I said I wasn't going to write anything about the Paul Davies thing, but it's been the hot topic for the last day or two, and I've found myself reading a bunch of the responses in blogdom. I basically agree with most of what various science bloggers have said, but being a contrary sort, I can't help poking at a couple of points in the responses that seem a little iffy to me.
The main argument has centered around Davies's claim that science has its own form of "faith:"
All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn't be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.
Most of the responses have been essentially the same-- I'll quote Mike Dunford's because it was the first I ran across in scrolling back through the ScienceBlogs feed:
The problem with this neat little argument is that science does not proceed on the assumption that nature is ordered. Science simply does not make that assumption. What science does is to ask the question, "is nature organized in a rational way." Science asks that question - tests that hypothesis - every time someone conducts an experiment. So far, the answer has always been yes. But we don't know that the answer will be "yes" the next time it's asked any more than we know that the sun will come up tomorrow morning.
That's pretty much the inevitable answer to Davies's comment. The thing is, I'm not sure it's strictly true, as written there.
Let's put it a different way, though. When the subject turns to "Intelligent Design," everybody always gets all Popperian, and starts going on about the need for falsifiability. So it seems only fair to apply the same criterion here, and ask the question:
What would it take to falsify the claim that "that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way?"
I think that's a trickier question than most of the anti-Davies responses admit.
It's easy to come up with examples of tests to falsify a particular model of how the world works-- the Rayleigh-Jeans model of blackbody radiation, say, or the aether theory of the propagation of light, or local hidden variable theories in quantum mechanics. In all those cases, though, science simply moved on to another rational and systematic model of how the world works. Michelson-Morley overthrew the prevailing model of how nature was "ordered in a rational and intelligible way," but it didn't shake anybody's conviction that there was some other rational and intelligible order to the universe. Quantum non-locality is tremendously disturbing on a philosophical level, but as much as it bothered Einstein, it's still rational and intelligible.
So, how would you show that the universe is not rational and intelligible? It's a tough question. I'm not sure there's any one test that would do it-- pretty much any single experiment could be accomodated by changing to a different rational model. It would require a large accumulation of evidence, but I'm not sure what evidence would be needed, as it's hard to even think about what a non-rationally ordered universe would look like.
The idea "that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way" is such a bedrock assumption of the scientific process that I'm not sure it can meaningfully be said to be under examination in any experiment that I'm aware of.
Now, does this mean that Davies is right, and science depends on faith? Not really, or, rather, only if you define "faith" so broadly as to be essentially meaningless. It's not even specific to science-- after all, religion is founded on the idea "that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way," as well, with the rational and intelligible basis being the will of God. It's not just a bedrock assumption of science, it's a bedrock assumption of humanity in general.
Hell, my dog clearly expects the world to be ordered in a rational and intelligible way-- there are certain words, phrases, and actions that always lead to the same results (if I say "Are you hungry?" she licks her chops, and runs to her food bowl; if I put my shoes on and say "Do you want to go for a walk?" she runs to the back door), and she gets very distressed if you mess with that order (say, by taking too long to get to the door to go for that walk). She used to have a belief that food will sometimes magically appear in her bowl, but she's figured out that Kate and I have something to do with that, and checks it more carefully after we've been preparing the sort of food that turns up in her bowl.
You've got to go pretty far down the food chain before you reach a point where there's no expectation of rationality.
So, while I agree that Davies's claim about science depending on faith is specious, it's not because science is testing the idea of rational order to the universe. It's a problem of definitions, and the definition of "Faith" needed for his argument to work is neither conventional nor useful.
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Chad - Why do you say the the definition of 'faith' needed for Davies' argument is "neither conventional nor useful?" In many contexts, including many SB discussions, faith is "defined" largely in terms of a contrast with evidence-based belief. And surely, this is a useful contrast if one is concerned with the epistemic status of various items of belief -- i.e., whether or not a belief can be supported by independent evidence is not a useless consideration.
It is a basic ontologic problem that philosophers fight over, but in science, the thing is, rational, ordered predictability has always worked---has always allowed for prediction, etc. While you're correct, I think, in saying logic itself is non-falsifiable, im not sure if it's relevant.
