>ABSTRACT: I argue that science is not, and does not need to be,
>restricted to methodological naturalism. Science is able, in certain
>cases, to accomodate supernatural causation in its models.
Yahoo! Loren and I are on the same wavelength here. So I'll just fine-tune
a bit.
>....
>In addition, science does not always restrict itself to hypotheses
>which are testable and falsifiable. (What is and is not testable
>often changes as technology advances.)
A couple of red-herrings there. Let me remove them. The focus on the word
"science" can sometimes be misleading. Science does not restrict itself to
hypotheses, it also includes theories, laws, and other more nebulous things
like "looking", "exploring", "thinking", "researching", accepting", and
"rejecting". Whereas the central issue for us is theories, and their
testability. Don't confuse "science" and "what scientists do" with
"scientific theories". They're different.
Second, and more importantly, Loren says, "What is and is not testable often
changes as technology advances." Right, but that doesn't change what a
scientific theory must be -- it must be testable. I didn't make that up.
Many leading evolutionists, anti-creationists, nobel laurettes, and
mainstream scientific organizations endorsed that in court cases against
creation.
>I believe that science (like other areas of human scholarship) _is_ a
>pursuit of ultimate truth. However, science (like other areas of human
>scholarship) restricts its area of inquiry.
Loren seems to contradict himself in those two sentences. Compare them.
I would state it this way. Science is a pursuit of *empirically grounded*
truth.
>Science pursues the truth about
> (1) the physical properties of objects and systems,
> (2) the physical behavior of objects and systems,
> (3) the physical history of objects and systems.
I would replace Loren's word "physical" with the more apt word "empirical".
>....
>If you accept this definition of "science," and if you accept the
>_possibility_ that supernatural events occured in the past, then it
>follows that science must include the possibility of supernatural
>(mechanistically unexplained) steps in its explanatory models.
I suppose I could take the easy road and agree with Loren there. But I
won't. We end up getting to the same end point -- the supernatural can
sometimes be scientific -- but we get there by different roads. I'm rather
conventional, and insistent, about this key point. An explanation must have
an empirically testable foundation to be scientific. If it's not testable,
then it's not scientific. The SAME goes for the supernatural. No
exceptions. (Give me credit for being consistent about it!)
My book makes a contribution to the philosophy of science by showing that
the supernatural can sometimes be testable science. !!!
Loren says that "extra-terrestrials," "improbable coincidence", "unknown
physical process" are FUNCTIONALLY identical to "supernatural intervention."
I disagree, the supernatural actually has a functionally unique feature that
none of the others provides. There are times when the data points
distinctly to the supernatural over the other explanations. (See my book
for discussion.)
Walter ReMine
P.O. Box 28006
Saint Paul, MN 55128