When you don't write what you mean, there isn't anything to follow. "Personal beliefs can conflict with doing science" isn't even close to "religion and science are mutually exclusive".

Nobody can "follow" the former by you writing the latter.

So, if I do a qualitative research interview then I'm suddenly the equivalent of a an ID proselytizer who contradict entire fields of empirical science?

You have a poor grasp of the scientific approaches you criticize. They don't tear each-other down, they complement each-other. If a case-study finds itself in conflict with empirical studies, it will usually merely conclude that further research is warranted. This might kick off a new empirical study to look at the issue more closely, and so the cycle spins.

You seem to imagine some sort of big paradigm-war. "If isn't empirical, then it must contradict empirical science!" and "If a scientist does a non-empirical study, he is protesting empirical science!". This is pretty far from the reality of things. In fact most researchers I have met (all them as far as I can recall) who do qualitative approaches are also empirical scientists. But hey... what do they know?

Yes, but what good science will never do is say 'the why is god'.

They don't need to, they know that's the truth, and anything they find that contradicts that truth can't be true.

Context: "Personal beliefs can conflict with doing science"

Example: "religion and science"

So the more reliable science hopes to appear, the more it aims for an empirical ideal? Fascinating...

When you turn into such a fan of straw man arguments? You've been doing it a lot in this conversation. If you're not sure what my position is, try asking better questions.

I can't see the difference between "the natural world is all that we can show to exist" and "won't accept supernatural explanations". It's the same result and the same implication.

Can you link or quote some definition of MN? I subscribe to the concept described in the quote below and I find examples like this everywhere I look when I research what MN is.


Source (but there are numerous I could have used.


What? How can falsifiability not be useful? Or a theory being internally and externally consistent? Or any of the other criteria I've listed? They're all doing something extremely useful. Without them, "literally anything which is logically possible can become an actuality". If you introduce supernatural explanations into science, you destroy it's explanatory force.


No, I don't think they can be falsified. How would you falsify either of your examples? Although perhaps we should first agree on whether or not they qualify as 'supernatural'. ESP could well have a natural explanation, as could Astrology. Why do you consider them to be supernatural?

Yes, the version used by the majority of scientists rules it out. So we're not in agreement at all.

And yet you believe that you completely understand what's happening.

Maybe... just maybe... you ought to take the posture of someone that is seeking knowledge rather than someone that has the knowledge and is 100% clear that there is zero chance you are making some basic errors?

What's ironic is that in the abstract, your position is essentially negated:

The bolded phrase supports the case that there is no inherent contradiction.

Also, it's odd to cite an article that has a definition of both methodological and philosophical naturalism (under the section called "Definition of Naturalism"), but fail to actually point to it when asking for a definition:

The further irony is that the quote you gave denies your claim that "science rejects the supernatural." (The exact phrasing from the quote provided is "science simply ignores the supernatural as being outside the scope of scientific inquiry").

I really wish you would stop saying what the majority of scientists do and don't do. This is a weak intellectual defense of appealing to an abstract authority despite the fact that the actual authorities don't agree with you.

You also need to be much better at parsing clearly between intellectual constructs (it is logically impossible for the supernatural to exist) and methodological constructs (supernatural explanations are impressible). Because you've dug yourself in so deeply in the other thread, you've merged the two and I'm doubtful you'll ever get them separated again.

Gee... I wonder what it must be like to have a discussion with one of *those* people...

For the third time: "Personal belief can conflict with scientific work" is not in any way or form the same claim as "religion and science are mutually exclusive".

How are we to guess that when you say "religion and science are mutually exclusive", what you actually mean to say is "certain religious beliefs might be a hindrance to some forms of scientific work" (or some such).

And what I really don't get: How can this possibly be our fault "not following you" (paraphrased)?

All respect to Barbara Forrest who has been a decent champion against the creationist movement, but sections of that referenced essay seemed bad. I think it shows that it was published in a heavily slanted journal.

Yes, of course. If you boil some metaphysical claim down to something you take for granted in an applied method, then your work with that method will tend to coincide with said metaphysical claims.

But saying it somehow justifies said claim is like taking a rubber stamp shaped like a rabbit, stamping some rabbits and saying "it seems like using ink tends to create rabbit shapes".

I have to admit a bit of negative presuppositions, but it was a secular humanist academic journal. I'm not exactly sure how reputable the journal was, even though it was labeled as "peer-reviewed."

Why is "won't accept supernatural explanations" in quotation marks here? I never said that. Please quote me accurately.

