Redstate

Against my better judgement, I will kick off what will probably turn into another 100+ comment debate-fest. [BTW, the sigh wasn't aimed at you]  

Thank you for crafting this thoughtful diary in a way that I am clearly incapable of doing myself. [It does look like I have gotten some of my point across though :-)] I can't think of one thing I disagree with. If I am not mistaken, I think you lean towards the scientific and naturalistic explanations of origins. Yet you clearly haven't sacrificed objectivity when thinking through the subject.

I know you are looking for answers to questions asked in the diary, and for the most part, I will refrain for the moment. I will offer an answer to one though. I believe the discussion needs to take place on multiple levels, not just one or the other. Taken as a whole the result may prove more enlightening than just arguing arguing data back and forth.

I am curious about one thing you asked. Isn't epistemology simply a branch of philosophy? If so, you wouldn't be bumping up a level above philosophy to talk about the nature of knowledge. Instead it would be an integral part of the philosophical debate.

I agree with your statement that "the theory of evolution depends upon the philosophy of naturalism", and I agree that Intelligent Design is a key component to Creationism (and which nicely avoids any particular religious point of view), but I would have to say that "Creationism depends on the philosophy of BOTH naturalism & supernaturalism". I would, however, be quick to point out that in order to make a Creationism model that is testable & falsifiable, the Creation model must have a very heavy naturalistic bias.  In other words:  WHENEVER POSSIBLE A NATURALISTIC MECHANISM SHOULD BE ASSIGNED, UNLESS SUCH A MECHANISM SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE TO EXPLAIN AN "EVENT".  Even then, whenever new information is found out, this new information should be used to re-examine a previously held supernatural cause of an "event", because that "event" may now be explainable in a naturalistic manner.  Being an Old Earth Creationist myself, whenever the term "science" is used, I prefer the older definition of science in which nature is examined in a systematic manner and events are NOT assumed to be due to ONLY naturalistic mechanisms.  Remember...the more assumptions one makes, the LESS likely you are to be correct.  So in the end, which "scientist" is more likely to be correct:  one that assumes ONLY naturalistic mechanisms to explain events, or one that keeps his options open and considers an event as being possibly either due to a natural or supernatural cause?

Consider the dilema the strictly naturalistic scientist falls into when examining the origin of the universe.  After decades of trying to disprove the "Big Bang", the only thing that has happenned is that the "Big Bang" (at least some form of it) has become more and more certain.  The strong motive to try and disprove the "Big Bang" was because it seemed to put a limit on naturalism.  As one traces back the history of the universe, if the universe did indeed get smaller & smaller besides getting hotter & hotter, a point arose close to the origin of the "Big Bang" when all the known laws of physics broke down and beyond which one entered the realm of "metaphysics" (beyond physics) that was untestable.  This was simply unacceptable to many physicists as it impacted their religious (or lack thereof) beliefs and their worldviews.  Some of the greatest minds tried very hard to come up with alternate views of the universe (such as the infinitely old "steady state universe" or the "oscillating universe").  All these substitute models have been falsified to a very high degree.  But work was not in vain (even if some people's motives may have been suspect), because now we are MUCH more sure that SOME kind of "Big Bang" did occur about 13.7 billion years ago.

Question:  Who makes more sense?

     A scientist that states, "In all probability something supernatural resulted in the "Big Bang" (exactly as is predicted by the Bible!) [...yes, I know, many Christians & non-Christians will both object to that statement, but I truely believe it is defensible: for example, the Bible clearly declares that our universe had a beginning and at least 5 different Biblical authors wrote at least 11 different Bible verses stating that God has stretched out...continues to stretch out...and will continue to stretch out the universe...and I know of no other "holy book" that makes that claim]

     Or a scientist that refuses to consider any possibility of a supernatural origin of the universe?

Similar cases can be made for the origin of life and the origin of the species.

Now, the question becomes:  Is science of any value in determining who (or what) is this possible supernatural "Creator"?

