Science and physical laws (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Monday, February 18, 2008, 07:54 (6121 days ago) @ whitecraw

This seems to be another of those threads that revolves round definitions. Below are three dictionary definitions of "science": - 1. The study of the physical world and its manifestations, especially by using systematic observation and experiment. 2. Any systematically organized body of knowledge about a specific subject (e.g. the social sciences). 3. Any activity that is the object of careful study or that is carried out according to a developed method. - In the section of the "guide" that The Reverend Nicholas Dante Rockers is referring to (The Limitations of Science), I had in mind the first of these. Clearly when Nicholas says that science "expands far outside the physical world" he is referring to the second. When whitecraw argues that "no human phenomenon is immune from inquiry", this is covered by 2 and 3. - Nicholas, criticizing Dawkins, writes: "Science makes no claims about that which it cannot study, and therefore is not atheistic, but it is inherently agnostic in nature." Whitecraw responds that science "proceeds on the methodological assumption that there is no agency external to the order of nature that intervenes in that order to affect the course of events, and is to this extent atheistic." Strictly speaking, can we say that science makes claims of any sort, or even proceeds? It is scientists who make claims and who proceed. In relation to religion, I suspect that some scientists (following definition 1) set out to discover how Nature works (agnostic), others how God makes ... or made ... Nature work (theist), and others how Nature makes itself work (atheist). They all study the same thing, should all use the same objective methods, and should eventually end up with the same sets of facts. The difference will be in the conclusions (if any) that they draw from those facts.