My 2017 FQXi Essay Contest Entry
Mindless mathematical laws can not give rise to aims and intention?
By Harry H. Ricker III, MS EE
Is modern science superior to Greek Philosophy?1 Only if the scientific method is actually the way to truth in the deep philosophical sense. Here I intend to explain why mindless mathematical laws are not capable of saying anything that is true about reality, nor are they capable of actually supplanting philosophy or improving upon that method of searching for truth.2 The justification of this conclusion will be evidence that modern physics is unable to answer any of the really deep questions regarding the nature of physical reality, and so is incapable of saying anything valid regarding aims and intentions of nature.3
However in the realm of Greek philosophy, we have the time honored approach of Aristotle, which has proven its value for hundreds of years, and is only being ignored because of the supposed superiority of the modern scientific method. The facts seem to argue against this being true, since as asserted above, physical science based upon mathematics is unable to really prove anything about the deeper meaning of nature, despite numerous attempts to do so. Hence we would be better to dispense with science as an authority in regard to what is true.
Background Of This Essay
The purpose of this essay is to achieve a personal goal in relation to a socially defined goal. Since this essay is about biological systems and goal oriented behavior of such systems this is a particularly relevant discussion. This writer is a biological system, precisely known as a human being. Humans display complex goal oriented behavior. But what is this? Here we will examine this in terms of Aristotle’s four causes, and attempt to translate them into the language and context of this essay.
A goal is the end, aim, or intention, towards which the effort of a biological system is directed in view of a result that occurs at a future date. So a goal, aim, or intention, is directed towards a future point in calendar time that has, in human terms, a visualization of the expected outcome. Aims and intentions are visualizations that guide behavior. In this case winning a $10,000 prize is visualized or imagined in my mind. The writing of this essay is the effort I put into achieving that goal. This has an opportunity cost in terms of time and effort expended, that could have been exercised in other uses of time and effort. This idea of a goal is what Aristotle calls the Final Cause. That is the cause for the sake of which the effort is expended. There may be multiple final causes, ie goals, and different types of them. For instance, the effort may not be about the money alone, it may be about prestige, recognition, professional advancement, ego gratification, or personal satisfaction. In terms of human behavior these types of final causes are called motivations. The Final Cause for this writer is my personal satisfaction of expressing a minority opinion regarding modern science and its deficiencies.4
To achieve this goal, I have to do more than expend effort. I have to utilize a means by which the Final Cause is achieved. This essay requires qualifications in terms of science knowledge, writing in English language proficiency, professional experience, and ability to communicate interesting and relevant ideas. Hence the substance of this essay must be made or constructed out of more than just my idea to write an essay, it must be produced out of tools, abilities, knowledge and creative ideas that I possess. This is what Aristotle calls the Material Cause. Usually that means the material things out of which the object of the Final Cause is produced. Biological systems have the material cause that they extract matter and energy from the environment and out of those materials grow and develop. But in the case of human intellectual efforts this type of cause is the tools and creative ability, which I bring to bear on the solution of the essay writing problem. It is an intellectually creative process, and so we have to think of the material cause in terms of the things out of which the Final Cause or Goal is made or created.
In order to write an essay, I have in mind a thesis, which is connected to my purpose in writing, that guides the writing function making it relevant to the reader. This is the Aristotelian Formal Cause. That is the form or essence that guides the development of the essay and which makes it into a cogent and persuasive argument. Another way to say this is that the Formal Cause embodies the purpose or objective behind the Material Cause. Here the thesis is that the practice of modern science is inadequate to accomplish the desired objective behind the Final Cause of the essay contest. That objective is advancing the ability of mathematical methods and experimental science technique to explain the Final Cause of biological systems and the creation of the Universe. The conclusion of this essay is that it is necessary to seriously consider the idea of God or deity as the Final Cause, if this objective is to be achieved.
In terms of Aristotle’s four causes, the efficient cause is my dissatisfaction with the practice of modern science and its hubris in thinking that it has the only correct tools to understand truth. This is what motivates me into the action of writing this essay. So this essay reflects my opinions regarding science, out of which the ideas that constitute this essay are constructed. This efficient cause relates to my beliefs and insights, my conceptual model of science, out of which the essay is constructed. So the Efficient Cause is the author of this essay. Usually the efficient cause is the carpenter who builds the house or the doctor who dispenses the cure. It refers to the agent in the world who performs the actions that achieve the Final Cause.
