Faith Well Grounded

...but I hope to form a post for full treatment of the subject so that we can dissect it more fully there. Until then, here's a response, lost in the weeds for the sake of continuity... :^)

I was going to leave this alone, due to your requests to stay on topic, but you drag us out into the weeds just as often as I do. I'll try to keep it brief.

Which I readily admit. Please understand that the “stay on topic” comment was more so a tongue-in-cheek reference to your previous request of the same. ? But I am glad that we stayed on that topic well enough to finish our thoughts and understand each other’s thinking.

I have to disagree strongly with you there. Scientific pursuits have been documented in the earliest of writings, and there's no reason to believe they weren't passed through oral tradition before that. Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians certainly studied math and astronomy extensively. Ancient Greeks likewise devoted much effort to questions of order in the natural world. Much of that scholarship was adopted and expanded by the Arab (Islamic) world while Europe (Christian) was mired in the Dark Ages.

Hmmm… I think the confusion may be that we are each talking about something different, which is partly my fault because of the statement: “It was because of Christian doctrine that people got the idea that they could study, that there were natural laws to find, that they would be repeatable...“. It may help to go back and view that statement within the context of my original assertion, per: “the scientific process as we know it.” I apologize for the lack of clarity; it wasn’t intentional. I was under the assumption that that’s what you were talking about too, as opposed to simple inquiry, “pursuits”, “oral traditions”, “studies” and “questions”. I guess what led me to believe that you, too, were discussing this definition of science as the modern process was that it’s what you are claiming creationism, ID and astrology are barred from (in a false comparison of ID and astrology.)

My intended point was that modern science was birthed by Christianity. It’s true that other cultures may have aided in its conception, but only Christianity had the coherent worldview to standardize it and foster it into its modern practice.

With your latest comment that seems to indicate a broader definition, it seems to me that after claiming that ID and astrology aren’t science, you are now claiming that the astrologers and mystics of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia were scientists. Understand, either way is fine with me. No matter which way you define science, you are still left with Capernicus, Kepler, Gilber, Paracelsus, Van Helmunt, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, etc as the fathers of modern science, and all of them were creationist scientists working within the Intelligent Design framework!

My driving point is against your claim that creationism isn’t science (and that Christianity is hostile toward it). My driving point is that history proves you wrong. Your claim that ID is not science is like claiming that the model T wasn’t a car. Relying on the Egyptians and Mesopotamians to try to refute me is like claiming that the horse and buggy was, but the model T wasn’t. Relying on the Muslims is like trying to claim that a model T isn’t a car but a model A is. (Even the Muslim efforts were from a creationist worldview.)

Oh, and… You may want to revisit your outlook on the “Dark Ages”, as many historians are now doing. It turns out, it wasn’t so dark when it comes to scientific inquiry. (**** See footer note**** Many are dating the “scientific revolution” as early as the “dark” ages, others at the time of Capernius—did I mention he was a creationist? :^)-- Either way, it was under the care and filter of the Christian worldview.)

Europe only emerged after a rediscovery of the classic studies and newfound communication with Arab and Eastern cultures.
As mentioned above, the revisit of the dark ages is gaining steam more recently, but the idea was being questioned as early as the late 1800s, with the discovery of the works of Jordanus de Nemore in the 13th century, and Albert of Saxon, Jean Buridan, Nicole Oresme, all in the 14th.

Now, it is true, there was a renewed interest in the classical studies (and input from Muslims) but, again, I am confused that you seem to be making the argument that science was saved from the dark age “mysticism” by a reintroduction to the classic “mystics” by an ID group that (by your definition) would be equal to mystics (astrologers, etc…)?

That still doesn't answer the "why?" question. If ID is correct and forms the bedrock of reality, why would it be abandoned in favor of a less correct viewpoint?

That’s the point that I was trying to make. It is a social question and not a scientific one. Darwin didn’t produce any evidence to overturn ID science. He gave academia a possibility, a mechanism to bolster naturalistic philosophy— a creation story that it desperately needed.

