Originally Posted By: Byrd_Huntr
So, as we wade in a tidal pool in Oregon, we should feel that we understand the Pacific Ocean?


If the tidepool is our only source of data about the ocean, then our understanding is necessarily limited. Analyzing the tidepool, because it is part of the ocean, provides data that can form the basis of theories about the ocean. No rational person would claim a complete understanding of the ocean without the opportunity to get data direct from the ocean. Even understanding the tidepool is, of course, subject to continued revision as science seeks to refine and enhance the known truths about the tidepool - including the exciting overturn of early things believed true!

Originally Posted By: Byrd_Huntr
Because miracles are by definition an unexplained occurrance, the fact that a scientist cannot explain them does not in any way diminish them.


Nobel prizes and a major place in history await any scientist who can get veriable data about a miracle. Sagan's point is only that the reported miracles are not "consistent with what else we know," by which I think it is fair to say he means exactly what you say - miracles remain unexplained ocurrences [so far].


Originally Posted By: Byrd_Huntr
I beleive that the "courageous self discipline" that Sagan refers to must be the humble admission that all human knowledge resides in the tidepool of the ocean of possibilities.


Sagan said: "We should pay attention to how badly we want to believe a given contention. The more badly we want to believe it, the more skeptical we have to be. It involves a kind of courageous self discipline. Nobody says it’s easy." I believe his point, fairly read, is that we should have the courage to resist forcing the data into a preconceived meaning no matter how badly we would like to to do it. Sagan agrees with you that we know only a tiny, pitiful amount so far.

[Carl Sagan, Varieties of scientific experience, pages 229-230.]