Reading Questions for the Ruse-Laudan exchange

Due Date: 9/18

1. Identify and briefly explain what Ruse sees as the 5 or 6 or 7 defining characteristics of science (the exact number depends on how you divide them up).

Note the rather unsubtle rhetoric Ruse uses on page 42 in describing the prominence, within the creation-science movement, of Morris and Gish.

2. In the section entitled “Testability, Confirmation, and Falsifiability”, is Ruse arguing that creation-science violates the logical falsifiability criterion or the prescriptive falsifiability criterion (cf. the commentary on Popper) or both? Which strategy provides the stronger argument against creation-science? I.e., should Ruse be arguing against the claims of creation-science, or against the behavior of the creation-scientists?

3. Explain the problems Laudan finds in the Arkansas Opinion regarding the testability/falsifiability, and the tentativeness/revisability of creation-science tenets. What traits of science does Laudan see creation-science as having, and what traits of creation-scientists does Laudan see natural-scientists as having? What is the purpose of Laudan's contrast between epistemic status and cognitive idiosyncrasies?

Explain Laudan’s criticisms of the Opinion’s arguments that creation-science fails to be a science because it does not provide explanations in terms of laws.

4. The good guys won the trial. Why is it important to Laudan to criticize what went on?

5. Could Ruse have made a similar though better case that creation-science is a pseudoscience by employing Thagard’s demarcation criteria? If you think so, outline how such an argument might proceed, and discuss why Thagard’s criteria would enable one to avoid some of the criticisms Laudan raises. If you think Thagard’s criteria would not help Ruse, explain why.

Think about the tone of each author’s second piece in the exchange. Does it surprise you at all to see philosophers writing this way? Which of the two (if either) do you think is more right in the end?