Actually, I'll go out on a philosophical limb and reject Davies' characterization of what scientists believe - "that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way". I posit instead that Science claims that everything in nature can be explained through rational and orderly models. While crossing into metaphysics and epistemology, this shifts the focus away from Nature and onto scientists instead, and on the viability of the method that is Science - it is a human endeavor that seeks to explain, just as Art is a human endeavor to communicate aspects of the world in aesthetic ways. Art says not that "everything is beautiful", but that "everything can be portrayed in a beautiful way."
SabrinaW - I don't think this maneuvering will work. While it's true that an explanation of some aspect of nature is distinct from that aspect of nature, it would seem that unless nature is, indeed, rational and orderly, an explantion with those features will not be forthcoming.
This is one reason why Popperian falsifiability is a poor standard. A probabilistic approach is better. We can't falsify the proposition that the universe is rational and orderly, but every time a scientist finds order in a particular relationship in a particular phenomenon, that adds additional evidence of a general pattern of order.
I don't think this is a very useful question. First, it needn't be all or nothing. Indeed, depending on our definitions, it's easy to argue that some parts of nature are ordered and rational, and some (apparently) are not.
Which leads to my second objection. Our observations clearly demonstrate that many aspects of nature are, in fact, well ordered. We can ask what we might have seen if things had been otherwise, but that won't change what we've already observed.
The key assumption we make is that order and rationality will persist in the future. And even that assumption is not absolute. If some level of order that we thought we understood no longer applies tomorrow, we'll update our models accordingly.
And if nature suddenly stops being ordered and rational at all, we'll cease to exist, so the point will be moot.
I think Sabrina was right on the money -
Scientists figure out laws that describe observed phenomena, that formulate our knowledge of the universe, they are not an inherent quality of the universe itself.
This is what a philosopher here (Evolving Thoughts) described as the epistemological ontological error - confusion between describing what is, and describing our knowledge about it. We formulate our knowledge of the universe into laws, not the universe itself.
As petty as it is (and it is very petty), this entire argument is already incredibly petty. I always find it perplexing, reading about your country, how 40 years after science brought people to the moon, you're still having these arguments.
Popper held that falsifiability is a criterion for a statement to be scientific, rather than, say, political or esthetic. What did Davies say about the statement "Nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way"? Merely that scientists proceed on that assumption because "You couldn't be a scientist" (at least, in your field) without it. Scientists also proceed on the assumption that "Doing science is worth the effort." Both these assumptions are aspects of the human activity of science, yet neither need be part of the content of science.
Popper's student William Bartley argued that falsifiability is a special and important case of being open to criticism, and that the latter is a criterion for a statement to be rational, rather than one of dogmatic faith. I can easily imagine a world in which one could argue against the assumption of rationality and intelligibility. Indeed, we're in that world, because people make that argument, and if science had not had such great success, I might find the argument persuasive. For me, the assumption is open to criticism (not unassailable dogma), and hence for me, it isn't a matter of dogmatic faith.
I think this is asking the wrong question. The word "falsify" doesn't even mean anything unless we first assume the universe is rational.
{Sorry, Chad, I incorrectly posted this a minute ago at the F&SF thread.}
The Zen question at this point is: "Why be rational?"
The point of rationality is to accurately model the world and know that you're doing so.
If you can manage accurate modeling without the self-referentiality, go for it. There's no point to rationality when there's something better. But getting that something better is so hard that rationality is almost always a better bet.
Saying that the claim "nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way" is unfalsifiable suggests to me that there is no observable difference between the case where it's true and the case where it's false. If there was an observable difference, we could in theory make that observation and falsify it.
If there is no way to ever know one way or the other, than we should just pick the one that's most convenient for calculations: nature is ordered. This is just a case of applied Occam's Razor. That doesn't mean nature really is ordered, it just means that we might as well make that assumption for practical (but not philosophical) purposes.
That is the reason, not namedropping, that I previously mentioned my question to Gregory J. Chaitin in his plenary talk at the 7th International Conference on Complex Systems, Boston, 28 Oct-2 Nov 2007.