     I doubt not that most will emphatically answer: NO!  But this is only because most people today have been preconditioned to accept the new, more limited, definition of "science" today, which rules out supernaturalism and which has been forced to consider only naturalism.  But that was not the case of the majority of the "Founding Fathers" of science.  They EXPECTED "science" to give results that were in agreement with the Bible.  (Because the majority of the Founding Fathers in science, as it arose in Christian Western Civilization during the Middle Ages, were Christian).

How is it possible that science can help us answer the above question?

     Well, one way is to check out all the "Origin of the Universe" creation stories in all the "holy books" of all the religions, along with all the "Creation stories" that have been handed down verbally by all the cultures and people groups in the world and check out which, if any, seems to fit the latest and best scientific data that we have today.  THAT IS A TALL, BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE, ORDER!!...Which is why I think it may be best to just present evidence for Intelligent Design in school and let individual students do their own studies and come to their own conclusions, if they think Intelligent Design/ Creationism makes more sense than strict Naturalism/ Evolution.  

Cheers...:)

implies an intelligent designer which implies an intelligenat being which implies an intelligent creator.  Cheese is cheese no matter how you slice it.

---- looks at diary.... tummy full of turkey, thinks, oh God... could this be? Yes, indeed a reincarnation, a second coming no less of the...

"BIG TURKEY" (<---Sounds like Echos of WWF promotions)

It must be! Because our timing with this issue is so funny, (during the Thanksgiving Holidays when we should be attending to our loved ones), we decide to come back to this most juicy, delectable (with cranberry souce no less) issue and discuss it even further, making it INDEED...!!!

"THE BIG TURKEY ISSUE".

I rest my point, good day and Happy Thanksgiving.

I am out of this one my friends, feel content.

I see you in my threads.  Oh well.

You're right that I'm predisposed towards the scientific and naturalistic explanations. However, in trying to be honest with my approach to figuring out the "truth", I operate under the assumption that not only may my facts be mistaken or misinterpreted, but the principles used to arrive at those facts and interpretations may also be faulty. Think of it as applying a form of the scientific method to questions of principle and philosophy. If I find a new way of thinking about things that is superior to the old way, the old way deserves to be discarded. Of course, I personally find that the naturalistic approach to explaining the world to be the best one I've encountered so far, so don't hold that against me.

With respect to your question about epistemology being a branch of philosophy, you may be right. I've had little philosophical training and education outside what I've read on my own. However, the core intuition that I have at the moment with respect to these questions is that in the field of epistemology, there is not any clearer answers about whether naturalism is the best approach to use versus more theistic approaches, than there is in the overall intelligent design versus evolution debate. (Ignoring questions of whether intelligent design can be meaningful in a scientific context.)

I'll gladly defer to any philosophically-trained posters who are more familiar with the debates within epistemology. I do have the hunch that due to the supernatural factors involved, no level of human learning and understanding will be able to completely describe and conceptualize all of the relevant factors.

Or in other words, I don't know if following this train of thought will lead anywhere meaningful, but I enjoy the journey.

I was hoping that I was moving the discussion so that we'd be talking about something different, not necessarily the same old thing. Looks like I haven't moved the discussion far enough. :-P

We'll miss you on this one.

You moved it alright. It is just that the force of gravity is too strong with this and inevitably we'll get pulled into orbit around that same old black hole.......

Perhaps there's some unstated law that says that any discussion of biology outside biology-oriented communities will eventually fall back into the creationism / evolution debate?

1. i would qualify that evolution, and science in general, works within the framework of methodological naturalism.  that is, it is a method more than a ontological or metaphysical assertion.
   
2. "The theory of evolution states that these features are the result of random natural processes influenced by intelligent considerations." or, more explicitly:
   

a) mutation (operationally random-there are nonrandom patterns in terms of how frequently mutagenesis occurs in the genome)

b) natural selection, non-random

c) genetic drift, random

3. "In contrast to evolution theory, which states that the origin is the result of ordinary natural processes that can be assessed via scientific means," or, more precisely, how we make speak of the origin, or describe in, in plain or mathematical language is constrained within the bounds of methodological naturalism.
   
