The unhealthy synergy between methodological naturalism and accommodationism

Many critics of Intelligent Design and creationism are methodological naturalists – that is, they believe that supernatural topics are off-limits to science, and that science is inherently unable to pass judgment on religious claims.

Many of these same critics are also accommodationists, meaning they believe that there is no real conflict between science and religion, and that believers should not feel threatened by evolution or any other area of modern science.

Methodological naturalism and accommodationism reinforce each other.  By separating science and religion into “non-overlapping magisteria”, to borrow Stephen Jay Gould’s phrase, each side is reassured that its own “turf” is protected from the other.  Science classes are off-limits to religious ideas, and the faithful can rest assured that science will not overturn their cherished beliefs.

I think that methodological naturalism and accommodationism are both untenable.  Religious claims, such as those regarding young-earth creationism and the efficacy of prayer, can easily be investigated (and falsified) using the methods of science, provided that they make testable predictions.

The magisteria are not separate.  They overlap considerably, and in the areas of overlap, science has the formidable advantage of being both rational and empirical, and not faith-based.

Religion is fighting a losing battle. It is giving up ground as science advances.

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196 thoughts on “The unhealthy synergy between methodological naturalism and accommodationism

  1. William J. Murray:

    1. The Earth ***is*** 4.5 billion years old
    and
    2. The model of a 4.5 billion year old Earth is currently better at generating independently reproducible data than other models.

    This illustrates perfectly the issue I have with William’s argument: 2 is not a reflection of any actual science.

    As I noted earlier, the actual history of man’s attempts to figure out the age of the Earth is far more interesting than the strawman many people subscribe to. First, there is no model of a 4.5 billion year old Earth, never mind any nonsense about it being better at generating independently reproducible data. Our understanding of the age of the Earth comes the data collected from models of other systems such as models of plate tectonics, models of radioactivity, models of solar formation, models of erosion, models of sedimentation, models of plant growth and distribution, models of solar fusion, models of crystal formation, models of hydrology, and many hundreds of other models.

    Therein lies the problem with William’s thesis: 1 is an accurate scientific conclusion given the correspondence of data. 2, otoh, isn’t even wrong.

  2. William J. Murray: 1. The Earth ***is*** 4.5 billion years old
    and
    2. The model of a 4.5 billion year old Earth is currently better at generating independently reproducible data than other models.

    The first is direct and succint. The second is perversely obtuse and unnecessarily verbose.

    William J. Murray: Note how the first statement implicitly promotes scientific realism, and the second does not.

    I would normally use the first of those. Yet KN sees me as an instrumentalist and not a scientific realist. There’s something wrong with your view that it promotes scientific realism.

  3. petrushka,

    The only issue was the meaning of “YEC God.”

    No, the nonexistence of the toothpaste thief was also an issue. You still haven’t told us whether you stand behind your original claim that “Nothing can logically be said about the existence of the alleged person”. Do you still believe that, or do you agree that your logic was wrong?

    When you are writing for a casual audience, you need to consider not only the strict logical meaning, but also the way the phrase will be read by a general audience.

    Right, and I thought that readers would notice that I used the unusual phrase “the YEC God” instead of “God” or “the Christian God” or “Yahweh”. Since I took the trouble of adding the qualifier “YEC”, they would infer that there must be some significance to it. There was; I added it to indicate that my argument was confined to YEC Gods. What is the characteristic of a YEC God that distinguishes him from an OEC God or other Gods? The clue is in the qualifier “YEC”. He must have created the earth a (relatively) short time ago.

    The problem is the most people do not think of the YEC God as belonging to the class of all gods that created the earth 6000 years ago.

    I think they do. Why else would you add the qualifier “YEC”? YECs don’t refer to “the YEC God”. They just call him “God”.

    This is the crux of the matter: When we use the phrase “the YEC God”, are we referring to a single being that YECs are also referring to when they use the word “God”?

    At first glance, the answer might appear to be “yes”, but I think that’s too hasty. Rather than explaining myself here, I think I’ll do a separate OP on the topic. Please bear with me while I write one up.

    I realize that what you are arguing is that it can’t qualify as a YEC God unless it did YEC.

    Yes, especially since my point in bringing it up was to show that science rules out a God that “did YEC”, and that science is therefore not confined to the domain dictated by methodological naturalism.

    But I have encountered quite a few YEC people who consider the many passages where “one day is like a thousand years” to allow a metaphorical interpretation of the 6000 years. I realize that this creates additional problems.

    That would make them OECs, not YECs. YECs are adamant that the earth is only a few thousand years old.

  4. Robin,

    Yes, I think your example of the thief is sound. I just don’t see the thief example and the concept of a YEC God as equivalent…

    This does not work for the YEC God however because a YEC God – at least in real-world scenarios – is not limited to having a single characteristic of ONLY creating a world 6000 years ago (or last Thursday or whatever).

