The Scientific Theory Evolution

[steen]

The nScientific Theory of Evolution essentially says that the alleles (gene expression) of a population will change over (generational) time, generally because per adjustments to the environment.

[Bart007]

The nScientific Theory of Evolution essentially says that the alleles (gene expression) of a population will change over (generational) time, generally because per adjustments to the environment.

I can see that this is going to be a Creation friendly forum if this is the definition of evolution being used here. Every creationists is an evolutionists under this definition. We certainly believe in change over time, radiations from a common ancestor is common place.

And environment certainly does play a role in bringing out certain alleles in the genome while previously expressed alleles become recessive (hopefully rather than being eliminated). And the mechanism that brings about said change is natural selection. Even creationists before Darwin, used this concept of 'Natural Selection' as a force that conserve the species and allows a species to adapt to changing environments and adapt to new ecological niches, enabling the species, also known as the created type, to survive. What natural selection can't do is inject new genetic information into a genome (e.g. creature type).

Darwin on the other hand, meant by evolution, that all species share a common ancestry. This type of evolution we creationists have rejected because, well, the Bible says God, the Creator, created each living thing according to its' kind, and because Darwin, and every evolutionists since, have failed to establish any of millions of phylogenies, that Darwin predicted would be found, that connects all species that ever lived through very gradual modification over very long periods of time.

[steen]

Darwin on the other hand, meant by evolution, that all species share a common ancestry..

This is the definition forum. Please don't clutter up the tread with false claims, thanks. If you disagree, please start a tread in the appropriate forum.

[Wordsmith]

The nScientific Theory of Evolution essentially says that the alleles (gene expression) of a population will change over (generational) time, generally because per adjustments to the environment.

In SCIENCE it is necessary that words be unambiguously (precisely) defined. The current oversimplistic definitions for EVOLUTION (as above) is the cause of far more controversy in the creation/evolution dichotomy than disagreement over any actual scientific findings.

Simple "change in allele frequency over time", as currently presented in public school textbooks, provides an excellent confirming example.

A proper definition includes those criteria that are both NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT to differentiate a word from all other terms, particularly from its opposites.

"Change in allele frequency" is only one of several NECESSARY criteria, all of which must be present to be SUFFICIENT to differentiate EVOLUTION (controversial) from its opposites --- as VARIATION, EXTINCTION, GENETIC ENGINEERING, ANIMAL HUSBANDRY, etc. (which are uncontroversial).

A scientific definition for biological EVOLUTION must include all NECESSARY criteria, not selectively those that are ambiguous enough to appear acceptable to the casual reader. Such definition might better read:

"Biological EVOLUTION involves changes in allele frequency in a pre-existing gene pool over time. These changes being random, undirected alterations (mutations) in previously functional genetic code that increase the viability of the life form (to be preserved by natural selection) involved. These changes slowly, but progressively, accumulating over many generations (faster than they are destroyed; see Haldane's Dilemma) producing the increase in genetically coded instructions from a theoretically earliest single self-reproducing cell upward to that observable in higher life forms today."

All continuing controversy as to the scientific status of EVOLUTION is based upon the above NECESSARY "type, or nature", of the gene pool changes involved -- and NOT the accepted, recognized, demonstratable FACT that shifts or "changes in allele frequencey" does indeed occur.

Hope this clarification might help.

Wordsmith

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[Rob]

Theistic Evolutionism

Theistic Evolution (TE) is a theological view in which God creates through the laws of nature. TEs accept all the results of modern science, in anthropology and biology as well as astronomy, physics, and geology. In particular, it is acceptable to TEs that one species can give rise to another; they accept descent with modification. TEs vary in whether and how much God is allowed to intervene--some believe God created laws of nature and is allowing events to occur with no further intervention. Other TEs see God as intervening at critical intervals during the history of life (especially in the origin of humans). ... [T]there is much variation (Hewlett and Peters 2003). In one form or another, TE is the view of creation taught at the majority of mainline Protestant seminaries, and it is the position of the Catholic Church. In 1996, Pope John Paul II reiterated the Catholic version of the TE position, in which God created, evolution happened, humans may indeed be descended from more primitive forms, but the Hand of God is required for the production of the human soul (John Paul II 1996)....

