LONG STORY SHORT (Episode 1): Homology, Common Descent or Common Designer?
If one wanted to redefine an inconvenient term in such a manner as to make it a conversational resource rather than an obstacle, giving it a seemingly positive new name is the ticket.
Believe it or not, that’s very much like what happened to the word “Homology.”
Similar structures do not necessarily indicate similar ancestry. (Screenshot from YouTube).
Example: Instead of calling “circular reasoning” circular reasoning, how about we call it “reciprocal illumination.” Sounds much more positive, right?
That’s an example from the following opening episode of the Discovery Institute’s “Long Story Short” series on the various issues between advocates of Darwinian evolutionary theory and those who instead contend that evidence of design requires there be a designer.
Successive episodes in the LSS series will appear here on HillFaith in the future, but for now, let’s get right to the first one:
Scientists as such are not “advocates” for anything other than science. Scientists (or theologians for that matter) are not “advocates” when they acknowledge a theory’s explanatory power, or when they accept it (always provisionally) as the best explanation available at the moment for the development of the plant and animal kingdoms.
But scientists, just like all the rest of us, can have unstated assumptions about the nature of reality that shape the way we interpret it. Seeking to practice the scientific method faithfully (pun intended!) does not magically turn scientists into objective seekers, any more than journalists who seek to present both sides turn into unbiased arbiters of political and public policy fact.
I invite you to consider that one reason the scientific method is so powerful is its inherent recognition that individual human beings are indeed, as you suggest, fallible, biased, and generally untrustworthy. Over time, scientific methodology contains the means to self-correct: e.g., data must be predictable and repeatable; every hypothesis inevitably is superseded by a better one.
Far from being “unstated,” science’s premises are quite explicit and quite strict: It observes, describes, explains and predicts statistics about natural phenomena, period. It is methodologically and philosophically incapable of doing anything else. Therefore science has nothing whatsoever to say, one way or the other, about God or how we are to live.
Science views the human person as a zoological organism, shaped by and subject to the mindless natural processes that give and sustain his natural life and that inevitably will take it away. That view makes modern medicine possible, preserving our physical health and wellbeing. Thank God for that.
That scientific perspective, however, in no way constrains or conflicts with our ability to see infinitely more: to imagine the human person as a created being at once spiritual and corporeal, a bearer of the divine image, who (in Pope Benedict’s words) is willed, loved and necessary.
Ultimately, truth cannot contradict truth. Thank God for dedicated scientific investigators and the work they do. Let us not make them into bogeymen.
I agree that that the scientific method has the means to self-correct, but my point is that unstated assumptions in the mind and heart of the individual seeking to apply the scientific method can effectively preclude the self-correction. Example: If you assume there are only material forces in the universe, then you will more than likely be blind to evidence of non-material forces.
A hypothesis that entails a non-natural, unobservable phenomenon — let alone one that is utterly unique — by definition falls beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. Science is the study of nature.That’s not an unstated assumption; rather it is an explicit premise.
Self-correction here refers to collective scientific endeavor, not just to the individual investigator.
A thought: you say, “It observes, describes, explains and predicts statistics about natural phenomena, period.” What does evolution predict other than that things change. With true science, physics or chemistry for example, they can make predictions and test those predictions to verify truth.
What tests do the evolutionists conduct to prove natural selection explains the origins of specific species?
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