I don't disagree that Science and God needn't mix given that science is about observations, I've never disagreed with that.

That doesn't imply, however, that you should take the premise that God doesn't exist, logically speaking. Or that He does exist. If thats when you mean by irrelevant, then I agree.

You can assume God exists and some religions are destructive to truth.

Hell the different religions say that about each other all the time.

That would need to be the case since there are different religions pointing to different truths. I don't disagree.

Right. So let's back up a bit:

• T_d: posits this: "I think the entire notion of "supernatural" is meaningless, a waste of time and a serious stumbling block for intellectual progress."
• You attempt to justify this by: "Academic fields that have adopted methodological naturalism (and abandoned supernaturalism) have made astonishing intellectual progress. And it's been an entirely one-way street..."
• I point out that this is a significantly narrower point and not at all what t_d argued for.
• You start to audibly pshaw at my apparent uncharitableness: "If you want to suggest that td was including creative (but arguably intellectual) pursuits like music or writing fiction, or playing chess or whatever then go nuts, but understand that everyone is rolling their eyes at you."
• Then t_d comes along and clarifies by this: "my statement was never intended as alluding to "physics vs religion". I think this goes much deeper than that, something like physics or science is just the culmination of a wholly different perspective on the world - not the perspective in and of itself."

In his view "the entire notion of supernatural" is apparently indicative of one perspective on the world, while "physics or science is just the culmination of a wholly different perspective on the world." Naturally, your limited argument about the efficacy of a "supernaturalism" in fields that have adopted meth. naturalism cannot substantiate a point about "the entire notion of supernatural", seen as "a perspective on the world", as you've admitted yourself.

I could stop right here. Your accusation of uncharitableness itt has been shown to be entirely spurious. You are defending a claim that is much narrower than what t_d had in mind. Pointing that out is not a result of uncharitableness, but of literacy of English. But let's keep going:

A closer look reveals that you need his words to mean significantly different things than what they ostensibly say:

• the "entire notion of the supernatural" that t_d adresses needs to become something like "a notion of the supernatural that is in some sense instrumental in providing rationales in intellectual pursuits".
• "intellectual pursuits" need to become "those academic fields that have adopted methodological naturalism, specifically excluding pursuits that can't (in your mind) make progress "of the sort that is being discussed""
• "intellectual progress" similarly needs to become "progress in fields that have adopted methodological naturalism and/or are even capable of progress of the sort usually exhibited in these fields".
• in your further argumentation (insisting that you need only to show that it’s harmful in some intellectual pursuits), you also need to understand "serious stumbling block" to mean something like "a net negative", i.e. "stumbling block of some sort".

In effect you shape his original statement to mean something closer to: "A dogmatic use of supernatural explanations, unbothered by competing facts or evidence, has a stifling effect of some degree on intellectual growth in some areas." Well, big whoop.

I am not willing to understand his words that way. It seems counterproductive. For IF the idea of the forum is to generate better understanding, pointing to faulty ideas, conceptions and arguments is a necessary part of that. Simply shifting goalposts as needed to get a position that you can agree with is rather silly. Also, given that in the past you’ve criticized me for as little as the use of a hyperbolic "so" (with a bogus justification, at that, as you've recently acknowledged), it seems somewhat curious that you are willing to extend t_d such significant liberties. Moreover your comment: "The bolded is gibberish." seems to run head-first into "1. Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your target says: “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”" What I actually said was that supernaturalism (of the sort you have in mind) doesn't contribute to scientific understanding. For all the chastising of my uncharitableness you do, you’re not doing too great a job of re-expressing my position "so clearly, vividly … that I say "Thanks, I whish..."" and so on.

So, I'd say you had your fun but it's time to let that rest. With regards to charitableness, you're certainly not a choirboy yourself. And again, I could stop right here. You are exhibiting a significant double standard in your interactions with me, something that is both embarrassing and annoying. But let's keep going:

I won't comment too much on Creationism in Science classes. I don't know enough of the actual debate to make a qualified assessment. I'd welcome if someone could do that. From what I could gather from the relevant wiki-pages and a few papers I found on the net, the fact of its presence in science classes (rather than the threat of it appearing there) seems to be at best a local phenomenon. If Creationism were to move into science classes on a large scale, it might have a significant impeding effect. The actual effect it has - according to all I've seen - is rather limited: According to this recent paper, it's not the existence of creationism as such that has any bearing on the acceptance of evolution, but the religious identity of the students prior to their exposure of the ToE. Which hints at a further problem of your position (if you want to defend it): You'd have to make some argument as to what constitutes impediment. As you specifically listed teaching Creationism in science classes, it seems you have something like a resulting loss of trust in science or similar in mind. Or that of those students exposed to creationism in school, fewer will move into science later on. As the paper above indicates, there doesn't seem to be too much of an effect of that sort. So unless you specify in more detail what you have in mind when you talk about "impeding scientific progress", this example is little more than the recital of a talking point.

Stem cell research is even less clear cut, for similar reasons: S.c.-r. encompasses a wide host of ethical questions that aren't unique or limited to religious or supernaturalist objections. What the specific impediment of a "supernaturalist" worldview are, and how they stack up compared to non-supernaturalist ethical objections and restrictions, is far from clear.

