any responses?
(see: http://www.christianforums.com/showp...1&postcount=21)
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Richard
CofE
UK
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