I’m going to demonstrate this using Bayes’ Rule. I will represent the hypothesis that (a non-Deist, i.e. an interventionist) God exists as 
, and the evidence of complex life as 
. What we want to know is the posterior probability that 
is true, given , written
![\[P(H_{G}|L_N)}\]](http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-3f2ddf730ccbd821f6f5020f49419cdb_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
which, in English, is: the probability that God exists, given the evidence before us of complex life.
By Bayes rule:
![\[P(|H_G|L_C)}=\frac{P(L_C|H_G)*P(H_G)}{P(L_C|H_G)*P(H_G)+P(L_C|\neg H_G)*P(\neg H_G)}\]](http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-26c8fd48de8891f67fc7bfb2bf2956e5_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
Where
is the probability of complex life, given that God exists,
, is our prior belief that God exists, expressed as a probability,
is the probability of complex life, given that God does not exist, and
is the probability that God does not exist (which equals 
.
is the probability of complex life, given that God exists,
is the probability that God does not exist (which equals 
.So first of all we have to set our prior, 
, the probability that God exists, which I am happy to set high, for instance, at .98.
We also have to set the likelihood of complex life existing, given the existence of an interventionist God (after all, an interventionist God might simply have decided not to bother, or to make something else, like marvellous crystal palaces, instead). However, I will actually set this to 1, as it seems just weird to posit an interventionist God who doesn’t make complex life.
The first thing to note is that the term on the numerator is identical to the first term in the denominator. In our case we have .98*1 on the top, and .98*1 + something on the bottom. I will set the likelihood of Complex life given no interventionist God (
) at something very small, let’s say .0001. This gives us:
![\[P(H_G|L_C)}=\frac{1*.98}{1*.98+.0001*(1-.98)}\]](http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-eecbc4fd31508bb954849cb600078d1d_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
Which gives me a posterior probability that an interventionist God exists of .999998!
So, by setting the probability of complex life, given no God, very small, I have vastly increased my posterior faith that God exists! And if I make it still smaller, then my posterior faith in God grows still further! Take that, atheists! If IDists can show that the probability of complex life, given no God, is sufficiently tiny that it effectively cannot occur within the lifetime of the universe, that second term on the denominator will go to zero, and God becomes a certainty!
So far, so good. Or would be, if it were ever possible to show that something is impossible, which, 500 coins notwithstanding, it isn’t. That’s because there are many different nulls to reject, and there is always likely to be one you haven’t thought of. No matter, that dead horse has been beaten enough in recent posts.
What I want to do here is to look at it the other way round. Let’s say that scientists show that, far from complex life being near-impossible given no God, they discover it’s a virtual certainty – we even manage to do it in a test-tube using conditions known to prevail on early earth, we find all the intermediate fossils we need to fill out the various radiations since dot, and moreoever, get a bunch of SETI signals telling us we aren’t even alone as intelligent beings in the universe.
So instead of setting the likelihood of Complex life given no interventionist God () to something very small, let’s make it 1. Here is our equation now:
![\[P(H_G|L_C)}=\frac{1*.98}{1*.98+1*(1-.98)}\]](http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/wp-content/ql-cache/quicklatex.com-9e73638d465348a30a0172248bc70c2c_l3.png "Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com")
What is my posterior probability that God exists? Well, now the denominator simply sums to unity, leaving our belief in God exactly where it started: .98.
In other words, finding out that life is perfectly possible in the absence of an interventionist God tells absolutely nothing at all about whether God exists. It simply leaves us with the faith we had in the first place.
The good news for theists, then, is that there is nothing to fear from naturalist science – it cannot rock your faith, no matter how good a naturalist explanation for anything scientists come up with. If your faith is absolute, absolute, it will remain. If your faith is 50:50, it can only go up, not down.
However, the good news for atheists is that if it starts at near zero, good naturalist explanations will keep it there. Science, therefore, as Dawkins says, allows him to be an “intellectually fulfilled atheist”.
But for theists, it can do absolutely nothing to dent your faith.
So have a very happy Christmas!
What makes light be a wave or a particle? The conditions and physical laws or chance?
Just because I haven’t taken the time to develop my intuitions about a third option into a genuine position, that doesn’t mean that there’s no position there.
