Friday, September 08, 2006

Should science allow supernatural explanations?

This is a standard question underlying the whole creation vs evolution debate.

The most obvious and honest answer is that science should and MUST allow truth.

It must allow whatever explanation best explains the evidence to the highest degree possible no matter whether we like or do not like that explanation. It must agree to look where the evidence points.

Intelligence is the certainly the best explanation of the existence of the millions of life forms we find on earth. Especially since that life is always highly adapted and complex. More especially since that life has all the well known, well documented , well tested earmarks of design.

Language and coded information can only arise from intelligence. DNA contains a clear organized syntaxed language, if they are no languages themselves in chemical form. DNA is an instruction book.

Moreover, the very fact that macro-evo theory is incapable of showing the genetic, mutational pathways by which the speculated evolution is supposed to have occurred -even for the smallest of life forms, not to mention DNA and RNA - is ample reason for rejecting Darwinism as empirically demonstrable truth.

However, I want to point out the truth about this question based on another well know scientific theorem.

Godel’s incompleteness theorem is probably a reasonable answer to the question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del’s_incompleteness_theorem#
First_incompleteness_theorem

It’s implications basically say that first-truths, or axioms, (truths that need no proof and cannot be proven but are true) do indeed exist.

Simply put - it is one thing to be provable, and a different thing to be true. Truth outruns provability.

It is possible to be wrong yet without being provably so. There are statements which cannot be proven or disproven, but which can still be true or still be false.

So the answer to the topic question is YES. As creationists and IDers have always known long centuries before Godel ;-)

quote:
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” Robert Jastrow

Science does and always has assumed certain metaphysical concepts and assumptions and they cannot be avoided without also avoiding answers to questions about nature.

Let’s put it this way : If the life forms on earth were in fact specially designed and created by some super intelligence would methodological naturalism (which is what Darwinism is) be able to detect this? The obvious answer is no since all supernatural explanations are ruled out by default under that inadequate world view.

Methodological naturalism (MN) is the philosophical tenet that, within scientific inquiry, one can only use natural explanations - i.e. one’s explanations must not make reference to the existence of supernatural forces and entities. Note that methodological naturalism does not hold that such entities or forces do not exist, but merely that one cannot use them within a scientific explanation. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodological_naturalism

Walter ReMine discusses this in his book “The Biotic Message”. I haven’t read it yet and I don’t claim to be any kind of expert on Godel’s theorems but it sounds very useful for Intelligent Design proponents, as ReMine states.

Check it out…there’s a gazillion sites out there on Gode’s theorem.

Modern naturalism cannot account for anything that actually would be of supernatural cause because it does not in fact accept the idea that evidence CAN be shown for it - why? Because the underlying dogma of it's high priests is usually atheism. So as one scientists admitted, "God must not be allowed in the door".

ID, in contrast to creationism, does not claim the designs to be of supernatural origin. A common misconception amongst Darwinists.