It appears Roger is trying to take the high road of 'science' in this discussion, against David’s humanity. To me it’s a rather strange approach. One should capitalise Science, of course, when they ask for such pseudo-objectivity in the face of societal relativism. It seems like Roger is willing to allow sloppiness with words to protect his hegemonic views. Unfortunately, this is to the detriment of co-operation and understanding amongst the diversity of scientists and scholars represented at ASA.
Check, for example, the first line of the response of Dave Siemens in this thread to me: "The fact is that Keith is right." Isn't this just a way to swing a club at some one, rather than attempting to dialogue and potentially reason with them, trying to understand their pov and why they hold it? Granted, it’s a dogmatic club, that misrepresents both science and evolutionary theories as universalistic, when everyone knows that neither are so today.
How do we distinguish between what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘not natural’? Terry Gray notes that we are operating with different uses of 'natural.' When people say the creation is (purely) natural they are reaching beyond the language of science to do it, yet justifying their position as coming from a scientist (i.e. and for that reason more valid). It is absolutely amazing to me how many scientists, even Christians who are scientists prioritize their work as 'holier than thou' whenever it comes to those who are not their ‘kind’ of scientist. A little tolerance of diversity and effort to understand others seem in order. And a little more attention to linguistic meaning.
Why not, for example, ask David about the difference(s) between ‘natural law’ and ‘positive law,’ a discussion that has been held in his field(s) of research activity quite thoroughly, instead of just insulting the way he communicates?
Should have known better than to respond to a lawyer. – This is just hot-air and nonsense, especially coming from a nation with so many lawyers per capita!
The issue on the table for Keith Miller and for David Campbell (the original issue I raised) is to address the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial.’ Printing (i.e. using a printing press) to me is not a ‘natural’ occurrence; neither is technology. It is artificial, a human construction, invention, innovation, creation, etc. Do you disagree with this typology/labelling? If not, then you include within the realm of ‘natural’ much more than I do, as it also seems with David O. In this sense, his distinction of strong and weak MN has a sound basis and should not just be mocked at by a pretentious scientist/philosopher.
If I were allowed to make a sweeping generalization, it would be that natural scientists (a highly heterogeneous group) tend to have a shortcoming/weakness in identifying *anything* that is ‘not natural.’ 'Not natural' seems to mean not amenable to or approachable by ‘science,’ and therefore even unscholarly to study. This is not a suggestion to move to natural/supernatural dichotomy-talk.
Concepts like ‘culture’ and ‘society’ provide HUGE discourses that operate almost entirely outside the vocabulary of natural scientists – they just don’t know the lingo. This is one thing non-natural scientists are trying to do (read: have been trying to do for many years), to help natural scientists integrate their language with ‘the real human world’ instead of making pretensions to objectivity, universal knowledge (applicable everywhere, at all times, to everyone), which helps to maintain a new kind of (post-Enlightenment) scientific priesthood. It appears that certain persons here on this list are opposed to non-natural-scientific efforts for improved communication and scholarly equality. Calling David a ‘mere lawyer’ is counterproductive. He has shown he has some knowledge of scientific topics and a Christian heart that is curious to learn more from scientifically-minded Christians.
Thankfully, most of the participants here at ASA are humble enough and/or balanced enough not to project their scientistic views onto or above the realm of theology. Unfortunately, such exclusivistic science-demarcation-game language serves to separate Christians rather than help us come together in communion.
Arago
p.s. btw, is Roger Olson a mathematician, geologist, speaking about philosophy of science issues?
p.p.s. Terry wrote: "As far as I can tell there's no violation of any natural process when people decide to dy their hair green." This is exactly the issue - 'people deciding' is not a simple (or not simply a) natural process - it speaks to the extra-naturalness of humankind. A 'choice' is a kind of spiritual intervention into nature's process. The word 'violation' seems to come from an approach to creation and evolution, from a philosophy of science viewpoint that leads to a dead-end rather than producing a contribution to shared knowledge.
David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm not really sure that I want to jump into this thread, but it strikes me as odd that we are considering human activity to be non-natural.
I thought someone might bring that up. Yes, human activity is "natural" in a sense, but obviously it adds an element of conscious intent that goes beyond the mere operation of physical laws (assuming a deterministic view of the mind is wrong). But ok, set that aside: suppose upon investigation we learn that all the frfls prayed one day that their hair would turn green. Could we entertain the notion then that a non-naturalistic cause is involved?
Should have known better than to respond to a lawyer. Sorry, folks.
Dave -- why is this necessary? I'm not the one who started throwing around the unfriendly rhetoric. You still haven't responded to anything I've said on the merits. So what about the merits?
On 8/20/06, Terry M. Gray <grayt@lamar.colostate.edu> wrote:
> I'm not really sure that I want to jump into this thread, but it
> strikes me as odd that we are considering human activity to be non-
> natural. As far as I can tell there's no violation of any natural
> process when people decide to dy their hair green. It appears that
> some of us are operating with very different means of the word
> "natural".
>
> TG
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Received on Mon Aug 21 10:20:43 2006
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