Methodological Naturalism

Since you have made it clear that you are either to lazy or to intelectually dishonest to actually read books like the Selfish Gene or any basic text on genetics, general biology, psychology or evolution, I will add to what holmes said but make it easier for you...please give us a list of ANY scientific discovery or invention that has EVER been achieved invoking the supernatural and NOT via MN...I'll make it easy for you..there are noneSecond, you claim you would test your hypotheses but not exclude the supernatural1. give us your testable hypothesis then (about the 100th time asked)
2. show how it is falsifiable
3. show what evidence supports it
4. show how it better explains the data then other hypotheses or theories.answer for Sy the lazy fool...you cannot answer 1, 2 will also be impossible so therefore 3 will never be possible either i.e. you will never have evidence for your fairytale religious myths and 4. evolutionary theory will trump you lame laundry butt every time.Evolutionary theory does not lead to racism Sy...being willifully ignorant fool like you is the clear pathway to Dachau of the early 1940's.But since you are a person of zero principles i.e. claiming that everyone else is a nazi/racist/etc. while evading EVERY challenge to support your statements, I have made it easy for you in this post...I have answered the questions for you...so now run along and start the next wash...I am sure your customers are getting impatient.

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I have provided much evidence to support my claims, but then evolutionists don't accept any evidence whatsover to the point at issue because of the naturalistic fallacy. Wouldn't you know it, the people who go on and on and on about evidence, don't actually accept any evidence whatsoever when push comes to shove.

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Let's take a look at the "evidence" you have provided
1. you have not read any of the books you claim to be so threatened by except for either the title or the in the case of the Selfish Gene, portions of the preface.
2. you have made assertions without demonstrating a single study, observation, or datapoint that supports what you have said.And then you get pissy because nobody accepts your evidence.Here is an example of you supplying evidence,Syamsu rapes vegetables in his his neighbors garden. He rapes pumpkins and potatoes. This is supported by the fact that I say so and because he subscribes to the typical fundie fallacy. It is also supported by the book the Shipping News because a review I read a part of said that there is a rape described in the book...Nazi's raped people..so there you have it Sy...you are a Nazi veggie pervert.And besides being a veggie pervert...you are also a coward as you ran like a scared dog from my last post, avoiding the holes I poked in your babbling.It's 2004 Sy...wake up.[This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 01-19-2004]

That was a fairly lucid, though flawed, post Sy.

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The hypothesis of the book is twofold, first that the gene is the unit of selection that natural selection operates on, which had been mentioned by numerous scientists before, second that genes are selfish, which is Dawkins own invention. The two issues, what the unit of selection is, and whether or not this unit of selection can be said to be selfish, are really separate questions. You could write a similar book entitled the selfish individual, or the selfish group, there is no relation between selfishness and what the unit of selection is.

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The unit of selection is critical to Dawkins book and cannot be replaced. At its extremes, either the entire genome is co-selected or individual genes are in competition. Dawkins is an extreme reductionist and proposes the gene as the primary unit of selection. There is evidence for such genetic behavior for some genetic elements such as certain retrotransposons, but not for all genes. However, your fallacy that you cling to like a porcupine to velcro is that you equate observed changes in allelic frequencies with behavior of sentient individuals.

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Of course any trait or behaviour which negatively affects wellfare would likely be lost in competition with individuals which don't have such traits that negatively effects wellfare, because of the strong relationship between welfare and reproductive rate. It's basicly irrellevant to add that the negative trait has a positive effect on another individual. That part would be cut by Occam's razor, another fault.

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Bzzzt..wrongo...there are many more options besides extinction. Type C endogenous retroviruses such as HERV-L have multiplied dramatically in the human genome wherease HERV-W is a group that is not particularly abundant though extremely well conserved. Thus, both persist in the genome though HERV-L has a much higher relative fitness. HERV-L's do not actively kill HERV-W's. And it is not traits affecting welfare as you put it. It has to do with traits that affect relative reproduction i.e. the ability to produce offspring who in turn can produce offspring.

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Dawkins is of course your typical methodological naturalist, ranting against religion, meanwhile establishing his own substitute religion by injecting subjective discourse into science, as if it were objective.

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Dawkin's aside, since you make a general statement against MN, give us an example of ANY process of discovery or scientific endeavor that has not been accomplished via MN...answer there are none.You will just have to get over the fact that being willfully ignorant yet arrogant and opinionated are not going to overturn or become a substitute for the basis of the scientific endeavor which has been the most successful of humankinds achievements.

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There really is no useful scientific distinction between natural and supernatural unless we know all there is to know! Otherwise, we are left in the absurd position of calling supernatural all that is left to be discovered.

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Of course there is a distinction. The supernatural is not observable either directly or indirectly. It is niether testable nor falsifiable. In what way does invoking any mythological god/gods/pink unicorns/gremlins inform my research on prion pathogenesis? Scientific hypotheses allow one to test each one under as many conditions as possible to reject as many as possible in order to establish which one describes natural phenomenon most accurately. They remain tentative precisely because one does not know all there is to know.Your appeals to the supernatural involve a claim that because you believe in god/gods/ID/pink unicorns, that they therefore exist and are responsible for an observed phenomenon. This cannot be tested and cannot be falsified so is scientifically useless. And it is profoundly anti-scientific because as opposed to the tentativity of actual science, you advocates of pseudoscience claim to have the answer to everything via some none observable and variable mythical being(s). Anyone who disagrees is told "you just did not look hard enough or you looked the wrong way".

