Thinking some more about PZ's latest comedic act, I think I see what the problem is.
People do not change their beliefs just because someone offends them. They change their beliefs because opponents offend them. If someone is a Muslim, they won't become an Islamist because another Muslim teaches something different, but because that Muslim is a member of an opposing sect. The friend of my enemy is my enemy.
There is not exactly a continuum of ideas between theism and atheism, because there is not a single dimension or variable along which a continuum might be drawn as a spectrum. But there is a continuum of loyalties for any given set of beliefs, and if you make it a condition of some unrelated belief that acceptance requires abandoning the whole of your core commitments, then you are reducing the likelihood of that belief getting accepted.
Hence, you end up polarising views into camps. It becomes, not a rational debate, but a matter of waving tribal totems. If evolution can be accepted only by being atheist, then of course theists will deny its validity. Likewise if we assert that accepting, say, a belief in beauty necessitates theism (the old saw, "how can we say there is something beautiful if we do not have belief in God?"), and non-theists do believe things are beautiful, they will of course reject theism rather than their core commitment to things being beautiful.
Taking ancillary beliefs (and I am using the term "belief" here to mean a proposition one thinks is true or is willing to assert, not as an act of faith) as being surrogate markers for some unrelated topic is the source of a lot of confusion. There is nothing about accepting the validity of evolution or natural selection that speaks for or against a deity; to make atheism the surrogate for evolutionary beliefs offers theists who think evolution occurs only a choice to reject evolution, for they are very much less likely to reject their core beliefs.
Obviously, there is nothing wrong on this account with stating that evolution makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. This might very well be true. But the claim that extends beyond this, that to be true to the science one must be an atheist (which some do make, although not, I think, Dawkins and PZ - this is more an inference from their rhetoric than a claim they have actually made) is unwarranted, to use philosophical legalese.
If there are a number of theists on the cusp, as most people will be who haven't thought deeply about science, of accepting evolution as a sufficient explanation of the diversity and history of life, and you imply to them, or state outright, that if they accept evolution they must give up their religion, of course this will polarise them. And of course it will also harm attempts to teach evolution in a neutral manner. Perhaps some don't want it taught in a metaphysics-neutral fashion. But the science is not the basis for that tack, and if it's bad to teach religious metaphysics as science, it's equally unacceptable to teach irreligious metaphysics as science, that's all.
[Disclaimer: No PZs or Dawkinses were harmed in the making of this short piece, and only pastries were harmed in any way at all. None of them were kitten pastries.]
Humanities & Social Science
Stumble It!
Comments
Wilkins' has been at the puppy-dog pastries again!
Posted by: Thony C. | October 1, 2007 2:48 AM
I'm tired and drugged up on some new medications, so I'm probably going to frig something up big time. But here I go anyways.
I think the general complaint here is that taking an adversarial tone is naturally divisive. I don't however think that this is necessarily a bad thing, or at least not worse than the alternative. You can have a serene discourse if there is some general uniformity on some political or social premise. There has been a general uniformity in American culture on the evo-creo issue, or religion-science issue more generally, that religion is benign and not at odds with evidence based outlook.
This uniformity is targeted, IMO, because of the fact that the peripheral effect of it on society is to give religion a free pass. So we end up having a special universe of discourse where the claims of religion have to be deferred to. So you have political no-brainers like embryonic stem cell research subject to the irrational, non-evidence based beliefs of a large segment of the population. One way of solving this is to shake up that universe of discourse by introducing new, staunchly anti-theistic elements into it.
It's not so different than political discourse IMO. You have conservatives and liberals who rarely worry about "driving people over to the other side", but nonetheless end up having the compromise on policy when mutually beneficial. A similar thing could happen to science and religion, but only if we get the backbone to stop being so deferential to the tribal superstitions of fellow people.
Posted by: Tyler DiPietro | October 1, 2007 3:04 AM
The sentence quoted above, with which I am in total agreement, raise the very important question as to whether a metaphysically neutral or even metaphysically free science is possible? (Ignoring for the moment the extremely difficult question, what exactly is metaphysics?)
A logical positivist would of course say that such a science is not only possible but also highly desirable. Caledonian would and indeed does claim that only a metaphysically free science deserves or has a right to the title science. Opposed to this I think that Feyerabend can be interpreted as saying that a metaphysically neutral science has never existed and probably can never be created. I would be very interested in what our host, or anybody else for that matter, thinks about this. Just for the record I'm with Feyerabend.
Posted by: Thony C. | October 1, 2007 5:30 AM
Um, Tyler ... have you been paying attention to American politics at all in the last 20 years? It has been absolutely nothing but polarization where the middle has been given stark choices between opposing views and compromise has been all but nonexistent. And it has been all about not driving the middle into the other party's camp. We have a Democratic Congress that can end the war in Iraq by simply taking the un-vetoable course of refusing to vote for funding, but that is terrified that such a move will be seen as "not supporting the troops" which would push the independents into the conservative camp semi-permanently. And that's an example where there are almost equal numbers at the ends of the continuum, i.e., between Republicans and Democrats. The ends of the continuum between those who understand and value science and those who don't already strongly favors the anti-science crowd.
