What is this "scientific method" you all speak of?

[Peter_Plato]

“Absolute” means an unchanging system, independent from the time, the location and the circumstances. If you subscribe to “absolute” morality, then an act will be considered “moral” no matter what the circumstances might be. If slavery is “immoral” today, then it was “immoral” in the biblical times, too.

What is interesting here is that you are trying to dictate to me what constitutes a compelling absolute moral system and you are doing that by assuming I am constrained to subscribing to your definition - a caricature, really - in order to hold to a legitimate system of ethics.

Who claimed an absolute morality MUST apply “no matter what the circumstances might be?” That has never been part of the definition of absolute morality. In fact, it doesn’t make sense because the circumstances are always considered as possibly mitigating culpability and responsibility. This is why, for example, premeditated murder is considered worse than culpable homocide. And why crimes of passion carry less moral opprobrium and less of a prison sentence than do those which are the result of calculated reason. The circumstances and motives do matter.

In fact, the Catholic view is that moral acts have three dimensions:

1. The morality or rightness of the act itself
2. The circumstances surrounding the act
3. The motives or intention of the agent.

In other words, a wrong act, given the same motives and circumstances will be considered equally wrong in all times and places, but if the motives and circumstances change, those may affect the rightness or wrongness of the act in any times and places equally.

Your qualification that wrong acts are always wrong no matter what the circumstances is misconceived.

 

[Gregory_Olson]

The point is that those actions were endorsed by the bible and the church - at those times. Of course the church today apologized for the past mistakes, (which commendable), but it does not detract from the fact that those actions were considered “moral” in THOSE times.

First of all, your statement needs correction. You left out the critical piece of “that would have allowed the killing of the Jews under Hitler to be considered moral BY THAT SOCIETY if it would have found general acceptance in German society”. Fortunately it did not happen, because most people were against it. Quite unlike the middle ages when the persecution of the Jews (the killers of Christ - according to the church) was an accepted “moral” behavior. So, as I said before, observe the beam in you own eye before you hasten to point out the mote in someone else’s.

Hey Hee Zen,

I’m lagging behind the discussion, as always…
I do see what you’re honestly saying about objective social morality. Because I think you also understand what’s important to this discussion is that it’s still what you call relative morality, or made-up morality, or there is no real good and bad, I’m not going to pester you about it.

Peter Plato just gave a good description of Christian morality–what’s important for this post is that it always applies; it’s unchanging. This is true whether the members of the Church perfectly follow it or not. Great sins have been committed in the name of God; because they are human, Christians are no exception to this. The Pharisees are by far the bad guys in the Bible, and they’re supposed to be the moral and religious leaders of the people. I’m only saying: just because a member or leader of the Church did it, doesn’t mean it agrees with Church teaching.
On the other hand, keep in mind that a great deal of the atrocities supposedly committed by the Church in its long past have been hugely exaggerated today–there are many good articles here on this site that show just how ludicrous some of these urban legends can be. Here is one on the Knights Templar; I’m just quoting it because I actually enjoyed reading it–please don’t read it if you find it boring. Or the source doesn’t even have to be Catholic; I’ve seen some apologists here debunk myths about the Inquisition, for example, by quoting atheist historians who agree fully that the legends have little in common with historical fact.

The moral contradiction your Numbers quote seems to depict was a much better point. I’m not going to lie that I don’t have a sure explanation for it myself, although I’m pretty sure there is one. (Actually it’s ironically a decent argument for the truth of Divine inspiration; if the Bible had been made up by ordinary men to deceive people into believing Jesus was God, they should have picked out potentially embarrassing passages like this; there are quite a few others.) I’ll only say: most OT scripture is highly metaphorical; nearly all passages have multiple purposes, and most of those purposes are allegorical.
This would be a really excellent question for a CAF apologist–give him some real work to do. In fact, if you don’t ask, I will.

-Greg

 

[Hee_Zen]

In fact, the Catholic view is that moral acts have three dimensions:

1. The morality or rightness of the act itself
2. The circumstances surrounding the act
3. The motives or intention of the agent.

In other words, a wrong act, given the same motives and circumstances will be considered equally wrong in all times and places, but if the motives and circumstances change, those may affect the rightness or wrongness of the act in any times and places equally.

