Scientific method vs. materialism

The Aug. 24 Daily Herald carried a letter by Nate Wheatley entitled, "Intelligent design isn't scientific."

Scientific method is simply a procedure for gaining knowledge. It isn't the only way to gain knowledge, and for some things it may not even be the best way to gain knowledge. For example, scientific method couldn't come close to a mom's innate ability to learn how her child is feeling after his pet goldfish dies.

True, intelligent design isn't scientific strictly speaking; it's a presupposition about how everything came to be. However, it's important to realize that just because intelligent design isn't scientific that doesn't mean that its antitheses, "materialism," is. Materialism is also a presupposition that argues that everything that exists "just happened" without divine intervention; the formation of the universe, the Earth, and the life therein.

We've all heard that to believe in God takes faith, and it does, but since materialism assumes there is no God it is a belief based in faith, too. To rule out the possibility of God one would have to look in all places simultaneously. In other words, one would have to be omnipresent, so only God could rule God out, which would be a contradiction.

Scientific method is a fine logical procedure for gaining knowledge about our material universe. But when materialists extrapolate beyond the facts of fossils, etc., to "theorize" about origins, they exit the scientific method in favor of inductive reasoning. When intelligent design adherents cite intelligent design as a reasonable way to explain the fact of "irreducible complexity," they are doing the same thing. Both philosophies use science but interpret the facts through their own philosophical lenses.

Don't be fooled, the materialist has a deep and abiding faith; one would have to in order to believe that everything came from nothing.

Brian Van Dine

Carol Stream