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

> You are getting warmer. My belief is that MN emerged from the
> creationism/anti-creationism warfare. Probably subsequent to the
> Chicago world's fair where scientists declared Christianity to be
> dead. This cause a flurry of creationist activity. So MN is sort
> of like scar tissue or a callous forming on one's hands.

You don't seem to get the point that MN is just a name to describe
how science has been conducted since the advent of modern science.
It is nothing new, just a handy term to concisely describe what
empirical inquiry is. How that description is communicated has
changed as mischaracterizations of the scientific process have taken
a hold in the public mind (and to some extent in parts of the
scientific community). But the reality is that science as a
methodology cannot test or investigate the actions of supernatural
causal agents. MN is just a statement of that scientific limitation
to the pursuit of truth. It is one of the basic assumptions that
underlie the scientific enterprise -- another is that there is an
objective reality that science seeks to know -- another is that our
senses provide data relative to that objective reality. Without
these assumptions, and others, science is not possible. These
assumptions are recognized by philosophers of science - atheists as
well as theists.

One of the major challenges in teaching science and in improving
public science literacy, is to counter misconceptions of the nature
of science (NOS). There is an extensive science education literature
on this. The NOS is a significant aspect of national and state
science standards.

It is important in any discipline for those learning the subject to
understand how that discipline works and how it generates and tests
ideas. For science, MN is one important part of understanding that
process.

Keith

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Received on Sat Apr 4 14:02:22 2009