In any event, what I will not do is pretend that my speculative metaphysics has the epistemic status of empirical science without doing any of the hard work necessary to vindicate it — and I don’t mean just the cargo-cult science of creationists and IDists (nor their “cargo-cult philosophy”).
Then Gould thinks that chance is a “cause”. Then BA is right.
As kantian said you cannot eat the cake and have it.
The question about “chance” or “determinism” is undemostrable by empirical science. Is a metaphysical question. And the “in between solution” isn´t a solution.
How very profound.
A link would be helpful
How did you get through university classes in science without coming to know that light is BOTH wave AND particle? Trying to force-fit reality into your arbitrary dichotomies just breaks down when you actually pay attention to science. It’s not because there are shades of gray between the black and white, it’s because you’re using the wrong categories of black and white to begin with. Your category error “determinism OR chance” is what Cubist was pointing out with xis question about “wave or particle, and no surprise you waled right into the same error, the exact same error you make in both cases.
Chance does not sometimes turn light into a wave OR sometimes turn it into a particle. Nothing works like that.
I´ll try to refrase your concept. As light is both thing wave and particle at the same time we can have determinism and chance as an explanation at the same time. It is OK?
Merry Christmass to everybody. I´ll go back to read you on december 26.
You saw it,
you quoted me and responded with a senseless question
which I answered, despite my reservations
You’re conclusion neither follows from what I wrote nor from anything Gould notes. Care to try again? Gould notes that evolution is a cause. Are you suggesting that “evolution” – a process of organic diversification – is synonymous with “chance” – a description of the probability that given events will occur?
Presumably Gould would say that evolution is a process caused by natural selection acting on many different kinds of heritable variation. The interactions between the various different causal factors, in conjunction with planet-altering events (such as mass extinctions), makes the history of life on Earth deeply contingent.
But I think that there’s more metaphysics going on with Gould’s thesis than he lets on, because with a slightly different metaphysics, the same paleontological data and empirically-grounded theories leads to a very different view: see Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe.
Yes, I’d agree, though more than a wee understatement, that a Christian natural scientist like Simon Conway Morris holds a “slightly different metaphysics” than an agnostic Jew natural scientist like Stephen Jay Gould.
Since Mike Elzinga either doesn’t have the courage or will to answer a simple, direct question, I’ll do it for him. Francis Collins is *not* a ‘creationist,’ though he believes in Creation.
It’s actually amazing to carefully read what people are not willing to answer:
Are you not already an IDist, Blas?
Seven questions remain for Lizzie, directly to the strange title of this thread: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3724&cpage=1#comment-36021
We don’t need more diversion and pretense from Mike Elzinga. We need straight answers to simple questions. And a bit of grace instead of humbug would help.
Potentially fruitful discourse involving science, philosophy and theology/worldview is indeed the main point behind the OP’s question. Can this be warmly promoted at TSZ?
You just can’t resist taunting can you.
Most of us in the scientific community have moved far beyond your petty sophistry over what you seem to think are important “philosophical” issues.
Like the ID/creationists, you get bogged down in trying to appear suave and sophisticated by jumping into topics that are way beyond your ability without even checking your understanding of the elementary concepts first.
And, like the ID/creationists, you blow a gasket when someone notices that you don’t understand even the most basic concepts in science; yet you presume to cover your ignorance with pseudo philosophy that you seem to think makes you look knowledgeable.
ID/creationism fails at a level that high school students can understand. One doesn’t need to wave credentials and try to appear erudite and sophisticated in order demonstrate what is wrong with it. That fact thoroughly enrages the ID/creationists.
These people have built their careers on appearances after bending and breaking science concepts to fit sectarian dogma. Today’s ID/creationists don’t even understand the junk science they have inherited; they simply take it for granted that it is real science.
Go back to high school and middle school science and get the basics right first.
Which is actually a perfect example of what Lizzie was saying at the beginning of the thread:
Simon Conway Morris believes that we live in a universe selected by his god to be one where outcomes of stochastic processes (mutation/mass extinctions/etc) would be such that evolution leads inevitably to his god’s “desired” kind: humans — or at least, humanoids.
