My Vision of Science.

I just purchased a copy of "Signature in the Cell" at "Chapters" book store in Kelowna, BC Canada. Even though I do not live in Kelowna anymore, we happened by the store while visiting family in Kelowna. Even though I did not think of it at the time, this was the very book store where I first discovered Michael Behe's book "Darwin's Black Box" and subsequently discovered ID science. Unfortunately I had some difficulty finding "Signature in the Cell." I was looking in the familiar science section (where I had found Behe's book) and all four copies the new book as it turned out were in the "Religion" section. Having never been to the religion section I needed help to find it. A minor inconvenience perhaps, but an interesting one. Some kind of mysterious motive force (gravity? electromagnetism?) had pushed ID science from the science section all the way to the religion section. Perhaps Behe's book should also have been forced into the religion section but the force failed? It is nice to know that some forces (gravity/electromagnetic) are reliable. This turn of event caused me to think about my vision of "Science" -- as opposed to "Religion" and of the social forces at play here.

"Science" for me is distinct from "religion" in that in science there are no gospels. The ID hypothesis -- that mind came first and matter came second as the product of mind --("idealism") is not a gospel, it is just a hypothesis -- just a theory -- just a model regarding the possible nature of the world. The opposing hypothesis, that matter came first and mind came second (materialism) is also just a hypothesis about the nature of the world. My vision of science is that of dicipline of investigation without gospels.

While Religion has its gospels, Science (as I see it) does not. The fact that the ID hypothesis has been expelled from the science section (and that I have yet to find any religion in these books) suggests to me that that the materialist hypothesis is now operating as a materialist gospel and that science's internal religious corruption (material-ISM) is being unfairly projected onto the ID hypothesis. Of course it is possible that many will claim that the materialist hypothesis should be gospelized and that real science requires gospelization and (subsequent removal of ID) at this basic level. This of course is not my vision of "science." My vision of science is that of a dicipline of inquiry that encourages free debate and echews all gospelization.