Agnostic Evolutionism

Although poll data indicate that most Americans have a belief in God or some higher power, a minority do not (Kosmin et al. 2002). Just as there are variations in worldview among believers, so also are there differences among those who do not believe in God. The term "agnostic" was coined by "Darwin's Bulldog," the nineteenth-century scientist Thomas Henry Huxley, to refer to someone who suspended judgment about the existence of God. Huxley felt that in this world, it is impossible to know or even grasp ultimate reality; therefore neither belief in nor rejection of the existence of God is warranted. To Huxley, the thoughtful person should suspend judgment. Huxley was a strong supporter of science and believed that knowledge and beliefs should be based upon empirical knowledge--and that supernaturalism would eventually be supplanted by science. But he felt it was more honest not to categorically reject an ultimate force or power beyond the material world (Huxley [2002] 1884).

I have no doubt that scientific criticism will prove destructive to the forms of supernaturalism which enter into the constitution of existing religions. On trial of any so-called miracle the verdict of science is “Not proven.” But true Agnosticism will not forget that existence, motion, and law-abiding operation in nature are more stupendous miracles than any recounted by the mythologies, and that there may be things, not only in the heavens and earth, but beyond the intelligible universe, which “are not dreamt of in our philosophy.” The theological “gnosis” would have us believe that the world is a conjuror’s house; the anti-theological “gnosis” talks as if it were a “dirt-pie” made by the two blind children, Law and Force. Agnosticism simply says that we know nothing of what may beyond phenomena.

Agnostics believe that in this life, it is impossible truly to know whether there is a God, and although they believe that it is not probable that God exists, they tend not to be dogmatic about this conclusion. AEs accept the scientific evidence that evolution occurred, but they do not consider important the question of whether God is or was or will be involved. They differ from the next position on the continuum by not categorically ruling out the involvement of God, although like Materialist Evolutionists, they are nonbelievers.

Materialist Evolutionism

We should distinguish between two uses of the term "materialism" (or "naturalism"). As we discussed earlier [see pp. 50; 124; 237; 246; 249], modern science operates under a rule of methodological naturalism that limits it to attempting to explain natural phenomena using natural causes. Materialist Evolutionists (ME) go beyond the methodological naturalism of science to propose not only that natural causes are sufficient to explain natural phenomena, but also that the supernatural does not exist. This is a form of philosophical naturalism. To a philosophical naturalist, there is no God. The philosophy of humanism is a materialistic philosophy, as is atheism. ... [P]hilosophical naturalism is distinct from the practical rules of how to do science.

This is an important distinction ... because some anti-evolutionists criticize evolution and science in general for being not only methodologically naturalistic but also philosophically naturalistic. This is a logical error.… It is very likely the case that all philosophical naturalists are simultaneously methodological naturalists (all Ps are Ms). It does not follow that all methodological naturalists are philosophical naturalists (not all Ms are Ps). It might be the case … but this would have to be determined empirically, not logically. In fact, such a claim is empirically falsified, for there are many scientists who accept methodological naturalism in their work, but who are theists and therefore not philosophical naturalists. Gregor Medal--the monk whose research become the foundation of genetics--is a classic case of a scientist who was a methodological naturalist but not a philosophical one, and there are many scientists today who, like him, are methodological but not philosophical naturalists.

[Of the three major groups of materialists; agnostic and humanists,] atheists, reject the existence of God but tend to be more actively antireligious than the other two.

Religion, Science, and Philosophical Naturalism

What are the relationships among religion, science, and philosophical naturalism? (….) All three of these terms refer to ways of knowing: a field of study that philosophers call “epistemology.” The epistemology we call science is primarily a methodology that attempts to explain the natural world using natural causes…. Science is actually a quite limited way of knowing, with limited goals and a limited set of tools to use to accomplish those goals.

