Monopolizing Knowledge

http://monopolizingknowledge.net/contents.html

When to Doubt a Scientific Consensus

https://stream.org/doubt-scientific-consensus/

Scientism is naïve

"Scientism is naïve" by Evan May.

Scientism as religion

Evolution News & Views lists several ways in which scientism is like a religion:

• Science provides The Big Picture
  
• Science provides a unified story and a mission for life.
  
• Science provides access to the ineffable
  
• Science explains human nature
  
• Science tells the history of civilization
  
• Science provides guidance for ethics and morality in relationships
  
• Science provides theodicy
  
• Science provides guidance for living

Read the rest of the article here.

Is nature self-explanatory?

This creates a dilemma; the laws of nature cannot exist without nature itself existing but the origin of nature cannot be explained scientifically without preexisting laws. The logical conclusion is that science cannot, by its very nature, explain the origin of the universe.The only alternative is that the laws of nature did preexist the universe but existed as a kind of blueprint in some non-material medium such as the “mind of God”. 

http://whomadegod.org/2011/08/could-a-universe-create-itself/

Dark matter

"Dark Matter" by Peter Pike.

Should non-experts shut up? The skeptic's catch-22

I'm not sure I can get behind Massimo's broader argument that non-experts should defer to the expert consensus in a field. The main problem, as I see it, is that while we can usually count on the process of peer criticism to check the research within a field for validity, I'm not sure we can count on it to check the validity of the field itself. I'm talking here about the methodology and the philosophical assumptions that underlie a field, the usually-unstated pillars on which all its findings rest. 

Why? First of all, while there are strong incentives for a researcher to find errors in other work in the field, there are strong disincentives for her to challenge the field's foundational assumptions. It will be extremely difficult for her to get other people to agree with her if she tries, and if she succeeds, she'll still be taking herself down along with the rest of the field. Second of all, fields naturally select for people who accept their foundational assumptions. People who don't accept those assumptions are likely not to have gone into that field in the first place, or to have left it already. 

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2010/07/should-non-experts-shut-up-skeptics_14.html

P-branes dropping apples from the shoulders of giants

Who said what? Each of the following quotations is from a different renowned scientist. Answers below.

1. Science is powerless to answer questions such as "Why did the universe come into being?" "What is the meaning of human existence?" "What happens after we die?"

2. I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today, and even professional scientists, seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is, in my opinion, the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.

3. Is the world divided into mind and matter, and, if so, what is mind, what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent powers? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotently crawling on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? . . . To such questions no answers can be found in the laboratory.

4. There is no quicker way for a scientist to bring discredit upon himself and upon his profession than roundly to declare – particularly when no declaration of any kind is called for – that science knows, or soon will know, the answers to all questions worth asking, and that questions which do not admit a scientific answer are in some way non-questions or "pseudo-questions" that only simpletons ask and only the gullible profess to be able to answer. . . . The existence of a limit to science is, however, made clear by its inability to answer childlike elementary questions having to do with first and last things – questions such as: "How did everything begin?" "What are we all here for?" "What is the point of living?"

5. Science puts everything in a consistent order but is ghastly silent about everything that really matters to us: beauty, color, taste, pain or delight, origins, God and eternity.

6. How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a Creator? . . . Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead. It has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly in physics. As a result scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

Science: the religion that must not be questioned

http://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2013/sep/19/science-religion-not-be-questioned/print

Scientism is not science

Bill Vallicella's post taking apart scientism is worth a read.

(As an aside, an appropriately conducted randomized controlled trial (RCT) would fit the "five characteristics of science in the strict and eminent sense." I haven't read the article Vallicella cites on these characteristics, but perhaps this is part of what's in mind as well.)

Blinkered Pinker

Bill Vallicella skewers Steven Pinker on scientism.

How peer review impedes science

Counterintuitive hypotheses are your trademark. What are the challenges?

When I [Jaroslav Flegr] send papers to top journals, they’re often rejected out of hand by editors, without any formal review. The danger of making interesting claims—like when I said that Darwinian theory is not quite correct and can be improved—is that you won’t be considered a serious scientist.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/125-exploration/risk-takers-gallery#/5

What Philistinism Looks Like

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2013/03/24/what-philistinism-looks-like/?print=1

Was Pharaoh a climate-change denier?

Howard Curzer recently published an article in the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-j-curzer/exodus-6-2-9-35-pharaoh-the-climate-change-skeptic_b_2434761.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

He’s a philosophy prof. at Texas Tech. He and I then had an amicable exchange of views. I’m posting my side of the email correspondence.