    It’s true that a YEC God is not limited to a single characteristic. However, I think the real issue is whether “created the earth a short time ago” is an essential characteristic of a YEC God, not whether it is the single characteristic.

    In other words, does a YEC God cease to be a YEC God if he created the universe billions of years ago? I think the answer is yes; otherwise, I wouldn’t have used the “YEC” qualifier at all.

    But as I mentioned to petrushka, I think this topic is worthy of an OP of its own, so I’ll work on writing one up.

  5. You are in Captain Queeg mode. You are obsessed with a logical construction that no one is opposing.

    So why not lighten up and try to understand what we are saying. You are beginning to remind me of Gregory.

    I could, following your model, say the earth does not revolve around the sun in one year, or I could say Darwin’s theory of natural selection is wrong.

    Such verbal constructions can be true and also be misleading or uncommunicative. The issue I’m trying to raise is that we are no engaged in a contest. We are trying to learn from each other. I would argue that the best strategy when someone misunderstands us is not bare fangs and go for the jugular, but to try to figure out why the communication failed and how to phrase an idea to avoid miscommunication.

  6. keiths:
    Robin,

    It’s true that a YEC God is not limited to a single characteristic.However, I think the real issue is whether “created the earth a short time ago” is an essential characteristic of a YEC God, not whether it is the single characteristic.

    Yes, I agree. The essential characteristic is the part I’m having trouble with.

    In other words, does a YEC God cease to be a YEC God if he created the universe billions of years ago?I think the answer is yes; otherwise, I wouldn’t have used the “YEC” qualifier at all.

    Fair enough.

    But as I mentioned to petrushka, I think this topic is worthy of an OP of its own, so I’ll work on writing one up.

    Thanks!

  7. I don’t suppose anyone’s noticed, but I don’t do essentialism. I think it’s a silly and unproductive way to categorize things and phenomena.

    I confess to not getting Keiths’ point immediately and have posted on this thread not to oppose Keiths, but to explain why I misunderstood. I’m really done with this.

  8. petrushka,

    You are in Captain Queeg mode…

    So why not lighten up…

    LOL. Got a mirror handy? 🙂

    You are obsessed with a logical construction that no one is opposing.

    We disagree, petrushka. Regarding the toothpaste thief, you say that

    Nothing can logically be said about the existence of the alleged person.

    I think that’s wrong. I disagree with it. Why would you claim otherwise, when we clearly don’t agree on the logic?

    I don’t understand why you won’t take responsibility for your statement and either defend it or acknowledge your error.

    The issue I’m trying to raise is that we are no engaged in a contest. We are trying to learn from each other.

    Right, so why do your bristles go up when someone points out an error that you’ve made? It doesn’t mean that you’ve “lost”. You can still respect yourself in the morning.

    I would argue that the best strategy when someone misunderstands us is not bare fangs and go for the jugular…

    I’m simply pointing out a mistake of yours. Why are you so threatened by that?

    If you want to defend your statement, feel free. I’m happy to discuss it with you. If you think, in retrospect, that you made a logical error, then great — we can agree on that.

    As I said earlier:

    If we can’t even agree on the straightforward case of the toothpaste thief, it’s unlikely that we’ll be able to agree on the YEC God, so let’s start by seeing if we can come to an agreement regarding the thief.

  9. keiths:

    It’s true that a YEC God is not limited to a single characteristic. However, I think the real issue is whether “created the earth a short time ago” is an essential characteristic of a YEC God, not whether it is the single characteristic.

    Robin:

    Yes, I agree. The essential characteristic is the part I’m having trouble with.

    As a hint at the argument I’ll be making in the new OP, I would say that the word “God”, when used by a YEC, encompasses more possible beings than the phrase “the YEC God” does when used by the rest of us.

    That’s why I claim that it is (counterintuitively) true that “the YEC God” is not equivalent to “the God of the YECs”.

  10. keiths: We disagree, petrushka. Regarding the toothpaste thief, you say that
    Nothing can logically be said about the existence of the alleged person.

    That would be because, unless it is explicitly stated as a premise, I do not consider the stealing to be an essential quality of the thief. I would consider it to be an attribute, but not an essential attribute.

    That would be because I am not a philosopher or logician, because I use the language colloquially. I’ve encountered a lot of puzzles that require close reading of statements, but I consider them to be artificial constructs and not to be the way people normally communicate.

  11. keiths:

    No, William, there is another “available on-point inference” to be drawn, which is that scientists are doing science when they write scientific papers full of claims about reality.

    William:

    I didn’t say they weren’t “doing science”. I said, if they make truth-claims about reality, those claims are not scientific.

    Which leads to the absurd conclusion that the beetle paper is not a scientific paper if it makes truth claims but doesn’t refer to “models”.

