The Wedge Document, which appeared on the internet in 1999, is a curious thing. I don’t want to discuss is merits and demerits in this post, but what it says about fear: on the one side of the wedge, the fear that motivated its writing, and on the other side, the fear of those who felt targetted by it.
Because even though the document itself has ceased to have force, the mutual distrust remains.
Clearly, the writers of the wedge were very frightened by the prospect of what they call “materialism”, and view as both an ideology and an approach to science – so frightened that they seem almost afraid to give credence to the science lest it let a Materialist Foot in the door. “Materialist” science they said,
…portrayed human not as moral and spiritual beings, but as animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry, and environment.
But more importantly they went on to allege that:
Materialists denied the existence of objective moral standards, claiming that environment dictates our behavior and beliefs.
Now, I can quite understand the fear of any science that would engender such denial. But what is also deeply frightening to some of us is the idea that any science should be suppressed for fear of its moral implications. The Copernican model was rejected for far too long because the Church worried that it would undermine the belief that humans inhabited a universe in which they were not central.
So how to heal the rift, rather than drive the Wedge in further? It was always part of my vision for this site that we would try to do the former rather than the latter. It’s not easy, and we have not always been successful. But I am not despondent. I suggest that two things are essential to the project, on the part of “materialists”:
Firstly, to make it clear that “materialism” is intrinsic to scientific methodology, not because of materialistic bias, but because scientific methodology is rooted in prediction. Contrary to the belief of many (materialists included), science does not seek to explain why things are the way they are at a fundamental level. Feynman puts it well here:
Science cannot go beyond a fundamental description of what the universe is like. Sure it can construct causal models up to a point, and we may keep moving that point closer and closer to the barrier, but it can’t make the barrier go away. Instead, it constructs a set of generalisable laws that allow us to predict things, more or less reliably. And a scientific model that predicts things better is preferred to a model that predicts things less well. No scientific model can be regarded as right, but some are less wrong than others. And only temporarily in the lead. All scientific models are provisional.
Secondly, I think that those of us who do not find a use for the concept of a creator God (I have worded that very carefully) need to make it clear that abandoning the idea of a creator God who made us for Her own purposes does not entail abandonment of purpose – it does not render our lives purposeless. I can breed a llama to carry my baggage. The llama may, and quite obviously does, have quite other ideas the purpose of her life (eating the hedge, for one). Not believing that we were made to serve the purpose of a putative creator God does not even mean that my only purpose is to serve myself.
And I think two things are also required of those on the other side of the wedge, both to do with real asymmetries between the positions:
Firstly, I think it is important to understand that science does not, and cannot, claim that God does not exist. Some scientists may do so – but it would not be a scientific statement. “Strong atheists” i.e. those who actually think the evidence suggests that there is no god, are rare, although many atheists would have a strong view that certain specific gods are non-existence (e.g. a Sun god; a God that can restore amputated limbs). But “God does not exist” is simply too vague a statement for anyone to get excited about an ism based on it. So there is an intrinsic asymmetry here: materialists are not, in general, claiming that theism is wrong, while theists are, in general, claiming that materialism is.
And the second thing is that I think it is important to understand is just how intrinsically provisional science is. Peer-review is imperfect, and so are the checks and balances built in to scientific methodology – but ultimately, science is designed so that mistakes are discovered. It lies behind all the tedious methodological procedures we have to go through – null hypothesis testing, blind rating, random sampling, replication, meta-analysis, funnel plots. Sure it is harder to get findings published that overturn consensus than those that support it – but that is as it should be, human nature being to err, and the quid pro quo is that if you do get it published, it will probably be in Nature. The big rewards in science are for the new and dramatic, not the been-there-done-that. In fact, I’d say that a much bigger problem in scientific publishing is the difficulty of getting replications published than the difficulty in getting novel work published. And again, there is a real asymmetry here: “materialists” are all too keen to engage with the “other side” – we are the ones regularly banned from discussions, not ID proponents; we are the ones with lax moderation policies, with “comments allowed”. Yes, we are frightened, but generally, fear takes the form of desire to engage, not refusal (and btw, no, Barry, I am not frightened to post at UD; I just see no point when I can post here where I know my words will remain undeleted).