(….) When a scientist makes a statement like “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind” (Simpson 1967: 344), it is clear that he or she is speaking from the perspective of philosophical naturalism rather than from the methodology of science itself. As anthropologist Matt Cartmill has observed, “Many scientists are atheists or agnostics who want to believe that the natural world they study gives them grounds for that belief. It’s an honorable belief, but it isn’t a research finding” (Cartmill 1988: 83). (….)

Religion concerns the relationship of people with the divine, but it also may include explanations of the natural world and the origin of natural phenomena. Religious views almost universally derive from revelation, but this does not rule out the use of empirical and logical approaches to theology. In fact, many Christian denominations pride themselves on their reliance on logic and reason as a means both to understand the natural world and to evaluate theological positions. But an ultimate reliance on revelation can place religion into conflict with science. … When revealed truth conflicts with empirical knowledge, how does one choose?

(….) In science, on the other hand, there is no revealed truth. Although some explanations are believed to be very solidly grounded, it is understood that even well supported theories can be modified and, in rare circumstances, might even be replaced by other explanations. For the limited purpose of explaining the natural world, science has a major advantage over religion in that individuals of different philosophical, religious, cultural, and/or ideological orientations, using the methodology or science, can debate their differences based on repeatable--and repeatedempirical investigations. Different scientists, using different techniques, technologies, and observational approaches, provide validation not possible through revelation.

Scientists looking at geological and biological data can piece together a natural history of the Grand Canyon and test one another’s explanations against the lay of the land itself. The ability to go back to natureagain and againto test explanations, rework them, and retest them is one of the strengths of science and a major contributor to the amount of empirical knowledge exponentially amassed over the last 300 years. To some, though, the open-endedness of science is a weakness: they seek definite answers that will never change. For them, Ashley Montagu’s definition of science as “truth without certainty” is insufficient; for others, it is science’s greatest strength (Montagu 1984: 9)

Just as attempts to explain the natural world through revelation cause friction with scientists, so also do statements by some materialist scientistsspeaking in the name of sciencewho make statements about the ultimate nature of reality cause friction with religious people. [Other scientists as well point out this form of scientism too.] Upon reflection it should be recognizable that if science has the limited goal of explaining the natural world using natural causes, it lacks the tools to make justifiable statements about whether there is or is not a universe beyond the familiar one of matter and energy.

-- Scott, Eugenie C. wip. Evolution vs. Creationism: And Introdution. California: University of California Press; 2004; pp. 64-68.

Eugenie C. Scott is Excutive Director of the National Center for Science Education. She has written extensively on the evolution/creationism controversy and is past president of the American Association of Physical Antrhropologists.

[Rob]

Perhaps the most important reason scientists restrict themselves to materialist explanations is that the methods of science are inadequate to test explanations involving supernatural forces. (....) We have been discussing a rule of science that requires that scientific explanations use only material (matter, energy, and their interaction) cause; this is known as methodological naturalism. To go beyond methodological naturalism to claim that only natual causes exist--that is, that there is no God or, more generally, no supernatural entities--is philosophical naturalism. The two views are logically distinct because one can be a methodological naturalist but not accept naturalism as a philosophy. Many scientists who are theists are examples: in their scientific work they explain natural phenomena in terms of natural causes, even if in their personal lives they believe in God, and even that God may intervene in nature. (Scott 2004: 50)

Intelligent Design supporters are hostile to methodological materialism and propose a new kind of science, "theistic science." (Scott 2004: 124)

Anti-evolutionists, especially Intelligent Design (ID) supporters, believe that evolution seems plausible only to those in the grips of a nonscientific ideology: philosophical naturalism. Evolutionists respond that the sort of naturalism implicit in science is only methodological, adopted not dogmatically but to enable scientific progress. (Scott 2004: 237)

Empirical testing relies fundamentally upon use of the lawful regularities of nature that science has been able to discover and sometimes codify in natural laws. (….) Of course science is based upon a philosophical system, but not one that is extravagant speculation. Science operates by empirical principles of observational testing; hypotheses must be confirmed or disconfirmed by reference to empirical data. (….) Science assumes Methodological Naturalism because to do otherwise would be to abandon its empirical evidential touchstone (pp. 88-89). (Scott 2004: 249-250)

Selection excerpted from:

Pennock, Robert T. 1999. Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Book/MIT Press.


