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

I've become too comfortable in my niche of acceptance of MN as an
assumed bedrock of science (from millennia ago as John writes below) to
let this comment go without some defense.

I think you are treating the 'M' in 'MN' too lightly and giving the 'N'
a disproportionate weight. Not only should MN be taught in science
class, it should rather be modeled and assumed. Even to teach *about*
MN could (rightly, IMO) be defended as a quite appropriate discussion in
general science courses, although I would agree that this would not be a
scientific topic since science has no tools for evaluating its own
methodologies. But even that philosophical discussion advocating MN
need not be considered religious since it promotes no metaphysical
conclusions. MN is, and always has been, a *working assumption* of
what we call science. And it makes no rulings for *or against* the
existence of phenomena outside its purview.

So I would say, rather, that a recognition of MN entails a recognition
that there never was a problem between science and religion except from
those who recently refuse to accept MN.

--Merv

John Burgeson (ASA member) 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.)
>

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Received on Wed Nov 26 15:03:09 2008