The final point is that to really understand nature, we have to address and understand these different types of causes, while modern science only addresses the limited material cause of Aristotle. To approach the development of biological systems within the universe, as this essay requires, we need to address the Final Cause as well as the others.
Towards Aims and Intentions In Nature
The purpose of this essay is to try to define the problem of the ultimate nature of reality in terms of aims and intentions that can be described in terms of mathematical laws. This prescribes the objective, in terms of the conceptual model that can be brought to bear on the problem, to be the conventional model of scientific thought and practice. That conceptual model, which begins with the concept of a law of nature, has some very difficult issues in terms of defining what this means. The concept is a dangerous one, for it allows falling into a trap of egotism, in thinking that nature has to be as the law dictates, because the human mind has thought it as being so. This is probably the biggest danger in scientific thinking, because of the ability to put forward falsely conceived ideas as laws of physics and so they are self evidently true facts. The world is full of people who put forward mathematical laws of physics based upon little knowledge of the facts and almost no real proof. So what justifies science in rejecting their ideas as laws of physics? The conclusion is that science claims that laws of physics are subject to proof by the scientific method. So we have to look at the requirements of that method to see if it can indeed prove true things about nature.5
This leads to the first conclusion or what amounts to the first theorem. That is that one has to prove that the scientific method can be used to actually solve the question regarding the Aims and Intentions of nature. Stated differently, the question needs to be posed in terms of asking whether the scientific method, and the associated set of concepts that scientists customarily use, is actually suited to, or capable of being adapted to proving theorems regarding aims and intentions of nature. My conclusion is that in the current primitive state of science, and its method of proof, it is unlikely that it can prove anything regarding the truth of such knowledge using its current set of tools and method of applying them. This puts us back at the very beginning of the essay problem. That is we must ask and answer the question as to whether the current conceptual model of “good science”, is the correct one for solving the problem being addressed by this essay contest.6
Ambiguity Of Goal Oriented Behavior
Addressing the essay problem, the question is framed as to whether or not goal oriented or biological behavior can be said to have a definite unambiguous cause such that it can be explicated using a mathematical model on a computer. That question arises out of the fundamental ambiguity that arises from the description of such behavior, and whether the goal orientation can be correctly deduced or not. For example, in a recent popular science television program it was stated that when a snow storm arises at the beginning of winter, bears dig their dens in the ground as the snow begins to fall, so that the falling snow covers the bear’s tracks and thereby hides the location of his den. Since we can not ask bears whether this is true or not, we can only rely upon the observation of bears. But if this fact is shown to be born out by observation of bear behavior, we still don’t know whether the reason, or cause, is the arrival of winter in the form of a snow storm, so the bear digs his den, or if the bear waits for the snow to begin to fall before digging, so as to make sure his tracks and the den location remains hidden. This is an example of ambiguous cause. Goal oriented behavior has the fundamental difficulty that it makes the problem of proof much more difficult than in the practice of normal physical science, because it makes the method of proof more difficult.
Clearly, if we are to produce a mathematical system, that is implemented in terms of a machine simulation, we must be sure that the cause being modeled is really the correct cause. In other words the mathematical model must employ the correct axioms. Numerous difficulties stand in the way of doing this that arise out of deficiencies in the scientific method. Philosophers of science have studied this problem and there is no agreement as to what constitutes correct scientific method.
Here are some of the issues that arise. First there is the demarcation problem, which is aimed at determining rules as to whether a particular hypothesis involves science or pseudo-science.6 The relevant problem that needs to be addressed in terms of this essay is whether or not the subject of this essay is metaphysical. This was an important criterion for logical positivism. Although this philosophy is no longer as influential as it once was, many scientists still adhere to its principles regarding what is or is not good science. This writer thinks that the proposed subject of this essay would be considered metaphysical by a logical positivist and so is simply not science.
An adherent of Karl Popper’s view would simply resolve the problem of the bear by asserting though methodological rules that the hypothesis that the bear waits until snow starts to fall so as to cover his tracks is not a falsifiable hypothesis and so that claim ought to be disallowed as not scientific to begin with. This puts a limitation on the types of causes that can be tested, since only claims that can be formulated in terms of test-ability are allowed as science. This puts some useful restrictions on the kinds of causes that can be implemented in the mathematical approach to goal behavior, but without specific examples, it is not clear how the test-ability criterion is to be applied.