Dr. Curzer,

I read your article “Exodus 6:2-9:35: Pharaoh, the Climate Change Skeptic” with interest. You said:

How do we maintain a healthy skepticism without straying toward bull-headedness or naiveté?

Through a careful study, we may come to more clearly see the difference between healthy skepticism toward new theories and the unhealthy denial of evidence exhibited by many contemporary climate change skeptics.

Will we avert climactic disaster or acknowledge the vast and rapidly growing evidence before us?

Coming from a philosophy prof., I find your position oddly unphilosophical. Isn’t it your job to foster critical thinking among your students?

From what I’ve read, “climate change” is not a single claim, but a variety of claims. So, at a minimum, don’t you need to break that down and then examine the evidence and/or counterevidence for each separable claim? For instance:

i) Is there global warming?

ii) Is global warming anthropogenic?

iii) If global warming is anthropogenic, is the trend reversible?

iv) Are global warming projections accurate?

v) If global warming exists, is that harmful? Harmful to whom or what? Is that a humanitarian crisis? An environmental disaster? Those aren’t interchangeable claims. What might be good for the environment might be bad for some humans, or vice versa?

I myself am a “climate change” sceptic. Here are some of my reasons. As a philosophy prof., perhaps you can explain to me why my reasons are “bullheaded” or reflect “unhealthy denial of the evidence.”

i) Environmentalists use to warn us about “global warming.” Now they warn us about “climate change.” How did that come about? “Global warming” is a specific prediction. By contrast, “climate change” is vague and nondirectional. Did environmentalists switch from “global warming” to “climate change” because the evidence did not, in fact, support global warming?

ii) From what I’ve read, crucial source data on which projections were based was “lost.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/phil-jones-lost-weather-data/print

At best, that means the projections are now untestable. All we now have is “value-added” evidence.

Moreover, isn’t it dubious that the evidence was “lost”? Doesn’t that sound like a euphemistic way of describing the destruction of evidence? Destroyed because it was embarrassing? Maybe that’s just a huge accident, but is it unreasonable to be suspicious?

iii) Environmentalism is highly politicized. A cause that many environmentalists live for. It gives their lives a sense of purpose, meaning, direction. Just look at the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Moses, seeking freedom for his people, conveys warnings to Pharaoh about what God will do if he does not allow the Israelites to be free. Each time, Pharaoh's heart is "hardened." (In English, "hard-hearted" means unsympathetic, but the Hebrew idiom means unimpressed and unyielding rather than uncaring. At no point in the story is sympathy for the Israelites at issue.) But assigning responsibility for Pharaoh's posture of stubbornness raises a troubling theological problem.

Pharaoh hardens his own heart in response to the earlier plagues, but God hardens Pharaoh's heart in response to the later plagues. The theological problem is that when God hardens Pharaoh's heart, Pharaoh's responses to the plagues do not seem to be free choices. It would seem unjust for God to force stubbornness upon Pharaoh and then punish him for his stubbornness.

In some ancient texts, divine intervention can be read as a metaphor for surprising actions. "Athena guided Achilles' spear" may mean that Achilles made an extraordinary throw.

Similarly, I suggest that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" is a metaphorical way of describing unreasonable skepticism. This interpretive maneuver eliminates the unfairness problem and further provides a lesson on dealing with the prediction of natural disasters.

The obvious problem with your “interpretive maneuver” is that it doesn’t matter whether you think divine hardening is unfair. The only relevant interpretive consideration is whether the narrator thought that was unfair. You’re not entitled to eliminate something in the ancient text just because you find it personally objectionable. It wasn’t written to you. It wasn’t written to meet with your approval. Do you imagine the narrator had to share your scruples? If so, that’s awfully provincial of you. The world isn’t made in your image.

Like Pharaoh in Exodus 6:2-9:35, we in the modern world are faced with predictions of natural disasters and costly proposals for avoiding them.

I see. So Pharaoh should have averted the plague of frogs by installing a filtration system in the Nile? Or averted the plague of hail by having transparent aluminum domes placed over Egyptian farmlands? Would that stop Yahweh dead in his tracks?

Steve

Thanks for taking time to reply.

First you raise a series of challenges concerning the existence and nature of climate change. I am not going to try to respond to these in detail. I am a philosopher, not a scientist. My view is that (a) when the overwhelming majority of the scientific community says X, then we ought to believe X. And (b) the overwhelming majority of the scientific community says that climate change is happening and is primarily caused by human activities. I am not saying that the overwhelming majority of the scientific community is always right; just that siding with them is the way to bet. If you agree with (a) and (b), then you and I are on the same page about climate change. If you want to discuss further details, you will have to talk to someone who is more familiar with the issues; someone other than me. This is as far as I go.