And why not? God doesn’t need to specifically nudge each individual drop of water to form a flowing river; god only needs to instantiate a universe where the “natural laws” allow water molecules and liquid temperature ranges, then pure Newtonian physics will take it from there. Given time, the river will inevitably reach the sea.
To god-believers like Morris, it’s irrelevant that we have a scientific theory which sufficiently explains how water forms rivers and how rivers flow to the sea. What’s relevant is that god choose this particular universe to begin with. And given that god choose this particular universe, of course the flow of evolution inevitably leads to us — how could it not?
We can’t prove that it didn’t happen that way. (And why would we bother trying, anyways? as long as Morris is harmless …) But as soon as you take out god’s-choice as a presupposition, Gould’s position on contingency is more supportable. Yes, evolution shows amazing convergence sometimes, but not enough that we can legitimately read the evidence as supporting an “inevitable convergence” on humanity.
Indeed my analogy of the river actually illustrates Gould’s idea – yes, inevitably some river(s) will form and reach the sea, but which actual river(s) finding which specific course(s) down is caused by contingencies which we have no reason to think we could repeat, not exactly anyways. The difference between a few raindrops hitting one or the other side of a pebble would eventually cause a river to flow into a completely different ocean from the continental divide.
To borrow from a commercial: “If I could be like Mike!” Mike Elzinga seems to want everyone to become like him, a scientist without a heart for humanity. A Bah Humbug atheist who defines his identity by ’50 years’ of opposing creationists.
That Mike couldn’t answer my simple question about Francis Collins shows that he is simply not genuine, not a dialogue partner who deserves respect. Elzinga has a ID/creationist fetish. But most people don’t and are not so bothered as he is by his atheist humbug.
This was written by TSZ’s ‘Mike Elzinga,’ wasn’t it? – http://blog.mlive.com/readreact/2009/01/creationists_entropy_argument.html
This is deduced from his particular use of ‘ID/creationist’. Will he admit it or not?
This is the man who claims to speak for ‘all scientists,’ and on behalf of ‘science,’ sneering at anyone who is not a (retired) physics professor like him. Folks, that’s so empty of soul to these ears. I’ve heard quite a few physicists speak sincerely and humbly, far from the ‘sectarian-fetish’ of Dr. Michael Elzinga in Western Michigan.
A person who believes in Creation can be a quality, productive and even socially significant natural scientist (not that most natural scientists are socially significant; they usually aren’t). Indeed, there are many such honourable persons to be found, if one only opens their eyes, ears and heart to explore and discover.
Lizzie titled this thread: “Why naturalist science can be no threat to faith in God.” But that’s of course a misnomer if ‘naturalist’ means ‘anti-theist,’ as KN claims in this thread, and as many others here appear to believe.
Let’s get back to that, the actual topic of the OP, instead of listening to Mike Elzinga’s retirement monologues tooting his own horn against the higher glory of the holidays.
You must be talking about a different Mike Elzinga from the one who posts here.
Mike answered that question at least twice.
Gregory states that Kantian Naturalist claims “naturalist” means “anti-theist” — but that’s flat out untrue.
The only persona who has used the term “anti-theist” in this thread so far is Gregory.
Naughty, naughty.
Much of the discussion of whether religious belief is or is not compatible with science takes place in the context of the Christian religion; at least within the US.
But I have worked with pantheists, panentheists, and polytheists as well as Christians, Muslims, and Jews. If I had to characterize a general attitude toward religion among these researchers, it would be one of a wait-and-see pragmatism.
Their religions are a part of their family and cultural traditions from which they draw inspiration and guidance about their interactions with others; but as near as I can judge, they aren’t dogmatic about any expected “revelations” or outcomes on what their deity or deities will be. They don’t have any bets placed on what science will reveal.
Their religious beliefs have more to do with how they should relate to others and how they see themselves within the broader context of the universe. There is none of the angst we see among those sectarians in the US that seem threatened by what science might reveal about their beliefs.
If science were somehow to reveal that there was no deity, then what have we to loose? We all are interconnected anyway; and we all have to develop the intelligence and wisdom to get along and not wreck our environment and other creatures.
And so what, if one chooses no religion? Who is it hurting? Having no religion doesn’t mean one doesn’t relate to others and to the rest of the universe.
