As I keep telling Boaz, simply changing the topic because you dislike the question doesn't move the discussion forward.

>>'God made it so' was never a scientific theory and has never been subjected to empirical investigation<<

Let's go back to your original point.

>>Whether a theory is scientific does not hinge in any way on the veracity of alternative theories. Using this logic, until evolution came along, 'God made it so' was a scientific theory, then became unscientific when evolution was dreamt up - it's status as scientific changed even though nothing about the theory changed.<<

Prior to the advent of the theory of evolution, the populace did not have an alternative to "God made it so". There were no alternative theories, with or without veracity. In this case, why is it unreasonable to treat "God made it so" as a scientific theory?

Under "God made it so", everything could be explained.

The first Unified Theory, in fact.

So tell me, in its time, how was it distinguishable from any other scientific theory? What characteristics, apart from hindsight, cause "God made it so" to be non-scientific.

Because it is only further experience, experimentation and deductive reasoning that creates that hindsight.

Just as with any other scientific theory you can name.

Pericles...I think your last post was addressed to another person? (after the first bit about me)

but to follow up on what you said.... about 'God made it so' being the prevailing wisdom until an 'alternative' came about i.e. the scientific explanation... I don't see them as 'alternatives'... I see one being the theological summary of what science describes in detail.

"In the beginning, God created" is a very easy concept to grasp.

But the detailed description of say transposons, and DNA etc.. is more along the lines of "How God made it" than 'did' God make it.

To me, the over-riding framework is based on the intervention by God in His world, ultimately having its greatest expression in the resurrection of Christ.

But given that you don't have (at this point :) a lot of faith in that reality, one would be overly optimistic to think you would factor that historic reality into your perception of chemical processes.

Well.. not a lot to be gained by just 'thumping' your brain with repeated assertions to that effect, so, I'll resort to the proven method of praying for you.
blessings.

"Prior to the advent of the theory of evolution, the populace did not have an alternative to "God made it so". There were no alternative theories, with or without veracity. In this case, why is it unreasonable to treat "God made it so" as a scientific theory?

It has nothing to do with what is reasonable. It is about what is possible. You cannot conduct an experiment that would prove that God did not exist, if he doesn't exist. It's liks you're asking, if a viollage has no oranges, can they treat an apple like an orange.

"Under "God made it so", everything could be explained.

Which is why it is useless from a scientific theory.

"So tell me, in its time, how was it distinguishable from any other scientific theory? What characteristics, apart from hindsight, cause "God made it so" to be non-scientific.

It's not falsifiable.

"Because it is only further experience, experimentation and deductive reasoning that creates that hindsight.

Wrong. Falsifiability is a test you can apply with forsight.

"about 'God made it so' being the prevailing wisdom until an 'alternative' came about i.e. the scientific explanation...

Prevailing opinion does not mean scientific.

"To me, the over-riding framework is based on the intervention by God in His world, ultimately having its greatest expression in the resurrection of Christ.

That's really nice, but it has nothing to do with science.

"one would be overly optimistic to think you would factor that historic reality into your perception of chemical processes.

The historical reality reflects history. Chemical processes can be understood perfectly well in a historical vaccuum.

"Well.. not a lot to be gained by just 'thumping' your brain with repeated assertions to that effect, so, I'll resort to the proven method of praying for you.

These repeated assertions are completely beside the point. God made it so is still the only explanation available at the fringes of modern science, but that doesn't make it a valid theory for scientific enquiry. A definition of science that does not distinguish it from the study of history or religion is valueless.

You miss the point, freediver. I suspect, deliberately.

The key phrase was "in its time".

"in its time, how was [God made it so] distinguishable from any other scientific theory? What characteristics, apart from hindsight, cause "God made it so" to be non-scientific."

Your response was: "It's not falsifiable"

True, but irrelevant.

Place yourself in a civilization where evolution had not been contemplated. The only theory, the totally accepted wisdom of the civilization in which you lived, is that "God did it".

