That aside, here’s a question I wonder about that I’d like to know if any of the RF crew have opinions about: can a Reformed Christian be an anti-realist about science? (Pick you favorite: instrumentalism/pragmatism, conventionalism, we can even include skepticism, but the distinctions don’t matter to my general question unless one misunderstands anti-realism in the first place.)

“In the case of Intelligent Design creationism, the situation is reversed. Creationism was the former paradigm, which was toppled long ago as thousands of pieces of evidence were discovered for which it had no good account.”

Who were the ID theorists that proposed a criterion and a system that was “toppled long ago”?? Could you point me to some names and works? Prima facie, it looks like you’re just trying group ID theory in with what Dembski calls (and distinguishes from ID theory) “Scientific Creationism” where (basically) a propose that the universe was created at such and such a time in such and such a manner because the Bible says so. But this isn’t anything like ID, at least not as Dembski and others assert it. For instance, Dembski states, “Intelligent design requires neither a meddling God nor a meddled world. For that matter, it doesn’t even require that there be a God” (The Design Revolution, IVP, 25). That doesn’t sound like what we would usually consider “creationism.”

Ruble says,

“…evolution became the dominant paradigm because it accounted very well for all the evidence available at the time (and, indeed, all the evidence since discovered).”

Many ID theorists don’t doubt evolution, but Darwinism or what you might call “evolutionism”. The idea that natural processes operating by chance and necessity account for all that we see. For instance, Mario Beauregard and Denyse O’leary in “The Spiritual Brain” state, “Lest there by any misunderstanding, it is not the purpose of this book to argue that evolution did not occur. There is a fossil record, after all. In spite of its many defects, the record shows that evolution occurred” (12).

So, thus far, it looks like you are confusing two systems (creationism and ID) and then are confused about what exactly ID may or may not exclude (evolution).

Of course, ID theorists set forth arguments that evolution does not and never has accounted for “all the evidence available” so no one who doesn’t already agree with you needs to take your assertion seriously. As Antony Flew has stated, at least in regard to the *present* state of affairs: “the evidential situation of natural (as opposed to revealed) theology has been transformed in the more than fifty years since Watson and Crick won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism” (http://www.philosophynow.org/issue47/47flew.htm). And we might be able to find some statements from Darwin himself on whether he could account for all the evidence in his own time.

Ruble says,

“However, because of the (obvious) previous commitments many people had to the creationist paradigm, it has stuck around ever since.”

We can provide a our own explanation of why Darwinism stuck around for so long: commitments to materialism… Well, I’ll just let the Darwinists speak for themselves here: “Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism” (Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons”).

Thus, the (obvious) previous commitments many people have to the naturalist are what accounts for their dogmatism regarding the certainty of evolutionism.

Ruble says,

“Now, it exists entirely as a paradigm, with no empirical foundations at all…”

Again, since arguments have been set forth, no one who doesn’t already agree with you needs to take this rhetoric seriously. In fact, if we’re going to psychologize, such rhetoric combined with (possible) confusions and confabulations of ID and creationism and evolution may indicate nothing more than a knee-jerk response to save a crumbling paradigm.

The verification principle always takes a beating whenever it comes up, but I think there’s another side of it that’s harder to dismiss – the perspective of the pragmatists (rather than the positivists), who focus less on whether something is or is not metaphysically true, and more on whether the truth or falsity of a claim makes a difference in what we do or observe in the world.

I thought it was interesting when Jeff (I think) brought up the Intelligent Design position as an example of people challenging the dominant paradigm in biology. I think it’s an interesting reversal of the usual trend (as described by Kuhn, anyway), where the foundations of a current paradigm are slowly undercut by newly acquired evidence for which it cannot account, until eventually the paradigm is toppled and replaced by a new paradigm which can account for all the evidence extant at the time of its formulation.

In the case of Intelligent Design creationism, the situation is reversed. Creationism was the former paradigm, which was toppled long ago as thousands of pieces of evidence were discovered for which it had no good account. In its place, evolution became the dominant paradigm because it accounted very well for all the evidence available at the time (and, indeed, all the evidence since discovered). However, because of the (obvious) previous commitments many people had to the creationist paradigm, it has stuck around ever since. Now, it exists entirely as a paradigm, with no empirical foundations at all, a situation I don’t believe Kuhn really anticipated when he was building his theories.

Anyway, if you’re looking for people who are sticking to a paradigm because of their prior commitments, rather than because of the evidence, you shouldn’t look among scientists (although of course there are some) – the exemplars of that mindset are in the (meager) ranks of the creationists.