Talk:Methodological naturalism/Archive 1

I'm no creationist (in fact, I don't believe I have a genuine concept of God; I think God talk is a special sort of nonsense). But I do think the second paragraph is still biased. It is couched as a criticism. Now, there's nothing wrong with including criticisms in encyclopedia articles, I think--but only as long as the criticisms are attributed to someone or some group of people, and as long as they are identified as such.

There are no doubt many ways to say what you want to say in a not-quite-so-biased fashion. How about: "Logically speaking, methodological naturalism implies neither philosophical naturalism (the claim that supernatural entities do not exist) nor atheism; it is merely a very widely-accepted constraint on what counts as a legitimate explanation in science." You could just leave it at that. Isn't that enough? What's the reason for pointing out that the opponents of Darwinism, in particular, fail to recognize this, other than to try to discredit the opponents of Darwinism? Perhaps, in the Darwinism article, when the criticism in question are actually stated, the scientists' reply to the criticism can be explained.

I fully agree that creationists deserve to be discredited, by the way. I fully agree that the flaws in their arguments should be pointed out, for example--but only once those arguments have been stated as sympathetically as possible, and only if the views that the arguments are flawed are attributed to someone (rather than to the authoritative, faceless Wikipedia author who knows all). --LMS

OK, I think I fixed it somewhat. MRC To the anon, editor. Most of your edits are good. But I think the some say, others say thing can be taken to far. In some cases, there's no dispute, and it just makes the article look like it was written by someone who didn't do his research (If some say, who are they, and if others object, who are they?) Anyway, I'll be taking only the most egregious of these "weasel words" back out. MRC


 * I agree that they are weasel words. But the original had statements like "certainly" and things like that which are far worse (though, the article isn't really bad... it's fine-- if a bit slanted). I guess we should put the "some say" weasel words in quotes because what I wish had been there were exactly what you request: sources. In effect, the "some say" construction becomes a slot or place holder where more specific info should be... but in this case, without that specific info, I felt it better to move it to the neutral phrase. I don't imagine we should have left it with the "certainly" and "obviously" stuff. In the end I suppose I wouldn't characterize them as weasel words. I would call them "doing our best as copyeditors" words. But that's just characterization one way or the other, because any way you slice it, they are only interim phrases that need to be replaced with specific sources.--trimalchio (the anonymous editor who is at work on a shared computer)

Well, the issue is not that we should or should not qualify some statements. I think the certainly in question was in the paragraph immediately following a quote, and simply summarized the relevant points from that quote. I don't think we need a "some say" there, either summary of the quote is wrong, or it's not. As to it's slight slant toward Johnson, I think you are correct, and I was just re-writing the old version which had a slant the other way. I'll change the interpretation sentence so it does not say certainly, but I don't think we need to qualify it more than that.

I can try to find principled support for a strong distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. (I suspect that people like Howard Van Till hold this view). I did however put a long qoute from a defender of methodological naturalism who is committed to that position on the a priori grounds of philosophical naturalism. I'll try to make his objection to Johnson's project clearer.

I'd also like to be clear about this: I think nearly all of your edits were welcome improvements to the NPOV, but I think we can just state the summary of the quote without attributing our summary to anybody in particular. Especially since the quote is right there in the test. MRC I just have to say wow! This article on Methodological naturalism is excellent. I don't think I've ever seen anything more clear or less biased on the subject matter.

That said, as a "muddle headed religious nut" (I believe absolute truth exists, whether it is attainable or not) I'd have to say this article is biased towards Phillip Johnson's viewpoints (which I tend to agree with). I look forward to further refinement and/or balancing. It can only get better!

I'm sure you realize that once evolutionists start competing with creationists from any sort of empirical standpoint, they've already lost. This would mean throwing out decades of work on the subject of origins.

Most importantly. I'll be doing a lot more reading of the wiki this christmas, particularly all this philosophical mumbo jumbo. RJE

Does anyone know when the term "methodological naturalism" was first used?

I think it was in 1983 in a talk subsequently published in 1986 by ??? but it may have appeared earlier.

Burgy

I don't understand: How could "Lewontin [argue] that true science requires a prior commitment to both methodological and philosophical naturalism," and then "[change] his mind...in order to agree with Johnson's claim that evolutionary theory is based on an absolute or philosophical naturalism?"

If his claims were philosophically naturalistic to begin with, then they must certainly have been methodologically naturalistic, as well. So, it seems, he didn't really change his mind at all.

What gives?

Disclaimer: I have not read Phillip Johnson; I have only read secondary source descriptions of his writings.

