From: John Burgeson (burgythree@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Apr 14 2003 - 10:57:26 EDT
Hi again, Howard:
>>You and I earlier agreed (on thread: ID Science (subtopic 1)) on what MN
>>(methodological naturalism) was:>>
Yes. But from my viewpoint, I think we must probe a little deeper.
>... if any scientific theory is going to be formulated to account for some
>collection of observational data, then that scientific theory will, because
>of the character of contemporary natural science, deal with natural causes
>only. This approach, often labeled> methodological naturalism (MN),
>maintains a stance of agnosticism regarding the reality of non-natural
>causes. For example, MN does not explicitly reject or accept divine action
>-- whether of the supernatural (coercive) or the non-coercive variety -- it
>simply excludes divine action (and any other form of non-natural action)
>from scientific theorizing.>>
Two things still bother me about the above.
1. The last words in () -- to what might they refer? I ask you again, do you
consider the willful actions of a human being to be "non-natural?" Or do you
see three kinds of possible causation, natural causation, "creaturely," and
divine (supernatural)?
For myself -- I find a three way split to be problemmatical -- for if I, a
"creature," am constrained to only natural causation, then I have no free
will and am only a robot. OTOH, if I do have free will, then I can (and do)
act outside of natural causation. So I must conclude that I am capable of
(limiited) supernatural acts. But then the MN principle, at least in
analyzing historical events and certain artifacts (arrowheads, for example)
is compromised.
2. Holding to the MN principle as tightly as I personally do, I am still
aware that science is what scientists do. Although a demarcationist
(Plantinga's term) myself, I cannot hold others to the MN principle, for I
see it as a pragmatic principle, highly useful in some disciplines, perhaps
less useful in others.
>>I also said (re subtopic 2) that "ID advocates are free to advocate a
>>theory that explicitly rejects MN, but they should, I believe, label it
>>with something other than the word "science" alone. The label "ID
>>science" would be one candid and honest way to distinguish an ID theory
>>from a normal scientific theory.">>
Here I agree. Al Plantinga apparently agrees also -- he wrote in ARN a good
article on "two kinds of science, Augustinian and Duhenian." ID, for him, is
of the latter type.
I had written: " My observation is that they don't HAVE to reject MN to
advocate the ID premise. The intelligent agent need not be supernatural
(unless one considers human beings to be, in some sense, supernatural)."
You replied: "It depends on what constitutes ID action. In what way, for
instance, is ID action non-natural?"
I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean here. You continued: "Yes, ID
proponents sometimes do suggest from time to time that there's no
way to tell if the designer is a mere creature (member of the Creation) or
the Creator. I think it is fair, however, to note that the ID movement is
NOT really a champion of "Designer ET's." ID's favored Designer is NOT a
mere creature. Dembski, in No Free Lunch, specifically argues for an
unembodied Designer. Given that, I would suggest that the ID movement is not
so much about the distinction between 'natural' and 'intelligent' causation
(where, according
to ID literature, intelligence = the ability to make purposeful choices) but
more about the distinction between action by creatures (members of the
Creation) and supernatural, form-conferring action by the Creator. In that
case, ID does, it seems to me, need to reject MN in order to argue for its
conclusion."
I agree that "it is fair." But you quickly turned our discussion from one
about the possibility/feasibility/morality/reasonableness of ID as a general
concept to one of evaluation of the present-day ID movement. You and I
probably agree very closely on the status of the latter, so I am not
interested in pursuing it. But arguments against the latter are not
arguments against the former.
Sorry for slowness of replies. I am spending the last 7 weeks of my wife's
final quarter in seminary to pursue several lines of inquiry -- after June
the library here (300 feet away) will be 300 miles away and I'm already
going through withdrawal symptoms. <G>
Final question -- have you read Del Ratzsch's book, NATURE, DESIGN and
SCIENCE? It pertains to the issues we are discussing.
Cheers
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Mon Apr 14 2003 - 10:57:44 EDT