A friend pointed out that over at the Khan Academy, Salman Khan, while assuring his students he is not taking sides, seems to have been channeling such luminaries as John Ray and Alfred Wallace as he informs them that god would never design or create the particulars of this world. Khan—who has four degrees from MIT and Harvard and is certain that evolution and its natural selection created the entire biological world—assures the viewer that “You can ask any engineer” and they will tell you that simple laws underlying a complex design, as exemplified by the Mandelbrot set, is the better way. Of course non of this comes directly from Ray or Wallace—what this illustrates is not a homologous doctrine, Read More ›

Over at Why Evolution Is True, Professor Jerry Coyne is currently engaged in a very gentlemanly debate with ex-Anglican priest Eric McDonald on the meaning and existence of free will. Eric McDonald has opened with a very thoughtful article entitled, Free Will: A First, Very Tentative Step. Today, I’d like to focus on the first part of Professor Coyne’s extended reply to Eric McDonald. This post is an especially interesting one, as it not only reveals scientists’ real reasons for accepting determinism, but their reasons for accepting naturalism as well. I shall attempt to show that in both cases, scientists who accept these “isms” are not thinking rationally: they are guilty of making an illict extrapolation which is not warranted by the available evidence. Additionally, I will argue the case for scientific naturalism is built on the romantic myth that for the past 2,500 years, science has been continually enlarging the range of phenomena known to be naturally explicable, leaving fewer and fewer phenomena unexplained. I shall then put forward an alternative metric of progress in science, in place of the one proposed by Professor Coyne. Finally, I will conclude my essay by drawing a contrast between Coyne’s illicit extrapolation to scientific naturalism and another famous extrapolation in the history of science which everyone accepts as legitimate: Newton’s theory of universal gravitation.

Let’s return to Professor Coyne’s debate with Eric McDonald on free will. In his opening article, Eric McDonald highlights a critical flaw in Coyne’s scientific case against free will: scientists haven’t put forward any arguments in defence of determinism. McDonald anticipates a response that Professor Coyne might make, and then explains why he regards this response as unsatisfactory:
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OK let’s try this again. One more time, this time with pictures. In their celebrated volume  Blueprints, evolutionists Maitland Edey and Donald Johanson argued that “What God did is a matter for faith and not for scientific inquiry. The two fields are separate. If our scientific inquiry should lead eventually to God … that will be the time to stop science.” Similarly for evolutionist Niles Eldredge, the key responsibility of science—to predict—becomes impossible when a capricious Creator is entertained:  Read more

One of philosopher Robert Pennock’s arguments for methodological naturalism (which rules out evidence for design in nature in principle, because it cannot be considered) is that “we cannot control the supernatural:”

Experimentation requires observation and control of the variables. We confirm causal laws by performing controlled experiments in whichthe hypothesized independent variable is made to vary while all the other factors are held constant so that we can observe the effect on the dependent variable. But we have no control over supernatural entities or forces; hence, these cannot be scientifically studied.

Monton, author of Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design (Broadview Press, 2009), replies, Read More ›

I now and then see it claimed that, among its various contributions, one key benefit of Intelligent Design is that it poses a direct challenge to naturalism, or materialism. The problem I have with this sort of talk is that one of the key planks of ID is a kind of metaphysical neutrality – the recognition that any designer or designers responsible for this or that particular design in the natural world can, at least in principle, be (for lack of a better-word) “non-supernatural”.

This is claimed often enough by Dembski, Behe and company, but my favorite quote on this front comes from a post right on this site: ID’s metaphysical openness about the nature of nature entails a parallel openness about the nature of the designer. Is the designer an intelligent alien, a computional simulator (a la THE MATRIX), a Platonic demiurge, a Stoic seminal reason, an impersonal telic process, …, or the infinite personal transcendent creator God of Christianity? The empirical data of nature simply can’t decide.

The problem is that if this is accurate – and frequent, consistent attestation by a number of prominent ID proponents seems to indicate as much – then it seems to me false to think of ID in and of itself as representing a challenge to either naturalism or materialism. Indeed, ID – even if ID inferences are not only strong, but ultimately true – seems entirely compatible with both positions, at least in principle. But I think it’s possible to recognize that, while at the same time explaining how ID can nevertheless represent a challenge to these positions, at least in a qualified manner.

So, let’s get right on that. The explanation I have in mind is simple, but important.

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The thesis expressed in the title of this “opening bat” post is plainly controversial, and doubtless will be hotly contested and/or pointedly ignored. However, when all is said and done, it will be quite evident that it has the merit that it just happens to be both true and well-warranted. So, let us begin. Noted Harvard evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin inadvertently lets the cat out of the bag in his well-known January 1997 New York Review of Books article, “Billions and Billions of Demons”: . . . to put a correct view of the universe into people’s heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . .   the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural Read More ›

Go here and click on the green podcast symbol to listen to the rest of the discussion about the origins debate and Darwin’s predictions.

