[meteorite-list] Origin of the Moon
From: Francis Graham <francisgraham_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:21:02 2004 Message-ID: <20030711031005.66859.qmail_at_web40110.mail.yahoo.com> I'll try to make peace in this controversy. Science is NOT like religion, and people who say so have not considered the matter very well. Science depends on observations and experiments that can be done repeatedly and at will. The physical laws known to us are based on those kinds of hard work. Religion offers other kinds of knowing. Science cannot say there is or is not a God, because one cannot do repeatable at-will experiments or observations on God. We cannot at will see the vision that Ezekiel saw, for example. Anyone who says that science presumes there is no God, or should presume there is One, is not well versed in the limitations of the methods of science. When scientists say the Moon began in possibly such and such a way,such as impacts, inherent in this idea is that the laws of physics operated then as now. If God miraculously created the Moon in some different way we have no way of knowing. In fact, we have no way of knowing that God did not create us five minutes ago, complete with memories of lives which never really existed. This is the Omphalos argument, made by Rev. Philip Gosse. But the idea that the moon was made by physical processes much as they are today has evidence behind it; we see physical processes much as now occuring in parts of the Universe 4 billion light years away, the light of which took that long to reach us, so they occurred four billion years ago, near when the moon formed. Of course, once again, there is no way of knowing this too is not a ruse. Science takes the simplest course, governed by the logical dictum called Occam's Razor. We see physical processes now that occurred four billion years ago; the laws of physics are the same, therefore, the Moon could have formed in a non-miraculous way by physical processes of the laws of physics. It may all be a Divine ruse or error of not considering all the possible miracles that could give us the same appearances, but that is not the simplest explanation. Galileo met astronomers who thought, following Aristotle, that the Moon was smooth. He showed them lunar mountains through telescope. "But," they argued, "These mountains have a transparent invisible layer on top of them which has a smooth top." Without batting an eye, Galileo replied, "Yes, but there are invisible mountains on the smooth layer." One can make many ideas beyond the simplest. They might be correct. But science must take the simplest until evidence based on repeatable and at-will observable phenomena compels further. I tell my students who have any number of religious ideas about origins (and they widely vary, even among Christians) that to learn scientific ideas of origins involves understanding the simplest explanations with repeatable experiments and at-will-observations, and their children, the laws of physics, as a matrix. Anything they wish to add or subtract from it is based on their own personal faith, but that is not the domain of science, no more than it is possible to recreate Ezekiel's unique vision in a test tube. Francis Graham __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com Received on Thu 10 Jul 2003 11:10:05 PM PDT |
StumbleUpon del.icio.us Yahoo MyWeb |