In Aristotelian philosophy, we do not necessarily have to reject the hypothesis that the cause is that the bear wants snow to cover his tracks, because the problem can be resolved by calling this an accidental cause. It is a result that is an accident of the cause that the bear digs his den when snow begins to fall. The reason or Final Cause for digging the den is to survive the cold winter season. At this point a logical positivist might assert that the Final Cause of surviving the winter is metaphysics and ought to be disallowed as a scientific cause. To conclude, it is important that the methodology rules for deciding what is scientifically testable and what can be considered as science have to be clearly established before any claims can be made that a particular methodology exists that explains goal oriented biological behavior in terms of mathematics and physical laws.
The Under-determination Problem
Continuing the example of the bear, there arises what is known as the under-determination problem in science. It is not exactly the same same thing as ambiguity, but is related. Under-determination means that there may be two, or more, hypotheses, or theories, that both fully comply with all of the verification evidence, and so there is no way to choose one theory or cause, as opposed to another. In the bear example, suppose all of the observations do show that bears wait until the snow begins falling and then proceed to dig dens for the winter. Then it would not be possible to decide which of the causes is indeed the true and correct one, since the facts of observation do not decide clearly between them.
Under-Determination commonly arises after a theory has been accepted as valid and faces the test of a new challenge. Special relativity being a classic case of that. It turns out that the verification evidence for special relativity is no different than for what is known as the Lorentz Aether Theory. However, current evidence is mounting that special relativity is not fully consistent with experiments while Lorentz Aether relativity does satisfy more experiments. But there is resistance to change and the result is ongoing disagreement. In this instance under-determination ought to be resolved in favor of the Lorentz Aether Theory, but that has not happened.
In the case of the growing or expanding earth controversy, the situation is more puzzling, because there seems to definitely be evidence that refutes the continental drift hypothesis.7 But the science establishment refuses to acknowledge that there is a difference of opinion. Here we have that the evidence points to a growing earth hypothesis, but the establishment science refuses to consider that as a valid scientific hypothesis. This means that the factual evidence is discarded because of the methodological rules of demarcation have allowed the growing earth hypothesis to be considered as not science. In other words the facts all point to a clear conclusion, but the conclusion is outside of accepted scientific thought by the demarcation rules. On the other hand, in the case of special relativity, we have a theory that ought to be classified as not science because its claims are un-testable by Popper’s rules, but it remains as accepted truth for what seem to be historical reasons only. These controversies can only be resolved by acquiring more facts to see if the additional facts verify or refute the two contenders, but no effort is being done to achieve that, so under-determination continues as a problem.
Under-determination is also a problem for the claimed discovery of the Higgs Boson and the detection of gravity waves. These experiments are so complicated and expensive that there can be no prospect of an independent verification. However, despite the lack of independent verification, both of these claims have been accepted as validly proven truths.
The conclusion is that science has a lot of confusing rules and conflicting procedures, and there does not seem to be any agreement on what the rules are, or ought to be. Different rules seem to apply in different cases and we have cases where wrong theories seem to advocated as true when they are false.
Mathematical Method Only Addresses Consistency With The Assumptions
Since any physical law is really only an assumed truth that we require to subject to a method of proof, the first consideration is what can be proved in mathematics. It is well known that mathematics can only demonstrate consistency of the theorems with respect to the stated axioms or in physical language the assumptions that go into the theory. Mathematics doesn’t deal with the truth of the assumptions, only with the problem of what true theorems can be correctly deduced from the set of axioms. The axioms produce a mathematical system used to make deductions. Usually in science the deductions are formulated in terms of numbers that represent elements of the model and equations that represent relations between the model elements. All mathematics does is guarantee consistency. It can not verify uniqueness of the result since the property of uniqueness is not always put into the system of axioms.
What this means is that there can be systems of equations that do not have unique solutions, and mathematics does not demand this unless it is specifically put into the set of assumptions or axioms at the start.12 Much of physics doesn’t demand uniqueness and so we can have multiple universes and multiple realities. So there is no uniqueness in physics anymore, because there is no assumption in physics that demands uniqueness. Hence we have the conundrum that physics does not deal in things that can be proved uniquely true.
Need For A Clear Terminology
Now there is another difficulty in using mathematics as a basis for proof. That is that ideas about physics, require translation into mathematical language so that the result is not ambiguous. Since language is inherently ambiguous, it is necessary to state the axioms in mathematical language, which is mediated by language symbols that relate to the meaning of words. That is certainly a problem here because the essay rules do not clearly say what the terms being used ought to stand for as symbols in mathematical terms. This problem seems unimportant to many but in actual practice it is one of the main hurdles in any attempt to prove something as true using the scientific method. There are many unrecognized pitfalls.
