[asa] Free will by a human being a natural or a non-natural cause?

Is the exercise of free will by a human being a natural or a non-natural cause?

Moorad

________________________________

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of Gregory Arago
Sent: Thu 9/13/2007 10:10 AM
To: Ted Davis; peterwloose@compuserve.com; pvm.pandas@gmail.com; rpaulmason@juno.com
Cc: asa@calvin.edu; heddle@gmail.com
Subject: RE: [asa] ID without specifying the intelligence?

"The problem is that non-natural causes are 'science stoppers'." - Ted Davis
 
What about cultural and social 'causes'? Are they 'science stoppers' too? Or are they just 'unscientific' realms or fields of scholarship? The above approach runs the danger of mixing 'science' with 'nature' and thus 'scientism' with 'naturalism.'
 
This argument takes a different flavour when one tries to score points from within the Anglo-Saxon tradition in contrast to the Germanic-Russian tradition. Of course, there are even still 'other' traditions that take some of both those traditions and apply their own home-grown views as well.
 
The idea that i+d (a.k.a. ID) theories stop science COMPLETELY is a rather close-minded and absolutist position. The evidence will eventially speak as history 'unfolds.'
 
Ted also writes: "science has done..."
 
If you'll be willing to take my criticism with a grain of salt, Ted, then I would ask you and others to stop refering to 'science' as if it were actually 'Science.' By itself, 'science' does not actually DO anything. It is 'scientists' themselves/ourselves who do things.
 
Because many of you will be annoyed by this observation/contribution from a social-humanitarian reflexive thinker, YES, I understand what you are trying to express when you write 'science has done...'! However, given that part of the problem under consideration is the apparent hegemonic attitude of 'scientists' to think that 'science' can or should only be viewed one way, I would as if you could please respectfully keep in mind the way you communicate. To a natural scientist, the language you are using may seem just fine and be well understood as un-ideological in terms of motivation, while at the same time to another person it simply reinforces the biases that they are complaining about all along and to which your reiteration does nothing to address.
 
For example, I have continually refused the dichotomy natural/supernatural as if 'supernatural' were the ONLY counter-example to nature and the natural. Yet in this thread, the dichotomy is again repeated. Appealing to pseudo-consensual grounds, several others here at ASA have dismissed my view (natural, cultural/social or even 'human') as unimportant or as not a high priority. Yet from another perspective this view is rather relevant indeed - it effectively gets rid of the false ideology of MN as an unecessary patch for failures in PoS to distinguish between, for example, the evolution of nature and the evolution of culture.
 
It may be that only views coming from the 'other' side of the dialogue will help those who are constrained by a particular paradigm to escape from their ideological limitations. Please note that the voices who challenge you may agree with your views in other, perhaps more important places (and may still challenge i+d theorists in many ways). Yet, it would be unfortunate to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
  
"This tension between requiring natural causes and also knowing their absolute limits, while being open to situations in which those limits must be invoked, is IMO a reality for Christians in science. It can obviously be tough to make the call in specific cases." - Ted
 
Yes, indeed!

Gregory

p.s. why attach the label 'intelligent' to a theory if you are not interested in 'specifying' (another word from within the fold of ID), locating, exploring or discovering 'intelligence;' in other words, why not choose another concept? Why pretend you are trying to do something that you are not, according to the limitations of the method?

 
Ted Davis <tdavis@messiah.edu> wrote:

        Peter writes:
        
        That is not accurate historically - science did not proceed on an MN base -
        and to accept MN is to rig the outcome. Logically, this has to be faced.
        
        Ted replies:
        Actually, what is historically accurate is something like this: Since
        ancient Greece, science has done its best to invoke natural causes. If/when "supernatural" causes have been inferred, it's been when there seemed no way
        to account for a given phenomenon naturally. This has mostly happened in
        two contexts: (1) origins, up to the latter part of the 19th century; and
        (2) medicine, roughly the same story. Witchcraft, another interesting
        context (some 17th century scientists were very interested in witches),
        became just implausible by the early 18th century, if not earlier. The
        spectacular inability to demonstrate the reality of a "supernatural" realm
        in this latter sense was, IMO, a factor in establishing naturalism more
        generally.
        
        The Hippocratic physicians wrote a treatise against "the sacred disease,"
        (ie, epilepsy), pushing the view that we ought not call a disease "sacred"
        simply b/c its causes are (as yet) unknown. Medieval natural philosophers
        tried not to invoke God as an efficient cause; Boyle stated that, in natural
        philosopher, we ought not fly unto God's absolute power (though he also
        believed that we could know *some* of God's purposes in creation, ie, we
        could infer final causation from creatures), but focus on the properties and
        powers created by God; and Whewell said that design was far better seen in
        general laws, not in "insulated interpositions of divine power, exerted in
        each particular case" (or words very close to that). The problem is that
        non-natural causes are "science stoppers." The opposite problem is that, if
        God has acted "above the sphere of nature" (as Boyle put it), then so much
        for our science--the best we can do is to infer such and leave it there.
        And we do that, Boyle thought, by knowing what the laws of nature (our
        descriptions of divinely ordained properties and powers) can and cannot do.
        They can't raise the dead or feed the five thousand or perform the events of
        pentecost (pentecost was something Boyle was very interested in), so we
        infer divine action in such an instance. This tension between requiring
        natural causes and also knowing their absolute limits, while being open to
        situations in which those limits must be invoked, is IMO a reality for
        Christians in science. It can obviously be tough to make the call in
        specific cases.
        
        Ted
        
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Received on Thu Sep 13 11:00:11 2007