The Question

An entire Biology Lecture was instructed to read a book by Kuhn outlining the Scientific Method as “hypothesis, experimentation, and experiment’s results which either corroborated or refuted the hypothesis”.

During the review of the year’s subject matter, prior to the final, the lecturer (to 500 undergraduate students) entertained questions.

A Jewish boy (the only one wearing a yarmulke) asked why Evolution was scientific when it fact it didn’t adhere to the guidelines of the “Scientific Method”.

After all, as each “theory of Evolution” was refuted by new evidence, instead of discarding the theory, the “current theory” was modified in a way that as yet there was no evidence to refute.

However over time the “new theory” would be rejected as well only to “beget” a new theory, as the predictable cycle continued.

The boy asked, “Why is Evolution scientific?” To this which the lecturer paused for a moment and then asked, “Next question?”

This reminded me of what I once read;

“I know that I know nothing” or “I know one thing: that I know nothing”.

Socrates

Plato, as a student of Socrates, I’m sure debated with Aristotle about one’s belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience.

It would seem that Plato’s Timaeus lectures may have had applied Nicomachean Ethics to argue his Theory of Forms.

The theory attests that language is represented by a number of words mainly having to do with vision: the sight or appearance of a thing.

These meanings remained the same over the centuries until the beginning of philosophy, when they became equivocal, acquiring additional specialized philosophic meanings.

Thales, noted that appearances change quite a bit and began to ask what the thing changing “really” is.

The answer was substance, which stands under the changes and is the actual existing thing being seen.

The status of appearances now came into question. What is the form really and how is that related to substance?

Thus, the theory of matter and form (today’s hylomorphism) was born.

The word “hylomorphism” is a 19th-century term formed from the Greek words ὕλη hyle, “wood, matter” and μορφή, morphē, “form.”

Synopsis:

Aristotle applied his theory of hylomorphism to living things. He defines a soul as that which makes a living thing alive. Life is a property of living things, just as knowledge and health are.

Therefore, a soul is a form—that is, a property or a set of properties—belonging to a living thing. Furthermore, Aristotle says that a soul is related to its body as form to matter.

Hence, Aristotle argues, there is no problem in explaining the unity of body and soul, just as there is no problem in explaining the unity of wax and its shape.

Just as a wax object consists of wax with a certain shape, so a living organism consists of a body with the property of life, which is its soul.

On the basis of his hylomorphic theory, Aristotle rejects the Pythagorean doctrine of reincarnation, ridiculing the notion that just any soul could inhabit just any body.

The problem herein seems to be in the Fields in logic, which include mathematical logic (formal symbolic logic) and philosophical logic.

Logic is the study of the principles of correct reasoning.

Arguments use either deductive reasoning or inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is when, given certain statements (called premises), other statements (called conclusions) are unavoidably implied.

Rules of inferences from premises include the most popular method, modus ponens, where given “A” and “If A then B”, then “B” must be concluded.

A common convention for a deductive argument is the syllogism. An argument is termed valid if its conclusion does follow from its premises, whether the premises are true or not, while an argument is sound if its conclusion follows from premises that are true.

Propositional logic uses premises that are propositions, which are declarations that are either true or false, while predicate logic uses more complex premises called formulae that contain variables.

These can be assigned values or can be quantified as to when they apply with the universal quantifier (always apply) or the existential quantifier (applies at least once).

Inductive reasoning makes conclusions or generalizations based on probabilistic reasoning. For example, if “90% of humans are right-handed” and “Seth is human” then “Seth is probably right-handed”.

Thus was born the hypotheses that evolution is without influence, substance or form and is purely self propelled in the randomness of an imaginary evolving universe…hum?

Now,…that is what some choose to ascribe to as more believable, than God as the creator…I would have said to that class; “you go run those figures again, and come back with an absolute” (metaphor).

Evolution in itself is only a hypotheses, nothing more and nothing less and is purely for entertaining science fiction, gone rouge!

Michael Chaffee

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Writing with the Veiled…