KN
It’s central to the ideological glue that holds together “the ID movement” that the following are all conflated:Darwin’s theories; neo-Darwinism; modern evolutionary theory; Epicurean materialistic metaphysics; Enlightenment-inspired secularism. (Maybe I’m missing one or two pieces of the puzzle.) In my judgment, a mind incapable of making the requisite distinctions hardly deserves to be taken seriously.
I think your analysis of the driving force behind ID is way off base. That’s not to say that persons who advocate ID (including myself) aren’t sometimes guilty of sloppy use of language, nor am I making the claim that the modern synthetic theory of evolution is synonymous with materialism or secularism. Having made that acknowledgement, though, it is demonstrably true that
(1) metaphysical presuppostions absolutely undergird much of the modern synthetic theory. This is especially true with regard to methodological naturalism (of course, MN is distinct from ontological naturalism, but if, as some claim, science describes the whole of reality, then reality becomes coextensive with that which is natural). Methodological naturalism is not the end product of some experiment or series of experiments. On the contrary it is a ground rule that excludes a priori any explanation that might be classed as “non-natural”. Some would argue that it is necessary for practical reasons, after all we don’t want people atributing seasonal thunderstorms to Thor, do we? However, science could get along just as well as at present (even better in my view) if the ground rule is simply that any proposed causal explanation must be rigorously defined and that it shall not be accepted except in light of compelling evidence. Problem solved! Though some fear “supernatural explanation” (which is highly definitional) overwhelming the sciences, such concerns are frequently oversold. Interestingly, the much maligned Michael Behe makes very much the same point in his 1996 Darwin’s Black Box:
If my graduate student came into my office and said that the angel of death killed her bacterial culture, I would be disinclined to believe her…. Science has learned over the past half millenium that the universe operates with great regularity the great majority of the time, and that simple laws and predictable behavior explain most physical phenomena.
Darwin’s Black Box pg. 241
If Behe’s expression is representative of the ID community (which I would venture it is), then why the death-grip on methodological naturalism? I suggest that its power lies in its exclusionary function. It rules out ID right from the start, before even any discussions about the emprical data are to be had. MN means that ID is persona non grata, thus some sort of evolutionary explanation must win by default.
(2) In Darwin’s own arguments in favor of his theory he rely heavily on metaphysical assumptions about what God would or wouldn’t do. Effectively he uses special creation by a deity as his null hypothesis, casting his theory as the explanatory alternative. Thus the adversarial relationship between Darwin (whose ideas are foundational to the MST) and theism is baked right into The Origin. To this very day, “bad design” arguments in favor of evolution still employ theological reasoning.
(3) The modern synthetic theory is often used in the public debate as a prop for materialism (which I believe you acknowledged in another comment). How many times have we heard the famed Richard Dawkins quote to the effect that ‘Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist’? Very frequently evolutionary theory is impressed into service to show the superfluousness of theism or to explain away religion as an erstwhile useful phenomenon produced by natural selection (or something to that effect). Hardly can it be ignored that the most enthusiastic boosters of evolutionary theory tend to fall on the atheist/materialist/reductionist side of the spectrum (e.g. Eugenie Scott, Michael Shermer, P.Z. Meyers, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Peter Atkins, Daniel Dennett, Will Provine). My point simply stated is that it is not at all wrong-headed to draw a connection between the modern synthetic theory and the aforementioned class of metaphysical views. Can it be said that the modern synthetic theory (am I allowed just to write Neo-Darwinism for short?) doesn’t mandate nontheistic metaphysics? Sure. But it’s just as true that they often accompany each other.
In chalking up ID to a massive attack of confused cognition, you overlook the substantive reasons why many (including a number of PhD scientists) consider ID to be a cogent explanation of many features of our universe (especially the bioshpere):
- Functionally-specified complex information present in cells in prodigdious quantities
- Sophisticated mechanical systems at both the micro and macro level in organisms (many of which exhibit IC)
- Fine-tuning of fundamental constants
- Patterns of stasis followed by abrupt appearance (geologically speaking) in the fossil record
In my opinion the presence of FSCI/O and complex biological machinery are very powerful indicators of intelligent agency, judging from our uniform and repeated experience. Also note that none of the above reasons employ theological presuppositions. They flow naturally, inexorably from the data. And, yes, we are all familiar with the objection that organisms are distinct from artificial objects, the implication being that our knowledge from the domain of man-made objects doesn’t carry over to biology. I think this is fallacious. Everyone acknowledges that matter inhabiting this universe is made up of atoms, which in turn are composed of still other particles. This is true of all matter, not just “natural” things, not just “artificial” things – everything. If such is the case, then must not the same laws apply to all matter with equal force? From whence comes the false dichotomy that between “natural” and “artificial”? If design can be discerned in one case, why not in the other?