4. "So, questions for the readers: First, am I full of hooey in this assessment of the creationism v. evolution debate? Is this really a debate that should be had within the confines of science, or is philosophy the proper venue?" i believe you are correct, it is a philosphical, not scientific, debate.  i have posted over at my own blog data which suggests that the primaries in the ID movement are philosophers not scientists.
   
5. "must such an honest person also entertain all alternative supernatural explanations for things like origins? If the answer is no, is there a rigorous process an honest knowledge seeker may use to determine whether one supernatural explanation must be given more weight than another?" my personal opinion is that there is no real way to be "rigorous" about the supernatural, i don't buy the thomists, god as humans can conceive of him/it/she is basically an entity that exists outside the bounds of verbal encapsulation.

Is it true that the scientific approach to describing everything is "methodological naturalism"..ie, science requires that all descriptions of events be in terms of natural causes only?  As C. John Collins wrote in his book "Science & Faith", "This premise is debatable because the statement makes no distinction between the study of [natural] regularities & the study of historical events.  That is, it might be quite right, when we are studying a regularity, such as the laws of motion, to assume that steel balls always move in the same way when the forces acting on them are the same...but if we are talking about historical events...such as the origin of the universe, or of life...must we insist that science can only describe these in terms of natural processes and the orderly function of regularities?  The only way this insistence is rational is if we knew beforehand that only natural forces are involved.  And if we don't know that -well, then such insistence is not rational...The effort to promote methodological naturalism -appealing only to natural processes in your explaination- slides over into philosophical naturalism -the belief that natural processes are all there is."

I believe it is possible to create testable Creation models and to test them against Evolution models, for such things as the origin of life and the origin of the species.  I say that because I see it being done week after week by Dr. Ross (& other Ph.D.'s) on his "Creation Update" webcast every single week.  They take the latest peer reviewed scientific articles from well respected journals and compare the latest findings to see if it tends to support or falsify their Biblical Creation model and compare these findings also with other Evolution models.

So it can be done, the only problem is that it has not been done much in the recent past...so people think that it CAN'T be done.  It WAS done in the past! Young Earth Creation models were effectively falsified to a high degree.  But Creationists were very slow in rethinking their Creation models, in general, holding stubbornly to Young Earth models.  But on close examination of the Biblical language, there has been no universal agreement over at least the last 2,000 years as to the age of the universe, the age of the Earth, or when God may have created Adam & Eve (due to the apparant incompleteness of the Biblical ancestral lines).  True, most Christians may have accepted the Young Earth point of view, but some of the best theologians never did down through the ages.

So Creationists are basically asking for another chance to test their models against the latest & best Evolutionists models.  I see no scientific reason why the testing of these models cannot proceed.  Will science ever be able to "prove absolutely" models are true or false?? No.  But science will give us an ever better estimate for their reliability, or lack thereof.      

We should be predisposed to natural explanations. For example, if you drop a hammer on your foot, it probably isn't God trying to "get you". Also if you have applied logic and get bad results then the premises may be wrong. So being willing to question certain assumptions is worth while. The way I personally look at the process you are describing is trying to find contradictions. For example, if you start with certain assumptions and are led into some contradictions (and your logic is sound) then perhaps another system of assumptions needs to be employed. In the end, we can always find justification for certain predispositions. Many times you can change the assumptions and get equally valid systems as a result. One example of this in mathematics is geometry (Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries).

In terms of philosophy, I believe you are correct. Conceptualizing everything is impossible. There are lots of philosophy problems with no answers. And all total, it may not lead anywhere conclusive, but hopefully enlightening all the same.

For this issue on the Sunday Morning talk shows.

And who are the guests speaking?