I contrasted two views with a clear difference: the ontological naturalist claims that the natural universe is all that exists. The methodological naturalist claims that the natural world is the only thing that can be investigated by science. One is a claim about ultimate reality. The other is a claim about the limitations of science.

First, you are misquoting the Forrest article. The part you quote is not a definition of methodological naturalism. Forrest says this about it:

Notice that she explicitly that Strahler is talking about philosophical naturalism in that quote, not methodological naturalism. Strahler also asserts a very tight connection between these two naturalist claims, which Forrest challenges (as would most naturalists I know, including myself).

As for my own definition of methodological naturalism, I don't mind using the one from Paul Kurtz in the source you quote here:

Notice that this is a principle about how science is done, not a claim about reality (that is made in the second thesis in the essay, as what Forrest refers to as "philosophical naturalism."

In general I would say there are two main claims associated with methodological naturalism. First, taken as a negative claim, it says proper scientific theories and experiments are limited to claims about the natural (as opposed to the supernatural) world. Second, taken as a positive claim, it says that philosophical topics (i.e. epistemology, morality, ontology, etc) should be investigated by using the scientific method. I take it that the first of these claims is the relevant one for your purposes (the second claim isn't implicated by scientific practice at all).

I just told you: according to your definition of science, a good portion of the greatest scientists in history weren't actually doing science. Thus, your definition fails to follow our actual usage of the term "scientist."

Give me your definition of supernatural, I'll probably be willing to roll with it.

You're just making stuff up. How do you know what version of MN the majority of scientists use? Anyway, you have failed to find a

I wasn't quoting you, I was using the speech marks to highlight that it's a standalone element in the sentence for contrast. Apologies for the confusion. I'd like to think that I might be given the benefit of the doubt about knowing what you have and haven't said...


I don't disagree with anything you're saying here and I do understand the difference. On the one hand we have a philosophy that rules out the existence of the supernatural, including a supernatural god, and on the other we have a methodology that operates on the assumption of there being nothing supernatural, but without making a claim about it either way. I've understood that since long before I started the conversation with TD.

From a practical PoV, knowledge gained using MN by a theist or anyone who holds supernatural beliefs, can still be used on a day to day basis, to drive a car, or take medicine, they can understand the nature of sub-atomic particles or microbes without having to abandon god, but... they're using a paradigm that they actually think is wrong. Any explanation derived from it cannot be considered by them to be anything but incomplete and 'divine intervention' is never considered as an answer when it must be.

At best, the application of MN pushes god back to the role of a creator who set everything in motion but no longer intervenes, while we try to figure out how everything works. At worst, he is completely ruled out as an explanation for anything, i.e. I'm going to try to understand everything as if god doesn't exist.... How can a theist accept that? It's mutually exclusive with their beliefs.


Yes.

Terms change and what 'science' meant historically no longer applies imo, they were doing science as they understood it at the time, but I would say that science has improved, focussed and evolved and most scientists are no longer trying to shoehorn their supernatural beliefs into a scientific framework. Perhaps this explains why the majority of scientists are non-theist. In the USA where 83% of the public believe in god, only 33% of scientists do. I don't believe that's a coincidence.


Not-natural, i.e. not detectable with the senses, not part of the physical, material universe. Not empirical.

Let me ask you, which of these do you think should not have to apply to a hypothesis that seeks to be considered as a "reliable account of the real world." (i.e. a scientific 'theory')?

Internal and external consistency
Falsifiable
Testable
Repeatable
Useful (in that it explains what we observe)
Predictive
Parsimonious
Corrective
Substantiated by evidence.

For the nth time, yes it is. If two things conflict, they're mutually exclusive... you can't believe two different truths simultaneously even if you're only temporarily working with one of those truths, it's still going to conflict with the other.

'our' fault? I haven't said that anyone else isn't following what I've said to you....

If you believe in god, then a paradigm that acquires knowledge using the assumption that there is no god is incorrect. It cannot be considered to be correct by you unless you abandon your belief that there is a god. Mutually exclusive.

If you run an experiment and hold temperature constant, even though temperature might change, then your whole paradigm is incorrect. It cannot be considered that your study is correct unless you abandon your belief that the temperature changes. Mutually exclusive.

Edit: You do ALL of these experiments with an assumption that you KNOW is wrong, and you still expect to get something sensible out of it? I can't believe anyone would be so absurd as to think that such a paradigm is possible! They build their whole experiment around a false assumption... what are these scientists thinking??

I thought you said that science didn't claim to have objective truths.

This isn't the first time you've had issues with your concept of "truth":

If philosophical naturalism makes a truth claim and methodological naturalism (which you often conflate with "science" which you've sometimes conflated with "scientific method" and often conflated with "scientific theory") does not make a truth claim, then in what sense does it make sense to talk about "truths" when talking about "science"?

