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

I also liked that brief analysis from George.

In discussions concerning that "put into effect directly" matter, I
think it worth while to pose a question about what that might look like.
So many folks never seem to get beyond some simple statement of
spontaneous creation, without thinking any more about what that creative
act might look like. A question or two along that line might make it
more difficult afterward to cavalierly dismiss an evolutionary creation
process.

Though I've posted this before, a questioning argument might go
something like this:

    "So-o-o, what might be YOUR mental image of what happened in that
    man-creation event?

    Might it have been a simple wasn't-there-a-moment-ago-but-is-now
    event [presumeably the tacit default notion]?

    Was there a flash? Or a Bang, considering the amount of energy
    likely to have been involved in an instantaneous creation?

    Or perhaps an amorphous clay shape rose from the earth in response
    to unseen influence, taking shape over seconds and then transmuting
    in substance into the finished fleshly creation?

    Or might there have been a slightly longer process, minutes long, of
    dust gathering (atomic or suitable raw molecular ensembles),
    swirling, coalescing, and settling particle-by-particle into the
    shape and function of the finished creation?

    Perhaps it started with something more organic, nurtured, sculpted
    in substance, complexity and function, layer by layer over a few
    hours, until the final creation resulted?

    To round this out, at the end of the day can one really rule out a
    longer term formative (creative) process in which some simple "right
    stuff" was initially formed in Creation's chemical retort with just
    the right starting and sustaining conditions for its further
    "natural" development to have a certain (or general) trajectory
    toward more complexity and functionality? The only additional
    ingredient required is then time (days, years, centuries, or
    millenia - what's the real difference?); the time required to for
    that development to move toward some "prebiotic ooze", and then on
    to the presumeably desired biotic (living) outcome?"

    I offer for further consideration the straightforward reading of
    these passages: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the
    herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit..." [Gen 1:11
    KJV] and, "And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the
    moving creature that hath life..." [Gen 1:20 KJV].

I'm surprised at how often the conversation stops there, the question
unanswered for the moment. But my hope is that the question does not die
as well. This is an example of what I've referred to from time to time
as more plausibility-oriented argument, rather than the rigor of
scientic argument which can often and easily be too arcane for most folks.

In all of the above notional models, the "first cause" remains
uncompromised. Or so it seemeth to me....

JimA [Friend of ASA]

Gregory Arago wrote:

> 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 Fri Jul 20 00:40:44 2007