It's a good example to highlight the difference between a simplistic focus on scientific vs. a more circumspect view of intellectual progress. I've recently referred to the HeLa-cell line. While not being stem cells, they permit much of the same kind of research. The contemporary judgement that this cell line was obtained under ethically questionable conditions is not limited to supernaturalists. Had we had our contemporary "intellectual level" back in the 50s, it is likely that this cell line either wouldn't have been obtained at all or the research based on it had been more restricted. The "impediment" that science would've suffered would've been due to general ethical considerations, not specifically supernaturalist ones. Hence I’d contend that to the extent that stem cell research is an area that is being impeded by supernaturalism, you’d still have to show that this is (a) significant, (b) unique (i.e. not criticism that is equally raised by non-supenaturalists), and (c) in fact harmful. You have not done so, and I'd contend it is far less "trivial" than you make it appear.

Certainly there are more examples that you could bring up. Still, you'd need to show that they aren't prone to the same kind of objections, which are in short: How relevant/prevalent is the supposed impediment? How unique is it? How "objectionable" is it?

This would be the third (or fourth?) re-interpretation of his actual words in order to better suit your argument: He said: "I think the entire notion of "supernatural" is meaningless, a waste of time and a serious stumbling block for intellectual progress." You want him to have "alluded to" something like this instead: "I think the entire notion of "supernatural" is meaningless, a waste of time and at least partially because of that a serious stumbling block for intellectual progress."

Needless to say, this line of reasoning is dubious in its own right. First of all, how many intelligent people are indeed wasting time and brainpower to develop supernatural explanations of the sort you have in mind? Certainly not scientist that happen to be religious (more on that below), obviously, as they know how science works and don't want to be laughed out the building. So pending further elucidation it seems you're essentially talking about the bright heads among Creationism- and ID apologists? How many are that?

Second, just as with ether, phlogiston etc., the emergence of homeopathy, acupuncture or other practices/theories that seem to rely on supernaturalist explanations do trigger "proper" scientific research that arguably would not have happened otherwise and that does further our understanding of reality.

Thirdly, if "wastes time and resources" counts as "impeding", then arguably, the (unfortunately) thoroughly accepted practice of german medical students to produce bogus PhD theses (many of them plagiarized to high degrees) is "damaging" to science. Or the widespread practice of inflating publication lists by dishing out poor or redundant papers (our current brawl aside, we both know that given pressures for funding etc. a lot of crap is being published). More problematically, those would be funds and man-hours already allotted specifically to scientific research. So if you want to hold that waste constitutes material damage/impediment, it would seem that current scientific conduct (in current socio-political environments) is at least as damaging (if not more) to scientific progress as any other example you might bring up.

But of course bogus PhDs, a crapload of ****ty articles, research into the efficiacy of prayer, the reality of psychics and whatnot is not damaging. It's just not particularly helping and wasteful (PhDs/pub-lists) or unsuccessful (prayer/psychics).

----

Just as a (not so) short comment on another post:

Again – no it is not. That "perimeter of ignorance" exists for every scientist; everyone ultimately reaches a point at which he simply lacks skill/ingenuity/patience/determination to keep pushing. It's nothing but speculation to hold that, had Newton not been religious, he'd have eventually developed the new mathematical tools necessary to move from a 2-body problem to an account of the entire solar system. Only in that case, however, his supernatural beliefs would've been an impediment to Newton.

This entire line of reasoning is, frankly, absurd and betrays a significant misunderstanding on NGTs part on how "the religious mind" works. It’s mind boggling to have NGT say that what Newton is doing when he’s reached his perimeter of ignorance is "the same thing" as what happens when Creationism is being taught in school (9:07). IF it were, he would have to hold that HAD someone come along to show Newton how the 2-body problem could be extended to the solar system, Newton would've continued to insist that only Gods supreme powers keep everything in check. But NGT clearly doesn't believe that. Thus, there is not a shred of evidence in the cases he provides to support the notion that "the belief in the supernatural ultimately impeded specific scientists making further progress". His only argument is (effectively) rhetorical: He starts out with painting Newton as the "most brilliant mind to walk the earth". Then he downplays the significance of the mathematical advances necessary to move from the 2-body problem to the solar system, indicating that had Newton wanted, he'd basically just needed to stroll down to the river to figure those out. Then he simply claims that Newton was way too brilliant to not have been able to achieve exactly that. This leads him to conclude that "his - Newtons - religiosity stopped him" (18:20) Ok. Rolleyes.

Somehow you seem to have missed his general point. He's not interested in showing a selection of examples of "how the belief in the supernatural ultimately impeded specific scientists making further progress" - that is a point he's (failing at) making rather in passing about one specific individual. Rather, his general thrust is, starting off with the observation that according to some TIME-study, 15% of the most brilliant scientists of the US believe in a personal god, he recounts a number of the past greats who have at some point invoked ID, Creationism etc. He's arguing - contra Krauss - that educating the public alone is not enough to "root out" those ideas it will decrease religiosity, but not erase it. He contends that understanding those 15% - and the greats of the past - is the actual clue to eradicating silly beliefs, as those beliefs are not "naturally alien" (or w/e) to scientists. That's basically his entire point and what you deduce from it is by no means borne out by the material he presents. I've found the first 20min of that vid quite illuminating (the last 5 are complete facepalm, unfortunately), so if you want to discuss this further, that would definitely merit an extra thread, imo.

No way am I reading through all that. Given that the theists I find to be consistently charitable, articulate and engaging have seemed to immediately understand and reply to the argument, I'm pretty much just going to assume that there's nothing in your post I need to respond to. If some credible third party thinks there is then I'll respond to it.

For the part I did read, here's a simple test. Tame_deuces, did you mean to suggest that the notion of the supernatural impedes intellectual progress in playwriting and musical composition?

If he responds "yes", then you (Fret) are correct.
If he responds "no" then you are either uncharitable or mistaken.

EZ game.