... Scientific explanation--explanations put forward on the basis of scientific consideration--are fully naturalistic, and have no place for appeal to a supernatural agent. It does not follow from this, however, that all correct explanations are scientific explanations. We must distinguish between scientific claims--claims made from within science--and claims made about science. One important claim about science (one that I reject) is that science is the arbiter of all knowable truth, that there is nothing to be known beyond what science delivers. Call this claim "scientism."

(Scientism) Science is the arbiter of all knowable truth.

If scientism were correct, then from the commitment of science to methodological naturalism, it would follow that all correct explanations (not just scientific explanations) are naturalistic. That stance would rule out, a priori, any explanation that appealed to God. This, I think, would be a bias. But this does not follow from the methodological naturalism of science; it follows only with the addition of the metaphysical extra-scientific thesis of scientism. Scientism is like a closure principle--“and that’s all there is.” If we reject scientism, as I think that we should, then from the fact that all scientific explanations are naturalistic, it does not follow that all legitimate explanations are naturalistic. So, exclusion of God from the science classroom is not necessarily exclusion of God elsewhere--for example, where we are trying to give a metaphysical account of why there is something rather than nothing at all. This latter question--Why is there anything rather than nothing at all?--is not a scientific question and will not be susceptible to a scientific explanation. But unless we are scientistic, we may think that there is some explanation--albeit not a scientific one. Again, however, question not susceptible to scientific answers do not belong in a science classroom.

… To sum up: Science is not committed to the nonexistence of God, as it would be if it were based on metaphysical naturalism. Science is committed to naturalistic explanations. Science does not count any explanation that appeals to God or to supernatural phenomena as a scientific explanation (thus, it is committed to methodological naturalism). But methodological naturalism is not bias: it is in the nature of science. And unless one conjoins methodological naturalism with scientism, nothing at all follows about the nonexistence of God. So, methodological naturalism (but not scientism) is part of science, and given the success of science, it is idle to charge that science should be something other than what it is (pp. 57-59) (Scott 2004: 251-252)

Selection excerpted from:

Baker, Lynn Rudder. 2000. God and Science in the Public Schools. Philosophic Exchange 30: 53-69.

The Game of Science

Richard Dickerson is a molecular biologist.

Science, fundamentally, is a game. It is a game with one overriding and defining rule:

Rule No. 1: Let us see how far and to what extent we can explain the behavior of the physical and material universe in terms of purely physical and material causes, without invoking the supernatural.

Operational science takes no position about the existence or non-existence of the supernatural; it only requires that this factor is not to be invoked in scientific explanations.

(....) It would augur well, for both science and religion, if creationists and evolutionary biologists would realize jointly that the question of the existence or the nonexistence of a Deity is irrelevant to the study of biological evolution. Both the die-hard atheist and the theistic evolutionist can function as modern biologists with absolute integrity. (Scott 2004: 252-253)

Selection excerpted from:

Dickerson, Richard E. 1992. The Game of Science. Journal of Molecular Evolution 34: 277-279.

-- Scott, Eugenie C. Evolution vs. Creationism: And Introdution. California: University of California Press; 2004; p. 50; 124; 237; 249-253.

