I am glad I am not the only one who sees the problems in Plantinga's 'arguments'. The reason why the supernatural has no scientific value is because it explains anything and thus nothing. And it is clearly not falsifiable. What if I state that God created our universe two seconds ago with all the history and memory to make it seem it has existed for billions of years?
What if I claim that God created life and the flagellum? What does it explain? How can it be disproven?
Pim
Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net> wrote:
Clean Clean DocumentEmail MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} 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
www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Fri Mar 17 12:37:59 2006
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