Friday, July 10, 2009
Circular Logic is No Logic
What is so very frustrating about arguing with a materialist is that there is simply no argument one can make that will rationally compel someone else to accept a position or viewpoint he is unwilling to take. There are no magic words that will make anyone believe you, regardless of how well your argument is formulated or how solid your logic. This is because human reason, whatever its merits, is still human reason, the inevitably fallible product of fallible human beings, who, when logic forces them into a rational corner, will almost invariably try to rationalize their way out of it rather than concede the point. This is the reason why philosophers can debate for centuries about any given philosophical notion and never come to any resolution, and why some people never seem to change their minds, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that their viewpoint is a house built on sand.
Most people, it seems, are like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Arthur slices the Black Knight’s arm off, and the Black Knight proceeds to argue that the severed arm now lying on the ground isn’t his, and no amount of pointing at the bloody stub at his shoulder will convince him otherwise.
Rational compulsion towards an idea is hampered by two facts:
1. Any truth, however unassailable, can be denied.
2. Any falsehood, however unbelievable, can be believed.
At first, such a notion seems counterintuitive. You’d think that there are at least some things about which we can all agree. Who, for instance, doesn’t believe the Earth is round? Surely no one in his right mind would disbelieve such a thing, especially when we’ve all seen photographs of the earth, taken from space, which clearly show a round Earth. Game, set, and match, right?
Yet, go to California, where you’ll find the Flat Earth Society. I once saw an interview with a member. He not only steadfastly maintained that the Earth is indeed flat as a pancake, he even had an explanation for the photos: As Einstein demonstrated, space is curved; and thus any photo of the Earth shot from space would doubtlessly show a round Earth due to the curvature of space. Never mind that this is not at all what Einstein meant when he said that space is curved. Never mind that we have lots more evidence as to the shape of the Earth than just a pile of photographs. Never mind that science has corroborated time and time again that the Earth is round. It’s flat, dammit, and that was that.
Mind you, the man was no nut-case wearing aluminum foil on his head, warning of the coming apocalypse and spouting nonsense like “Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy.” Other than in his assertion that the Earth is flat, he seemed like a calm, thoughtful, temperate individual.
And if the sphericity of the Earth can be denied, how easy is it to deny that the universe is a product of Intelligent Design? Quod volumus, facile credimus—we easily believe what we want to believe.
Take, for example, the notion that science has to be naturalistic. While it’s true that science begins with the material world in undertaking any scientific investigation, there’s no reason at all why science must be limited to the material world in generating its answers or formulating new hypotheses and theories. In fact, scientists churn up ideas all the time that have nothing to do with the observable world—multiverse theory, extradimensionality, wormholes to other universes, directed panspermia, etc. Oddly enough, these same people will often maintain that the difference between science and religion is that science is based upon fact and observation, while religion is based on faith—despite the fact that there is not one shred of evidence that there is more than one universe or that ancient astronauts seeded life on our planet.
But, posit that the universe is best explained by the existence of an inscrutable designer who created it ex nihilo, and you’ll be deafened by all the scientists harping that you’ve somehow crossed the bounds of science. And yet note: all they will ever do or can ever do is make the claim; they can never, by any reasoned argument, establish what these bounds are and what has to occur to constitute crossing them. It’s not because they’re incapable of formulating the argument, but because no such argument can possibly be made. There is no philosophical support whatsoever for the notion that science has to be naturalistic. Such a notion is a mere second-order proposition about science rather than a first-order proposition coming from science itself.
Try sorting out their logic. What is it that makes multiverse theory scientific but makes the God hypothesis unscientific? We’re often told that scientific formulations are testable. So what test has any scientist ever conducted—or could ever conceivably conduct—that leads him to suppose the existence of multiple universes? (Hint: answer is “none.”)
Okay, then, the materialist says. Real science is also falsifiable. But that simply leads to the same obstacle as before: how is multiverse theory falsifiable, even in theory? You could only verify the notion by demonstrating the existence of at least one other universe—but you could never prove that there aren’t any more universes than our own, because it’s impossible to disprove a negative.
And even if the materialist concedes that there is no way of testing or falsifying multiverse theory, he’ll merely conjure up some “Yeah, but…” strategy to obscure the weakness of his position. Yeah, but, he’ll say, that doesn’t mean we have to believe the universe came into existence because G*d said so. This, of course, is a mere non sequitur, which doesn’t address the notion of the multiverse at all, but only seeks to turn the discussion into some altogether else—namely, whether there’s a God. And if the non-materialist takes the bait, the materialist will simply counter with That’s a non-issue. Talk about G*d is religion, not science.
