> > What is most astonishing to me, other than the language
of discovery, is a complete lack of understanding regarding
creation. That we (yes, we) don't "discover" fundamental
laws... we create them - we posit and institute them.
> Who is saying this? The notion that the laws of science are
created and not discovered is pure idealism.
?? Let's take a volcano on Mars as an example. Using a telescope or whatever, we find X - which is to say that X comes into our perception. Then we create a name for it: Olympus Mons. Olympus Mons was created, not discovered.
It's like coming over to my apartment and seeing an orange in a fruit basket. You don't say to me, "Look Ken, I just discovered an orange." I mean, you can say that but it is kind of foolish. You "create" the category, and then transpose it onto X. Until something has a name, it doesn't exist (existence is a predicate - a predicate of "for us"). In this way, we perceive or discover X, then we create a category for it. So we don't "discover" fundamental scientific laws, we create them (for us). Gravity didn't exist until someone called it gravity. Once you name something, it becomes part of the social. This might represent something that is, but there is always a prejudgement... you name something before you know what it is. In the case of Olympus Mons - where does it end? Where does it begin? There are no answers for these questions. But we've created an approximation, an infinitely imprecise category to "fit" the X.
> Math as artificial? You mean if humans didn't exist there
wouldn't be exactly nine planets in this galaxy?
Who would there be to count them?
> Imprecise in their popular work maybe. Not in their technical
work.
Imprecise altogether I'd say. The numbers are only crunched in terms of what is practical. The 8 billionth digit of Pi is irrelevant, it doesn't need to be calculated. So science stops calculating things the moment such calculations aren't all that useful anymore. So truth and objectivity aren't the aims of science, utility is. Otherwise scientists would be busy making infintesimal distinctions between clouds or genes or microbes. They don't, because it isn't valuable.
> A species that does not reproduce goes extinct. In what
sense can you call such a species successful?
?? Only if you measure success in regards to some arbitrary aim. Reproduction is an arbitrary goal. One could just as easily say that the failure to move from one location to the next is a failure. There might be great biological pressure to reproduce, but Dawkins is reductionist when he says that this is the only "aim" of a species. It's an ad hoc statement. One can only make the statement in retrospect.
> However, a lot of biologists do think that the Darwinian
notion of success and fitness needs revising.
Agreed.
ken