Re: [asa] Expelled and ID

Jumping into this one without having followed its development (having been
off list for several weeks), I want simply to say that naturalism was
probably invented by the presocratic Greek philosophers, including the
hippocratic physicians (some of whom were not chronologically presocratic).

As for the term, "methodological naturalism," it appears to have been
invented by Wheaton philosopher DeVries (according to Ron Numbers' recent
essay on the history of naturalism) in the 1980s. However, to some extent
the attitude conveyed by MN--that science as science can handle only natural
causes, while neither affirming nor denying the reality of a "supernatural"
creator who is the ultimate source of those causes--was held by many
Christian natural philosophers since and during the scientific revolution.
Boyle would be an example, except for his insistence that design was in some
cases a legitimate inference within natural philosophy (ie, Boyle was to
that extent an ID advocate). At the same time, Boyle held that causes in
science should be mechanistic, that agency causation was not a scientific
explanation (ie, Boyle was to that extent not an ID advocate).

Ted

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Received on Fri May 16 10:00:27 2008