This, of course, merely begs the question: Does science have to be naturalistic? Only if we accept as a given the very point the materialist is arguing can we say that talking about God is unscientific. Again, this is a second-order proposition about science.
Rather than being fundamental to science, the notion that science has to be naturalistic is so subjective, there’s difficulty in hashing out just what the term even means. Ask a materialist to define “natural.” He’ll say something like, Well, natural means it’s found in nature, what we can see all around us. And God? Well, God isn’t found in nature. How do you know? Well, because you can’t see him. And you can see other universes? Well, no. So you do you know God isn’t found in nature? Well, he’s supernatural. And what do you mean by “supernatural”? Well, that’s anything that isn’t natural.
And this is nothing more than a tautology, a fancy way of saying the same thing twice—which is to say: it says nothing at all. A simple mathematical substitution demonstrates this:
1. Natural = that which belongs to nature.
2. Supernatural = that which isn’t natural.
3. So, Supernatural = that which isn’t that which belongs to nature. In other words, “supernatural,” whatever it is, is that which we don’t identify as “natural,” whatever that is. The distinction is wholly arbitrary.
The discussion continues: Yes, but why don’t we identify God as natural? Because he isn’t. Yes, but why not? Just because. So, how do we distinguish the supernatural from the natural? Because the supernatural isn’t observable in nature. And the multiverse is? No, but at least the multiverse is scientific. Why? Because the multiverse is natural, while God is supernatural. How do you know? Never mind about that. I just know. We’re no closer to finding the answer than when we started.
Similarly, we’re supposed to exclude God from any scientific discussion, because “that isn’t scientific.” And why isn’t it scientific? Because God is supernatural. And why is God supernatural? Because otherwise we couldn’t exclude God from scientific discussion. And ‘round she goes!
And that’s the real reason why entertaining notions like God is considered unscientific, while untestable and unfalsifiable notions like the multiverse are acceptable. The multiverse, directed panspermia, and the like are all in the anything-other-than-God category, and so are allowable. We must exclude God from scientific discussion, because otherwise we can’t exclude him. Rrrrright…
Why, then, does the materialist say that all science has to be naturalistic? Answer: just because. Ipse dixit.
Thus, the materialist’s position isn’t supported by reason at all, but by simple bluster. How does the materialist know he’s right? He simply has faith that it is so. It is the evidence of things unseen, like the multiverse.
But I thought that science is based on fact and observation, while religion is based on faith. If it is, the materialist needs to turn in his lab coat for a surplice and cassock. If it isn’t, he needs to wise up.
But he won’t. Quod volumus, facile credimus.
Most people, it seems, are like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Arthur slices the Black Knight’s arm off, and the Black Knight proceeds to argue that the severed arm now lying on the ground isn’t his, and no amount of pointing at the bloody stub at his shoulder will convince him otherwise.
Rational compulsion towards an idea is hampered by two facts:
1. Any truth, however unassailable, can be denied.
2. Any falsehood, however unbelievable, can be believed.
At first, such a notion seems counterintuitive. You’d think that there are at least some things about which we can all agree. Who, for instance, doesn’t believe the Earth is round? Surely no one in his right mind would disbelieve such a thing, especially when we’ve all seen photographs of the earth, taken from space, which clearly show a round Earth. Game, set, and match, right?
Yet, go to California, where you’ll find the Flat Earth Society. I once saw an interview with a member. He not only steadfastly maintained that the Earth is indeed flat as a pancake, he even had an explanation for the photos: As Einstein demonstrated, space is curved; and thus any photo of the Earth shot from space would doubtlessly show a round Earth due to the curvature of space. Never mind that this is not at all what Einstein meant when he said that space is curved. Never mind that we have lots more evidence as to the shape of the Earth than just a pile of photographs. Never mind that science has corroborated time and time again that the Earth is round. It’s flat, dammit, and that was that.
Mind you, the man was no nut-case wearing aluminum foil on his head, warning of the coming apocalypse and spouting nonsense like “Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy.” Other than in his assertion that the Earth is flat, he seemed like a calm, thoughtful, temperate individual.
And if the sphericity of the Earth can be denied, how easy is it to deny that the universe is a product of Intelligent Design? Quod volumus, facile credimus—we easily believe what we want to believe.
