It is reasonable to say that in Nature there are no errors. Your question really is, Why do people find error in Nature?
Didn't all the classification of nature begin with Aristotle and then really get its modern development in the 16C and then with Linneaus? Remember Stephen Jay Gould? He worte so many wonderful essays on the beginnings of modern science and classification. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, November 11, 2012 1:19:45 PM Subject: Re: Error and quality On Nov 11, 2012, at 1:10 PM, William Conger <[email protected]> wrote: > Who among us can intelligently discuss the big bang? There are several newer > popular books by noted physicists that discuss the problem of the unequal > distribution of energy after the big bang. I actually don't want to talk about the science of the Big Bang--which is far beyond me--because I am not interested in the "how" of error so much as the "why" of it. And thus, in that sense, it's a philosophical question, well within our ambit here. I find it interesting that in the Bible (and probably in other sacred texts, but I am not very familiar with them), that Adam and Eve's sin was disobedience to God's commandment not to eat of the Tree of Good and Evil, not the Tree of Truth and Error. Error (in action) is always regarded in law as innocent, as some unintended disorder or failure (but often someone is held accountable for supervising or controlling circumstances so as to avoid, repair, or minimize error, e.g., airplane maintenance). We (generally, all of us) take Nature as a given, and thus we take all of the complexity and diversity of Nature as given. Humans over the many millennia have developed elaborate systems that factor in the material diversity of Nature. How did that diversity arise? Archaeology, paleontology, and related fields try to find out the history and processes of diversification in Nature, but--as I asked before--why did hydrogen become helium? Was helium "missing"? And then, of course, lithium, barium, and all the rest: also "missing"? Either everything began immediate in diversity or it was alike and then diversified. Did that process incorporate error? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
