From: Loren Haarsma (lhaarsma@calvin.edu)
Date: Fri Oct 10 2003 - 10:08:13 EDT
I agree that the distinction between Methodological Naturalism and
Philosophical Naturalism is important. However, I have never found
belaboring the distinction to be _helpful_ in arguments about origins.
To claim that MN is a "ground-rule of science" sounds like one side is
trying to throw out all of the other side's evidence before they even look
at it. That's hardly fair, or wise. To claim that we should keep using
MN because it's been so fruitful in the history of science is a stronger
argument, but not convincing to many people who think that biological
origins is exactly the sort of situation were we should _expect_ something
unusual to happen.
I don't think the MN/PN distinction (or lack distinction) is at the
heart of Johnson's argument. I think the heart of Johnson's argument is
something like this:
It's all about bias.
Johnson claims that he has taken a mostly unbiased look at the evidence,
and concluded that natural evolutionary processes simply cannot account
for the history, variety, and complexity of biological life (and that
miraculous activity is a more plausible explanation of the evidence).
Johnson further claims that atheistic scientists are biased when they look
at the evidence because their worldview compells them to believe in
evolution (and compells them to reject any possibility of miraculous
activity).
Johnson tries to convince his audience that he's got the unbiased view
of the evidence, and atheistic scientists are biased.
Of course, atheistic scientists believe that they have taken a mostly
unbiased look at the evidence and concluded that the evidence is
overwhelmingly in favor of natural evolutionary processes explaining the
history, variety and complexity of biological life. These scientists
would further claim that Johnson is biased when he looks at the evidence
because his religious worldview nearly compells him to look for evidence
of miracles activity in biological history and reject the possibility
that it could have happened by natural processes.
How do we decide? We need people who have taken a long, professional
look at the evidence AND whom we have some reason to think that they might
be relatively unbiased. I recommend, in particular, those Christian
scientists who publicly say that they would be perfectly happy,
theologically, for the evidence to turn out either way (miracles or
evolution) since, after all, God could have created and governed
biological history in whatever way God chose.
There are some such Christian scientists. What do they conclude when
they examine the evidence of biological history? From what I can tell,
although Johnson has some supporters, quite a large majority of them
disagree with Johnson. They think the evidence favors evolution.
Unfortunately, Johnson has made some nasty accusations about the motives
of those Christian scientists who disagree with him....
Loren Haarsma
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