Take, for example, the notion that science has to be naturalistic. While it’s true that science begins with the material world in undertaking any scientific investigation, there’s no reason at all why science must be limited to the material world in generating its answers or formulating new hypotheses and theories. In fact, scientists churn up ideas all the time that have nothing to do with the observable world—multiverse theory, extradimensionality, wormholes to other universes, directed panspermia, etc. Oddly enough, these same people will often maintain that the difference between science and religion is that science is based upon fact and observation, while religion is based on faith—despite the fact that there is not one shred of evidence that there is more than one universe or that ancient astronauts seeded life on our planet.
But, posit that the universe is best explained by the existence of an inscrutable designer who created it ex nihilo, and you’ll be deafened by all the scientists harping that you’ve somehow crossed the bounds of science. And yet note: all they will ever do or can ever do is make the claim; they can never, by any reasoned argument, establish what these bounds are and what has to occur to constitute crossing them. It’s not because they’re incapable of formulating the argument, but because no such argument can possibly be made. There is no philosophical support whatsoever for the notion that science has to be naturalistic. Such a notion is a mere second-order proposition about science rather than a first-order proposition coming from science itself.
Try sorting out their logic. What is it that makes multiverse theory scientific but makes the God hypothesis unscientific? We’re often told that scientific formulations are testable. So what test has any scientist ever conducted—or could ever conceivably conduct—that leads him to suppose the existence of multiple universes? (Hint: answer is “none.”)
Okay, then, the materialist says. Real science is also falsifiable. But that simply leads to the same obstacle as before: how is multiverse theory falsifiable, even in theory? You could only verify the notion by demonstrating the existence of at least one other universe—but you could never prove that there aren’t any more universes than our own, because it’s impossible to disprove a negative.
And even if the materialist concedes that there is no way of testing or falsifying multiverse theory, he’ll merely conjure up some “Yeah, but…” strategy to obscure the weakness of his position. Yeah, but, he’ll say, that doesn’t mean we have to believe the universe came into existence because G*d said so. This, of course, is a mere non sequitur, which doesn’t address the notion of the multiverse at all, but only seeks to turn the discussion into some altogether else—namely, whether there’s a God. And if the non-materialist takes the bait, the materialist will simply counter with That’s a non-issue. Talk about G*d is religion, not science.
This, of course, merely begs the question: Does science have to be naturalistic? Only if we accept as a given the very point the materialist is arguing can we say that talking about God is unscientific. Again, this is a second-order proposition about science.
Rather than being fundamental to science, the notion that science has to be naturalistic is so subjective, there’s difficulty in hashing out just what the term even means. Ask a materialist to define “natural.” He’ll say something like, Well, natural means it’s found in nature, what we can see all around us. And God? Well, God isn’t found in nature. How do you know? Well, because you can’t see him. And you can see other universes? Well, no. So you do you know God isn’t found in nature? Well, he’s supernatural. And what do you mean by “supernatural”? Well, that’s anything that isn’t natural.
And this is nothing more than a tautology, a fancy way of saying the same thing twice—which is to say: it says nothing at all. A simple mathematical substitution demonstrates this:
1. Natural = that which belongs to nature.
2. Supernatural = that which isn’t natural.
3. So, Supernatural = that which isn’t that which belongs to nature. In other words, “supernatural,” whatever it is, is that which we don’t identify as “natural,” whatever that is. The distinction is wholly arbitrary.
The discussion continues: Yes, but why don’t we identify God as natural? Because he isn’t. Yes, but why not? Just because. So, how do we distinguish the supernatural from the natural? Because the supernatural isn’t observable in nature. And the multiverse is? No, but at least the multiverse is scientific. Why? Because the multiverse is natural, while God is supernatural. How do you know? Never mind about that. I just know. We’re no closer to finding the answer than when we started.
Similarly, we’re supposed to exclude God from any scientific discussion, because “that isn’t scientific.” And why isn’t it scientific? Because God is supernatural. And why is God supernatural? Because otherwise we couldn’t exclude God from scientific discussion. And ‘round she goes!
And that’s the real reason why entertaining notions like God is considered unscientific, while untestable and unfalsifiable notions like the multiverse are acceptable. The multiverse, directed panspermia, and the like are all in the anything-other-than-God category, and so are allowable. We must exclude God from scientific discussion, because otherwise we can’t exclude him. Rrrrright…
Why, then, does the materialist say that all science has to be naturalistic? Answer: just because. Ipse dixit.
Thus, the materialist’s position isn’t supported by reason at all, but by simple bluster. How does the materialist know he’s right? He simply has faith that it is so. It is the evidence of things unseen, like the multiverse.
But I thought that science is based on fact and observation, while religion is based on faith. If it is, the materialist needs to turn in his lab coat for a surplice and cassock. If it isn’t, he needs to wise up.
