Reason, Religion, and Science

Like I said… it’s a free market.

That’s what a free market implies.

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Its purpose has never been to determine natural law.

So why would that matter?

Please explain that to those Christians who constrain their acceptance of scientific evidence in accordance with their theological presuppositions.

Science is not a free market in the sense of every idea deserving equal consideration. Ideas that are really just theological beliefs dressed up to look like science are not science and don’t deserve a place in the scientific arena.

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Not paying attention to or accepting an idea is different from saying it has no place…

Whether, you like it or not, people are free to do these things.

No one is saying people aren’t free to say what they want but you are not free to say something is science when it isn’t and expect to be taken seriously.

Again I will ask you. Is a paper whose conclusions are built off of appeals to particular beliefs about Bible verses a scientific paper? Yes or no.

Actually, people are also free to take any other person seriously…
They may choose not to… But they are free to make their own judgement.

Can you define a scientific paper?
Cos, it seems to boil down to those papers published by select established journals.

Your inability to answer a direct question is noted.

Scientific papers are papers that employ scientific methods to address questions about the natural world. They are submitted to the scrutiny of the scientific community and evaluated for the ideas contained in them ability to conform to the empirical evidence.

Scientific papers are not reliant on appeals to narrow religious or ideological beliefs.

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Does the scientific method preclude quoting the bible, or quran ro any other religious text?
I guess the paper should be evaluated based on whether the scientific method is followed.
And if proper scrutiny has been done.

If scrutiny has been done and the idea is discredited… then its discredited.

What about a commitment to naturalism?

In science we don’t build ideas from beliefs in Bible verses.

Naturalism is a methodological limitation of science not an ontological commitment. It’s not necessary to say that the natural is all there is only that the natural is all that is accessible to science.

Science doesn’t work by asking people to believe in Bible verses.

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Fair enough. Though, it’s a fact that most scientist hold to an ideology that nature is all there is.

I agree. However, I dont see why quoting bible verses, or huckle berry fin for that matter should be a problem…

Feel free to explain how to do science, any science, without a 100% reliance on naturalism. How do you trust research results if you have to allow for unpredictable and undetectable supernatural meddling?

In science no one is necessarily committed to say that the natural is all there is (ontological naturalism) we are only required to say that the natural is all science is equipped to address (methodological naturalism).

The bottom line is science simply does not work by asking people to believe in Bible verses.

No, like I said his posting here is pretty harmless, I have no problem with that. But we should be cautious about giving him the false idea that he has the faintest clue what he’s talking about. That’s a risk entailed in having experts and other scientifically informed people take his drivelous commentary seriously enough to actually respond to him. I guess we just have to live with that.

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I see things a bit differently. For instance, if someone’s religious beliefs require that the earth be only 6000 years old, then science can show that his religious beliefs are categorically false. He should then go and find another religion, or none at all, but he shouldn’t continue to hold to one that cannot be true.

I disagree with those whose interpretation of Nonoverlapping Magisteria would this.

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How do you propose science does this?

By scientists finding evidence for the age of the earth?

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By showing the huge amount of physical empirical evidence we already have showing the Earth to be much older than 6000 years. C14 calibration data from a dozen independent sources going back 50,000 years for example. Just like the huge amount of physical empirical evidence we already have showing a literal Noah’s Flood and Noah’s Ark never happened.

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I think Gould would say that religious claims that encroach on what may be addressed as scientific problems are running afoul of NOMA just as scientific approaches trying to for example trying to disprove the existence of god would be encroaching on territory better addressed through religion. NOMA is a two way street.

Yes, and they can make a convincing case based on evidence. Can they however show this is impossible or that it is categorically false which implies impossible?