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If you want to live your life via the scientific method, awesome - it's a really powerful technique for refining the accuracy of predictions.
It can't ever rigorously conclude whether anything was ever divinely inspired, though.
No, that is not what naturalism is. That would be circular. Naturalism is the philosophical stance that things that cannot be observed do not exist.
Alleged supernatural phenomena cannot ever be definitively ruled out (because new observations may confirm their existence) but to date there has never been an alleged supernatural phenomenon that did not have an adequate naturalistic explanation.
It’s a worldview that reproducibility goes out the window once you introduce supernatural forces. If the weather where actually responsive to a god who regularly changed things because they got mad, then it would be inconsistent over short time periods.
It does classify things that are reproducible and testable as part of the natural world even if we don’t understand them such as gravity. Finally things that don’t have a detectable influence don’t exist.
This is subtly different from materialism or physicalism which both define how reality operates.
I cannot observe propositions or truth claims or numbers or...
Besides, what is "natural" and what is "supernatural" according to naturalists? [0]
Of course you can.
> what is "natural" and what is "supernatural" according to naturalists?
It changes over time. At the moment, "natural" is anything that can be accounted for by quantum mechanics and general relativity, and "supernatural" is anything that can't: Ghosts. Demons. Deities. Telekenesis. Stuff like that.
Burden of proof is a whole different discussion.
It certainly can. It can point out that there is no evidence that any human writing is divinely inspired, and so claims of divine inspiration are almost certainly false.
Science uses induction as a measure, meaning it presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past. That would be akin to claiming to be immortal, because every time someone died, it wasn't you. With a little additional information, such as the recognition that you are an animal and that most animals seem to have not been immortal in the past, a good hypothesis would be that you will die, but how can you be sure that you're not the first immortal one? It might seem silly, but how can we be certain that the entirety of physics in the universe is not milliseconds from unraveling, that we're not a metaphorical barrel at the crest of a waterfall without knowing?
In epistemology, only logical truths are certain, anything else is an attempt to put a confidence rating on a proposition, be it through science or religion. Neither can reach 100%, but both can certainly be 0%. There aren't even objective measures for such confidence ratings, statistical modelling is the best we have.
The scientific method explicitly excludes unfalsifiable claims from its purview. If you have ever argued with a religious person, you will realize how easily deflected the argument is, that there is no evidence for divine inspiration. You could mention billions of recorded scientific findings that point toward a material world without supernatural events and still be rebuked by "So what? That doesn't mean it's untrue. You can't disprove that it happened that one time."
I'm not saying that science is a pointless endeavor, just that it can never be an objective measure of truth.
No, it doesn't. This is a common misconception, but it is 100% wrong. Science is the business of finding the best explanations that account for all observations.
One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws that appear to remain constant over time. But science does not assume this.
This is exactly what induction means. Even your wording is almost identical to that of the Wikipedia page on "Inductive reasoning".
> One of the consequences of this methodology is that it turns out that all known observable phenomena can be described by fairly simple mathematical laws. But science does not assume this.
I'm not sure you fully comprehend, it's much simpler. Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules, otherwise what would be the point of observations, right? Otherwise all data would be equivalent to TV static and to build a house we would just hope it builds itself. The way you hedge your bets with phrases like "can be described by" and "appear to" makes me think you intuitively understand the limitations of science when it comes to capturing absolute truths, such as analytical a priori truths (e.g. all bachelors are unmarried), which are correct by definition.
No it isn't. You got it right the first time. Induction "presupposes that we have faith in the proposition that something will happen again because it has happened in the past". But that is wrong. Science does not presuppose this.
> Science does presuppose that observations mean anything related to more general rules
No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according to general rules. It does not presuppose that it does.
We don't check each and every room in the country to see if general relativity holds there, and then fall in despair once we realize it might have randomly stopped holding in one of them yesterday.
> No, it does not. It observes that the world behaves according to general rules. It does not presuppose that it does.
I'd like to see you explain how you can you observe a rule. Are you God? Can you see all of space and time and all possible dimensions? Science observes particulars and tries to formulate general rules based on these observations. If science would not use induction, any observation would be meaningless, because the exact circumstances the observation was carried out in would cease to exist the moment the observation was concluded.
Therefore, science is susceptible to the induction problem.
You need to read what I say more closely. I did not say that science observes rules. I said that science seeks good explanations for observations, and it just so happens that the best explanations for how nature behaves turn out to look like rules.
That is unrelated to whether those behaviors are in an abstract sense "right" or "good".
I may well be wrong about the book's nature. My assessment was based on the Wiki article you linked and my study of moral philosophy, epistemology, and science as a methodology for the past several years.
Are you familiar with the is-ought problem? If so, what do you make of it? How does that fit with your understanding of evolution as creating moral good?
Well, yeah, but my confidence is grounded in knowledge because I've actually read the book.
(Also, you made two statements. The one I was criticizing was not qualified by "I believe" but rather simply stated as a bald fact.)
> Are you familiar with the is-ought problem?
Yes.
> If so, what do you make of it? How does that fit with your understanding of evolution as creating moral good?