Here I propose that we use Aristotle’s definition of physics as nature.8 That is basically the Greek meaning. It is important that we understand that the word physics as Aristotle uses it is not what is meant as being physics by people who profess to be physicists. The actual meaning to physicists is the study of the physical world, which is not the same thing as the study of nature. As I said, physics demands proof by scientific method of propositions couched in mathematical language. Then we have to prove that the predictions produced by the mathematics actually do represent the truth of nature. That is a difficult thing to do because the method of scientific proof is inherently flawed. That is because the method can not prove that the predictions produced actually do correspond to the physical facts. That is because the method does not and can not demonstrate uniqueness, and so it does not produce proof of necessity but only of sufficiency.9 In other words, the method can prove that the propositions claimed to be laws of nature could be true, but they are not true by necessity. Hence, there are no uniquely true laws of physics, only laws that might be true if the method is followed properly. Despite this fact, physics textbooks tell us that science has established true laws of physics that govern the physical universe. Much of this teaching is probably false, because of the primitive state of scientific knowledge.10
Physical Method Is Inherently Teleological So Why Is Teleology Rejected in Science?
The previous discussion explained why mathematical scientific method is inherently teleological since it can only produce results based upon assumptions that go into the mathematics at the start as axioms.11 So the mathematical part is a teleological system. But modern science rejects the use of teleology as a false way of doing science. Hence assumptions such as the existence of God as a guiding principle of nature are rejected, because they can not be proved. Since it can not be proved that God exists, then that concept ought not to be allowed. But as we have seen, scientific proof is basically teleological, in that what can be proved is only what is consistent with the assumptions that go into the theory. Why God can not be such an assumption is never explained.
The current scientific method is primitive because it uses very primitive assumptions regarding the nature of cause and what is meant by that concept. If we agree to adopting the terminology of the four causes of Aristotle there is a greatly enhanced framework or conceptual for understanding nature, compared with the very primitive and limited material cause of physical science. Hence we have greatly enhanced the realm of the kind of assumptions that we can employ in our theories about nature and how it operates. In scientific usage, we can only explain things in terms of material cause that is laws that govern how corporeal matter behaves, and that is all that can be addressed in physical terms, but not in Aristotelian or Greek philosophy. That is a significant reason for adopting a different method than mathematical physical science.
How Did Physical Systems That Pursue The Goal Of Reproduction Arise From An A-Biological World?
This question can not be answered in terms of the methods of modern science, since it proposes a contradiction. If we start with the assumption of modern physical science that the world is governed only by materialistic laws of nature, we have no way to explain how a goal of reproduction can arise out of that, since there is no assumption that goes into the theory that can produce the desired outcome of explaining a biological world. The idea that somehow, there can arise an explanation of the biological world out of materialistic assumptions of a mindless mathematics is an impossibility, because in mathematics we only have teleology. That is that we can only get out of the mathematics predictions that have been put into it as axioms. So there have to be axioms that allow a biological world to exist put into the mathematics in order to get the desired result out of the mathematics.
Hence, any attempt to explain goal oriented behavior of nature must fail as long as it is based upon the materialistic assumptions of physical science. That means that we have to go back to Greek philosophy that allows us to interpret nature in terms of a goal oriented system. In particular Aristotle proposed four causes that embrace a larger conception of nature other than only the material cause that modern physical science allows. So we have to go back to Greek philosophy and reexamine the assumptions in the foundations of physical science.
Formal Cause Is Needed To Create a Science Of Biological Nature
In Aristotle’s four causes we have the material cause which is substantially the only cause assumed in physical science. In addition to this there is the formal cause. This is most clearly understood as the purpose behind the goal of reproduction and goal seeking behavior. It deals in the essence of a thing called its form. The main problem with the formal cause is that it has no clear formulation in terms of modern thought. According to Aristotle, the formal cause is what is behind the process that governs the physical laws of the material world. In terms of modern physical thought, once the laws of nature have been established, the working out of these laws through the actions upon the material or corporeal objects of existence, determines all that we need to know about nature. It doesn’t take much reflection to see how limiting this idea is for natural science. It restricts the realm of possible explanations to only what is explicable within the preview of the assumed physical laws and no more. Hence, scientific explanation of nature depends upon the assumed truth that goes into the formulation of the physical laws, which then play the roles of axioms in the mathematical formalism.