[Rob]

[W]hat we mean by the word "science" in general usage is something which does not make reference to God and so forth, but which is marked by methodological naturalism. .... Since the scientific revolution, the professional practice of science has been marked by an ever-greater reluctance to admit social or cultural beliefs, including those of religion. (Ruse 2001: 101)

(....) The fact is that, having set the boundaries to science, many do go on immediately to claim that what lies beyond the boundaries is wrong or misguided or nonsensical. In the language we have been using, whatever people may say that they are doing -- and many are proudly open in their actions -- there is often a slide from methodological to metaphysical naturalism. The logical positivists used to claim that everything outside logic and science is meaningless, and this would certainly include Christianity. Plantinga is absolutely right that there is a tendency to characterize science on the basis of subjects like Darwinism and then to denigrate everything which does not fit the pattern. But note that this is surely only a tendency, ... and there is nothing in Darwinism, or in the notion of science that it supports, which says that [one's religious or philosophical] commitment is [a priori] wrong or stupid. .... If scientists and philosophers persist in saying that [any religious faith and/or belief] position is meaningless simply because it is not science, then it is they who are guilty of arbitrary stipulative definitions. (Ruse 2001: 101)

(....) There is no question that many scientists, Darwinians at the front, take their naturalism so seriously (dare one say, religiously) that they sound like David Hume at his most ferocious. They simply would not accept any law-breaking miracle, and if indeed Christianity depends on them, so much the worse for it. (....) [O]ur powers of sense and reason are God-given, and although employing them in finding out the nature of the world may lead to revisions in our faith, this activity can hardly be considered inherently irreligious. (....) Science stoppers are just that: science stoppers. One might well say that they should be no more acceptable to the Christian than to the Darwinian. (Ruse 2001: 106)

-- Ruse, Michael wip. Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2001; pp. 101-102; 106.

Michael Ruse is a sociobiologist/philosopher and a self-described die-hard Darwinian.

[Rob]

Scientists have unintentionally precipitated mankind into a materialistic panic; they have started an unthinking run on the moral bank of the ages, but this bank of human experience has vast spiritual resources; it can stand the demands being made upon it. Only unthinking men become panicky about the spiritual assets of the human race. When the materialistic-secular panic is over, the religion of Jesus will not be found bankrupt. The spiritual bank of the kingdom of heaven will be paying out faith, hope, and moral security to all who draw upon it "in His name."

No matter what the apparent conflict between materialism and the teachings of Jesus may be, you can rest assured that, in the ages to come, the teachings of the Master will fully triumph. In reality, true religion cannot become involved in any controversy with science; it is in no way concerned with material things. Religion is simply indifferent to, but sympathetic with, science, while it supremely concerns itself with the scientist.

The pursuit of mere knowledge, without the attendant interpretation of wisdom and the spiritual insight of religious experience, eventually leads to pessimism and human despair. A little knowledge is truly disconcerting.

At the time of this writing the worst of the materialistic age is over; the day of a better understanding is already beginning to dawn. The higher minds of the scientific world are no longer wholly materialistic in their philosophy, but the rank and file of the people still lean in that direction as a result of former teachings. But this age of physical realism is only a passing episode in man's life on earth. Modern science has left true religion--the teachings of Jesus as translated in the lives of his believers--untouched. All science has done is to destroy the childlike illusions of the misinterpretations of life.

Science is a quantitative experience, religion a qualitative experience, as regards man's life on earth. Science deals with phenomena; religion, with origins, values, and goals. To assign causes as an explanation of physical phenomena is to confess ignorance of ultimates and in the end only leads the scientist straight back to the first great cause--the Universal Father of Paradise.

The violent swing from an age of miracles to an age of machines has proved altogether upsetting to man. The cleverness and dexterity of the false philosophies of mechanism belie their very mechanistic contentions. The fatalistic agility of the mind of a materialist forever disproves his assertions that the universe is a blind and purposeless energy phenomenon.

The mechanistic naturalism of some supposedly educated men and the thoughtless secularism of the man in the street are both exclusively concerned with things; they are barren of all real values, sanctions, and satisfactions of a spiritual nature, as well as being devoid of faith, hope, and eternal assurances. One of the great troubles with modern life is that man thinks he is too busy to find time for spiritual meditation and religious devotion.

