Re: [asa] Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism

Thank you for this message, George. I'm going to leave off this thread at this message, in order to start a new one. But it is enough for me to leave in agreement with the following sentiment:
   
  "ID usually jumps from its belief in a Designer to the claim that design must be put into effect directly, without the mediation of created entities." - G. Murphy
   
  This is the point I've been repeating at ASA (along with all of the other repeaters at ASA!) in regard to intelligent design theories and advocates for many months. The mediation of created entities is particularly important to social-humanitarian thinkers because human beings actually do 'design' things on a daily, hourly and moment by moment basis. ID, as expressed by Johnson, Behe, Dembski, Nelson, Meyer, et al. simply does not address the relevance of human-social thought, i.e. the 'created entities' of which George speaks.
  .
  With this agreement in mind, however, I hasten to add that the view that 'science does not deal in first causes' is somewhat myopic and obviously outdated (though not yet obsolete). Surely science can study some things in which a 'first cause' can be safely identified! One need not return to Aristotle's four causes (material, efficient, formal and final) to avoid the thinking involved in a 'first cause or nothing else' perspective. Nevertheless, I see little motivation to refuse the fact that "In the Beginning..." (big bang) specifically relates to a 'first cause' which it is not dishonourable to defend.
   
  If 'science does not deal in first causes' is "precisely the meaning of MN then MN" is already lost through its myopism.
   
  Regards,
  Gregory Arago

  
George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
    
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Loose"

To: "'Jack'"
Cc:
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 7:53 AM
Subject: RE: [asa] Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific
Naturalism
..............................

> All I am asking is how MN can make any progress in discovering 'facts' about the Natural world if indeed there is a pre-existing Intelligence or Mind or source of Information. If there is an external source of Information, then no explanation that excludes that will every come to an understanding or 'knowledge' of what really is.
.............................
There are serious errors in these sentences & I respond to them not to
single out Peter for criticism but because these errors are so typical of ID
arguments.

"MN can make any progress in discovering 'facts' about the Natural world if
indeed there is a pre-existing Intelligence or Mind or source of
Information" if that Intelligence acts through things in the natural world
in a lawlike manner. ID usually jumps from its belief in a Designer to the
claim that design must be put into effect directly, without the mediation of
created entities. The doctrine of providence, OTOH, suggests that we ask
how design is effected, and does not limit the possibilities to unmediated
divine action.

Peter said earlier in his post, "I reason, not from Theology or Creed ...",
apparently thinking that a virtue. It isn't when one is dealing with a
theological topic. What it results in is bad theology, again a hallmark of
ID.

Finally, it is not the task of science to "come to an understanding or
'knowledge' of what really is" if that means ultimate reality. One of my
doctoral profs made a point of saying, in his 1st lecture to a general
physics class "Science does not deal in first causes." That was well before
debates about MN became common but it is precisely the meaning of MN.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

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Received on Thu Jul 19 22:41:11 2007