But he won’t. Quod volumus, facile credimus.
Labels: Intelligent Design, philosophy of science
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Science & Religion, Draper & White, Redux
In my previous post, I cited some of the ideas discussed in Dr. Principe’s course on Science and Religion. My friend (and, no I don’t mean this ironically or facetiously—I know the guy and consider him a good friend) at Agnostic Popular Front (http://agnosticpopularfront.blogspot.com/) took some issue with Dr. Principe’s assertion that science and religion use the same overall strategy, prompting this reply:
(Begin post)
It seems to me that science and religion have strategies for achieving knowledge which are so different as to be quite nearly diametrically opposed, and this is fairly obvious whenever they both attempt to answer the same questions, such as:
* What are rainbows? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%209:12-15;&version=31) < > (reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Scientific_history)
* What are thunderstorms? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2036:26-37:16;&version=31) < > (reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderstorm)
* What is the nature of man? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:26-27,2:7;&version=9) < > (reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens#Origin)
* How can we cure mental illness? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%205%20;&version=49) < >
(reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders
)
* How can we cure physical illness? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%205:14-15;&version=31)
< > (reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine#Basic_sciences)
* Why are the planets arranged just so? (faith http://books.google.com/books?id=gNVB0QnZlXgC&pg=PA163&vq=%22intelligent+and+powerful+being%22&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0#PPA163,M1) < > (reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System )
I've drawn faith-based answers from my own faith tradition, no doubt other faith traditions have created their own answers. Answers yielded up by the scientific method, by contrast, are cross-cultural and useful regardless of whether one speaks Arabic, Basque, Castilian, Dutch, English, or Finnish, and regardless of whether one prays to Allah, Bhagavan, Christ, Deus, Elohim, Freya, or whomever. In every case, faith-based answers get about as far as "magical immaterial mind mediating by means most mysterious" and pretty much leaves it at that.
Even the great Isaac Newton, when stymied in his investigation of the origins of the solar system, decided to chalk it up to an intelligent designer and ceased doing any more research on the question. Meanwhile, methodological naturalists are busily arguing amongst themselves, refuting each other, testing out new theories, refining old ones, and generally getting on with the business of adding to humanity's understanding of the world. It is because scientific knowledge is considered provisional that they are allowed to keep moving forward and learning new things.
(End post.)
Seems to me, Damion makes the mistake of confusing strategy with tactics. While it is certainly true that the question “What is a rainbow?” will likely have a different answer from our pals at Biblegateway.com than the answer proffered at Wikipedia, that is not the point I was making: rather, the point is that in answering the question, both the scientist (I use this term loosely—I DON’T consider the Wikipedia the compendium of All Things Truly Scientific) and the theologian (again, used loosely—Biblegateway is A religious viewpoint, not the representative of all religious viewpoints) use the same fundamental strategies: a rainbow can be looked at by a simple, FALLABLE human being, and a reliable statement about an overall fundamental objective TRUTH can be adduced from it; further, this objective truth is an accurate representation of an overall objective reality—the truism is true, regardless of whether anyone actually believes in it; likewise, the truism remains valid universally. These strategies are all underpinned by various ASSUMPTIONS: that rainbows ARE knowable in any reliable sense; that our observations are reliable; and that truth isn’t one thing in this corner of the universe and another thing somewhere else. These assumptions are and must be accepted as axiomatic, without any basis for proof of their validity. They are simply taken ON FAITH.
Or, to put it another way, if the difference between science and religion is that science is based on reason and religion on faith, knowing full well that the very concept of objective truth must itself be taken on faith, doesn’t that mean that science is just another form of religion? And doesn’t that make them the same rather than different? So the difference between them is that there is no difference between them. Uh-huh…
Note also that in his reply, Damion goes little further than to cite the Wikipedia and Biblegateway to support his argument. His point, seems to me, is that in arguing that science and religion are diametrically opposed to one another in strategy, one need not look very far to find evidence supporting this position. Perhaps so. But not going any further also commits (or, at least, borders on committing) the logical fallacy of COLLECTIVISM—the identification of some viewpoint proffered by a member of some larger group and then conflating that viewpoint as representative of the entire group. An example would be to say that because some people in Nashville like Country music, all people in Nashville like Country music; thus, all people in Tennessee like Country, and since Tennessee is part of the US, so do all Americans.
The point is, not all religious people will explain rainbows in the same way that the folks at Biblegateway do. Religion is a vastly complex and often delicately nuanced human activity, oftentimes difficult NOT to oversimplify. As is, frankly speaking, practically ANY human activity.