Sorry, only just saw this post of yours.

You've quoted me out of context there, I said that "gravity is something god could turn off if he wanted to" which only applies of course if you believe in god. So yes, I agree that the scientist working from a version of MN that doesn't include the supernatural can't say for sure that the theory of gravity can't be proved wrong at any moment, in fact that's a necessary criteria for it to be considered a scientific theory, but what they will never do is assume that gravity is actually something that god is doing and might decide not to do at any moment.... they can't.

I can't explain how individuals reconcile their personal supernatural belief systems, which must inform what they think they 'know', with a system for the acquisition and understanding of knowledge that assumes that there is no supernatural..... They can see how useless the supernatural is as an explanation for anything, but at the same time they know it's real.. But you can't know two contradictory truths. It's like trying to explain the physics of the solar system whilst trying to pretend that the earth is the only planet. I know that's not true, so I know there are other forces in play that aren't being considered in that limited paradigm. I could not use it.

Nope, methodological naturalism doesn't push the role of god back to just a First Cause. Methodological naturalism says nothing at all about the actual occurrence of miracles. Your further claim that methodological naturalism might imply that theism can't explain anything is obviously false. Methodological naturalism is a claim about how to do science, but it doesn't claim that science is the only way to understand the world. Once again, you repeat your obviously false claim that theism is mutually exclusive with methodological naturalism. You have said this over and over, but have failed to provide the so-called contradiction between these "paradigms."

Where I think you're going wrong is that you think methodological naturalism means that scientists are supposed to assume that there is no supernatural when doing science, when it actually just says that science can't make hypotheses about the supernatural. Methodological naturalism has zero implications for the actual beliefs or assumptions of scientists about the supernatural. This is why your claim that it is mutually exclusive with theism is obviously false.

So what? I'm willing to guess that well over 90% of scientists will grant that theists who practice science are still scientists and are still doing science. This is because the meaning of "scientist" today still includes the way theists do science.

Would you consider this science?

All of them, given that I don't conflate hypotheses that seek to be considered "reliable accounts of the real world" with scientific theories.

Your claim:

1) The scientific paradigm acquires knowledge using the assumption that there is no god.

False. If you think (1) is true, show me the important scientific papers or theories which use as an assumption: there is no god. Seriously, show me. Since this is according to you a requirement of science, this assumption should show up in every good scientific paper, so this should be very easy for you to find if your claim is correct.

You claim:

2) If you believe in god, then a paradigm that acquires knowledge using the assumption that there is no god is incorrect.

False. Here's an example. For many years, basketball fans used an all-in statistic named PER (Player Efficiency Rating) to measure how good a basketball player was. However, everyone who used it would acknowledge that it ignored certain aspects of value for basketball players, especially defensive value. In your terminology, this statistic as a global measure of player value operated on the assumption that there was no defensive value beyond a couple counting stats. Now, people didn't think that because this statistic, which was state-of-the-art for a while in measuring basketball player value, was useful in showing how good people were at basketball that therefore defense actually didn't matter. Nor did they think that using PER was incorrect just because it wasn't able to measure all aspects of player value, or that using it somehow committed them to the claim that defense doesn't matter.

In the same way, theistic scientists can think that an atheistic scientific methodology is useful for understanding the natural world without also thereby thinking (or implicitly claiming) that the natural world is all that exists, or that science, because it is incomplete or makes false assumptions, is not still valuable and useful.

I've previously agreed that science doesn't claim to be "the only way to understand the world", I've said it's just one paradigm of many and that it doesn't claim absolute truths. And yes I have provided the obvious contradiction.

You can't have two contradictory truths, god can't exist and not exist, there is either a god or there isn't, and science acquires knowledge and understanding as if there isn't a god, it seeks to explain what we observe without using god at all, so for those who are convinced that there is a god, science is at best incomplete. That is an obvious conflict, which is why we're not the only people discussing this and this 'battle' has been raging for a long time. Also, I'm reasonably sure it was you who once said that you thought that the two most common reasons for theists to abandon their faith were the problem of evil, and scientific explanations. I can't find the thread though.


There's no practical difference. We can acquire knowledge using a paradigm that assumes that there is no god, and we can acquire knowledge firmly believing that there is no god, and the result either way is knowledge that is only meaningful and relevant if there is no god.

It supports that there's a conflict between the two paradigms. It's what you would expect to see if that were true, and it's what we see. There are also a much greater number of deists in science, again, something you would expect to see if science pushed god back to a first cause.

