The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in ScienceThe intellectual and cultural battles now raging over theism and atheism, conservatism and secular progressivism, dualism and monism, realism and antirealism, and transcendent reality versus material reality extend even into the scientific disciplines. This stunning new volume captures this titanic clash of worldviews among those who have thought most deeply about the nature of science and of the universe itself. Unmatched in its breadth and scope, The Nature of Nature brings together some of the most influential scientists, scholars, and public intellectuals—including three Nobel laureates—across a wide spectrum of disciplines and schools of thought. Here they grapple with a perennial question that has been made all the more pressing by recent advances in the natural sciences: Is the fundamental explanatory principle of the universe, life, and self-conscious awareness to be found in inanimate matter or immaterial mind? The answers found in this book have profound implications for what it means to do science, what it means to be human, and what the future holds for all of us. |
Contents
Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs | |
Varieties of Methodological Naturalism | |
Intelligent Design Scientific Methodology and the Demarcation Problem | |
Introduction | |
More on the Illusion of Defeat | |
Epistemically Unseated or Illusorily Defeated? | |
Introduction | |
Cosmic Evolution Naturalism and Divine Creativity or Who Owns the Robust Formational | |
Howard J Van Till | |
A Critique of Multiverse Cosmology | |
Habitable Zones and FineTuning | |
Introduction | |
Introduction | |
Toward Mapping the Evolved Functional Organization of Mind and Brain | |
A QuantumTheoretic Argument against Naturalism | |
The Incompatibility of Naturalism and Scientific Realism | |
Truth and Realism | |
Goldman | |
The Role of Concepts in Our Access to Reality | |
Introduction | |
The Signature in the Cell | |
Is There Something Else? | |
Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Information | |
Regulated Recruitment and Cooperativity in the Design of Biological Regulatory Systems | |
Quantifying the Difficulty of an Unguided Search through Protein | |
The Limits of NonIntelligent Explanations in Molecular Biology | |
The Role of Contingency and Necessity in Evolution | |
Repeated Evolution or Repeated Designs? | |
On the Origins of the Mind | |
Consciousness | |
Consciousness and Neuroscience | |
Nonreductive Physicalism and | |
Conscious Events as Orchestrated SpaceTime Selections with a new addendum | |
The Libet and EinsteinPodolskyRosen Causal Anomalies | |
The Physical Sciences Neuroscience and Dualism | |
Introduction | |
Naturalisms Incapacity to Capture the Good Will | |
Naturalism Science and Religion | |
Theism Defended | |
Acknowledgments | |
Other editions - View all
The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science Bruce Gordon,William A. Dembski No preview available - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
activity amino acids anthropic argued argument belief Big Bang biologists brain Cambridge University Press causal cause cell chemical Christian claim cognitive faculties complex concepts consciousness cosmological constant cosmology Crick Darwin Darwinian Dembski Design Inference EAAN Earth ekpyrotic empirical energy enzymes epistemic essay eternal inflation evidence evolution evolutionary example existence experience explain fact fine-tuning function galaxies gene genetic genome human hypothesis infer inflationary intelligent design Journal knowledge laws mathematical metaphysical methodological naturalism molecules mutation natural selection naturalistic neurons objects observed ontological organisms origin Oxford particles philosophical Physical Review Plantinga possible predictions principle probability problem produce properties protein quantum field theory quantum mechanics question random rational realism reason reliable replication requires role scenario scientific theories scientists sequence space specific string landscape string theory structure terrestrial planets theoretical theory of intelligent truth Vilenkin visual York