So, let us give a "rough working definition" of science as it should be (recognising that we will often fall short):
science, at its best, is the unfettered — but ethically and intellectually responsible — progressive, observational evidence-led pursuit of the truth about our world (i.e. an accurate and reliable description and explanation of it), based on:
a: collecting, recording, indexing, collating and reporting accurate, reliable (and where feasible, repeatable) empirical -- real-world, on the ground -- observations and measurements,
b: inference to best current -- thus, always provisional -- abductive explanation of the observed facts,
c: thus producing hypotheses, laws, theories and models, using logical-mathematical analysis, intuition and creative, rational imagination [[including Einstein's favourite gedankenexperiment, i.e thought experiments],
d: continual empirical testing through further experiments, observations and measurement; and,
e: uncensored but mutually respectful discussion on the merits of fact, alternative assumptions and logic among the informed. (And, especially in wide-ranging areas that cut across traditional dividing lines between fields of study, or on controversial subjects, "the informed" is not to be confused with the eminent members of the guild of scholars and their publicists or popularisers who dominate a particular field at any given time.)
As a result, science enables us to ever more effectively (albeit provisionally) describe, explain, understand, predict and influence or control objects, phenomena and processes in our world.
So, since we simply were not here to see the deep past ofr origins, we are compelled to reconstruct it on more or less plausible models driven by inference to best explanation. This means that in origins investigations, our results and findings are inevitably even more provisional than are those of operational science, where we can directly cross check models against observation. That further means that origins science findings are inherently more prone to controversy and debate than more conventional theories in science.
But, then, that also means that origins science studies is a particularly good context for equipping us with the skills of thinking for ourselves, and for developing and presenting results and proposals for acting on the basis of such thinking for ourselves.
Extending this, Aristarchos [[~ 310 – 230 BC] used the fact that when the moon is exactly half-illuminated, it is at right angles to the sun, and so by observing the angle between the two in the sky, he estimated the relative distances and sizes. However, his measured angle was about 20 times too big: 3 degrees, so he thought the sun was ~ 20 times the moon's distance and diameter (instead of ~ 400), but that meant it was much bigger than the moon or the earth, and he proposed a heliocentric theory of the solar system. However, such a view did not fit well with the philosophy and the “common sense” of the time, which both seemed to supported the idea that the rest of the universe moved around the earth. (A systematic, biasing error in his method – in addition to the usual random errors that cause scatter with multiple observations -- is that depending on where an object is in the sky, its real direction is distorted by refraction at different angles through the atmosphere. Astronomers now routinely adjust for this.)
Let us briefly lay out the challenges and approaches:
1 --> We are often interested in scientifically investigating the remote past of origins, or things in reaches of space such that we cannot directly interact with the entities and/or phenomena of interest. Or it may be inconvenient or unethical to carry out experiments based on manipulated variables and structured observations. In addition, we often encounter things such as electrons that cannot be or are very hard to directly observe,
2 --> Instead, we must observe traces of the world as it is, or with studies of the unobserved past, traces that point to the past. The methods of the statistician, and the detective investigating and making sense of circumstantial evidence and clues -- as opposed to testimony -- are therefore of considerable help here.
3 --> That is we are carrying out an exercise in inference to the best, empirically grounded explanation. (Often, termed abduction; a species of inductive reasoning. Induction, here, being understood in the modern sense -- arguments where the premises or empirical [[observed] evidence introduced make the conclusion more likely to be true rather than certainly so. [[For a first level look, cf here, for a serious academic discussion, here.])
4 --> In simple essence, we are looking at facts F1, F2, . . . Fn. Such may be puzzling, but if an explanation E1 is put forth, it makes good sense of them -- ties them together in a plausible, reasonable and coherent pattern, entails them, etc. Similarly, we may have E2, E3, . . . Em, as other alternatives. But if of these some Ek makes best sense, in accounting for the facts, is choherent and harmonious, is elegantly simple and powerful not an ad hoc patchwork, then we may be entitled to conclude that Ek is the best current explanation.
5 --> Also, Ek will often predict further observations not yet made P1, P2, . . Pr. As these are ticked off through further investigations, we gain confidence that Ek is reliable and may eventually accept it as a part of the body of accepted theory in science, or as sufficiently certain that it would be irresponsible not to act on it in general life. This we can represent as a diagram that illustrates how a new theoretical explanation emerges and how it may interact with the body of accepted theory [BOAT]:
6 --> However, Ek and BOAT alike are always provisional, subject to the abstract possibility of errors. Hopefully, relatively minor corrections, but in some cases, they may need to be replaced -- perhaps even transforming our view of both science and the world.
7 --> Indeed, in science that is what happens in a scientific revolution. Physics, the senior natural science, had a revolution across the 1600's led by men such as Brahe, Kepler, Galileo and Newton, and another one between 1880 and 1930, with men such as Planck and Einstein as the pivotal leaders. (It is no accident that our term for such dramatic changes is a "revolution," that comes form our realising that the earth revolves around the sun, and not the other way around.)
8 --> In our day, design thinkers point out that functionally specific complex orgasnisation and/or information (FSCO/I) is a major feature of the world of life, such as in the living cell:
. . . with DNA storing coded digital information that is transcribed to mRNA and then edited and sent out to ribosomes to be used in assembling new proteins (the workhorse molecules of the living cell), showing a molecular nanotechnology numerically controlled machine in action:
9 --> Where also, the only observed cause of such FSCO/I (such as in the text of pages of this course) is design, a true cause.
10 --> So, the inference to design through the explanatory filter:
. . . is offered as the best current explanation of such FSCO/I as we see int eh living cell, which is at once potentially revolutionary.
11 --> No wonder it is controversial in a day where it is often assumed or asserted that the only acceptable scientific explanations are those that explain based on "natural causes," i.e. those tracing to (i) blind chance processes similar to what happens when fair dice tumble and settle, and/or to (ii) the sort of mechanical necessity that would make the dice reliably fall to the table when they are dropped.
12 --> While it is a commonplace to see such an inference to design derided as an inference to the (suspect) "supernatural, actually, it is a well-understood, longstanding inference on evidence, between (a) the natural [[= blind chance and/or blind mechanical necessity] and (b) the ART-ificial, i.e. designed. With the further point being made, that there are observable, reliable traces of design such as FSCO/I in the body of evidences relevant to the origins of the world of life.
13 --> A point that is backed up by the fact that such FSCO/I has only one actually observed true cause, design.
Nor is this something new in the annals of science.
Design inferences are a commonplace, and in fact, in pivotal works of modern science, there are even design inferences that point to God as author of the world. With serious implications for worldviews and for ethics. This is not just armchair speculation.
For instance, in both of his major scientific works, Newton highlighted that inferring to “the counsel” of an “an intelligent Agent” [[Opticks, Query 31] or “an intelligent and powerful Being” [[Principia, General Scholium] as the source and foundation of the cosmos has significant moral implication, as does the opposite view: holding that the complex, organised world is the product of “a Chaos” of chance circumstances and forces/laws of mechanical necessity.
In that context, he saw that it is not only legitimate but important to address worldview foundation issues (which are freighted with implications for how we govern ourselves and develop our civilisation) in the context of addressing origins on the evidence of science.
In short, we have most excellent precedent for an integrated overview of origins science and associated issues!
- explore, observe and accurately describe or measure facts or quantities, or
- explain observed patterns and test the reliability of such models, or
- use the ability to predict to influence or control the way a situation plays out