To this point we have not even addressed the shortcomings of the modern synthetic theory (excepting only its metaphysical moorings). They are manifold, however – evidential shortcomings (e.g. lack of empirical support), unjustified extrapolations, question-begging assumptions, ad hoc rationalizations, tolerance of “just so” stories, narratives imposed on data instead of gleaned from data, conflict with empirical data from generations of human experience with breeding, etc. If at the end of the day you truly believe that all ID has going for it is a culture war mentality, then may I politely suggest that you haven’t been paying attention.
The problem I have is that given an arbitrary object, X, you cannot tell me how to calculate the FSCI/O present.
Nor can a generic pseudocode be given that describes how to calculate the FSCI/O present.
If the inability to do this is not a tolerance of “just so” stories by the ID side I’m not sure what is.
What is the FSCI/O in Lenski’s bacteria before and after they obtained the ability to digest citrate?
What is the FSCI/O in a point mutation before and after the mutation?
Yes, KF can “measure” the FSCI/O in a string of text (regardless of meaning I might add). However text is not wet. It’s not very, well, biological. And ID is about biology.
Etc Etc Etc.
Does anyone have a link to the definition of FSCI/O
We know that Dembski’s CSI can be created by Darwinian means, and so it’s presence doesn’t tell us that intentional intelligence was involved, although my own view is that it does tell us that some kind of selection-of-the-fittest process was involved, of which both human telligence and Darwinian evolution are two examplars.
Over at UD Joe responds to this point: What is the FSCI/O in Lenski’s bacteria before and after they obtained the ability to digest citrate?
With this:
Yet this is not responsive to the question asked. Yes, I can understand it was present before and after but logically the values would have changed. Or perhaps not – hence why knowing how to determine the FSCI/O is relevant.
I’m asking how those values can be calculated and hence the change in FSCI/O determined.
Should it be then the case that those values always fall then this supports the ID premise that mutations are destructive to the original FSCI/O present.
We can assume that KF agrees with Joe as he notes directly after Joe’s comment:
It seems as if KF does not want to address the before/after point of FSCI/O and Lenski either.
KF,
What is the FSCO/I in MS Office KF?
And no, nobody would argue that MS Office was a product of chance variation. But if we had a succession of MS Office products, each only only differing from the last by a few bytes and where each was capable of reproducing with imperfect fidelity then perhaps your point would be relevant KF.
There are some significant differences between MS Office and biological life. That you ignore those differences KF is telling….
Joe,
Then if FSCO/I can be calculated, as is claimed, that statement can be verified simply by calculating the before and after FSCO/I.
If it does not change after such a significant event as the ability to digest citrate becoming available then the point is proven.
Of course, that might be somewhat onerous, so a simpler example would suffice of a before/after FSCO/I calculation.
Please demonstrate such a case KF/Joe.
Microsoft have missed a trick here… they should have written MS Office to contain a genetic algorithm for continued self-debugging and self-improvement – whether by added functionality or simplification (or both, as and when appropriate)
But any attempted analogy of life with computer programs that do not replicate themselves with variation and selection is, well, silly.
Ridiculous as this megaphone diplomacy is, I must correct WJM on this. I do not say that “there is no evidence of design in biological features.” There is plenty of evidence for design in biological features. What there is a lack of is evidence that would distinguish the product of design from the product of evolution. The two processes result in very similar products (although as yet, human-designed products lack the ability to self-reproduce, except in virtual space, and self-replication is a the necessarily condition for evolution). Nor do I say that “imperfect design” is “the mark of evolution”. It is also a feature of human designs. My position is this:
On the other hand, faced with a complex functional object that doesn’t self-replicate, and the knowledge that designers exist, design would seem to be a good hypothesis. And even if we found it on Mars, where no terrestrial designer has ever set foot, we might still consider and extraterrestrial designer to be the best hypothesis. This is because we have no candidate method, other than design, to account for functional complexity in an object that doesn’t reproduce.
Nor do I “deny free will”. I’m a compatibilist.
I hope that has cleared things up.
