People of faith, amongst others, may want to distinguish between methodological naturalism and materialism though. They don’t disagree that science is naturalistic in methodology, but would contend that it does not have infinite view of all reality, there might be limitations to science’s scope.
I think places like DI are actually wondering if the strict methodological naturalism is restricting important scientific questions by limiting its scope. Would ID people help me out here, does this seem correct?
I would agree, and that applies to people on both sides of the debate.
Asking dangerous questions is part of the ethos of science. For example, Galileo dared to ask if the Moon was a perfect sphere, and if the Earth moved about the Sun just as the moons of Jupiter moved about that planet. When certain questions aren’t allowed to be asked because of non-scientific reasons, then that raises eyebrows.
I think many ID proponents argue that this is similar to what’s happening with a scientific pursuit of “design”. They feel they are asking certain scientific questions (can we determine design within biology) that they aren’t allowed to ask because of non-scientific reasons (materialism/philosophical naturalism).
My perspective, as somewhat of an outsider, is that ID has a hard time establishing that they are indeed asking a scientific question, it shouldn’t’ matter if it’s motivated from outside science, but practically I think it kinda does, and the (non-theist) scientific community has a hard time distinguishing sometimes between philosophical commitments and what’s counts as science.
Let me explain. Most mutations are caused by the keto-enol transition, a fact of chemistry that cannot be stopped. Some mutations are caused by recombination, which in addition to creating variation without mutation, is a mechanism that helps hold chromosomes together during meiosis to create sperm and eggs. Disrupting recombination causes nondisjunction, a far more severe problem.
No one is stopping ID supporters from forming scientific hypotheses and testing them. The main complaint is that people claim ID is scientific when it is not.
When I hear “scientific question” I think “scientific hypothesis”, and this is what ID lacks.
They may claim that, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they feel that.
Perhaps it’s better to ask the ID movement why they’ve never attempted to test an ID hypothesis, why they post entirely materialistic essays in which they make false claims about what all the evidence indicates, and why the tiny amount of empirical work they’ve done boils down to testing of straw-man evolutionary hypotheses.
You don’t think anything promotes increased errors? I’ve never encountered someone who argues that a base mutation rate means there are no causes or triggers for the base rate.
I think it goes without saying that those life forms that developed extremely reliable DNA replication systems were slow to change in a world of changing climates and ecological niches… and were probably wiped out eons ago.
Yes, there are things that promote increased mutations.
I don’t understand this. I told you what the major causes were for the base rate.
I think you should say it, because it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the chemistry and biology. The keto-enol transition is an inherent property of the bases themselves, not of the the replication system.
It would help your understanding if you let go of the term “error.”
Materialism isn’t a scientific theory, it is a philosophical position. Germ theory or atomic theory or cell theory or homeostasis do not lead to materialism. Even evolution does not necessarily lead to materialism. Materialism is imported into science by the philosophical claim that there is nothing beyond the material (or natural) world. By that I mean materialism includes all of matter and energy and weird quantum effects, and excludes non-natural or supernatural events or beings or causes.
Methodological naturalism (MN) is the name given to the philosophical idea that only material or natural explanations are allowed in science. When doing experiments or making observations, the only methods available to scientists are natural ones: our physical senses and apparatus. We are constrained to measure natural things as if they were the only kinds of things that exist. Similarly, by convention, MN says that scientists may only consider material, or natural causes as explanations for the things we observe. All observable phenomena can be explained solely by natural causes. This does not mean there are no non-natural causes, just that they cannot be detected by science. It should be noted that MN is a philosophical choice, not a philosophical truth.
For scientific questions that deal with material matters MN works fine. But when dealing with matters of non-material agency MN fails. At the very point where the most exciting things may be discovered, we are told they can’t be found. Only ID permits both material and nonmaterial causes to be investigated or inferred. MN may accept a nonmaterial reality, even the possibility of nonmaterial causation, but not its scientific detectability. This makes no sense. There is no reason why we should not be able to detect the effects of nonmaterial causation. Agency is a category of causation—we recognize it at work every day.
I anticipate there will be objections as to why ID is invalid as science.
1 Not reproducible
2 Not testable
3 Not falsifiable
4 Falsified by the evidence
5 Tested over and over with same results
6 see above
The above statements were only half tongue in cheek.
Those of course are all quite valid reasons why ID as presented now is scientifically worthless.
I’d love for you to explain how to do good science when you have to allow for the unpredictable and often undetectable influence of an outside supernatural agency. How would medical researchers develop a new vaccine when there could be a Loki God making it effective one day and a deadly poison the next?
The problem is sooner or later your nonmaterial agency has to interact with physical matter to manufacture your proposed “designs”. It has to have a way to physically apply forces to arrange atoms and molecules. The explanation “…and here a miracle occurred” isn’t going to cut it.
@T_aquaticus
You misread me. I do think it is science. ID goes beyond MN. But my whole point is that MN is a philosophical choice not a truth. It does not determine what science is. I accept science as a way of investigating the world, and respect the obvious limits on what I can ask and observe, but not on what I infer.
