The Demarcation Dilemma (PDF) explores how we define natural science, that is, how we distinguish between science and non-science. It does not deal with the question of how we distinguish between good science and poor science, or between good anything versus poor anything. This is a handout I developed many years ago, recently updated for my spring online course, where it supplements the lecture on “Language and Reality.” That lecture defends the idea of many sciences (scientia, Wissenschaft), each defined by their epistemic status (knowledge) relative to opinion. This handout critiques the alternative idea that there is one universal scientific method regardless of the specific area of science involved. The next lecture, “Knowing kata-physin,” picks up where this leaves off with a broader discussion of scientific methodology across the various disciplines with their distinctive problems and subjects of inquiry.
Top Posts & Pages
- Love and the Cosmos: Trinitarian Perspectives on Science
- Easter theological reading
- Christmas reflections - magi
- The Horse Sense of John Lyons
- Reading Karl Barth: Church Dogmatics
- Copernicus and His Revolutions
- Reading George MacDonald: Bookmarks
- Bruce Cockburn - love in a broken world
- The Painted Soul
- Stars over Ancient Babylon
-
Recent Posts
- I’ll remember this day
- Ash Wednesday 2021
- Fare Thee Well 2020
- Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (2020)
- Sonder
- Drs. Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins, and Luciana Borio at the National Cathedral
- Democracy Virtual Concert – Norman Philharmonic
- The Painted Soul
- When I first met Bonhoeffer
- Priorities
- Minds alive on shelves
- Francis Collins’ Templeton Prize ceremony
Tags
- Accordance
- Albert Einstein
- Astronomy
- Baxter Kruger
- BioLogos
- Biology
- Birds
- Bruce Cockburn
- C.S. Lewis
- Cancer
- Christmas
- Dante
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- Dorothy Sayers
- Erich Heller
- Exhibits
- Francis Collins
- Francis Schaeffer
- Galileo
- Galileo's World
- Geology
- George MacDonald
- Georges Rouault
- Herman Melville
- Holidays
- Horses
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- James B. Torrance
- Joseph Tkach
- Karl Barth
- Lent
- Libraries
- Michael Barfield
- Nature Journal
- Nature study
- Poetry
- Racism
- Robert Frost
- Roger Tory Peterson
- Thanksgiving
- The Shack
- Thomas F. Torrance
- Trinitarian theology
- W.B Yeats
- Weather
Categories
Links
My places
Podcasts
Meta