However, the concept that no reality exists outside of or behind the invariant laws of nature is not part of science, nor is it a restatement of its method. If that materialistic assumption is said to be the scientific view of reality, we have created another oxymoron, "scientific religion." Science has violated its own method by making statements that do not concern empirical reality.
Unfortunately, this viewpoint has been very effectively promulgated in recent years. Carl Sagan intones "The cosmos is all there is or ever will be." Ed Wilson predicts "The final decisive edge enjoyed by scientific naturalism will come from its capacity to explain traditional religion, its chief competitor, as a wholly material phenomenon."
Perhaps fears might be calmed and the controversy quieted if the National Academy of Sciences or the American Association for the Advancement of Science were to make an official public statement to the effect ...