Anyway, I’d be interested to hear from other people why they fear, or are angry, at the people on the other side of the wedge. Or, better still, if they are neither.
Alan Fox,
Sold your soul at the Crossroads (Motel!) 😉
Gregory,
Wha? Philosophically competent people get it right first time?
Allan Miller,
Not necessarily. But they don’t suggest idiotic things like materialism is “intrinsic to scientific methodology”. Philosophy is a rather cheap trick at TSZ, going by the celebrated/tolerated local philosopher’s ideology: “science is the measure of all things.”
It’s a load of bullshit.
For a start, I have not “flip-flopped between believing & not-believing apparently for most of her adult life”. I was a believer from age approximately three to a precise moment at age 55 (September or so, 2007). So that makes a single flip, because I didn’t “not believe” at age three – it was simply at that age that I became aware of believing (where “believing” means believing in single deity, one in which we “move, live and have our being” or thereabouts).
What I sought, through various religious denominations (which do NOT include buddhism) was a formal religious setting consistent with my belief.
And while I accept KN’s critique of my statement that
as badly stated (although note the scare quotes) I stand by my intended meaning: that scientific methodology is intrinsically limited to the predictable. And the predictable, in practice, is what we tend to refer to as the “material” or the “natural”. In contrast, the “supernatural” or the “immaterial” is stuff that doesn’t fit with our predictions – lies outside the domain of predictive models.
Also, Gregory, I don’t lie, and even if I did, which I don’t, it is against the rules of this site to say so.
But you break the rules so regularly, and so often at my at expense, that your rule-breaking posts often remain un-guano’d (I’m a bit queasy about moving to guano posts in which I am the target of the guano, but it is high time you read, marked and inwardly digested the Rules of this site, which are easily accessed from the main page link bar.)
Well, then you don’t retract things you have said that are known/shown to be untrue. Does that sound better to you?
You wrote: “Quakers don’t capitalise.”
Will you now retract that blanket claim, given the counter-evidence? It is not against the rules of TSZ to provide counter-evidence, is it? I said: Goodness, how far into absurdity will you fly, Elizabeth, to try to prove a point that is in fact so simple to concede?!
On the ‘materialism’ issue, I’ll ‘give over’ that you’ve admitted that saying “‘materialism’ is intrinsic to scientific methodology” was ‘badly stated.’
I’ve read the site rules and they also don’t say there’s anything wrong with not conceding a simple point. Its rewarding, nevertheless, that some people have changed their approach in these discussions by using the terms ‘IDism’ and ‘IDists’ more regularly (which to me denotes an ideology and ideologists). I’ve been suggesting this grammatically for a couple of years.
Of course, I realise not everyone uses or even acknowledges the uppercase/lowercase distinction. But I also think I’ve made a pretty solid case that this really is a huge problem with/for the IDM. Indeed, one might call it ‘wedging back the wedge’ because it would require that IDists concede some important features of their communications strategy are intentionally misleading (i.e. double talk) and even (yes, gasp!) tactically unfair to other scholars.
This includes non-IDist ‘design theorists’ (which Discovery Institute still tries to monopolise as ‘what IDists do’) and theists who reject IDism (which, for example, Mung and most other IDists simply won’t face directly; UD won’t even admit it flip-flops uppercase/lowercase on its own definition page!!).
And imo, Lizzie, refusing to change your grammar has nothing to do with you being “too damn old to change”, which just sounds evasive to a coherent logical position!
Even if you may not want to defend non-IDist design theorists or non-IDist theists at all, as a theist I find this a highly problematic feature of the DI’s ‘humble monster’ PR promoting IDism.
Steve Schaffner put it rather well:
If Lizzie doesn’t find that a useful or helpful distinction for her own personal communicative purposes involving IDism, nobody is going to force that penguin to change. For others who find the logic persuasive, I suggest using it more often with IDists because they really have little defense against it. Not that they have much more of a defense for other arguments against IDism either! 😉
I’m not here for the ‘skepticism’ and I’m not a ‘materialist’ or a ‘naturalist’. This site is positioned against UD and IDism. So, sometimes I drop in to post.
p.s. to disabuse you of the outdated thinking in the following quotation, you might want to read “Galileo Goes to Jail and other Myths about Science and Religion.” I’m sure you know about Osiander’s & Rheticus’ roles re: ‘the Copernican model’ too, right?