You are moving the goal posts. The statement that you made which I was criticizing was:
> I believe that book addresses how certain behaviors may have evolved. That is UNRELATED to whether those behaviors are in an abstract sense "right" or "good". [Emphasis added]
So I did not say that evolution "created moral good". What I said was that the claim that "evolution is unrelated to whether behaviors are in an abstract sense 'right' or 'good'" is wrong, i.e. evolution is related to whether behaviors are in an abstract sense 'right' or 'good'. But I did not say how it is related. If you want to know that you will need to read the book.
In the end this kind of comes down to a belief or not in free will, which is a faith based discussion since we can never ethically prove whether we have free will or not being our own observer.
> In the end this kind of comes down to a belief or not in free will, which is a faith based discussion
No, it doesn't, and no it isn't. The illusion of free will is enough, i.e. it suffices that we lack a complete understanding of our own brains.
You should read this:
https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-wil...
Science does not contain tools to refute or confirm any answer to that question.
So it's less "fantastical claim", and more a topic that you do not have any tools to approach.
Of course, we don't always work in a system of formal logic, and it doesn't much matter to me if you choose to assume/believe works are inspired or not.
The claim might be unfalsifiable, but the question is still valid. Basically you are required to answer the question. If you answer "I can't know" your answer is also unfalsifiable, and no better than theirs.
i.e. your position on this matter is not superior to theirs.
This is a question about the limits on knowledge, not about someone's personal knowledge.
The same thought process led me to abandon the Sam Harris notion that science can provide us with morals. A simple way to see my point is to ask yourself “what scientific experiment could I design to test whether science is a good basis for morality?” You will find this statement contains a categorical error: a “good” basis can only be defined prior to the experiment, thus the question can only be tackled philosophically.
I guess what you're saying is technically true, but adhering to an extremely strict interpretation of "science" doesn't strike me as terribly useful here. Science can't offer a definitive conclusive question for a lot of things in life, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything useful to say and can certainly inform on theological and moral matters.
For example, we can conduct scientific experiments to determine whether animals have emotions, what kind of emotions they have, if they can feel pain, and things like that. This doesn't directly answer any moral questions about how animals should be treated, but such science is invaluable if you want to try and answer these moral questions.
Philosophy without science is just a bunch of people talking shit.
How can science inform morality? You are right that it can help us determine if animals are suffering; but what we do with that information comes down to our morals, which are generated through philosophy or theology. All the proponents of scientific morality are very passionate about promoting it, but you will notice that they don’t follow through and actually develop a moral system, they just discuss it theoretically (e.g. Sam Harris)
I'm still not entirely sure what I think of it, but it's certainly something anyone with an interest in moral philosophy ought to deal with.
I would love to have a rational, consistent, data driven moral system but I will need an existence proof before I become a true believer.
What if our world was designed on purpose including drugs like LSD to enlightenment and all earth religions are wrong because they stopped listening?
But hey true we don't know :-)
That said, without being silly about words the bible could be full of science but their concept of science is very different from our own, how they view the world is quite different... But we sometimes are blind and make assumptions about their views. Often people discredit those in the past with assuming they know better. Like the mystery of how we lost concrete and why bricks were so popular.
And for some silly reason people often say "Science" as if it disproves things. As if a mere word could really be an argument. Science in fact can prove lots things and yes, a fair amount of the Bible is already proven and can make one curious about what is possible.
Stuff changes but some things remain the same - we still have modern day immortal jellyfish, what other creatures could have lived back then? If the live span of a mammal like a whale is so long imagine other creatures of the past. More ancient, and older than the Greenland shark. How could other animals be if they used a similar technique to the jellyfish?
Snakes with tiny legs still exist though the amount of legs very, and no I was not referencing Tetrapodophis amplectus, nor lizards but actually snakes forced to crawl (because their tiny legs are useless) so you can look that one up. Look up python legs.
Animals can talk and use tool (Well trained birds come to mind, but many birds are able to do this, and some mammals easily mimic humans like many dog species rather it be a laugh or scream of a fox. Whales have speech patterns like humans, perhaps the giant beasts of the past could be similar to whales with speech? Kind of a scary idea of a smart land whale with human like whale speech patterns) who is to say what the world was like? What it sounded and acted like? How intelligent it could have been. So many curiosity's. Very scary ideas too. Land killer whales could be very frightful as they are very good at finding human weaknesses if they get angry enough...
The idea of the Pharaoh's snake a popular chemical used by magician's back then would be quite magical and still is today. If you want to feel like summoning a monster try those chemicals. It got it's name for a good reason.
Now can I explain everything in the Bible? Well no of course not, nor do I think everything is literal and even the Bible itself says this in multiple places. But to say "science" is quite silly. It's like saying man can never fly nor sail because of science. Depending on your point of time well science would say you are correct, but that does not mean it is impossible. Science leaves room for all sorts of discovery if you are willing to look with a bit of faith and be willing to see the impossible.
We use our grand imagination to examine the past but it's fragmented at best. Science is good at making predictions but not everything can be predictable from unknown factors and ever changing variables. It's a helpful tool though to bring a sense of order and control until you dig too deep or your assumptions last too long, like the lack of fat dinos compared to how we view whales with similar bones. Etc etc.