Of Baramins and Baloney 7

Mark
I will not argue with your most fundamental point: science is about evidence and testable hypotheses. Pardon me for being elementary, but I want to be sure we are on the same page: An hypothesis is a logical prediction from a theory. The hypothesis begins with a theory. Theory > hypothesis > evidence is the inductive (scientific) method. Somewhere there must have been a deduction, i.e., observations that piqued the formation of a theory. It was outside the scientific method, but cannot therefore be divorced from it. You ask me to separate method from philosophy; I ask you to remember what PhD stands for after your name and mine. Every theory begins with a philosophical base. To say that scientists “will go anywhere that the evidence suggests” distorts the role of the scientific method and ignores some world view that inevitably underlies the scientist’s questions. “Evidence,” new or old, doesn’t point anywhere except toward support or rejection of a given theory. It says nothing about whether the given theory is based on the best philosophy, or even whether it is the best theory within a given philosophy. With a step back, one can see the tautology: Show me the evidence for the world view, but no evidence is acceptable from that world-view, so there is no evidence. If the world-view is allowed, the evidence is overwhelming.
No, science is not a world-view, but it cannot exist without one. I argue that for the fullest exploration and advancement of science that science should be allowed to exist with more than one world-view. If by “methodological naturalism” you mean that only material evidence should be considered, I can go along with that. If by it you mean that only materialistic explanations can be considered, I must disagree. Who proved that there are no non-material explanations for materialist observations?
This point is hardly necessary in most cases where observations are of repeatable or replicable phenomena, such as measuring chemical reactions in a bottle or predicting the paths of planets. (At the risk of digression, may I point out that many laws of physics were discovered in their time because certain scientists refused to believe that observable phenomena were separable from a logical Creator.) Nevertheless, it cannot be so easily dismissed when attempting to explain an historical event. Time is neither repeatable nor replicable, but we do have forensic science, which explores the probabilities of past events based on known laws of physics, chemistry and biology. To disallow a set of possible explanations before theorizing greatly hinders science from explaining observations. Would you say to a forensic scientist, “Go into that fire-gutted building, and tell us how you think the fire started. Oh, and by the way, you must conclude that is was an accident.” To say one cannot suggest that what we find in nature may have an intelligent cause is simply another way of saying, “There is no god who ever has, could, or would intervene in the affairs of the universe.” Like it or not, that is a religious position. It certainly is not going “anywhere the evidence leads.” “Balance” is not the issue. Getting at the truth is.
Science is not a democracy, but I am afraid what we practice as science is more socially constructed than one might care to admit.
Don Mc
 
[Don,]
 
You wrote: Would you say to a forensic scientist, “Go into that fire-gutted building, and tell us how you think the fire started. Oh, and by the way, you must conclude that is was an accident.”

Nobody is saying that.  This is a strawman of profound proportions.

What happens is that scientists make observations. Based on the observations they generate hypotheses. If it is a scientifically useful hypothesis, they test it and get new observations. If the new observations support the hypothesis, it is provisionally accepted.

Assuming the conclusion is not among those steps. It may be part of how you do whatever it is that you do, but it is not a part of the scientific method. And frankly, it is insulting to hear that you think scientists assume the conclusion on a daily basis.

I will say this until you understand it. Show us the evidence. Give us ways to test your hypothesis that a supernatural event was involved. If you can’t do one or both of those, you can’t blame a scientist for ignoring you. If you could provide one or both of those, you would have a herd of scientists working on the problem immediately.

[Dave]

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