Most scientists are pretty pragmatic about religion. The problems come where when there is excessive preoccupation about whose sectarian dogmas are correct. We are still pulling ourselves out of the sectarian turmoil and fragmentation that has been occurring ever since we discovered that science doesn’t provide the answers about deities we expected. Some sectarians want a “science” that proves them right because they have to be right.
Yes, but it must not count because not the simple black/white yes/no answer that Gregory demands.
And yet, Gregory implies that xe’s in favor of “[p]otentially fruitful discourse”. What I want to know is, how can we have any sort of discourse whatsoever if persons like Gregory are just going to wave away the complex answer that doesn’t fit their simple script?
Yes or no.
“Mike answered that question at least twice.”
Document yourself, Neil Rickert.
Yeah, I re-watched the PBS Nova Judgement Day; Intelligent Design on Trial for the anniversary of Kitzmiller. Interestingly to me, the lawyers for the ID side were not the assholes (or at least, they didn’t act like it). The assholes are the small-minded people who need “science” to back up their particular teensy-tiny god whom they can only remain faithful to if their particular version of Genesis remains “literally true”. And they so badly need to be right that they start to make death threats to the teachers, to their own neighbors — even to schoolchildren’s families! No surprise, in most cases, it turns out they’re threatening their fellow christians who just have a larger faith.
Talk about sectarian turmoil ! I have little hope that it will stop in my lifetime …
As I said before, if Gregory wants to start his own thread about “science, philosophy, and theology/worldview,” I’d be interested to see what he really means by that. I asked him the other day how he distinguishes between “philosophy” and “theology/worldview,” but didn’t get an answer. I also noted that he didn’t respond to me when I did respond to his question about my own “worldview.”
I did say at one point — I don’t know if was in this thread or not — that I’m willing to take for granted Plantinga’s definition of “naturalism” as the view that there is no such person as God or anything like God. I would refine that and say that, for the naturalist, all persons are animals. (This rules out beings that are persons but not animals, such as gods and similar beings.) I wouldn’t call this “anti-theism,” but certainly non-theism.
I’m not an anti-theist, because I think we should adopt an attitude of relaxed pluralism towards all metaphysical doctrines — I don’t think that any metaphysical doctrine can be shown to be obviously correct (and that goes for naturalism as well, of course).
I have no interest at all in arguing against theists with regard to their metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics. I am keenly interested in (a) defending naturalism against theistic objections, and (b) criticizing theists insofar as theism is deployed to legitimize unjust social policies and to dismiss empirically-confirmed scientific theories. With respect to (a), my goal is to show that naturalism-cum-secularism is fully cognitively coherent and affectively engaging — in other words, that is not inconsistent and does not lead to nihilism or despair. (That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been so critical of the EAAN — I think it’s a terribly bad argument, and it’s relied upon uncritically by people who want to show that naturalism is irrational or inconsistent.)
While I do not disagree with anything you’ve noted, I find it to be a stretch – and completely disingenuous – to try to sum all that up with the term “chance”. It’s a fallacious reductionist handwave that begs the question. “Chance” is meaningless as an explanation; it’s equivalent to saying “I don’t know”. That “planet-altering events” occur with random frequency and magnitude does not suddenly reduce all evolutionary mechanics to “chance”.
Wondering if Lizzie will return to answer questions in this thread.
Lizzie wrote: “there is nothing to fear from naturalist science”
I asked: “Why add the ‘-ist’? Aren’t you just speaking about natural science?”
The rest of her post seems rather meaningless unless she explains herself about this (intentional?) choice of terms.
KN opined about a “purely naturalistic, non-theistic explanation.”
So, by that definition, ‘naturalist science’ inevitably excludes God, since ‘naturalistic’ = ‘non-theistic’. Forget whether or not ‘threat’ or ‘fear’ is involved. That’s just a distraction to the main question of openly ideological science.
To be frank, I have no idea what ‘naturalist science’ actually means and I doubt anyone here will give a coherent definition of it or defense of it. Maybe Lizzie will eventually explain herself, as usual, with the now obvious caveat that ‘words mean whatever she wants them to mean,’ not necessarily what most people mean when they communicate them.
