Does a commitment to methodological naturalism mean you have to ignore evidence of special creation

Faith & Science Conversation
101

That’s a great question, and the differentiation here turns rather subtle. These still are considered scientific, I think, because the full explanation is within this universe, and may be further investigated by science because they are subject to further natural laws. There is some assumption among us all that intentional intelligence is a “given” phenomenon which occurs in our past (archeology), present (forensics), and may be “out there” (SETI). Even if intentionality can’t be understood only in terms of natural law, and intelligence is hard to pin down, our experience of them allows them to skate by as “givens” within this universe.

Careful philosophy can certainly argue, as you and I have, that ultimately these are no different from ID arguments. But some want to draw a firm boundary within this universe.

I don’t think science can rule out natural explanations for life. It’s job is to describe it and find the natural causes.

However I would agree that since science has shown us so much, the data sure doesn’t look right, if mutation and NS are the only method. And some people seem to have remarkable faith, certainly way beyond mine, that mindless molecules can solve outrageously complex problems.

I think ID is criticized for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. Even sometimes for the issues you raise, ID proponents can make the arguments in a lousy way. Yet if they made them perfectly, they would still be criticized from some quarters.

Yeah, me too. Then again, people accused Jesus of having a demon.

But as Teddy Roosevelt said, “It is not the critic who counts…” I love that you are in forums with people who don’t agree with you, trying to ferret out their perspective, keeping prodding, keeping your cool! That’s what I’m trying to do and why I’m here. And I really have learned a lot!

102

Daniel, are you aware that the power of real science is not in “explaining the evidence,” but in predicting the actual evidence we haven’t seen yet?

Are you aware that no one in the ID movement is willing to test the predictions of an ID hypothesis?

1 Like
103

Oh, I like that turn of phrase. Thank you! Very apropo.

Ray :sunglasses:

104

I can understand your position, but all three of these areas involve hypotheses that are made by investigators and tested rigorously by scientific methods. At least with forensics and archaeology (still waiting on SETI data), scientifically-gathered facts are assembled into a big picture. Sometimes those big pictures can be wrong, just look at all the cases that have been overturned in the last several years due to DNA evidence, but the idea is that hypotheses are scientifically-generated and tested.

Now let’s apply the same requirement to ID research. From what I know (which is admittedly incomplete), ID proponents have difficulty generating new hypotheses, let alone testing them. The sole aim of the research is to cast doubt on current thought and paradigms in evolution.

Can science rule out other natural explanations for complex biological phenomena? Absolutely! Can science rule out the possibility of divine involvement in the evolution process? I would answer “no” to that - science simply doesn’t work that way. There are indeed limits to what questions can be answered by science. But at some point, just like in forensics, it is reasonable to conclude that eventually scientific evidence supports a conclusion “beyond reasonable doubt”. The evidence supporting the case for evolution is not diminishing as time passes and new discoveries are made, but it continuously growing!

1 Like
105

Let me again clarify this point, as it seems to be missed repeatedly… I am not a fan of the current “ID movement.” As I have said above, I find their articles weak, polemic, prjuidiced, with an obvious agenda, unwilling to embrace and accept data that would challenge their core hypotheses. They appear to have a foregone conclusion in sometimes desperate search for corroborating evidence.

I occasionally visit the "Evolution News & Views website, but cannot stomach reading most of the articles… they come across arrogant, condescending to those with whom they disagree, and suspiciously selective with th data, and entirely amateurish.

And by this I don’t mean to impugn every single individual in that movement, but that is certainly the general impression I get.

Can we please all recognize and acknowledge that I am neither a fan of, nor interested in in any way defending, that group known as the “ID movement”? I am trying to understand the BioLogos position on a basic, philosophical approach and understanding of what is or isn’t “science.” And on that one, limited, particular, singular question, I find myself resonating more with the basic core philosophy that the ID approach is predicated on, regardless of how badly or inconsistently they either uphold or execute that philosophy.

106

Sir, thanks for this. I can expound further as I have time. But quickly, while I appreciate this, I still find it an unwarranted and arbitrary distinction. Perhaps best demonstrated as such:

This would create a rather bizarre philosophical paradigm wherein an atheist scientist could recognize design in biology so long as he was only willing to speculatively credit it to a natural (universe-bound), extraterrestrial intelligence (i.e., he thinks then"full explanation" to be within this universe), while a Christian scientist examining the same evidence could not make the near-identical scientific conclusion; this distinction exclusively on their personal beliefs about the nature of that intelligence. This strikes me, then, as an entirely arbitrary distinction, that just grates against my every philosophical instinct.

