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Board index » 7-Theology ~ Exodus 3:14 and John 8:58 » 7b: Christianity and Science

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Seminole
PostPosted: Sat Nov 12, 2011 9:32 pm 
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Scientific realism is the view that scientific theories should accurately reflect what reality is like. According to scientific realism, a good scientific theory is a theory that accurately reflects the way things really are.

Instrumentalism is the view that scientific theories do not have to accurately reflect what reality is like. What gives a scientific theory its worth is how well it solves problems, explains the data, and makes predictions that turn out to be true. Accurately reflecting reality is not what gives a scientific theory its worth.

Just because a scientific theory can accurately explain and predict something does not necessarily mean that it accurately reflects reality. For example, Ptolemy's theory about our solar system was good at explaining and predicting the motion of the planets in our solar system, but people eventually realized that it did not accurately reflect what reality was like. The planets of our solar system do not actual move in epicycles.

Do you believe in scientific realism or instrumentalism?
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Strider33
PostPosted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:38 am 
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I don't have a good answer to your question. I think that, at various times, I oscillate between one theory of science and the other.

I want to talk about Ptolemy's model a little. What was "wrong" with Ptolemy's model? You said the planets do not move in cycles and epicycles. But don't they? Didn't Ptolemy's model do a good job of forecasting where to look for a given planet?

What's the real difference between the model given by Ptolemy and the model developed by Copernicus, Galileo and Newton? (I'm ignoring the refinements made by Einstein). If you approximate an ellipse by doing a Taylor series expansion, what you get are terms that look for all the world like cycles and epicycles.

What makes Newton's model "better" than Ptolemy's model? The answer is that it's simpler. There are fewer independent features in Newton's model. There's less to learn. And now that we can observe planets moving around stars other than our own, it's easier to adapt Newton's model to what we observe.

As a historical curiosity, the makers of Almanacs kept doing things according to Ptolemy for a couple of centuries after Newton's time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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Board index » 7-Theology ~ Exodus 3:14 and John 8:58 » 7b: Christianity and Science

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