No, this is only **ONE **of the two approaches. The church **ALSO **asserts that there are intrinsically “evil” acts, which are “wrong” regardless of the place, time and circumstances. Very “wise”, to teach something and its opposite, too. This way you think that you can never be pinned down, and when your words paint you into a corner, you just “invoke” the opposite “teaching”, and hope that no one will notice. Unfortunately for you, your trick is discovered, and this street urchin proclaims loudly: “the emperor has no clothes”!

By the way, your “definition” is circular. You said: “…moral acts have three dimensions” and then “…morality or rightness of the act itself”. It is always ironic to see such elementary logical mistakes.

 

[Peter_Plato]

No, this is only **ONE **of the two approaches. The church **ALSO **asserts that there are intrinsically “evil” acts, which are “wrong” regardless of the place, time and circumstances. Very “wise”, to teach something and its opposite, too. This way you think that you can never be pinned down, and when your words paint you into a corner, you just “invoke” the opposite “teaching”, and hope that no one will notice. Unfortunately for you, your trick is discovered, and this street urchin proclaims loudly: “the emperor has no clothes”!

By the way, your “definition” is circular. You said: “…moral acts have three dimensions” and then “…morality or rightness of the act itself”. It is always ironic to see such elementary logical mistakes.

These are only elementary logical mistakes if you subscribe to the form of logic taught in elementary school.

There is nothing logically inconsistent about claiming some acts are intrinsically evil because no motives, circumstances or times can ever make them right, but that some moral acts are of a character that motives, circumstances and times can mitigate the culpability or evil of the act.

It is done all the time in courts of law. Killing is not intrinsically evil because there are times, motives and situations where killing is the morally correct thing to do. Murder, however, is intrinsically evil by definition because it is the premeditated wrongful killing of a person without a justifiable warrant.

Are you claiming that a theft, for examole, under any circumstances, for whatever motive at all times is always and everywhere wrong?

So a man who steals a bit of bread from a rich man’s storehouse to feed his starving family commits an equally wrong act to a man who steals from a starving child his last bit of bread?

Seriously, Hee_Zen?

ALWAYS wrong no matter the time, circumstances or motives?

Your moral development seems stuck at Kohlberg’s Level 2 Conventional understanding of ethics fluctuating between Stage 3 Social Norms and Stage 4 Law and Order.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development

 

[Peter_Plato]

By the way, your “definition” is circular. You said: “…moral acts have three dimensions” and then “…morality or rightness of the act itself”. It is always ironic to see such elementary logical mistakes.

Let’s be clear about this.

1. The evil of the act is the extent to which goods, in particular, the final good, are removed or thwarted. Goods have different moral worths. Possessions are less valuable on a moral scale than life or physical integrity. Acts entail relative moral evil depending upon the relative worth of the goods at stake. Some acts are more evil than others because greater goods are removed or thwarted. This is a moral dimension. Actions matter.
2. The circumstances are the placement of the act where the relative priority of the goods involved are at stake. Someone’s life is more important (morally speaking) than their limbs, ergo removing a limb to save a life may involve two evils (surgeon choosing between removing a limb or letting the patient die.) Since one (life) takes precedence over the other (saving a limb,) therefore, the circumstances of a surgeon removing the limb of a cancer patient makes the evil of removing a limb justified, while a sadistic killer removing someone’s limb makes that a savage act. What don’t you understand about that? Circumstances matter.
3. The motives of the moral agent are key to determining the morality of the act because moral acts are determinably the acts of moral agents. Anyone who gives to a charity to gain honour or respectability for themselves are altering the moral character of the act of giving. Another person who gives to charity purely from the desire to help someone in need places a different character on the same act of giving. They both may be giving the same amount to the same charity at the same time, but one act is less morally worthy than the other. What don’t you understand about that? Motives matter.

 

[ChainBreaker]

Let’s be clear about this.

1. The evil of the act is the extent to which goods, in particular, the final good, are removed or thwarted. Goods have different moral worths. Possessions are less valuable on a moral scale than life or physical integrity. Acts entail relative moral evil depending upon the relative worth of the goods at stake. Some acts are more evil than others because greater goods are removed or thwarted. This is a moral dimension. Actions matter.
2. The circumstances are the placement of the act where the relative priority of the goods involved are at stake. Someone’s life is more important (morally speaking) than their limbs, ergo removing a limb to save a life may involve two evils (surgeon choosing between removing a limb or letting the patient die.) Since one (life) takes precedence over the other (saving a limb,) therefore, the circumstances of a surgeon removing the limb of a cancer patient makes the evil of removing a limb justified, while a sadistic killer removing someone’s limb makes that a savage act. What don’t you understand about that? Circumstances matter.
3. The motives of the moral agent are key to determining the morality of the act because moral acts are determinably the acts of moral agents. Anyone who gives to a charity to gain honour or respectability for themselves are altering the moral character of the act of giving. Another person who gives to charity purely from the desire to help someone in need places a different character on the same act of giving. They both may be giving the same amount to the same charity at the same time, but one act is less morally worthy than the other. What don’t you understand about that? Motives matter.

