> > you don't. See the end paragraphs of
> > <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html>.
> >
>
> I can live with the provisional definition of "fact" offered above. Note
> that Stephen Jay Gould took the trouble to go out and make his case to
> the general public in favour of evolution, and against creationism (in
> particular against teaching creationism in schools, especially in lieu
> of evolutionary theory).
How is that relevant to this discussion?
> I have one of two tacks: either abandon the term "science" to those who
> want to push "Science" over all else, or reclaim "science" as one of the
> various human activities that we all benefit from. I am attempting to do
> both: the little guy is a scientist in the best (and inclusive) sense of
> that term, and he is not one in the sense in which science is defined as
> a particular well-differentiated object or system with exclusive claims
> (to truth, certainty, etc). I constructed my description above exactly
> to tease you (and those like you: perhaps Jerry and Dwayne ;-)) towards
> my POV.
It sounds like we're left with a debate over terminology, and again I have to suggest you're after a whale what hain't bit you.
I'll leave you with something Chomsky, that Swiss army knife of citations, wrote for Z Magazine in the context of debates about pomo and antirationalism vs. science. (Barbara Eherenreich also mentions the role of elegance in science.) It's replying to more aggressive arguments than yours and so perhaps overshoots in this case, but I think addresses some of your concerns. I'd go so far as to say it even backs up some of what you've written.
Big site here <http://zmag.org/ScienceWars/index.htm>, specifically this <http://zmag.org/ScienceWars/sciencechomreply.htm>:
...since what is called "science," etc., is largely unfamiliar to me, let me replace it by "X," and see if I understand the argument against X. Let's consider several kinds of properties attributed to X, then turning to the proposals for a new direction; quotes below are from the papers criticizing X. ...
X is "E-knowledge," "obtained by logical deduction from firmly established first principles." The statements in X must be "provable"; X demands "absolute proofs." The "most distinctive component of Western E-knowledge" may be its "elaborate procedures for arriving at acceptable first principles." These are among the few attempts here to define or identify the villain.
Furthermore, X "claims to a monopoly of knowledge." It thus denies, say, that I know how to tie my shoes, or know that the sky is dark at night or that walking in the woods is enjoyable, or know the names of my children and something about their concerns, etc.; all such aspects of my (intuitive) knowledge are far beyond what can be "obtained by logical deduction from firmly established first principles," indeed well beyond the reach of rational inquiry now and perhaps ever, and is therefore mere "superstition, belief, prejudice," according to advocates of X. Or if not denying such knowledge outright, X "marginalizes and denigrates" it. X postulates dogmatically that "a predictable end point can be known in advance as an expression of X-achieved truth," and insists upon "grounding values in [this] objective truth." It denies the "provisional and subjective foundations" of agreement in human life and action, and considers itself "the ultimate organizing principle and source of legitimacy in the modern society," a doctrine to which X assigns "axiomatic status." X is "arrogant" and "absolutist." What doesn't fall "within the terms of its hegemony... --anger, desire, pleasure, and pain, for example--becomes a site for disciplinary action." The varieties of X are presented as "charms to get us through the dark of a complex world," providing a "resting place" that offers a "sure way of `knowing' the world or one's position in it." The practitioner of X "screens out feeling, recreating the Other as object to be manipulated," a procedure "made easier because the subjective is described as irrelevant or un-X." "To feel was to be anti-X." "By mid twentieth century the phrase `it works' came to be enough for X-ists," who no longer care "why it worked," and lost interest in "what its implications" are. And so on.
I quite agree that X should be consigned to the flames. But what that has to do with our topic escapes me, given that these attributions scarcely rise to the level of a caricature of rational inquiry (science, etc.), at least as I'm familiar with it. ...
-- Andy