Isn’t that somewhat true though?
I certainly don’t think that mainstream science is just one arbitrary interpretation of reality. Theories in science arise, survive, evolve, and fall because they are continuously tested by external evidence. Consequently, whatever survives contain must at least some objective truths about the natural world.
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I did not say arbitrary. Certainly there is a scientific interpretation of a sunset, there is also a poet’s interpretation too.
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Sure, but the scientific and poetic (or religious) interpretations should be complementary, not exclusionary, which I believe was what @AllenWitmerMiller was referring to when talking about YECs. While I affirm the limitations of what science can tell us about the world, I view science as a legitimate, beautiful, worthy, and truthful pursuit.
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And then there are post-modernist versions that posit it’s all a subjective point of view and so YEC and Evolution are just ‘different interpretations’ of the same ‘data’.
I’d say that science is actually a collection of interpretations, and these interpretations have real legitimacy, but they could never be complete accounts of the world. Part of what makes scientific explanations so powerful is that their domain is sharply limited to the domains only in which they apply, and only from particular angles.
There are always going to be other valid and legitimate interpretations. That being said, there also invalid and illegitimate interpretations too. I’m not going full post-modern. Rather, I’m emphasizing the importance of critical realism, the blind men and the elephant (What Exactly Am I?).
And yes, science is a legitimate, beautiful, worthy and truthful pursuit.
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i don’t agree science is a thing. or rather a noun but instead a verb.
its just a methodology before making conclusions. It is mEANT to be a high standard of investigation that can demand confidence in its conclusions. iTS REAL! If we just say its interpretations then this falls short of a aggressive conclusion. We need these conclusions when making drugs of flying space shuttles(when they get it right).
so YEC and evolution are not just different interpretations but one, or both, are wrong. Possibly one is right. But both are not right. Science doesn’t mean anything unless it means something other then something else.
It has to be a cut above ordinary thoughtfulness in reaching conclusions that we do all day long.
Science is not just a high standard but its only applied to matters that need a high standard BECAUSE they evade ordinary investigation.
SO in origin matters the issues are about quality control for the science or the lack of data to use. Origin subjects greatly are about invisible things.
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I’m just quoting that, because it may become a classic.
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I’m putting it in my syllabus.
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Sounds like something that Yogi Berra would have said. 
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When I wrote in the context of post-modernism that some who minimize or even dismiss the importance of science say it is “just one interpretation of what we observe.”, I used the word “just” in its meaning of merely one interpretation of what we observe. That was my point.
Yes, there can be many interpretations of what we observe—in the sense of reflections or reactions. Indeed, when @swamidass mentioned the interpretations of poets looking at what they observe, it is using the word “interpretation” to label a personal reflection (which is certainly a valid usage of the word) rather than the kinds of explanations and predictions which make science so valuable. Obviously, there can be very different tensions between the objective and the subjective when we start comparing various kinds of “interpretations” of what we observe.
Is science merely “just one interpretation” in a post-modern world? I would say no. For example, are the challenges of climate change best evaluated by treating science as merely one interpretation of what we observe? Moreover, is a poet’s interpretations of what he observes in climate change just as valid? It certainly can be honest, legitimate, and genuine, and the poet’s product might possibly motivate people to take action on what the peer-reviewed science has already described and explained. Nevertheless, if that poet is a nihilist and regards science as merely one interpretation of what is observed, the resulting poetry may be “valid” in some limited sense but hardly of equal value.
Bingo.
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You say that science is not a noun—and then you say it’s a methodology. Yet, the word methodology is a noun. By the logic of transitive equivalence, if X=Y and Y=Z, then X=Z.
The Latin version of this maxim was once considered as the official motto of the National Science Foundation. Unfortunately, it sounded too much like bureaucratic government-speak.
Yeah. Words tend to do that.
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I think we might add - sometimes this same interpretation is arrived at independently by different people.
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I didn’t know the word methodology is a noun. Yet my point remains that science is just human actions. Its not a thing unto itelf unrelated to human actions. YET everywhere they speak of SCIENCE as if its independent of human thought and actions.
Everything humans do is from thinking. Science ONLY could be a high quality of control on conclusions from such thinking. A high standard of investigation with rules.
A creationist complaint is that the difficult subjects of origins, due to being past processes and events, ARE not obeying the rules!! they are not accurately doing science!
I think creationism should aim better at this weakness in thier trench. We should be saying evolutionism etc is not basing its conclusions on biological investigation but instead other subjects thus no claim to being a subject of science unless they change.
A new article which is pertinent to Science in an age of post-modernism.