Moral culpability involves circumstances and because circumstances change our moral culpability changes. However the objective standard by which human behavior is judged never changes. An act cannot be considered truly selfish if there is not an absolute objective standard by which we consider an act to be truly loving. In order for that to be possible “Love” has to be an actual-reality in which and through which we have our being. If human behavior is to have true moral significance then the antithesis of nothing has to be love; otherwise “moral-truth” does not exist and anybody that has ever convinced you of having a moral responsibility is a deceiver.

It is because we exist inside and depend upon love for our very actuality that we can say this or that act is selfish or loving because the standard of morality is the very thing by which we have an act.

 

[Ignatius]

Hee_Zen;12561531:

Well, in this case, what are you talking about?

Let me retrace the conversation for you.
I said:

The historicity of the specific individual known as Jesus Christ is a well-documented historical fact. Denial of the fact of the existence of Jesus Christ is counter to the facts. The vast preponderance of accredited, knowledgeable historians will attest to the fact that the existence of Jesus Christ is far more well documented than that of most ancients known to history.

To which you replied:

Could you please quote some historical . . . . For feeding a crowd “with one loaf of bread and one fish”? …

To which I posted:

I didn’t say anything about any miracles.
Are you seriously attempting to deny the existence of the vast mountain of historical evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ? Really???

You Responded:

Well, in this case, what are you talking about?

So, You postulated that Jesus did not exist. Then I stated that the historical evidence is substantial. Then you said something about Jesus’s Miracles. I had not said anything about miracles.
That is fallacious logic. It simply does not follow that the The historicity of the specific individual known as Jesus Christ is a well-documented historical fact, the vast preponderance of accredited, knowledgeable historians will attest to the fact that the existence of Jesus Christ is far more well documented than that of most ancients known to history is dependent on the existence of miracles.
Let me draw an analogy to illustrate the fallacy.
1 Someone says that Socrates did not exist.
2 I say that he did and it is a well-documented historical fact.
3 The first person says that there is no proof that he developed that he developed the Socratic method.
Even if there is no Socratic method it does not follow that Socrates did not exist. In other words, The existence of Socrates does not depend on the existence of the Socratic method just as the fact of the historical evidence of Jesus Christ does not depend on the miracles you mentioned.
That would be like denying the existence of George Washington because there is no evidence that he chopped down a cherry tree. Your see the error, to wit: the existence of some historical person does not depend on whether they did something attributed to them. That is a red herring argument.

One other thing you might consider:
[youtu.be/KSxpnOL(name removed by moderator)](

(name removed by moderator))

 

[Hee_Zen]

Killing is not intrinsically evil because there are times, motives and situations where killing is the morally correct thing to do. Murder, however, is intrinsically evil by definition because it is the premeditated wrongful killing of a person without a justifiable warrant.

You talk about two different things. The phrase “murder” is a qualified term (it contains the circumstances), while “killing” is not. But the church says that “lying” is always and under any conditions is intrinsically “evil” - even if it would be necessary to save the lives of people. “Theft” is always and under any conditions is intrinsically “evil”, even if it would save the life of a starving person. Premeditated killing of a terrorist (without a warrant) is a “murder”, even if it would save the lives of other people.

Are you claiming that a theft, for examole, under any circumstances, for whatever motive at all times is always and everywhere wrong?

No, that is what the church says.

So a man who steals a bit of bread from a rich man’s storehouse to feed his starving family commits an equally wrong act to a man who steals from a starving child his last bit of bread?

Ah, but in this case the word “theft” is redefined - the rich man has no “right” to that piece of bread.

Seriously, Hee_Zen?

ALWAYS wrong no matter the time, circumstances or motives?

According to the church. You really should not try to put words into my mouth.

