REad the article and answer the following question? (minimum 200 words) How is e
ID: 93215 • Letter: R
Question
REad the article and answer the following question? (minimum 200 words)
How is evaluation a historical science according to shermer?
Article 1 esta dou esta powi cri The Facts of Evolution of re of Sp and Ag MICHAEL SHERMER Paley Theo The affin es of all the beings of the same class have must be made from scant data in the presen his debate has sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe been exploded to encompass a fight between religion and fam this simile largely speaks the truth. As buds give rise by Science, gen growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out word and overtop on a sides many a feebler branch, so by Ray's Prediction and Observation generation Ibelieve ithas been with the great Tree of Life which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of Most essentially, evolution is a historical science. Darwin va the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching ued above all else prediction and verification by subsequent handy and beautiful ramifications observation. n an act of bri ant historical science, for exam creat ple, Darwin correctly develo ped a theory of coral reef evolution -Charles Darwin crea years before he developed his theory of biological evolution being On the Origin of Species, 1859 shou He had never seen a coral reef, but during the Beagle's famous voyage to the Galapagos, he had studied the types of coral reefs deur Order. he theory of evolution has been under attack since ed that the different examples of coral reefs did not represent as mu Charles Darwin first published On the Origin of Species and W different types, each of which needed a differen causal explana n 1859. From the start, its critics have seized on the the efficie rather, the different examples represented different stag ory of evolution to try to undermine its facts. But all great works of development of coral reefs, for which only a single cause Palo of science are written in support of some particular view. In edge o was needed. Darwin considered this a trium of theory in driv 1861, shortly after he published his new theory, Darwin wrote a ng scientific investigation: Theoretical prediction was followed sage o etter to his colleague, Henry Fawcett, who had just attended a by observational verification, whereby "I had therefore only to culture special meeting of the British Association for he Advancemen erify and extend my views by a careful examination of coral maker of Science during which Darwin's book was debated. One of reefs." In this case, the theory came first, then the data In c he naturalists had argued that On the Origin of Species was too The publication of the Origin of Species triggered a roaring Ston heoretical, that Darwin should have just "put his facts before debate about the relative roles of data and theory in science mig us and let them res n response, Darwin reflected that science Darwin's "bulldog" defender, Thomas Henry Huxley, erupted o be of any service, required more than list-making needed n a paroxysm against those who pontificated on science bu arger ideas that could make sense of piles of data. Otherwise had never practiced themselves: "There cannot be a doubt he Darwin said, a geologis might as well go into a gravelpit and hat the method of inquiry which Mr. Darwin has adopted is not We count the pebbles and describe the colours. Data without gen only rigorously in accord with the canons of scientific logic, bu eralizations are useless: facts without explanatory principles are s the only adequate method," Huxley wrote. Those "cri Som meaningless. A theory" is not just someone's opinion or a wild cs exclusively trained in classics or in mathematics, who have guess made by some scientist. A theory is a wel supported and never determined ascientific fact in their lives by induction from com ested generalization that explains a set of observations experiment or observation, prate learnedly about Mr Darwin We Science without theory is useless. method," he bellowed. But life which is not inductive enough, not The process of science s fueled by what I call Darwin's Baconian enough forsooth for them. ence is Dictum, defined by Darwin himself in his letter to Fawce Darwin insisted that theory comes to and from the facts, not observation must be for or against some view if s to be of from po cal or philosophical beliefs, whether from God or the godfather of scientific empiricism. It i a point he voiced any service Darwin's casual comment nearly a hundred and fifty years succinctly in his cautions to a young scientist. The facts speak es a serious debate about the relative roles of for themselves, he said, advising he advantage, at presen ago encapsu data and theory, or observations and conclusions, in science very sparing in introducing theory in your papers; let For lon of bein In a science like evolution n which inferences about the past theory guide your observations, bu had theo your reputation is weExplanation / Answer
In reality, all science is a seamless mix of things we observe directly, and things we infer using natural laws extended into the realms of the past, the very distant, or the very tiny (what is called “uniformitarianism” or “actualism”)His chapter called "The New New Creationism" aims to blow intelligent design theory out of the water, and, in this reviewer's opinion, it succeeds.
Once an inferential or historical science is well established through the accumulation of positive evidence, however, it is just as sound as a laboratory or experimental science. For creationists to disprove evolution, for example, they need to unravel all these independent lines of evidence as well as construct a rival theory that can explain them better than the theory of evolution. They have not, instead employing only negative evidence in the form of “if evolutionary biologists cannot present a natural explanation of X, then a supernatural explanation of X must be true.”
There is one mystery that science may not be able to answer, and that is the question of what existed before our universe began. One answer is the multiverse. According to the theory, multiple universes each had their own genesis, and some of these universes gave birth (perhaps through collapsing black holes) to baby universes, one of which was ours. There is no positive evidence for this conjecture, but neither is there positive evidence for the traditional answer to the question—God. And in both cases, we are left with the reductio ad absurdum question of what came before the multiverse or God. If God is defined as that which does not need to be created, then why can’t the universe (or multiverse) be defined as that which does not need to be created?
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