My books are all in storage, and I'm curious-What is the old statement
and the new statement, and how do they differ?
Craig
"In a March 1992 lecture in Dallas I made the following observation:
The statement the agenda for this Symposium asserts that an a
priori commitment to metaphysical naturalism is necessary to support
Darwinism. . . Methodological naturalism-the principle that science can
study only the things that are accessible to its instruments and
techniques-is not in question. Of course science can study only what
science can study. Methodological naturalism becomes metaphysical
naturalism only when the limitations of science are taken to be
limitations upon reality. (From Darwinism's Rules of Reasoning," in
Darwinism: Science or Philosophy? Ed. Jon Buell and Virginia Hearn
[Foundation for Thought and Ethics, 1994], pp 6, 15)
I would not express the point that way today, but any seeming
inconsistency with the views stated in this paper is semantic rather
than substantive. The key question raised by the qualifier
methodological is this: What is being limited-science or reality. When
'methodological naturalism' is combined with a very strong a priori
confidence that materialistic theories invoking only unintelligent
causes can account for such phenomena as genetic information or human
intelligence, the distinction between methodological and metaphysical
naturalism tends to collapse. (Example: 'Science can study only
naturalistic mechanisms; therefore we can be content that life must have
arisen by naturalistic mechanism, since science continually advances and
solves problems of this kind.") That science has its limitations is not
in doubt; the question is whether unsound assumptions about reality have
been made to permit science to escape those limitations."
His 1992 statement is excellent. I have used it in my classes as a
statement of one of the attributes of science. My feeling is that Phil
is a good lawyer, who is trained to confuse matters rather than clarify
them.