Re: Signs of Scientism

----- Original Message ----
From: David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
To: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
Cc: Keith Miller <kbmill@ksu.edu>; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Tuesday, January 17, 2006 7:24:34 AM
Subject: Re: Signs of Scientism

Pim -- as to the adequacy of the tests folks like Demski and Behe have
proposed for design, that's neither here nor there to me right now.
Let's assume you're right and that they are inadequate. I've read
Behe and Demski and see the strengths and weaknesses of their
arguments, but I don't want to argue about that, as I'm not an "ID
fundamentalist" and I'm sure all of you have been over those arguments
until they've made you ill. I'm hoping to understand some broader
questions and distinctions.

Pim: I understand. Critics of ID have done quite an in depth analysis of why ID's claims have to be rejected since they are scientifically vacuous.

Re: the resurrection -- Merv -- thank you, that was where I was going
next. The "meaning of Christ's resurrection," it seems to me, is not
"more important" than the fact of the resurrection from any semblance
of an orthodox Christian standpoint, whatever the denominational
tradition. The fact of the resurrection is the central historical
event of our faith; without it, there is no Christian faith. If we
have to talk of any kind of meaningful demarcation between "Christian"
and "not Christian," it seems to me that the historicity of Christ's
resurrection is part of the central core of that border. And there
is, indeed, substantial empirical evidence for the resurrection (I'm
reading through N.T. Wright's "The Resurrection of the Son of God"
just now, which is fascinating on the context of and evidence for the
resurrection), even if the event cannot in some sense of the word be
"proven."

Pim: If historicity of the resurrection is central to being a Christian then we run the risk of finding contradictions and other 'historical' evidence which would lead us to doubt the historical veracity. I can quote some 'remarkable' books by those who have found fascinating evidence contradicting the historicity of the resurrection of Christ. The issue is not circumstantial evidence, or contradicting 'witnesses' but rather then meaning of the resurrection to our Christian faith.

Keith: "Divine action cannot be detected by scientific test." I'm
having trouble following you here. As I understood your position,
nothing happens without Divine action. Evolution reflects God's
direct, providential activity in creation, through the physical laws
He has established for the universe. This concept of evolution being
God's direct, providential activity avoids the "blind watchmaker"
criticism of theistic evolution.

However, if you want to avoid the "blind watchmaker," it seems to me
that you also have to hold that "divine action" can be detected by
scientific test, since any "natural" process we observe is the result
of direct "divine action."

Pim: But that is begging the question. As a Christian you may hold that there is divine action behing every natural process but how to distinguish between divine and non divine natural processes is what is the real issue here.

It also seems to me that, if we are going
to affirm the historicity of the miracles recorded in scripture,
including the central miracle of Christ's resurrection, we have to
affirm that "supernatural" "divine action" can be detected by
empirical observation.

Pim: Why? People have sought to see the Hand of God in so many natural processes, so why do we have to insist on something supernatural, if as you seem to suggest, natural processes may be the result of direct 'divine action". Or in other words, we only are able to observe natural processes.

I would agree that "divine intention" isn't subject to empirical
observation. We only know the "why" and the "where to" of the
Resurrection because of scripture, and we only begin to understand it
because of grace and the Holy Spirit. I'd also agree that the
mechanisms of "supernatural" "divine action" -- the "how" questions --
aren't subject to empirical observation (as Merv put it, we can't
explain scientifically how God accomplished the resurrection). But
teleology (why / where to) and mechanism (how), though they may be
appropriate questions we ask of nature, aren't essential to calling a
test scientific, as the science of evolution demonstrates.

Pim: I do not understand your argument here. Mechanisms are very important to evolution as is the teleological nature of evolution. Check out the work by Ayala and Ruse to understand why evolution may appear to be teleological.

Perhaps the problem is in my shift from "scientific tests" to
"empirical observation." Even if we conclude that "empirical
observation" isn't the same thing as "scientific tests," the waters
still seem muddy to me. The kinds of "tests" we're discussing can't
be only repeatable experiments, since that would elide large swathes
of what we now call science. If we're talking about something like
"falsifiability," many purported miracles meet that test, including
probably Christ's bodily resurrection. (e.g., if Archeologists found
a crypt with the bones of a crucified man dating to the first century,
inscriptions identifying the man as Jesus, and a large cache of
clearly authentic primary source documents penned by the disciples
indicating that the disciples stole the body and fabricated the gospel
accounts, we probably could justifiably call the gospel accounts of
Christ's bodily resurrection falsified.)

Pim: And ?How would this address the supernatural? Just because something is falsifiable does not make it scientific. After all, one could very well argue that the body was left behind to instill doubt in the believers who had to accept on faith that Christ had been resurrected? Or what if the crypt had been staged by Romans trying to cover up? And even if it falsified the resurrection, this hardly falsifies a supernatural being. All it shows is that our 'historical' records may be flawed.

So, aren't we back then to the somewhat arbitrary question of
demarcation between kinds of empirical observations that are
"scientific" or "non-scientific"? (I hope this all doesn't sound
argumentative. I do obviously come to the table with some existing
views on all this, but they are provisional and I'm trying to learn.
And you've all I'm sure been over this a thousand times before as
well, but I appreciate your patience in discussing it with me.)

Pim: The demarcation issues is mostly philosophical. Whether or not something is science versus whether or not something is the truth can be very different concepts if one allows the supernatural as an ''explanation". Since the supernatural is fully unconstrained it can explain anything and thus really nothing.

On 1/17/06, Alexanian, Moorad <alexanian@uncw.edu> wrote:
> My comments were based on unadulterated science. If additional hypotheses
> are included, then all sorts of conclusions can be derived from the data.
>
> Moorad
>
>
>
> From: Keith Miller
> Sent: Mon 1/16/2006 11:10 PM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: Signs of Scientism
>
>
> > I beg you to tell me how physicists characterize the elementary
> > particles they constantly talk about. Are they fools when they claim
> > that their (physical) detectors have detected a photon, an electron,
> > etc.
>
> I'm not sure what you are getting at. Of course our claims about the
> nature of physical objects and forces are legitimately based on our
> observations (direct or through instruments) of physical objects and
> events. But, I would also contend that those physical descriptions are
> not complete in the ultimate sense. Science does not, and cannot,
> capture the divine upholding of these events. I would argue from a
> biblical perspective that there are NO purely physical phenomena.
>
> Keith
>
> Keith B. Miller
> Research Assistant Professor
> Dept of Geology, Kansas State University
> Manhattan, KS 66506-3201
> 785-532-2250
> http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
>
>
Received on Tue Jan 17 13:52:22 2006