I could, for instance, find examples of people saying incredibly stupid things in the name of science. Like this one: Eric Pianka, a biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, says the entire world would be just oh so much better off if 90% of human beings were suddenly wiped out. Disease, he told the Seguin Gazette, “will control the scourge of humanity. We’re looking forward to a huge collapse.” Dr. Pianka has speculated that an airborne Ebola virus would be an ideal killing medium.
Looking forward, indeed. And once again the epistemic superiority of scientific pronouncements crushes the silly speculations of all those religious folk. Is Dr. Pianka’s assertion another example of, as Damion puts it, the cross-cultural and useful answers provided to us by the scientific method?
Surely not. Surely it simply demonstrates that only SOME answers provided by the scientific method are cross-cultural and useful. True. As are SOME answers provided to us by religion.
The Bible, for instance, evinces certain truths. These truths are as real as any truths uncovered by science, “regardless of whether one speaks Arabic, Basque, Castilian, Dutch, English, or Finnish, and regardless of whether one prays to Allah, Bhagavan, Christ, Deus, Elohim, Freya, or whomever.” For instance, there is this truth:
In German, it goes like this: Am Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde.
In Old English, the same truth is expressed as: An angenom gesceop God heofanan and eorthan.
I have Bibles in German, Russian, Dutch, Afrikaans, Ukrainian and Bulgarian, and each one expresses that same real, objective, reliable truth: In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth. That truth is not dependent upon any language used to express it, nor does it hinge on to whom we offer our prayers. Go ahead, pray to Freya all you want—the universe is still what it is, the product of the God who made it.
Lastly, we have this comment: “It is because scientific knowledge is considered provisional that they are allowed to keep moving forward and learning new things.”
This comment gives in to two myths: the myth of the scientific juggernaut, and the myth of the recalcitrant religious zealot. The first of these myths says that scientific knowledge advances monodirectionally and purposefully. We learn a new thing and move on to learn the next new thing. However, history does not bear this out. Sometimes, in gaining some new bit of scientific knowledge, scientists are compelled to revise or even toss out various ideas previously held as true. One example is phlogiston, which scientists of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries used to explain how fires burned. However, once oxygen was discovered, phlogiston—and all the scientific advances made under phlogiston theory—had to be abandoned.
Furthermore, some scientific advances become lost technology. How, for instance, did the ancient Egyptians erect 150-ton obelisks, a thousand years or more before the invention of the pulley? Although attempts have been made at re-inventing the technology capable of doing such a thing, the fact remains that we still don’t know for certain how it was done.
The point is, science doesn’t move ONLY forward. Sometimes it moves backwards, sometimes it flounders. Sometimes it returns to ideas long ago abandoned. Seen this way, the history of science has been a history of being WRONG about one thing or another.
The second myth, that of the recalcitrant religious zealot, holds that religious people reached their conclusions about the state of the world a long time ago and obstinately resist any new ideas that come along for fear of angering some higher power. Such a view is, to use the theological term, a bunch of hooey. Theologians for centuries have tweaked and refined their views of God, nature, and religion, and, (just like scientists) continue to do so. They adhere to whatever truths they uncover (vis-à-vis my comments about Genesis 1:1), and seek to uncover new ones. Read St. Augustine of Hippo, and compare his views with those of Moses Maimonides, and then do the same with St. Thomas Aquinas. Theologians learn new things, just like scientists do, and so we’re back to where I started: the differences between science and religion are not as quite clear-cut as we often presuppose. And the notion of diametrical opposition is illusory.
(Begin post)
It seems to me that science and religion have strategies for achieving knowledge which are so different as to be quite nearly diametrically opposed, and this is fairly obvious whenever they both attempt to answer the same questions, such as:
* What are rainbows? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%209:12-15;&version=31) < > (reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Scientific_history
* What are thunderstorms? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job%2036:26-37:16;&version=31) < > (reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderstorm
* What is the nature of man? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:26-27,2:7;&version=9
* How can we cure mental illness? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%205%20;&version=49
(reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders
* How can we cure physical illness? (faith http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James%205:14-15;&version=31
< > (reason http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine#Basic_sciences
* Why are the planets arranged just so? (faith http://books.google.com/books?id=gNVB0QnZlXgC&pg=PA163&vq=%22intelligent+and+powerful+being%22&source=gbs_search_s&cad=0#PPA163,M1
I've drawn faith-based answers from my own faith tradition, no doubt other faith traditions have created their own answers. Answers yielded up by the scientific method, by contrast, are cross-cultural and useful regardless of whether one speaks Arabic, Basque, Castilian, Dutch, English, or Finnish, and regardless of whether one prays to Allah, Bhagavan, Christ, Deus, Elohim, Freya, or whomever. In every case, faith-based answers get about as far as "magical immaterial mind mediating by means most mysterious" and pretty much leaves it at that.
