It seems as if the same topics get rehashed over and over again, so I figured I'd join the club and repost this revealing quote by Richard Lewontin (emphasis mine).
To those who would argue he's just saying that if it entertains the possibility of the supernatural, it can't be science:
"It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world"
So that can't be what he's saying. What he's saying is quite clear. "It doesn't matter if something doesn't really have a material explanation or how absurd or wrong our explanations may be, the point is to make sure we do not allow a divine foot in the door."
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
Richard Lewontin, Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, January 9, 1997.
To those who would argue he's just saying that if it entertains the possibility of the supernatural, it can't be science:
"It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world"
So that can't be what he's saying. What he's saying is quite clear. "It doesn't matter if something doesn't really have a material explanation or how absurd or wrong our explanations may be, the point is to make sure we do not allow a divine foot in the door."