I will again be responding to an excerpt from an email from my old college buddy “Bill.” The excerpt is printed without further editing, so please excuse the grammatical errors.
Concerning the bit on your blog (july 2010) where you mentioned that there isn’t any credible creationist scientific research and all the science shows ‘naturalism’, evolution or otherwise. David Asscherick has a couple good sermons on creation evolution (Although he isn’t a scientist, if you want some better science stuff see Dr. Walter Veith…but you probably already have, his testimony deals with his move from atheism to christianity). In the sermons, he mentions a critical presupposition of modern science. Please note that the presupposition is that God doesn’t exist, or at the minimum, all nature has come about through natural processes. THEREFORE it stands to reason that if the God of creation isn’t even an option, it is no wonder that natural explanations are found… they are the only explanations that are allowed. This isn’t to say that creationist have held up their end of the ball in creating reputable science. It is only recently that they are taking this whole science thing seriously.
The core question here is whether or not methodological and metaphysical naturalism is justified. That’s what I’ll address here.
Medicine is probably one of the most obvious areas where we can compare supernatural and natural explanations. Let’s take epilepsy as an example. Depending on the part of the brain that’s effected it can cause strange pauses in speech or movement, intense convolutions, or hallucinations. If you work with the supernatural explanation then it would be identified as a demon possession and ineffectively treated with an exorcism. The natural explanation would identify it as a neurological disorder that results in misfiring neurons and can be treated with medication and/or surgery. The naturalistic explanation actually explains it, allows treating it, and can eliminate the symptoms. The supernatural explanation cannot, in fact it would stop the study of it since there’s no reason to study something that’s already been “explained.”
Other areas within science are no different. To say God did it stops the investigation without explaining anything. To tentatively reject supernaturalism for methodological reasons allows for an open search for the evidence and freely following that evidence to its logical conclusion. This is again because if God did it, then why are we bothering looking any deeper into it?
Once a scientific hypothesis has been formed it can be tested. If it best describes and explains the available evidence, can be replicated through experimentation, and survives the brutality of the peer review process then it just might have a chance of gaining acceptance. Once another new hypothesis comes along that better explains everything, either due to a mistake in the methodology of the earlier hypothesis or more commonly in light of new evidence, then it replaces the old hypothesis.
There was a time when the God hypothesis would have been the accepted standard. The earliest physicians to apply science to medicine had to show their colleagues that their natural explanations were better than the prior supernatural hypothesis. The earliest evolutionary biologists had to do the same thing by showing that common descent and natural selection better explain the evidence than creationism. In both cases they succeeded.
The scientific method is what these early scientists created. Like all new ideas and methods it went through a process of evaluation and validation. It won out, not simply because of the fact that it’s inherently naturalistic, but because it produces repeatable results. If you doubt this, cars, planes, computers, space flight, medicine, and just about anything we rely on in the modern world is a product of the scientific method.
It would seem that what you are suggesting is that supernatural explanations would need to be considered each and very time there is a new discovery. This is absurd on a few levels. First, considering the lack of evidence for the supernatural it would be impossible to even predict what results would support that hypothesis. The best you could do is acknowledge that an unknown *might* be supernatural. Secondly, after hundreds of years of phenomena that were once through to be supernatural in origin to have been very effectively explained via natural means, it would seem to be safe to say that the supernatural has been falsified as a reasonable explanation.
Unknowns shouldn’t be a problem for anyone. Without them scientists wouldn’t have anything left to explain and they wouldn’t have much of a job left to do. Those who insist on supernatural explanations would want to employ a god of the gaps. To say that if its outside of the scope of our natural explanations, then it must be supernatural, it an arrogant refusal to admit to not knowing something.
Furthermore, to claim that every new discovery and hypothesis requires starting at the beginning again, reestablishing the scientific method, and reworking the entire body of evidence that got you to where you are would be like saying that every time Goodyear designs a new tire they have to start with reinventing the wheel. Fortunately, that’s not how it works. You start with what’s currently established and work from there. If the data no longer supports the established framework, then it needs to be adjusted to better account for the evidence. Oh, and if anybody is good at rejecting old, outdated ideas, it’s scientists.
Oh, as for why creationists haven’t taken science seriously, there’s a reason for that. The fossil record, genetics, and even observation all clearly point towards common descent and natural selection. When all of the evidence supports a conclusion, then the logical thing to do is accept that conclusion. Creationism, on the other hand, requires such a staunch support of a presupposition that the evidence is simply ignored.
As I am not a scientist, I welcome any corrections to errors that I may have made here from those who actually know what their talking about.
Permalink
Very
good answer, but if it were me I would have answered slightly
differently.
The
questioners' assertion in science " that the presupposition
is that God doesn’t exist, or at the minimum, all nature has come
about through natural processes." is simply false. Science
makes no presupposition about the existence or non-existence of God
or any other supernatural force. We, however, run into a
practical problem of measuring the effect that God may have on a
system, we really don't know, nor has any theist ever proposed, a
suitable way to do this. Therefore was measure what we can
measure: natural forces and explanations. Our limiting our
investigations to the natural is a practical consideration, not a
philosophical one. Anyone who can develop reliable methodology
to reproducibly measure the influence of God's action on say,
population genetics, biogeography, or anything, would completely
change science.
Additionally,
even though we are only measuring the natural phenomenon, we should
be able to tell if there was a significant supernatural component to
what we observe. Our ability to make predictions about
phenomenon based on our scientific explanation would fall apart. For
instance, if the hand of God kept the planets in their orbits as
Newton suggested, and not simply natural observable forces, our
ability to precisely predict the movement of Saturn and its moons
such that we can launch a probe from earth and have it arrive
correctly at Saturn a full 7 years later. Such ability to make
accurate predictions strongly indicates there is not a hidden
supernatural component to these phenomenon that we haven't measured.
So
in conclusion: Science makes no presumption about God; We don't
measure the action of God because we don't know how; and our ability
to make predictions suggests we really haven't left anything out.
Permalink
Very
good answer, but if it were me I would have answered slightly
differently.
The
questioners' assertion in science " that the presupposition
is that God doesn’t exist, or at the minimum, all nature has come
about through natural processes." is simply false. Science
makes no presupposition about the existence or non-existence of God
or any other supernatural force. We, however, run into a
practical problem of measuring the effect that God may have on a
system, we really don't know, nor has any theist ever proposed, a
suitable way to do this. Therefore was measure what we can
measure: natural forces and explanations. Our limiting our
investigations to the natural is a practical consideration, not a
philosophical one. Anyone who can develop reliable methodology
to reproducibly measure the influence of God's action on say,
population genetics, biogeography, or anything, would completely
change science.
Additionally,
even though we are only measuring the natural phenomenon, we should
be able to tell if there was a significant supernatural component to
what we observe. Our ability to make predictions about
phenomenon based on our scientific explanation would fall apart. For
instance, if the hand of God kept the planets in their orbits as
Newton suggested, and not simply natural observable forces, our
ability to precisely predict the movement of Saturn and its moons
such that we can launch a probe from earth and have it arrive
correctly at Saturn a full 7 years later. Such ability to make
accurate predictions strongly indicates there is not a hidden
supernatural component to these phenomenon that we haven't measured.
So
in conclusion: Science makes no presumption about God; We don't
measure the action of God because we don't know how; and our ability
to make predictions suggests we really haven't left anything out.
Permalink
Thank you for that. I was hoping a scientist would address it from a practical standpoint. My ability to speak on issues like this is obviously limited since I'm a theologian by training and education and merely a fan of science.
The practical limitations are definitely crucial here.