Do you have an example of where bringing God into science (of any stripe) has actually been productive?
I can’t actually think of one. Has there ever been an example?
And is it really ideological to say that science can only deal with the things science can deal with?
How can God be scientifically evaluated? Which God?
I disagree. It is perhaps correct to say that “naturalist science” (as described) excludes mention of God in its explanations. But God could be implicitly there, and many theists will so claim. Note that I don’t know what “naturalist science” is supposed to mean, either.
You disagree with what, Neil? That ‘naturalistic’ = ‘non-theistic,’ like KN wrote/believes?
Natural science, properly practised/done also “excludes mention of God in its explanations.” So what’s new? Sure, “God could be implicitly there.” But what reason is there to mention/make ideologically naturalistic science, when simply ‘natural science’ will suffice?
“Note that I don’t know what “naturalist science” is supposed to mean, either.”
So, what does Lizzie mean?
http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=3724&cpage=1#comment-36230 – wrong questions.
I see the distinction as between regular process and caprice. What science seeks is regularity. What theology seeks is evidence of caprice. As Lizzie and others have pointed out, the product cannot demonstrate its own history. Caprice can produce or imitate regularity, and regular processes can produce remarkable products. In fact many manufactured products imitate “natural” things, such as granite or gemstones.
Letting aside manufactured products, where a regular process is designed by caprice, what examples of remarkable products can you give?
Just to keep things straight, I propose that we abide by the following terminology:
“naturalism”: a philosophical view, either in metaphysics, epistemology, or both, which holds that all cognitively significant forms of knowledge or inquiry should be modeled off of successful empirical sciences, and in particular, should avoid positing the existence of entities not already posited by successful empirical sciences. (Whether “naturalism” must be “reductive” or can be “relaxed” or “liberal” is a vexed issue.)
We can use “naturalistic” as the adjectival form, because we also have
“natural” for “the natural sciences” (physics, geology, astronomy, chemistry, biology, neuroscience . . . ) where the focus is on generating testable explanations of causal relations between observable phenomena, with posits introduced as needed to generate more parsimonious and/or fruitful explanations than would otherwise be available. (One could be either a realist or a phenomenalist with regard to the ontological status of the posited entities.)
So “natural science” is just talking about the empirical sciences of the natural world, whereas “naturalistic metaphysics” (aka “metaphysical naturalism”) is talking about something a bit different! I’ve proposed that the latter is non-theistic, but there’s no reason I can see why the natural sciences require us to take a stand on the existence of God one way or the other.
Seems to me that some folks are bringing some unnecessary ideological assumptions to Lizzie’s OP. Seems to me that Lizzie’s statements make it pretty clear that her use of the term “naturalist science” is simply another way of indicating methodological naturalism. As such, she is not a priori ruling out God or any such thing; rather she is pointing out that determining that some “God” has no bearing on an explanation found via Naturalist Science (methodological naturalism), such does not then mean that “God” does not exist. To quote:
Note that her proof is not a metaphysical treaty or opinion; it is purely focused upon methodology. So no, she is not taking an ideological stand. On the contrary, she’s noting that the given a solid naturalist methodology, ideology will have no impact on the validity of explanations and vis versa.
KN, you demonstrate lack of coherency. I attribute this to the fact that you are not trained in philosophy of science, yet ‘pontificate’ on it here at TSZ anyway. Your proposal just muddies things.
Your ‘naturalism’ differs from ’empiricism’ how exactly? And you don’t seem to know what an ideology is as distinct from philosophy. Why not?
Let’s just let Lizzie answer. She made the statement, after all.
p.s. no, let’s not divert the thread to talk about so-called ‘methodological naturalism’ again. If Lizzie meant that, then she would have written it herself. She didn’t.
I’m quite comfortable in Anglo-American philosophy of science, including Carnap, Quine, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Sellars, Churchland, Putnam, Dupre, Hacking, and Godfrey-Smith. In feminist philosophy of science I’ve read Nancy Tuana and Helen Longino. In Continental philosophy of science I’ve read Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Adorno, Foucault, Deleuze, and Meillassoux. Just because I haven’t read what you’ve read, doesn’t mean I’m untrained in philosophy of science.