    It may just be the product of sloppy semantics producing erroneously unqualified assertions…

    Scientists aren’t stupid. They aren’t going to add “in my opinion” or “probably” to every statement they make, when everyone involved knows that scientific claims are provisional.

    Posing a truth claim as:
    1. X is true.
    2. X may not be true.

    … as if truth claims are “the same as” scientific claims is irrational and misleading.

    Your mistake is in thinking that if scientists don’t explicitly add qualifiers to their statements, then their claims aren’t provisional. That’s ridiculous.

    On the other thread, I explained why the formulation you present above is incorrect:

    I disagree with that. The provisional nature of scientific truth claims is better rendered as “almost certainly P, but possibly not-P”, or “probably P, but possibly not-P”.

    “P but possibly not-P” is a contradiction, because P is being asserted unconditionally.

  12. petrushka,

    That would be because, unless it is explicitly stated as a premise, I do not consider the stealing to be an essential quality of the thief. I would consider it to be an attribute, but not an essential attribute.

    That would be because I am not a philosopher or logician, because I use the language colloquially.

    Even in colloquial usage, “the person breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste” can’t exist unless someone is breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste.

    That’s what I was getting at when I wrote this:

    How could “the person breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste” possibly exist if no one is breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste?

    If we wanted to check whether this person exists, what would we do? Who would we investigate? All seven billion people on earth? We already know that none of them qualify as “the person breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste”, because no one is breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste.

    In other words, you see the phrase as picking out a specific person X, and that it may turn out that X isn’t breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste. However, the only way that the phrase could pick out a specific person is if that person were stealing my toothpaste. If no one is stealing my toothpaste, then the phrase does not refer to a particular person, or any person at all.

  13. You can test this quite easily. Go up to a friend and ask “Who is the person who is breaking into your house and stealing your toothpaste?” After checking to see if your pupils are dilated, they will say something like “No one, as far as I know.”

    They won’t answer “John Smith, but he’s actually not breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste.” That would be nonsensical.

    Even in colloquial usage, the phrase doesn’t pick out a specific person unless some person actually satisfies the conditions.

  14. In orfinary usage, no one would ever say the person breaking into your house does not exist. You would simply say your house hasn’t been broken into.

    When my parents were in their 90’s they had occasional hallucinations. We would say there are no bugs on the ceiling.

    We would not say the bugs crawling on the ceiling do not exist. That is not a natural construction.

    If I say Darwin’s theory of natural selection is wrong it is probably not because I want to discuss neutral theory. It is more likely that I want to argue against evolution. These are not points of logic. They are points about how statements are perceived by readers and listeners.

  15. In your example, the friend says, no one as far as I know.

    He does not say, the person breaking into my house and stealing my toothpaste does not exist.

    So you agree with me about the awkwardness of your original statement. Even if the meaning is equivalent.

  16. petrushka,

    In orfinary usage, no one would ever say the person breaking into your house does not exist. You would simply say your house hasn’t been broken into.

    You didn’t merely claim that we wouldn’t say that. You claimed that we logically couldn’t say it:

    Nothing can logically be said about the existence of the alleged person.

    That’s wrong, as I think you now recognize.

    It’s also not true that we wouldn’t say it. It depends on the context.

    For example, you mentioned your parents and the illusory bugs on the ceiling. I can easily imagine this conversation between you and your mother.

    “Okay, Mom, I’m going to take off now. I’ll see you and Dad next week.”

    “But what are you going to do about the bugs on the ceiling?”

    “I can’t do anything about them, Mom. They don’t exist. You’re just seeing things.”

    There’s nothing awkward or unnatural about that conversation (apart from the awkwardness of dealing with a hallucinating parent).

  17. But you have avoided saying, the bugs you are seeing on the ceiling do not exist.

    But I am no talking about logic. I am talking about the sound of statements.

    Suppose she had said, there are bugs everywhere. Under the sink. In the garage. I see them right now on the ceiling.

    And I respond, the bugs you are seeing do not exist.

  18. petrushka,

    But you have avoided saying, the bugs you are seeing on the ceiling do not exist… I am talking about the sound of statements.

    I’m sure you could come up with an awkward-sounding statement about just about anything. So what?

    I gave you an example in which it wasn’t awkward to talk about the non-existent bugs.

    If you don’t like the one I already gave you, here’s another.

    Mom: What are you going to do about the bugs on the ceiling?

    Petrushka (exasperated): Mom, those bugs on the ceiling — they don’t even exist! It’s all in your head.

    But I am no talking about logic.

    You are definitely talking about logic. You even used the word ‘logically’:

    Nothing can logically be said about the existence of the alleged person.

    Petrushka, you made a mistake, and I pointed it out. That’s all. It’s not a crisis. Why are you trying so hard to avoid taking responsibility for your error?

