Difference between revisions of "Talk:Methodological naturalism"
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It's really a confounding of method and scope. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 14:30, 13 July 2007 (EDT) | It's really a confounding of method and scope. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 14:30, 13 July 2007 (EDT) | ||
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| + | I don't believe it's possible to say that science limitis itself to the material world... I mean, science is basically testing the testable. So what you are saying is that science is limiting itself to what is possible... It's not as though you can test the untestable.[[User:Raggs|Raggs]] 09:06, 19 March 2008 (EDT) | ||
Revision as of 13:06, March 19, 2008
Circular definition comes into play here:
- Many scientists of faith nevertheless adopt naturalism in their studies. This is because there is simply no way for an experiment to investigate forces which by their nature cannot be investigated scientifically.
The definition of scientific investigation is "study of the natural (material) world". Science thus limits itself to investigation of the material world. By this definition, studying anything beyord the material world is "not scientific". Therefore (by this definition), studying supernatural phenomena is not scientific, and any experiment which investigates the supernatural is not a scientific investigation.
What then is the rationale for limiting investigation to the material world, i.e. natural phenomena. Is it because there is no way at all to study it? Or simply that we have defined "scientific investigation" as "study of the material world only".
This is like defining geography so that it is limited to physical geography and excluding human culture, trade, etc. So National Geographic]] has gone way beyond its bounds, if geography is limited only to physical aspects such as geology, ecology, wildlife, etc.
It's really a confounding of method and scope. --Ed Poor Talk 14:30, 13 July 2007 (EDT)
I don't believe it's possible to say that science limitis itself to the material world... I mean, science is basically testing the testable. So what you are saying is that science is limiting itself to what is possible... It's not as though you can test the untestable.Raggs 09:06, 19 March 2008 (EDT)