"It is logically impossible and scientifically unsupportable to contend, as Carl Sagan famously did, that “the universe is all there is, and all there ever will be”. Pressed hard, a Darwinist will relent concerning the origin of life, but the subtle subliminal argument made daily by advocates of Darwin is identical to Sagan’s ignorant assertion."
25 posted on Sunday, February 22, 2009 11:56:41 PM by ks_shooter
Bingo. It is a metphysical assertion and a priori truth claim of the kind Sagan & Co. protest when made by Christians or theists. There is no empirical event, lab experiment, or observation which could prove this claim, the central proposition of ontological materialism.
The modern physical sciences do not have the epistemological ability to determine with certain knowledge all of the things or beings which exist or the metaphysical structure of reality (such as claimed in obtological materialism either as a presupposition or declared metaphysical doctrine in the case of Sagan). That is ipso facto metaphysical in its very nature. It is unclear whether Professor Sagan understood what he was doing when he made such a claim. Based on other things he said and wrote one might conclude his background in philosophy was quite weak. It's such an obvious mistake.
But the advocates of scientism make these claims and errors all the time. The presupposition of scientific materialism usually just assumes this without reflection or critical examination. There simply is no epistemological foundation or any way to prove the claim that “the universe is all there is, and all there ever will be." Once that house of cards falls apart, the rest of the Weltanschauung of scientism gets pretty shaky.