1. Creationists have a different method than scientists in explaining observed evidence. If the evidence observed in the scientific world that does not fit with an existing theory then that theory is discarded and no longer considered science. To replace this discarded theory a new theory is created that explains the phenomena. However in creationism the theory remains the same and the evidence that did not originally fit with the theory is explained by adding on to the original theory. This is know as “ad hoc” and is not scientific.
2. Falsificationism is an idea of what makes something scientific, proposed by Karl Popper. It suggests that a scientific theory must make bold predictions specifying specific things that will prove the theory false if they occur. Creationism fails to do this. It can not be falsified because it does not specify that certain things will not happen and as a result anything that happens can be explained after the fact (ad hoc).
3. the problem with ad hoc is the fact that if the old theories are never disproven and everything is explained to fit in with them then no new theories will be created. Without new theories there would never be any scientific advancement. Ad hoc suggests that people want to keep their old theories and they will therefore be trying to find evidence to confirm instead of disprove which is another point proposed by Karl Popper about what makes something science.
4. Chance should not play that much of a role in confirming a scientific theory as there must be some good reason behind thinking up a theory and believing it will be correct. Then again although we believe we know a lot about how things in the world work so did people 1000 years ago and as time goes by new evidence is being found forcing us to come up with new theories and advance scientifically. Even so I don’t think it is chance so much as humans lack of knowledge. I am sure that there is a very calculated reason for things happening like they do but I also think that we are no where near finding out what those reasons are.   
5. I think that the scientific approach does allow us to “know” things and that that knowledge can advance over time. I think that it is based on the causal theory in that we are caused to believe the theories by the true evidence produced even though more evidence could be found to disprove the theory the original evidence would still have existed and been true. The only thing that is changed is the way in which the evidence is perceived.   
6. Creationism is a form of knowledge known as justified, true belief. It may be true that god exists but the justification for this belief is it is written in the bible and the justification of the reliability of the bible is that it is the word of god. This is a reasoning error known as circular justification. Justification for what you believe is coming from the thing you believe.

By sarah jollow    

1. Plato had the perception that that for something to be knowledge it must be a justified, true belief. You would therefore need to believe what you think, be able to justify what you think and finally the belief must be true before it is considered to be knowledge by Plato. For example if I know that you are at school today, according to Plato, I must believe you are at school, you must be at school, and I must have a justified reason for believing you are at school (you were marked present on the roll and the roll is generally reliable). Only these three things will ensure, according to the theory of justified true belief, that I know you are at school.
2. The main difficulty that arises with Plato’s theory is the part in which the information must be justified. We find ourselves asking how much justification do we need for something to be truly justified? We justify one belief by stating another belief. The problem is that the stated belief then needs to be justified and this process is infinite. If you take my previous example, of knowing you are at school today, I justified my belief by saying you were marked present on the roll and that this is generally reliable. We find ourselves asking “what makes the role reliable?” This could be justified by saying the teachers marking it are reliable. We then ask why the teachers are considered reliable and this process can never end. This is known as the regress problem. The only solution that I can think of for this problem is perhaps setting a reasonable level of justification to judge from. This would have problems in that the level of justification would need to be different for each situation.
3. sorry Mr. beekman i started this a few weeks ago and i came back to finish it and the questions are no longer on the blog.

1. My initial response to the case of Jodie and Mary was that although sad it was a reasonable case as I like to think that Jodie’s sister would have given up a year of her life to allow her sister to live a full life if she was able to express herself.
2. The utilitarianism approach to the case is that more joy will come from one of the girls life being saved and the others lost than if both lives had been lost.
3. The “rule utilitarians” respond to the transplant case by saying that rather than calculating the consequence of each action individually a general rule should be followed that will, in general, produce the most happiness. In this case the rule would be “do not kill”. This approach of “rule utilitarianism” does not convince me as it does not make sense why the rule should be followed even in cases where the result means less happiness as the whole aim of utilitarians is to act for the reason of maximum overall happiness. The rule seems contradictory.
4. I believe that there are some human rights that should override utilitarian beliefs for example I believe that everyone has a right to live but this is a hard one in cases such as killing Mary to save Jodie as they were babies and they were unable to express whether they agreed to the operation.
5. I think that the astronaut case is slightly to the transplant case as the remaining minutes of life that the astronauts would have had could not be spent doing anything other than sitting alone where as the patients remaining weeks or months could have been spent with family and friends. The few remaining minutes of the astronauts lives would be of no consequence to anyone so it is better that a few inconsequential minutes of one persons life so that another person may have the rest of there life.
6. I think that the submarine should be destroyed despite the fact that the people in the submarine will be killed if the result is saving the lives of millions. One reason is that the people in the submarine are obviously part of the armed forces and have agreed to put their lives in danger for their country while the other million innocent people have not agreed to this.
7. Yes, I think that there are exceptions to “thou shall not kill”. I personally think that the utilitarian view is reasonable. If I was the terminal cancer patient I would like to think that I would give up part of my, soon to be over, life to give another person a full and happy life therefore reaching maximum overall happiness. I think that the whole argument is based around selflessness and how selfish people actually are. People do however have a right to be selfish and I think in most cases it should be there choice whether they want to have a couple of extra days to life and condemn another to death as a result or if they give up a few days and give someone life.  

by sarah jollow