Re: Patriarchy: Re: What Matriarchy?
Paul Gorman (eqivp@westminster.ac.uk)
20 Aug 1996 15:28:27 GMT
Silveroak (ag-oak@amber.nvt.net) wrote:
: Theirs happens to be centered around the opening of a book that is
: supposed to contain all answers, your focuses upon a method of observation,
: modeling, approximation, and elimination, while discaring certain points of
: view from consideration as untestable (aka: Occam's razor)
One could advance the argument that science is 'better' because it
presumes less. It does not invoke a metaphysical entity to explain
percieved reality. It simply *assumes* that the universe that we see
around us is real. That which is real can be modeled though the models
are never the equivalent of the reality (no more than maps are the
territory). To the extent that the models predict the observed
behaviours (and new observations based (e.g.) on new instruments) they
are accurate representations. The degree of accuracy varies...
The fact that there are questions which science cannot answer does not
detract from it. These questions are in my experience questions which
science does not pretend to be able to answer (and tend to be questions
which yield no empirically testable hypotheses). Such questions are
(in one school of philosophy at least) meaningless.
: So how do you demonstrate to all points of view that your model works
: better? Obviously the bibliologists aren't going to accept scientific
: standards of evidence...
Are the predictions of scientific models more accurate in determining
the outcome of a series of events? Less accurate? None of the above?
To quote Machievelli: '...in things where there is no recourse to a
neutral observer we must consider the ends'.
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