Actually, don't use it in Shane's way, which was part of my point. cientists do not believe that "nature" (in the sense of "everything") is made out of "matter." There is no scientific consensus about metaphysics whatsoever, and it has no relevance to science at all. The universe behaves as it does regardless of what metaphysical schema you are working with. The "materialism" of science has nothing to do with metaphysical materialism; it is (roughly) exclusion of nonobservables from the explanatory process and works equally well regardless of your metaphysical paradigm. All that is required for science to work is for the universe ("nature") to conform to observable lawlike behavior (i.e., no divine intervention taking place at regular intervals). That's it.
By the way, science is deepy ridden with Platonism (that whole math thing and that other thing about laws), as you no doubt know. ;)
--- On Fri, 5/8/09, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>
> The issue is not how Shane is using the term "nature", but
> how scientists are using it. And if they are using it in a
> meaningless way, I am guessing that makes Shane's point.
>
>