  19. keiths: Why are you trying so hard to avoid taking responsibility for your error?

    This is just a blog,. It was originally set up by Lizzie to encourage dialogue between varying points of view. May I suggest take what you are given as response and move on. It is not as if anyone is disagreeing on substantive issues.

  20. Alan,

    This is just a blog,. It was originally set up by Lizzie to encourage dialogue between varying points of view.

    Thanks for the info. 🙂

    May I suggest take what you are given as response and move on. It is not as if anyone is disagreeing on substantive issues.

    We do appear to disagree on a substantive issue. Petrushka is still defending his statement, and I think it contains a fundamental logical error.

  21. keiths: We do appear to disagree on a substantive issue. Petrushka is still defending his statement, and I think it contains a fundamental logical error.

    No-one is stopping you explaining this fundamental error in detail. I am just suggesting that Petrushka is under the same obligation as everyone else here to respond. That is none at all.

    From an onlooker’s perspective, there seems more miscommunication than disagreement over basic facts.

  22. Alan,

    No-one is stopping you explaining this fundamental error in detail. I am just suggesting that Petrushka is under the same obligation as everyone else here to respond. That is none at all.

    Of course. Who ever said otherwise?

    You’ll notice that I am not insisting that he defend his statement. I think it’s obviously wrong, and I frankly don’t see any reason at all for him to defend it. However, if he chooses to keep disputing my assessment, that’s his right, and I’m happy to discuss it with him. I don’t see how we’ll ever agree on the YEC God issue if we can’t agree on something as straightforward as the toothpaste thief.

    From an onlooker’s perspective, there seems more miscommunication than disagreement over basic facts.

    Miscommunication is not the problem. the ‘toothpaste thief’ scenario has been clear from the beginning, but petrushka’s response doesn’t make logical sense:

    Nothing can logically be said about the existence of the alleged person.

    If you find it tiresome, then ask him why he continues to defend that statement, or just ignore our discussion.

  23. keiths: Miscommunication is not the problem.

    But Petrushka says:

    I confess to not getting Keiths’ point immediately and have posted on this thread not to oppose Keiths, but to explain why I misunderstood. I’m really done with this.

  24. Alan,

    He’s talking about the YEC God point.

    I am talking about the ‘toothpaste thief’ scenario:

    Suppose I claim that every night a certain stranger breaks into my house and steals toothpaste from my tube. You put sensors on all my doors and windows, and you carefully measure the weight of my toothpaste tube at night and in the morning. You conclude that no one is breaking in, that no one is stealing my toothpaste, and that I am batshit crazy.

    Would it be fair to say that the stranger doesn’t exist, or would you argue that the evidence “says nothing about the existence of any strangers”?

    Petrushka’s response shows that he understood the scenario — he recognized that the toothpaste thief story was false — but he erroneously concluded that the person might actually exist:

    You can conclude the story is untrue, but you cannot conclude that the stranger does not exist.

    And a few comments later:

    Th story is untrue. Nothing can logically be said about the existence of the alleged person.

    There was no miscommunication. He understood the scenario, but he drew an incorrect logical conclusion from it.

  25. keiths,

    Keith

    I’m the last person who’d want to argue over hypothetical scenarios. We have enough trouble discussing reality. I agree that gods without attributes or entailments, being imaginary, are of no consequence. Once someone adorns a god with an attribute, then, sure, it becomes a testable target for analysis. I don’t think anyone who considers scientific evidence credible could convince themselves that the Earth is 6,000 standard Earth orbits (the time the Earth takes to complete one circuit around the sun) old. Thus, either the god some people claim created the Earth 6,000 years ago doesn’t exist or those people are misinformed about the date of creation and their particular god does not possess this attribute or any other verifiable quality.

    I feel slightly daft having written that. See where consideration of other peoples’ imagination gets you. Much better not to go there.

  26. I must have been doing it wrong all this time. I thought that methodological naturalism was about methodology—the techniques and tools and yada yada you use to do whatever-it-is you do. I had no idea that methodological naturalism was a barrier to studying supernatural thingies! It would appear that my confusion is shared by many other people, including all those scientists who have conducted (what they thought were) methodologically naturalistic studies of supernatural-type matters such as the efficacy of prayer. Apparently, all those scientists, and me, have been laboring under the misguided impression that what matters to methodological naturalism is not that the thing-being-studied is natural, but, rather, that the thing-being-studied is testable. To be sure, if you made a Venn diagram of “claims which are not testable” and “claims which are supernatural”, there would be one heck of a large degree of overlap between those two circles. Nevertheless, I’d been under the impression that it’s untestability which MN can’t handle. But apparently I was wrong…

  27. cubist,

    I must have been doing it wrong all this time. I thought that methodological naturalism was about methodology—the techniques and tools and yada yada you use to do whatever-it-is you do.

