Replies

Your point, then, is that what currently appears to be random may at some future date be explained via the "laws" of physics and chemistry. But "laws" in the customary sense imply a lawmaker. The USA Patriot Act, for instance, was drafted by the Bush Administration, debated, modified, and then passed by the U.S. Congress, and finally signed by the President. To an orthodox Christian or an observant Jew, the moral law in the Old Testament was created by God and transmitted via Moses and the prophets to humanity. "Laws" in the sense you use the term do not imply a lawmaker, however. Scientific law and theory are based on observations and conclusions drawn by scientists, who define, but do not make them. Their validity is only as good as the supporting research and the reasonableness of the conclusions.

If nature is proven to be a closed system, entirely supportable through observable scientific laws without the need for a "watchmaker", then any sort of theism, in the sense of an all powerful, omniscient God, is invalid. This view may not necessarily preclude the existence of supernatural phenomena. For example, the Soviets studied the existence of ESP and "auras" of human souls while being firmly materialist in ideology. However, this area would be essentially irrelevant, except as a curiosity. The only valid metaphysics would be that of materialism and naturalism. If that is the case, theism of any sort would be invalid. If the propositions of Scripture are false, Christians would then be, in the words of the apostle Paul, the greatest of fools.

From an NSF abstract:

“As with all scientific knowledge, a theory can be refined or even replaced by an alternative theory in light of new and compelling evidence. The geocentric theory that the sun revolves around the earth was replaced by the heliocentric theory of the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun. However, ideas are not referred to as "theories" in science unless they are supported by bodies of evidence that make their subsequent abandonment very unlikely. When a theory is supported by as much evidence as evolution, it is held with a very high degree of confidence.

In science, the word "hypothesis" conveys the tentativeness inherent in the common use of the word "theory.' A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world. Through experiment and observation, hypotheses can be supported or rejected. At the earliest level of understanding, hypotheses can be used to construct more complex inferences and explanations. Like "theory," the word "fact" has a different meaning in science than it does in common usage. A scientific fact is an observation that has been confirmed over and over. However, observations are gathered by our senses, which can never be trusted entirely. Observations also can change with better technologies or with better ways of looking at data. For example, it was held as a scientific fact for many years that human cells have 24 pairs of chromosomes, until improved techniques of microscopy revealed that they actually have 23. Ironically, facts in science often are more susceptible to change than theories, which is one reason why the word "fact" is not much used in science.

Finally, "laws" in science are typically descriptions of how the physical world behaves under certain circumstances. For example, the laws of motion describe how objects move when subjected to certain forces. These laws can be very useful in supporting hypotheses and theories, but like all elements of science they can be altered with new information and observations.

Those who oppose the teaching of evolution often say that evolution should be taught as a "theory, not as a fact." This statement confuses the common use of these words with the scientific use. In science, theories do not turn into facts through the accumulation of evidence. Rather, theories are the end points of science. They are understandings that develop from extensive observation, experimentation, and creative reflection. They incorporate a large body of scientific facts, laws, tested hypotheses, and logical inferences. In this sense, evolution is one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have."

You still confuse methodological materialism with the philosophy of materialism. Science utilizes methodological materialism. This means that science must study the universe as if no supernatural phenomena exist. That is not equivalent to the statement that science must assume that no supernatural phenomena exist. It simply means that if there are supernatural phenomena then science has nothing to say about them. For example, evolution states that the vast diversity of life arose from the processes of genetic variation (through several mechanisms, including but not limited to mutations) and natural selection. It does not say that this process was or was not guided by God, since science simply cannot deal with the concept of God. In this respect, science IS compatible with theism. Scientists need not assume that God does not exist; the existence of God is an open question as far as science is concerned. Science, in fact, is most consistent with the doctrine of essential agnosticism. Unlike some agnostics, who believe that there is insufficient evidence to determine whether or not God exists, essential agnostics believe that it is impossible in principle to ever determine whether God exists. That is the view of science in general. Individual scientists are, of course, free to believe as they wish.