 

[Peter_Plato]

“Theft” is always and under any conditions is intrinsically “evil”, even if it would save the life of a starving person.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

…one in danger of death from want of food, or suffering any form of extreme necessity, may lawfully take from another as much as is required to meet his present distress even though the possessor’s opposition be entirely clear. Neither, therefore, would he be bound to restitution if his fortunes subsequently were notably bettered, supposing that what he had converted to his own use was perishable. The reason is that individual ownership of the goods of this world, though according to the natural law , yields to the stronger and more sacred right conferred by natural law upon every man to avail himself of such things as are necessary for his own preservation. St. Thomas ( II-II:66:7 ) declares that in such straits what is taken becomes, because of the dire need experienced, one’s very own, and so cannot be said to be stolen. This doctrine is sometimes expressed by saying that at such a time all things become common, and thus one reduced to such utter destitution only exercises his right.
catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=11428

 

[Peter_Plato]

But the church says that “lying” is always and under any conditions is intrinsically “evil” - even if it would be necessary to save the lives of people.

There is no such Church teaching. The Church has remained quite silent on what has come to be known as a “necessary” lie. There have been diverse opinions by Catholic scholars and doctors of the Church throughout history, including some who have defended the idea that if it is morally permissible to kill another in self-defense it would be at least as permissible to lie in self-defense.

The current teaching is well summarized here:

catholic.com/magazine/articles/is-lying-ever-right

It would be helpful if you refrained from making statements about Church teaching until after you have properly researched and understood it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

According to the church. You really should not try to put words into my mouth.

According to you :tsktsk:

You really should not try to put words into the mouth of the Church.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Ah, but in this case the word “theft” is redefined - the rich man has no “right” to that piece of bread.

Yes, he has a right to the piece of bread. But the starving man has a greater right to it.

We are our brother’s keeper. If we refuse to keep him and leave him alone to die, he has a right to his share by theft. The law of self preservation supersedes the law of private property. Indeed, we know what Jesus says about the rich man who denies food to the starving man … hell awaits him. Matthew 25.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Seeing as we have wondered far adrift from the thread question, an interesting article has appeared in Nature regarding this exact question.

Some physicists are claiming the falsifiability criteria and the need to demonstrate experimental or observational evidence is too constricting. Other scientists are resisting that redefinition and understandably so.

The consequences of overclaiming the significance of certain theories are profound — the scientific method is at stake (see What is science and why should we care? — Part I | Scientia Salon). To state that a theory is so good that its existence supplants the need for data and testing in our opinion risks misleading students and the public as to how science should be done and could open the door for pseudoscientists to claim that their ideas meet similar requirements.

What to do about it? Physicists, philosophers and other scientists should hammer out a new narrative for the scientific method that can deal with the scope of modern physics. In our view, the issue boils down to clarifying one question: what potential observational or experimental evidence is there that would persuade you that the theory is wrong and lead you to abandoning it? If there is none, it is not a scientific theory.

nature.com/news/scientific-method-defend-the-integrity-of-physics-1.16535

 

[Al_Moritz]

Seeing as we have wondered far adrift from the thread question, an interesting article has appeared in Nature regarding this exact question.

Some physicists are claiming the falsifiability criteria and the need to demonstrate experimental or observational evidence is too constricting. Other scientists are resisting that redefinition and understandably so.

Thanks, Peter, for posting this. I agree 100 % with the authors. Such a dangerous redefinition of science like proposed would lead us back to a pre-scientific world. As I have written elsewhwere:

We know that quantum vacua can produce virtual particles and anti-particles that, however, eliminate each other in the tiniest fractions of milliseconds. Some extrapolate that the universe could have arisen in a similar manner from a quantum vacuum, from almost nothing. However, we do not even remotely have any observational and experimental evidence that would make a link between such hugely different events like the humble appearance of a tiny virtual particle and, even if it started on the quantum sub-microscopic level, an event of such unbelievable magnitude of energy as the Big Bang – the universe is calculated to have been about 1E32 Kelvin hot (that is billions of billions of billions and more Kelvin) a miniscule fraction of a second after its beginning, at Planck time 1E-43 seconds, before the inflationary epoch. Thus, the birth of our universe from a quantum vacuum is an extraordinary claim born from pure, far-fetched theoretical speculation that has little to do with any actual observation in science.

Indeed, as Alexander Vilenkin, one of the ‘fathers’ of quantum cosmology which deals with this kind of scenario, wrote in his paper Quantum Cosmology and Eternal Inflation: “sadly, quantum cosmology is not likely to become an observational science.” But if it cannot become observational science, what kind of science is it then? The natural sciences are founded on observation and experiment. Shifting the foundations of the natural sciences towards an exploration of the world by pure thought alone would throw us back to – well, the pre-scientific world (even if the concepts and the mathematics are now more sophisticated).