Lizzie,
What I also find interesting here is that Upright’s claim seems to be that ID was needed just once, to “kickstart” evolution by creating a mechanism to allow for the transmission of information down lineages. As such he is feted by the ID crowd as having an “unrefuted” example that unambiguously “proves” ID was required.
Yet almost all of ID is about what happens after OOL, KF’s “bodyplans”, Behe’s “edge” and so on all deal with the inability of standard “evolution” to do those things.
Yet if they hold to what Upright’s claim they in fact are 100% supporters of Darwinian evolution. The only “evidence” for ID is at the OOL, what happens after is all down to “random chance” (sigh).
Yet that’s not how it plays out.
I think one of the problems is the mistaken assumption that biologists thinks that the oldest ancestral population of self-replicated must have been quite complicated (not helped by the frequent assumption that the LUCA must also have been the FUCA).
We don’t yet know just how simple the first self-replicators had to be in order to be Darwinian-capable, but that’s the question IDists need to address, if they want to claim that “well first you’ve got to have a designer to design the self-replicators” which is Upright’s position, I think. But not Dembski’s or Behe’s – as you say, their position is that Darwinian processes can’t do the job anyway, not that you need a designer to kick-start the Darwinian process. Well, I suspect that Dembski has now changed on that, but it’s hard to tell.
To take Optimus’s first point:
Optimus central point here, I think, is a mistake. Methodological Naturalism is indeed a ground rule, but it does not “exclude a priori any explanation that might be classed as ‘non-natural'”. It doesn’t exclude any class of explanation at all. However, it can only include classes of explanation from which a testable hypothesis can be derived. In other words, the only “explanations” we can exclude with scientific methodology are null hypotheses – in other words, the hypothesis that the study hypothesis is false. And, by definition, I think, “non-natural” explanations are always expressed as nulls: “science can’t explain ghosts/the soul/miracles”. Non-natural, by definition means “unexplainable by science”. At least I haven’t seen another one.
So ID is not ruled out “right from the start” in MN. Indeed forensic science often puts ID as its study hypothesis, and forensic science uses MN just as all science does. But MN can only “rule in” studies that make a positive prediction, or which make a differential prediction to some other hypothesis. And so far, the problem is that the only prediction made by ID doesn’t differentiate from the prediction made by evolutionary processes – both will tend to produce functional entities. In the case of evolution, entities whose functions clearly promote the perpetuation of the lineage; and in the case of human (or external designers) designes that serve the purposes of the designer (which might or might not include the perpetuation of some self-replicator lineage, but it turns out to be easier to let evolutionary processes do that!)
Optimus’s second point:
Darwin doesn’t cast “special creation by a deity” as his null. In fact, he doesn’t test his theory at all. What he demonstrates is that the distribution of characteristics among species does indeed form a tree (as previously demonstrated by Linnaeus) and a) shows that this is consistent with the hypothesis that it does in fact reflect a family tree (common ancestry) and b) proposes an explanation for how each lineage could have evolved to become “fitter” within the environment in which it found itself. Curiously, he doesn’t address “speciation” despite the title, i.e. the divergence of lineages, only evolution down single lineages.
In order to test his theory he would have had to derive specific predictive hypotheses about from his theory, and for that he would have had to have had either a null or a predictive alternative. “God did it” doesn’t serve well for either of these purposes. However many many predictive hypotheses have been derived from his theory, and each has either had an alternative or null to go with it. Some have been confirmed, some infirmed, and the result is the vast body of knowledge we know have that is broadly called “evolutionary theory”, which differs, in many respects, from Darwin’s formulation.
However, his key insight can be readily tested using computer simulations, and in any case, is, as I’ve said before, more syllogism than theory. If a population of self-replicators replicate with heritable variance in reproductive success, those variants that replicate most efficiently will become most prevalent. Not even IDists deny that this is both logically and demonstrably true.
LIzzie, try this:http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/id-foundations-2-counterflow-open-systems-fscoi-and-self-moved-agents-in-action/
It leads to an earlier an earlier summary of Abel and Trevors’ work here: http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/background-on-orderly-random-and-functional-sequence-complexity/
Lizzie,
It is a tautology that the fitter will outreproduce the less fit, and that fitness is defined as that which results in reproductive advantage.
Where evolution departs from tautology is in asserting that the fitness landscape is connectable. This is a testable assertion of fact. If is true then ID is empty.
Case in point, from Darwin’s God:
A little hard to parse. The first sentence seems to use ‘design’ to mean pattern or structure, while the second sentence seems to use ‘design’ to mean something created by an artisan.
