There are no supernatural phenomena


If it happens, it's natural. If it's supernatural, it's either imaginary or fictional.

Let's take an example. Let's say that ghosts exist. Let's imagine that ghosts are not hallucinations, that they're not cases of mistaking mental illness or bad oysters or too much alcohol or too little sleep for an actually-existing manifestation.

Well, if ghosts exist, then by definition they are natural phenomena. How could they be anything else?

Now, one could argue today that ghosts, if they do exist, are not explained by any known natural or scientific law. However,100 years ago science had absolutely no explanation as to how the sun could have shined for the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of years it had to have existed.

Did that make the sun a “supernatural” phenomenon?

Of course not. It merely meant that science, up to that time, had not developed a workable theory that explained how the sun could shine for hundreds of millions, or billions, of years, without using up its entire supply of any then-known fuel. There was no known chemical reaction that could have powered the sun for that length of time. Without knowledge of thermonuclear fusion, science was at a loss to explain the sun’s power output, and doubtless scientists of the time despaired of ever coming up with an answer.

Now, let’s imagine that sometime next year, someone comes up with irrefutable proof that ghosts do in fact exist. Obviously, at this stage of the game, science would be at a loss for an explanation for how ghosts come to be. But, given time, and sufficient resources (perhaps the Pentagon would be interested in funding an investigation into the potential military uses of ghosts?), science would probably eventually come up with explanation for the origin and mechanism for ghosts. Ghosts would no longer be considered “supernatural” phenomena, but instead would come to be seen as a somewhat eerie and disturbing but otherwise completely explainable natural phenomenon.

Or perhaps it turns out that telepathy is an actual, real phenomenon. Scientists would immediately begin investigating the mechanism by which telepathy operates. They wouldn’t merely accept the fact that telepathy exists, and move on to something else.

Now, in the same vein, let’s assume for the sake of argument that God (or an “intelligent designer”) actually intervenes on a more-or-less continuous basis (or maybe even once every couple of hundred or thousand years) into the evolution of living organisms. Is such an intervention, whatever its actual mechanism, a “supernatural” phenomenon? Absolutely not. It is merely an “unknown” phenomenon. Science is replete with “unknown” phenomena. Science has absolutely no idea how human consciousness arises from the structure of the human brain. No one has the slightest idea how many individual species inhabit the world. There are many areas of the human immune system that are a complete mystery to medical science. Most of the ocean floor has never been explored. No one knows if life exists anywhere else in the universe. We don’t even know how to reconcile the two great theories of 20th Century physics, General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. In short, what science does know about the workings of the universe is dwarfed by what it doesn’t know.

So let's say the ID people are right, and an intelligent designer actually does intervene, in some way, with genetic material in order to drive evolution. Obviously, it must do so through some mechanism. That mechanism is amenable to scientific inquiry.

Have at it, ID guys.

Posted: Mon - September 12, 2005 at 09:22 PM          

©