LH> Well, you're right. A commitment to Naturalism cannot be falsified.
>
> But it can be backed into a corner. Confronted with enough of the right
> kind of data, it could be forced into choosing one of the following:
> --An immensely improbable coincidence occurred.
> --Some natural mechanism which no one has yet seen hints of occurred.
> --Extra-terrestrials.
> --Supernatural.
>
> That is how I would envision scientists changing their minds.
>
Robert Jastrow, author of _God and the Astronomer_ once sat in that
proverbial corner.
Bill Durbin interviewed Robert Jastrow in _Christianity Today_, Aug. 6, 1982.
Here is an excerpt (page 15):
"...these gradual successes of the scientific method have given scientists
an outlook of materialism [one that sees matter as the only reality in the
world and its study, by science, as the only way to the truth about the
universe]. So, many are atheist or agnostic because of this.
Astronomers now find they have PAINTED THEMSELVES INTO A CORNER because
they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in
an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every
planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have
found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to
discover. You might say this would make them more inclined to accept
religious views on the origin of the world. But their materialism is so
deeply imbued in them - and I would count myself as affected by this
feeling - that the general response has been simply to avoid considering
the implications."
God Bless,
-jpt
--John P. Turnbull (jpt@ccfdev.eeg.ccf.org)Cleveland Clinic FoundationDept. of Neurology, Section of Neurological ComputingM52-119500 Euclid Ave.Cleveland Ohio 44195Telephone (216) 444-8041; FAX (216) 444-9401