Thursday, April 9, 2009

The HOW versus the WHY

A quote from the blog entry -- Reporting From the Front Lines of the Texas Evolution Debate -- by Juli Berwald:-
Science is about explaining the how of the natural world: how the universe began, how life originated, how the diversity of species occurred. Scientists feel no need for their work to answer why the universe exists, why we are here. For scientists, those are questions better left to philosophy, religion and after-work hours.

Perhaps creationists find theories that only answer how to be completely unsatisfactory. Maybe for creationists, any theory that doesn't answer why contains weaknesses.

<...>

Maybe evolutionists and creationists can't find common ground because they really aren't even having the same argument. Scientists are fighting to preserve their ability to answer how unimpeded by why. Creationists are fighting to have answers to why, unthreatened by answers to how.
I think it was very well said.

Maybe people can be crudely divided into two major and one subgroup -- those who MUST have a why and will take whatever how there is that will fit into the why (because quite frankly, God creating Adam and Eve and just dropped them on earth is kind of a cop out); those who can accept, and fortunate enough to be exposed to, the how even if it doesn't explain the why (or are simply okay with the idea that we have no idea about how OR why); and a subgroup/spinoff of the first group -- those who just believe in everything they were told literally and never given a thought as to how or why.

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