I don’t see any difference worth making between “methodological naturalism” and “empiricism”.
I would surmise that “methodological naturalism” was coined in order to focus on what was right about empiricism without worrying about the well-known problems with classical empiricism (the abstractionist account of concept-formation cannot deal with logical and mathematical concepts, and it conflates genuinely a priori claims with robust empirical generalizations) and with logical empiricism (the criticisms of semantic atomism in favor of semantic holism are, to my way of thinking, devastating and decisive).
What’s left over, after those criticisms are allowed, is just the idea that all matter-of-fact judgments (Hume’s “matters of fact” as distinct from “relations of ideas,” Leibniz’s “verites de fait” as distinct from “verites de raison“, Kant’s “synthetic a posteriori” as distinct from both “analytic a priori” and “synthetic a priori“) must be constrained, as much as possible, by observations — in other words, that the models are constrained by fit-to-data. Whether one calls that “empiricism” or “methodological naturalism” doesn’t matter to me.
Since I don’t see the point of insisting on a distinction between methodological naturalism and empiricism, I’m happy to use naturalism as just the term for metaphysical naturalism. And I certainly don’t think that metaphysical naturalism can be grounded on an empiricist epistemology alone — there’s always going to be a “speculative moment” in any metaphysics that transcends what is based on empirical inquiry alone, whether that metaphysics is naturalistic, theistic, pantheistic, etc.
I use “ideology” in the Marxist/critical-theory sense, to refer to a systematic false consciousness whereby people are deceived about their genuine needs and interests because of how information is shaped and manipulated. (I would call this “ideology in the pejorative sense”, as Raymond Geuss puts it.) The critique of ideology is a major task for philosophers and social theorists. I don’t have a use for a non-pejorative sense of “ideology,” because I would use “comprehensive doctrine” or “world-picture” instead.
^This.
Lizzie,
Well, that settles the issue of what you’d intended! 🙂
Fluff. Lizzie brought the ideological implication into the conversation by adding ‘-ist’ to the term ‘natural’ in the title of this thread. It makes no sense to then blame someone else for pointing this out and inquiring why that move was made.
Why then isn’t the thread titled: “Why natural science can be no threat to faith in God?” or “Why methodological naturalism can be no threat to faith in God?”
To the latter question, Paul de Vries who (rather naively) coined the term MN obviously knows this since he is a Christian ethicist and higher-ed. administrator. There are many possibilities. Let’s hear a coherent and responsible answer from Lizzie, shall we, rather than just deference to a comment suggesting: “her use of the term ‘naturalist science’ is simply another way of indicating methodological naturalism”?
Lizzie wrote: “‘methodological naturalism’ is a poor term.” … “I will no longer use that term!” … “I’m trying to avoid words like “non-natural” and “extra-natural” and “supernatural” because I don’t know what they are supposed to mean.”
Similarly, and in contrast to KN’s sophistry, Lizzie wrote: “‘naturalism’ has problems as a philosophy.”
Right, of course not. This should be obvious from her saying she is not an atheist. The main point is: why then use ‘naturalist’ as a qualifier for ‘science’ in the title of this thread? Simple question. Lizzie? It doesn’t make sense and suggests Lizze is either oblivious to even her own ideological committments or just insensitive to the influence of ideology on science(s), including her own.
Everyone holds ideologies. Without them, one lives in a chaos of ideas without order or comprehension. KN’s Marxist/critical-theory def’n of ideology is not only outdated, it also often leads to dehumanisation, for example, in KN’s ‘naturalist-pragmatist’, ‘nothing given’ quasi-philosophy. To KN, ‘naturalism’ means a ““comprehensive doctrine” or “world-picture”,” whereas to most others, naturalism is simply an ideology, full stop.
No, equating ‘naturalist science’ (whatever that means) with ‘methodological naturalism’ makes no sense. It just seems to presume that all natural science is naturalistic. Is that the main point here, Elizabeth?
Does anyone remember this thread (which lost about 60 posts due to system crash)? http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=433
This is the kind of thing a philosophist like KN doesn’t seem *willing* to allow himself to accept, given his swirly pantheist, eclectic, philosophy-of-his-own jumble of ideas.
