@farmerman,
Quote:Im sorry, I didnt know I was talking to Michael Behe (see testimony in theKitzmiller v. Dover ID case from 2005, where Dr Behe unsuccsefully tries to testify to include astrology as a "science" and the judge is not so impressed).
That the judge was "not so impressed" is only scientific evidence of the judge's personal viewpoint and can only be considered an adjudication because a judge outranks a professor in his own court. It is not an adjudication with scientific validity. It is a power hierarchy adjudication presumably based on the judge's notion of astrology. That Mr Behe's point was dismissed rather than being examined on its scientific merits is another example of how the court at Dover had prejudged the issues before it.
Words are symbols. They designate a concept and concepts are images associated with sensations. That the sensations that the judge experiences, excited by the image "astrology", which are subjective, as with all sensations, are superior to the sensations Mr Behe experiences when stimulated by the same image, astrology, simply because of a power relation and one that gives precedence to the judiciary over the scientist and, indeed, with respect to a scientific matter.
In order to understand each other it is necessary to do more than use the same word. We need to employ the word to describe the same species of inner experience and thus to have the experience in common. One suspects that the judge was appealing to the
common inner experience of "astrology", that of the man in the city street, of what the herd experiences and which has been presented on this thread by ros.
But that common experience, as common as muck one might say, is not shared by everybody. And scientific statements are supposed to be shared by everybody or, at least, by what is called expert opinion which not only includes Mr Behe but a large number of other writers and, one might hazard a guess from experience, the feminine intuition itself.
I myself have made a scientific case for astrology on these threads a very long time ago. It is based on climate, soil, danger, needs and working conditions and the effect of those on the gestating foetus and the early infant experience and that the configurations in the heavens and the names given to them at particular times in the seasons are merely signs or images and not the inner meaning of the concept. Which is, of course, irreducibly complex. Legal minds hate such an idea as irreducible complexity because to dwell upon it too long when one is staring vacantly at the ceiling during a short bout of insomnia, will, inevitably, cause one to wonder if one actually does know what one is talking about and that is no use to judges. They are necessarily pedantic to a fault. It needs to be put on Ignore. Start counting sheep I mean.
That the seasons have been all but ironed out, particularly in cities, along with most of the exigencies of climate, soil, danger, needs and working conditions, especially one imagines for judges and the common run one finds in courtrooms such as the one Judge Jones was presiding over, is just a phase in the life of mankind and not at all like gravity which is with us whatever state we get into.
What is so utterly perplexing is how the good, indeed great, name of Science is brought to bear, without one dissenting voice, as a weapon on a matter as subjective as Judge Jones's response to the image "astrology" which was completely unscientific as it is merely a style affectation for a certain class of people who have moved up in the world, or hope to do.
That Mr Behe brought the matter up at all should have alerted JJ to the possibility that there might be a valid scientific point to what he was saying. Unless prestigious academics are of no account in JJ's court and he prefers to listen to some incredible tripe comparing a flagella critter to a foot pump. Which is serious nonsense.