    It is about methodology, but the methodology in question includes limits on the hypotheses that are permissible.

    I had no idea that methodological naturalism was a barrier to studying supernatural thingies!

    Now you know.

    It’s been an issue in the ID wars for years. Philosopher of science Robert Pennock, who testified for the plaintiffs in the Dover trial, put it this way:

    Similarly, science does not have a special rule just to keep out divine interventions, but rather a general rule that it does not handle any supernatural agents or powers. That is what it means to hold methodological naturalism…

    ID proponents complain (and rightly so, in my opinion) that this excludes supernatural causes from consideration. I agree that such a restriction is unnecessary and runs counter to the spirit of open scientific inquiry.

    I also think that supernatural hypotheses have a dismal track record, and I will be very surprised if any of them are validated any time soon. That’s no reason to rule them out ahead of time, however.

    It would appear that my confusion is shared by many other people, including all those scientists who have conducted (what they thought were) methodologically naturalistic studies of supernatural-type matters such as the efficacy of prayer.

    Did they think they were practicing methodological naturalism?

    Apparently, all those scientists, and me, have been laboring under the misguided impression that what matters to methodological naturalism is not that the thing-being-studied is natural, but, rather, that the thing-being-studied is testable.

    No, testability matters to science generally, not just to methodological naturalism. The thing that distinguishes methodological naturalism is its exclusion of supernatural hypotheses.

    To be sure, if you made a Venn diagram of “claims which are not testable” and “claims which are supernatural”, there would be one heck of a large degree of overlap between those two circles.

    That’s right.

    Nevertheless, I’d been under the impression that it’s untestability which MN can’t handle. But apparently I was wrong…

    Yep. Here’s Eugenie Scott, former director of the NCSE:

    Science is a way of knowing that attempts to explain the natural world using natural causes. It is agnostic toward the supernatural – it neither confirms nor rejects it.

    There’s a reason it’s called methodological naturalism.

  28. Whether empirical inquiry rules out theological premises depends on how those premises are stated. Here’s an example from Eliot Sober:

    there exists an omnipotent God who is the creator of the entire physical universe and who would have done everything He possible could to make everything purple.

    It’s a silly example, of course, but it illustrates the point: everything depends on how the premises are stated and what inferences are drawn from those premises. But the logic is more complicated, because we don’t know which of the conjunctions in the premise have been ruled out.

    Is that God didn’t want to make everything purple? Or that making everything purple is beyond His ability (perhaps an entirely purple universe is logically contradictory?)? Is it that God is not truly omnipotent? Or that God isn’t the creator of the physical universe? Or that God doesn’t exist? There’s no way of knowing, from the fact that we do not observe an entirely purple universe, which of the conjuncts in the premises ought to be eliminated.

    And that, I believe, is the real problem with testing the supernatural — not that we can rule out any premises about the supernatural, but that we can’t. It’s all ad hoc, and the ad hoc premises that get added in are not themselves available for further testing.

    By contrast, when we use an electron microscope to test some hypothesis about the size or shape of a virus, we’re not testing the laws of physics that govern the functioning of the microscope — but we could do so, in some other experiment, that relies on different background commitments and assumptions.

  29. keiths,

    I take it, however, that this is precisely why methodological naturalism is allied with (indeed, seems to be explicitly designed to be allied with!) accommodationism: because it justifies NOMA.

    However, that seems perfectly compatible with cubist’s point that we should be focusing on is testability, not ‘naturalism’, and just not use the term “methodological naturalism” to refer to that emphasis on empirical testability.

  30. Kantian Naturalist: And that, I believe, is the real problem with testing the supernatural — not that we can rule out any premises about the supernatural, but that we can’t. It’s all ad hoc, and the ad hoc premises that get added in are not themselves available for further testing.

    There isn’t really a problem. All things, events, phenomena that are in some way detectable – however indirect – are real. The world (nay, the universe and any other universes one cares to imagine) is your oyster when it comes to the supernatural (I hate that word!) or the imaginary, as I prefer.

    Where science comes in is when someone attributes a “supernatural” cause to a real effect; the interface where the imaginary is supposed to produce something real. That is why fundamentalists are so anti-science. Power of prayer? Debunked! Miracles? Debunked! 6,000 year old Earth? Debunked!

    ETA Oops, missing key word “detectable”

  31. cubist: To be sure, if you made a Venn diagram of “claims which are not testable” and “claims which are supernatural”, there would be one heck of a large degree of overlap between those two circles.

    Unless you included religious claims of Godly interventions in the real world : sea parting et cetera. It seems these sorts of events have tailed off markedly since our ability to observe and record events has improved.