Materialism reduces man to a soulless automaton and constitutes him merely an arithmetical symbol finding a helpless place in the mathematical formula of an unromantic and mechanistic universe. But whence comes all this vast universe of mathematics without a Master Mathematician? Science may expatiate on the conservation of matter, but religion validates the conservation of men's souls--it concerns their experience with spiritual realities and eternal values.

The materialistic sociologist of today surveys a community, makes a report thereon, and leaves the people as he found them. Nineteen hundred years ago, unlearned Galileans surveyed Jesus giving his life as a spiritual contribution to man's inner experience and then went out and turned the whole Roman Empire upside down.

But religious leaders are making a great mistake when they try to call modern man to spiritual battle with the trumpet blasts of the Middle Ages. Religion must provide itself with new and up-to-date slogans. Neither democracy nor any other political panacea will take the place of spiritual progress. False religions may represent an evasion of reality, but Jesus in his gospel introduced mortal man to the very entrance upon an eternal reality of spiritual progression.

To say that mind "emerged" from matter explains nothing. If the universe were merely a mechanism and mind were unapart from matter, we would never have two differing interpretations of any observed phenomenon. The concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness are not inherent in either physics or chemistry. A machine cannot know, much less know truth, hunger for righteousness, and cherish goodness.

Science may be physical, but the mind of the truth-discerning scientist is at once supermaterial. Matter knows not truth, neither can it love mercy nor delight in spiritual realities. Moral convictions based on spiritual enlightenment and rooted in human experience are just as real and certain as mathematical deductions based on physical observations, but on another and higher level.

If men were only machines, they would react more or less uniformly to a material universe. Individuality, much less personality, would be nonexistent.

The fact of the absolute mechanism of Paradise at the center of the universe of universes, in the presence of the unqualified volition of the Second Source and Center, makes forever certain that determiners are not the exclusive law of the cosmos. Materialism is there, but it is not exclusive; mechanism is there, but it is not unqualified; determinism is there, but it is not alone.

The finite universe of matter would eventually become uniform and deterministic but for the combined presence of mind and spirit. The influence of the cosmic mind constantly injects spontaneity into even the material worlds.

Freedom or initiative in any realm of existence is directly proportional to the degree of spiritual influence and cosmic-mind control; that is, in human experience, the degree of the actuality of doing "the Father's will." And so, when you once start out to find God, that is the conclusive proof that God has already found you.

The sincere pursuit of goodness, beauty, and truth leads to God. And every scientific discovery demonstrates the existence of both freedom and uniformity in the universe. The discoverer was free to make the discovery. The thing discovered is real and apparently uniform, or else it could not have become known as a thing.

How foolish it is for material-minded man to allow such vulnerable theories as those of a mechanistic universe to deprive him of the vast spiritual resources of the personal experience of true religion. Facts never quarrel with real spiritual faith; theories may. Better that science should be devoted to the destruction of superstition rather than attempting the overthrow of religious faith--human belief in spiritual realities and divine values.

Science should do for man materially what religion does for him spiritually: extend the horizon of life and enlarge his personality. True science can have no lasting quarrel with true religion. The "scientific method" is merely an intellectual yardstick wherewith to measure material adventures and physical achievements. But being material and wholly intellectual, it is utterly useless in the evaluation of spiritual realities and religious experiences.

The inconsistency of the modern mechanist is: If this were merely a material universe and man only a machine, such a man would be wholly unable to recognize himself as such a machine, and likewise would such a machine-man be wholly unconscious of the fact of the existence of such a material universe. The materialistic dismay and despair of a mechanistic science has failed to recognize the fact of the spirit-indwelt mind of the scientist whose very supermaterial insight formulates these mistaken and self-contradictory concepts of a materialistic universe.