Sorry, but I don’t think that’s a rational standard. It’s far too crude.

i) Do I think there are scientific issues where we should defer to expert opinion? Sure. But I’m not going to turn that into a general maximum, for not all scientific issues are equal.

ii) Scientists sometimes give the public reasons for believing their theory is true. Indeed, “climate change” is one such example.

When they publicly state their reasons, that suggests the reasoning is accessible to a nonspecialist. In that event, I’m entitled to scrutinize the reasoning.

iii) Appealing to consensus can easily become circular and coercive.

iv) Scientific progress is often made by brilliant mavericks who buck the system. They are fiercely opposed by the establishment, but eventually they win the argument.

Scientists can be very “bullheaded” about their commitment to a theory they learned in college. Take the pre-Clovis/Topper controversy. Take the opposition Cantor faced, which literally drove him crazy. Take Thor Heyerdahl’s theory of cross-Pacific migration, which encountered ferocious resistance from the scientific establishment. Take scientific opposition to ball lightning. Take scientific opposition to neurogenesis.

v) The overwhelming majority of the scientific community isn’t qualified to judge climate change theory. Most scientists can’t render an informed opinion on that issue. They lack training in a relevant branch of science.

vi) Take one more example. Consider FDA approved drugs. Do I think that counts for something? Yes. I have more confidence in an FDA approved drug than a naturopathic “cure” at a Mexican clinic.

Yet you also have FDA drug recalls. Recalling some of the very drugs the same agency previously approved.

How does that happen? I can only guess. For one thing, once a drug goes to market, the sample group expands exponentially, as does the number of physicians administering the drug. Far more patients, far more feedback, far more medical observers.

In addition, there’s the use of control groups, during the experimental phase, to eliminate random variables. But once the drug goes to market, you no longer have carefully-screened test subjects. Side effects that were not detected during clinical trials now surface. Suddenly, the random variables which were assumed to be extraneous become relevant after all.

If a drug has been in use for, say, 10 years, then taking a headcount of physicians is quite reliable.

So my claim could be put this way. I think that there is good textual evidence to support the claim that God-hardened-Pharaoh’s heart means (c) Pharaoh acted uncharacteristically stubbornly. And there is textual evidence against the claim that it means (d) God made Pharaoh more stubborn. The evidence is this. Interpretation (c) is consistent with the rest of the Bible which generally assumes that people have free will and are held responsible only for their free choices.

For two reasons, I disagree:

i) If you define freewill as the freedom to do otherwise, then it would be nonsensical for God to give Pharaoh the freedom to thwart God’s intentions. For on that view, God intended to give Pharaoh the freedom to thwart God’s intentions. Thus God intends to frustrate God’s intentions, which is incoherent.

The purpose of the ten plagues was to demonstrate that Yahweh was the true God, in contrast to the impotent idol-gods of Egypt. To say that Pharaoh had the freedom to scuttle God’s plan, thereby interrupting the ten plagues at any stage of the process, cuts against the grain of the narrative.

ii) There are many passages in the Tanakh which portray God orchestrating human events from behind-the-scenes, viz.,

For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses (Josh 11:20).

If someone sins against a man, God will mediate for him, but if someone sins against the Lord, who can intercede for him?” But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for it was the will of the Lord to put them to death (1 Sam 2:25).

But Amaziah would not listen, for it was of God, in order that he might give them into the hand of their enemies, because they had sought the gods of Edom (2 Chron 25:20).

He turned their hearts to hate his people, to deal craftily with his servants (Ps 105:25).

10 Make the heart of this people dull,

    and their ears heavy,

    and blind their eyes;

lest they see with their eyes,

    and hear with their ears,

and understand with their hearts,

    and turn and be healed.”

(Isa 6:10)

For the Lord has poured out upon you

    a spirit of deep sleep,

and has closed your eyes (the prophets),

    and covered your heads (the seers).

(Isa 29:10)

O Lord, why do you make us wander from your ways

    and harden our heart, so that we fear you not?

Return for the sake of your servants,

    the tribes of your heritage.

(Isa 63:17).

Thus says the Lord God: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme (Ezk 38:10).

And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech (Judges 9:23).

His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel (Judges 14:4).

Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him (1 Sam 16:14).