  32. KN,

    And that, I believe, is the real problem with testing the supernatural — not that we can rule out any premises about the supernatural, but that we can’t. It’s all ad hoc, and the ad hoc premises that get added in are not themselves available for further testing.

    That problem isn’t confined to supernatural hypotheses. You can rescue natural hypotheses the same way, by adding ad hoc assumptions. That’s why we consider the number of assumptions when judging one theory against another. All else being equal, a theory requiring fewer ad hoc assumptions is preferred.

  33. KN,

    However, that seems perfectly compatible with cubist’s point that we should be focusing on is testability, not ‘naturalism’, and just not use the term “methodological naturalism” to refer to that emphasis on empirical testability.

    No one is disputing the importance of testability. I’ve been stressing testability throughout the thread, and even in the OP:

    I think that methodological naturalism and accommodationism are both untenable. Religious claims, such as those regarding young-earth creationism and the efficacy of prayer, can easily be investigated (and falsified) using the methods of science, provided that they make testable predictions.

    [Emphasis added]

    Cubist’s error is in seeing testability as something specific to methodological naturalism:

    Apparently, all those scientists, and me, have been laboring under the misguided impression that what matters to methodological naturalism is not that the thing-being-studied is natural, but, rather, that the thing-being-studied is testable.

    That’s not what methodological naturalism means, as my quotes from Robert Pennock and Eugenie Scott show. The name itself tells the story; why would we call it “methodological naturalism” if it weren’t a form of naturalism?

  34. Keiths
    The name itself tells the story; why would we call it “methodological naturalism” if it weren’t a form of naturalism?

    Which seems exactly the reason MN is impotent to detect an omnipotent being not bound by the laws of nature if such a being exists or His handiwork.

    That is why you cannot disprove Yec God, you can only show that science does not support that concept. A Being capable of anything possible seems capable creating any ratio of isotopes He may wish. It is just a version of Last Thursdayism.

  35. velikovskys:

    Which seems exactly the reason MN is impotent to detect an omnipotent being not bound by the laws of nature if such a being exists or His handiwork.

    “Testable” is not synonymous with “bound by the laws of nature”.

    Suppose I tell you that Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of Hinduism, will cause a 100 rupee note to materialize in your hand if you recite a certain prayer to him. My claim is testable; you can recite the prayer and then check the contents of your hand, and you can go on to conduct more elaborate tests in the unlikely event that the first experiment is successful.

    It’s a testable claim that is not subject to the laws of nature.

    According to methodological naturalism, science can’t even consider the claim because it involves a supernatural agent.

    That’s just silly. Why should science be hobbled that way?

  36. keiths
    “Testable” is not synonymous with “bound by the laws of nature”.

    Methodological naturalism is only effective within the bounds of nature, as you say “why would we call it “methodological naturalism” if it weren’t a form of naturalism?”

    Suppose I tell you that Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of Hinduism, will cause a 100 rupee note to materialize in your hand if you recite a certain prayer to him. My claim is testable

    True, your claim that a note will appear if your preform an action is testable,that claim can be shown false since the existence of the note is bound by nature. But it is your claim of knowledge that is proven unverified, not the existence of Ganesh

    And historical claims are even more difficult to disprove thru science.

    According to methodological naturalism, science can’t even consider the claim because it involves a supernatural agent. That’s just silly.

    That is not exactly correct, it can consider the natural aspects of the claim,whether there are known mechanisms adequate, but since our knowledge of cause is limited there is room for unknown causes at unknown levels , some of which may be unbound from our laws of nature. That is what we cannot prove the absence of.

    Why should science be hobbled that way?

    Lack of omniscience I would guess

  37. keiths:

    “Testable” is not synonymous with “bound by the laws of nature”.

    velikovskys:

    Methodological naturalism is only effective within the bounds of nature, as you say “why would we call it “methodological naturalism” if it weren’t a form of naturalism?”

    Right, but the question is whether science should be limited to methodological naturalism. I say no, for a simple reason: science is perfectly capable of handling testable supernatural hypotheses, so why not let it?

    keiths:

    Suppose I tell you that Ganesh, the elephant-headed god of Hinduism, will cause a 100 rupee note to materialize in your hand if you recite a certain prayer to him. My claim is testable…

    velikovskys:

    True, your claim that a note will appear if your preform an action is testable,that claim can be shown false since the existence of the note is bound by nature.

    The experiment shows that the supernatural hypothesis is false. We tested it using the methods of science and found it to be incorrect. Yet according to methodological naturalism, we can’t even consider the hypothesis.

    But it is your claim of knowledge that is proven unverified, not the existence of Ganesh

    Right, and the claim was that Ganesh would cause a 100 rupee note to materialize in my hand. That’s a supernatural claim, and it was falsified.

    keiths:

    According to methodological naturalism, science can’t even consider the claim because it involves a supernatural agent. That’s just silly.

    velikovskys:

    That is not exactly correct, it can consider the natural aspects of the claim…

    What “natural aspects”? The claim was that a supernatural entity, Ganesh, would supernaturally poof a 100 rupee note into existence in my hand. When methodological naturalism fails to consider the supernatural aspects of the claim, it fails to consider the claim at all.