One person is justified within the scientific method in recognizing something as the result of an intelligent agent, the other is unjustified… not because of any actual approach to the evidence, but rather simply and solely because they have different metaphysical beliefs that they bring to their study?

107

@Daniel_Fisher, the problem with I.D. is the overwhelming number of those who support I.D., but simultaneously also reject Old Earth evidence and the logic of speciation.

Having God intercede here and there in the Creation of life is not a terrible idea, right? But if we can’t find an Old Earther who thinks God mixed miracles into the long haul evolutionary process … then all you have are zealot YECs who want to use I.D. to trash the natural component of God’s creation.

108

Switching gears, who are you a fan of again? Do you have some well written articles that you think are well done that myself and any others interested can take a look at?

He should though, especially if its about intelligent life elsewhere. There is a huge jump to affirming beings like us, which everybody can scientifically prove that we exist… to proposing an invisible God who nobody can at any time say how He specifically interacts with our physical world. We say that we see His hand or feel His presence but cannot quantify or specify the mechanism that He uses.

1 Like
109

That’s not what I see. Rather, the BioLogos approach is to recognize that the overwhelming evidence points to natural forces as the cause for changes in species over the history of the Earth.[quote=“Daniel_Fisher, post:90, topic:36197”]
Similarly, I have doubts that a scientist committed to methodological naturalism would be able to recognize evidence for design if it were in fact there.
[/quote]

That is false. Scientists are already able to recognize when organisms have been genetically modified. They use PCR to screen for GMO foods, as one example. Clear and numerous violations of the expected evolutionary phylogenies would also be a big red flag. Another example is the Glo Fish. This is a bony fish that has had a jellyfish gene transferred straight into its genome, base for base. It results in a fluorescent fish, which is kind of cool. This is what designers do, they mix and match parts from other designs. What they don’t do is force their designs into phylogenies, or nested hierarchies. That is what evolution does, and that is exactly what we see when we look at life on Earth.

3 Likes
110

I’m not sure if I’m following you here. I’m a software engineer, and if I’m understanding your use of the terms correctly, that is exactly what I do. I have several programs originally derived from a common ancestor which do related things. There is another set (of different size) that works in a different environment that are derived from another common starting point (via speciation events?), and they are similar. AFAICT they are nested hierarchies. And they were designed. Sometimes I build something from scratch, and of course I use parts from other programs. But there will be derivatives of the program, and they will obviously be related.

What am I missing? Are you making a theological argument that if God had intervened it would look different? If so, on what basis do you make that claim?

111

But do your programs fall into a nested hierarchy? I highly doubt they do. Do you go into the comments in your program and make small changes so that they produce a branching pattern over time? Probably not. Do you copy over blocks of code from different programs to produce a new program? Probably so. Do you make sure to make more changes to code from distantly related programs compared to more closely related programs to make it look like a nested hierarchy? Probably not.

Genetically modified organisms are a good example of how human design does not produce a nested hierarchy. The Glo Fish I mentioned has a gene copied straight over from jellyfish. That gene is not found anywhere in any other bony fish. That is a violation of a nested hierarchy. If we found a species that had a mixture of mammal and bird features, that would violate a nested hierarchy.

It isn’t the fact that your programs simply share code which forms a nested hierarchy. It is the PATTERN of shared features that matters.

1 Like
112

Appreciate the thoughts… I have no significant core disagreement with you, except that, unless I am very much mistaken, the perspective you describe here is not that endorsed by BioLogos.

That is, I have no core issue if someone examines biological phenomena scientifically, and, while being open to any scientific conclusion (including the possibility of intentional, intelligent, purposeful design), nevertheless concudes natural causes as the best explanation.

I may disagree with th conclusion, but I would take no issue with the method.

My issue is when certain conclusions are ruled out a priori as legitimate scientific conclusions before the scientific examination begins. When this is done, I simply cannot garner much significant confidence in the conclusions. i may be entirely wrong, but as a philosopher at heart, I can’t see this as anything else than begging the question, however untintentional, and how noble the motives.

Put short, I have no significant issue with naturalistic conclusions… I take issue with naturalistic assumptions.

113

Interesting given your background. I lost all confidence in the strength of arguments based on purported biological “vestiges” years ago when, looking through the files in windows 95, I found all the “vestiges” of old Windows 3.1 … including the old “Progman” program manager.

