From: Susan Brassfield <Susan-Brassfield@ou.edu>
>you are assuming that evolution has something to do with religion. It
>doesn't. "Materialistic-naturalism" is required for science. There's no way
>to conduct science without that assumption. Or, at least, neither you nor
>Johnson has come up with any viable suggestions as to how one would go
>about conducting science without that assumption.
The words "materialism" and "naturalism" come up frequently in these
discussions, but I still haven't seen a precise definition of what they
mean. Do they just mean the assumption that the phenomena in question are
explicable? If so, then they *are* required by science, which is all about
finding explanations.
On the other hand, I don't agree that science must reject ideas like demonic
spirits and omnipotent creators out of hand. It should reject them because
they are poor explanations (they explain very little), and science is about
find the best (most explanatory) explanations which are consistent with the
facts.
Richard Wein (Tich)
Please note my new email address <rwein@lineone.net>
and web address <http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/>
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