Paradise values of eternity and infinity, of truth, beauty, and goodness, are concealed within the facts of the phenomena of the universes of time and space. But it requires the eye of faith in a spirit-born mortal to detect and discern these spiritual values.

The realities and values of spiritual progress are not a "psychologic projection"--a mere glorified daydream of the material mind. Such things are the spiritual forecasts of the indwelling Adjuster, the spirit of God living in the mind of man. And let not your dabblings with the faintly glimpsed findings of "relativity" disturb your concepts of the eternity and infinity of God. And in all your solicitation concerning the necessity for self-expression do not make the mistake of failing to provide for Adjuster-expression, the manifestation of your real and better self.

If this were only a material universe, material man would never be able to arrive at the concept of the mechanistic character of such an exclusively material existence. This very mechanistic concept of the universe is in itself a nonmaterial phenomenon of mind, and all mind is of nonmaterial origin, no matter how thoroughly it may appear to be materially conditioned and mechanistically controlled.

The partially evolved mental mechanism of mortal man is not overendowed with consistency and wisdom. Man's conceit often outruns his reason and eludes his logic.

The very pessimism of the most pessimistic materialist is, in and of itself, sufficient proof that the universe of the pessimist is not wholly material. Both optimism and pessimism are concept reactions in a mind conscious of values as well as of facts. If the universe were truly what the materialist regards it to be, man as a human machine would then be devoid of all conscious recognition of that very fact. Without the consciousness of the concept of values within the spirit-born mind, the fact of universe materialism and the mechanistic phenomena of universe operation would be wholly unrecognized by man. One machine cannot be conscious of the nature or value of another machine.

A mechanistic philosophy of life and the universe cannot be scientific because science recognizes and deals only with materials and facts. Philosophy is inevitably superscientific. Man is a material fact of nature, but his life is a phenomenon which transcends the material levels of nature in that it exhibits the control attributes of mind and the creative qualities of spirit.

The sincere effort of man to become a mechanist represents the tragic phenomenon of that man's futile effort to commit intellectual and moral suicide. But he cannot do it.

If the universe were only material and man only a machine, there would be no science to embolden the scientist to postulate this mechanization of the universe. Machines cannot measure, classify, nor evaluate themselves. Such a scientific piece of work could be executed only by some entity of supermachine status.

If universe reality is only one vast machine, then man must be outside of the universe and apart from it in order to recognize such a fact and become conscious of the insight of such an evaluation.

If man is only a machine, by what technique does this man come to believe or claim to know that he is only a machine? The experience of self-conscious evaluation of one's self is never an attribute of a mere machine. A self-conscious and avowed mechanist is the best possible answer to mechanism. If materialism were a fact, there could be no self-conscious mechanist. It is also true that one must first be a moral person before one can perform immoral acts.

The very claim of materialism implies a supermaterial consciousness of the mind which presumes to assert such dogmas. A mechanism might deteriorate, but it could never progress. Machines do not think, create, dream, aspire, idealize, hunger for truth, or thirst for righteousness. They do not motivate their lives with the passion to serve other machines and to choose as their goal of eternal progression the sublime task of finding God and striving to be like him. Machines are never intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, ethical, moral, or spiritual.

Art proves that man is not mechanistic, but it does not prove that he is spiritually immortal. Art is mortal morontia, the intervening field between man, the material, and man, the spiritual. Poetry is an effort to escape from material realities to spiritual values.

In a high civilization, art humanizes science, while in turn it is spiritualized by true religion--insight into spiritual and eternal values. Art represents the human and time-space evaluation of reality. Religion is the divine embrace of cosmic values and connotes eternal progression in spiritual ascension and expansion. The art of time is dangerous only when it becomes blind to the spirit standards of the divine patterns which eternity reflects as the reality shadows of time. True art is the effective manipulation of the material things of life; religion is the ennobling transformation of the material facts of life, and it never ceases in its spiritual evaluation of art.

How foolish to presume that an automaton could conceive a philosophy of automatism, and how ridiculous that it should presume to form such a concept of other and fellow automatons!

