Whenever ID or Discovery Institute is mentioned, it is almost always with an element of derision or condescension. If one is painted with the ID brush, then no matter the strength of his evidence or how tightly his case is argued, it may be dismissed with an arm wave. I don’t want to be dismissed that easily. And neither do James Tour or Perry Marshall, which is why both have publicly stated they do not want to be associated with ID in capital letters. If you want to treat people fairly, never assume they are associated with ID or Discovery Institute.
No, Inference is not an ID-associated publication. They publish essays by a wide variety of authors, including Noam Chomsky. You can learn more about Inference here. About | Inference
I’m not sure why you think James Tour is associated with Discovery Institute. He has never written an article for their publication. He’s not a fellow of the institute nor does he have any formal association that I know of. Tour did contribute to an anthology titled Theistic Evolution and this book had other contributors some of whom were from Discovery Institute and some who were not.
The same is true of Perry Marshall. He has never written an article for Discovery Institute’s website. He’s not a fellow nor does he have any official link.
I’m sorry, Joshua, but this shows confused thinking. I defined Philosophical Naturalism as “the belief that God does not exist or cannot be known to act in the material world.” If you believe that it is impossible to know that God has acted in the material world, then you are, by definition, a Philosophical Naturalist. I don’t see how it is possible to escape this.
Newton was certainly not a Philosophical Naturalist, perhaps not even a Methodological Naturalist. He hoped that his scientific endeavors would prove the existence of God, as he wrote in his famous letters to Dr Bentley. I don’t believe Newtonian gravity actually supports the existence of God, but the groundwork laid by Newton did make it possible for science to show God’s existence later on.
Just to demonstrate that Sean Carroll does not believe, as you do, that scientists are required to never consider the possibility of God, I will provide a quote from his appearance at the Greer Heard Forum when he debated Wiliam Lane Craig.
The quote begins 1:39:55 into the talk. I hope the time stamp works properly for you. I provide a transcript just below the URL.
“Some people try to sometimes say that science or naturalists start from an assumption of naturalism so they just simply won’t consider alternatives. I’m very happy to consider alternatives. I think if there was some phenomena in the world which really looked exactly like some religious tradition was saying should happen and was miraculous, was seemingly violating the laws of physics, what would scientists do in that situation? They would not say “We are not allowed to think about this because we agreed yesterday at faculty tea that the world is a natural world.” I think they would try to come up with the best explanation. If the best explanation is not naturalism, then I would buy that.” - Sean Carroll
Carroll goes on to say:
“In a proper, quantitative Bayesian probability analysis my prior for naturalism is higher than my prior for theism, but overwhelming evidence will always take care of that.”
Regarding my proposal to move away from Methodological Naturalism (because it so often slides into Philosophical Naturalism) to Regularism, you give a rather disdainful reply. Perhaps you are unaware of the growing philosophical unease with Philosophical Naturalism. I would suggest to you the following book, especially Chapter Three on Regularism by my friend Tom Gilson. The book is taken from “Proceedings of the 2016 Conference on Alternatives to Methodological Naturalism.”
Your next series of comments show that you are not taking my comments seriously. To say “I can’t imagine this” or “I can’t imagine that” or “science doesn’t work that way” doesn’t really help to advance the discussion. As I have made clear in this comment, Sean Carroll can imagine a situation in which it is possible for science to prove that something could not have happened through natural processes. The hypothesis that life arose from chemical evolution is one such situation. If it is not possible to disprove this hypothesis, then it is not scientific.
Regarding my proposal that OOL research be done in natural settings, I’m attempting to raise the bar. You ask:
But that is what is happening now. The reactions are being done in changing environments - from low temperature to high temperature back to low temperature and from low atmospheric pressure to high atmospheric pressure back to low - all with the goal of trying to improve yields with no thought as to how realistic these changing conditions are to early earth.
My proposal is to run the same experiments in conditions closer to the early earth and do it with a view toward falsifying the hypothesis. As you know, scientists have a responsibility to try to falsify their own work. It is not a task that humans love to do. That’s why I am also proposing that each research team try to falsify the work of other teams. Those who hold to DNA first can attempt to falsify the RNA World hypothesis, the metabolism first hypothesis and the cell membrane first hypothesis. The other teams can do the same.
There is no question in my mind that abiogenesis is falsifiable and would be falsified within a few short years if researchers actually held to the standards of science.
Regarding Perry Marshall, why not invite him here to discuss his book and his $5 million challenge. I think he would be willing to invest some time discussing his thoughts.