Or here: http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/ddaniels/docs/bluedot.RTF
I had considered starting a thread, you might be a materialist if …
reductionism would have been on the list.
I’m going to offer a hypothesis for Elizabeth’s stance here.
She’s thinking of a materialistic world as being a world without an interfering God who makes arbitrary [non-predictable] changes on a whim. She believes such a world is what is required for science to be predictive. Thus, she reasons, “materialism” is intrinsic to scientific methodology.
And yes, that’s materialist bias.
Alan, how do you measure an organism? I think I asked this already, how do you measure a code? What measurement revealed the existence of the genetic code?
Elizbeth,
Why? Or rather, in what context?
The Discovery Institute, from whence came the Wedge Document, is heavily financed by Howard Ahmanson Jr., a Dominionist who openly states “My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives.” I see nothing to suggest that the majority of intelligent design creationists don’t feel the same way.
Read those links. These people have declared “culture war” in the United States. They want their misogynistic, homophobic, anti-science beliefs taught in public schools and enshrined in law.
Heal the rift? I think not. These people threaten the world my children will grow up in. Fill that rift with the ignorance and hatred espoused by the intelligent design creationists and bulldoze over it.
(Side note: I rarely use the word “misogyny” because it is too often misused in political discussions in the U.S. and I don’t like to see it lose its meaning. In this case, it’s entirely accurate.)
So…
Looks like the wedge isn’t just a religious right thing after all.
But given materialism, whence purpose? Was purpose imbued into the cosmos from the beginning, or did it only appear when humans appeared on the scene?
Meaning and purpose are not just there for the taking. Neither is beauty nor awe. They are not properties of atoms and they can’t be quantified.
Maybe Alan will tell us how to measure them, and from that we can give them a scientific definition.
What about self-determination?
Especially if they are subjective. You could even come up with a phrase about them being ‘in the eye of beholder’ or something.
At least to me, the behavior of a heat seeking missile looks purposeful. The missile was designed by physicists and engineers who might well have been materialists.
Neil, I bet the behavior seems even more purposeful to the pilot in the target aircraft.
How are we going to measure purpose? What is the quantity of purpose?
Yes, that’s probably true.
The problem with bringing up “purpose” is that people don’t agree on what it means. The example that I gave does show that apparently purposeful behavior is entirely possible within a materialist conception.
Huh? You mean because it was funded by a man who is even more religious and even more fanatically right wing than most IDists, therefore the Wedge isn’t just a religious right thing?
You mean, because Patrick says he wants Ahmanson and the other Dominionists to stop threatening Patrick’s children, therefore the Wedge isn’t just a religious right thing?
No, honey, you’re mixing the position of the criminal and the victim. You’re saying they’re both equally to blame for trying to “put a wedge” between them, when the rightwing assailant intends to impose the death penalty for, well, everything not compliant with Christian Sharia (eg being homosexual, having an abortion, having an adulterous affair) while the victim only responds “Stop! Leave us alone!’
Sure, you can see the two as equally taking part in the wedge. I bet your grandma told you “it takes two to quarrel”. But in our not-always-as-nice-as-grandma world, we must make more careful distinctions than that.
We do indeed know who started this assault, and it was not the secularists and atheists. It was the Dominionist cult amongst the IDists and creationists.
Mung needn’t acknowledge that the movement he supports is funded by ‘culture war’ dedicated individuals. That’s simply a social fact. And social facts like that one are inconvenient for IDists like Mung to acknowledge.
The Wedge itself is an inconvenient social fact that has caused the IDM and the DI much headache. They even responded with a ‘so what?’ article as an attempt at defense.
This is where IDists simply look desperate, but while apparently displaying sincere ‘wannabe scientific’ intentions. Hint: your barking up the wrong tree, Mung!
Social sciences and humanities are the proper targets for ‘measuring purpose’, i.e. where ‘teleology’ is an ‘always already’ important factor in research, development and (obviously lowercase) design.
Why are there so few social scientists and humanities scholars at the DI, Mung? Around the time of the Wedge leak, Behe was caught in a Foreword to Dembski’s book, saying that IDT would have “implications for all humane studies”. On what scholarly basis does Dr. Michael Behe, a biochemist, make that rather bold prediction? What ‘humane studies’ has be done himself?
