Re: Fwd: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

Hello David,
   
  Thank you for your message and for clarifying the meanings. I like the way you speak carefully about this topic. That said, I have just a couple of further questions.
   
  Could the following tag be added to your statement: 'Everything is explicable by natural laws, except for what is not natural.' It may seem trivial or just unscientific to you. But I happen to study and research in a field that doesn't study only natural things, and yet it is counted as 'scientific' by the ASA mission statement.
   
  In this regard, I wonder if there is any flexibility allowed in your statement that "human activities that obey the laws of physics count as natural"? Again, as with Keith's approach, I perceive here a conflation of 'physical' and 'natural' (or physics and nature), with no space allowing for the 'social' (or cultural) as its own sphere of discourse - i.e. that which is not necessarily (by definition) reducible to natural laws. Also, the spiritual dimension of human existence is entirely absent from such a (human - physics - natural) viewpoint, even if one can't quantify or empirically measure 'spirit' according to physical or natural laws that would satisfy the demands of natural scientists. There just seems to be an overlap where natural scientific communication requires a sort of deference of authority to social scientists, who study human beings and their activities in depth.

  Please excuse if this presses a button that affects you as 'anti-science' rhetoric. It is no such thing, but rather a seeking for clarity about the necessary boundaries/limitations of naturalism (as David speaks of strong and weak MN) while natural scientists sometimes refuse to acknowledge those boundaries/limitations.
   
  Regards,
   
  Gregory A.
   
  
David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:
> So, I was trying to distinguish between a "strong" methodological naturalism
> -- one that allows only naturalistic causes -- from a "weak" methodological
> naturalism -- one that prefers naturalistic causes but that allows for
> divine action that supercedes naturalistic causes.

I'm uncomfortable with the distinction between "strong" MN and "weak" MN,
because I think the definitions impose arbitrary limits. Suppose for example
that we are arguing whether God can act in nature and we conclude that No, He
cannot, after having considered only macrosopic phenomena. What about the
possibility that God acts at a much deeper level -- via sensitive dependence on
initial conditions and/or quantum phenomena? We cannot rule out God's action in
nature because our knowledge is not complete. So it seems to me that the
Christian practicing in the sciences must proceed via MN, but always be ready
to admit that God may be (IS!) acting at some deeper level. I guess that makes
me an advocate of weak MN, but I still don't like the distinction.
  Some distinction is needed between what we call the following three assertions:
   
  Everything is, in principle, fully explicable by natural laws.
   
  Natural laws provide adequate physical descriptions of what happens in the vast majority of situations, and it is a reasonable assumption to think that they apply to a given situaiton unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. This says nothing about what role supernatural agents might play in the operation of natural laws.
   
  Science refers to the process of investigating and explaining the physical world using natural laws. If phenomena exist that do not follow such laws, they are not amenable to scientific examination. This does not mean that those other methods are less valid, just that they fall outside the definition of science as adopted here.
   
  (Natural is used in contrast to miraculous, rather than to artificial, so human activities that obey the laws of physics count as natural. The contrast to miraculous again is not very good wording, as Christianity and many other viewpoints hold that supernatural agents are at work in things that obey natural laws as well as in occasions when they are set aside. )
   
  The first of these is more or less equivalent to scientism. The second is what I think is usefully labeled as methodological naturalism. The third is an assertion that methodological naturalism is the approach used by science.
   
  I would take slight exception to the third assertion, in that purported regularly predictable supernatural actions can be investigated by science. Astrology, parapsychology, etc. claim that anyone ought to be able to observe a certain set of results in a given circumstance. In contrast, it's impossible to get a statistically meaningful data set on whether Jesus will rise again after being executed.
   
  Most scientists are not philosophers and don't think about the philosophy of science very much, if at all.
   

  --
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"

                 
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Received on Tue Aug 22 09:29:24 2006