Chaitin quoted his favorite philosopher on exactly the question of how we could know that our universe is lawful, with a pair of quotes also on his home page:
"Dieu a choisi celuy qui est... le plus simple en hypotheses et le plus riche en phenomenes"
[God has chosen that which is the most simple in hypotheses and the most rich in phenomena]
"Mais quand une regle est fort composée, ce qui luy est conforme, passe pour irrégulier"
[But when a rule is extremely complex, that which conforms to it passes for random]
--- Leibniz, Discours de métaphysique, VI, 1686
I countered this with Feynman's (never published) speculations that there might be an infinite number of physical laws is in uneasy tension with Leibniz's min-max Theomathematics.
Chaitin is right, though, that Leibniz thought and wrote deeply on the key question that this blog thread re-discovered 221 years later. Chaitin is right, also that Leibniz had a Complex Systems answer equally two centuries ahead of the curve.
I suggest a very good book I have just picked up, "Just A Theory: Exploring The Nature Of Science" by Moti Ben-Ari. This is a much more complicated question than can be presented in an article like Davies writes. As usual the complex process of science and what scientists do is put into a sound bite to be criticized. What "Laws" and "Theories" are is very misunderstood. I believe that it is almost impossible to counter the campaign the ID group has established. As commenters here have pointed out, and Tuesday's NY Times letters to the editor did as well, scientists do not say they know something "exactly." What they say is they know something to a certain uncertainty and under certain conditions. Richard Feynman in his lectures collected in a book titled "The Meaning of it All" states that "All scientific knowledge is uncertain." He goes on to say that "..what we call scientific knowledge today is a body of statements of varying degrees of uncertainty. Some of them are most unsure; some of them are nearly sure; but none is absolutely certain." As he acknowledges scientists are comfortable with this uncertainty. The general public believes science claims to know everything exactly. This is the beginning of the public misconception of what sience is and what scientists do.
The above would undoubtedly be interpreted by ID'ers as an admission that science is "just a theory." That it does not have any facts that can be relied on. That misconception has been exploited by them to convince the general populace that all science is suspect, whether it be evolutionary theory or global climate change theory. As we are aware this is not the case. And most ID'ers will rely on these "flawed" processes when they are faced with health problems that can be treated by scientifically developed medicines.
What we have to face is the critics of science are afraid of the challenge of their world view by the world view of science. This has been true since Galileo's troubles and probably before. All we can do is promote a return to the age of enlightenment as this and many other blogs do.
There is a misunderstanding of Popper in this thread... Popper was concerned with scientific statements being falsifiable in principal. His is an excellent standard for bounding the kinds of statements that can be made about the world while claiming to be "scientific". A claim that the universe is always "ordered and rational" is not, and cannot be, scientific -- precisely because the statement is demonstrably not falsifiable in principal -- not because you cannot find disorder and irrationality (which of course you can), but because you can never show that these are anything other than local effects.
I came across a lovely definition of faith the other day that has a certain scientific ring to it. And, lucky for everyone, I feel like sharing.
It's from the King James Version of Hembrews 11:1.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
Hebrews 11:1 (King James Version) is indeed nice poetry.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
But "scientific ring" -- I see it the opposite.
Science is the systematic skeptical procedures for avoiding false beliefs in the outcome of experiments being what you merely hope they'll be, and the critiqued, published quantitative interpretation of analyzed facts on the evidence of things that ARE seen, directly or via properly calibrated instruments.
If I were being snarky, I'd add that Romantic Desire is the substance of things hoped for with people not attracted to you as much as you are to them, and both dreams and hallucinations are the evidence of things not seen.
The King James Version of the Bible is one of the great works of English Literature, written by a committee (note that the long list of authors is not itself published on the title page, with institutional identification) and William Shakespeare may have been an editorial consultant to said committee. The oldest texts involved are anthropologically collected oral histories of the transition from the hunter-gatherer phase of human pre-history (a.k.a. the Garden of Eden) to the invention of so-called civilization -- Kings, money, cities, war -- after the climate stablized a millennium after the ice age glaciers retreated. A good collection of creation myths, founder myths, and aphorisms about the rise of settled agriculture, and the surpluses that could be raided by armies, but a bad guide to proper laboratory behavior.