Re: [asa] Richard Lewontin quote on Naturalism

I don't think that the rest of the quote alters in any important way the
arbitrary, a priori commitment that Lewontin displays in the paragraph
orignally quoted--and often quoted. I would respond in two ways.

(1) Devout theist (and, really design theorist) Robert Boyle also refused
to appeal to supernatural divine activity in explaining how things happen in
nature. We must not rise above the level of natural causes, he told Francis
Line when they argued about what sort of entity it was, that existed above
the meniscus in a mercury barometer. Was it a real void, or not? Line
thought that God's absolute power could stretch the atoms there to fill the
space, without creating empty spaces between them. Boyle declined to appeal
to God's absolute power in this way. So, on that score Lewtonin has a point
that Christian scientists can readily agree with.

(2) At the same time, on the other hand, consider what the late Reijer
Hooykaas wrote about being open to divine freedom in understanding nature.
I very much agree with the following thoughts, which I suspect Lewontin
would reject:

"The history of science shows many examples of the 'irrational' notions and
theories of today becoming the 'rational' notions and theories of tomorrow,
that it seems largely a matter of being *accustomed* to them whether they
are considered rational or not, natural or not. Modern geologists deem a
geology in which everything happens within a rather short period
'miraculous'; but the long periods Hutton wanted in order to dismiss the
marvellous from geology, were at first rejected as marvellous by his
contemporaries who were wont to think in short periods...

'Love of the marvellous' is the opposite of the scientific spirit. The
scientist has the duty to reduce the seemingly marvellous to the constant
course of nature and to prove that wonder is no wonder. But 'fear of the
marvellous' is just as harmful to the progress of science. A dogmatic and
rationalistic attitude which proclaims the present state of experience or
the present state of 'rational explanation' as final truth, and condemns
anything not conformable to them as 'miraculous', neglects also the duty of
demonstrating that 'wonder is no wonder'. Science is blind to the
supernatural; in order to widen its scope, however, it should not be anxious
to discard everything reason does not understand. Its first concern should
be to establish the actual course of nature, not to discard everything
unusual or non-rational. The realm of the 'natural' should be expanded as
much as possible by revising the 'laws of nature' and, when necessary, the
whole way of thinking. The best guarantee for undogmatic, truly free
science has always been a submission to facts, even when they seem to be
against reason, and a mild scepticism toward the 'reasonableness' of our
theoretical systems, even when they seem to be most rational."

--"Natural Law and Divine Miracle," (Leiden, 1959), pp. 167-68.

It would be interesting to know your opinion, Pim: would your friends at PT
be sympathetic to such a view?

ted

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Received on Fri Jan 12 12:32:04 2007