Well no, but what we consider naturally reasonable and obvious to the senses may be wrong. That is, they may be contradicted by other reasoning and other sense perceptions. It is very common that, as our technology improves and out measurements become more precise, that it becomes clear that our prior perceptions are wrong.
I hope you don't oppose science accomodating itself to the best available evidence.
Are dogmatic evolutionists able to divest themselves entirely of "givens?"
In my view science is naturally conservative. This is a good thing, right? But the history of science, and evolution is right in this mainstream, is that when sufficient discrepancies become apparent and when there is a better theory, science will move. Evolution is not being contradiccted by the evidence.
It isn't like evolution hasn't been challenged and sometimes found wanting. Are you familiar with the concept of endosymbiosis? That is not Darwinian evolution and was stronbgly opposed but is now accepted. There have been many other opportunities for evolution to fail (fossil evidence, geological evidence, genetic evidence) but Darwin's concept has come through largely unscathed. These are the "givens" that scientists don't want to give up.
But I think you're talking about some other "given," namely methodological naturalism. As I said, science is conservative. You have to have enough reason to change. Making a bunch of (largely) non-scientists feel good isn't nearly enough. Nor should it be.
I count it as evidence that man is created in the image of God because he can operate intellectually from more than one point of view
In the first place, we're comparing theories here, right? So for this to be an interesting observation, evolution must not be able to explain how man "can operate intellectually from more than one point of view." But the explanation is trivial as I'm sure you see.
In the second place, if we're created in the image of God (and I assume you mean intellectually), why aren't we as smart as God? Why aren't we only loving? Why can't we read other people's minds? Why can't we simply will reality to be some way?
Ah, here you'll go all ad hoc on me - it's because of the fall you'll say. But then why didn't the fall also take away the ability to see intellectually from more than one point of view?
And that takes me to the third point. To be considered evidence for a theory, it isn't enough for a fact to be simply consistent with the theory, it must follow deductively from the theory and its negation must be logically excluded.
Actually, yes. The "givens" of methodological naturalism. What are they? I read your post with interest and you raise some good questions I might address later, but for now, I'd like to know the fundamental assumptions of those who view whatever sensory communication the universe presents, including those who might view it from what is known as "methodological naturalism."
From my viewpoint as an observer, I am approximately halfway through a journey that will allow me to collect and evaluate the universe into which I was born. "Science," to me, is what I can make of it all based on all the sources that communicate to me whether by nature or by other intelligent beings such as yourself.
It is from this perspective that I 1.) would rather engage in dialogue with adherents of evolution without resorting to "proof texts" and "links," and 2.) freely admit to ignorance on a scale science most likely cannot measure. Ignorance is not something I enjoy or seek to promote, but it is a HUGE given from my point of view.
. . . science is conservative.
Insofar as it does not yield theory on a whim, I agree. That is why I believe Copernicus made his propositions after seeing evidence, and not by arbitrarily thinking to himself, "Let's see what happens if I think about the earth as revolving around the sun."
But the word "conservative" carries too much baggage to be applied to science as a whole. IOW, in a certain way Copernicus was radical, and he was right.
. . . fossil evidence . . .
Think about what meets the senses of anyone who is introduced to fossils. Objectively, without the filter of books and teachings of other people, how much fossil evidence have you viewed with your own eyes? Everything I know about fossils, besides a few I've gotten to hold in my hand, comes from the testimony of other observers. The ones I've held in my hand do not speak to me about where they came from, how old they are, and how they came into being.
Even when I read about fossil evidence in a book, it is presented in two dimensions, when fossils are three dimensional at least, and possibly four dimensional. Already the evidence has been tainted.
Actually, I'd like to think my understanding that a report of a "fall" as explanatory of inconsistencies, anomolies, decay, etc. is not just an "ad hoc" assumption. It has been reported not only to me but also throughout all human generations known to science, by a source that (as I interpret the evidence presented to me) dates back several thousand years before I was born, that the earth I inhabit was once in a much better condition than it is now.
Now, I am as much at liberty to assert the veracity of this claim as the next observer is at liberty to assert whatever view has been reported to him, even if it were that the earth, the universe, or whatever, is the product of sixteen purple turles wracked by back pain from the intransigent compunctions of a well-travelled frog baked on three stones tossed twice over the northernmost ridges of Mount Everest before certain strikers of rocks fertilized a strain of beans consumed by the beavers that erected a dam resulting in the Mississippi River rats gnawing on the residual cheeseburger discarded by Howard Wilkey as he crossed the Eads Bridge last Thursday at 2:30:06:08:56:30 a.m. Mars Mean Time on his way to a convocation dedicated to the Epistemology of Gophers as Perceived by Hungry Rottweilers.
But I am certainly at liberty, I hope, to present my claim as the more reasonable of the two.
Please note, as possible further evidence of man as being created in the image of God, the words above which were "created" out of nothing science as we know it would able to predict. Like God, only to an exceedingly limited degree, man is a "creator."