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

Let it first be noted that my gripe here is not with ID, but with Keith's 'non-natural agents.' What are they? 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 coherently understands or can give a legitimate voice to 'non-natural agents.' Failure to do so discredits his defence of MN as 'science's method'. And I love science and want to promote good science (in America and elsewhere) 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 note this Keith, *more than just natural agents.* Do you disagree that we are more than just 'natural agents'? Perhaps you would agree if this doesn't have to make us 'non-natural agents' 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 staunchly 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 - HPS - in which I find your position lacking, Keith, and which shows quite openly (though perhaps more easily and clearly to those outside of America) that MN is a silly ideology. It's not 'the way science is done in practice,' it is just ideology based on philosophical assumptions, the latter which you note. 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 or believes this? Please back this up with something concrete. I think you are falsely representing all of the key ID advocates I know and have met. Are you suggesting that IDists make no distinction between man and angel or man and God or gods? It sounds like you are saying that IDists think men are gods!?
 
Let me be more specific. Do you think such is the view of any of those who are considered the IDM's current leadership: Behe, Dembski, Meyer, Wells, Gordon, Thaxton, Gonzales, Sternberg, Axe, West (i.e. Johnson is now retired)? 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) and I've had personal conversations or correspondence with them (except for Gonzales and Axe) about this. Meyer is also well ahead of Dembski in philosophical pecking order.
 
Where I agree with you, Keith, to repeat myself, is that the major ID advocates have not adequately accounted for the difference between human action and divine action. They have few, if any, persons who would fit the profile with capacities to do this. They are reaching into the dark and are sometimes confused. Yet they bring such topics as pattern recognition, information theory and specification(ism), alongside of highlighting and even respecting HPS, into the foreground and they partner with those who use 'design' as a legitimate and undeniable concept in arenas such as engineering and computing. ID is thus not a science stopper in so far as it encourages research in these scientific arenas, as well as cross-disciplinary fertilisation through linguistic transfers (just as 'evolution' did).
 
From Nelson's quotation: "You are, if science must be naturalistic, engaged in an activity that science will never understand." 
 
This is makes complete sense and is true, as far as contemporary science studies goes. There *are* activities that science doesn't study and can't possibly understand. How do you interpret this Keith? The limitations of 'science' qua 'naturalism' are regularly underrepresented by those TEs and ECs in North America who oppose ID. Ontological, epistemological, methodological, aesthetic, or scientific - these 'types' of 'naturalism' are all still part of the family of naturalism. Only with philosophic sophistication or an alternative way of approaching the controversy will you be convinced that MN is a silly ideology, undeserving of the allegiance that some at ASA pay to it. But then you are not a 'naturalist' or are you Keith?
 
"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'? This was the question Bill asked: "Simply put, where is the scientist as an agent, the science-maker?" I find IDs answer, even if it ultimately fails to be post-naturalistic, as far advanced from what you are offering in terms of HPS and the agency question, Keith.
 
Let's return to our sheep. This thread started in reponse to your statement: "There simply is no way to incorporate the actions of non-natural agents into a scientific research program."
 
What are you saying, Keith? 'Non-natural' equals 'supernatural' or something else? If so, then science can work on whatever that 'something else' is, can't it?
 
'Science' is about more than just 'nature.' Would you contend with this Keith?
 
Gregory

- 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

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Received on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:27:29 -0700 (PDT)