Methodological Naturalism

I don't know why, but a lot of Evangelical apologists have a bug up their butts about methodological naturalism, and because they are Evangelicals, they lie about methodological naturalism. Lying is second nature to them.

First, zero atheists are atheists because of methodological naturalism. It is not the basis for atheism (at least not for any atheists I know, although there is no accounting for the kind of stupidity that can be present in any population).

Second (and this is the part where Evangelical apologists like Frank Turek are being dishonest), scientists who talk about methodological naturalism are using a very different definition of natural/supernatural than what most ordinary people mean by those terms.

Click image for video about Frank Turek

Apologists like Frank Turek exploit that difference in definitions. It is reasonable for an average Evangelical to mix up the definitions, but it is not reasonable for someone with a philosophy degree to “confuse” different definitions of the same term. Like Frank Turek.

The definition of natural/supernatural used by philosophers and scientists says that if you can disprove or measure something with evidence, then whatever you’re looking at is natural rather than supernatural.

So when scientists say they are using methodological naturalism, what they mean is, “We only choose hypotheses that can be disproved with evidence.” Apologists like Frank Turek define methodological naturalism as “the presupposition that God does not exist.” So let us talk about…

The Templeton Prayer Study

The Templeton Prayer Study was published in a reputable science journal, and at least one of the authors was a reputable scientist. If methodological naturalism meant what Frank Turek claims, then this study would never have been published. It would have been rejected by the journal for violating methodological naturalism.

Because this study was published in a reputable science journal, we can determine that Evangelical apologists such as Frank Turek are lying about what scientists mean when they say methodological naturalism. Of course, I already gave you the definition that they are using.

Let us imagine you decided to test the hypothesis “Does prayer work?” This hypothesis violates methodological naturalism, but not for the reason people like Turek claim. The hypothesis is too open-ended and does not do enough to isolate variables. There is no way you could fashion a test that properly allowed falsification of the conclusion.

Now let us imagine another hypothesis: “Can prayer change the survival rates of people recovering from coronary artery bypass surgery. It is possible to design a study that can potentially falsify this hypothesis so it does not violate methodological naturalism. Because they are limiting things to only one type of surgery, it is possible to eliminate other variables and make certain that the presence or lack of prayer is the only thing changing.

This is what the Templeton Prayer Study examined.

These Are Silly Arguments

All methodological naturalism means is “We only ask questions that can be answered with evidence.” You do not have to think very long to realize why this restriction exists in science. If you cannot falsify something with evidence, then the thing in question is not a scientific hypothesis.

As near as I can tell, the people who use this argument are either trying to discredit all of science (usually to create space for things like creationism) or are using it as the basis for an even sillier argument that atheists secretly agree with them, an argument that reeks of desperation.