display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
| 17673 | The modern worldview is based on the illusion that laws explain nature [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus [1921], 6.371) | |
| A reaction: Love it! Not only does it say that lawlike explanation is wrong, but it registers that this is a profound feature of the modern view of the world, and not just a slightly misguided philosophical theory. |
| 16861 | A false theory could hardly rival the explanatory power of natural selection [Darwin] |
| Full Idea: It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. | |
| From: Charles Darwin (The Origin of the Species [1859], p.476), quoted by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 11 'The scientific' | |
| A reaction: More needs to be said, since the whims of God could explain absolutely everything (in a manner that would be somehow less that fully satisfying to the enquiring intellect). |