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

I am thinking the most important aspect of MN is it was invented to solve a
theological problem.
And, as Poe states, Plantinga and Basil Willey claim MN is "provisional
atheism". That, to me, means it is entangled with metaphysics.

Poe: "Consider a simple scientific experiment. We
want to know how heavy a loaf of bread is
that sits on a table. A boy tells us that his
mother placed the bread on the table.
Another child tells us that the next door
neighbor placed the bread on the table.
Someone else tells us that the bread has
always been on the table. None of these pos-
sible statements of origin affects the weight
of the bread. It is not necessary to assume
that someone placed the bread on the table
(theism or deism) or that the bread has
always been there (naturalism) or even to
believe that someone placed the bread on the
table but that the bread should be weighed as
though it has always been there (method-
ological naturalism). To weigh the bread as
though it has always been there (even when
we believe it was placed there by someone)
contributes nothing to the results of weigh-ing of the bread."

The problem is that it isn't necessary to formulate a theory of naturalism,
methodological or otherwise,
to make the observation that the weight of the bread is not affected by
metaphysics. As Poe points out, that is already accomplished by the
scientific method. Or so philosophers of science have argued.

It is not necessary to
solve *any* theological problem by formulation of a principle of "just weigh
the bread". But if MN was
invented to solve a theological problem, it wasn't solving the weight of the
bread. It was solving something else.

I think it was addressing the debate between the "dining philosophers", in
this case theologians, who were
sitting around arguing about, not the weight of the bread, but what the
bread can tell us about who baked it.
The latter might be called forensics. I think it is significant that those
doing the forensics were doing theology, or at least thought they were doing
theology. So they needed MN. But pagans in Borneo who were trading loaves
"just weighed the bread" and they didn't need MN whatsoever.

I think people who are doing religion need MN. The rest just use the
scientific method and weigh the bread.

To me MN is something some folks may want to teach in Sunday school to folks
who are confused about theology and need MN in order to stop mangling the
scientific method. But I don't think the government should be telling
people what they should advocate teaching in Sunday school. That would be
entanglement with religion.

Best Regards,
David Clounch

On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 9:56 PM, David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com>wrote:

> So the PSCF article by Poe and MyTyk (
> http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2007/PSCF9-07dyn.html) is off base, and
> DeVries did not in fact use the term for the first time in the peer
> reviewed literature in 1986?
> Can you point to literature discussing the term prior to 1986. And to
> non-Christian sources?
>
> Poe: Karl Giberson and Donald Yerxa have
> argued that the term is the focus of a quarrel
> within the Christian community, but that
> "the quarrel over methodological naturalism
> and theistic science does not engage the
> average scientist in a lab coat ..."3
>
> And so on. This is all completely off base? It should be easy to show the
> quarrel going on outside the Christian community, if in fact it actually
> did. But in that case one wonders why the various referenced authors in the
> article bother to claim what they did. Seems to me PSCF deserves a
> rebuttal article. Until I see one I see no reason not to remain skeptical of
> your claim, George.
>
> This issue seems to me to be important not only to the ASA but to the
> entire world. Just as the Gregorian reform gave us equal rights (circa
> 1075) I believe Christianity gave us methodological naturalism.
>
> Best Regards,
> David Clounch
>
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 7:06 AM, George Murphy <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com>wrote:
>
>> You do indeed disagree terribly here. MN has been part of the
>> scientific community's tacit understanding of how science works for the past
>> ~350 years and is held by scientists of different religious faiths as well
>> as atheists and agnostics. The reason that it is maintained consistently is
>> that it has been found to lead to fruitful scientific work. MN is quite
>> consistent with good Christian theologies but is not dependent upon any of
>> them.
>>
>> Shalom
>> George
>> http://home.neo.rr.com/scitheologyglm
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* David Clounch <david.clounch@gmail.com>
>> *To:* john_walley@yahoo.com
>> *Cc:* Marcio Pie <pie@ufpr.br> ; ASA <asa@calvin.edu>
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 26, 2008 12:53 AM
>> *Subject:* Re: [asa] C.S. Lewis on ID
>>
>> John,
>>
>> I terribly disagree.
>> MN is a Christian theological solution to a theological problem and
>> should not be taught in schools.
>> ................................
>>
>>
>

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Received on Thu Nov 27 23:20:43 2008