The fight over Darwin - Teaching evolution in schools

[appolose]

Rath said:

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:

I'm not sure what you're getting at with this.  If we hadn't ever made that inference and made an attempt to reconcile it with known science, a mathematician still could have played around and come up with the possibility, right?  And if the math checked out, they would have to accept the possibility, and probably go looking for some clue IRL to see if it showed up.  

I mean, the creation of the universe has always been a big question mark for science, so I don't think there was a time when scientists were completely ruling out possibilities for what was going on at that point.  

I don't think mathematicians would come up with this by themselves.  I'm fairly sure that they came up with this only as a result of recent scientific observations.

In any event, we could just pretend we're in a universe where the math doesn't work.

I'm sure they did, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't have eventually gotten around to it anyway.  I'm convinced you underestimate the amount of 'pure' research among mathematicians that only finds a real-life application once development is underway. 

I'm not sure what the point of you last sentence is.  You could equally just pretend that you agree with me. 

I'm not so sure; in any event, I suppose neither one of us can say what the case is.

I'm saying, in the last part, that if the math didn't work to demonstrate the possibility, then we would be left with 2 contradictory observations, yes?

Wanna bet on the length of this discussion?  :P

The math did work (and has been done) so can you come up with a situation that would actually meet the criteria I stated earlier?

I don't think there are any which don't violate the laws of logic.

Whether or not it did or does is not the issue.  "If it didn't" is what I'm saying (you did say it didn't have to be real observation)