And this is the point of Paul/JMR, that Methodological
Naturalism (MN)
can exert a powerful restrictive influence on one's science, and
it takes
some "creative freedom" to overcome this influence.
I, too, used to be a YEC (actually an antievolutionist) through
graduate school and 2 postdocs in molecular biology, until I came here
to Asbury and started actually reading some of the creationist
literature. When I started checking out their claims, I rather quickly
switched camps.
I am glad discussion has drifted back to methodological
naturalism. I have never been able to get the PJ group to examine their
statements about methodological naturalism. When I asked Phil the
question that led to the footnote on p.212 in RITB he wouldn't admit
that his earlier view was different than his current view. I am
comfortable with Phil's earlier (1992) statement. I feel that it is a
good statement, in that it appropriately describes the situation. We as
scientists cannot directly or indirectly detect God's involvement via
experiment. None of us in the science departments here at Asbury have
been able to think of a "God meter" that would serve that purpose. The
only type of analysis that would lead to the conclusion of God's
involvement in a particular result is a God-of-the-Gaps argument, i.e.
we don't know of another explanation, therefore God did it. Is mn a
restrictive influence? No. I'll bet even Mike Behe uses mn when he
does his experiments. He doesn't add 2 microliters of God to each
microfuge tube, nor does he detect a God band on his gels or gradients.
We can do science just fine the way it is. Even if we could detect
God's influence on the results via a "God meter", the background noise
would be so tremendous (God is involved in all things) that I'm not sure
we could detect extra activity by God at certain times.
Jim Behnke