scientific way of knowing involves evidence, rational thinking, and healthy skepticism

‘Supernatural’ is essentially defined negatively. For you to say that something is supernatural, is to say that there is no natural explanation. Not just that you don’t know of one, but that: there is no natural explanation.

You can then go further and assign other attributes to this negation, but all the evidence really shows is that you don’t know something.

Dark matter and Dark energy, as far as we know describe supernatural entities. We don’t have a natural explanation for either one. For what we know about them, I could call them Cthulhu and Eris. But science goes looking anyway. Why? And really the whole project of science is about ‘explaining the universe’ in terms of the universe. Supernatural is not an explanation, its what you have when you lack and explanation. God is a placeholder that people creatively assign attributes to.

What would you consider evidence for ghosts, or god? I can’t honestly think of anything that would qualify. I would just assume I was either delusional, ignorant, or being conned if god appeared to me.

Bear in mind, my standard for evidence is not the same as religious people. For religious people, feelings and scripture are both evidence. I can’t honestly think of what kind of evidence I would accept for a creator god, or even ghosts.

I don’t see that as protecting religion, I think it makes it clear that religion is not rational in a pretty fundamental way. In fact many religious philosophers claim that it is the irrational nature of religion that demands faith. They are claiming it is irrational. (eg Kierkegaard)

Rational, for them, is equivalent to imperfect human logic.

And, if you are so against “nonsensical arbitrary rules”, I’d say you have eliminated the supernatural from consideration already. That is essentially what any act of god amounts to. It is the ‘arbitrary’ act of a creature, which defies the logic of the universe.

Why haven’t more of your colleagues spoken up? Why couldn’t the defendants at Dover have found expert witnesses willing to challenge the testimony of Pennock and Haught?

I believe that the scientific way of knowing involves evidence, rational thinking, and healthy skepticism. There’s nothing in my understanding of that way of knowing that would restrict me to “natural explanations.”

A scientist cannot say that X event was supernatural, only that X event currently doesn’t have a scientific explanation. God did it, has no value to science, …

Using the scientific way of knowing I can easily imagine that we can find evidence of the supernatural and even of god(s), if he/she/it exists.

Joe, you are illustrating the problem with methodological naturalism the way it’s most commonly used. I reject that usage and I deny that the scientific way of knowing has any such constraints or limits.

Religion doesn’t get protected by nonsensical arbitrary rules.

I should note, I do agree that science can investigate any natural (observable) event. But while science can certainly debunk religious explanations for these events, science is ‘constrained’ to natural explanation. A scientist cannot say that X event was supernatural, only that X event currently doesn’t have a scientific explanation. God did it, has no value to science, unless you take god out of the supernatural box, and put him in the (natural)universe, at which point he more resembles an alien, than anything in monotheistic religion.

Further, unlike many scientists, I really don’t see science as separate all that distinct from philosophy. I think that is more a function of academia. When Stephen Hawking writes his popular books and says Philosophy is dead, his naivete is amusing, but again he is wrong in a very trivial way.

I think every philosopher and scientist should be well versed in the philosophy of science before they start talking about what is and is not science. Some philosophy is crap, but there is plenty of bad science out there too.

I’ve been studying philosophy of science informally, for the last few years, due to my interest in defending science against attacks by religion. I’ve found that methodological naturalism in this context sidelines religious ‘explanation’ to the point of irrelevance, rather than defends it.

As an attack on science, I think, it merely shows how desperate their god of the gaps theology has become.

“Expert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena…. While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science.” Methodological naturalism is thus “a self-imposed convention of science.” It is a “ground rule” that “requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.”

The “constraint” imposed by methodological naturalism is what protects religion from science and it also protects much of philosophy from science.

John Wilkins is promoting a different, and correct view but it’s not the most popular view of methodological naturalism.

Many philosophers and many religious scientists agree with this popular point of view. They think that methodological naturalism is a strict rule in science and it prevents science from investigating any claims involving the supernatural. It’s a limit on what science can do.