On 12/17/05, Karl A. Krueger kkrueger@whoi.edu wrote:
"Creation scientists" didn't come up with their claims by observing the world and participating in a scientific process -- they came up with them by reading the Bible, for instance. Reading the Bible is part of doing theology, but it isn't part of doing science. We can go to the proponents and ask (as the Templeton Foundation did) "Where is the science?" The answer is, it isn't there. And that is why it's both correct and neutral to class "creation science" as pseudoscience.
Those who label themselves as "creationist scientists" are happy to go to great pains to show that 1. nobody really approaches the world with a "truly" open mind, but must, by definition, have some preconceived idea of what there is to be found and how to look for it (an assertion well asserted by psychologists as well as philosophy and history of science), and 2. that they also use empirical evidence, they also use external review, they also are happy to set up little experiments. It can be very difficult telling the two apart.
But let us assume that "creation science" is not science. How can we verify such a thing? By our own philosophical analysis of the methods? Sounds like original research to me.
Better, in my mind, to attribute the judgment to something more reputable than other Wikipedian's analysis.
But it seems to me that your argument would lead us to throwing out the idea of categories entirely, since there are *always* similarities and differences. Indeed, I'm not sure how we can write a single categorical sentence that doesn't invoke the same problem if someone wants to nitpick. "Cats are mammals" is a statement of similarity that glosses over the differences between cats and other mammals, after all ....
And if asked to be defended, we would happily point to science textbooks which classify cats as mammals. We don't have to rely on an individual Wikipedian's take on things because we don't do original research. If there is any doubt -- for example, on the classification of a platypus -- we refer to the experts and happily defer any responsibility for getting it wrong ("If you disagree, take it up with THEM, not us. We don't make such decisiions"). Which is what we should do here as well. But unfortunately I seem to be the only one who sees it this way.
FF