> Like Gerhard mentioned, there isn't a hard and fast line dividing 
> science
> from non-science. It's a matter of degree for some topics, things 
> like SETI

More anon maybe.
Quick comment.

I say there is a hard and fast dividing line [:-)].
Popper agrees (or, rather, of course, I agree with him).
Science is where you can model/predict/test and repeat ad infinitum 
(or nauseum) and refine your model.
Everything else is where you can't. I'm calling that "religion" - it 
of course doesn't HAVE to be religion BUT, when people find that their 
favourite endeavour falls outside the balliwick of Popper's hard 
science they often start to very stridently  demand that their 
favourite past-time (or life's work) is-too! real science and if you 
don't agree they will take their toys and go play somewhere else, AND 
take away your funding grants, AND anyway your religious so what would 
you know anyway? (and your mother wears army boots).

Evolution falls outside Popper's boundaries and can not be handled by 
Science as he knows it. It can of course be handled by religion of 
whatever shape and form one wishes to create to defend it and explain 
it. Puddles of primordial goop or young earth divine Creator are 
equally good religious views as a starting point. One or the other is 
more likely to correspond to what really happened, but that's not the 
point.

The point I started on was that Melott, in seeking to defend children 
against religion, made a superb statement about science, but had 
already when he made it fallen into the arms of an equally ardent and 
un-Popperish religion which thinks itself to be "real-science". 
Whether it's right or not about what it believes is not the issue.

If you reject the scientific method and Popper's postulates you are 
awash on a sea of don't-know, and anything you wish to claim may be 
justified by adjusting the rules. Popper followers can NEVER say "we 
know", only that their model is getting better over time and they 
don't THINK that it's going to break any time soon.

> I would put right in the middle of these two classifications. I 
> disagree
> that Melott is pushing a religion though.

Not as he realises it, Jim.

> Anyway, it looks that in 15 years fewer bio-tech companies will be 
> locating
> in Kanses than other states with better educated citizens.

beter educated? - maybe. But if better education is compelling 
children to accept religion as science then this may be far more of a 
phantasm than you might expect.

> "Creationists don't want equal time. They want all the time there 
> is."
>                -- Isaac Asimov

Which of course they can't be allowed to have any of, as Asimov and co 
*knew* that it all belonged to them.
I used to respect him until I got to know him* - or maybe it was just 
that he got crankier as he got older ?
(from a vast distance)


                RM


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