The Postulation of a Designer (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Thursday, February 28, 2008, 09:04 (6112 days ago) @ John Clinch

I am touched by your desire to psychoanalyse me and your evident concern that I might end up with the nihilists, solipsists or radical relativists. But please don't worry about me. These are people who, like yourself, are convinced that they have found a truth, and I am far too open-minded to join them. - Perhaps, however, you will allow me to do a little psychoanalysing myself. You appear to have made up your mind that one day science will explain life and that somehow this will prove that it came about by chance; you appear to have made up your mind that psychic experiences have already been explained away by psychology etc.; you appear to have made up your mind that anyone who does not have the same beliefs as yourself is sceptical of science and of reason. Open-mindedness is therefore irrational, because you already have the answers. - But let us look at your arguments. I am supposed to be "...for no good reason, sceptical of the psychological, neurological, ethological and anthropological claims that...account for the pseudo-scientific so-called phenomena you refer to (out of body, ESP etc.)." I suspect that most people who believe in them will tell you that they are beyond the scope of science, not that they purport to be scientific. I am neither sceptical towards nor convinced by the various explanations you list, but you seem to equate non-belief with rejection, which is part of your misunderstanding of agnosticism. I keep an open mind. - You think I doubt the "effectiveness and reach of evidence-based science". I do not have the slightest doubt about the effectiveness of evidence-based science. Modern technology alone proves how effective it is. And since you prefer to imagine my beliefs rather than read about them (neatly symbolized, incidentally, by your own version of my initials in your response to whitecraw), you will probably be surprised to learn that ... with certain reservations ... I am even a firm believer in the theory of evolution by natural selection. I find the evidence convincing. But the evidence for abiogenesis does not convince me, any more than the evidence for a God-created world convinces me. And I do not know how far evidence-based science can reach, because I do not know whether the physical world as we perceive it is all that there is to perceive. I keep an open mind. - "Sceptical of scepticism"? Like your advocacy of the "absence of evidence principle" this is a two-edged sword. You are sceptical about religious beliefs, and so any scepticism towards your scepticism is a bad thing. But if someone is sceptical about your faith that one day science will come up with all the answers, you will be sceptical about their scepticism, and that is a good thing. I will own to a degree of scepticism about the following dogmas: 1) one day science will explain everything and thereby disprove the existence of a designer; 2) we are the product of a designer who created the world and everything in it. I cannot make what you are reluctant to call the "leap of faith" to embrace 1), and I cannot make what you would no doubt happily call the "leap of faith" to embrace 2). My scepticism in both cases, however, is tentative, because one of those two choices contains part if not all of the truth. I keep an open mind. That is the nature of agnosticism.