The quantity of information is irrelevant if it can accumulate incrementally. KF is often dismissed as a fool, but he is clever enough to realize that if there are stepping stones connecting the genomes of species, then the ID hypothesis becomes irrelevant.
Even if we accept FIASCO as a valid metric it would not rule out evolution if evolution does not require saltation. Perhaps that’s why evolutionary biology has spent 150 years researching this very issue. I see no tendency on the part of mainstream biologists to avoid confronting this problem.
No, I meant it in the second sense in both cases. Biological organisms do look like products of brilliant engineering. The problem is that they also look like the products of evolution, and given that the prerequisites of evolution are present (self-replication with heritable variance in reproductive success) then there is no reason to postulate a designer for which we have no independent evidence.
Lizzie,
“Non-natural, by definition means “unexplainable by science”.” – Elizabeth
Or it just means that natural science is a limited endeavour, i.e. limited to the natural world.
‘Natural science’ is sometimes treated as comprehensive of the term ‘science.’ I.e. *all* ‘science’ is said to be ‘natural science,’ to study *only* natural things. Of course, that is no longer a common viewpoint, according to contemporary science studies and philosophy of science.
Once a broader (and flatter) view of ‘science’ is accepted, one realises that ‘non-natural’ (but preferably positive alternatives instead of ‘non-‘ can be also used) is a legitimate category that may be ‘explainable by science,’ at least in part. It probably wouldn’t be too controversial if we admit that we need sometimes to and oftentimes do invoke philosophy and theology or worldview as part of our ‘explainables’ too, even if covertly.
Gregory
Zachriel,
I can accept a working definition of design as a pattern unlikely to be the result of a single chance event and not the result of a single chemical combination event and not the result of a simple process such as crystalization.
But what happens when you throw in “functional” is you admit that the pattern could have evolved incrementally via variation and differential function.
Gregory,
Science cannot be expanded to include non-regular phenomena. Natural and non-natural are irrelevant concepts. The division is between regular and capricious.
Even quantum events are regular.
Sure. That would do.
Only if we change the fundamentals of scientific methodology. Do you have a suggestion for how one would investigate non-natural causation? Other than failing to find a natural cause?
Or are you suggesting that the word “science” should be extended to cover all knowledge-seeking endeavours, and what we now call “science” considered a subset of these endeavours that we should call “natural science”?
Works for me, but it goes rather against current normal usage.
In that case “methodological naturalism” would be coterminous with “natural science” and “philosophical naturalism” would suggest a philosophical PoV that regarded “natural science” as the only valid method of obtaining knowledge.
Not a position I would hold.
Can you give an example of what you are talking about?
Well, scientific methodology can’t be.
You could expand the term “science” to embrace other forms of knowledge-seeking.
Either way, the accusation that scientists (in the usual sense of the term) are “biased against” or “a priori exclude” non-natural causation fails. It’s no more sensible than saying that a car is “biased” against moving sideways. Sideways isn’t the direction cars are designed to move, and non-natural causation isn’t what scientific methodology is designed to find.
You’d have to use a completely different tool.
Well, first you have to define “functional”. More easily said than done.
Lizzie,
The only attribute that distinguishes natural from non-natural is regularity. The ordinary word for a non-regular phenomenon is miracle. The history of scienc is the history of moving phenomena into the set of regular phenomena.
Lizzie,
Functional is a word favored by ID advocates, but without trying to be precise, it means something contributing to reproductive success, or something necessary for metabolism.
I really don’t see much point in getting hung up over defitional issues when connectability of genomes is the elephant in the room.
I entirely agree, Petrushka. My point is directly related to that (sorry if I am unclear) – that scientific methodology is a method for detecting regular phenomena. It is therefore incapable of detecting non-regular phenomena. That’s not a philosophical bias, it’s intrinsic to the method.
The only evidence for the non-natural has to be gleaned from personal experience, therefore the non-natural, by its very nature, cannot be asserted as objective fact (though it may nonetheless be Truth).
In fact, I’d say that one of the weird thing about the whole ID vs “evolutionist” “debate” (scare quotes deliberate) is that ID seems to be all about reducing the need for faith – if the argument worked, it would be possible to say: “doubt no more, Thomas, just look at this equation”.
Most scientists who are also theists have no problem in believing in God – they just don’t believe in a God who is going stick by the kind of regular rules that a God would have to stick to to be detectable by science.
