The fight over Darwin - Teaching evolution in schools

[appolose]

Final-Fan said:

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:

He was just pointing out that multiple phenomena are not necessary.  

And supposing that it was shown that mass was being created without any apparent use of or decline in energy, that might unseat much of physics but science is not capable of concluding that a supernatural force is the cause of any phenomenon.  "For reasons unknown" is the closest it can come.  And "for reasons unknown" is all that would happen, not "oops we can't answer this (YET) so I guess the scientific method should be discarded".  

To say "For reasons unknown" is to imply that one of your well-established observations is false, which goes back to the problem of contradicting that basic tenet.  Since we can't have contradiction, it's either science goes or the supernatural comes (I posit).

How can an observation of a phenomenon itself contradict another observation?  Sure, it can contradict a theory, but that leaves open the potential that a correct (other) explanation exists.  So no matter how many theories you destroy, there is always the possibility that we have simply not thought of the correct theory to explain what has happened, unless you somehow prove that no natural explanation can possibly exist.  

So if apples start falling up instead of down and it can't be reconciled with gravity as we know it, then our understanding of gravity is wrong [edit:  (or we're missing some other factor overpowering gravity)], but that doesn't mean there's NO scientific explanation for things falling up and down.  

Kinda funny how the "can't prove a negative" atheists face is going the other way now.   

My example to Rath is just that:  It is observed (hypothetically) that matter cannot be created physically, then observed that matter comes into existence.  These are contradictory if you don't invoke the supernatural, are they not?  For how could matter become without physical means if the physical is all there is?

For your example; yes, I've acknowledged that to Khuutra.  My example is not such a situation.  Your's entails having a well-established observation become a not-well-established observation.  Mine, on the other hand, shows two well-established observations that are not contradictory unless the sole existence of the phsyical is assumed.