You have used scientific theory for other stuff - physics, chemistry, mechanics and so on - and understand the concept of falsifiability.

Within that scenario - and without, as I said, the benefit of hindsight - how is your "God did it" theory distinguishable from any of the myriad other theories about the world around you?

In other words what - except for hindsight - prevents it from being considered a sound scientific theory?

And Boaz, I fully agree that it is not necessary to jettison belief in God simply because a theory of evolution appears that is different from the Adam's rib version.

So long as you accept that having determined an evolutionary theory that disposes of the creation of Adam and Eve as fully-formed human beings, you cannot maintain those two versions in parallel.

Unfortunately, so many people are dependent for their self-image on the "realities" expressed in ancient scriptures that they find it difficult to separate the concept of religious belief from those books.

freediver, do you have access to a library?

I have have a reference for you that explains far better than I ever could:

Mary B. Williams (1982) The importance of prediction testing in evolutionary_biology. Erkenntnis_Volume17_Number_3_pp291-306

“But if prediction testing is so central to evolutionary biology, why have so many reputable philosophers concluded that there are no falsifiable predictions of the theory? The predictions which evolutionary biologists test, and whose results force the revision or rejection of theories, are rendered invisible by a series of factors: (1) Evolutionary predictions are not about organisms (as we intuitively expect them to be). (2) The theory and its most relevant background theories are relatively weak (preventing clear falsifications). (3) Evolutionary predictions are not about the future (so biologists frequently do not think of them as predictions). (4) A particular empirical study is frequently only a small part of a test of a prediction. (5) Some research traditions are seen by biologists as refining, rather than testing, a hypothesis.”


“[An example presented] is typical of the falsifiable predictions of evolutionary theory in being about the presently discoverable results of past evolutionary processes rather than about the future results of present evolutionary processes. (These presently discoverable results might concern fossils, and the prediction might then be seen as a prediction about the past.) It is not clear to biologists inexperienced in epistemological analysis that such condictions and retrodictions are predictions which can legitimately be used in tests of the theory. For example, the eminent evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr asks: "Is such correct guessing of the results of past events genuine prediction?". For the philosopher the answer is clear: such 'guesses' are genuine predictions of the theory if they are deducible from the theory plus a set of boundary conditions, and if the results were not known before the deduction was carried out. But biologists, unfamiliar with the philosophically relevant definition of 'prediction', and influenced by the fact that the paradigms of prediction in Newtonian physics are predictions about the future, conclude that, since evolutionary biology makes no predictions about the future, it makes no predictions.
(con't)

(con'td)

"There are two interesting reasons for the lack of predictions about the future. The most obvious one is that prediction of future events is possible only when the relevant future boundary conditions are predictable; such predictions in physics are usually made about systems in which the experimenter can control the state of the relevant boundary conditions, but we can neither control nor predict the boundary conditions for an evolutionarily significant amount of time (e.g., centuries). The less obvious, but more interesting, reason is that few, if any, predictions of evolutionary theory are of the form 'If the state of the system at time t o is So, the state of the system at time t0 + h will be S1. Except for a few special cases (e.g., if X is extinct at t0, X will be extinct at t0 + h) predictions of this form are possible if and only if some of the fundamental laws of the theory are differential equations with respect to time. As I have argued elsewhere, there is reason to believe that none of the evolutionary laws either are differential equations or have clock time as a primitive concept, though some are difference equations with generation time as a variable and can be crudely approximated by differential equations. Thus one would not expect predictions about events at a specific future time to play a central role in evolutionary biology, although they do play a central role in physics. (This is an intrinsic difference between physics and evolutionary biology, but it is not a difference in the logical structure.) Part of the reason we failed to recognize evolutionary predictions is that we were looking for predictions which looked like the predictions of physics."

There's much more wonderful stuff in there that is of full relevance, so I would suggest that you have a gander before you start writing your article.

If you cannot access it, I may be able to email it to you.