Re: definition of science (MN)

Within a post from Burgy: Richard Lewontin is quoted as saying:

>  "Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against
common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated just?so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of 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."
>

I take some issue with this:

Methodological naturalism requires
reproducibility independent of who is
doing the experiment. Methodological naturalism means
that religious commentments (including atheism) must be
left at the door.

Well, ok, I am starting to sound a little like Moorad's
hard science view. More correctly,
if it can, without too extensive a stretch, be called a
"natural process" (something not involving culture and
civilization), it should _in principle_ be reproducible.
So the geologist would point to similar rock formations
to propose a particular stratigraphy. A geologist is usually
not fortunate enough to have "an experiment" demonstrated by
nature in a timely fashion and one should probably hope in
general that such does not occur to quickly or unexpectedly
in heavily populated areas.

If on the other hand,
it we speak of historical, one would produce documented
evidence, or persuasive circumstantial information to make
a particular point. Implausible claims in history would
be rejected for much the same reason as they are for natural
processes, they are inconsistent with human activity and
culture.

So back to the so-called hard sciences (which seems largely
to be what Lewontin was implicitly focusing on but with
more effort could be extended to the "hard to do sciences")
the limitations come in because we must use testable
models to examine nature. I don't think anyone here
is willing to volunteer a testable and reproducable
model for God's interaction with the world independent
of who is conducting the experiment. Certainly, I don't
have any bright ideas.

So it is not that methodological naturalism "cannot allow
a divine foot in the door", it is simply that we have no
way to test for this "divine foot".

by Grace alone we proceed,
Wayne
Received on Thu May 5 21:13:31 2005