I like that Ken Miller quote. 
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Watching the video provided in the article once again confirms my view that Peaceful Science should not be distracted by dead end debates over Evolution-without-God, or the purported scientific merits of I.D.
BOTH discussions are not only distractions, but they exacerbate hostilities between pro-Creationist and pro-Evolutionists.
Christians can indeed be comfortable with the idea that God guides evolution.
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Sure, but itâs bad science to say so. Just like itâs bad science to say God guides the weather. Thereâs no evidence for it, so it violates the fundamental scientific principle of parsimony.
Yeah, Iâm going to be the bad guy who points that out.
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No scientific evidence. But I believe some philosophical arguments can be made.
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@gbrooks9 It is no longer science when the question of whether God does or doesnât guide evolution is investigated. The science of evolution is doesnât include such questions. Science is neutral on whether there is or isnât a God(s), an Intelligent Designer, or not (atheism). Science is neither theistic nor atheistic.
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But i am not asserting it as science⌠I am asserting it as a theological position!
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GAE is not a science scenario. It is a theological one.
Whoâs theology?
Perhaps we could also say that:
It is no longer merely science when the question arises.
It may be that empirical evidence could still bear weight on the question.
I donât understand. What is merely science?
I took your statement to mean that you think the question is not assessed on the basis of scientific evidence.
However, this doesnât seem entirely correct to me, if it is possible for scientific evidence to bear any weight on an answer to the question.
Mere science would be investigating a question as per the regular restrictions, rules and conduct of science, where-as an investigation in bioethics (for example) that relies on some scientific evidence for its conclusions would seem to be scientific in some small way, even though the overall investigation is not.
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Every once in a while, a Christian (or some other kind of theist) has to think and talk like a Christian (or some other kind of theist).
This engages the whole Universe of disciplines and studies.
A scientist who is a Christian doesnât have to say âGod did itâ, to believe âGod did itâ.
So, this sentence you have contrived: âItâs bad science to say God ⌠[etc. etc]â is rather beyond the point. This is what makes I.D. proponents so vulnerable. They attempt to make a Scientific statement with the word God in it.
Christians who accept Evolution are more like Behe: they donât have to say that God did or didnât do something⌠he just knows. But unlike Behe, most Christians do not try to change science with that knowledge.
If a scientist were to say âGod guides the weatherâ, I would not take him to be doing bad science. I would take him to be making a personal statement that is not intended to be seen as scientific.
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Okay. Iâd ask him how he knows that, and if that method of knowing can be shown to be reliable in any way, and then watch in horror at the special pleading.
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I wouldnât ask. We already know that humans are flawed.
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8 posts were split to a new topic: Are Untestable Statements Necessarily âBad Scienceâ?
It is not possible for science to bear any weight on the question of God.
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Hi Thomas,
Iâm curious what kind of methodologically natural finding would in your opinion be capable of detecting Godâs action.
It is certainly possible that you might find some evidence that cannot be explained by current scientific theories. This happened in the 19th century when the procession of Mercuryâs orbit puzzled the entire astronomical community. But eventually Einstein dreamed up general relativity and solved the problem.
So how would you know whether some piece of currently unexplainable evidence was a sign of divine action, rather than something like the procession of Mercury that will ultimately be explained by a scientific theory that no one has dreamed of yet?
Best,
Chris
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Fine-tuning is an example of scientific evidence that bears weight on the probability of theism.
I should clarify that when I say âbearing weight on a questionâ, Iâm not necessarily referring to an empirical observation of divine action. In this case I am referring to any observation or evidence that could have bearing on the probability that evolution is guided or not.
The idea here is that any evidence that we could say would be more expected under or consistent with guided evolution than unguided evolution would count as evidence of the former and vice versa.
Skeptics make arguments on this basis by arguing that certain biological observations are inconsistent with guided evolution (or theism more broadly) being true. Observations typically included are the ones which consider the optimization of different organs or anatomical features relative to their function.
Not really.
Fine tuning is a poetic expression of the wonder experienced while viewing creation. It is not a logical deduction.
Imagine any part of the Universe where life occurs on the very fringe of possibility ⌠even while life abounds elsewhere.
Naturally, the living things on the fringe think they exist only because of the will of the divine. Itâs a natural outcome of human emotions!
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