Re: [asa] lock-picking tools

David Campbell wrote:
>> So here is the interesting question for me: Can science find or map its own
>> "rock wall" boundary or even conclude that such a boundary exists? IDs say, in
>> principle, YES. ECs say, in principle: NO. And militant atheists say: "no
>> such boundaries for science exist at all." IDs and ECs (as Christians) should
>> at least be able to unite in their opposition to the last category and only
>> differ in how such a boundary can be explicated.
>>
>
> I would say that it is possible in principle that such a boundary
> exists. I would tend to draw a semantic line and suggest that such a
> boundary would probably be dicovered by the failure of science, rather
> than being discovered by science. I would also say that the
> ID-proposed ways of detecting boundaries are no good and that
> theological and empirical evidence suggests there probably aren't any
> gaps requiring unmediated intelligent intervention within the course
> of evolution or of forming the universe from big bang to now.
>
But being "discovered by a failure" is a bit of a self-contradiction,
isn't it? It's like saying that I can discover that an indeterminately
long road has no road-blocks because I walked along it for a ways and
found none. My failure to discover one doesn't establish the
non-existence of any roadblocks because I could always walk farther.
Given that the entire "domain-space" of possible scientific inquiries
qualifies as an "indeterminately long road", failure is inconclusive on
this.

I tend to lean your way in thinking that unmediated gaps are at least
rare if they exists at all in vast swaths of creative activity of
history. But it is speculative either way. And I don't see how
scientific tools can avail.

--Merv

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Received on Wed Oct 15 20:11:05 2008