An omnipotent, omniscient God, perhaps. One capable of seeing that out of all possible universes, only a few would result in the evolution of entities capable of asking why they existed, and picking one of those to actualise. Within such a universe science would work, but God would be undetectable by science, although God would also be free to jump in on occasions and create inexplicable phenomena. They just wouldn’t be detectable by science either, except as an unsolved problem on the To Do list.
Well, sure, but if “function” means “contributes to reproductive success” then very few, if any, human artefacts display “function”.
What do you mean by “the connectibility of genomes”?
Lizzie,
Well yes, miracles may happen, and ID may be true, but unless you can find a way to regularize capricious phenomena, the remain outside of science.
I find it interesting that even in fiction dealing with magic it is necessary to attend school and study the regularities of magic. In such stories, magic becomes a metaphor for science.
Deus ex machina is a term of derision for ad hoc explanations. ID is a poster child for ad hoc explanations.
Yes, but not even an “explanation”. Merely a default conclusion, mostly (Design as the null, and the null retained in the perceived absence of a persuasive alternative).
Interestingly, Dembski does regard Design as H1. and treats “Chance and Necessity” as H0, the null, and rejects the null. The trouble is, he doesn’t adequately characterise his null 🙂 So his rejection is invalid.
Lizzie,
KF was wondering if you’ve solved the origin of life problem? If so, could you let him know?
I have highlighted an interesting word. “unaided”. So it seems that KF believes that such things are indeed possible but with a little help from his friends.
What is the “level” of help that is required here? This seems to be the crux of KF’s version of ID.
How was that help given?
How did the designer know what effects that help would have?
Etc etc.
The doubly odd thing is that AFAIK KF has no explanation for living cells either, other then “they were designed”.
Not sure what category error William thinks I am making (do pop over, William, if you want to chat, I can’t come to you, but you are very welcome here!)
Personally, I think that “Necessity” and “Chance” do not belong to the same category, and “Design” is yet another.
I think regarding them as equivalent causal postulates is a category error. William’s, not mine.
You are arguing with evolution as a given.
Unique events in the past are not testable.
Well how darwinist imagine a FUCA. We know that LUCA has almost the complete biochemistry battery that actual life has and FUCA is something that started from elemental molecules but is able of selfreplication. Could it be “simple”?
One of the most common assertions over at UD is that “information” is responsible for pushing atoms and molecules around. “Information” has become their disguise for their nonmaterial “supernatural effects.”
By replacing physics and chemistry with “information,” they believe they have found the alternative to naturalism and materialism; they no longer have to say “supernatural.”
However, we never find out how this “information” is able to push atoms and molecules around. How does its “strength” compare with electromagnetic interactions or gravitational interactions? How do the effects of “information” change with the distance of an atom or molecule from the “source of the information?”
Where along the spectrum of complexity does “information” have to replace chemistry and physics in order to get the job done?
This can be quantified in units of electron volts. Tightly bound solids like iron have binding energies on the order of 0.1 electron volts. Soft matter in the energy range of liquid water has binding energies on the order of 0.01 electron volts.
Air molecules at room temperature have kinetic energies of about 1/40 of an electron volt. Hot air from a hair drier can cause burns. That tells us something about the binding energies of the atoms and molecules that make up the skin. There are literally hundreds of ways to measure binding energies very easily.
How do the interactions of atoms and molecules with “information” compare with these values? ID/creationists have to answer these questions at some point because, in order for “information” to push atoms and molecules around, it has to involve interaction energies of at least those values.
Binding energies on the order of 0.001 electron volts are easily measurable. Shouldn’t we be able to measure the effects of “information” that has to move around atoms and molecules with binding energies on the order of 0.01 up to a couple of electron volts?
There is a reason for “naturalism” and “materialism;” we have to measure things. No advocate of ID/creationism has ever described a procedure for measuring a supernatural effect, or equivalently, an “information” effect. They have never explained how “information” pushes atoms and molecules around; they can’t.
Renaming supernatural with “information” is not going to get them a workable science. The moment it becomes measurable quantitatively, they become materialists.
Apparently demonizing materialism is not a scientific argument; it is a socio/political argument against those who don’t look for supernatural effects. I suspect this is one of the major reasons that those people over at UD avoid learning even high school chemistry and physics.
Actually this is not correct. The way it works is this: We postulate that X was caused by a unique event Y. We then say: if Y occurred, then we’d expect to find Z, but not if it didn’t. We then look for Z, and if there is good evidence for Z, then our hypothesis is supported.