There are many attempts to research and measure purpose, to study goal-making and fulfillment in the social sciences, e.g. psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics. So, then Mung’s question is misguided. It would be better to ask: Why are so few IDists working in those fields?
I’ll tell you why. It would destroy the IDM. uppercase Intelligent Design Theory *cannot* study the lowercase intelligent designer(s).
Have fun arguing with atheists, Mung, acting like a devout culture warrior. But don’t face the elephant now standing quite obviously in that littler and littler ‘big tent’ you’re sharing with IDists. Non-IDist design theorists and theists who reject IDism are waiting for your sincere apology for lack of tact, intentional double talk and scholarly disrespect. How long will it take the DI to deliver on that?
“Purpose” is a property of organisms with the capacity to make choices about the future. I’d say that capacity evolved, and in fact, one of my research areas is into the neural underpinnings of purposive action.
I think it is important to distinguish between something having a purpose for some external agent (my bicycle has a purpose), and something having a purpose of its own (what I want to achieve by riding it). That’s why I brought up llamas – a llama has a very different set of purposes when taken for a walk than the purpose it serves for those who take it.
Not holding the belief that I was created by a Designer for a purpose of her own has no affect on my own purposes. Indeed, one could argue that being created for someone else’s purpose is a disadvantage. I’m sure the llama that was bred to go on walks with people and carry their bags would be a happier llama if simply left to her own purposes.
Now, you may accuse me of equivocating with the word purpose. But to that I respond: if I am using the word in two meanings, can you define more precisely the one you intend, and, having done so, say why it is important? Because not having it, certainly doesn’t deprive people of conceiving, and perceiving, purpose to their lives. Ask most people what they want to achieve in life, what they would like to have accomplished by the time they die, and they will have answers that have nothing to do with the putative purposes of a putative Designer. And many, I think, would say: “to leave the world a better place for our children and our friends children”.
Exactly. Well, in one morning, I have agreed with Mung, and agreed with Gregory!
Look out for a blue moon, tonight everyone!
Because I don’t think that the views held by those who commissioned the Wedge are mostly, in practice, held by those who propose ID. But I do think the fears it touches on are also felt by many ID proponents – that to deny ID (as they see it denied, not as science, but as possiblity) is to open the door to moral degeneracy.
It comes back to “if there’s no God, anything goes”. Which of course many of us dispute.
No, I don’t “believe such a world is required for science to be predictive”. A world in which “an interfering God who makes arbitrary changes on a whim” would still be amenable to predictive science. It would simply include phenomena that were outside its domain.
So you misread my scare quotes round “materialism”. I do not thinkthat materialism (without scare quotes) has to be true for science to be valid. I simply think that scientific methodology has to assume materialism.
Of course as soon as I write that, I hear Mung’s voice saying “Lizzie has contradicted herself again”. But that is not the case. We often make assumptions we know to be false because they are useful working assumptions. For most local mechanics problems we assume Newtonian physics to be true, even though we know Einstein’s physics, which contradicts Newton’s, is a more generally applicable model. But the assumption holds for most distances most problems deal with.
Same with science. Scientific methodology makes the assumption that materialism is true. It does not require it to be true to be valid; nor does it assert that materialism is true. It simply has no methodology for testing whether materialism is true or not.
Which is why the idea that science “disproves” or “claims to disprove” God, or design, or whatever, is simply wrong. There is no, and can be no, scientific argument that God does not exist. Indeed, I’d argue that any evidence to support a “supernatural” phenomena would render simply bring it into the scope of the natural. If psi turns out to be an evidence-based phenomena, there will no longer be anything “supernatural” about it.
Actually, I am not so sure about that. If one held, as a matter of theology, that God could interfere into the causal order at any moment, for reasons beyond our understanding, then one would never be able to know if one was observing a causal regularity or a miracle. One would have to maintain, as an article of faith, that God’s rationality would allow to us continue to distinguish between regularities and miracles. (This was Malebranche’s position, as I understand it.) Otherwise one is led to the view, begun by al-Ghazzali in Islam, that even the supposition of a predictable and orderly cosmos is an unjustifiable constraint on the exercise of divine power.
