Thursday, December 09, 2010

Quote of the Day: "No Miracles Allowed"

The Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C.                                      Image via Wikipedia
"One of the rules of science is, no miracles allowed. That's a fundamental presumption of what we do." -- Douglas H. Erwin, Smithsonian Institution

This could mean one of two things.

It could mean scientists rule out the very possibility of miracles as an a priori assumption, in which case science predicates itself upon an undemonstrated, unproven, empirically empty, unscientific presumption and becomes the intellectually-stunted unscientific pursuit of explanations that fit its preconceptions.

Or, it could mean that miracles may in fact occur, but science, self-constrained by methodological naturalism, will formulate only naturalistic explanations, in which case science becomes the ardent pursuit of false explanations.

Science is a tool. Because of its methodological naturalism constraint, if science as a hammer is confronted with a screw, it's going to insist it's really a nail. That's the way science works.

And that pretty much describes what's going on in cosmology and biology. The more they discover about the fine-tuning of the universe and the complexities of the cell, the more they must realize there's something screwy with their methodological blinkers.
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1 comment:

Joe said...

Never let it be said that science is open minded or interested in inquiry. Unless of course it suits their agenda which is "There is no God therefore there is no God".

"... nothing intellectually compelling or challenging.. bald assertions coupled to superstition... woefully pathetic"