Hello again Squonkstail...
(BTW, was your message actually full of "?", or was it a character
encoding problem (see below)? Unfortunately I'm not sure how many actual
questions did you put...)
While I agree that science is somehow close to art, that applies to
science as it actually is (as it is actually done by humans) rather than
to the theoretical idea of science. Scientists do work in a somewhat
artistic mode for a relevant part of their professional lives, but still
they are bound to the theoretical idea of science, i.e., the constraint
of empirical truth.
It is thus hard to compare creationism and evolution. You might compare
them based on general beauty (your "is creationism more artistic than
evolution?") but you can't compare them based on the flavour of beauty
science has chosen as its defining constraint: objective (empirical)
truth. Creationism is not a scientific theory, or it is a scientific
theory without much empirical evidence in its support (although some
creationist will certainly insist there is plenty of
evidence...something I really can't buy).
So what kind of comparison can we do? Among all "stories" about how it
all began, creationism might be, for someone, more appealing and more
beautiful than evolution. Among all scientific theories about how it all
began, creationism simply has no place. Given that "true" is somehow a
subtype of "good", we have been educated and taught to give it a special
status. Maybe due to this education, a "beautiful" story about how life
began might be something useful for story telling in a beautiful summer
evening, but it cannot be a satisfactory replacement, in my mind, for a
"true" story.
A
SQUONKSTAIL@aol.com ha scritto:
> Hi Andrea,
> I like what you say.
> I agree particularly about breaking the framework?
>
> Transferring this into my previous post, a framework breaking
> scientist may be ostracised for having the audacity to challenge his
> respected peers? (I am thinking of Braithwait and his gyroscope -
> gravity lecture that was the first in the history of the Royal society
> not to be published. Braithwait invented the linear induction motor.)
> A framework breaking philosopher, (like Pirsig)? is largely ignored.
> A framework breaking author is hailed as a creative and dynamic new
> force?
>
> Pirsig has been accepted far more in literary circles than in
> philosophy circles? (There are lots of literary courses exploring ZMM
> but not many philosophy ones?) And his suggestion that causation and
> probability could be replaced by value is simply laughed at by science
> oriented individuals as it strikes deep into the Truth constraint you
> highlight?
>
> These framework breakers are thin in the turbulent air while many
> science researchers plod in slow degrees? I should imagine the
> viscosity generated by truth constraint at ground level can feel
> rather suffocating if one does not enjoy the measured approach?
>
> I feel we agree that on its best level, science and art are indeed the
> same?
> Is creationism more artistic than evolution?
>
> All the best,
> Squonk.
-- Andrea Sosio P&T-TPD-SP Tel. (8)9006 mailto: Andrea.Sosio@italtel.itMOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
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