    There’s no reason for science to be arbitrarily limited that way. It is perfectly capable of ruling out supernatural hypotheses like the one we are discussing.

  38. keiths: cubist,

    I must have been doing it wrong all this time. I thought that methodological naturalism was about methodology—the techniques and tools and yada yada you use to do whatever-it-is you do.

    It is about methodology, but the methodology in question includes limits on the hypotheses that are permissible.

    Sure. And you think that “no supernatural stuff allowed!” is a limit-on-permissible-hypotheses which are part of MN, while I say that MN’s real limit-on-permissible-hypotheses is “no untestable stuff allowed!”

    I had no idea that methodological naturalism was a barrier to studying supernatural thingies!

    Now you know.

    I know that you believe MN to be a barrier to studying supernatural thingies, yes. Since I already knew that before you made this statement, it’s not clear to me what value said statement adds to the conversation. Haven’t yet seen any good reason to think that MN genuinely is a barrier to studying supernatural thingies. Now, if you want to say that untestability is a necessary, innate characteristic of all ‘supernatural’ hypotheses, fine. In such a case, we would agree in substance, even if we don’t agree on the wording.

    It would appear that my confusion is shared by many other people, including all those scientists who have conducted (what they thought were) methodologically naturalistic studies of supernatural-type matters such as the efficacy of prayer.

    Did they think they were practicing methodological naturalism?

    Who cares what they thought they were doing? The relevant point is whether they actually were practicing MN.
    You can test the efficacy of intercessory prayer by gathering up a bunch of people with a particular medical condition; having some of those people prayed at, which the rest (the control group, is not prayed at; and see whether or not there’s any statistically significant different in medical outcomes between members of the control group and members of the prayed-at group.
    There—a methodologically naturalistic test of the supernatural hypothesis that intercessory prayer can help people heal better. Or if you think that’s not MN, on what grounds do you object? Bonus points if you can come up with a it’s-not-MN-because-X rationale that doesn’t boil down to “it’s just not testable, end of discussion”.

    Apparently, all those scientists, and me, have been laboring under the misguided impression that what matters to methodological naturalism is not that the thing-being-studied is natural, but, rather, that the thing-being-studied is testable.

    No, testability matters to science generally, not just to methodological naturalism. The thing that distinguishes methodological naturalism is its exclusion of supernatural hypotheses.

    You’re just repeating your position now. I say MN doesn’t exclude supernatural hypotheses; rather, MN excludes untestable hypotheses. Playing back your old MN does, too, exclude supernatural hypotheses! tape won’t persuade me to change my mind; citing examples of supernatural hypotheses which are also untestable won’t persuade me to change my mind.
    Imagine a testable supernatural hypothesis, if you will. I’m not concerned with the specifics of this hypotheses, merely that it be both (a) supernatural, according to whatever definition of ‘supernatural’ you happen to like, and (b) testable. If MN genuinely does exclude ‘supernatural’ hypotheses, MN must be incapable of investigating this testable supernatural hypothesis… so what’s going to prevent MN-using scientists from investigating that hypothesis? Please don’t say “because MN excludes the supernatural, duh!”, because that would be a fine example of assuming one’s conclusion.

  39. cubist,

    Your comment doesn’t make very much sense, for a number of reasons, but here are the top three:

    1. Testability is already an essential part of science. The phrase ‘methodological naturalism’ would add absolutely nothing if it merely referred to testability.

    2. Why use the phrase ‘methodological naturalism’ to refer to something that isn’t a naturalism at all? Philosophical naturalism excludes the supernatural. Why use the name ‘methodological naturalism’ for a methodology that doesn’t exclude the supernatural?

    3. You haven’t explained why your definition of methodological naturalism should supersede the generally accepted one. Why does your definition trump that of Robert Pennock, Eugenie Scott, Kenneth Miller, Paul Kurtz, Alvin Plantinga, Wes Elsberry, etc.?

    There—a methodologically naturalistic test of the supernatural hypothesis that intercessory prayer can help people heal better. Or if you think that’s not MN, on what grounds do you object? Bonus points if you can come up with a it’s-not-MN-because-X rationale that doesn’t boil down to “it’s just not testable, end of discussion”.

    You’ve got it exactly backwards. I don’t argue against MN because I claim that supernatural hypotheses are untestable; I argue against MN because some supernatural claims are testable. There’s no reason to restrict science to naturalist hypotheses when it is perfectly capable of handling testable supernatural ones.