As John says, reasonableness, nuance and logic in such "winner take all" scenarios are always losing strategies and emotional appeals are winners. Where the issue is [cough] framed as a stark choice between religion and science, the emotional appeal of religion will, almost certainly, win over whatever middle ground there might be between the ends of the continuum.
Liberalism has gone the way of the dodo in America. People called "liberals" today in politics are merely those who'd we'd have called "moderates" in my youth. It was killed off not so much by a lack of the right tokens to waive but by a refusal to even consider the possibility that it was waiving the tokens in the wrong way. The results of that mistake has already lasted a long time and will continue to haunt us for the foreseeable future. Let's hope the supporters of science can do better than that.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 1, 2007 5:46 AM
Thony:
Science can be framed (there's that word again!) without appeal to metaphysics and should, I think, be taught that way. People cannot, however , be framed (or exist for that matter) without metaphysics and we stubbornly continue to allow people to practice science.
Science, as a concept, has no inherent metaphysics. Science, as a human process, winds up including all the messy characteristics of human beings. Or so I see it ...
Posted by: John Pieret | October 1, 2007 6:01 AM
It's obvious I shouldn't try to do the "waive" so early in the morning.
;-)
Posted by: John Pieret | October 1, 2007 6:09 AM
I do believe science without metaphysics is a contradiction in terms (although I do not agree with Feyerabend that science is an ideology or worldview). But I also believe that science should be taught only with its own metaphysics, and most certainly not a religious (or irreligious) one.
As it happens, there are more than one metaphysical interpretation of science, but still these are science-only (or are lifted from scientific discussions to employ in nonscientific contexts). They are neutral with respect to religion.
Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 1, 2007 6:44 AM
and you imply to them, or state outright, that if they accept evolution they must give up their religion, of course this will polarise them. And of course it will also harm attempts to teach evolution in a neutral manner.
Blame it on PZ and Dawkins if you want, but this frame was put forward by the religious first. This is their message. There are scientists that have addressed it using rationalism arguments to say no you can be religious and accept evolutionary biology. There are also scientists who have said using the scientific method evolution is clear, using the same method religion is bunk. What bothers me most isn't that the fundies have twisted and distorted reality to get an effective message, its that you and others have fallen right into it. Its them atheists saying you must drop all religion to be a scientist and/or be educated evolution. I guess we will just deny the last 100 years of religious conservatives fighting the science based on the narrow interpretation of a man-made book of dubious authorship. Nope that never happened, its PZ's fault.
Posted by: lorax | October 1, 2007 8:07 AM
Perhaps you would be interested in this post and my response. Alden is a friend from my youth who is having trouble separating science from religion, and here
misinterprets what Dawkins has said about ID being a scientific hypothesis.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | October 1, 2007 8:09 AM
lorax: if the religionists frame it that way, and they do, should we?
Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 1, 2007 8:37 AM
Of course science can be framed free of metaphysics and that is in fact the standard for the presentation of scientific results within the expert literature and rightly so. I have however a problem with the teaching of science this way. In reality the development of a scientific discipline and the discovery of new results is a very messy complex procedure that involves varying metaphysical assumptions on many levels. I have a feeling that by teaching science free of metaphysics that students develop a false picture of the way in which new scientific ideas and theories are discovered and developed, a fact which can hinder their own development as practicing scientists.
Posted by: Thony C. | October 1, 2007 8:55 AM
The Religious Right was active long before the nation ever talked about the Atheist... And for a long time they've been talking about war. When you've been engaged (as we are now, in our schools and our courts) then there are two things you can do: Fight back, or turn the other cheek. Not even the other side is good at that, they're more into the smiting thing.
The problem is that SOMEONE had to stand up to religious extremism. A lot of people are sheep, baa-baaing behind their leaders or just following the crowd, afraid to say boo to anyone. So the people you get striking back first are the extremists on the OTHER side.
Still, I assume there are people standing in the middle who have not joined sides (and maybe never will) but the "us against them" ideology has already been set up. Ultimately, however, I do see a big difference between "Put on the whole armor of God and go to war against unrighteousness" and "you guys are just silly. Sit down, shut up, and LEARN something", which seem to be the two basic rallying cries.
Do extremists cause an extreme reaction and revolt fence sitters and moderates? Sure. But that works on both sides. I wouldn't be blogging about atheism every day if my civil rights, the constitution, and my kids weren't constantly under attack. And when I was a devout Orthodox Christian (I was one of those people so involved in the life of the church that I actually prayed in my sleep, much to the amusement of my husband) I didn't write every day about my religion.
The polarization hasn't come about because of mere disagreements in philosophy. It's come about because of a declaration of war, and the knowledge that in war, it's the civilians who suffer most.
Posted by: dorid | October 1, 2007 9:11 AM
Thony:
Bad phrasing on my part. What I meant was that the concept should be taught as metaphysics-free (and recognizing that you don't get much past the concept of science before university level courses) but then, of course, you have to get into the messy bits by the time you get to actually training scientists.
