Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID

Burgy said: 1. Consider ALL the evidence
                   2. Ascribe nothing to the gods.
I respond: I think MN is a valuable pragmatic limitation on a particular,
narrow kind of human inquiry that we call "natural science." However, the
two statements above seem contradictory to me. What if the "evidence"
involves the activity of the gods? MN specifically and deliberately says
"do NOT consider all the evidence." In fact, from a legal perspective, I
would view MN as an exclusionary rule of evidence. In the courtroom, we
don't allow juries to consider "all" the evidence -- we have lots of
exclusionary rules based on reliability (hearsay), competence (limits on
expert testimony), privileges (attorney client privilege), constitutional
rights ("fruit of the poisoned tree" re: search and seizure; evidence
obtained by torture), scope (relevance) and so on. A judicial proceeding is
not really a search for capital-T Truth; it is a limited device
pragmatically designed to adjudicate the truth of particularly defined human
rights and relationships. Likewise, Science cannot seek or define capital-T
Truth. Science is a limited device designed to uncover natural processes.
 Science oversteps its bounds when it claims to consider "all" the
evidence.

David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 10:56 AM, John Burgeson (ASA member) <
hossradbourne@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11/25/08, David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> "MN is a Christian theological solution to a theological problem and
> should not be taught in schools. Unless the school treats it as a
> religious theory in a comparative religion class."
>
> I assume you mean MN as meaning "Methodological Naturalism." If so, it
> was "taught" as long ago as 1 BC (+ or - some years) by the Greek
> Lucretus. Also by Epictitus. And more recently by my physics
> professors at Carnegie Tech in the 1950s.
>
> t was sort of a bedrock principle to them. I remember being taught the
> "Two basics of science" as:
>
> 1. Consider ALL the evidence
> 2. Ascribe nothing to the gods.
>
> (This last a quotaton from the ancient Greeks, of course.)
>
> I have a faint memory of it also being taught in my high school class,
> but I'm not sure of this. But it makes sense to introduce it then
> anyway.
>
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Received on Wed Nov 26 11:32:29 2008