Any scientific interpretation of the material universe is valueless unless it provides due recognition for the scientist. No appreciation of art is genuine unless it accords recognition to the artist. No evaluation of morals is worth while unless it includes the moralist. No recognition of philosophy is edifying if it ignores the philosopher, and religion cannot exist without the real experience of the religionist who, in and through this very experience, is seeking to find God and to know him. Likewise is the universe of universes without significance apart from the I AM, the infinite God who made it and unceasingly manages it.

Mechanists--humanists--tend to drift with the material currents. Idealists and spiritists dare to use their oars with intelligence and vigor in order to modify the apparently purely material course of the energy streams.

Science lives by the mathematics of the mind; music expresses the tempo of the emotions. Religion is the spiritual rhythm of the soul in time-space harmony with the higher and eternal melody measurements of Infinity. Religious experience is something in human life which is truly supermathematical.

In language, an alphabet represents the mechanism of materialism, while the words expressive of the meaning of a thousand thoughts, grand ideas, and noble ideals--of love and hate, of cowardice and courage--represent the performances of mind within the scope defined by both material and spiritual law, directed by the assertion of the will of personality, and limited by the inherent situational endowment.

The universe is not like the laws, mechanisms, and the uniformities which the scientist discovers, and which he comes to regard as science, but rather like the curious, thinking, choosing, creative, combining, and discriminating scientist who thus observes universe phenomena and classifies the mathematical facts inherent in the mechanistic phases of the material side of creation. Neither is the universe like the art of the artist, but rather like the striving, dreaming, aspiring, and advancing artist who seeks to transcend the world of material things in an effort to achieve a spiritual goal.

The scientist, not science, perceives the reality of an evolving and advancing universe of energy and matter. The artist, not art, demonstrates the existence of the transient morontia world intervening between material existence and spiritual liberty. The religionist, not religion, proves the existence of the spirit realities and divine values which are to be encountered in the progress of eternity.

[Rob]

Many people continue to think of the scientific world view as being exclusively materialist and deterministic, but if science discovers forces and fields and indeterministic causal processes, [this begs the question of how "causal" is defined, which is a very important question raised by quantum theory] then these too are to be accepted as part of the naturalistic worldview. The key point is that naturalism is not necessarily tied to specific ontological claims (about what sorts of being do or don't exist); its base commitment is to a method of inquiry. (Pennock 1999: 190)

Of course one could choose to take a set of basic ontological categories from science at a particular time and then claim that only these things exist. The seventeenth century mechanistic materialists, who held that the world consists of nothing but material particles in motion, did just this, and there are any number of other ways that one could decide to fix base ontological commitments. This type of view is known as metaphysical or ontological naturalism. The ontological naturalist makes substantive claims about what exists in nature and then adds a closure clause stating "and that is all there is." (....) [M]any [mechanistic materialists] ... do agree on a common negative claim: because God standardly is assumed to be supernatural, the typical ontological naturalist denies God's existence. (Pennock 1999: 190)

(....) Ontological naturalism should be distinguished from the more common contemporary view, which is known as methodological naturalism. The methodological naturalist does not make a commitment directly to a picture of what exists in the world, but rather to a set of methods as a reliable way to find out about the world--typically the methods of the natural sciences, and perhaps extensions that are continuous with them--and indirectly to what those methods discover. An important feature of science is that its conclusions are defeasible on the basis of new evidence, so whatever tentative substantive claims the methodological naturalist makes are always open to revision or abandonment on the basis of new, countervailing evidence. Because the base commitment of a methodological naturalist is to a mode of investigation that is good for finding out about the empirical world, even the specific methods themselves are open to change and improvement; science might adopt promising new methods and refine existing ones if doing so would provide better evidential warrant. (Pennock 1999: 191)

-- Pennock, Robert T. wip. Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism. Cambridge: Bradford Book/MIT Press; 1999; pp. 190-191.