lew@ihlpa.UUCP (Lew Mammel, Jr.) (02/28/85)
Ken Arndt posted a set of quotes to net.religion on Feb 3 which were intended to show the unscientific nature of evolutinary theory . This included a quote from Karl Popper characterizing evolution as "a metaphysical research programme". This rang a bell, and I see now that Ken didn't go far enough in his debunking. Even the hardest of hard sciences, Newtonian mechanics is susceptible to this sort of quote-attack. From Feynman's Lectures on Physics: ... if we study the characteristics of force as a PROGRAM OF INTEREST, then we shall find that forces have some simplicity; the law [i.e. F=ma] is a good PROGRAM FOR ANALYZING NATURE, it is a SUGGESTION that the forces will be simple. Here we have Newton's Second Law reduced to a suggestion by a Nobel Prize winner in physics. Have at 'em Ken! "And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know folly and perceived that in this also was madness and vexation of the spirit." Lew Mammel, Jr. ihnp4!ihlpa!lew