    Playing back your old MN does, too, exclude supernatural hypotheses! tape won’t persuade me to change my mind;

    Whether you change your mind is irrelevant. I’m just explaining why I hold my position.

    …citing examples of supernatural hypotheses which are also untestable won’t persuade me to change my mind.

    It shouldn’t, because as I explained above, you’ve got it exactly backwards!

    Imagine a testable supernatural hypothesis, if you will. I’m not concerned with the specifics of this hypotheses, merely that it be both (a) supernatural, according to whatever definition of ‘supernatural’ you happen to like, and (b) testable. If MN genuinely does exclude ‘supernatural’ hypotheses, MN must be incapable of investigating this testable supernatural hypothesis… so what’s going to prevent MN-using scientists from investigating that hypothesis?

    Nothing. Like all of us, they can choose to follow MN or to flout it. But if they do investigate a supernatural hypothesis, then they are not practicing MN, because MN excludes the supernatural.

    Did you even read the Pennock and Scott quotes I provided?

    Here’s Pennock again:

    Similarly, science does not have a special rule just to keep out divine interventions, but rather a general rule that it does not handle any supernatural agents or powers. That is what it means to hold methodological naturalism…

    If you think that he and Scott, and Miller, and Kurtz, etc., are wrong, that’s fine, but at least offer some justification other than “because cubist says so”.

  40. keiths,
    Right, but the question is whether science should be limited to methodological naturalism.

    I believe that is ID’s feelings as well.

    The experiment shows that the supernatural hypothesis is false.

    My contention is the hypothesis is whether your belief in the result of prayer to Ganesh is true in this one particular matter. We have no evidence that if Ganesh existed money would appear except your belief.

    On the other hand if the money appeared and we had no explanation for it would that prove the supernatural hypothesis true? Again that seems close to the logic of Intelligent Design

    We tested it using the methods of science and found it to be incorrect.

    Are there any methods of science which do not rely on naturalism?

    Yet according to methodological naturalism, we can’t even consider the hypothesis.

    If the cause is not even theoretically able to be measured by naturalistic means then how can one determine whether it has a particular naturalistic effect? That seems like a waste of resources.

    What “natural aspects”? The claim was that a supernatural entity, Ganesh, would supernaturally poof a 100 rupee note into existence in my hand.

    A 100 rupee note is a natural aspect, that is what you are measuring ,not the presence or absence of supernatural power which we cannot detect. And unless Ganesh Himself makes the claim, we are testing your belief in the nature of Ganesh

  41. velikovskys: A 100 rupee note is a natural aspect, that is what you are measuring ,not the presence or absence of supernatural power which we cannot detect. And unless Ganesh Himself makes the claim, we are testing your belief in the nature of Ganesh

    And wouldn’t Ganesh either be a thief or a forger? Rupee notes carry unique numbers and are issued by the Reserve Bank of India so Ganesh would have to get that note from somewhere or materialise a forgery of a genuine note.

    /trivia

  42. Alan,

    And wouldn’t Ganesh either be a thief or a forger? Rupee notes carry unique numbers and are issued by the Reserve Bank of India so Ganesh would have to get that note from somewhere or materialise a forgery of a genuine note.

    I’d be impressed even if it were a theft or a forgery.

  43. keiths:

    Right, but the question is whether science should be limited to methodological naturalism.

    velikovskys:

    I believe that is ID’s feelings as well.

    Yes, it’s one of the few things that IDers and I agree on.

    On the other hand if the money appeared and we had no explanation for it would that prove the supernatural hypothesis true?

    No, of course not. Science doesn’t prove hypotheses so much as it eliminates competing hypotheses. If the money appeared, we would simply say that the supernatural hypothesis had not been falsified, not that it had been proven to be true.

    Are there any methods of science which do not rely on naturalism?

    I don’t think any of them do. They rely on testability, but not on naturalism. That’s why we can confidently say that the YEC story is false, even though it is a supernatural hypothesis.

    If the cause is not even theoretically able to be measured by naturalistic means then how can one determine whether it has a particular naturalistic effect?

    The appearance of a 100 rupee note in my hand is measurable by naturalistic means. The hypothesis is supernatural, but the effect is measurable.

    A 100 rupee note is a natural aspect, that is what you are measuring ,not the presence or absence of supernatural power which we cannot detect.

    The effect is natural, but the hypothesis is supernatural. If we show that the effect doesn’t obtain, then we have shown that the hypothesis is false.

    And there’s nothing unusual about using indirect effects to test hypotheses. That’s how the Higgs boson was detected, for example.

    And unless Ganesh Himself makes the claim, we are testing your belief in the nature of Ganesh.

    Yes, but my belief is a supernatural one. The fact that we can show it to be false shows that science can handle testable supernatural claims. Methodological naturalism is an unnecessary restriction, and it runs counter to the spirit of open inquiry that is so characteristic of science.

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