So if X is “biological life” and Y is, say, the emergence of self-replicating polymer containing lipid vesicles around 4 billion years ago, then we would look for evidence in the geological record of the environment necessary for this to occur, as well as trying to reproduce our postulated events in a test-tube.
If we succeeded in the test-tube, and found that the conditions in the test-tube appear to have been widespread on earth 4 billion years ago, then we have support for our hypothesis. Doesn’t mean it is correct, but it is supported. More to the point, it is plausible, and so gives us no cause to say “it must have been something completely different”.
Not all events in the past can be established – some events leave no trace. But there’s no reason in principle why it can’t be done. And, interestingly, with the origins of the universe, we can actually see the earlier universe today, because as we look out into space we are also looking back in time.
Lizzie,
The point is that ‘natural scientists’ do not constitute *all* scientists. The qualification of ‘scientist’ is therefore necessary. If you mean that ‘natural scientists’ do indeed study ‘nature,’ but that other scientists do not study *only* nature, then that should be specified to avoid confusion.
“You could expand the term “science” to embrace other forms of knowledge-seeking.” – Elizabeth
Yes, that seems to be a necessary option, given Optimus’ #1 above. It would also help people here to give positive meaning to ‘non-natural’ instead of just terming it as ‘non-.’ Samwise Gamgee asked Gandalf not to turn him into anything ‘unnatural,’ but that’s just a fantasy hint for linguistic purpose.
“non-natural causation isn’t what [natural] scientific methodology is designed to find.” – Elizabeth
Are you suggesting that the term ‘science’ be restricted to *only* the study of ‘natural’ forms? Thus, does the term ‘non-natural’ (and any positive alternatives to it) to you carry no possible ‘scientific’ meaning?
As I said above, the claim that “*all* ‘science’ is said to be ‘natural science,’ to study *only* natural things…is no longer a common viewpoint, according to contemporary science studies and philosophy of science.”
I’d need to see some evidence that science studies and philosophy of science have not accepted multiple methods (i.e. including non-naturalistic ones) to consider your view of “current normal usage” valid. Indeed, if what you view as “current normal usage” of the term ‘science’ leaves out the last 50 years of thought in science studies and philosophy of science, perhaps that “current normal usage” needs to be updated, don’t you think?
Omagain wrote: “Can you give an example of what you are talking about?”
Yes, I can give many examples. Can I first ask you to give an example of something that in your view is ‘non-natural’ that is nevertheless still ‘real’?
“Do you have a suggestion for how one would investigate non-natural causation?” – Elizabeth
Yes, I have many suggestions. Not only for causes, but also for effects. Your experiences in creative music might be more valuable in this case than the naturalistic field of neuro-science. I’m interested in something more than *only* nature. Does this interest you too?
What I’m suggesting is that the methodology used in science today is only good for investigating natural phenomena – hence the term “methodological naturalism”. That doesn’t mean that scientists using it have to think that naturalism is all there is, it just means that the methodology isn’t sensitive to detecting the non-natural. If you want to expand the term “science” to include knowledge-seeking methodologies outside “methodological naturalism”, that’s fine, but methodological naturalism is the one used by what we currently call “scientists”. Incidentally, it is also the method used by psi researchers, and, oddly, therefore presupposes that psi, if it exists, is a natural phenomenon.
Well, we are at the mercy of the way language is used! But the way through the thicket is to be clear about what we mean. When I say that the non-natural cannot be investigated “scientifically” I simply mean that scientific methodology isn’t up to the job, not because scientists are biased, but because the limitation is intrinsic to the method.
Yes indeed. But I don’t call it science 🙂
I have always accepted that our universe could itself be a “science fair project” for the equivalent of a sophomore god: say, identify several plausible sets of preconditions that might allow an interesting universe to evolve, then instantiate them and stand back to observe which set actually produced the most interesting result. Of course, it this is true, miracles are never allowed. Any gods interfering with the process once started would negate the whole point of the experiment.
There is nothing in our universe which is both “real” and “non-natural”.
Music is real, and it’s natural. Human song/music is created by natural bodies with meat brains, meat lungs, meat fingers and toes. Even the music we produce technologically, eg computer-composed, is nothing non-natural; it’s our evolved natural tendency to extend our bodily reach into our physical environment. It would be foolish to try to define technology as “unnatural” and I’m sure that’s not what you’re trying to do.