And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.” For the Lord had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the Lord might bring harm upon Absalom (2 Sam 17:14).

So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat (1 Kgs 12:15).

20 and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ 23 Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you” (1 Kgs 22:20-23).

5 When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6 Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. 7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land’” (2 Kings 19:5-7).

Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of these your prophets. The Lord has declared disaster concerning you (2 Chron 18:22).

And if the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel (Ezk 14:9).

Thanks for your time. Two or three quick final points:

i) One pillar of your argument was climate change. Another pillar of your argument was Pharaoh as a paradigm-case of a climate change skeptic. When challenged, you confess yourself unqualified to defend either pillar of your argument. Although I appreciate your intellectual modesty, which is in short supply, that leaves your argument in shambles.

ii) Second, we need to have the critical detachment to distinguish what we think the Bible says from our perspective on the Bible. In the interpretive process, you can’t reasonably begin with what you’re prepared to believe is true, then use that to leverage your interpretation. For what the Pentateuchal narrator believed is independent of what you happen to believe. And it’s quite possible that what he believed is at variance with what you would write if you were the author of the Pentateuch. What if the Pentateuchal narrator did, in fact, believe that God is guiding some people (i.e. Pharaoh) with a “heavy hand” to bring about a grand plan? Are you denying to the narrator the freedom to assume a viewpoint at odds with your own? Isn’t that terribly parochial on your part?

iii) And to the extent that you believe in the authority of the Bible, then that would obligate you to accept the viewpoint of the narrator, even if it clashes with your preconceptions.

But thanks for your time. And I look forward to reading your sequel article (or blog post).

Faith in science

Some Christians feel intimidated by science, while many more Christians are told that they ought to feel intimidated by science. We’re told that Christianity is unscientific. That we should either abandon the faith wholesale or at least perform radical surgery.

In light of that, here’s something I found revealing. You might suppose that physics majors are the cream of the crop. The brainiacs. Not only would you expect them to be in the top percentile of the student body generally, but among the best and brightest science majors. We associate physicists with brainpower. Daunting I.Q.

So it’s striking to see the vast intellectual gap between these physics majors and a distinguished physicist:

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=525062&all=true

And although Don Page may be near the top of his field, I don’t think he’s quite up there with Roger Penrose or Edward Witten. So the gap would be even wider in their case.

It makes you wonder how much even the average science major actually understands about his chosen field. How deep his understanding goes. How much he’s qualified to evaluate. How much he’s taking on faith. How little he can prove on his own. How many science majors must simply take the word of a few geniuses at the very top of the pyramid.

Now you might say that’s unfair. These aren’t graduates, much less post-doc students at Harvard, Princeton, Caltech, MIT, or Cambridge. But, of course, that’s a winnowing process. An elite few. So it reinforces my point. What minuscule fraction of the population knows the intricacies of science well enough to even assess scientific claims against the Bible? How much is just bravado? 

The virtue of questioning science

http://www.wanliss.com/2012/04/the-virtue-of-questioning-science/

Bnonn on Krauss on Craig

http://thinkingmatters.org.nz/2011/04/krauss-on-craig-disingenuous-distortions-simplifications-and-outright-lies/

How Scientism Destroys Science

Introduction:  I have been interacting on and off with an anti-creationist detractor named "David" on this blog for some time and I think that his question below gets to the heart of the issue as it pertains to discussions and debates between atheistic Darwinists and young earth creationists. 

David,

You asked, "I really am curious if there is any evidence that you would accept as 'sinking' young earth creationism . . .?"

No, because the problem isn't facts, it's the philosophy of fact. What I'm about to write isn't meant to be derogatory, but you seem to be naively assuming that the "facts speak for themselves".  For example, when evolutionist Mary Schweitzer discovered red blood cells in T-rex soft-tissue, I knew that at least one of two things would happen: (1) evolutionists would deny that the samples were genuine erythrocytes and soft-tissue, and/or (2) some evolutionists would agree that it was a genuine find but would instead argue that soft tissue can be preserved in situ for 65 million years.  I was correct on both counts.  Of course, finding unfossilized dinosaurian soft tissue is perfectly consistent with young earth creationism (hereafter YEC), but given what I've been told by creation scientists, maintaining any soft-tissue integrity via the best cryogenic conditions isn't possible beyond 10,000 years.  Thus, creationists argue that the idea of biological tissue surviving for 65 million years in situ is preposterous.  Nevertheless, because evolutionary "faith" demands it, some evolutionists have dogmatically asserted otherwise, namely, that dinosaur soft-tissue can remain preserved and unfossilized for at least 65 million years.  So why aren't the creationists and evolutionists changing their mind but instead are sticking their ground?  Its because the facts don't speak for themselves.  All facts are pre-interpreted facts that are run through one's mental filter known as a worldview, which consists of a network of presuppositions that aren't testable through the procedures of natural science.  This mental filter determines what one will and will not accept as metaphysically possible.  As Augustine and others after him so eloquently put it, "I believe so that I may understand."  So it goes with YEC proponents, so it goes with the naturalist.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.   