On the other hand, I'd like to know what I'm misunderstanding about the term "metaphysics" and/or how I'm misusing it, given that John says science does have it.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 1, 2007 9:14 AM
I am one of those suprised to see intelligent people saying that science (evolution especially) equals atheism.
I could understand it, in part, when it came from those who believe the KJV/Koran to be inerrant (didn't consider them very intelligent), but from scientists?
As everyone knows, there are scientists of all faiths/beliefs/worldviews so it obviously doesn't belong to any one group of believers (this is one of sciences greatest strengths), so why do some ape the words of the religious fundies and so add fuel to the fire?
There are some guidelines in science, things like; there is a reality out there that follows rules that we can model and so utilise it to our benefit, the rules are constant through space & time, positivism is a good assumption etc..
None that I have ever come across speak to the existance or non-existance of a deity. The truth of a religious idea/claim may be another matter.
My conclusion is that some atheists are using science as a wedge to help undermine what some see as irrational and wish to try and impose their worldview/belief/faith on everyone (peacefully of course); so like many believers they are seeking converts to bring people to "their way, their truth and their light".
Nothing wrong with evangelising; but it is a political/religious activity and far removed from science, the teaching of science or the cause of good science.
I also fear that by their agreement with the religious fundies they are aiding and abetting the enemy.
Posted by: Chris' Wills | October 1, 2007 10:33 AM
I of course would never dare to speak on behalf of the Aussi Silverback (he might sit on me) but in any branch of science the assumptions that are made at the "top" end of a theoretical deduction almost always contain several that are metaphysical in nature. To give just one very famous historical example, Newton's assumption that an absolute frame of reference for time and space exists is purely metaphysical and as is well known was one of the factors that later led to the downfall of his theory. If fact exactly this metaphysical assumption was attacked by Leibniz in the famous Clarke/Leibniz correspondence, he suggesting instead the assumption of purely relative frames of reference ala Einstein.
Posted by: Thony C. | October 1, 2007 12:23 PM
I am one of those suprised to see intelligent people saying that science (evolution especially) equals atheism.
Me too, who are these people?
Posted by: windy | October 1, 2007 1:08 PM
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7156/full/448864a.html
Here's one for you windy, fairly well known USAian pontificating to the masses (well actually to scientists in this case).
I suspect that you are actually joshing when you asked the question.
Then again here's a more famous person claiming that there is no god and that he knows the truth and that science reveals the truth "...truth is always going to be anti-religion, and science is a process that aspires to uncover the truth..." http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/07/in_which_the_obnoxious_atheist.php
Both people are welcome to there opinions and I know which one I'ld buy a pint, but each appears to see science as buttressing their worldview.
Posted by: Chris' Wills | October 1, 2007 2:35 PM
Oh I hope the prize is a trip to California.
If I win of course.
Posted by: Chris' Wills | October 1, 2007 3:05 PM
"I of course would never dare to speak on behalf of the Aussi Silverback (he might sit on me) but in any branch of science the assumptions that are made at the "top" end of a theoretical deduction almost always contain several that are metaphysical in nature."
I agree -- scientific metaphysical assumptions are the ones that define the language of the theory (it often turns out that there's more than one way of cashing out the language of the theory in terms of metaphysics, though).
The difference between them and more general metaphysics is that general metaphysics is, well, more general and attempts (in as far as such is possible) for a more complete view -- to be a description of how things hang together, in as much as they hang together (if they don't, they most assuredly hang separately). Scientific metaphysics tends to be a bit more focused on the task at hand (and somewhat ad hoc -- look at quantum mechanics), and so can be a bit more difficult to slot into various more general schemes, which isn't to say that the task shouldn't be attempted.
*Waits to be sat on by a Silverback*
Posted by: Iorwerth Thomas | October 1, 2007 3:32 PM
I suspect that you are actually joshing when you asked the question.
Right :) I didn't see either of those gentlemen saying that science *equals* atheism. Let's say I find the metaphysical conclusions of Francis Collins as misguided as you find those of New Atheists. Is it fair for me to say "Collins thinks that science equals Christianity?"
Oh I hope the prize is a trip to California.
Looks like it's Cambridge... Any thoughts why so few voted for Boston? Are most SB readers from the US east coast and don't think it's exotic enough?
Posted by: windy | October 1, 2007 4:00 PM
If the deity in question is the Christian God of love and justice, who created the world specifically with humanity in mind, then there is plainly something in evolution by natural selection that speaks against it.
Evolutionary theory says that humanity arose as the improbable result of three billion years of evolution by a bloody and violent process of natural selection. Christianity says we are the intentional product of a God who loves us. It is not obvious that these stories are actually two sides of the same coin.
