From a Social Media Page
Someone wrote:
There is something that both some atheists and a lot of theists seem to struggle with and that is the scope of science.
The scope of science is - on a methodological level - naturalism. This means that whenever a statement is about anything supernatural, it is outside the scope of science. We can not have any meaningful scientific discussion about the supernatural. We have to either reinterpret it as actually natural (which doesnt fit the bill) or we have to leave it out.
And that is by design. We have not discovered a tool to make statements we can all agree on about the supernatural. Claims about the supernatural usually come through revelation or experience. That’s not testable or reproducible – so science can’t evaluate it. There is no reliable way to "see for ourselves". If we allow - in science - for "god did it" or "angels did it", in general "a supernatural force did it", we can not inquire any further because we lack the tools to find testable, and therefore more likely agreeable data.
We can test whether Mary was actually pregnant. Thats a natural process, being pregnant. We can't test for "holy spirit impregnation". Because "holy spirit" is outside of the scope of science. Even if the holy spirit impregnated someone, science could only say: We have no idea how this woman got pregnant, the question remains unanswered. It can not insert the holy spirit.
"Mary got pregnant" is a scientifically testable statement.
"God impregnated Mary" is not.
Thats a feature. The focus of science is to bring about testable, reproducible, naturalist models of our world. And it does so remarkably well. It's the best method we have discovered so far to do that. And because of this limitation, it can only make meaningful statements about the natural world. Whether or not there is any supernatural world, and how that might look like, is not approachable by science. Thus, asking for or attempting to provide scientific data about supernatural entities is nonsensical.
Religious statements are by definition unscientific. And the weird thing is: People can't have that:
The subset of atheists that consists of proponents of scientism says "No, the scientific method covers everything! There just isn't anything else." usually accompanied by some attempts to devalue non-scientific thought.
The subset of theists that feels their tradition is lacking if it was unscientific says "No, my beliefs are completely scientific, its scientists who are excluding my beliefs" and then some justification like "the devil influences them" and what not.
Of course: Religious people make statements that can be subject to scientific inquiry all the time. Those statements are not exempt from scientific inquiry. I am talking about the parts that include the supernatural, which are excluded a priori. We can test whether prayers heal. But if we would find out they do, we could never scientifically discover that any supernatural entity is behind it.
Why is it so hard for people to understand that science is limited, and that it is so by design? What keeps you from accepting that religious statements/supernatural statements are exempt from science? Is there a good argument to make that it is not?
My Responses:
I think a disagree with important parts of the OP. I don't think there are serious definitions of "natural" or of "supernatural" or any natural/supernatural distinction. So far as I can tell, the clearest definition of "natural" is "not supernatural," and the clearest definition of "supernatural" is "not natural." These are obviously not-super-helpful definitions.
Without clear, useful meanings of, or distinctions between natural and supernatural, what's the point--or meaning--of claiming that the supernatural is outside the scope of science.
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An empirical scientific: "Prayers to God, for healing, cause an increase in the incidence of healing."
Method for testing the hypothesis: Randomly assign believers to either pray for, or not pray for the healing of a random sample of ill people.
Results: No significant effect of prayer on healing.
Conclusion: The evidence does not support the hypothesis that prayer heals the sick.
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Even within philosophy, there's apparently no consensus on the utility of the term "naturalism." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
I think science proceeds exactly the same way whether one does or does not distinguish so-called "natural" from so-called supernatural things. Arguably, scientists detect "supernatural" entities all the time: atoms, gasses, molecules, etc. Now, you might won't to argue that those things aren't "supernatural," but you'd have a hard time making your case (in a way that goes beyond just stating that "everybody knows gasses natural, not supernatural). This is because the terms "natural" and "supernatural" are so ill-defined that they're of little use--probably no use--in science.
So I claim that any hypothesis that X causes Y is within the proper scope of science, no matter what X and Y happen to be. If your hypothesis is "God's degree of dissatisfaction causes earthquakes," Then your first task will be to specify how you'll measure and ideally manipulate God's degree of dissatisfaction. It's quite possible you'll fail at that task. Even if you succeed (e.g., manipulate his dissatisfaction by deliberately sinning or not sinning) you'll likely find zero impact of the manipulation on earthquakes and thus zero evidence to support the hypothesis. After conducting a number of similar, failed studies, a reasonable conclusion will be, there's no evidence that God exists or has any causal role in anything. That's not an example of science going beyond its proper scope. It's an example of science properly concluding that God's existence isn't supported by evidence.
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(i) There's nothing about science that says you can't study thing a thing that is a "creator" of another thing (we study people all the time, and people do create things). I won't address the immanence/transcendence because that's completely nonsensical to me.
(ii) People used to think that light and air were non-"physical," and they thought that God was light and/or air.
(iii) I don't think I've claimed there's a scientific assumption that "physical" effects have "physical" causes.
(iv) I'm just not convinced that "supernatural" comes anywhere close to being a coherent construct. I we were to encounter a purportedly supernatural thing, we'd have no way to answer the question, "Is this thing supernatural?," we'd have no way to answer the question because we wouldn't know what to look for. I think the best we could do is substitute some other question and then answer that other question. ("Is it created" (yes or no); "Do we understand it" (yes or no), etc.)
(v) I think the claim that the scope of science is limited to "natural" things is about as useful or meaningful as the claim that the scope of science is limited to "merpodriquel" things. Science proceeds exactly the same, either way.
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Some people believe there exists a distinction between the "natural" realm and the "supernatural" realm (some might even posit additional, "ultra-natural," and "infra-natural" realms). Typically, the natural/supernatural distinction is drawn as a way to protect beliefs about the supernatural from scientific inquiry.
However, it must be said that despite the long history of such a distinction being made in religious (including religious philosophical) thought, there's no logical necessity for the existence of a supernatural or a natural realm. That is, the claim that such a distinction actually exists may be wrong.
Let's briefly try to pin-down a useful definition of "supernatural." How about: "Supernatural means not natural?" OK, but that requires us to define what "natural" is. Historically, that hasn't been a straightforward task. People used to think light, air and heat were non-natural and thus supernatural. Today, there seems to be broad agreement that those things are "natural" (whatever "natural" means). What about abstract concepts such as the number "four?" People don't want to call them supernatural, perhaps because such concepts are presumed to be incapable of causing events to occur, and people would like their supernatural Gods (for example) to have powers resembling those of natural entities--such as the power to make an event happen. What about time? Is time supernatural? Some may have thought so until Einstein's general relatively came along. What about quantum entanglement. Is that natural or supernatural (or infra-natural)? We do seem to be getting to the point of having to concede that the meanings of, and distinctions between "natural" and "supernatural" are far from clear.
Fortunately, science (in my opinion) doesn't require us postulate or assume a natural/supernatural distinction. We simply define what we want to study with sufficient precision that we know how to go about measuring it--or ideally, manipulating it. Then we look for an observable effect.
Of course, if we choose to define a particular thing as having the property of being unmeasurable, un-manipulatable, and unknowable, then science can't address it--but presumably, that's not what's meant by "supernatural" (since it seems awfully close to "non-existent").