Even the great Isaac Newton, when stymied in his investigation of the origins of the solar system, decided to chalk it up to an intelligent designer and ceased doing any more research on the question. Meanwhile, methodological naturalists are busily arguing amongst themselves, refuting each other, testing out new theories, refining old ones, and generally getting on with the business of adding to humanity's understanding of the world. It is because scientific knowledge is considered provisional that they are allowed to keep moving forward and learning new things.
(End post.)
Seems to me, Damion makes the mistake of confusing strategy with tactics. While it is certainly true that the question “What is a rainbow?” will likely have a different answer from our pals at Biblegateway.com than the answer proffered at Wikipedia, that is not the point I was making: rather, the point is that in answering the question, both the scientist (I use this term loosely—I DON’T consider the Wikipedia the compendium of All Things Truly Scientific) and the theologian (again, used loosely—Biblegateway is A religious viewpoint, not the representative of all religious viewpoints) use the same fundamental strategies: a rainbow can be looked at by a simple, FALLABLE human being, and a reliable statement about an overall fundamental objective TRUTH can be adduced from it; further, this objective truth is an accurate representation of an overall objective reality—the truism is true, regardless of whether anyone actually believes in it; likewise, the truism remains valid universally. These strategies are all underpinned by various ASSUMPTIONS: that rainbows ARE knowable in any reliable sense; that our observations are reliable; and that truth isn’t one thing in this corner of the universe and another thing somewhere else. These assumptions are and must be accepted as axiomatic, without any basis for proof of their validity. They are simply taken ON FAITH.
Or, to put it another way, if the difference between science and religion is that science is based on reason and religion on faith, knowing full well that the very concept of objective truth must itself be taken on faith, doesn’t that mean that science is just another form of religion? And doesn’t that make them the same rather than different? So the difference between them is that there is no difference between them. Uh-huh…
Note also that in his reply, Damion goes little further than to cite the Wikipedia and Biblegateway to support his argument. His point, seems to me, is that in arguing that science and religion are diametrically opposed to one another in strategy, one need not look very far to find evidence supporting this position. Perhaps so. But not going any further also commits (or, at least, borders on committing) the logical fallacy of COLLECTIVISM—the identification of some viewpoint proffered by a member of some larger group and then conflating that viewpoint as representative of the entire group. An example would be to say that because some people in Nashville like Country music, all people in Nashville like Country music; thus, all people in Tennessee like Country, and since Tennessee is part of the US, so do all Americans.
The point is, not all religious people will explain rainbows in the same way that the folks at Biblegateway do. Religion is a vastly complex and often delicately nuanced human activity, oftentimes difficult NOT to oversimplify. As is, frankly speaking, practically ANY human activity.
I could, for instance, find examples of people saying incredibly stupid things in the name of science. Like this one: Eric Pianka, a biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, says the entire world would be just oh so much better off if 90% of human beings were suddenly wiped out. Disease, he told the Seguin Gazette, “will control the scourge of humanity. We’re looking forward to a huge collapse.” Dr. Pianka has speculated that an airborne Ebola virus would be an ideal killing medium.
Looking forward, indeed. And once again the epistemic superiority of scientific pronouncements crushes the silly speculations of all those religious folk. Is Dr. Pianka’s assertion another example of, as Damion puts it, the cross-cultural and useful answers provided to us by the scientific method?
Surely not. Surely it simply demonstrates that only SOME answers provided by the scientific method are cross-cultural and useful. True. As are SOME answers provided to us by religion.
The Bible, for instance, evinces certain truths. These truths are as real as any truths uncovered by science, “regardless of whether one speaks Arabic, Basque, Castilian, Dutch, English, or Finnish, and regardless of whether one prays to Allah, Bhagavan, Christ, Deus, Elohim, Freya, or whomever.” For instance, there is this truth:
In German, it goes like this: Am Anfang schuf Gott Himmel und Erde.
In Old English, the same truth is expressed as: An angenom gesceop God heofanan and eorthan.
