>Chris
>As has been pointed out before on this list, non-naturalistic hypotheses
>are always less parsimonious than an otherwise identical but *naturalistic*
>hypothesis, so the relative burden of proof for a non-naturalistic
>hypothesis is therefore *always* greater than that of its naturalistic
>equivalent. Put bluntly, non-naturalism has *nothing* to offer science.
>*Absolutely* nothing. This is one reason why scientists don't bother with
>non-naturalistic theories.
>
>Another problem is that many non-naturalistic theories provide no basis
>whatever for empirically testable implications. Given the ID hypothesis,
>for example, *absolutely* nothing can be predicted, because the alleged
>designer is defined in such a way that there is no *conceivable* empirical
>fact that could contradict it. It implies no empirical facts whatever, and
>therefore is incapable of empirical testing. Put bluntly: ID theory is not
>even nominally a scientific theory, and it won't be until some
>more-specific *claims* about the designer are made that have empirical
>significance. Until then, it is as the examples of Steve Jones and Phillip
>Johnson so blatantly show, nothing more than propaganda, hot air, and
>*religion*.
>
>Since *nothing* at all of a non-naturalistic nature has ever been shown to
>exist (and it is not even logically possible to do so by empirical means,
>even if by chance something non-naturalistic *does* exist), since
>non-naturalism is absolutely useless as part of scientific theories, and
>since it would always have the higher burden of proof as compared to an
>otherwise equivalent naturalistic theory, is it any wonder that scientists
>don't generally try to offer non-naturalistic "scientific" theories?
Sorry for the "me too", but I'd like to thank Chris for expressing this so
well. I've tried to explain this point before, but failed to state it so
clearly.
Richard Wein (Tich)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 09 2000 - 04:36:46 EDT