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From: Martin Harran <martinharran@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Did Dawkins really claim that god-did-it is a scientific hypothesis?
Date: Fri, 30 May 2025 09:47:30 +0100
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On Fri, 30 May 2025 08:08:47 +0000, j.nobel.daggett@gmail.com
(LDagget) wrote:

>On Fri, 30 May 2025 4:07:46 +0000, erik simpson wrote:
>
>> On 5/29/25 4:54 PM, RonO wrote:
>>> Dawkins answered kindly that belief in a designer is more than a mere
>>> subjective response: "You appear to be a theist," he told her. "You
>>> appear to believe in some kind of higher power. Now, I think that the
>>> hypothesis of theism is the most exciting scientific hypothesis you
>>> could possibly hold." Hold that thought in your mind.
>> Struggling through his wikipedia entry, it seems that Dawkins indeed
>> does support the notion that as a scientific hypothesis, God is
>> legitimate.  A fair number of physicists would agree. Religious
>> superstructures such as the Biblical miracles, visions, etc. don't count
>> as hypotheses.
>
>Seems to me that the proper perspective is that just about anything
>could be a scientific hypothesis if the terms involved were
>defined with sufficient precision, and the asserted hypothesis
>was in some sense amenable to being objectively tested.
>
>That's a bit sneaky because defining __god__ has been historically
>problematic. Most definitions put limits on the thing being
>defined, some sense of where it begins and ends, how to distinguish
>what it is and isn't. This seems somehow connected with the odd
>categories like omnipresent and omnipotent that some would attempt
>to use. It has an air of resisting a definition but for a
>hypothesis to be usefully considered scientific that doesn't work.
>
>If asked to test the "god did it" hypothesis, it seems like we
>would need some clarity on the __it__ part and some of those
>how, when, and where type questions specified somewhat.
>Otherwise, how do you go about testing the hypothesis.
>
>If you can't test it, it simply can't be a scientific hypothesis.
>Philosophers can hedge over distinctions between "can in
>principle test" versus "can in practice test". I'd weigh in
>on the side of 'not scientific' until you can do it in practice
>with an added label of __potentially__ for the not in practice set.

Is that not moving closer to theory than hypothesis?

>
>Odd thing that some would consider not being a scientific
>hypothesis as a challenge to the ultimate truth of their hypothesis.
>But that is dubious thinking.

Those who think that way are usually those who feel their religious
beliefs are challenged by science. That gives them 3 options:

1) Rethink their religious beliefs to accommodate the science.

2) Try to argue that their beliefs are actually just another
scientific hypothesis.

3) Dismiss the science

ID'ers simply can't face up to option 1 so they go for a mixture of
options 2 and 3.