Radically new designs by at least quasi-intelligent Microsoft programmers may also retain vestiges of their previous design… this says nothing to whether windows 95 was a the result of a step-by-step, incremental, unguided process…

114

I really don’t think that conclusions are rule out a priori. The problem is that those who hold certain beliefs aren’t able to construct a hypothesis that is testable through the scientific method, so their beliefs can’t be included in scientific investigations. Scientists focus on what they can test, and they use the scientific method (aka methodological naturalism) because it has been so successful in the past. On the face of it, I see no reason why design arguments could not be testable from a scientific perspective. For example, clear and numerous violations of a nested hierarchy would be good evidence for design.

To put it more bluntly, there are no scientific design hypotheses being put forward for scientists to ignore, at least that I am aware of. Most arguments for design are based on untestable assumptions, or are just attacks on evolution. The argument involving Irreducible Complexity is a really good example. People claim that IC systems can’t evolve which is an unevidenced assumption. They then assert that design must be the cause since there are no other explanations, which is not a scientific conclusion.

The first and most important step in the scientific method is forming a testable and falsifiable hypothesis. That is the true “art” of science. In my opinion, what separates the average scientist from the great scientist is the ability to come up with novel hypotheses that can be tested using simple and available methods.

1 Like
115

It looks like you are arguing that if God got involved in life and making genetic changes, we could detect it. He would have broken the hierarchies. Is that right?

116

If God acted outside of natural processes (i.e. evolution), then yes, it would be detectable. When humans design organisms outside of natural processes we can detect it, as described before. The only reason we would expect to see a nested hierarchy (i.e. a phylogenetic signal) is if genomes were produced by natural processes.

If I understand it correctly, the BioLogos position is that God acts through natural process, not in violation of them, so I don’t think it would be fair to describe evolution as God not being involved in making genetic changes as it relates to BioLogos.

117

Put another way, if I may: C.S. Lewis wrote the following in challenging the “methodologically naturalistic” approach used by historians that were reading th Bible. They we reaching “historically scientific” conclusions, such as the idea that certain books of the Bible had to be written after such and such a date, given the accurate predictions in th book that could not really happen. He observed, completely wisely and accurately, that their naturalism was something they brought to the text, not one they found from studying it… and that heir conclusions were unreliable to the degree that they were informed by their naturalistic methods. He summarized by saying:

it is no use going to the texts until we have some idea about the possibility or probability of miracles. Those who assume that miracles cannot happen are merely wasting their time by looking into the the texts: we know in advance what results they will find for they have begun by begging the question.

Whether rightly or wrongly, this is my core source of skepticism about the BioLogos approach. However “methodological naturalism” is understood here… if it ultimately results in certain conclusions being ruled out from scientific consideration at the outset, then to that degree I have the same doubt about their conclusions that Lewis harbored against those historians and theologians that embraced a “methodologically naturalistic” approach to Bible study.

118

Given what you said here, I think it confirms to me that your perspective is not that of BioLogos… I completely agree with you on that one core point… in you words, [quote=“T_aquaticus, post:116, topic:36197”]
If God acted outside of natural processes (i.e. evolution), then yes, it would be detectable.
[/quote]

I entirely agree with this particular sentiment… that if God had acted outside of natural processes, it would be detectable.

But this is Precisely what the philosophy, approach, and method of BioLogos explicitly denies. (unless I have radically and totally misunderstood everything everyone has been saying to me over this whole page and everything I’ve read from BioLogos previously.)

119

@T_aquaticus,

Yikes… this is such a traditional tar baby question…

T,

The BioLogos mission statement accommodates the Miraculous, and God working through Natural Laws (which are frequently considered miraculous in and of themselves).

So, if God is using Evolution to create whales, it would not be surprising to see Hippo-like features in the phenotype and the genotype of the first proto-whales. So far so good - - when you are only talking about natural processes guided by God.

For BioLogos supporters who think there are times when God helps a genome “jump a rung to reach with natural processes” - - now you start having troubles.

How would we know if a genetic change was “within reason” … or “too fancy, too far, too much” for Natural Laws to accommodate.

While we could develop scenarios where God could make it obvious that someone miraculous with a genome happened, it is just as valid for God to do something with finesse - - leaving everyone scratching their head. And so, it is conceivable that a miraculous/non-lawful genetic change could happen that will never be clearly lawful because there will always be mysterious molecular occurrences - - things that humans will never know for sure how to explain.

And this is what I.D. supporters have trouble accepting. They think God is going to make it obvious. I’m not so sure that is true.

120

That isn’t the case. No conclusions are being ruled out at the outset.

In order to get to a conclusion you first have to start with a falsifiable and testable hypothesis. That is what ID/creationists have failed to do. We can’t ignore conclusions that are never reached.