Kantian Naturalist,
One would not really need to know. If it looks like causal regularity, it can be investigated. If it looks like caprice, you need to give your apparatus a good whack and try again!
So, when a miracle is detected, blame the apparatus? Miracles shalt not happen!
Apparatus can’t detect “miracles”. it can detect effects.
And if it detects effects, the next thing is to figure out what predicts those effects, and then to test hypotheses regarding a mechanism.
For instance, if it turns out that some people can heal certain conditions by laying on of hands, set up an experiment to discover what predicts its effectiveness, what distinguishes those who can from those who can’t; what the range is of the effect, etc.
In the end, we may find a new force, like William’s putative intentional force. We won’t be able to explain it, any more than we can explain gravity, but we will be able to make predictive models about it.
That’s well within the purview of science.
If it was correlated with prayer one would have a clue.
And this applies also to the apparatus of human senses?
Erik,
Yeah, that’s the right track. Though ‘senses’ will likely throw Elizabeth on another direction (cf. telos). And what about ‘miraculous effects’? 😉
This conversation has turned into a collaboration of science, philosophy, theology/worldview. Even Elizabeth seems to agree with that (though, as usual, it might be difficult to get her to actually accept it).
Glad to see Elizabeth use the capitalised term because that is of course really what we’re talking about in the context of IDT, IDism, the IDM, and the DI.
The rest of that sentence is a hash, however, as belief or non-belief does constitute ‘effects’ based on ’causes.’ And why does Elizabeth use the feminine gender and also not capitalise? The term ‘affect’ is usually used psychologically, which opens a whole new realm of discussion.
Even KN is surprisingly, uncharacteristically on-mark here with reference to Malebranche (Christian) and Al-Ghazali (Muslim). The significant approach here is ‘occasionalism’, in contrast with ‘conservationism’ and ‘concurrentism’. The occasionalist thread is shown by Al-Ghazali in his view that ‘the Creator’s hand is not chained’. Yet, at the same time divine incomprehensibility reveals limits of human knowledge and wisdom. How do we really know/feel/intuit/decide it was or wasn’t a miracle from our current (late modern/postmodern/contemporary, & for most readers & posters here, ‘western’) ‘immanent frame’ (http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2007/10/19/secularism-of-a-new-kind/)?
The ‘Wedge’ Document was a naïve, unrealistic, academically primitive USAmerican neo-creationist document, a quasi-revolutionary! manifesto of ‘movement’ optimism, that was leaked from a politically right-wing ‘think tank’ in Seattle, Washington made up of scholars, lawyers and PR people who were (and some still are) trying to get around school boards that reject ‘creationism’ (of any variety, young earth or old) as a violation of ‘Church/State’ relations in that country with their IDist ideology.
Erik,
I was joking …
Because there is no good reason to use one rather than the other, and the feminine alternative gets underused.
Good question. I think I phrased that badly: what I meant was that if we can make an effective predictive model, there’s no reason to class what we observe as a “miracle”. And yes, that would apply to human senses, with the proviso that it’s important to do cross-checks.
Certainly when you get an effect that you can’t readily explain, the apparatus is a good place to start. That’s how the faster-than-light neutrino was checked out.
That might become your nickname: “no good reason”. Either that, or “I phrased that badly” 😉
Maybe a bit of German thought could help Elizabeth with her shallow ‘predictionism’ stuck funk. Some idiographic vs. nomothetic, perhaps?
Gregory, read the frigging rules.
Also, grow up.
Not that I have any problem with being known as “Elizabeth I-phrased-that-badly Liddle”.
In fact, I’d be more than happy to have it on my gravestone.
Repeat: I’ve read the rules. They don’t stop people from frivolously talking about ‘barbequing babies’. Nor do they require people to concede simple points that have been clearly shown with evidence (QUAKERS, Elizabeth!). But anything that challenges your personal ‘philosophy’ is wrong?
Think before you post, so that you don’t have to retract so much because there is “no good reason” for the empty philosophy you promote here. For that matter, why not read some philosophy (other than anything KN recommends!), e.g. as I just recommended idiographic vs. nomothetic? The issue, Elizabeth, is that you appear to be running TSZ to promote not just being ‘skeptical’ (who wouldn’t agree with this in a limited sense?), but also to covertly promote being ‘atheistic’, i.e. because you are yourself a late-middle aged convert atheist.
