I think many want to infer God and I suspect that focus sometimes limits their scope of investigation.
However, many vocal atheists and TE/EC leaders appear to rule it out, suggesting that design as such is outside of the sphere of scientific investigation, since science deals with facts about the universe, whereas “design” belongs to the realm of “purpose, values, and meaning” (a phrase which for a while was tossed around on BioLogos like a mantra).
I don’t think TE/EC leaders necessarily rule it out on those grounds. I think they are largely unconvinced of the ID arguments in the area of biological evolution. Note that many seem to accept fine tuning arguments in physics. So, it’s not an all or nothing thing.
[me] but it would need to leave some discernible pattern
Which Newton thought the designer had done. (General Scholium.)
Sure. Some also see God’s hand in snowflakes. And I think that’s legitimate sentiment. It’s connecting distal to proximate causes that’s the problem. That, and moving from the subjective to a more objective footing.
I’m reasonably sure you are incorrect, Eddie. From what I have seen, there are a great number of deniers. A reasonable skeptic actually takes the time to analyze the available data, and that takes work. Denialism is much easier and can be enabled if the mindset is already influenced with potential misconceptions accompanying the phrase “materialism rules science”. But yes, let’s avoid derailing the thread.
If we use the AGW debate tangentially, what if someone argued that a designer was somehow adjusting heat flow in Earth’s systems in some indiscernable manner so as to prevent a change in global climate? How would they be viewed in the larger AGW debate?
Well, I won’t insist on “most”, since there are all kinds of quacks and hobbyists out there, but there are certainly many AGW skeptics who accept that the earth has warmed 1 to 2 degrees over the past 150 years (which is all that “global warming” means), and whose disagreement is only over the causes (i.e., over how much of the warming is anthropogenic, over how big a role is played by CO2 as opposed to water vapor, etc.).
Anyhow, I was responding only to one of your side points. I agree with you on the main point, i.e., that some Christians have been taught to equate “science” with “materialistic world view” and that this has created an unnecessary resistance to science. The difficulty, of course, is that modern America is not 17th-century Europe. Christians in 17th-century Europe didn’t reflexively oppose scientific explanation to religious explanation, or to the Bible. That seems to be a reflex developed in certain quarters of American Protestantism. So now Christian scientists in America are having to re-invent the wheel, and convince American Protestants that science isn’t a threat to faith. But the problem never should have arisen in the first place.
I have no idea. If someone actually argues in that way, I suppose it will be dealt with as it comes up. But all the arguments that I’ve seen on the table are naturalistic, and many of the AGW skeptics aren’t particularly religious people; at least some of them, I believe, are atheist or agnostic. So there is no direct line-up between Christian faith and doubting AGW.
(There may a cultural tendency in certain sectors of American society to distrust scientists and “experts” in general, but again, though many conservative Christians may take that line, they are not the only ones who do so. I think that has more to do with populism vs. elitism than Christianity vs. materialism.)
You would have to be more specific. Obviously, if two people disagree on the cause of global warming, they are going to have very different recommendations about how to “protect future generations from the consequences of climate change.” That’s entirely reasonable. If one doctor thinks the pain in your abdomen is appendicitis, and another thinks that you ate too much acidic food, they are going to offer very different solutions to the problem; one suggesting surgery and another some Pepto-Bismol or the like. But I don’t want to turn this into a discussion of AGW. I was merely responding to a side-point made by Curtis. I was objecting to the emotional loading of the phrase “climate change denialism”, not trying to vindicate AGW skepticism overall. Let’s get back to MN.
While we are on the subject of unanswered questions, how about answering mine from above, i.e.:
But to answer your current question, I would view any such suggestion as puzzling. Why would anyone want to suggest such a thing? I simply don’t understand what such a suggestion is driving at. So you are giving me a hypothetical position that someone might take (which I have never seen anyone take) and asking me to comment on it as if it has some relevance to our current discussion here, and I don’t see the relevance. Nobody now does, and nobody is ever likely to, say anything like your imagined statement regarding global warming. Unless you can show the direct relevance of the question to the above discussion on MN, I will simply have to let this drop.
That’s correct. For all we know, the 4 fundamental forces (strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravity) are phenomena in our universe that are the result of interacting structures that exist outside of our universe. String theory predicts multiple higher dimensions, as an example. Physics isn’t my strong point, so I welcome any corrections from the resident @physicists, but for the sake of this post let’s work with what I have described.
The problem for ID, as I see it, is not the supernatural description of the designer. Rather, the problem for ID is the lack of an empirically testable hypothesis.
MN will not be able to detect design or God’s ‘interference’ directly with respect to occurrences, but perhaps an M.O.? That would also apply to ‘fine tuning’.
I fully believe that the diameter of the moon’s disk in the sky is not merely coincidence. During the summer of 2017, near the time of the total eclipse of the sun, I read where one secular astronomer called the fact that the disc of the moon in the sky matches the disc of the sun “Magic”.
No, the universe was designed to be discovered, from here, and huge amounts of knowledge about how the universe works has been discovered – and more is still being discovered – during total solar eclipses.
It appears that you and I and Argon are on agreement on this point. We all seem to be saying that it is not required by the very nature of science to exclude design inferences. But if we agree on that, then your disagreement with Behe, Meyer, etc. is not over the fact that they make design inferences, but over the basis on which they make them. And that kind of disagreement is fair play, as far as I’m concerned.
What I don’t consider fair play is the sort of thing that Terrell is worried about, i.e., that many people (not you) seem to be saying that science as such cannot discuss design, because design belongs in the world of “values, purpose, and meaning” which is not the sphere of science. I am not going to produce a list for you, because I don’t have a list of web links handy, but I have seen this sort of statement made many times by TE/EC leaders, at BioLogos and elsewhere. I wish you had been around in the old days on BioLogos, when statements like this were regularly being trotted out by the TE leaders. I could have used your support.
I am merely pointing at the parallels between the debates. Why would anyone suggest an intelligent designer when it comes to change in species over time? If MN is good enough for addressing AGW, why is it any different for how species change over time?
That is entirely correct. “It looks designed” is not an empirical measurement. It is a subjective opinion.
I can use an example from my own past experiences in science. I have been involved in mouse infection models where we looked at potential treatments that could prevent infections or lessen their impact. When we related our results we never said “Group A looked sicker”. That’s not a scientific observation. Instead, we relied on things like mortality and weight loss, things we can measure and are not subjective.
On the face of it, there is no reason why design would not produce evidence that can be empirically measured. Using the excuse that science rejects the design inference a priori just doesn’t fly, at least in my judgement. Instead, ID supporters should stop trying to force ID into science and focus more on developing an ID philosophy that is separate from science. TE/EC has had a lot of success with this model.
Such a suggestion would make sense, if someone believed that unguided, unplanned natural causes were inadequate to produce certain evolutionary results. I’m unaware of anyone in the AGW debate who thinks that purely mechanical explanations for global warming are inadequate, so presumably that is why none of them suggest design explanations for global warming, but speak of sunspots or water vapor or the like.
I wouldn’t have called it design, exactly, but now that you put it that way, I might consider it. Christians believe that God is sovereign over nature, to one degree or another. Something I have posted in Comments after a news article on climate change: