Belief in the Balance

Denis Hancock of the Reformed-Angler sent me a link to an article, Belief in the Balance, in the Columbia Missouri Tribune. I thought the article made some helpful distinctions. I especially like this quote:

"It's not that science refutes religion," Miller said. "It's that science looks for natural answers to questions, and if you say, 'Well, we have a tailbone just because our designer put it there,' then you can't make any predictions based on that. You can't explain it. And there's no way to test for that designer."

The ability to test a theory is elemental to science and there is no real way to test for an intelligent designer. But science generated knowledge is limited, precisely because science is limited to empirical observation only. There are other types of knowledge that point to an Intelligent designer but I question whether the science class is the place to teach that knowledge.

Thanks Denis.

Comments

[will spotts]

I'm not sure the distinction is as forceful as some would have us believe.

I too don't feel intelligent design belongs in the classroom. I also am not persuaded that intelligent design really supports a Christian idea of God per se. Where I have a problem with the distinction you site is that that is a way to make naturalistic explanations reflexive to the definition of science.

What I mean is this: many of the states' requirements for science objectives include a statement to the effect that "students will understand that unasisted evolution is responsible for the diverstity of species." That trespasses into being a theological statement -- because it is presented as a fact, and the objective is that students understand that fact. Again, that statement is equally untestable. One cannot prove unassisted evolution any more than one can prove God. Oce can find evidence that supports a contention -- but there is a huge difference between these two.

I find science to be treated -- even by many scientists, but definitely by laymen, as a religion. Pronouncements are accepted based on authority -- not careful examination of evidence. Look at the science of climate change versus the beliefs of the public on the topic. This falls into the same category. I know . . . I know . . . Christians are looking for a way to not make our beliefs look foolish, but we think that by trying to switch them around to conform to scientific opinion of observed material phenomena that we will somehow be standing on more solid ground. I'm not sure this is a fruitful endeavor.

[Michael Kruse]

Here is a comment I posted on someone else's blog last month:

"I don’t view ID as a scientific theory. By definition, science is about explaining and predicting natural events. It is impossible to prove a negative. You can’t prove that something supernatural (didn’t happen naturally) happened because, by definition it is not of the natural world. You can’t formulate any testable hypotheses that positively demonstrate your claims are true. All you can say is what is not true and that you may be without explanation. ID is not empirically open to verification and therefore not a scientific theory. It has no predictive value."

"There are ways of “knowing” other than science. Science cannot be the sole arbiter of many questions precisely because it is limited to the empirical! I don’t believe in God or an Intelligent Designer because irreducible complexity. Tough issues in the past once seemed irreducibly complex only to be understood later by new paradigms. My belief in God comes from other ways of knowing. One who is outside the empirical has entered into the empirical to tell us who is behind it all."

"Therefore, I have no problem believing in the God of the Bible and accepting the strictures of science that only empirical evidence counts. Science is critically important but it is only one limited way of knowing."