Re: [asa] New Atheist Logic Lends Support to ID Movement

Hello Schwarzwald and Mike,

Interesting back and forth on this. Let me just ask a couple of small questions to Mike, who wrote:

"The ‘ ID-as-science ’ claim is a necessary part of the movement, as without this claim, there is insufficient leverage for the movement’s cultural objectives."

Is this one of the reasons why you are not part of the IDM, Mike, in that you don't consider 'intelligent design' as being 'scientific'?

Secondly, do you not have *any* 'cultural objectives' in your approach to this topic? Or are you 'culturally neutral' or somehow suggesting that culture doesn't matter or something like that?

Glad for your comments on this either on or off-list.

Gregory

--- On Fri, 7/24/09, Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com> wrote:

> From: Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com>
> Subject: Re: [asa] New Atheist Logic Lends Support to ID Movement
> To: "Schwarzwald" <schwarzwald@gmail.com>, asa@calvin.edu
> Received: Friday, July 24, 2009, 7:04 PM
>
> Hi
> Schwarzwald,
>
>  
> You are
> saying things better than
> I did, so let me bounce off them some more.
>
>  
> “That's pretty much my
> estimation. Carroll's probably thinking he's being
> real clever here, but he's
> actually really hurting himself. His move involves happily
> arguing that science
> itself could conceivably explain things by references to
> supernatural causes and
> events - but then he quickly follows up with "but
> we've never been forced to do
> that, therefore science shows it never happened, and
> that's that!"”
>
>  
> He’s
> just following the lead of
> Dawkins, who wrote, “the presence of a creative deity in
> the universe is clearly
> a scientific hypothesis." 
> The NAs
> were not pleased with the
>
> Dover decision precisely because
> it took away the authoritative role of science with regard
> to God’s
> existence.  They want to portray
>
> God’s existence as a falsified scientific hypothesis and
> not something that
> falls outside the realm of this authoritative judgment.
>
>
>  
> It is
> instructive to remember how
> the ID movement was defeated at
> Dover .  The core, central point of
> contention
> was whether ID is science.  The
> ‘ ID-as-science ’ claim is a
> necessary part of the movement, as without this claim,
> there is insufficient
> leverage for the movement’s cultural objectives.
>
>  
> It was the
> NCSE and TEs who
> defeated the movement in court, not the NAs.  And they did so by challenging this
> core
> claim as follows:
>
>  
> 1.  Establish that ID was religious and
> was
> invoking a supernatural cause. 
>
> 2.  Focus on the arguments of
> ID to
> show they were negative, God-of-the-gaps arguments, thus
> not science.
> 3.  Reassert the necessary role of
> methodological naturalism. 
>
>  
> Yet the
> NAs have taken all of
> these off the table.  They have
> also
> removed the need to do experiments and publish results in
> the peer-reviewed
> literature (can anyone point to a NA who did this to rule
> out the existence of
> God?). 
>
>  
> “But
> that doesn't matter
> whatsoever. As Mike's pointed out, by Carroll's
> standards ID really is science
> (hell, explicit YEC complete with direct claims about God
> Himself may really
> science by these standards) - it just happens to be a
> minority position in the
> scientific community, and one Carroll (and, of course,
> other scientists) does
> not find at all persuasive. But ID proponents could not
> care less about their
> minority status, or what Carroll or any other ardent
> atheist happens to think
> about the subject. Many would be quite happy with it being
> recognized that
> they're actually making truly scientific proposals and
> arguments. Let Carroll
> try to prove what science says is the "best"
> explanation for various things,
> from biblical miracles to direction in evolution to
> otherwise - he does not
> realize that if he opens that door, no one has to accept
> his judgment on the
> issue.”
>
>  
> Very well
> stated.  The NCSE/TEs focused on the methods
> of
> ID, showing that these methods were not science.  The NAs have put themselves in a
> position where they cannot do likewise. 
> If MN is dispensable, and science can include
> supernatural
> causes/miracles (i.e., Coyne’s 900-foot-tall Jesus), and
> the way to include
> supernatural causes is to first identify a gap (something
> natural processes
> cannot account for), then the only thing the NAs have left
> is the judgment that
> the ID methods have failed.  But
>
> disagreement and minority views are common in science.  In fact, it comes with the
> territory
> anytime a new and/or radical scientific hypothesis is
> introduced into the
> scientific community and it can takes generations for that
> hypothesis to become
> widely accepted.  The ID folks
> can
> simply argue that they recognize their scientific
> hypothesis is controversial
> and a minority scientific view and they are working on
> that. 
>
>  
> -Mike
>
> ----- Original Message
> -----
> From:
> Schwarzwald
>
> To: asa@calvin.edu
>
> Sent: Friday, July
> 24, 2009 12:27
> AM
> Subject: Re: [asa]
> New Atheist Logic
> Lends Support to ID Movement
>
> That's pretty much my estimation. Carroll's
> probably thinking
> he's being real clever here, but he's actually
> really hurting himself. His
> move involves happily arguing that science itself could
> conceivably explain
> things by references to supernatural causes and events -
> but then he quickly
> follows up with "but we've never been forced to
> do that, therefore science
> shows it never happened, and that's that!"
>
> But that doesn't matter
> whatsoever. As Mike's pointed out, by Carroll's
> standards ID really is science
> (hell, explicit YEC complete with direct claims about God
> Himself may really
> science by these standards) - it just happens to be a
> minority position in the
> scientific community, and one Carroll (and, of course,
> other scientists) does
> not find at all persuasive. But ID proponents could not
> care less about their
> minority status, or what Carroll or any other ardent
> atheist happens to think
> about the subject. Many would be quite happy with it
> being recognized that
> they're actually making truly scientific proposals
> and arguments. Let Carroll
> try to prove what science says is the "best"
> explanation for various things,
> from biblical miracles to direction in evolution to
> otherwise - he does not
> realize that if he opens that door, no one has to accept
> his judgment on the
> issue.
>
> I'm mostly just echoing Mike here, but I'll say it
> anyway:
> Carroll thinks that so long as he can give an explanation
> which "accounts" for
> an event or state of nature, he wins. But being able to
> account for any given
> question about nature or reality is an easy bar to reach
> - even YECs can
> perfectly "account" for all of the results
> we've gotten from investigating
> biology, cosmology, etc. So too can ID proponents. So
> can, frankly, just about
> any person or side which wants to - not having access to
> modern science did
> not keep the greeks (among many other peoples) from
> coming up with
> explanations that accounted for practically every
> phenomena they were curious
> about. The additional hurdle of having to explain
> scientific data is beyond
> easy to jump.
>
> So that's what I see as the real stupid move on
> Carroll's
> part. He thinks he can argue that claims of ID, God, or
> miracles are really
> scientific hypotheses, but so long as he has a hypothesis
> of his own, then all
> the other options are immediately ruled out on the
> grounds that he thinks he
> has the best explanation. All he has to do is ask himself
> "are there any
> current questions in science that have more than one
> explanation?" to see he's
> playing a fool's game.
>
> But I think this is pretty obvious. So I'm left
> wondering, is Carroll just giving a speech to the
> faithful here - reinforcing
> that whole "we have science on our side and those
> religionists and
> christianists do not!" canard the 'net atheists
> love so much? Or is this
> honest naivete, along the lines of a professor who
> hasn't (at least mentally)
> set foot off campus or out of the lab in 20+ years, and
> doesn't realize that
> there's quite a lot of people who see things
> differently and couldn't care
> less about what he declares to be the answer to such
> questions?
>

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Received on Fri Jul 24 14:37:17 2009