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From: DB Cates <cates_db@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Paradoxes
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2025 10:03:55 -0600
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On 2025-01-18 9:53 p.m., MarkE wrote:

[Let's get to your definitions]

> 
> Perhaps I need to extend/clarify my position to something like this:
> 
> "If OoL research were to find no plausible naturalistic explanation 
> after some large amount of research time and effort, would one then 
> consider supernatural action as a possible explanation? If your answer 
> is no, that suggests an a priori commitment to either metaphysical 
> naturalism or undetectable theism."
> 
> Definitions & clarifications:
> 
> - "find no plausible naturalistic explanation" = a general consensus 
> that all known hypotheses, mechanisms and pathways have been shown to be 
> implausible

There's the rub. It is the general consensus among scientists that the 
'KNOWN hypotheses, mechanisms and pathways' are wrong or at least 
incomplete. So any 'implausibility' is contingent. The future of 
scientific knowledge is still wide open to new discoveries and ideas.
> 
> - "implausible" = generally accepted as essentially physically 
> impossible or with vanishingly small probability

See above.
> 
> - "some large amount of research time and effort" = an arbitrary and 
> conservatively large allowance

And just who is to determine what that 'conservatively large allowance' 
is to be?
> 
> - "consider supernatural action" = allow for this option, but with no 
> requirement to abandon further research

When 'consider supernatural action' is useful to science it will be 
done. There are enough theistic scientists and other scientists open to 
the broad scientific ethos to allow this. You just have to find good 
evidence to support such usefulness.
> 
> - "suggests an a priori commitment" - at this point an unwillingness to 
> even consider supernatural agency is rationally contrary to the balance 
> of scientific evidence, and therefore is based on other factors

That statement makes much more sense if you substitute 'willingness' for 
'unwillingness'. See below.
> 
> - "undetectable theism" - the position that any and all divine action is 
> not detectable or unable to be inferred from observation/analysis of 
> physical phenomena

So propose a way to reliably detect 'divine action' "from 
observation/analysis of physical phenomena". Interesting that you should 
use the term 'divine action' rather than 'supernatural action'. Does it 
indicate an 'a priori commitment' to find a support for supernatural 
action that you can shoehorn your personal theism into?
> 
> - Would this situation provide any information about this hypothesised 
> agent? No; that's the domain of theology, philosophy, personal 
> experience etc
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
>>>
>>> Equally, I'd value a response to my question on intervention and
>>> theistic evolution.
>>
>> You first, please.
>>
>>
>>
> 


-- 
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)