Thank you. I will post my reply here.

Let me get some terms out of the way. This paper by Boudry et al (“How not to attack Intelligent Design Creationism”) defines two terms: intrinsic methodological naturalism and pragmatic methodological naturalism. Intrinsic methodological naturalism is the position that there is an intrinsic limitation to the methods of science, and that science has absolutely nothing to say about the supernatural. Pragmatic methodological naturalism is simply the position that any future claims that the supernatural exists are extremely unlikely to be true because of our vast prior evidence to the contrary (barring sufficient evidence to overcome our low Bayesian priors). I’m pretty sure that both of us hold that 1- intrinsic methodological naturalism is wrong-headed, and 2- pragmatic methodological naturalism is obviously the way to go (given our current prior evidence).

I have read your article here on this subject, and the one of the linked articles here. (One of the links is broken which you say is mandatory reading before engaging with you. Sorry.)

I believe that your position regarding the “right” definition of “supernatural” is about ontology and metaphysics, about the fundamental substance, about fundamental substance-irreducibility and/or fundamental causal-irreducibility. I believe that your definitions of “natural” and “supernatural” are not about mere appearances or “epistemology”. I think that you make this exceptionally clear with this quote:

* The underlying mechanics of quantum phenomena might be physically beyond all observation and therefore untestable, but no one would then conclude that quantum mechanics is supernatural. Just because I can’t look inside a box does not make its contents supernatural.
* Conversely, if I suddenly acquired the Force of the Jedi and could predict the future, control minds, move objects and defy the laws of physics, all merely by an act of will, ordinary people everywhere would call this a supernatural power, yet it would be entirely testable. Scientists could record and measure the nature and extent of my powers and confirm them well within the requirements of peer review.

I agree very much with the spirit of the above quote. It is coherent and epistemically possible that someone has Star Wars force powers. That is a question which is scientifically testable. It has a distinct “yes” answer and a distinct “no” answer. I can imagine hypothetical compelling evidence for both a “yes” answer and a “no” answer.

However, I think you go wrong about here:

By analogy, it is always possible that there is a gigantic machine inside the earth that is changing the course of photons approaching the earth, fooling us into thinking the earth revolves around the sun. In this way the heliocentric theory could actually be false. But no scientist would claim we have not proven heliocentrism merely because of possibilities like this. Yet if a scientist will not tolerate such objections to heliocentrism, he cannot tolerate methodologically identical objections to any supernatural hypothesis that is as well established as heliocentrism. Therefore, this is not a valid objection to allowing supernatural hypotheses into science.

If the supernatural existed, we should be able to accumulate evidence in support of it just as we have accumulated evidence of heliocentrism. Indeed, if the universe were as blatantly and pervasively supernatural as we have found it, instead, to be natural, then naturalism would be as untenable as supernaturalism is now. Supernaturalism would then be the default worldview. But even if the evidence was not that overwhelming, just as for heliocentrism, at some point the evidence could accumulate so high that you will have to admit a supernatural explanation is the best explanation there is. In fact, eventually the evidence could stack so high you will concede it’s the best explanation by far. It’s not reasonable to say “possibly, therefore probably” something else is going on. This is as irrational for a creationist to maintain against evidence for evolution as for a naturalist to maintain against the same quality of evidence for supernatural creation. If there were such evidence. It just so happens there isn’t. But no one should confuse an actual lack of evidence for the theoretical impossibility of having it.

I agree that the mere possibility of a giant engine inside the Earth controlling the path of the Earth is not sufficient to prevent a reasonable person from making the reasonable and justified claim that Heliocentrism is true. Again, I fully agree with a proper Bayesian approach to this subject, and that the conclusion is that there is likely no such machine in the center of the Earth, and that the Heliocentrism is very likely true.

However, I think you make a mistake in the second paragraph with the implicit comparison between “supernatural” and Heliocentrism. If we grant your definitions of “natural” and “supernatural”, I think that all hypotheses of the form “X is supernatural” entail absolutely zero observable predictions about the world. I think this is a consequence that your definitions are about ontology and the fundamental nature of things and not about the observable nature of things.

Perhaps the disagreement is here: I think that I have absolutely no basis to conclude that there is any relation or correlation at all between the fundamental nature of things and the observable nature of things. In a way very similar to some of the thinking of logical positivism, in a certain sense I don’t even know what you mean when you say “the fundamental nature of something”, or when you are talking about fundamental causal irreducibility. You are seemingly defining terms that are completely and utterly detached from observable reality, and that’s where I think you have gone wrong. You seem to have gone into not even wrong territory. Again, I invoke your quote above concerning quantum mechanics, and I think your point is very true: (paraphrase) “lack of tools to access any internal substances or causal relations is not sufficient to conclude it is supernatural”.

