RE: [asa] Anti-Creationist Psychobabble On the Web

Methodological naturalism is essentially just a statement that "science
assumes natural cause and effect, and uses naturalist methods of studying
nature". It is not a religion, nor in its essence necessarily a doctrine to
"assuage the concerns of religionists". It's just a statement of how
science works.

Yes, it is based on a certain philosophy, but so is everything. Let's take
history. In the history class the unstated assumption is, "history is based
on a real sequence of historical events and social/political causes and
effects." That is a particular philosophy just the same as MN, and
theoretically it could be wrong (historical and current events might be
simply imaginary creations of human minds, not based in objective reality;
maybe the outward world is really a dream, and there is a higher reality
that is actually "real"). Suffice it to say that, even though this
assumption about history agrees with a Christian worldview, I don't believe
it's religion or should be excluded from schools. What do you think?

Jon Tandy

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Clounch
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2009 9:15 AM
To: Bill Powers
Cc: ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] Anti-Creationist Psychobabble On the Web

Bill,

It doesn't matter. Public schools taught science just fine without MN. MN
exists only to assuage the concerns of certain religionists. It belongs
down the hall in the philosophy classroom or comparative religion classroom,
not in the science classroom. Along with all questions about metaphysics.

-Dave C

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Received on Fri Apr 3 11:17:56 2009