You do seem to assume a lot.
Science does not make a base assumption that there can only be material explanations.
Funny, that is not what you said earlier: donh(672): Science concerns itself with material explanations of material phenomenon, because that's the function of science.
Just for review:
Materialism is the philosophical view that the only thing that can truly be said to 'exist' is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of 'material' and all phenomena are the result of material interactions.
Your first definition of the function of science is the textbook definition of materialism.
Science merely makes a base assumption that material explanations are science's only realm of competence.
The Dogma of Materialism states science's only realm of competence is material explanations - this is not an immutable fact (it is materialistic dogma). Like I said - some base their thinking on the assumption of materialism. Science is only supposed to go where the data leads - you are adding dogma.
Speaking of not understanding - donh, how do you reconcile these two statement you just made in #699:
donh(699): Science does not make a base assumption that there can only be material explanations.
donh(699): Science merely makes a base assumption that material explanations are science's only realm of competence.
In the first statement you say science does not make base assumptions that can only be material explanations and in the second statement you say science makes base assumptions that science can only find material explanations.
Science can find anything. Science can find evidence of a deity - or something we currently feel is supernatural. Science can go wherever the data leads unless it is shackled by dogma such as the dogma of materialism where it is assumed every explanation must be material. This is not to say I am certain there are explanations outside the realm of the material - just that it is possible and science is no longer science when it starts with base assumptions that are based on dogma.
This is an epistimological claim...
Of course it is - it is the dogma of the philosophy of Materialism. What do you think the term "epistemological dogma" means? Try this example:
The impressive successes of technology not only continuously strengthened this aspect [rationality] of reality but they finally also caused the rise of the epistemological dogma that science and technology offer the only access to reality.
-Kurt Hübner, Philosophy of Modern Art and the Philosophy of Technology (an interesting read on a different subject: http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v4n1/HUBNER.html)
and so it is not, as you persist in claiming, dogma
Poppycock. It is philosophical dogma - the dogma of Materialism. Your denial is not very convincing.
and it is not, as you persist in claiming, at odds with supernatural explanations commonly held by most Judeo-christians.
I never made any such claim.
donh(699): Science does not make a base assumption that there can only be material explanations.
donh(699): Science merely makes a base assumption that material explanations are science's only realm of competence.
Perhaps if you stopped foaming at the mouth, and cut down your freighted verbiage count substantially, your brain could relax enough to examine what is in front of your eyes. I do not need to reconcile these statements because they are not in conflict. I'll not be answering the rest of your post because I don't understand it, and your demeanor is too abrasive to motivate me to try to untangle this vague philosophical ramble.
Oh, I guess maybe I can make sense of what's going on here after all.
Science looks only at detectable stuff, and tries to explain what it sees in terms of detectable stuff. Explanations in terms of as yet indetectable stuff, such as God, or ID or string theory or continental drift, or a relative universe, have to eventually put up or shut up in terms of detectability.
The only claim science makes about indectable causes, such as God or ID, is that it doesn't know squat.
since it seems to bear repeating in formal philosophical vocabulary: philosophical materialism holds that material is all there is. Neither science nor I advance this claim, no matter how hard you squint in order to see the use of the word "material" as a claim to formal philosophical materialism.