Again, just to be clear, I fully agree that if the usual model of Christian young Earth creationism were true, there would be plenty of actual evidence we could find, and it is totally conceivable that we could gather enough evidence to have a firmly supported conclusion that the usual model of Christian young Earth creationism is true. However, under your definitions, I think we could never conclude it’s “supernatural”. Similarly, we can never conclude that something is natural either – under your definitions. To use an example: materialism might be true to all possible tests we can employ, but our observable reality might itself just be a sleeper’s dream, specifically a sleeping supernatural mind. In that scenario, all of reality is supernatural. Your own quote above regarding quantum physics make this point exceedingly well:

* The underlying mechanics of quantum phenomena might be physically beyond all observation and therefore untestable, but no one would then conclude that quantum mechanics is supernatural. Just because I can’t look inside a box does not make its contents supernatural.

Just because I cannot look outside the box which is this universe and see the sleeper who is dreaming – that would not make the world any less supernatural under your definitions.

Thus far, the only actual useful and meaningful definitions that I can find to back “natural” and “supernatural” are based on the modern scientific notion of materialism. Of course that might not match common usage – common usage might just be fucked. I think that one of my favorite ways of describing it comes from Baron d’Holbach. Offhand, he comes closest to describing what I mean when he writes that the whole world is just very small particles in constant motion, like a billiards table, operating according to simple mindless forces of physics. The “matter in motion” paradigm. Obviously, we’ve learned a few things since then which make the literal reading wrong, but I think there’s something important in that description, the idea that the universe is composed of many very small pieces, most of which are indistinguishable from many other, operating according to simple mathematical descriptions. Of course modern notions of physics change that from “particles to fields”. There’s also some amount of implicit locality and some amount of implicit pair-wise forces, which are also wrong AFAIK. However, I still think there’s some nontrivial and falsifiable notion buried in there which is the heart of materialism. I haven’t quite been able to lay my finger on it. Based on the above Boudry paper, I should probably read the work of Victor Stenger.

PS:
One last question: Question Q: Does some thing X count as “natural” or “supernatural” under your definitions if X is wholly causally reducible to some mind thing Y which is itself wholly causally irreducible, e.g. Y is (wholly) supernatural? Let’s suppose we take the “natural” answer. In practice we can show that some things are causally reducible, which means it’s possible we could be justified in believing that such things are natural. Simultaneously, we would be forever unjustified in believing that anything is supernatural. At first glance, that seems like a contradiction, a situation which should not be allowed by proper Bayesian reasoning. However, I think the problem is in the language. I think that if we take “natural” as the answer to question Q, then we lack a proper true dichotomy between “natural” and “supernatural”, which conflicts with my subconscious understanding that “natural” and “supernatural” form a proper true dichotomy. In this case, “natural” would be defined as “observably causally reducible”, whereas “supernatural” would be defined as “a mind thing which is fundamentally causally irreducible” – not the same thing as “a mind thing which is observably causally irreducible”.

PPS: I don’t hold to all of the tenants of logical positivism. Strong verification is obviously wrong. Weak verification in the context of foundherentism on the other hand – that sounds very much like the Bayesian approach you advocate.

There wasn’t anything in that comment worth replying to. All you did was gainsay me. You complain about my not citing evidence, and then cite no evidence for your contrary assumptions. The rest just repeated things I already responded to in comments here and here. This suggests to me that you aren’t genuinely interested in finding out what the facts are. Why argue with such a person?

It’s telling how the last comment on the issue of eating animals fell away unanswered and hidden among a flurry of technical mumbo-jumbo. What a way to dodge sincere inquiry… Confirms ever more to me that eating animals is an indoctrinated habit that even the most astute minds forbid themselves to question.

No, but reading its description it sounds like something a colleague of mine would be interested in. I’ve notified him.

I don’t know what this is a reference to. Nor do I fathom what you are trying to argue.

Critical Thinking leads to atheism, and I don’t think there is need for “Critical Thinking”.

Stop acting like a victim.

I agree the blog thing would be nice you evil anti mumbo jumbo guy, but I digress. In your talks you comment a lot on the psychology of the early Christians and their mental state or lack thereof. As such I would like to address the issue of veridical premonitions of the dead as addressed in…

…by your opponent. I’m not a psychologist but a programmer so my world is all about the state of things.

I would contest that this experience is an intense bout of “Déjà vu” caused by the reporting of the death of the individual and the images are ones created in the instant they heard about the death.

While these articles are populist (it’s all I have access to) I refer you to
:

http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com.au/2009/05/simulating-deja-vu-in-lab.html

http://www.memorylossonline.com/fall2005/dejavu.html

Just a thought for the next time someone drops the “A devil killed my friend and I saw it in a dream last night” thing.

Also good luck with the fight.