The point isn't that it is logically impossible that both evolution and Christianity are correct. It is that evolution, by revealing our brutal origins, makes it far less likely that Christianity is correct. And evolution all but flatly refutes any version of Christianity that takes the inerrancy of Scripture as its starting point. Furthermore, evolution takes away the argument from design in biology, which is the strongest rational argument ever devised for the existence of God. Evolution may not refute the existence of God, but it certainly reduces God from something you can accept for purely rational reasons to something you can only accept through a large measure of faith (or at least only through non-scientific lines of evidence).
There's a reason people write big, complicated books explaining how to reconcile Christianity and evolution, while no one bothers to write similar books exposing the conflict between them. Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett spend very little time talking about evolution, for example. It's not because of Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers or anyone else that evolution and Christianity are commonly thought to be at odds. It is that they plainly are at odds, regardless of how nice it might be if we could simply sweep the problem under the rug. Wringing your hands about polarization and divisiveness will not change that fact.
Posted by: Jason Rosenhouse | October 1, 2007 4:06 PM
Funny that you should mention that, I almost chose the Copenhagen Interpretation as an obvious example of scientific metaphysics. One that I personally don't accept, which however doesn't mean that I reject quantum mechanics just that I think that the explanatory theory needs improving.
Posted by: Thony C. | October 1, 2007 4:24 PM
There is a conflict between science and religion and ignoring it won't make it go away.
While this doesn't mean that you have to abandon all belief in the supernatural in order to accept scientific evidence, it does mean you have to abandon many of the things that most people hold dear. You have to give up Young Earth Creationism, for example.
It's all very well and good to argue for moderation in the interests of social harmony but when we get right down to brass tacks it turns out that it really is an either/or choice in a lot of cases. Are miracles compatible with science? No, they're not.
Is the existence of a soul and a life after death compatible with science. No. If you argue that it is then "science" loses all meaning as a way of knowing. It can be overthrown by any imaginary belief. It would mean that astrology and faith healing are also compatible with science just because some people want them to be. Evidence has to count for something in the real world, if it doesn't then we might as well be living in a dreamworld.
Francis Collins argues that the Moral Law is proof of the existence of God. Is this proof compatible with what we would recognize as good scientific practice? No, it isn't. I don't think even a philosopher would defend this as good logic. This is not a situation where there is a middle ground to stand on. Either Collins is right and God has been proven, or he is wrong and the Moral Law is not a proof of God. There may not even be a Moral Law--that's surely something that rational people can investigate.
Most believers would like to identify some things as being so far outside of nature that science has no say in their veracity. Unfortunately, whenever they try to make a case for such a thing it always turns out to be either entirely within the realm of scientific investigation, or confined to the mind of the believer where it is indistinguishable from a dream.
Posted by: Larry Moran | October 1, 2007 4:30 PM
But.. what if the evidence tells you that you are living in a dreamworld? http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640
(Although, I've always thought chemistry was more of a nightmare than a dream :)
Posted by: jeff | October 1, 2007 6:13 PM
"Funny that you should mention that, I almost chose the Copenhagen Interpretation as an obvious example of scientific metaphysics. One that I personally don't accept, which however doesn't mean that I reject quantum mechanics just that I think that the explanatory theory needs improving."
Oh, I don't reject QM either (it'd be hard for me to do my job if I did); for some reason I typed quantum mechanics when I mean Copenhagen Interpretation...
Posted by: Iorwerth Thomas | October 1, 2007 6:16 PM
Hey, earlier (#9) I made reference to a post, and then when I get home from work, I discover that I had forgotten the link. Here it is ID is a scientific concept.
Sorry about that.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | October 1, 2007 7:55 PM
But this and the other examples given aren't metaphysics about science or even about how science is done, they are metaphysics that are prior to the science being done. The gathering of the evidence and matching it against the theory is done the same despite such assumptions. And we know that the source of hypotheses and theories is irrelevant to the actual process of science -- visions of snakes biting their tails didn't make the benzene ring into dreamology and Newton's metaphysical mechanism wasn't the same as his science.
Larry insists that science is somehow useless -- "loses all meaning as a way of knowing" -- unless we assume it works all the time and in every situation. That is Larry's metaphysics; it is not necessary to actually doing science (and it is a position that is, ironically, contradicted by the empiric evidence, since many people who are good and even great scientists nonetheless believe miracles are possible and believe in life after death).
In fact, science gets along quite well even when nobody knows for sure whether it can or will be able to come up with an answer in any particular area or whether science as a process delivers "truth" at all. The only requirement to effectively do science is that, methodologically, we proceed as if a naturalistic (whatever that might mean) answer exists and can be found with the tools science has (or will have) available.
Larry's metaphysics of materialism/naturalism is not a requirement of science ... it is a requirement of Larry (and those who share his metaphysics) only.
In fact, the closest I can think of as constituting metaphysics within science itself involves defining what is "natural." But historically that has been done more by the practice of the consensus of scientists rather than by thinking it out.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 1, 2007 8:12 PM
[Grump]
Man sleeps for a night and an interesting debate breaks out and everyone else gets the good lines...
There are several senses to the term "metaphysics", but they all involve ontology; or the list of the furniture in the universe that someone or some idea presupposes.