I’ve gone much further and deeper with ‘The Wedge’ than you have here with your misconceptions and weak understanding of ideology, e.g. ‘materialism’. But instead of praise, you threaten. That’s ‘probably’ because of your atheism, so no credit can be given for anti-IDist insight by a theist; no recognition of clear logical distinction.
EL said:
I’ve actually wondered the same thing about the use of “she” cropping up here more and more.
Since most theists refer to god as “he”, and one would presume you wish to be inviting to theists and respectful of their theistic views, and since (as you say) there is no good reason not to accommodate their preferential term, why not accommodate them?
Because, unless there is a reason to use that term, it has always seemed to me that it’s just an attempt to irritate theists.
Gregory,
Thanks for your help Gregory. As you modestly mention, you are the best,
No, I’m a skeptical penguin who likes eating waffles, doomed to nothingness.
No, no, that would be against the rules! 😉
And phenomena on which we have no effective predictive model, as of yet, are legitimately classified as miracles until we devise the model? (Or did you phrase badly again?)
Gregory, might I ask why atheism should not be the default?
Why does there need to be a default?
Me too, High five!
I believe “I don’t know” should be the default. Then you go looking.
‘Miracle’ is a useless category. Wikipedia defines a miracle as ‘an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws.’ This can mean two things: the event cannot be explained by the laws as we know them now – which might simply indicate that it is still following natural laws, albeit ones that we don’t (yet) know about. Or, it can mean that it can’t be explained by any natural law in existence, regardless if we know about it or not. It is of course impossible to know if this is the case.
In other words, classifying an event as a miracle simply means that we don’t know how it came about. What then is the justification to attribute such an event to God, or Gods (of various descriptions)?
fG
Oh dear, I hope not. I’m sure those who will live after you remember you for so many other things that there’s no room left for “I-phrased-that-badly”.
One of the things that bugs me about internet dialog is how unlikely I am to find out if what I said was appreciated, if it was convincing, if someone found a particular phrase I used to be the light-bulb moment. It has happened to me more times in in-person conversations than on the internet; something’s different about the internet (and probably not that I’m worse in writing than in verbal speech).
I’m a bit sad when I imagine how you feel being disagreed with day after day and so rarely getting feedback that what you said sounded right. No applause from the cheap seats here!
Well, with your ability to perceive the germ of a mean comment and turn it into “constructive criticism”, you can make Elizabeth-I-phrased-that-badly-Liddle sound like a pretty good affirmation.
People would definitely smile if they saw that on a tombstone. 🙂
“I don’t know” isn’t theism, though, is it? At least it’s not any traditional theism about which I know.
A lot of theists and atheists would call “I don’t know” atheism, for not being theism. Agnostic atheism, yes, but using the etymologic sense of “not theism.”
I don’t really prefer the term, especially since “atheism” has its baggage, plus, why take on a label saying what you’re not? Nevertheless, it seems to be a convenient term that doesn’t go away, so that even though I don’t tend to call myself “atheist,” I don’t deny it, because it can and often does mean “not theist” on both “sides” (at UD they call you “atheist” based on the minimal privative definition, then load you up with a host of things you may not think at all–the hazard of the term, of course).
Glen Davidson
It will only upset the small-minded, William. Take all of those gender based “marriage arguments” and then use them to think about God. You’ll realize gender is silly concept in that context.
Speak to many women do you? No, thought not.
Yes. The theist seeing “she” for god should have a pleasant surprise, a moment of thought (for perhaps the first time in their life) of how unreasonable, how totally twisted, it has been for them to assign gender — any gender at all — to their god.
God does not have a penis. God does not have Y chromosomes. God does not have a self-identity of “male” gender.
And if using the word “she” to refer to god sometimes gets a christian to stop and think about how ludicrous they are, imagining their god’s male gender, constantly reinforcing it as male in their worship of “god the Father” — then well done, Libby, and well done, everyone else who also chooses “she” for god to open theists’ eyes to what they’ve mistakenly accepted all their lives (“he” for god).