06.16.09
Barbara Forrest and naturalism (etc)
A Question for Barbara Forrest
In her recent paper, The Non-epistemology of Intelligent Design: Its Implications for Public Policy, evolutionary philosopher Barbara Forrest states that science must be restricted to natural phenomena. In its investigations, science must restrict itself to a naturalistic methodology, where explanations must be strictly naturalistic, dealing with phenomena that are strictly natural. Aside from rare exceptions this is the consensus position of evolutionists. And in typical fashion, Forrest uses this criteria to exclude origins explanations that allow for the supernatural. Only evolutionary explanations, in one form or another, are allowed. She writes:
The sciences are unified by their naturalistic methodology and empiricist epistemology, a unity … that can take us to the outer reaches of natural phenomena, but never beyond them. When we move beyond the epistemic boundaries that these faculties and rules set for us and the correspondingly limited metaphysical boundaries they enable us to define, we move from the relative epistemological safety of knowledge to the unmapped, supernatural territory of faith.
James said,
June 16, 2009 at 3:09 pm
[yawn] The intellectual equivalent of a dog chasing its tail (applies to both sides).
Darwiniana » Naturalism and Kantian antinomies said,
June 16, 2009 at 4:05 pm
[...] on Barbara Forrest and naturalism (etc) James said, June 16, 2009 at 3:09 pm [yawn] The intellectual equivalent of a dog chasing its tail [...]