What kind of mushrooms grow in Plantinga's garden?
"The judge gives at least two arguments for his conclusion that ID is
not science. Both are unsound.
First, he said that ID is not science by virtue of its "invoking and
permitting supernatural causation." Second, and connected with the
first, he said that ID isn't science because the claims IDers make are
not testable - that is verifiable or falsifiable. The connection between
the two is the assertion, on the part of the judge and many others, that
propositions about supernatural beings - that life has been designed by
a supernatural being - are not verifiable or falsifiable.
Let's take a look at this claim. Of course it has proven monumentally
difficult to give a decent definition or analysis of verification or
falsification. Here the harrowing vicissitudes of attempts in the 50s
and 60s to give a precise statement of the verifiability criterion are
instructive. But taking these notions in a rough-and-ready way we can
easily see that propositions about supernatural beings not being
verifiable or falsifiable isn't true at all.
For example, the statement "God has designed 800-pound rabbits that live
in Cleveland" is clearly testable, clearly falsifiable and indeed
clearly false.
"Theories" must be testable and falsifiable. This is simply a statement
which could either be true or false. I've never been to Cleveland, so
it may be true. How can Plantinga say it is "clearly false" unless he
has been to Cleveland and done a thorough house to house search. Those
800-pound rabbits may have been specially created and are munching on
50-lb cabbages right now.
Testability can't be taken as a criterion for distinguishing scientific
from nonscientific statements.
Not statements, Al. "I ate a telescope for breakfast," is not a
"scientific statement" because a telescope is a scientific instrument.
That is because in the typical case individual statements are not
verifiable or falsifiable.
As another example, the statement "There is at least one electron" is
surely scientific, but it isn't by itself verifiable or falsifiable.
It isn't verifiable or testable partly because it is an incomplete
sentence. A more complete sentence might be: "An atom contains at least
one electron." It may not be testable to 100% surety at our present
state of scientific ability, but that only means we lack the
instrumentation. We can't know the composition of black holes, but we
know they exist.
What is verifiable or falsifiable are whole theories involving
electrons. These theories make verifiable or falsifiable predictions,
but the sole statement "There is at least one electron" does not. In the
same way, whole theories involving intelligent designers also make
verifiable or falsifiable predictions, even if the bare statement that
life has been intelligently designed does not.
Who has articulated a "whole theory involving intelligent designers"?
And what are the "verifiable or falsifiable predictions"?
Therefore, this reason for excluding the supernatural from science is
clearly a mistake."
And the conclusion doesn't follow from his arguments.
Dick Fischer
~Dick Fischer~ Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org> www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Fri Mar 17 12:00:40 2006
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Fri Mar 17 2006 - 12:00:40 EST