This works fine as long as we deal only in the primitive physical universe of matter and energy acting according to systems of equations worked out in accordance with the laws that are accepted as valid in physics. But what do we do when facts about nature contradict theories based upon these primitive laws of nature? Well we have no alternative than to ignore or deny such facts and hope that at some point in the future, mathematics will be developed that can accommodate these nonconforming facts. This seems to be the topic proposed by the essay contest. That is how to explain nature in terms of the existing primitive understanding of science. The proposed solution is to use innovative mathematical methods and so thereby explain what is patiently explainable under the assumptions of physical science. That is certainly a challenge worth a $10,000 prize. But the creators of the essay contest have simply assumed that it is actually possible to do this, without examining the way science and mathematics is done to prove things about nature. As it stands now those tools are inadequate for the proposed task.
It is also true that trying to adapt the formal cause of Aristotle is going to be difficult because as it stands, the idea of formal cause is not suitable for use in physical science. However, one can see that it fits into the conception of biological systems in a natural way, because the formal cause is the principle behind the entire idea of biological existence.13 That is the formal cause is the law of nature that guides the development of living organisms during the cycle of life. It extends beyond the individual living forms and guides their evolution and adaptation. It has been suggested that the principle behind this is creative evolution, that is that there is some intelligent mind called the designer governing the process over time, who is a Divine being or Divinity. The concept of creationism has been thoroughly rejected by modern science on grounds that are, simply stated, that the assumption is unacceptable to modern thinking.14 Here we have in this essay contest an attempt to encourage a mindless mathematical formalism that can give purpose and direction to biological life without any guiding formal cause. That as said before is impossible without somehow slipping into the mathematics the axiom that makes this happen. It can not happen by accident, because accidental cause is simply not any kind of cause at all.
Proposed Axioms For A New Conceptual Model Of Nature
The following axioms that need to be included in a new conceptual model of science are proposed as follows:
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Hylozoist axiom: All matter is animated by a biological purpose directed towards growth, organization, and structure
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Hylomorphist Axiom: Physical Laws exist to implant biological principles, as forms or souls, into primordial matter to create corporeal being.
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Final Cause Axiom: The animation of corporeal matter by the forms or souls, is implanted for the purpose of a goal orientation so that corporeal beings have a purpose or reason for them to exist as self conscious beings. That purpose is reflexive and is aware of its being and existence as well as the existence of a universe of which it is a part.
Conclusion: Final Cause Needed By Putting God Back Into Science
Ultimately there can be no other solution to the problem of the Final Cause in the Aristotelan sense than deity. That is the end for which we humans were created and for which the universe exists and was created. We can not do that without putting God and deity back into the scientific discussion. That is because that notion, the idea behind God, is our own creation. He is an image of ourselves. Being a reflection of our own being, the idea of deity arises out of our biological limitations when faced with the realization of eternal time. Each of us exists, a fact regarding which we are absolutely certain, but the reason why we exist for a limited part of the greater flow of eternal time needs to explicated. That brings us to the invention of the Final Cause. The goal or reason for which, or for the sake of, that we exist in the universe and experience it and the forces that effect us causing pleasure and pain. That Final cause has to exist because we exist to ask for the reason. It is implanted inside of us, and so must be a part of what we are and why we exist.
If the answer is God then why is this concept considered dangerous and ought not to be allowed. Stephen Hawking has famously said that God is no longer necessary.14 This is certainly a reflection of hubris in human beings and not a true conclusion based upon facts. The claim is ridiculous upon the face of it, because as we know, science can not prove that something is really true, it can only demonstrate the possibility of being true with unknown uncertainty. What we do know is that the history of human thought has relied upon the concept of God and deity throughout the long flow of history and it is only very recently that humans have entertained the notion that God is dead or that he never really existed, in the belief that mathematics and formal logic, along with pure materialistic thought and scientific method can replace that conception. Only time will tell if that philosophy can continue to satisfy the human need to understand his reason and purpose for existing. His Final Cause in the Aristotelian meaning of it.
For myself, I think that God is the creative cause of the material world and that his magnificence is to put a piece of himself into each of us, so that we can experience being through life as part of the bigger unity of his universal essence. We have our purpose, our Final Cause, because God seeks himself in our reflection of his being.
References
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Websters Third New International Dictionary,Unabridged, 1971.
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Great Works Of The Western World, Aristotle I
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Plato, Timaeus, Trans. H.D.P. Lee, Penguin Books 1965.
