> Before beginning, I wanted to do something I intended to do
> several months ago, namely put in a plug for Loren's
> excellent article that appeared in the Jan 96 issue of
> _The World & I_. Actually, there were three articles,
> written from different perspectives, which were all very
> good:
>
> "Issues in the Creation-Evolution Controversies"
> -- Jonathan Wells
>
> "Evolution: Fact and Theory"
> -- Chris Colby [of t.o fame]
>
> "Why believe in a Creator?: Perspectives on Evolution"
> -- Loren Haarsma
Thanks, they make a nice set. I'm hoping that _The World & I_ will make
them "public domain" in a year or two, or at least allow free internet
distribution while maintaining copyright. We'll see.
I must say that all of the discussion on this here group was invaluable
for writing that article.
> Here I want to
> mention a sentence from the second paragraph of Loren's
> article:
>
> "People who dispute evolution's philosophical extrapolations
> therefore have two alternatives: criticize the metaphysical
> reasoning, or criticize the scientific credibility of the
> theory itself."-- LH
>
> I am envious of anyone able to say so much with only one sentence ;-).
Me too. That particular gem was found and cut by a friend and
rough-draft-reader, Elizabeth Steinberger. I just gave it a setting.
-----------------------------
> >
> >ABSTRACT: Science cannot prove that some past event was "supernatural;"
> >however, it can in principle establish that no known natural mechanisms
> >could account for that event. In that limited sense, science can address
> >the supernatural.
> Here I have to disagree somewhat, depending on what you mean by
> "address the supernatural". From a scientific point of view, all
> that can be said is "no known natural mechanisms could account
> for that event".
>
> Perhaps this is just a problem with my interpretation of "address the
> supernatural". After giving your 5 conclusions later on you write:
> "Science _qua_ science cannot distinguish between these
> possibilities", a statement that I agree with. Since science
> cannot distinguish between them, it cannot address the supernatural
> even in the limited sense suggested (to me anyway) by the above.
Yes, I'll revise the abstract a little.
----------------------------------------
> >As scientists study the initial conditions, final conditions, and
> >known natural mechanisms, they could reach three possible conclusions:
> >
> >1) Sound empirical models predict that known natural mechanisms can
> > account for the event. (*1*) (Let's call these "natural events.")
> >
> >2) We do not have sound (or sufficiently thorough) empirical models, but
> > we believe that known natural mechanisms can account for the event,
> > and future improvements in empirical knowledge, elegant models, and
> > computing power will eventually allow us to prove this.
> > (For this article, let's call these "non-empirical events.")
> >
> >3) No known natural mechanisms could account for this event.
> > There are empirically sound reasons for ruling out all known
> > natural mechanisms.
> > (For this article, let's call these "non-mechanistic events.")
>
>
> Although I understand what you mean by the term in context here,
> I still have some trouble with the word "mechanistic" for several
> reasons.
>
> First the term carries a lot of metaphysicsl baggage. [...]
> If one of our goals is to "criticize the metaphysical reasoning" of
> philosophical Naturalists, we would do well to avoid
> metaphors which play into their hands. Although the term "natural
> mechanism" can be used very broadly to refer to any natural phenomena
> it can also lend itself to readily to the mechanistic world view.
> [...]
> My second objection is that, depending on how the term is
> defined, "natural mechanisms" are not necessarily "mechanistic".
> [...]
> What is meant
> by "mechanical world view"? This should be interpretted in
> terms of the Newtonian mechanics paradigm in which systems
> are viewed as changing (evolving) due to the actions of
> external forces. In this sense Neo-Darwinism would definitely
> be mechanistic, with organisms changing (adapting) to external
> forces (changes in environment). The above slogan is typical
> of the self-organizing view of nature. I spent a lot of time
> trying to figure out exactly what is meant by the *self* in
> self-organization. I believe it boils down essentially to this
> point. The dynamics of a self-organizing system is not
> strongly influenced by the external (initial and boundary)
> conditions. In this sense then, self-organizing systems are
> certainly natural phenomena but are not mechanistic.
>
> After having said all this, I would be hard pressed to suggest
> a better terminology. "Natural mechanism" is a very natural :)
> and useful term. Perhaps this should still be used with some
> explanation that purely natural phenomena are not necessarily
> mechanistic. I would prefer not labeling (3) as "non-mechanistic
> events".
I haven't thought of a better term, despite some effort. I think
I'll just add a footnote which makes your point that the term
"mechanistic" shouldn't be thought of TOO narrowly.
Incidentally, I think exactly right about the meaning of the term
"self-organizing."
----------------------------------
> It seems to me that all scientists,
> when working in their own area of expertise anyway, are about the
> business of finding order in chaos, making sense of the apparently
> nonsensical, i.e. trying to put things in category 1 or 2. Although
> you don't quite say it, it would be very easy to misconstrue the
> above as saying that theistic scientists generally play the role
> of "bad cop" by always trying to undo naturalistic explanations.
> One might also get the impression that non-theists (or materialists
> or whatever) are clinging desperately to the naturalistic no matter
> what the cost. I think good science, whether conducted by theists,
> atheists, agnostics, or whatever, involves proposing specific
> hypotheses for given observations and then diligently testing
> them. The committed Naturalist may be strongly committed to the
> notion that a naturalistic explanation exists for every phenomena,
> however, this should not imply that these individuals are not
> about the business of rigorously testing specific naturalistic
> hypotheses, this role being left to the religious scientist convinced
> that a supernatural explanation is appropriate.
This is a very good point. I will definitely include it in the next
version (in a somewhat abbreviated form :-)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Until you stalk and overrun, you can't devour anyone."| Loren Haarsma
--a tiger aphormism by Hobbes (_Calvin_and_Hobbes_) | lhaarsma@opal.tufts.edu