I have Bibles in German, Russian, Dutch, Afrikaans, Ukrainian and Bulgarian, and each one expresses that same real, objective, reliable truth: In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth. That truth is not dependent upon any language used to express it, nor does it hinge on to whom we offer our prayers. Go ahead, pray to Freya all you want—the universe is still what it is, the product of the God who made it.
Lastly, we have this comment: “It is because scientific knowledge is considered provisional that they are allowed to keep moving forward and learning new things.”
This comment gives in to two myths: the myth of the scientific juggernaut, and the myth of the recalcitrant religious zealot. The first of these myths says that scientific knowledge advances monodirectionally and purposefully. We learn a new thing and move on to learn the next new thing. However, history does not bear this out. Sometimes, in gaining some new bit of scientific knowledge, scientists are compelled to revise or even toss out various ideas previously held as true. One example is phlogiston, which scientists of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries used to explain how fires burned. However, once oxygen was discovered, phlogiston—and all the scientific advances made under phlogiston theory—had to be abandoned.
Furthermore, some scientific advances become lost technology. How, for instance, did the ancient Egyptians erect 150-ton obelisks, a thousand years or more before the invention of the pulley? Although attempts have been made at re-inventing the technology capable of doing such a thing, the fact remains that we still don’t know for certain how it was done.
The point is, science doesn’t move ONLY forward. Sometimes it moves backwards, sometimes it flounders. Sometimes it returns to ideas long ago abandoned. Seen this way, the history of science has been a history of being WRONG about one thing or another.
The second myth, that of the recalcitrant religious zealot, holds that religious people reached their conclusions about the state of the world a long time ago and obstinately resist any new ideas that come along for fear of angering some higher power. Such a view is, to use the theological term, a bunch of hooey. Theologians for centuries have tweaked and refined their views of God, nature, and religion, and, (just like scientists) continue to do so. They adhere to whatever truths they uncover (vis-à-vis my comments about Genesis 1:1), and seek to uncover new ones. Read St. Augustine of Hippo, and compare his views with those of Moses Maimonides, and then do the same with St. Thomas Aquinas. Theologians learn new things, just like scientists do, and so we’re back to where I started: the differences between science and religion are not as quite clear-cut as we often presuppose. And the notion of diametrical opposition is illusory.
Labels: philosophy of religion, philosophy of science
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Science & Religion, Draper & White
To my chagrin, I noticed only yesterday that I haven’t posted in over two months. The reasons for this are many, but the main reason is that I’ve been working hard and fast on Killjoy, my next novel. At present, the manuscript is over 123,000 words, and so I’m not far from finishing up. A bit of dialogue here, a plot revelation there, and I’ll be done.
Additionally, I’ve been studying. Recently, I got a catalog in the mail from a group calling itself The Teaching Company, which markets a series of college-level lectures on a variety of subjects, from mathematics, to physics, history, and philosophy, either in CD or DVD format. So, I bought a couple of courses, one on the history of science and religion, and another on the philosophy of religion. I’ll get the one on the philosophy of science later on.
All in all, I’m quite pleased with my purchases. I finished the course on science and religion a few weeks ago, but I decided to go through the lectures once more, this time taking copious notes and doing a bit further research on my own. The course is taught by Lawrence M. Principe, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, who holds PhDs in Chemistry and the History of Science. No dummy, this guy. Anyway, I thought I’d share some of the takeaways I got from the course.
First, Principe identifies the central characteristics of science. They are:
1. Science is a body of knowledge claims. Such claims are held to be objectively true or at least probably true.
2. Science is a practice. By this he means a set of methods for gaining, assessing and augmenting the sum total of knowledge claims that science holds.
Then he turns to the central characteristics of religion:
1. Religion (by this we usually mean theology) is a body of knowledge claims.
2. It is also a practice.
Got that? In other words, though there may be some difference in the kinds of knowledge claims that science and religion make, both science and religion use the same overall strategy. The claim that religion works by faith and that science by reason is too sloppy. Science must often depend on faith statements even though it uses reason extensively; likewise, theology relies on the exercise of reason. Science and theology share considerable commonality. Both faith and reason are methods for generating knowledge claims.
Further, this notion that science and religion represent wholly separate domains that are (and have been) in conflict with one another is demonstrably false. It is a fiction composed in the nineteenth century, principally by two men: John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. These men had specific political and social purposes when arguing their cases, and the historical foundations of their work is almost totally unreliable. Draper’s work, Principe notes, represents “some of the worst historical writing you are ever likely to come across.” And those of you who, like myself, went to public school and were told that Columbus set out across the Atlantic to prove that the world was round when everyone else, including the Church, maintained that the Earth was flat, need look no further than White to find the culprit. (In fact, White’s “historical” source for his claim was actually Washington Irving’s fictional account of the event, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus.) But such is the power of myth-making.
