Re: Naturalism as the Religious Basis of Evolutionism


Ross Langerak wrote:
"Richard Forrest" <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1154764368.012039.265430@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Ross Langerak wrote:
"Richard Forrest" <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
But if the supernatural is involved, the observation you make today
under a certain condition won't be the same the next time that
condition occurs.


So next time you try to make that observation, you can't, and you
can't
carry on with your research.

The problem isn't that we can't make the observation, but that we can't
tell
where the natural ends and the supernatural begins.

No, all we can do is gather data.

That isn't enough to do science.

I didn't say that it was!

We also need to form theories to explain
that data, make predictions, and perform experiments to test the
predictions. If we allow supernatural explanations in science, then we
can't do that.

Quite so. So we only consider hyptheses which can be tested.


How much of our data
needs to be explained,

As much as we can.

And how do we know when we have explained as much as we can?

When we can't think of anything else, and need to go down the pub to
find inspiration for new ideas. It doesn't always work, but it can be
fun trying.

Creationists
are assuming that we have already explained as much as we can, and that the
rest needs to be explained with supernatural causes.

Creationist are wrong, and either don't understand or deliberately
misrepresent science.

If those "supernatural causes" (PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS IN QUOTATION
MARKS) are phenomena which can be observed or measured, we test
hypotheses of the action of those "supernatural causes" (PNTTIIQM)
against the data.



and how much can be attributed to supernatural
interference?

None. If we can't explain it, we carry on looking for an explanation.

So now you're saying that we can't investigate the supernatural. Wasn't
that my original point?

My point is not the science cannot investigate the supernatural, but
that science cannot make a distinction between the natural and
supernatural. Science concerns itself with phenomena which can be
observed or measured, and atttempts to explain those phenomena with the
assumption that the universe behaves in a consistent and coherent
manner.

Attaching the labels of natural and supernatural to phenomena is
irrelevant.


Supernatural implies meaningless, random actions where what the
being
does today has no constraint on what he does tomorrow. How can you
study something where your result changes ( or may change) with
every
observation?

If your observations and measurements seem chaotic and random, you
conclude that you don't know why. "I don't know" is a perfectly good
conclusion in science. In practice it's far more common that published
papers would imply.

"I don't know" is a perfectly good answer in science, but with the
introduction of the supernatural, the answer is "I can't know".

Which is why the introduction of the supernatural makes science
impossible.

Again, wasn't that my original point?

This is an argument about labels. Attaching the label of "supernatural"
to phenomenona is unhelpful.


When a
scientist says, "I don't know", he means that he expects there is an
answer
but he doesn't have it yet.

Quite so.

With the introduction of the supernatural,
there is no way to know when we are investigating a natural result, or a
supernatural result.

Which is why a presumption of the supernatural makes scientific
investigation impossible.

And yet again,....

There is always the possibilty that someone may come along with an
hypothesis they can test against your aparently chaotic and random
measurements and demonstrate that there is consistency and coherence
there.

Yes, and that would demonstrate a natural explanation for a set of
evidence.
But before we have that explanation, how do we tell the difference
between
unexplained data that is the result of natural causes, and unexplained
data
that is the result of supernatural interference?

We don't. In fact, we can't.

If some of the data is the
result of supernatural interference, then any explanation we propose is
only
going to explain part of the data.

So it will explain part of the data.

And yet above, you say that isn't good enough.

I didn't say that!
However, sometimes all we can do is explain part of the data. In fact,
we can always only explain part of the data. That's why we do research.


When will we know when to stop trying to
explain the anomalous data?

We can't. We carry on trying for as long as we can think of new
hypotheses to test, or until the funding runs out.

And when that happens, do we attribute the remainder of the unexplained data
to supernatural causes?

No, we say that we need new ideas. Science relies on imagination.
Imagination is as necessary to science as data, more so in fact.


RF


How will we know when all of the remaining data
is the result of supernatural interference?

Never. Science cannot make that determination, because if it did it
would no longer be science.

And once more yet again,....

.

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