On Tue, 08 Jun 1999 18:13:27 -0700, Brian D Harper wrote:
[...]
>I would not express the point that way today, but any seeming
>inconsistency with the views stated in this paper is semantic
>rather than substantive. The key question raised by the
>qualifier _methodological_ is this: What is being limitted--
>science or reality? When "methodological naturalism" is
>combined with a very strong a-priori confidence that
>materialistic theories invoking only unintelligent causes
>can account for such phenomena as genetic information and
>human intelligence, the distinction between methodological
>naturalism and metaphysical naturalism tends to collapse.
>(Example: "Science can study only naturalistic mechanisms;
>therefore we can be confident that life must have arisen
>by a naturalistic mechanism, since science continually
>advances and solves problems of this kind.") That science
>has its limitations is not in doubt; the question is whether
>unsound assumptions about reality have been made to permit
>science to escape those limitations.
>-- Phillip Johnson <Reason in the Balance> p. 212 (footnote)
>=================================================================
>
>I find his parenthetical example interesting. I sincerely
>doubt very many scientists are going to make such an obvious
>blunder in logic.
[...]
Granted that not many methodological naturalists would put it as baldly as
that (Phil was after all, giving a summary example in a footnote), but it
is nevertheless, in a nutshell what MN's do claim.
MN chain of reasoning usually goes something like this: 1) science can
study only the natural world; 2) a supernatural Intelligent Designer is
outside of the natural world; 3) therefore an Intelligent Design explanation
for the origin of life is outside of science and is ineligible for consideration.
But this chain of reasoning depends on *metaphysical* naturalism as a
basis for its first premise. That science can study only the natural world is
no reason why science cannot study the *effect* of a supernatural
Intelligent Designer on the natural world. Science can and does study the
effects of intelligent design on the natural world, e.g. anthropology,
forensic science, and SETI. Naturalism even has its own intelligent
designer origin of life theory called Directed Panspermia!
Therefore, if there is no real limitation of science to study the *effect* of an
Intelligent Designer on the natural world, but Intelligent Design continues
to be ruled out of consideration anyway, then what is really being maintained
is not methodological naturalism but *metaphysical* naturalism.
This is exemplified by leading biologists like Harvard's Richard Lewontin
dropping all pretence and stating dogmatically in the New York Review of
Books that an *absolute* materialism must be maintained in science, not
because it is methodologically necessary, but because it is *philosophically*
necessary:
"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its
constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises
of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for
unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a priori commitment, a
commitment to materialism. IT IS NOT THAT THE METHODS AND
INSTITUTIONS OF SCIENCE SOMEHOW COMPEL US TO ACCEPT
A MATERIAL EXPLANATION FOR THE PHENOMENAL WORLD,
but, on the contrary, that WE ARE FORCED BY OUR A PRIORI
ADHERENCE TO MATERIAL CAUSES to create an apparatus of
investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no
matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.
Moreover, THAT MATERIALISM IS ABSOLUTE, FOR WE CANNOT
ALLOW A DIVINE FOOT IN THE DOOR. The eminent Kant scholar
Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could
believe in anything. To appeal to all omnipotent deity is to allow that at any
moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may
happen." (Lewontin R., "Billions and Billions of Demons," review of "The
Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark," by Carl Sagan,
New York Review, January 9, 1997, p31. Emphasis mine).
Steve
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"Yet, clearly, evolution is not a "fact" in the sense that the man in the street
understands the word. Without a time machine, we cannot prove that birds
evolved from reptiles....Nor can we prove that natural selection is the
mechanism responsible for the whole development of life on earth...."
(Bowler P.J., "Evolution: The History of an Idea," [1983], University of
California Press: Berkeley CA, Revised Edition, 1989, p357)
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