Re: [asa] Natural Agents - Cause and Effect, Non-Natural Agents

Let it first be noted that my gripe here is not with ID, but with Keith's 'non-natural agents.' I am curious what he means and haven't yet heard a direct reply to my questions. I am not an IDist, but started this thread because I don't think Keith understands or can give any legitimate voice to 'non-natural agents,' which discredits his defence of MN as 'science's method'. And I love science too!
 
Keith wrote: "ID advocates reject humans as natural agents, and instead view them as non-natural intelligent agents distinct from the natural world." 

This is not true of any of the ID leaders that I've met. The quotation you cite below does not suggest this either. Your interpretation of it is uncharitable and misleading. Human beings are 'natural agents,' but we are also, and please address this Keith, *more than just natural agents.* Do you disagree that we are more than just natural? Perhaps you would agree if this doesn't have to make us 'non-natural' at the same time?
 
I'm no defender of Paul Nelson's YEC views, and I challenged him directly when I last spoke with him in person. But if you disagree with the quotation below, Keith, then it is obvious that he is your philosophical superior. Perhaps this is obvious given that his UoChicago degree is in Philosophy of Biology, which means that he should have read much HPS in his research.
 
This is the field in which I find your position lacking, Keith, and which shows quite openly that MN is a silly ideology. In other words, you need to come up with some 'non-natural agents' that are not at the same time 'supernatural agents' to gain any credibility in what you are positing. Doing so would open up a new place of common ground between us.
 
"a demonstration of human intelligent action is for them [ID advocates] indistinguishable from a demonstration of divine action." - Keith
 
Who said this? Please back this up with something conrete. I think you are falsely representing all of the key ID advocates I know and have met.
 
Let me be more specific. Do you think such is the view of any of those who are considered the IDM's leadership: Behe, Dembski, Meyer, Wells, Gordon, Thaxton, Gonzales, Sternberg, Axe, West? I don't think any of them conflate human action with divine action (and note that the tools to do so are not in their respective intellectual tradition).
 
Where I agree with you, Keith, to repeat myself, is that the major ID advocates have not adequately accounted for the difference. They have few, if any, persons who fit the profile with capacities to do this. Yet they bring such topics as pattern recognition, information theory and specification(ism), alongside of HPS, into the foreground. ID is thus not a science stopper in so far as it encourages research in these scientific arenas. 
 
From Nelson's quotation: "You are, if science must be naturalistic, engaged in an activity that science will never understand." 
 
This is understandable and true, as far as contemporary science studies goes. There *are* activities that science doesn't study. The limitations of 'science' qua
 
"Human psychology, if it can only recognize natural causes for events, will be forever on the hapless task of trying to explain the actions of the soul without including the soul in the theory." - Paul Nelson
 
What about this exactly do you disagree with? Is it that a person is 'doing science' and therefore cannot possibly be 'entirely objective'?
 

--- On Sat, 4/11/09, Keith Miller <kbmill@ksu.edu> wrote:

From: Keith Miller <kbmill@ksu.edu>
Subject: Re: [asa] Natural Agents - Cause and Effect, Non-Natural Agents
To: "AmericanScientificAffiliation Affiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
Received: Saturday, April 11, 2009, 8:32 PM

Gregory Arago wrote:

 
I.e. every major ID 'theorist' disagrees that "science can investigate the supernatural, since it can investigate human action." It's just that their language is fuzzy or foaming!

ID advocates reject humans as natural agents, and instead view them as non-natural intelligent agents distinct from the natural world.  Human (and human-like) agents and supernatural agents are viewed as essentially identical categories with respect to scientific explanation.  Thus a demonstration of human intelligent action is for them indistinguishable from a demonstration of divine action.  This equation of human and divine action is crucial for their argument that supernatural intelligence can be detected empirically.

Nelson argues for the non-natural character of human actions as follows:

“At this very moment, you are engaged in a nonnaturalistic event.  Traditional Christianity teaches that your nonphysical soul is engaged with your body in the task of reading.  You are, if science must be naturalistic, engaged in an activity that science will never understand.  Science bound by naturalism will never be able to recognize an immaterial soul.  Reading is not scientifically explainable.  This holds true for whatever activity in which humans, or any other beings with souls, engage themselves.  Worst of all, the same research futility that plagued the physicist will return with a vengeance for the psychologist.  Human psychology, if it can only recognize natural causes for events, will be forever on the hapless task of trying to explain the actions of the soul without including the soul in the theory.”[1] 

[1] P. Nelson and J. M. Reynolds, 1999, “Young Earth Creationism.”  In, Three Views on Creation and Evolution (J.P.Moreland & John Marks Reynolds, eds.) Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, p.47.

The whole point of Nelson's argument is that science must be free to investigate the non-natural and supernatural.  He is arguing for the expansion of science to the investigation of the supernatural.

Keith __________________________________________________________________ Instant Messaging, free SMS, sharing photos and more... Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger at http://ca.beta.messenger.yahoo.com/

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Received on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:35:19 -0700 (PDT)