I would consider it a statistical analysis of the results of some experiments. It's more maths than science but if it were part of some scientific endeavour then yes, I would consider it science because of the context. But a theory that sought to explain precognition would have to meet all the criteria I listed to be a scientific theory, otherwise it's just a hypothesis being worked on by scientists and will never be the 'accepted explanation'.

I don't feel that I got an answer wrt those criteria and if and when they come into play for you. When does an hypothesis graduate to become a theory for you? What are your criteria, if they're not the ones I listed? Why do you accept the theory of gravity but not ID, what's the difference between them?

It's difficult to show an absence of something, perhaps it would be easier if you showed me an 'important' scientific theory that includes the supernatural (or god specifically) as part of the explanation? Where in ToE, or Gravity, or Relativity, or Heliocentrism , or BBT, or the Laws of motion or Thermodynamics etc etc, is the supernatural referenced as part of the explanation?


Perhaps 'incorrect' is not the best word, in my last post I used 'incomplete' (And I've just noticed that you have also in the final paragraph of this post), which I think is much better as a means of expressing what I'm thinking. I disagree though that that incompleteness doesn't cause a conflict. And why would someone try to produce results using a paradigm that they think makes a false assumption, what possible use would that knowledge have to them.

(This would be an example of where I'm often accused of moving the goalposts, changing my argument halfway through a discussion, or being downright dishonest, but what I've actually done is identified a word I've used that I think was muddying the waters, precisely because you pressed me on it, and realised that I was failing to accurately articulate my position, and I've taken that onboard and refined my argument which hasn't changed as a result, it's just one less area that can cause the discussion to get bogged down when we're not even disagreeing about that thing. Sorry.)

"Religion and science are mutually exclusive" is obviously not the same as "personal belief can conflict with doing science". The former is a general statement that applies to all instances with no exception, the latter is the claim that there might on some occasions be a conflict.

To frame it in a different way, "religious people can do science" contradicts the first statement, but not the second statement. This makes it obvious that they do not carry the same premise. Perhaps you meant the same thing, but you didn't say the same thing. This wouldn't be a big deal if you had just admitted your mistake and moved on, but instead you have chosen to dig in and accuse people of "not following you".

It can't be that difficult to show the absence of something, when according to you the entirety of science does this in all aspects of its work.

But actual irony aside, he doesn't have to show that as he hasn't claimed that these things are part of scientific theories. OrP's word has been that science is largely agnostic about these things and therefore ignores them, which is consistent with them not being mentioned.

There's an absence of that in all the theories I listed. But how can I know what OrP considers to be an important theory that does include the supernatural, I'm hoping he can provide such a thing, if it exists, and I'll deal with that if it happens.

If you have an example, please provide it, but I've asked you for this before and you've failed to provide anything. All you need is just one important theory that includes a god element and you'll have proved me wrong, I have to wonder why you haven't simply done that....

So science ignores them. Once again you are agreeing with me.

I'm reading a history of early Medieval Europe, it makes the point that the belief in the supernatural was just normal back then. However, it does draw a distinction between a common and general belief in the supernatural that everyone held, essentially "weird stuff happens", and a 'reasoned' belief in the supernatural, which was used to 'investigate' the world.

It makes the point that the latter was very concerned with understanding the natural world on its own terms, as it wanted to make sure that miracles were actually miracles. The basic idea being that, unless you knew what should happen 'naturally' then there was no way to know if what actually happened was indeed a miracle - it might just be ignorance tricking people into seeing perfectly mundane phenomena as miracles.

At the time what anyone was doing can't really be called Science, and the practice of identifying miracles was as much a political and social activity as a 'reasonable' one, but the point is a fairly simple one. If you believe in the supernatural as a distinct category then you need to be interested in the natural qua natural, at least in so far as needing to differentiate the two.

So, far from being some sort of threat to it, a belief in the supernatural can imply an investigation of the natural in only natural terms.

That's actually a cool historic point and a nice perspective.

It does hinge on "reasonable belief" in the supernatural, however. Meaning that you accept evidence and are willing to challenge your beliefs if and when necessary.

Then again I doubt that well-renowned religious scientists hold convictions that get in the way of their scientific inquiries. But I know from experience that some religious beliefs do get in the way of ever attaining such positions. It's noticeable in medicine in home town for example; the study tends to attracts a lot of Christians because of the "helping others" perspective. The majority of them would of course have no issue with research positions or scientific discovery, but the minority of creationists most likely would stumble into big challenges to their belief system (and indeed, the number of such creationists in that med-school were actually quite noticeable according to former colleagues).