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Monday, August 9, 2010

The Socratic Spirit

Socrates admonishes us not to claim to know more than we know. This is the modern skeptic position. We skeptics find some claims false such as creationism, others provisionally true in aspects whilst confirmed over all like the role of genetic drift in evolution and others  we're just at the outer edges of inquiry like the origin of language.

To be a skeptic, one need be also an empiricist, naturalist and rationalist, eschewing religious traditions, revelations, scriptures,faith and unfounded intuitions, looking for only  natural causes.

 Ockham's Razor forbids us use convoluted, ad hoc assumptions so that  we cannot use God did  as He is the quintessential violator of the Razor.

 The atelic-teleonomic adds substance from the side of science in that the weight of evidence evinces teleonomy -no desired outcomes- behind natural causes  rather than teleology- planned outcomes- which no only violates the Razor but also contradicts those causes! To add divine intent perforce makes for incompatibility rather than the compatibility of  the supernatural and the natural! And the new Omphalos arguments intrudes that He thereby deceives us by hiding His intent as the old Omphalos alleges He makes entities appear millions of years older than they are!

I maintain that the presumptions of empiricism, naturalism, rationalism and skepticism lead to that more abundant life!

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