Now, as to “why”… That’s a pretty big question. Many believe it’s primarily rooted in a backlash against the perceived oppression of Roman Catholicism, the supposed “Enlightenment” where reason supposedly became “god”, a newfound adherence to the (self-refuting) philosophical reliance on empiricism as the only trustworthy source of knowledge… In any event, it was clearly a philosophical change and not a scientific one.

Well, for one thing, I'll tell you that I KNOW I didn't say anything about the beginning of the universe. I mentioned Newton's writings on the beginning of the solar system.

I apologize if I misinterpreted your point. However, from what I can tell, in the context that you further defined what you meant, you were misspeaking for Newton. He wrote that they were so majestically aligned that they must be the handiwork of God. Nothing that I’ve read would indicate that he described it as placement. He DID write as if it were Natural law given by the natural Lawgiver. As a matter of fact, Newton leaned toward the mindset of “mechanist” (one of three groupings of scientific thought at the time). A mechanist was so named because of the importance and prominence that he put on natural law. Yet, he held his mechanistic views within a belief in “contingent order”, i.e. that God could and does intervene with His creation, yet created it to work based on order and repeatable laws.

Behe’s major claim is that natural selection is not sufficient to create many of the molecular-level machinery/processes that we find in living organisms. Now bear in mind, I’ve followed that claim fairly closely and read all of the supposed refutations/Behe’s responses that I can find. What I find are either straw-man arguments against Behe’s definition of irreducible complexity (by far the most common), just-so stories as explanation (that ignore many of the points Behe raises in presenting his case), or faith that an explanation will be forthcoming. Now, all but one of the above responses are OK by me as long as everyone involved recognize that they aren’t based on “observation”, or that they “know better” than Behe, ID scientists, etc…

So, I apologize for misrepresenting your intent. But I do reassert that we have observed NOTHING that refutes Newton’s (or Behe’s) actual claims.

I said we "know better." It's a turn of phrase. It does not mean we KNOW the answers. My paraphrase of Newton and Behe was that "god must be directly responsible." "Knowing better" means that we understand there are other explanations that happen to be more likely and useful.

I question your paraphrase, but that’s OK. I think that you are hijacking a bit with the “we understand”, which is just another way to make your former claim (turn of phrase) that you “know better” than the other camp. Your opinion on “likely” and “useful” aren’t remotely definitive. (I love that you rely on your ill-defined concept of “likely” while relying on “chance” and ignoring probability mathematics :^) ).

Forgive me if I don't see the relevancy of your Bible quotes.

I was making the point that you were claiming a lot of knowledge in your response, if your claim was to KNOW all of this, especially considering that the scripture quoted dealt with many of the areas you (seemed to be) claimed KNOWledge in. You don’t have to see the scripture as divine to understand the implication of the subject matter. Now, in hindsight, with the realization that you know that you weren’t there when the actions we are describing took place… :^)

Is it an offense against god to study the natural world and devise useful concepts about it? If we invoke his name in every experiment and add "amen" to every hypothesis, will that make them more useful?

I’m very interested… Is that really the point you thought I was trying to make?

**** Note: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_revolution . I find it interesting that about the time of Darwinism is when the revolution is dated as ending…

“The Scientific Revolution could be dated the year in which Nicolaus Copernicus published his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) and Andreas Vesalius published his De humani corporis fabrica (On the Fabric of the Human Body). As with many historical demarcations, historians of science disagree about its boundaries. The period is often dated to the 16th and 17th centuries, though some see elements contributing to the revolution as early as the Middle Ages.[1][2] and finding its last stages in chemistry and biology in the 18th and 19th centuries.[3] There is general agreement, however, that the intervening period saw a fundamental transformation in scientific ideas in physics, astronomy, and biology, in institutions supporting scientific investigation, and in the more widely held picture of the universe. As a result, the scientific revolution is commonly viewed as a foundation of modern science.[4] The "Continuity Thesis" is the opposing view that there was no radical discontinuity between the development of science in the Middle Ages and later developments in the Renaissance and early modern period.“