In fact, even the word “science” is an invention of the nineteenth century. In previous times, what we would today describe as scientific inquiry would have been called natural philosophical inquiry. Much of the conflict we see today in the evolution/shmevolution debate is the result of fundamentalism—both from religious and well as scientific viewpoints. Christian fundamentalism is one very small part of Christianity; scientific fundamentalism (call it scientism or materialism) is just as real as the religious kind, and just as unrepresentative.
Principe concludes his lectures with this statement: “[Some] fundamentists’ depiction of the scientific establishment as aggressively and inherently atheistic is an example of the error of collectivism; but in reading the Haeckels, the Hoyles, the Sagans, the Dawkins, the Drapers and their tribe, one can see easily the foundations of this depiction and why it causes justifiable anxiety. There are today notable and high-profile scientists who use op-ed pieces, popular books and programs and other public pulpits to proclaim the gospels of materialism, atheism, and scientism… Too often the claims are philosophically naïve and clothed in arrogant sarcasm and dismissive disdain. That’s no way to carry out a discussion.”
No way, indeed.
Additionally, I’ve been studying. Recently, I got a catalog in the mail from a group calling itself The Teaching Company, which markets a series of college-level lectures on a variety of subjects, from mathematics, to physics, history, and philosophy, either in CD or DVD format. So, I bought a couple of courses, one on the history of science and religion, and another on the philosophy of religion. I’ll get the one on the philosophy of science later on.
All in all, I’m quite pleased with my purchases. I finished the course on science and religion a few weeks ago, but I decided to go through the lectures once more, this time taking copious notes and doing a bit further research on my own. The course is taught by Lawrence M. Principe, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, who holds PhDs in Chemistry and the History of Science. No dummy, this guy. Anyway, I thought I’d share some of the takeaways I got from the course.
First, Principe identifies the central characteristics of science. They are:
1. Science is a body of knowledge claims. Such claims are held to be objectively true or at least probably true.
2. Science is a practice. By this he means a set of methods for gaining, assessing and augmenting the sum total of knowledge claims that science holds.
Then he turns to the central characteristics of religion:
1. Religion (by this we usually mean theology) is a body of knowledge claims.
2. It is also a practice.
Got that? In other words, though there may be some difference in the kinds of knowledge claims that science and religion make, both science and religion use the same overall strategy. The claim that religion works by faith and that science by reason is too sloppy. Science must often depend on faith statements even though it uses reason extensively; likewise, theology relies on the exercise of reason. Science and theology share considerable commonality. Both faith and reason are methods for generating knowledge claims.
Further, this notion that science and religion represent wholly separate domains that are (and have been) in conflict with one another is demonstrably false. It is a fiction composed in the nineteenth century, principally by two men: John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. These men had specific political and social purposes when arguing their cases, and the historical foundations of their work is almost totally unreliable. Draper’s work, Principe notes, represents “some of the worst historical writing you are ever likely to come across.” And those of you who, like myself, went to public school and were told that Columbus set out across the Atlantic to prove that the world was round when everyone else, including the Church, maintained that the Earth was flat, need look no further than White to find the culprit. (In fact, White’s “historical” source for his claim was actually Washington Irving’s fictional account of the event, The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus.) But such is the power of myth-making.
In fact, even the word “science” is an invention of the nineteenth century. In previous times, what we would today describe as scientific inquiry would have been called natural philosophical inquiry. Much of the conflict we see today in the evolution/shmevolution debate is the result of fundamentalism—both from religious and well as scientific viewpoints. Christian fundamentalism is one very small part of Christianity; scientific fundamentalism (call it scientism or materialism) is just as real as the religious kind, and just as unrepresentative.
Principe concludes his lectures with this statement: “[Some] fundamentists’ depiction of the scientific establishment as aggressively and inherently atheistic is an example of the error of collectivism; but in reading the Haeckels, the Hoyles, the Sagans, the Dawkins, the Drapers and their tribe, one can see easily the foundations of this depiction and why it causes justifiable anxiety. There are today notable and high-profile scientists who use op-ed pieces, popular books and programs and other public pulpits to proclaim the gospels of materialism, atheism, and scientism… Too often the claims are philosophically naïve and clothed in arrogant sarcasm and dismissive disdain. That’s no way to carry out a discussion.”
No way, indeed.
Labels: philosophy of religion, philosophy of science