Theories have ontologies - atomic theory supposes that there are things like electron shells, and an increasingly complex soup of basic particles. Evolution presupposes there are things like lineages of descent, populations, genes and the like, and so on.
What needs to be taught are these metaphysics, or, where there is controversy (such as the Copenhagen versus the other interpretations of QM) the range of interpretations or ontologies in active play in science.
There is a sense in which there are general metaphysics of science - one of these is, as noted, naturalism (basically, the idea that things have natures which can be uncovered in explanations), but the limits of scientific metaphysics are set by the domain over which they range. So a metaphysics of evolution begins and ends with biology, plus any chemistry or physics it helps itself to as a necessity. Physics, of course, covers all and only the physical world. If there is a nonphysical world, it is outside the competency of physics to investigate it.
The domain-specific nature of scientific explanations is not always obvious. We often get confused and think that it has a much wider domain than it does. This is why I think that science speaks neither for nor against any particular metaphysics outside that domain, whether it be the execrable "Dancing Wu Li Masters" or any other interpretation of the world that is not in itself scientific. And atheism is, I think, one of those interpretations, in so far as it makes assertions outside the domain of science. It may be that for most atheists they are merely content to live only on the basis of scientific knowledge, and who can object to that? but if, and when, an atheist, just as for a theist or Buddhist or Idealist, starts making assertions about the possibility of things existing outside the scientific domain, such as "there exists no deities", then they are no longer relying upon science as such.
But that's fine. All I am objecting to are those who claim that science demands a particular extra-scientific metaphysics.
Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 1, 2007 8:50 PM
"However, I?ve held all along that science and philosophy are (or should be) ?joined at the hip.? Science without some ?big picture? thinking (even allowing for the possibility that something exists outside of what we can touch and see), is dreadfully dangerous. The moral implications of ?pure? science are horrifying - just take a look at Mary Shelley?s Frankenstein. "
Let's not forget that when the US got the Bomb, scientists suggested that one be exploded in a deserted area in the presence of enemy generals. It is a religion-inspired war criminal (born again Christian President Ford) who wanted to drop those bombs on highly populated area and kill a lot of people. No, I think that science can do just fine without a "big picture".
And let's not forget about the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch burnings, the massacre of the Indians in America (all 3 of them), the Holocaust ("Gott ist mit uns" according to Hitler) and muslim terrorism. At least, Atheism has no doctrines of its own that one can use to legitimize atrocities. Religion, on the other hand, will tell you who is "bad" and how they must be taken care of. As soon as someone has been deemed "bad", you can rest assured that something is going to be done about him/her.
Posted by: Marc L. | October 1, 2007 9:18 PM
I didn't say that I think their metaphysical conclusions are misguided or wrong nor that Collins is correct. I don't see that sciences addresses nor is set up to address the existance of a deity.
That seems a sensible reason, Cambridge may have won because most voters are from the USA.
Posted by: Chris' Wills | October 1, 2007 10:15 PM
John Wilkins wrote:
This sounds little different from the natural/supernatural dichotomy which depends on how the words are defined.
If the physical or natural world is defined an objective reality which we can observe, however indirectly, with "observe" meaning to obtain information from and about, then a non-physical or supernatural world would be a domain so isolated from our natural world that not even information can pass between the two, not even in principle. Such a domain could be the realm of the god of deism but in what sense could either be meaningfully said to exist, other than as a postulate or figment of our imagination? Does our capacity to imagine something bring that imagining within the purview of science?
By these definitions, of course, the interventionist god of theism, by its very involvement in the natural world, becomes a part of that world. It is a god which can be observed, about which information can be obtained and hence a god whose nature science can pronounce upon, at least in principle. The existence of such a god is thus a question of physics not metaphysics.
To digress a little, this is partly why I disagree with Richard Dawkins suggestion that university departments of theology should be dismantled. Quite apart from the fact that we should be very wary of any proposal to limit the freedom of the academy to study any subject it chooses, a theistic god is arguably a legitimate subject for scientific investigation. Theology departments which treat and teach the existence of such a god as established fact should certainly be challenged but, short of that, it is quite possible to study the question without necessarily believing one way or the other. After all, this would be no more that what PZ and other teachers of evolutionary biology do when they assure religious students that they are only required to study the subject for understanding not necessarily for belief.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding FCD | October 2, 2007 12:49 AM
"The existence of such a god is thus a question of physics not metaphysics."
Show me a Lagrangian or Hamiltonian with God in it and I'll concede that it's physics... ;)
Posted by: Iorwerth Thomas | October 2, 2007 5:47 AM
Since, according to many theologies, we consist of both physical and supernatural natures, why can't supernatural information pass into "our" world, even if it cannot be investigated by physical means? Aren't you just question-begging by assuming that humans beings are only physical beings strictly limited to physical means?
Similarly, in order to maintain that an interventionist god becomes a part of the natural world by its very involvement in it, you have to assume that only physical means can render physical effects, an assumption that depends not on a definition of the natural world but of the supernatural world. How do you justify your definition of what the supernatural can do?