 

[Al_Moritz]

As for the multiverse being science, I compeletely disagree as well and agree with the authors of that Nature essay. It is not. From my article (linked above):

In general, even when they uphold the probable existence of the multiverse, cosmologists concede that we will never be able to directly observe other universes outside our own. The reason for this is the particle horizon: the maximum distance from which particles (i.e. also particles carrying information) could have traveled to the observer in the age of the universe. It represents the portion of the universe which we could have conceivably observed at the present day. Any other universe would lie outside this particle horizon.

At this point I would recommend to the reader to study the presentation by the eminent cosmologist George Ellis, The multiverse, ultimate causation and God, as to why the multiverse hypothesis should not be considered science. He points out that, due to the particle horizon, the multiverse is beyond accessibility to observation and test of hypothesis, the very cornerstones of science that have been responsible for the incredible success of this endeavour of acquiring knowledge. Therefore it is more philosophy than science proper.

Certainly, some hope that we might obtain indirect observational evidence for the multiverse, such as from imprints in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) map. Perhaps there will be a possible observational indication of the existence of some multiverse from such indirect evidence. While such potential evidence, were it to actualize, is sometimes portrayed as sufficient evidence, this is not correct. The demonstration of the mere existence of a multiverse would not suffice. Scientifically adequate evidence would only be the demonstration of the existence of a multiverse fulfilling the requirements needed to explain the fine-tuning, i.e. sufficient random variation of the physical parameters between the different universes or universe domains. Yet such evidence could only be established by, impossible, direct observation. To think that some imprint in the microwave background might indirectly tell us not just about an incredible multitude of other universes, but also about the exact physical constants of each single one of them (necessary to make the multiverse work as explanation for the anthropic coincidences) seems quite preposterous, far beyond realistic scientific expectations. And even if one day some scientist were to claim to be able to extract such sophisticated information from the CMB map (or from some potential other future maps, like imprints from neutrino radiation or gravitational waves), this claim probably would have to involve a huge amount of theoretical modeling that, again, would lose any reasonable contact with observation and experiment.

Of course, the history of science has shown us that there are always surprises with respect to what science can demonstrate. Often things were thought impossible to detect, such as black holes or neutrinos, but science eventually has been able to observe them anyway. Yet it appears that with respect to observation beyond the particle horizon, necessary for a sufficiently detailed observational study of a putative multiverse, science reaches not just practical limits (which always have a tendency to be overcome eventually) but principal ones.

As Lee Smolin writes in Life of the Cosmos, p. 78 (emphasis mine):

“A fantastic consequence of general relativity theory [is] that the part of the universe that we will ever be able to see does not include the whole of it. The part of reality we can in principle ever see has boundaries. And there are necessarily regions of space and time beyond those boundaries.”

And that holds just for our universe, not to speak of other universes beyond that.

Here a fitting surprise with respect to what science can show would be that, in the future, we can narrow the particle horizon by causing particles to travel towards us at a speed much greater than the speed of light – in a sort of forced acceleration towards us by ‘fishing net’ as it were. But I firmly would put such a scenario in the science fiction category. Science simply cannot overcome physical limits. Just like it has not been and never will be able to build a perpetuum mobile (impossible due to the second law of thermodynamics), it can also not transcend physical laws in matters of observation. So yes, science has shown to progress in ways that are totally unexpected, but in the entire history of science no physical laws have ever been transcended. This has to be a crucial consideration in a realistic and rational assessment of what science can and cannot do.

Yet perhaps eventually we will arrive at a theory that is considered the correct fundamental theory of physics – it will account for all observations in cosmology and particle physics, it will be well-tested by experiment, will lead to many correct predictions, and will have a tight structure. The equations of that future theory may imply that the universe has a multiverse structure with each of the domains having physical parameters with different values. One might suggest that this may constitute a ‘theoretical proof’ that the multiverse is correct. However, in order to qualify as science in the usual sense there would still need to be observational proof that the multiverse, which is expressed in these equations as mere potentiality, is in fact actualized (confusing potentialities with actualities is a grave mistake in science). Such an observational proof is not possible.

(cont.)

 

[Al_Moritz]

(cont.)

All in all, I therefore have to agree with George Ellis that the multiverse hypothesis is not science, but philosophy. It is philosophy dressed up in scientific language. Certainly, it may be called a hypothesis from science, but it hardly qualifies as science proper. The multiverse hypothesis thus shows no inherent advantage over the God hypothesis in being more ‘scientific’ or ‘accessible to scientific investigation’.