And it overlaps directly with the misleading title of this thread, which claims there is such thing as ideological science, iow, not just natural science, but naturalISTIC ‘science.’
I’ll be waiting for Lizzie’s answer, as short and sweet or exhaustive as she wishes to make it. There’s no point in continuing without it. Without her explanation, the thread’s title is simply nonsense and her pro-agnostic Bayesian ‘Proof’ laughable.
I’m with Robin here.
If one lives completely inside one’s head and cannot even conceive of a way to link immediate body sensations to chains of events that connect to an external world, then one is essentially a practicing solipsist.
Perhaps the concept that these discussions most frequently avoid or underestimate is the concept of operational definitions.
“Operationalizing” is a routine part of experimental science. If you can’t operationalize a concept even in principle, you can’t do research on it.
Operationalizing in practice has been a constant feature in natural science. Cost or lack of resources or lack of technology can hold off measurements for decades; but if a concept can be operationalized in principle, one can write a research proposal laying out what is required.
There are thousands of examples of this from science. For just a couple, consider the neutrino and the Higgs. Leon Lederman has told us that he referred to the Higgs as “The God Particle” in his book because his editors wouldn’t let him call it the “goddamned particle.” The people who knew how to observe it knew the experimental protocols and the expense that would be required to find it.
I have already agreed (if that is what Lizzie meant) that “natural science can be no threat to faith in God.” Naturalistic ideology, however, is another story because it is often opposed to theism (cf. faith in God). The thread title should thus be changed, otherwise it makes no sense.
Gregory, I can’t fathom what you are so distressed about. It seems you’re being pedantic to the point of paranoia.
Lizzie noted she was no longer going to use the term methodological naturalism because (as she noted) there are apparently some folk who hold MN as indicating some baggage and assumptions Lizzie does not hold. So, to accommodate those peoples’ understandings, she is attempting to use terms that DO NOT carry the ideological baggage of MN. Hence her use of “Naturalist Science”. She even went so far in her essay to detail the methodological context (which includes NOTHING even remotely referencing ideology), so where’s the problem?
Here’s where your argument goes off the rails imho:
See? That’s an assertion without substantiation. Maybe you feel that words ending in ‘-ist’ automatically designate ideology, but there’s no actual rule or law establishing it. And since Lizzie has stated in no uncertain terms she’s not coming from an ideological position (and her argument has no ideological component to it), why argue the point?
Basically it seems like your beef lies in the fact that Lizzie is using a term that you feel implies something Lizzie has gone out of her way to state she’s not implying? What difference does it make what you think the term ought to imply when the OP has stated it doesn’t mean that? Why not just respond to what she did, in fact, state?
Your attack here makes utterly no sense to me.
For the record, this is yet another assertion without substantiation. I have no doubt you believe this, Gregory, but the truth of this claim is not evident and I for one wholly reject it as stated.
And this:
…is just downright erroneous. Nowhere in the OP is there even an implication of such a thing as ideological science. Unless and until you can demonstrate that ‘-ist’ always and forever is a nomenclature for ideology.
Just curious Gregory, but do the words artist, environmentalist, and violinist imply ideologies? If not, why then do you assume naturalist does?
Yeah, and here’s another at the end of that same paragraph:
Blind assertion without substantiation. There’s no evidence that anyone except Gregory thinks “naturalism is simply an ideology”. Much less that most others do.
It’s just a crazy belief.
What’s the difference in meaning implied between ‘natural science’ and ‘naturalist science’ according to you then, Robin? Perhaps it would be helpful if you would take a shot at explaining your terms, rather than just saying what you can’t fathom, which doesn’t help. It turns out that I work in a professional field that most closely studies ideology, so perhaps you might give me some benefit of the doubt you are displaying. Clarity and precision of language makes an important difference here, which you don’t seem to appreciate.
In this case, Lizzie simply made an error with the term ‘naturalist science.’ It would be to her credit if she was willing to correct herself. Protests from her admirers that she made no such error can be left aside. It’s not about paranoia, it’s about accuracy and clear communication.
“Hence her use of “Naturalist Science”.”