Finally, for much, if not most, of science, we identify "natural" causes as that which happens with such regularity that we come to count on it happening to make predictions about what will happen next. What is "physical" about gravity except for the fact that we have come to expect it to be associated with physical mass? We observe, directly or indirectly, only the tiniest fraction of events in our universe. A study that depends on regularities identified by infinitesimally small samples is, to say the least, ill-suited to detect, much less understand, the actions of a being working by means unknown to us, for purposes unknown to us by actions our sampling is statistically unlikely to recognize.
But if you define God as not-God, you can certainly scientifically study his/her/its non-existence to your heart's content.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 2, 2007 6:10 AM
Good heavens [sic]. You are just moving around the point at which the "supernatural information" passes into the physical world: that doesn't change the fact that these are interventionist claims. If there are six billion receivers walking around, all the more reason that such an information transfer should be amenable to science.
Posted by: windy | October 2, 2007 8:05 AM
As a Christian who accepts evolution, I strongly agree with Jason's brief (post #21). The two don't play together very well at all. Even if one starts from a premise other than inerrancy, there's the little matter of Original Sin not squaring with 'nature red in tooth and claw.' There are things about the Christian account which are not only 'out of sync' with the facts as we know them, but which are contradictory within Christianity's domain.
For what it's worth, I find that as a personal matter I can live with a certain amount of ambiguity and apparent contradiction---but I'm a rare bird in that respect. The polarity that we see on this topic may not be insuperable, but addressing it strikes me as (ahem) fundamental, and Jason is right to say so.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield, OM | October 2, 2007 10:26 AM
Marc L. writes:
Right. Religious people are bad, and something should be done about them.
Posted by: Daryl McCullough | October 2, 2007 11:38 AM
Who would have thought it, the excellent Mr Pieret is advocating Osianderism better know as instrumentalism in order to avoid a metaphysics "about science or about how science is done", as a collector of logical paradoxes I thank you heartily for this one. Instrumentalism is of course a metaphysics about science. Even if we reduce science to instrumentalism i.e. we only deal with scientific laws that explain how things happen and largely ignore theories about why they happen our science is still based on metaphysical principles. Firstlythe claim that scientific laws are universal, a necessary prerequisite for any modern scientific investigation, is of course a metaphysical belief, one that has proved so effective over the last three hundred years that we tend to forget that it is an unproven and not provable assumption.
Secondly as conceded by Mr Pieret in the quote above, despite Hume, we assume some form of induction in our scientific efforts again, because of Hume, a purely metaphysical assumption.
Posted by: Thony C. | October 2, 2007 12:29 PM
Mr Wilkins:
We have no problems with you sleeping on the job, as you can see we are quite capable of maintaining the philosophical debate without you. But next time you might think to leave out some coffee and biscuits for your visitors before you crawl off under your bush to snooze!
Posted by: Thony C. | October 2, 2007 12:34 PM
One engages in polemics to rally the troops, not to convince the opponents. I doubt if the efforts of PZ, Dawkins, Hitchens, and the rest have converted anybody to atheism; but they do seem to have encouraged a great many people to come out of the closet. The downside, as John says, is that associating evolution with atheism makes evolution unpalatable to people whose primary loyalty is to their religion. I have mixed feelings about this outcome. On the one hand, public rejection of modern biology has bad political consequences; but people in general are never going to know much about biology and I'm not sure why that is a terrible thing. Anybody who is serious about understanding nature will be driven to accept the reality of evolution; those who don't give a damn about figuring things out will only accept evolution for extraneous reasons such as the desire not to come across as a fool. As a society, we could certainly do a better job of teaching people biology and that would increase the size of the minority who really understood evolutionary biology and perhaps, over the long haul, lessen the appeal of irrational religion to educated people. Won't bring the millennium, however.
Posted by: Jim Harrison | October 2, 2007 2:27 PM
Just a quick cautionary note regarding metaphysical terminology.
It's probably a mistake, or at least a presumption (given our present state of ignorance), to equate naturalism and physicalism.
Instrumentalism is usually understood as a methodological position, not a metaphysical position.
Posted by: bob koepp | October 2, 2007 3:38 PM
Au contraire, I get lots of mail from people saying that our efforts have brought them around to atheism. These aren't usually confirmed theists, though, but mainly people who had been (and freely admit to have been) pro forma church-goers.
Will a Pat Robertson read one of our unholy screeds and decide to shuck the religious robes? No, not ever. Will those godless rants wake up some casual Christian and make them question religion? Yes, it happens all the time.
Posted by: PZ Myers | October 2, 2007 3:56 PM
"Religion" is a very broad and fuzzy term. It seems to me that the real issue that is animating PZ and Dawkins is the traditional one, of faith vs. reason. Science is based on the latter. Some religions require the former. In the west, that coupling looms large, because the Abrahamic religions that dominate our culture make sweeping, faith-based assertions about the nature of the universe.
Yes, of course, someone can practice faith in one area of their life, and reason in another, switching the mode in which they claim to understand their world in the drive between their church and their lab. We're all familiar with psychological compartmentalization. The fact that people can and do pull off this juggling act doesn't mean that it makes sense.