 

[Al_Moritz]

As for string theory, I find it bunk. Alas in theoretical physics it has become the dominant paradigm of thinking and as such plays an in my view unfortunate, even destructive role. As a first in the history of science, this theory, or rather, hypothesis, has not had a single experimental confirmation in 40 years. It might be interesting for you to read The Trouble with Physics by theoretical physicist Lee Smolin who once was a fan of string theory but then became disillusioned with it, for reasons that he explains well in his book.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

(cont.)

All in all, I therefore have to agree with George Ellis that the multiverse hypothesis is not science, but philosophy. It is philosophy dressed up in scientific language. Certainly, it may be called a hypothesis from science, but it hardly qualifies as science proper. The multiverse hypothesis thus shows no inherent advantage over the God hypothesis in being more ‘scientific’ or ‘accessible to scientific investigation’.

Very astute analysis!

Yes, the multiverse hypothesis is more philosophy than science, but as philosophy it doesn’t seem to sail. It may well be the only atheist alternative to explaining the roots of our universe since the Big Bang itself suggests more Creation than the eternal universe hypothesis assumed by scientists before the discovery of the Big Bang. If there is no Creator, and the Big Bang can only be shown to be a one-time event, the multiverse must be allowed by the atheist to be the only plausible explanation. But as you pointed out above, that is more science fiction than science, and it’s not convincing philosophy at all since atheism is not very convincing. The “inherent advantage” of the God hypothesis in philosophy is that the universe appears to be designed not only for the eventual emergence of life, but our life in particular. The existence of a multiverse would get us nowhere as far as explaining why the laws of our universe are as they are.

How is it that a reasoning creature could figure out much about the origins of the universe if the universe was not built from the start by its Creator to be able to produce such a reasoning creature?

 

[Peter_Plato]

Thanks, Peter, for posting this. I agree 100 % with the authors. Such a dangerous redefinition of science like proposed would lead us back to a pre-scientific world. As I have written elsewhwere:

As much as I agree with the above, I do have a couple of points to make.

People like Sean Carroll or Richard Dawid who are advocating changing the methods of science to accommodate a more “theoretical” approach would appear to be advocating precisely what the “creationists,” loosely speaking, have been accused of on the other side - letting their metaphysical views dictate their science.

I would suggest that while this may be true in some cases, as far as “creationism,” again loosely speaking, goes, it isn’t true in all.

There are at least some ID proponents who are quite happy to rely on falsification, observation and experimental research to guide their work. They are not intent upon overturning the core principles of science, but advocate for them, unlike the above “theoretical” physicists who want the “elegance” or consistency of theories to override the need for empirical verification.

If it were theists who attempted to push the “elegance and internal consistency” of the God theory you can bet there would be a hue and cry from scientists - with Sean Carroll at the front holding a pitchfork and torch. However, when virtually the same suggestion comes from within the brotherhood, and, indeed, from Sean Carroll, himself, - who will use the very criteria he advocates changing to bash theism - it is barely noticed.

Double standard, no?

 

[Al_Moritz]

As much as I agree with the above, I do have a couple of points to make.

People like Sean Carroll or Richard Dawid who are advocating changing the methods of science to accommodate a more “theoretical” approach would appear to be advocating precisely what the “creationists,” loosely speaking, have been accused of on the other side - letting their metaphysical views dictate their science.

I would suggest that while this may be true in some cases, as far as “creationism,” again loosely speaking, goes, it isn’t true in all.

There are at least some ID proponents who are quite happy to rely on falsification, observation and experimental research to guide their work. They are not intent upon overturning the core principles of science, but advocate for them, unlike the above “theoretical” physicists who want the “elegance” or consistency of theories to override the need for empirical verification.

If it were theists who attempted to push the “elegance and internal consistency” of the God theory you can bet there would be a hue and cry from scientists - with Sean Carroll at the front holding a pitchfork and torch. However, when virtually the same suggestion comes from within the brotherhood, and, indeed, from Sean Carroll, himself, - who will use the very criteria he advocates changing to bash theism - it is barely noticed.

Double standard, no?

While I don’t quite agree on the ID issue, you do raise very good points. The God hypothesis should then also qualify as science, especially since the concept of God in classical theism indeed is one of “elegance and internal consistency”, unlike the folk concept of the white-bearded Big Man in the Sky.