> Loren:
>> "It might lead to the conclusion, 'No known natural mechanisms could
>> account for this event. There are empirically sound reasons for
>> ruling out all known natural mechanisms.'"
> This leads to an interesting question. If this truly were a viable
> conclusion that could be drawn from empirical evidence, how come no
> one has yet found an event or phenomenon that would demand this
> conclusion?
There is one event. The Big Bang.
That's a very special case, so let's consider a more "mundane" example.
Some scientists argue that the appearance of first life on earth belongs
in the no-known-natural-mechanisms category. While a majority of
scientists (including myself) believe abiogenesis will eventually be
empirically explainable via natural mechanisms, a few argue that there
are empirically sound reasons for ruling out all known natural
mechanisms. These scientists offer a variety of meta-scientific
explanations for first life on earth: supernatural event, seeding by
aliens, improbable event, improbable event in one of a large number of
causally disconnected universes.
I think it is very unlikely that we will discover some on-going process
(like photosynthesis) which we will put into the category of "no known
natural mechanisms." I hold that belief for a variety of scientific,
philosophical, experiential, AND theological reasons. On the other
hand, I believe that "no known natural mechanisms" is precisely the
right conclusion for a variety of singular historical events (e.g. some
miracles recorded in scripture).
I believe that the scientific and theological data favors the idea of
abiogenesis --- that the development of first life on earth was via
natural mechanisms, rather than via supernatural assembly. But while I
think the data favors that hypothesis, I don't think the scientific and
theological arguments are nearly so compelling as they are with other
historical developments (such as the formation of the earth's ocean) or
ongoing processes (such as photosynthesis). That is why I think the "no
known natural mechanisms" hypothesis is worth stating explicitly.
Loren Haarsma