The tension that presents is more a matter of philosophy than of science. The fellow scientist can say, "well, as long as you practice reason here in the lab, and don't allow the claims from your fideistic endeavors interfere, you're still doing good science." And PZ has said that. It is the philosopher who is the more broad advocate of reason, who should be saying that faith is nonsense, wherever it is practiced, and whatever its subject.
Posted by: Russell | October 2, 2007 4:08 PM
Thony:
Entertainment is my life! ;-)
Well, we're back in the question of what "metaphysics" means, then. Setting aside my doubts of whether I am positing instrumentalism, if we take Wilkins' definition of metaphysics as it being "the furniture in the universe that someone or some idea presupposes," then I don't think instrumentalism, per Duhem (as described by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as holding that theories are merely conceptual tools for classifying, systematizing and predicting observational statements) depends on the universe being any one way as opposed to another. In any event, I would maintain that my position, as bob koepp suggests, is a methodological, rather than metaphysical one.
The only thing, as I noted before, that would count as "furniture" of the universe in my view of science is that the "natural" -- defined as 'things that seem to us to happen regularly' -- will, in fact, continue to happen regularly, if they really are regular in the first place. Induction is simply the attempt to draw conclusions from such regularities. The universe could be materialistic, mechanistic, suffused with "supernatural" causation and even illusionary, and science would be done the same way, since the upshot of there being no regularizes is that science is wrong but we couldn't tell because we'd have no reference point to say so.
If that is metaphysics, it is of a particularly pale and malleable kind.
Windy:
Okay, some billions of people report the personal experience of God along the lines recounted by Francis Collins in his recent book. Provide us with a research proposal in acceptable form for any university science department on how to scientifically test whether those those billions of events are supernatural or not (including giving us a rigorous definition of "supernatural" to test against). If you can't, you are merely giving us your personal opinion about what science does or doesn't reveal about the furniture of the world. In short, you ain't talking science, you're talking metaphysics.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 2, 2007 4:40 PM
Sure, and the Francis Collins' of the world will go the other way and claim they became evangelical Christians because of science's inability to explain the "moral law" or somesuch. The question isn't whether there is anecdotal evidence for each possibility but what reasonable trend we can expect over time and what way is most likely to get the overall trend we want.
For what does it profiteth a man that he may gain some casual Christians but lose science in America?
Posted by: John Pieret | October 2, 2007 4:59 PM
I would certainly classify the following quote from yourself as expressing a form of instrumentalism as I understand it.
You seem to me to be saying that scientific methodology if applied will provide scientific answer irrespective of how we interpret those answers i.e. we need not concern ourselves with the interpretation, instrumentalism! Please correct me if I am wrong ;)
Posted by: Thony C. | October 2, 2007 5:03 PM
Thony C - the intro paragraphs from wikipedia entry on instrumentalism:
"In the philosophy of science, instrumentalism is the view that concepts and theories are merely useful instruments whose worth is measured not by whether the concepts and theories are true or false (or correctly depict reality), but by how effective they are in explaining and predicting phenomena."
"Instrumentalism relates closely to pragmatism. This methodological viewpoint often contrasts with scientific realism, which defines theories as specially being more or less true. However, instrumentalism is more of a pragmatic approach to science, information and theories than an ontological statement. Often instrumentalists (just like pragmatists) have been accused of being relativists, even though many instrumentalists are also believers in sturdy objective realism (such as Karl Popper)."
In more prosaic terms, instrumentalists reject the view that the goal of science is to arrive at (approximately) true theories. Rather, they claim science aims at "empirically adequate" theories, i.e., theories that "save the phenonema."
Posted by: bob koepp | October 2, 2007 6:36 PM
No, what I am saying is that the process of science is separate from the underlying metaphysics of scientists. Of course the theories will be effected by those metaphysics and, as they change, the theories will change. But the actual process hasn't changed in significant ways, at least since the rise of the widespread exchange of information within the scientific community.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 2, 2007 8:11 PM
P.S. I said I wasn't sure if I'm actually advocating instrumentalism because I haven't studied it sufficiently to be exactly sure what it entails. I'm going by some prior discussions here and there, some quick review of the Stanford Encyclopedia and what bob has been saying.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 2, 2007 8:19 PM
As I understand it, instrumentalism is a denial of the need for truth theories with respect to scientific claims. That is, it denies that we need to hold that theories are true or not, merely that they satisfy epistemological requirements. It is closely allied with the pragmatist theory of truth - that truth just is what is applicable and works.
Is that a metaphysical claim? Arguably, but only in the same way that atheism is a religious doctrine, by denying some metaphysical claims. Of course, you can go a step further and deny that the ontology of science has any reality which is a metaphysical claim, but in and of itself, it is not metaphysical, IMO.
I'd avoid the wiki article and definition, though.
Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 2, 2007 9:19 PM
Yeah, the wiki article leaves something to be desired, but it was ready to hand and gives some of the flavor of instrumentalism. SEP lacks an entry focused on instrumentalism, but has good bits and pieces scattered in other articles.