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Schuster and Yeo, The Politics and Rhetoric Of Scientific Method, D. Reidel, 1986.
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Jacqueline Fawcett, The Relationship of Theory and Research, Davis, 1999.
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Karl R. Popper, The Logic Of Scientific Discovery, Basic Books, 1959.
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Frank E. Tipler,The Physics Of Immortality, Doubleday, 1994.
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Max Born, Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance, Dover, 1964.
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Don K. Price, The Scientific Estate, Belknap, 1965.
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Herbert Dingle, Through Science To Philosophy, Oxford, 1937.
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Herbert Dingle, Science at The Crossroads.
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Louis De Broglie, New Perspectives In Physics, Basic Books, 1962.
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L.W. Friedrich Ed. The Nature Of Physical Knowledge, Oliver and Boyd, 1960.
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Gordon Moran, Silencing Scientists and Scholars In Other Fields, Ablex, 1998.
Endnotes
1Here reference is to Plato’s Timaeus and the works of Aristotle. The main Aristotle references are to Metaphysics Book V, as well as On The Heavens, and Physics.
2The topic of the Essay Contest is Wandering Towards a Goal. That is an oxymoronic concept since wandering means to move without having a fixed course, aim, or goal. In other words having no purpose. See Webster’s Dictionary. Hence to try to model biological systems as wandering means they have no goal or purpose put into them and their actions.
3Here mindless mathematical law is taken to mean that there is no purpose, aim, intention or goal embedded into the mathematical formalism of the physical theory. There is nothing new in this claim. Skepticism regarding physical science goes back to Aristotle who argued that a mathematical physics was impossible. See Alan Chalmers in reference 4. Similar ideas appear in preface of reference 13.
4There is a rather large literature as well as Internet Web pages regarding criticism of establishment science and its methods with which I don’t disagree. Some examples are reference 9 and reference 14. See also:http://corruption-of-science.blogspot.co.uk/
5The concept of a conceptual model, that is a set of concepts and relations including assumptions regarding what is being studied. See Reference 5.
6Nothing is really new in this assertion. Skepticism regarding the efficacy of physical science applied outside its usual boundaries is normal. The purpose of the essay contest seems to be that this situation has changed due to new innovative methods and techniques. No one has demonstrated that there is an existence of such a method or technique, and lots of arguments against the existence of such a thing.
6See Chapter IV reference 6.
7This was a theory proposed by geologist Sam Warren Carey. See:http://nealadams.com/science-videos/ and http://unconventionalgeology.blogspot.com/2011/09/expansion-of-earth.html
12In mathematics, uniqueness is put into the algebraic systems via the unique identity element theorem. There is the problem that special relativity violates this theorem by postulating that frames of reference are not unique. This produces the well known paradoxes. When this is pointed out as a problem it is rejected because SR has a physical postulate that there are multiple frames of reference. So SR doesn’t require uniqueness of results and so contradictions are called paradoxes and are allowed.
8See Aristotle, Physics, Book 1, Chapter 1.
9See reference 5 page 50 for the definitions of necessary and sufficient.
10This is substantially my conclusion after years of science study from being a impressionable young boy to now a skeptical older and mature adult. If you think it is incorrect then that is simply your opinion, and not an actual fact.
11Wikipedia says teleogy in science was discouraged due to Francis Bacon. The cybernetic conception of purpose as a feedback loop implies that the loop design equations have to be developed by the designer in order to make the system produce the desired result. That implies the existence of a designer for nature if there is to be a cybernetic theory of nature. That is specifically rejected by modern science that rails against creationism as not being science.
13The concept of teleogy is that nature seeks towards an end purpose or goal. Usually teleology is thought to mean circular reasoning which is improper. An argument that assumes the results at the beginning is not considered proper. But mathematics must assume as axioms the means to reach uniquely true deductions as theorems so that they may be treated as true conclusions.
14Intelligent design or creationism is asserted to be pseudo-science. That seems to be a misuse of the demarcation criteria. This essay contest proposes that it is possible to create mathematical systems and computer methods that can produce the results that nature does by random accident and no particular goal or purpose. In order to do that, some intelligent person who expects to receive $10,000 will have to use his intelligence in order to produce the desired result.
14See: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/im-atheist-stephen-hawking-god-space-travel-n210076 Hawkings position is certainly acceptable to modern science. According to Reference 7, the number of scientists who believe in God has been steadily declining since 1944, page 344. The reason for this is the rise in positivism during the French Revolution, which insisted upon eliminating God from science.