Naturalism Undermines Cognitive Reliability

It gets worse because on naturalist lights, it is impossible to know whether anything is really true or not given the conjunction of Darwinian Evolution with Naturalism. Of course, your comments have always assumed that naturalism is true, that we are autonomous (vs. being dependent and accountable to God as His creatures), that we have the cognitive prowess within ourselves to figure out our problems on our own, without deferring to what skeptics would consider to be a mere imaginative philosophical crutch called "God".  However, you seem to be unaware that certain things about reality that you take for granted and use to undermine creationism couldn't be true if Darwinism and naturalism were true.  Quoting from naturalistic materialists, Darwin himself confessed,

With me, the horrid doubt always arises, whether the convictions of a man's mind, which have been developed from the minds of lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Why would anyone trust the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there were any convictions in such a mind?

Physicalist atheist philosopher Patricia Churchland was consistent when she said this:

Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F's: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. . . . . Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism's way of life and enhances the organism's chances of survival [Churchland's emphasis]. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.

 And so my questions for you are twofold:

1.  Given naturalism, evolutionary theory, and the conjunction between those two, what basis do you have to believe that your cognitive faculties are reliable given naturalism and evolution? And to offer a follow-up question:

2.  If what you say is true, how can you can figure out your problems on your own since the very cognitive faculties you use to problem solve to answer my objections to atheism are called into question by the very process they supposedly arose from?

Naturalism is Metaphysically Contradictory and Self-Refuting

It appears that your underlying philosophical assumption for evaluating evidence is empiricism. But in the process of their argumentation, most empiricists are unaware that they annihilate empirical science itself, the very thing that they have put their "faith" in.  Science depends upon nonempirical ideas such as the uniformity of nature and the predictability of future events in order to function or teach us anything. But empirical verification must apply only to a particular time, place, and entity to be examined. I cannot empirically prove that the sun will rise tomorrow until I test the hypothesis tomorrow. But the past cannot be used to predict the future if no metaphysical truths are valid. Thus, science as we know it would then become impossible. Knowledge (science in this case) could mean no more than the reception of unrelated and there unintelligible sensations, bombarding the senses from the physical world.

Also, when you use logic and reason to suggest that YEC is invalid or contradicts "well-established facts", you are utilizing cognitive tools that are not themselves empirically verifiable. In other words, the laws, concepts, criteria, and propositions you appeal to to make your case are not themselves testable, demonstrable, or empirically proven. They are abstract, immaterial, and universal. Since when has anyone seen, smelled, or touched the law of non-contradiction? Thus, reasoning itself is destroyed as the human mind is reduced to a random collection of atoms and electrochemical events that we cannot assume is anything more than a statistical anomaly. We cannot even speak of the brain revealing a pattern if all knowledge is purely empirical. And then who is to say that the atomic event constituting my brain leading me to believe in Jesus Christ is any more or less "valid" than the atomic event of your brain leading you to put your "faith" in naturalistic materialism? Thus, the validity of any argument involves an appeal to various metaphysical (transcendental) criteria.

For instance, how do we know that to be an empiricist is valid? That is a metaphysical question. A material event accessible to the senses is neither valid nor invalid; it is just an event. This is why there are no such things as brute facts. All facts are interpreted facts.

In my experience of interacting with intelligent unbelievers, they correctly note that the creationist assumes the metaphysical propositions of the Bible before coming to the evidence. However, I have also noted that fellows like yourself rarely see that you are metaphysician too; just one of another kind. You too are a person of faith. You presuppose materialism by limiting the nature of existence without any warrant (empirical or otherwise) to do so. Consequently, you seek to disprove metaphysics by using your own metaphysic, and thus adhere to a self-referentially absurd worldview.

IN THE END, a person holding this view of reality has undermined the very possibility of any knowledge whatsoever, whereas Biblical Christian theism provides us with the philosophical grounding for knowledge (scientific or otherwise), logic, and the intelligibility of human experience.