Glen Borchardt, author of "The Scientific Worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein".

A certain Glenn Borchardt -- author of The Scientific Worldview: Beyond Newton and Einstein and other books -- said to me:

"your statement that "science does not depend on our metaphysical presuppositions" is false. For instance, folks cannot be scientists unless they assume "there are causes for all effects." That is a metaphysical presupposition because it goes "beyond physics." We will never be able to completely prove that assumption, but without it, we could not do science."

We have to have the working supposition that the world exhibits regularities, if that is "metaphysical". Physical causation seems to me to be what we project onto reality in order to try and make sense of it. Whether or not it exists is an interesting question, but it's not needed for science. How could it be? We observe reality, note the regularities it exhibits, then apply mathematical formulas to describe such change in the world. Regardless of whether there is such a thing as gravitational force, it remains the case that objects fall and we can mathematically describe and predict a falling object's motion. This is not to deny that both the concepts of forces, and especially energy, may not be useful

Berkeley's metaphysic doesn't require physical causation, he thought only mental causation exists and I think he might well be right. That won't impress Glenn Borchard though since he thinks immaterialism is absurd. But I don't care what he feels, I care about the truth.