Maarten Boudry, Stefaan Blancke, and Johan Braeckman have an article coming out in Science & Education on “Grist to the Mill of Anti-evolutionism: The Failed Strategy of Ruling the Supernatural out of Science by Philosophical Fiat.”
It relates to the idea that science is limited by its insistence on adhering to methodological naturalism. According to this view, science cannot investigate the supernatural. The view is popular among some who oppose creationism since it means that creationism can’t be scientific, by fiat. It’s also important for accommodationists because it allows science and religion to co-exist in separate magisteria.
The key quote that Larry presents is this:
In our view, however, methodological naturalism is a provisory and empirically anchored commitment to naturalistic causes and explanations, which is in principle revocable in light of extraordinary evidence (Provisory or Pragmatic Methodological Naturalism – PMN). Methodological naturalism thus conceived derives its rationale from the impressive dividends of naturalistic explanations and the consistent failure of supernatural explanations throughout the history of science.
So, according to straight-up methodological naturalism, science simply cannot say anything about the supernatural. These philosophers argue pragmatic methodological naturalism, the idea that there is no reason to discount the supernatural by fiat – science just hasn’t had any good reason to consider it, after a 400 year track record of success.
My take: what the hell is the supernatural anyway? It’s a vague concept, and it’s generally used to basically mean ‘we don’t know how this works, but we will ascribe it to hypothesized beings/forces we know nothing about.’
In that sense, I side with Larry Moran and the advocates of pragmatic methodological naturalism – there is no reason science couldn’t study spirits (of the non-drinkable sort), but the current evidence for them is unconvincing.
The Finch and Pea 