And clearly you cannot be foolish enough to argue that a supernatural force of some kind was required to inspire whomever of our ancestors was the first to voice a melodic call around a savannah campfire. .
No matter how romantic you are, you cannot really believe that a pop love song was floating intact in non-natural Platonic space somewhere until it magically became embodied in a pop composer’s brain and hands.
Elizabeth, can I ask if you’ve read either Feyerabend or Lakatos? It would seem not because you have not embraced their views in your language of expression about ‘science.’
“the methodology used in [natural] science today is only good for investigating natural phenomena” – Elizabeth
Please realise, this is not a subtle, but neverthless an important point: there is *not* a single phenonmenon called “THE methodology” of ‘science’. To suggest otherwise is to display an outdated view, which is easily proven false. Science studies and philosophy of science are clear on this: there are multiple methods of ‘doing science,’ which are used depending on the object/subject of study. It should not be uncomfortable to agree with this. Do you agree, Elizabeth?
Thus, when you write “the methodology isn’t sensitive to detecting the non-natural,” unfortunately, this cannot be taken seriously. It doesn’t take into account important discoveries that science studies and philosophy of science have made.
Please don’t misunderstand me. If you recall from our previous contact, I’m not an IDist (Big-ID theory). And I’m not proposing ‘methodological Intelligent Agentism’ or whatever they get around to calling their alternative to ‘methodological naturalism’ in natural sciences. All I saying is that MN simply *cannot* be taken seriously as an exhaustive definition for ‘doing science’ and it surely doesn’t protect or favour the philosophical naturalist who reduces ‘science’ to merely a single (imaginary) method.
Let me adjust what you say, so that I might agree with it:
“I [You] simply mean that natural scientific methodology isn’t up to the job, not because natural scientists are biased, but because the limits of naturalism are intrinsic to their [our] natural scientific methods.”
You wrote: “methodological naturalism is the one [singular methodology] used by what we currently call “scientists”.”
In Paul de Vries’ paper “Naturalism in the Natural Sciences,” where Ronald Numbers claims the term MN was coined, de Vries speaks specifically of ‘natural scientists’ and ‘natural science.’ But he does not go as far as you seem to want to go, Elizabeth, to suggest that *all* ‘science’ by which ‘we’ mean the term, refers *only* to ‘natural science.’ de Vries leaves open the term ‘science’ to studies of the ‘non-natural’ (which we are waiting for OMagain to identify if such exists).
Again, Elizabeth are you suggesting based on your philosophy/worldview that ‘science’ *should* mean *only* the study of ‘nature’? Please don’t tell me ‘that *is* what it means’; this is debatable. If you are suggesting that, then the term ‘non-natural’ likely doesn’t carry any meaning for you and that is probably in large part why you disagree with Optimus and with me.
Incidentally, your mention of psi researchers reminded me of an interesting book I looked at not long ago: “Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul” by Giulio Tononi.
sez optimus:
I’d rather been under the impression that real scientists already follow the ground rule which Optimus apparently regards as a novel concept. The main reason that real scientists reject the ‘supernatural’ is not that they are inhibited by a dogmatic, a priori commitment to No Supernature, Noway, Nohow, Nowhere; instead, the main reason real scientists reject the ‘supernatural’ because in bloody near all cases of ‘supernatural’ hypotheses, the hypothesis in question just plain isn’t rigorously defined, nor is there compelling evidence in support of said hypothesis. Apart from that, another reason for real scientists to reject the ‘supernatural’ is that in those vanishingly few cases where a ‘supernatural’ hypothesis is defined to a sufficient degree of rigor that said hypothesis can be tested, the ‘supernatural’ hypothesis has failed its tests.
In short, ‘supernatural’ is 99.99…999% inchoate bafflegab, and 0.00…001% failed hypotheses. Why, exactly, should real scientists incorporate this ‘supernatural’ thingie into the workings of real science?
“what we now call “science” considered a subset of these endeavours that we should call “natural science”?” – Elizabeth
To me, that seems backwards. Qualified and qualifier. Big dogs, small dogs, fat dogs, skinny dogs…are all ‘dogs.’ Not all ‘dogs’ are big, small, fat or skinny.
‘Natural’ science is one kind of science (i.e. among others). Why swap the qualifier for the qualified?
‘Natural science’ is a subset of ‘science,’ right? Accepting that, as up-to-date science studies and philosophy of science has done, opens the door to speaking positively about ‘non-natural science,’ as long as one gives real meaning to the term ‘non-natural’ (which doesn’t have to only mean ‘supernatural’).
