Science and physical laws (The limitations of science)

by whitecraw, Saturday, February 16, 2008, 10:43 (6123 days ago) @ The Reverend Nicholas Dante Rockers

'Religion tends to exist in the world of the "supernatural" or "extranatural." This also explains why only the poorest of scientists study ghosts or bigfoot. Religious tenets can not be verified to even exist, let alone be studied, so it is outside the realm of science to comment upon.' - I'm not so sure that this is the case. Religious beliefs are cultural ('man-made') phenomena and are therefore within the competence of the human sciences to study. So are ghost stories and urban myths. So are the sciences and their theories, customs and practices. No human phenomenon is immune from enquiry. - 'Dawkins is incorrect in his assumptions based on this. Science makes no claims about that which it can not study, and therefore is not atheistic, but it is inherently agnostic in nature.' - Science is implicitly atheistic inasmuch as proceeds from the assumption of methodological naturalism; that is, that nature is a closed system and that natural events are to be explained without reference to events which are external to that closed system of cause and effect (e.g. supernatural agency). This was made clear in the Harrisburg judgement against the Dover Area School Board, in which the theory of evolution by intelligent design was reaffirmed as being 'unscientific' precisely because it breached the qualifying requirement of methodological naturalism. Science proceeds on the methodological assumption that there is no agency external to the order of nature that intervenes in that order to affect the course of events, and is to this extent atheistic.