Changes

:Sorry, Terry, but you're falling victim to some pretty common misconceptions.

:Sorry, Terry, but you're falling victim to some pretty common misconceptions.

::1. The so-called paradigm of methodological naturalism is a simple and accurate description of the scientific process. This website defines it as "the strategy for studying the world, by which scientists choose not to consider scientific causes - even as a remote possibility." Another way to say this is that the scientists are attempting to observe and describe the natural world. They are not attempting to observe and describe the supernatural world, and so the supernatural world is intentionally left out with the assumption that there is no interaction between the two. Many people from both the fundamentalist and atheist camps nonetheless attempt to draw such conclusions from scientific findings; this is merely an attempt by them, usually unconscious, to find something not directly implied by the data which aligns with their pre-existing beliefs, and often this behavior is self-reinforcing. And while these unintentionally false interpretations of the science may be brick and mortar for their particular philosophies, science itself remains inherently neutral.  

::1. The so-called paradigm of methodological naturalism is a simple and accurate description of the scientific process. This website defines it as "the strategy for studying the world, by which scientists choose not to consider supernatural causes - even as a remote possibility." Another way to say this is that the scientists are attempting to observe and describe the natural world. They are not attempting to observe and describe the supernatural world, and so the supernatural world is intentionally left out with the assumption that there is no interaction between the two. Many people from both the fundamentalist and atheist camps nonetheless attempt to draw such conclusions from scientific findings; this is merely an attempt by them, usually unconscious, to find something not directly implied by the data which aligns with their pre-existing beliefs, and often this behavior is self-reinforcing. And while these unintentionally false interpretations of the science may be brick and mortar for their particular philosophies, science itself remains inherently neutral.  

::(One could make the argument that there is no basis for the above-mentioned assumption that the supernatural world and the natural world do not interact, but such an argument would need to be backed with examples of events in the natural world for which no natural causes exist.)

::(One could make the argument that there is no basis for the above-mentioned assumption that the supernatural world and the natural world do not interact, but such an argument would need to be backed with examples of events in the natural world for which no natural causes exist.)