An example of a ‘non-string instrument’ is a ‘horn instrument.’ What is an example of a ‘non-natural science’?
I think we’ve got ourselves in a knot, here, Gregory! I am happy to use the word “science” to mean the human endeaviour that uses methodological naturalism to find out stuff about the world. I would use terms like “art” or “philosophy” or even “theology” to refer to other domains of knowledge seeking.
But my central point is that using scientific methodology, we cannot test hypotheses about “non-natural” causation. It’s just an intrinsic limitation to the method. Do you disagree?
oops, sorry, Gregory, I was reading your comments in the wrong order:
No, I haven’t read either – I only know of their ideas through secondary references.
Well, it depends on where we draw the boundaries of “science”. But I’m happy to rephrase my point as: the scientific methodology used in most research endeavours that call themselves science, namely predictive hypothesis testing, is intrinsically unable to detect non-natural causation.
There are certainly other methods acquiring knowledge (mathematics, for instance) and we might want to call them “science”. I don’t have strong views on whether we should or shouldn’t.
Well, the methodology I’m referring to is, specifically, the one sometimes called “methodological naturalism” but is, in practice, the method of deriving predictive hypotheses from theory and testing those predictions on new data. That method can’t detect the non-natural.
Fine. I don’t require it to be an “exhaustive definition for doing ‘science'”. We can define science how we like, as long as we make it clear how we are defining it. But if ID proponents are going to condemn scientists for “bias”, then they need to propose just what “unbiased” methods should be used instead. Ironically, Dembski, for one, uses a classic Fisher test, which would be just fine, in principle, if he adequately characterised his null. But he doesn’t, and can’t, because his null is: “not non-natural”. And that distribution is impossible to calculate.
Yes, that works for me, I think.
Oh, it carries meaning. But it would be a waste of time to make this a discussion about what the term “science” should cover. I have no strong feelings about that. My point concerns a specific methodology, which right now is the one used by the set of people who are usually called “scientists”. Increasingly it is used be people who traditionally didn’t call themselves “scientists” as well – historians, for example. But it’s the method I’m referring to.
It does look interesting. I like Tononi. Have you read his book with Gerald Edelman, A Universe Of Consciousness How Matter Becomes Imagination? It’s good.
Optimus’s point number 3:
I think this is a perfectly valid point. And taking Dawkins’ comment at it’s face-value – Darwin’s theory meant that there could no longer be any a priori assumption that a creative deity must have been responsible for life. Up to that point, it must have seemed pretty obvious to most people that, unlike mountains and oceans, which seem intuitively to be the result of easy-to-imagine physical forces, biological organisms were inexplicable. So yes, Darwin probably did mean that atheism no longer needed an intellectual apology.
But that by no means implies that Darwin’s idea rules out theism. It patently doesn’t. It just puts biological phenomena into the same class as other phenomena in the natural world i.e. as phenomena that are amenable to at least a proximal explanation within the universe. It doesn’t even force the putative deity to be a “wind up and let go” deistic deity – divine interference in the world’s workings are still perfectly compatible with a broadly naturalistic material framework (why shouldn’t the creator reach into her creation from time to time, and reset the odd switch? or even tinker more substantiall? The rest of the clockwork could still work normally). Or, perhaps more elegantly, an omniscient, omnipotent, even omnibenovolent God could envisage all possible universes, and actuate the one that maximise benefit to her desired createes. Or even, pick the one that producess here desired createes, and then leave them to get on with making or marring the rest of the story, as they will?
There are vast numbers of theologies that are perfectly compatible with Darwin’s ideas, and, for that matters, with the findings of “methodological naturalism”. The only real problem Darwin raises is that it puts another option on the table – a-theology. So, sure, a-theists will tend to be Darwinists. Doesn’t make Darwinism atheistic, as countless theist scientists will attest.
Finding evidence doesn´t mean testable. Because I can say the event and your evidence is due to the spaghetti monster, and there is no test to demostrate your theory or my is right. Absence of evidence is nt evidence of absence.
Just curious, but why is it incumbent upon OM identifying non-natural, yet still ‘real’ things? Gregory appears to be the one who thinks that such a category of items exist and can be studied by his version of ‘science’. Why doesn’t Gregory provide an example of one of these “non-natural, yet ‘real’ things”?
Personally, I can’t for the life of me come up with anything that would even remotely fall into the category of “non-natural”. What does that even mean?
No, it isnt. But we don’t lack evidence.