[BroJoeK]

Texas Songwriter: "First, I do not allege, nor have I ever alleged, nor will I allege I am a brilliant mind.
Let us put that to rest at the start."

You write at the college level, or beyond, while most of us struggle to post cogent high school level English.
So, to communicate successfully here you will need, like Rush Limbaugh, to "tie half your brain behind your back, just to make it fair". ;-)
No, I'm not saying "dumb it down", but rather to keep your words short, and most of your sentences simple declaratives.

Texas Songwriter: "So, we ask why do we use terms like science or scientific?
Well, those terms connote a facet of life which is ration, modern, good, and logical, and if something is not scientific it is old fashion and not something a fully actualized person will believe.
There is an honorific connotation to the term as defined by popular culture."

Sure, but all that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is: why can't we solve scientific problems by saying, in effect, "God did it"?
The simple answer is: yes you can, but science itself, by definition of the word "science", cannot.
Science is and only is: natural explanations for natural processes.

Texas Songwriter: "Keeton, in Biological Science says, "Science is concerned with the material universe..."

For purposes of this discussion, words like "material", "natural", "physical", "corporal", "non-spiritual", etc., are all synonymous.
In ancient times you could add words like "mundane" and "vulgar" as well.
Those are all words which describe the limits of science.

Texas Songwriter: "Dwyer offers a circular reasoning, a tautology, to define science.
Keeton offers a definition using science where the word philosophy could be substituted."

Look, I know academics love this stuff, but these mental gymnastics are not very helpful in ordinary discussion.
Whether somebody imagines it a tautology or not, science is still the study of the natural (material, etc) universe, using defined principles to arrive at: natural explanations for natural processes.
Period, no real need for greater complexity.

Texas Songwriter: "I think you were invoking naturalism as a philosophical explanation for natural science. {If other, please correct me}."

FRiend, there is not one in a hundred, or one in a thousand people who can explain the difference between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism (also called metaphysical or ontological naturalism) but that distinction is the absolute key to understanding why anti-evolutionists are so utterly confused.

I can make it plain for you: "philosophical naturalism" is another term for atheism, pure and simple.
"Methodological naturalism" is a core principle of science, and translates simply as: natural explanations for natural processes.

Yes, some scientists are atheists = "philosophical naturalists", but many are not, including some of the greatest modern scientific minds -- Albert Einstein, Max Plank and Stephen Hawking (Here is a listing of Christian scientific thinkers through the ages).

But all scientists, to qualify as scientists, must accept "methodological naturalism", meaning: natural explanations for natural processes.
As soon as they begin speculating on the roles of the Supernatural in the material world, then they are outside of the scientific "lane" in into a more philosophical realm.

Texas Songwriter: "the belief that scientific method discovers truth can't be proven by scientific method itself."

That is one of the great red-herrings thrown out by the anti-science crowd.
In fact, science never claims anything it does is "truth", much less "Truth".
Every scientist knows that no theory is ever "proved", it is only "confirmed" by verifying its predictions.
That's how scientific hypotheses get promoted to the level of "theory".
But every theory must be subject to falsification tests which can disprove it.

In short: scientific theories cannot be proved by tests, but can be disproved.
If some tests confirm a hypothesis, it is tentatively accepted as theory, at least until some other significant test falsifies it.

Texas Songwriter: "mind /consciousness, according the the naturalist cannot prove by naturalism that mind and consciousness exists, if it remains faithful to metaphysical naturalism."

"Metaphysical naturalism" is synonymous with "philosophical naturalism" and "atheism".
Not all scientists are atheists. See above.

[Texas Songwriter]

Thank you for your comments. In order to truncate this discussion I will not 'cut and paste'. I will refer to your concise breakdown of reference. For the most part I will not comment on Texas Songwriter1,2,3 or 4 except to say, that my feeling of the need to define 'science' was derived from your defining that term. I found your definition functional ,but simplistic and my wish was to explain that others, including men of letters, offered different from yours an each others definitions. Bu your definition is a working definition which I will try to adhere to, at least as a starting point..

Referencing Texas Songwriter #5, your protestations regarding the terms "naturalism", metaphysical naturalism, methodological naturalism, ontological naturalism. My reference to Ha Ha That.... it seems the post references interpretations of 'data' which, as i said to Ha Ha...., was adductive and therefore the author of the abstract made 'assumptions' not warranted in the writing. Philosophical disputes concerning naturalism ranges over many issues but at bottom it concerns the nature of philosophy itself. I believe those disputes lie at bedrock the philosophical cosmology of the the physicalist (naturalist-as you define it), the theist, the agnostic (weakly), the atheist, or the pantheist. In other words, 'what is one's cosmology'? I believe this is the animating feature of an even more fundamental question, "What motivates and warrants methodologic and oncologic naturalism?" Is naturalism (physicalism) , methodologic and/or ontic committed to the Standard Model (big bang), or some other cosmology? As a naturalist (phyicalist) the commitment to a reality is defined by whether or not something is extended into space (physical). The prominent construal of "material extended into space" invokes the empirical sciences. So, ontologically that is the stopping point for the physicalist. So the question arrises are there other realities which do not extend into space? Ontological naturalists who are materialists oppose ontological dualism (the view that there are 2 irreducible kinds of things that actually exist). This was my point to Ha Ha... and yourself. This seems to be the lynchpin of the disagreement. These are some of the presuppositions which I spoke of earlier, and these presuppositions are profoundly reflective conclusions by naturalists and dualists alike, as I said earlier. It seems inductively logical that both the dualist committed to the Standard Model or the theist need to address the metaphysical necessity of the cosmologies. Both physicalist and dualist agree, for the most part, on the Standard Model as the inciting event of physics. The question I put was the epistemological and ontological (cause) of the Standard Model. Without it, neither physicalist nor dualist can that cause. The exclusionary necessity of metaphysical naturalism of that First Cause screams out to be answered. Jaegwon Kim (physicalist) says the metaphysical naturalist MUST give an accounting for what caused the Big Bang, or abandon it. Dualist have been waiting for 100 years for their answer. The answer is not a 'definition, but an on tic explanation. These are the sources of the warrants which I asked for. Why does one believe what one believes?

With reference to your Texas Songwriter #6 you say 'science' never claims anything it does is truth. Well I agree,...science does not say anything.....scientists say things. These scientists have their presuppositions, as I have said, and those presuppositions color interpretations of facts and observations. That cannot be avoided. But, while profering those assertions the physicalist will not admit to the truth that there are metaphyscal truths which govern even their own decrees. Numbers, sets, any abstract entity, consiouness, mind,....( I could go on and on) are metaphysical entities which are irreducible in the physicalist wortldview, yet they refuse to acknowledge these truths, all the while being keepers of the truth and the only method to acquire the truth (strict). When asked to give an accounting (ontic) of these metaphysical truths they demure, refusing to even acknowledge these entities.

For the record, I am not antiscience. I have spent all of my college years, graduate school years, doctoral years and private practice in science. I love science. I love knowledge for knowledge-sake. You may consider some of my positions as red herrings, but I have spent a great many years considering these matters and do not consider them trivial. As one moves to ad hominem and pejoratives the discussion has decayed to the point of uselessness. I do not consider the very underpinnings of science by philosophy and First Principles to be trivial. I know it to be essential to the very acts of scientific inquiry. To deny those philosophical precepts is to exclude reason and logic and mind and consciousness. These are a few of requirements to 'do science'.

I will stop here. It is late, and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow. Thank you for your comments.