This article is currently very inaccurate and it does not at all reflect the way I learned to use the phrase "methodological naturalism." Particularly, the description of MN as a "world view" is not true. MN is a methodology by which scientists take a provisional stance towards the data at hand. Specifically, while doing work as scientists, in their fields, they accept only empirical data as valid and propose only hypotheses which are falsifiable by emprical data.

Many scientists are religious believers for whom the naturalism of science is precisely methodological, a provisional stance taken for the sake of their field of expertise. When not doing science, their stance is most decidedly not naturalistic. For this reason, it does not count as a world view per se, although it is a significant factor in the world view of many if not most modern persons. The world view would be properly described as naturalism, or perhaps more accurately metaphysical naturalism, since it is no longer a provisional, methodological stance, but a commitment about what counts as real.

Currently, this article completely confuses the two concepts.

I'm fairly sure that MN is a common phrase in philosophy of science literature. I am also fairly sure that Philip Kitcher uses the phrase often in his book Abusing Science. Basil Fritts

Any references or authoraties other than the creationists?
creationists such as Johnson are always banging on about how scientific philosophy exlcudes the possibility of creation by their intelligent designer, but is this in use by any proper philosophers of science? Dunc|&#9786; 21:28, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I suggest everyone read William Dembski's take on "scientific naturalism" in his book "Intelligent Design" (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press 1999). It is clear the intelligent design crowd have shoved all scientific enterprise except their own into a small and poorly defined niche. Dembski seems to be saying naturalism in science is atheism or the face of a clockwork universe. I wonder if these folks ever heard of Heisenberg? In any event, I suggest science should leave the philosophers and theologians to debate ultimate causes and deal with the universe as it presents to our senses, our sensors and our minds.

Ditto Basil Fritts
MN is an epistemology, not a metaphysics, it is not a worldview, though it can be used to argue for philosophical naturalism, which is a metaphysics and worldview.

Here are three more references to add to a bibliography that should be included, and read by the article author:

Alvin Plantinga: Methodological Naturalism? Origins & Design 18:1 He is a well-known epistemologist and philosopher of religion.

Barbara Forrest, METHODOLOGICAL NATURALISM AND PHILOSOPHICAL NATURALISM:CLARIFYING THE CONNECTION, PHILO: VOL. 3, NO. 2 FALL-WINTER 2000 - this article can be found on Barbara Forrest's home page.

Intelligent design creationism and its critics : philosophical, theological, and scientific perspectives / edited by Robert T. Pennock Published Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2001 - contains articles discussing MN

modusponens

Whatever happened to this version?
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Methodological_naturalism&direction=prev&oldid=7764695

The article seemed to go suddenly downhill from there, and never substantially recover. Anyone object to a revert to that version? Alai 17:24, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Surely a better job can be done than even the original
Boy, is that article ever misleading. It equates methodological naturalism (MN) with scientific (metaphysical) naturalism, and then goes on to talk about the latter, in language quite similar to what's at Naturalism.Org. Many of the comments in the "talk" page are well taken, including their suggested references, e.g., Barbara Forrest. This entry, and the one on scientific (metaphysical) naturalism need to be redone from top to bottom, so that they accurately reflects the differences. MN is really another name (very misleading btw, imho) for the scientific method, while metaphysical naturalism (as I think of it, anyway) takes the further step of saying that what science shows as the ultimate constituents of the universe are what's real, which rules out supernatural entities that figure in faith-based worldviews.

for TWC, naturalism.org 6:53 EDST, 2005,04,15

Hopefully my edit to the "Naturalism vs. Tradition Religion" section has removed some of the innaccuracies (MN as a worldview, etc). I'm totally stumped as to what to do about the "Cause vs. Effect" section. My first impulse is to delete entirely as it's not only inaccurate but also irrelevant. Unfortunately, I see that someone already tried to delete it and it was reinstated almost immediately. I'll think more about it later, but maybe I'll just end up removing it... Also, I want to add something about how MN doesn't deny the existence of design as some Intelligent Design advocates sometimes imply. Science merely requires that such design hypotheses be falsifiable. I'm not sure where to put that. The intro paragraph seems wrong. Maybe I'll rename the "Naturalism vs. Tradition Religion" into something like "Criticisms of Methodological Naturalism" and throw in the ID thing. TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 21:14, 2005 May 4 (UTC)

Accuracy
Does anyone object to removing the factual accuracy tag now? All of the major problems outlined above seem to have been fixed as far as I can tell. TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa July 6, 2005 00:51 (UTC)

Everybody seems to be either in agreement or apathetic, so I've removed the accuracy tag. TheIncredibleEdibleOompaLoompa 04:27, July 22, 2005 (UTC)