naturalism and scientism
- Created by: tashalouiseee
- Created on: 21-05-17 21:50
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- Naturalism and Scientism
- the God experiment
- Russell Stannard describes an experiment concerning intercessory prayer that takes up Raup’s challenge. The experiment was, as Stannard says, “to test whether prayers for the sick are effective.”
- number of participants =(600) to eliminate small statistical differences. neither the participants nor the researchers know which participants belong to the test group (those being prayed for) or which belong to the control group (those notbeing prayed for); participants are randomly assigned to either group and are identical in all respects other than being prayed for or not; there is an additional group that know they are being prayed for (toeliminate psychological effects); information about participants available for medical staff is limited(only first names and medical condition) in order to hide the identity of participants.
- What appears to lacking is a guiding theoretical framework, which helps shape ourunderstanding and which points to a reason why the data is as it is. As Raup observes, “All scienceworks within theoretical frameworks. These are alternatively called models, paradigms, hypotheses,concepts, principles, or precepts. Whatever they are called, they provide basic frameworks forthinking about problems and for interpreting observations.”
- number of participants =(600) to eliminate small statistical differences. neither the participants nor the researchers know which participants belong to the test group (those being prayed for) or which belong to the control group (those notbeing prayed for); participants are randomly assigned to either group and are identical in all respects other than being prayed for or not; there is an additional group that know they are being prayed for (toeliminate psychological effects); information about participants available for medical staff is limited(only first names and medical condition) in order to hide the identity of participants.
- Russell Stannard describes an experiment concerning intercessory prayer that takes up Raup’s challenge. The experiment was, as Stannard says, “to test whether prayers for the sick are effective.”
- scientism
- Sometime the charge of scientism is levelled at the view that supernatural explanations should beexcluded from natural science.
- Mikael Stenmark suggests the following possibilities:
- Methodological scientism: other fields of enquiry should adopt the methods of science.
- Epistemic scientism: the only reality we can know anything about is the one science reveals.
- Rationalistic scientism: we are rationally justified in believing only what’s scientifically provable
- Ontological scientism: the only reality that exists is the one described by science.
- Axiological scientism: science is the only or most valuable part of human learning and culture.
- Existential scientism: science and science alone can explain and replace religion.
- Comprehensive scientism: science and science alone will solve all, or most, genuine problems.
- Mikael Stenmark suggests the following possibilities:
- To argue that science should be naturalistic is not to argue that everyproblem must have a scientifically based solution and allows for the possibility that many (e.g. themeaning of life, or why there is something rather than nothing, or how to live a good life) may not.
- What it does claim is thatall explanations in science should be naturalistic and, therefore, in so far as creationism aspires to bea science, its explanations should appeal only to natural causes, entities, and so on.
- Sometime the charge of scientism is levelled at the view that supernatural explanations should beexcluded from natural science.
- Why should all scientific explanations be naturalistic?
- the dispute between the apologists for creationism, or Genesis literalism, andtheir opponents is one over naturalism: the view that science should frame its explanations only interms of natural entities, properties, laws, causes, and so on, and should avoid explanations in termsof the supernatural or divine
- science is a problem for the believer in so-called ‘creation-science’ (whowishes to present Genesis literalism as an alternative scientific theory rather than religion) becausehe or she precisely wants to include reference to the supernatural and divine in scientific explanations(e.g. that biological forms were created by a supernatural agency as distinct kinds).
- fecundity of a theory. Put simply, we want and expect our scientific theories to give rise to newinvestigative possibilities, to pose new problems, by which we make new discoveries, perhaps tosuggest new problem-solving strategies, and so on. This is how science expands and progresses.
- the dispute between the apologists for creationism, or Genesis literalism, andtheir opponents is one over naturalism: the view that science should frame its explanations only interms of natural entities, properties, laws, causes, and so on, and should avoid explanations in termsof the supernatural or divine
- The discovery of Neptune
- Newton’s laws of motion and gravitationwere successfully used to explain the orbits of the known planets—in most cases. However, therewere irregularities in the orbit of Uranus: observations confirmed that attempts to predict the planet’sfuture position using astronomical tables did not work
- This was first proposed by Alexis Bouvard. The ‘perturbation hypothesis’ was observationallyconfirmed in September 1846 by Johann Gottried Galle at the Berlin Observatory, based oncalculations of the position of the unknown, perturbing planet by Urbain Le Verrier.
- Newton’s laws of motion and gravitationwere successfully used to explain the orbits of the known planets—in most cases. However, therewere irregularities in the orbit of Uranus: observations confirmed that attempts to predict the planet’sfuture position using astronomical tables did not work
- the God experiment
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