The Creator-Creation Distinction

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@jongarvey

Philosophers studying science and who try to create narrow, perfect criteria defining ‘science’ will always have employment.

Far from drawing narrow boundaries it seems to be the philosophers of science who find the demarcation bertween science and non-science - and between science and pseudoscience, in fact - impossible to maintain

Yes, but I’ve given a thesis that accounts for this:

@swamidass

@Paul_Nelson is making a legitimate point. It has to do with demarcation criteria for what is “natural” which is often equated with “material”. But “Minds” are not material. So, in some discourse, it seems like “minds” are not proper causal entities. Of course, science does allow minds to be causal entities, even in evolution (see Sexual Selection), but that isn’t material. It all becomes incoherent. He is right.

However, as I’ve said, the real distinction is not material vs. non-material, it is Creator vs. creation. We do include the minds of creatures in science as causal entities, but not the mind of a Creator. Immediately, it becomes coherent.

The reason they cannot demarcate is because they have lost the resources of theology: the Creator vs. creation distinction. This is exactly the sort of corrective someone from your sensibilities should be “all over.”