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LOL One might say that science is continually reclaiming the supernatural to the natural. But that’s just calling the same thing by another name.

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Wrong, it is not reclaiming the supernatural. I don't know how prion pathogenesis occurs but I can observe it occuring. Anyone can. It is a natural phenomenon. What science "reclaims" is how an observable but unknown mechanism most probably works.When you and your fellow "goddidit" advocates can propose a
1. testable hypothesis of "goddidit"
2. that is falsifiablethen maybe science would "reclaim" your supreme being. But until these two simple requirements are met, there is absolutely no scientific reason to take such musings seriously.

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Your definition of the supernatural must be "that which does not exist." But unless you are omniscient you are not aware of everything that exists, therefore, how do you determine something is supernatural? I define anything that exists as natural. I see no reason to suspect that intelligent design of any kind requires some supernatural cause.

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Nope, my definition is that for which there is no evidence, no possible way to test or gather evidence, and cannot be falsified either logically or empirically. Thus, concepts such as co-factors in prion pathogenesis (which at present have not been directly detected but merely inferred because of properties of the prion protein that suggest they exist i.e. experimental observation) are natural because one can come up with ways to test and/or falsify their existence. If you make an observation in nature, there are plenty of events/phenomenon which are not explained or observed. But you can begin with the observation to develope testable hypotheses to clarify tentatively how the natural event occurs. In addition, anyone can observe the natural phenomenon. Anyone can do the tests, with a little work and training. How do you test whether Goddidit? How do you falsify Goddidit? If only one person claims he is able to see Goddunit..how do you proceed to construct a scientific hypothesis? If person B says the first person is wrong and it is his gods that did it not the god the first person claimed is responsible, how do you determine which is the better fit to the "hypothesis"? Science does not claim that the supernatural does not exist. But since science is how we describe the natural world, why should science (or how could science) incorporate childrens fairytales, Greek mythology, or non- observable or non-reproducible "personal" beliefs? Also, science i.e. methodological naturalism has produced all scientific discoveries to date while appeals to the supernatural have produced absolutely nothing of scientific value...I see no compelling reason to switch to a system that produces nothing scientifically from one which has produced everything to date.

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As far as Darwinian evolution, it contains the concept of common descent - that all life evolved from a common ancestral cell (now, possibly a community of cells). Did Darwin have to explain where that first cell came from in order to put forth his theory? No. Do we yet know "where" the first cell came from? No.

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There is a vast difference between taking a phenomenon like evolution which can be observed in the present via population genetics experiments (particularly Richard Lenski's 20,000 generation bacterial evolution experiments), developmental biology, and through study of the fossil record and extrapolating to past events than there is with postulating a designer for which there is no evidence ,there is nothing in the historical/fossil record to suggest it existed and there is no way to test for it in any case. Darwin did not expound on the origin of the first cell but wisely focused on the process after the fact. None of this requires a designer and there is no reason to posit (and in fact no scientific way) to posit one for abiogenesis either.However, you seem to be a proponent of panspermia or life arising somewhere else and seeding the earth as opposed to a standard ID creationist. But even then, you have not solved the problem of the non-testable non-falsifiable designer. You have merely moved the location of abiogenesis.

Hi Warren,

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The utility of a design paradigm is not measured in terms of
need, but in terms of capabilities. Only if it is incapable of generating
hypotheses, experiments, results, and refined hypotheses, is the
perspective useless and nonproductive in science. That, at least, is my
opinion

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However, this is where ID fails completely. It is completely incapable of generating a testable hypothesis which can be falsified. Thus, there can be no experiments that can be done to test it i.e. it is a supernatural concept. Since you have basically stated you are not particularly interested in life's evolution but in its origins (let me know if this is incorrect) let's focus then on abiogenesis. You claim or that the hypothesis that the first cell was designed and came from another planet can be tested. The latter is possible i.e. we find cells with DNA and all the hallmarks of terrestrial cells on another planet i.e. the astrobiology programs of NASA. But the former is still untestable. Even if life comes from another planet, this only moves the issue of abiogenesis to a new location, but suggest no way of verifying a designer. Though in its infancy, abiogenesis research does work under a series of testable hypotheses that currently lack both enough data and support to differentiate among them i.e. RNA first, DNA first, something else first etc. But at least one can construct hypotheses that can be falsified and this branch of research will proceed as any other science. However, if I say a designer did it and magically put the first replicators here..what do you do with that? Where do you go from there? Which designer was it? Who designed the designer? How can I distinguish among the various options? How can I falsify one versus the other?
ID fails completely.

Stephan would never resort to ad hominems against his opponents..nope, in the Free for All he proclaimed he was above all the ugly evolutionists and their bad behavior...good going Stephan..it seems in your arrogance and delusional state you can justify your behavior to yourself regardless of what you say or do.

I will take this that you concede that you are unable to address my criticism? Oh, and exactly how have you behaved well? Interesting from someone who claims he is a non-hypocrite.How about a little less time on the insults and a little more time attending the many neglected poinst against your position? In fact, there is an entire thread in this forum inviting you to discuss H-D that you have ignored.[This message has been edited by Mammuthus, 01-30-2004]