When Newton originally presented his theory of gravity it was seriously attacked by his contemporaries as being comprised of "occult forces" rather than being a truly mechanistic physics (like Cartesian physics). Now we all know how that worked out in the end -- not only did Newton triumph, but even what science was ended up being redefined in the process. And it has been redefined many times since then, in different ways and different fields -- each time something initially incompatible becomes the accepted norm, it changes not only the evidence, but the entire standard of what counts as evidence and even what counts as argumentation. This is a well-documented phenomena, and even the most positivistic of philosophers acknowledge this to some degree.
FF
On 12/13/05, Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org wrote:
sockmonk@gmail.com wrote:
I agree of course that science and religion are not "at each other's throats". However, there is one place where I think the SPOV is seen
most
clearly as a POV. This is when any account of a miracle, or other supernatural event, is presumed to be false, impossible, or to
necessarily
have a purely scientific explanation. The 'laws of science' are
undoubtedly
useful, and have produced lots of great things. Of course, people made
some
progress even when the leading 'scientists' of the day thought
everything
was made of just four elements. But to presume that everything
supernatural
is bunk, is imposing a scientific point of view in a way that many
people
think goes too far.
An example of a 'supernatural phenomenon' which is not 'bunk' would be welcome. :)
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