StephenB

Philosophers and scientists who know their business recognize that any attempt to seek knowledge presupposes the existence of a rational universe ripe for investigating. The fact that we even bother to make the effort says something about our nature. As Aristotle says, “all men by nature want to know.” That is why the discovery of a new fact or truth can be a joy for its own sake. To be sure, knowledge also provides practical benefits, empowering us to pursue a self-directed life style, but it also edifies us, leading us on the road to self-actualization. To be intellectually healthy is to be curious.

On the other hand, we can, by virtue of our free will, act against our natural desire to know. For better or worse, there are some truths that many of us would prefer not to know about. The compelling nature of an objective fact can pull us in one direction while the force of our personal desires can pull us in the opposite direction. When this happens, a choice must be made. “Either the thinker conforms desire to truth or he conforms truth to desire.”–E. Michael Jones

Because we experience this ambivalence about the truth, we must be on guard against two errors: (a) talking ourselves out of things that we should believe [hyperskepticism] or (b) talking ourselves into things that we should not believe [gullibility]. Hyperskeptics attempt to justify the first error by calling attention to the second error, as if there was no reasonable alternative to either extreme. On the contrary, the ideal solution is to seek a rational midpoint –to balance a healthy skepticism about unconfirmed truth claims with a healthy confidence in truths already known. The one thing a thinker should not do is be skeptical or open-minded about the first principles of right reason, without which there is no standard for investigating or discoursing about anything “Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”– G. K. Chesterton

In the spirit of public service, then, I present this little test for analyzing our readers’ proclivity for hyperskepticism. Hopefully, those who indulge will not find any predictable patterns, since I strove to keep them at a minimum. Read More ›

Whenever I tune in to any discussion on the subject of “methodological naturalism,” I often marvel at the extent to which Darwinists will rewrite history and manipulate the language in their futile attempt to defend this so-called  “requirement” for science. In order to set the stage, we must first try to understand what methodological naturalism could possibly mean.

First, we have what one might call the “soft” definition, characterized as a preference for identifying for natural causes, a position which makes no final judgment about a universal  line of demarcation between science and non-science. Second, we have the “hard” definition as used by all the institutional Darwinists. In the second context, methodological naturalism is an institutional “rule” by which one group of researchers imposes on another group of researchers  an arbitrary, intrusive, and non-negotiable standard which states that scientists must study nature as if nature is all there is.

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