Re: Signs of Scientism

Greg,
Don't be so quick to apply pejorative labels. Keith is too knowledgeable
to fall into such a simplistic trap. Underlying his statement is a belief
that God is competent to create a universe whose principles allowed the
production of life and its development with no further tinkering. Others
believe that there had to be a minimum of input, perhaps life and human
spirit, in a universe otherwise competent to develop naturally. At the
other extreme are those like Hugh Ross who insist that every distinct
kind of living thing had to be separately created. None of these views
are scientism, the claim that science is the sole source of knowledge.
Scientism has the consequence that matter and its interactions is all
there is, that is, materialism. Keith is NOT a materialist.

Let me phrase the matter differently. How bright is your God? Is he
intelligent enough to design a universe that could develop fully by the
principles initially implanted? Is he not quite competent enough to make
it all work, but a little input brings it right? Is he so dumb that he
has to experiment along the line, bringing ambulatory whales into
existence on the way to the current fully aquatic design? Did he have to
make creatures that didn't quite come off in order to get the right
design? Almost every theist agrees that God made the material universe
develop anthropically without further input. The difference comes with
the origin of life.

Along this line I note two reports. /Connections/, Ross's publication,
8:4 (first quarter 2006), reports that Mars' climate makes the
development of life there essentially impossible. /Science/, 310:1898f
(23 December 2005), reports from the meeting of the American Geophysical
Union on "An Early, Muddy Mars Just Right for Life." The conditions
claimed to make life impossible were preceded by those like those on
earth when life first appeared. It's clear to me that Zweerink's
statement in /Connections/ is premature, for all the evidence was not in.
Beyond that, we don't yet know whether life arises whenever conditions
are favorable. Of course, there are some who KNOW that fiat creation is
required for living things coming into existence.
Dave

On Sun, 15 Jan 2006 20:37:40 -0500 (EST) Gregory Arago
<gregoryarago@yahoo.ca> writes:
Keith Miller says: "It is entirely reasonable given our current state of
knowledge (both positive and negative) that a very plausible solution
will be found to the origin of life."

Please also excuse if I mention that this is one of the most obvious
cases of 'scientism' I've seen. Is it not to most people at ASA? A
solution to the origin of life? What science is so bold as to suggest
such a thing? Does this not represent an opposite pole from the IDM's
designer-did-it approach? At least the IDM is apparently wise enough to
insist upon the mystery of life's origins, aside from making some
scientific claim to proof.
Received on Mon Jan 16 13:40:08 2006