Jeffrey Dahmer: “If it all happens naturalistically, what’s the need for a God? Can’t I set my own rules? Who owns me? I own myself.” [Biography, “Jeffrey Dahmer: The Monster Within,” A&E, 1996.] Naturalists like to stress that you don’t need God or religion to be good. Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins even suggest that leaving God out of the equation actually allows one to be more moral because then our moral acts are authentic, motivated by deep conviction rather than by having a divine gun to our heads. Even so, Dahmer’s logic is compelling. We need some external reference point — God — to justify being good. And that justification is significant in its own right. Without it, we can still Read More ›

Whenever I tune in to any discussion on the subject of “methodological naturalism,” I often marvel at the extent to which Darwinists will rewrite history and manipulate the language in their futile attempt to defend this so-called  “requirement” for science. In order to set the stage, we must first try to understand what methodological naturalism could possibly mean.

First, we have what one might call the “soft” definition, characterized as a preference for identifying for natural causes, a position which makes no final judgment about a universal  line of demarcation between science and non-science. Second, we have the “hard” definition as used by all the institutional Darwinists. In the second context, methodological naturalism is an institutional “rule” by which one group of researchers imposes on another group of researchers  an arbitrary, intrusive, and non-negotiable standard which states that scientists must study nature as if nature is all there is.

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I have recently come across Peter Strawson’s argument for soft naturalism in his book  Skepticism and Naturalism 1985. Also as a chapter Skepticism, Naturalism and Transcendental Arguments in Epistemology: an anthology pp.33-41 What strikes me from this is that proponents of hard forms of naturalism are trying to have it both ways, in that they allow naturalism a privileged place where it is not subject to the type of skepticism that the naturalist insists must be applied to all other knowledge claims. Strawson’s argument for soft naturalism comes out of Hume’s problem of induction and seems a more consistent approach than hard naturalism that is logically unsustainable.

Every now and again it’s good to remind ourselves of just how misguided methodological naturalism is. It is a straitjacket whose donning we wisely decline. Yet many outfitters urge the contrary. Some, like Francis Collins, thinks that it’s de rigueur for science but that it poses no obstacle to religious belief. Barbara Forrest begs to differ: The relationship between methodological naturalism and philosophical [metaphysical] naturalism, although not that of logical entailment, is not such that philosophical naturalism is a mere logical possibility.” In “Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism: Clarifying the Connection” Philo, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2000, p. 7. But if Forrest is correct, then methodological naturalism has religious implications (or anti-religious implications, which are the same thing), in which Read More ›

Having connected the dots of the vast conspiracy run by the Discovery Institute so as to include non-materialist neuroscience, Steven Novella goes on to cheerlead, for methodological naturalism – about which I will say only this:

Methodological naturalism is usually described as meaning that science can consider only natural causes. But by itself that doesn’t mean anything because we don’t know everything that is in nature. For example, if – as Rupert Sheldrake thinks – some animals can demonstrate telepathy, then telepathy is a natural cause. And so?

And so Richard Dawkins goes to a great deal of trouble to attempt to discredit Sheldrake because the hidden assumption is that nature mustn’t include telepathy.

In practice, methodological naturalism frequently becomes a method of defending bad – and often ridiculously bad.- ideas in order to save naturalism. Think of the persistent efforts to “prove” that humans don’t “really” behave altruistically. In fact, we sometimes do. Here’s a recent story, for example, about a Texas woman named Marilyn Mock who went to an auction of foreclosed homes, ran into Tracey Orr – an unemployed woman she had never met – who had come to endure the sale of her home, and … Read More ›

Cross posted at The Christian Watershed

One of the biggest issues trends in the West – especially in America – is for people to go ‘green’ in what they do. Whether it be from getting a hybrid vehicle, to eating organic foods, to just installing energy efficient light bulbs, it is not considered chic to be ‘green.’

Though I happen to believe this is just a trend (I believe American society, at least the younger generation as a whole, to be nihilistic, narcissistic, and ‘empty-selves,’ thus concern for something other than themselves won’t last long), it is a trend that is much needed in the current world. I think all can agree that humans in the last two centuries have done a horrible job being good stewards of the environment.

On quick look at the Los Angeles skyline and we can see exactly what pollution can do. Global Warming aside, the fact does remain that Co2 emission is harmful for the environment and humans (look at asthma rates per capita in bigger cities as opposed to those in the country). This also doesn’t ignore the landfills that are constantly taking up space, the burning of fossil fuels, the toxic waste dumps that are harming land, and just random trash being strewn about on the sides of the road. Humans have done an absolutely horrible job at taking care of this world.

Should this environmental crisis surprise us though? Consumerism and humanism – focusing on ourselves and ignoring other species and even other humans – has left us blind to the effects of our desire for more. We are now left in desperate need for a solution, but can science help us? Read More ›