What the study really reveals is the failure of most to consciously grasp the actual nature of the distinction between the underlying metaphysical presuppositions of evolutionary theory and intelligent design.
However, the research team saw reversed effects during the fourth study which had a new condition. Along with writings by Behe and Dawkins, there was an additional passage by Carl Sagan. A cosmologist and science writer, Sagan argues that naturalism -- the scientific approach that underlies evolution, but not intelligent design -- can also provide a sense of meaning. In response, these participants showed reduced belief in intelligent design after being reminded of their own mortality.
The view that naturalism underlies evolution, but not intelligent design is a false dichotomy. Naturalism underlies both.
The putatively "scientific consensus that intelligent design theory is inherently unscientific" is actually a metaphysical consensus. Most scientists, being atheists, presuppose a
metaphysical (or
philosophical)
naturalism (more at a
Darwinian naturalism) as opposed to the
methodological or
mechanistic naturalism of those who are skeptical of evolutionary theory. The former is the apriority of Darwinians and begs the question; the latter, as defined in this instance, refers to the traditional apriority for scientific inquiry.
But of course not all Darwinists are materialists, i.e., hold to the idea that matter is the only thing that exists, but most all of them do presuppose a purely naturalistic approach to science; that is to say, science should be conducted as if nothing existed beyond nature or as if the temporal plain has always been inextricably bound to natural causality.
As I have written elsewhere, on this board and on my blog, those of us who hold to a more traditional methodological naturalism are not impressed. We regard the unqualified naturalist view to be dogmatically and presumptuously unscientific. Rather, science is to be conducted as if the temporal plain is ordinarily bound to natural causality while keeping an eye out for evidence that evinces other potentialities. This is the stuff of
physicalism proper. The latter merely limits itself to the investigation of the temporal plain or refers to the comprehensive essence of the temporal plain without presupposing the non-existence of immateriality, whatever that might entail or mean, or the non-existence of a supernatural plain. The idea here is to safeguard the integrity of scientific discovery, lest it veer off course into the land of the humanities: the telling of tales about events and certain ontological potentialities beyond the scope of its methodology.
