>Two things strike me immediately as worthy of response (perhaps
>other physicists would like to join in a group letter?):
>1. Park is using the somewhat-discredited argument from imperfection
>which many on this list have poked holes in.
>
>2. The statement "to attribute natural events to
>supernatural forces is not merely lazy, it defines anti-science"
>seems to have the obvious problem that the author presumes to know
>what is "natural" and what is "supernatural" from the outset.
I think that no. 1 may be more presumptious than no. 2. Also, it may be a
bit presumptious to assume that the author referred to in no.2 does not know
the difference between what is "natural" and what is "supernatural".
Moreover, I think, too, that many Christians may have problems with this
demarcation, and that this underlies some of their antipathy to evolution.
>What I find mildly amusing is that folks at the ICR sometimes argue
>against evolution by saying "it isn't science", while Dawkins et al.
>(or at least Bob Park) have the same objection to the work of Behe.
>These sorts of demarcation arguments don't seem very productive to
>me.
I agree that the demarcation problem should not be viewed as so
simplistically absolute. However, I think that to simply dimiss such
arguments also is simplistic. It seems to me that concepts like design and
naturalism represent meta-theories by which one interprets the same
scientific data. By themselves, they do not define what is and what is not
science.
Steve
____________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D . Phone: 608/263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: 608/263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and Email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Center
CSC K4-432
600 Highland Ave.
Madison, WI 53792
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