...
>GB>First, I've seen it implied a few times (sorry, don't remember
>>who), that methodological naturalism doesn't have recourse to
>>hypothesizing intelligent design as an explanation for features of
>>nature.
>
>It follows from the definition. Naturalism means that nature is all
>there is. So "methodological naturalism" means that the scientist,
>even if he/she is not a metaphysical naturalist (ie. does not
>believe that nature is all there is) must *assume* that nature is all
>there is in doing science.
I continue to be confused in the way that several use the term
methodological naturalism. Can anyone point to some references
wherein this term is defined? My understanding is that methodological
naturalism does not require the scientist to assume that nature
is all there is when doing science. Rather, it is a recognition that
the methods of science are limitted. Further, these limitations are
inherent, not arbitrarily specified. Methodological naturalism in
my view is the recognition that science is limitted. I promote it
because it is very useful for weeding out metaphysical naturalism
from science. Another error is to say that if the methods of science
cannot detect something then that something is not real, or to
say that if something is real then it can be detected by the methods
of science. This I would call scientism.
>So if there is an Intelligent Designer
>who is outside of nature, the methodological naturalist cannot admit
>it and still do science.
>
Steve, I think this statement is clearly false. This would depend
though on exactly what you mean by Intelligent Designer. Taken
in the broad sense, I believe there is an Intelligent Designer who
is outside nature, I'm a methodological naturalist and I still do
science.
>GB>I am curious how this relates to panspermia hypotheses. It
>>seems to me that such hypotheses *do* appeal to intelligent
>>design--namely, that of aliens--and that they *are* contenders
>>within the methodological naturalist framework. That is, I don't
>>see anything about panspermia, even very aggressive panspermia where
>>aliens land and unload dinosaurs, that is outside the framework of
>>methodological naturalism. I would enjoy hearing more about this
>>(perceived, at any rate) dichotomy.
>
SJ:==
>Good point! On one of his tapes, Johnson says that the Directed
>Panspermia hypothesis is the naturalist version of supernatural
>creation:
>
Shapiro gives an interesting slant to this:
One motive behind the publication of the book was to
increase public awareness of the difficulties surrounding
the origin-of-life question. Crick explained this to me
in a private interview: "We thought of this theory but
we're not all that sold on it ... The object [of the
book] is to give the intelligent person an idea of
what the _problem_ is, and this is just a tag to sing
it on...." ...
Robert Shapiro, <Origins>, Summit Books, 1986, p. 227.
In all my reading on the origin of life I'm really hard pressed to
think of anyone (actually working in the field) who takes it
seriously. The basic criticism that one hears over and over,
and rightfully so, is that this theory doesn't really deal with
the origin of life since it doesn't explain the origin of the
green little women.
[...]
>
>GB>Second, there is another question that the above raises. Suppose
>>that intelligent design theorists are successful in proving that
>>some biological features exhibit design that could only be
>>'top-down' (that is, from some personal intelligent being). (There
>>is an attendant question as to how that is to be isolated, but I'll
>>leave that alone. :-)) How do intelligent design theorists hope to
>>argue that such intelligent design is God's handiwork as opposed to
>>that of some aliens? (Or do they hope to argue that?)
>
SJ:====
>Another good point. Behe even discussed aliens as a
>possibility:
>
>"Crick also thinks that life on earth may have begun when aliens from
>another planet sent a rocket ship containing spores to seed the
>earth...The primary reason Crick subscribes to this unorthodox view
>is that he judges the undirected origin of life to be a virtually
>insurmountable obstacle, but he wants a naturalistic explanation. For
>our present purposes, the interesting part of Crick's idea is the role of
>the aliens, whom he has speculated sent space bacteria to earth. But
>he could with as much evidence say that the aliens actually designed
>the irreducibly complex biochemical systems of the life they sent here,
>and also designed the irreducibly complex systems that developed
>later. The only difference is a switch to the postulate that aliens
>constructed life, whereas Crick originally speculated that they just
>sent it here It is not a very big leap, though, to say that a civilization
>capable of sending rocket ships to other planets is also likely to be
>capable of designing life-especially if the civilization has never been
>observed.
I wonder if I'm the only one floored by this? All this talk about
the immense complexity of life and then suddenly the design
of life is comparable to sending rocket ships to other planets?
One thing that has been bugging me more and more about
ID is its reductionistic, mechanistic flavor. Are living organisms
really just complicated machines like rocket ships?
>Designing life, it could be pointed out, does not necessarily
>require supernatural abilities; rather, it requires a lot of intelligence. If
>a graduate student in an earthbound lab today can plan and make an
>artificial protein that can bind oxygen, then there is no logical barrier
>to thinking that an advanced civilization on another world might
>design an artificial cell from scratch. This scenario still leaves open
>the question of who designed the designer-how did life originally
>originate? Is a philosophical naturalist now trapped? " (Behe M.J.,
>"Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution", Free
>Press: NY, 1996, pp248-249)
>
I think Behe traps himself with this last statement. Either
ID suffers the same drawback as Panspermia or the intelligent
designer really is the Intelligent Designer which Intelligent
Design supposedly doesn't require.
[...]
>
>GB>That is, it seems to me that the goal of the intelligent design
>>advocates is more ambitious than a demonstration that some
>>biological features were designed purposefully by some person--
>
>No. There is simply no way that "intelligent design" can be
>"more ambitious than a demonstration that some biological features
>were designed purposefully by some person". If you claim that
>ID is doing this, you need to supply quotes from their writings
>that they are. :-)
>
How about this:
"So if there is an Intelligent Designer who is outside of
nature, the methodological naturalist cannot admit it and
still do science." -- Steve Jones
>GB>I don't see how that aim is incompatible with methodological
>>naturalism, as I stated above.
>
>See above. "methodological naturalism" is *by definition* "incompatible"
>with "intelligent design". MN cannot, in principle, consider "intelligent
>design", because "naturalism" is the doctrine that nature is all there
>is:
why the switch from MN to N mid-sentence?
Brian