Apologetics to the Glory of God

Category: Science is not that Simple

  • Why Village Atheists and News Media Shouldn’t Pretend to be Exegetes

    So, I’m sure you’ve all read aaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllll about how horrible Kim Davis is by now, right?  The news media, all your leftist friends, and the like, are telling you so.  Of course, if it were one of their leftist paragons _you_ were talking about – that would be terrible, terrible irrelevancy. In their case, right now, it is okay – because reasons. To be disclosed later, or something. Or at least Salon is telling you so.

    In the land of “I have a liberal arts degree, therefore SCIENCE”, this sort of thing probably makes sense.

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  • A Conversation About Categories

    There are particular buzzwords in the air these days. Of course, there are buzzwords in the air every day – and always have been. One of the hot-buttons these days is “transgender”. With the media circus surrounding Bruce Jenner, it is in an impossible glare. The media’s feeding frenzies know no bounds, and the level of rhetoric and sheer hyperbole is shocking, even to a jaded student of mass media narrative creation.

    The problem is, the left is in a pickle when it comes to “transgender” – much as it is in a pickle concerning “bisexuals.” With the latter, on …

  • Initial Thoughts on the Upcoming Debate

    I’m finding lots of commentary by folks who want to somehow separate the doctrine of the soul’s immortality from the doctrine of eternal punishment. Since, after all, we believe in Sola Scriptura, that necessarily includes “Tota Scriptura”, and the necessary relation of every doctrine to the others. This is a fundamental point of Reformed theology. No doctrine exists in isolation. The denial, or modification of one doctrine will quite necessarily have an effect on a host of others, due to the nature of Scripture, and the theology we affirm from it. In the introduction to Van Til’s Christian Theistic Evidences…

  • Since I was speaking of the Philosophy of Science

    .. on Twitter earlier this evening;

    Reformed Forum: The Philosophy of Science

    Enjoy.…

  • Paul Baird, Crackers in the Pantry, and Scientism

    Now, what I would like to read from Chris is a line of argument where he can PROVE (and by prove I mean to a scientific standard, including the method of falsifiability) that a person has had revelation that could only have originated from the Christian god. If he can do that under lab conditions, then I’ll become a Christian.

    – Paul Baird (http://patientandpersistent.blogspot.com/2011/10/once-more-unto-breach.html)

    How should the difference of opinion between the theist and the atheist be rationally resolved? What Dr. Stein has written indicates that he, like many atheists, has not reflected adequately on this question. He

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  • Science Is Not That Simple (Part 3)

    Part 1
    Part 2

    Chalmers also challenges the idea that facts provide a firm and reliable foundation for scientific knowledge. This argument falls in line with the other arguments.

    Further difficulties concerning the reliability of the observational basis of science arise from some of the ways in which judgments about the adequacy of observation statements draw on presupposed knowledge in a way that renders those judgments fallible.1

    Chalmers uses the example of Aristotle’s idea that fire is a substance. Fire was observed, and it could be seen rising into the air so that it seemed accurate to say that fire …

  • Science Is Not That Simple (Part 2)

    (For the first part of Science Is Not That Simple click here.)

    Chalmers argues against the common idea that facts precede and are separate from theory. Chalmers starts his argument out against this common idea by explaining the ambiguity of the term “fact”.

    It can refer to a statement that expresses the fact and it can also refer to the state of affairs referred to by such a statement.  For example, it is a fact that there are mountains and craters on the moon.  Here the fact can be taken as referring to the mountains or craters themselves.  Alternatively,

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  • Science Is Not That Simple

    Science is often thought of as involving facts that are directly given to unprejudiced observers through their senses, facts that precede and are independent of theory, and facts that provide a firm basis for scientific knowledge. A.F. Chalmers argues against these widely accepted ideas. 

    It is widely believed that facts concerning the world around us come to us directly through the senses.  This would lead us to believe that observing the world around us and recording what is seen or otherwise experienced through the senses is all there is to observation.  In this way it is thought, what is seen …