No, you don’t know that because she gave no explanation. Let’s hear what Lizzie herself says. That’s all I’ve been asking for. She has been ambiguous and relativistic with terms in the past. She showed she was willing to learn about ‘methodological naturalism’ and that she could and would change her word usage. Perhaps on this topic she’s willing to see the light and change her interpretation also.
The artist, violinist (as professions) or environmentalist (ideologue) distinctions are left for another thread.
‘Naturalist’ (as 1. profession or 2. ideologue) is not even the proper adjective term; that’s why I referenced ‘natural-ISTIC science,’ which would be adjectivally proper and still throw a wrench in her ‘proof’. Or did she just mean ‘naturalists’ as a profession, in which case most natural scientists don’t classify themselves as ‘naturalists’?
Lizzie is just plain grammatically wrong here. I’m sorry if pointing that out distresses ideological naturalists here at TSZ. Let her sort it out for herself and make a change or stick head in the sand of agnosticism. Enough, I’ve said my peace.
Thank gods.
Gregory,
What Lizzie meant is perfectly obvious — if you would bother to read and comprehend the OP.
I realize that you see an ideology hiding under every rock, but the rest of us don’t share your fixation. We also don’t hyperventilate at the sight of the “-ist” suffix.
You need to get beyond the simplistic idea that the meaning of a sentence is an algebraic combination of the dictionary definitions of the words used.
I’m trying to suppress laughter at a pedant using the wrong word.
Why should I exclude manufactured products? I was thinking of things that are made. But humans can make things that appear to be “natural.”
Do you actually have an argument for why pragmatic naturalism is “dehumanizing,” why it merits the insulting term “quasi-philosophy,” or why I deserve the slur “philosophist”? Or is this just sneer, insult, assertion, and bluster on your part?
Um…hello? Gregory? I think it might help if you went and reviewed the discussion and just what I’ve offered to it. You might notice, for instance, that I was not the one to bring up either “natural science” or “naturalist science”. Those are therefore hardly concepts I need define within the context of this discussion – others have already done so. In point of fact, I actually jumped in because I felt that Lizzie’s definition of “naturalist science” was kind of obvious given the context of her words, so I don’t see that my particular definition of either “naturalist science” or “natural science” is pertinent to this discussion.
Gregory, I do not and have not argued that you don’t know what ideology is. However, I just don’t see it’s relevance vis-a-vis what Lizzie has actually typed – over several months, if not years, hereon. Again I repeat…adding an ‘-ist’ to the end of a word does not automatically signify some underlying ideology, so why assume it’s inherent in “naturalist” when Lizzie has made it plain that’s not her intent in the use of the word?
I’m not protesting that Lizzie made no error; I just don’t see her use of the term as erroneous. And thus far, you haven’t made a case for how the use of the word is, in fact, erroneous in the context provided. When you do, I might agree with you.
She has given an explanation, it’s just that the explanation is within the context of what she’s typed here over several months. You even linked to part of that explanation where she conceded that methodological naturalism is a poor term because it comes bundled with baggage she does not wish to imply. She may well decide to avoid Naturalist Science in the future for the (apparent) same reason. But…and I only note this as a suggestion…it strikes me that getting bent around the axle about a term when an author has gone to great lengths to try to explain the nuance of her particular POV on a subject strikes me as intentionally evading clarity and precision, something you claim is important here.
Well, I don’t think she’s been all that ambiguous or relativistic in her term use, but your mileage may vary. In any event, my words here are certainly no substitute for hers. And I feel certain that when she has time, she will post a thought or two and possibly even concede to your opinion on the preciseness (or lack there of) of naturalist.
Ok…
I’m not going to argue that “naturalist science” is not unconventional, however, there was no requirement that compound titles and terminologies have to be grammatically viable. But even that aside, your argument supports my point up-thread that you are coming at this with an ideological bent, not Lizzie. You are assuming that “naturalist” must be modifying a type of science, as an adjective would, but Lizzie’s whole point was that the term was a substitute for such an ideological modified concept of science in the first place. So no, your assumption does not wash given what Lizzie as repeatedly written hereon.
And THAT is really the whole point – you seem determined to get bent out of shape about terms as you wish to use them rather than really trying to read the words and explanations that people have taken the time to set down over several conversations and threads. Why?