Posted by: bob koepp | October 2, 2007 9:41 PM
Here's a particularly good article on the topic.
Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 2, 2007 10:10 PM
Not at all. I claim that 'metaphysics' is an incoherent concept, and has been so ever since Aristotle was mistranslated. All science is metaphysics-free. Only a metaphysics-free practice can deserve or have a right to the title 'science'.
Posted by: Caledonian | October 3, 2007 12:02 AM
The OED defines metaphysics as speculations on the nature of being, truth and knowledge
On the basis of this definition I would say that instrumentalism, which in my opinion is speculation on the nature of knowledge, is definitely a metaphysical standpoint.
Mr Pieret is it really possible to make a clean cut between the process of science and the underlying metaphysics of science? I'm not really sure of the answer to my own question but I strongly suspect that the answer is negative. My suggestion that you are a closet instrumentalist was not totally serious but it did help me to understand your position ;)
Caledonian: Your answer is a wonderful paradox (try re-reading it!).Now please justify your claims that 'metaphysics' is an incoherent concept and that science is metaphysics-free.
Posted by: Thony C. | October 3, 2007 5:47 AM
You can't hold a concept up for analysis while simultaneously taking it for granted.
How, then, can you perform analysis on concepts like truth? If you possess means of evaluating statements about it, you're taking it for granted - it's an inherent part of the evaluation.
Posted by: Caledonian | October 3, 2007 9:49 AM
Wow! Wonders will never cease; Caledonian has actually uttered something that I agree with even if it is only a paraphrase of Tarski's most important meta-logical theory. However its significance for any discussion about science is fairly trivial considering the fact that Clavius in the 16th century, Duhem in the 19th century and most famously Popper in the 20th century have all shown that scientific theories cannot be validated, i.e. proven true, but only falsified something now regarded as obvious, so truth plays no role in this discourse. Metaphysics however is not confined to the analysis of truth but is for our purposes most importantly concerned with theories concerning knowledge a very central theme in any debate about science. I fail to see that your argument is in anyway applicable to discussions on the status or nature of scientific knowledge or its acquisition both of which are valid and important themes in the metaphysics of science.
Posted by: Thony C. | October 3, 2007 1:55 PM
I can only conclude that you haven't been paying attention.
Posted by: Caledonian | October 3, 2007 3:20 PM
Proving something false is equivalent to proving its negation true.
The real issue is that absolute proof of anything cannot be accomplished by any means; neither proof nor disproof is absolute.
Posted by: Caledonian | October 3, 2007 3:22 PM
CRAP!
Posted by: Thony C. | October 3, 2007 4:07 PM
Sorry that should of course read:
ABSOLUTE CRAP!
Posted by: Thony C. | October 3, 2007 4:09 PM
Thony:
It is quite possible to make a conceptual distinction, I think. Of course, it is not possible to act on the concept without dragging in metaphysics.
I haven't been able to go throught Wilkins' suggested reading in depth yet but, I'll cop to some version of instrumentalism, especially assuming that the article is correct that the term is a "big tent." However, I certainly don't hold the view Popper criticizes (that "pure" sciences are merely computational rules similar to those that govern the "applied" sciences). My distinction is conceptual and methodological, rather than being about the limits of science or about knowledge claims, except perhaps in the trivial sense that we know how to perform the process and that the process has, in the past, delivered useful results. But things like the Rutherford model of the atom can be useful -- for a time at least -- without being either "true" or actual "knowledge." Thus usefulness is not a claim about knowledge.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 3, 2007 5:31 PM
Thony C.:
You really are quite bad at this.
What science does is look at the available evidence and produce a conclusion. That conclusion is amendable when new evidence arrives, and this evidence can involve both the accuracy of previously-accepted evidence and the validity of previous conclusions. Nothing is ever absolutely demonstrated to be false, and nothing is ever absolutely confirmed.
In theory, we could discover new data that would lead us to conclude that - for example - the Earth was actually flat, and we were mislead into thinking that it's roughly spherical. I doubt very much that such evidence will be forthcoming, but it's conceivable - and if it arrived, we would be forced to discard the conclusion that it's round and accept once again the discarded notion of its flatness.
The idea that we can show things to be false, but not true, is both silly and wrong.
Posted by: Caledonian | October 3, 2007 7:19 PM
John, did you leave the comment on Pharyngulas page ?
Posted by: TSK | October 3, 2007 11:07 PM
I've left a few. If you mean the one on the title of the Metaphysics, and the definition, yes.
Posted by: John S. Wilkins | October 4, 2007 12:47 AM
I mean one of the last comments in "Sunday Sermon-Skit" with "wishy-washy chamberlainism". I was a bit unsure about your style.
As you put up an answer to the skit with a similar opinion, may I ask you if you understand marginally what I was trying to say there (even if it is wrong) ? I had the feeling that everything I said was deliberately judged as malice when it wasn't intended as such. English is not my
mother language.
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