A Question for Barbara Forrest

_{Cornelius Hunter

June 16, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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In her recent paper, The Non-epistemology of Intelligent Design: Its Implications for Public Policy, evolutionary philosopher Barbara Forrest states that science must be restricted to natural phenomena. In its investigations, science must restrict itself to a naturalistic methodology, where explanations must be strictly naturalistic, dealing with phenomena that are strictly natural. Aside from rare exceptions this is the consensus position of evolutionists. And in typical fashion, Forrest uses this criteria to exclude origins explanations that allow for the supernatural. Only evolutionary explanations, in one form or another, are allowed.

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Comments

----Seversky: "Neither Forrest nor Kurtz are the Ultimate Arbiters of what constitutes methodological naturalism and its proper role in science but I seriously doubt that either of them would claim to be. You stated that I was likely using "my own definition" for methodological naturalism," so I took time out to explain that I was using Forrest's and Kurtz definition. In other words, you objection was not well founded. So, immediately, you change the subject and tell me that they do not speak for everyone. Please try to focus. What they are actually trying to do, if you read more than the small quotes mined and presented here, is to describe and explain the current situation in science.StephenB_{June 20, 2009
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Seversky, ------Quoting Forrest, " Philosophical naturalism is emphatically not an arbitrary philosophical preference, but rather the only reasonable metaphysical conclusion---if by reasonable one means both empirically grounded and logically coherent." Wow. She actually says that philosophical naturalism is a conclusion that is empirically grounded. For one, you have to assume it as a methodology before any physical methodology begins, i.e. "given the proven reliability of methodological naturalism in yielding knowledge of the natural world," so for it to also be the conclusion means that Forrest is arguing in a circle. Two, it is not empirically grounded at all. All that is empirically grounded are things like stones and the weather and atoms moving about. If Forrest thinks she has found the Philosopher's Stone, I would like to see it.Clive Hayden_{June 20, 2009
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David Kellogg, You never got back to me about the Harvard Intercessory Prayer experiment. Was that science or not?Clive Hayden_{June 20, 2009
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Seversky, I actually like this discussion. It shows that methodological naturalism cannot be supported by anything except a philosophy that comes first. And we all know that deciding which philosophy we should presuppose cannot be reached as a conclusion of methodological naturalism, unless you would like to say that you found the philosophy physically hiding under a leaf or stone. The criterion for supernatural empirical evidence is fine, but there is no empirical evidence for philosophical naturalism either, so.....why the inconsistency?Clive Hayden_{June 20, 2009
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Joseph @ 343
What results?
The thing you just used to write "What results?", for example.Seversky_{June 20, 2009
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StephenB @ 331</i
—-seversky: “You must be working from your own private version of MN.”
I defined it earlier and quoted from Barbara Forrest and Paul Kurtz, whose explanation of methodological naturalism I have been assuming and arguing against. I understand that you have no interest in that fact, but I just thought I would pass it along for anyone who does.
Neither Forrest nor Kurtz are the Ultimate Arbiters of what constitutes methodological naturalism and its proper role in science but I seriously doubt that either of them would claim to be. What they are actually trying to do, if you read more than the small quotes mined and presented here, is to describe and explain the current situation in science. In 2000, Forrest published a paper entitled Methodological Naturalism and Philosophical Naturalism: Clarifying the Connection in the journal Philo (Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall-Winter 2000), pp. 7-29) This paper includes the quote from Kurtz but Kairosfocus's "onlookers" might find it instructive to read some lengthier passages from it. I feel justified in doing this since others have felt entitled to quote large chunks of Chesterton in support of their positions but will try not to abuse the privilege. I have highlighted what I feel are key passages. The opening paragraph reads as follows:
An attack is currently being waged in the U.S. against both methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. The charge is that methodological naturalism, by excluding a priori the use of supernatural agency as an explanatory principle in science, therefore requires the a priori adoption of a naturalistic metaphysics. The disquiet over naturalism is rooted most immediately in the implications of Darwin's theory of evolution; hence, the specific focus of the attack against naturalism is evolutionary biology.[1] The aim of this paper is to examine the question of whether methodological naturalism entails philosophical naturalism.[2] This is a fundamentally important question; depending on the answer, religion in the traditional sense--as belief in a supernatural entity and/or a transcendent dimension of reality--becomes either epistemologically justifiable or unjustifiable. My conclusion is that the relationship between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, although not that of logical entailment, is not such that philosophical naturalism is a mere logical possibility, whereas, given the proven reliability of methodological naturalism in yielding knowledge of the natural world and the unavailability of any method at all for knowing the supernatural, supernaturalism is little more than a logical possibility. Philosophical naturalism is emphatically not an arbitrary philosophical preference, but rather the only reasonable metaphysical conclusion--if by reasonable one means both empirically grounded and logically coherent.
She goes on to give the Kurtz quote and then writes:
...Although there is variation in the views of modern naturalists, Kurtz's definition captures these two most important aspects of modern naturalism: (1) the reliance on scientific method, grounded in empiricism, as the only reliable method of acquiring knowledge about the natural world, and (2) the inadmissibility of the supernatural or transcendent into its metaphysical scheme.[5] Kurtz's current definition is consistent with Sidney Hook's earlier one:
[T]here is only one reliable method of reaching the truth about the nature of things ... this reliable method comes to full fruition in the methods of science, ... and a man's normal behavior in adapting means to ends belies his words whenever he denies it. Naturalism as a philosophy not only accepts this method but also the broad generalizations which are established by the use of it; viz, that the occurrence of all qualities or events depends upon the organization of a material system in space-time, and that their emergence, development and disappearance are determined by changes in such organization.... naturalism as a philosophy takes [the word "material"] to refer to the subject matter of the physical sciences. Neither the one [philosophical naturalism] nor the other [science] asserts that only what can be observed exists, for many things may be legitimately inferred to exist (electrons, the expanding universe, the past, the other side of the moon) from what is observed; but both hold that there is no evidence for the assertion of anything which does not rest upon some observed effects.[6]
Yet later, she makes this cogent point:
Although it is logically impossible to prove the existence of something about which nothing can be known at all, it is not logically, but procedurally, impossible to prove the existence of something about which nothing can be known through scientific investigation. Scientific investigation is a procedure based on an empiricist epistemology. The fact that there is no successful procedure for knowing the supernatural does not logically preclude its being known at all, i.e., through intuition or revelation. The problem is that there is no procedure for determining the legitimacy of intuition and revelation as ways of knowing, and no procedure for either confirming or disconfirming the supernatural content of intuitions or revelations. (Emphasis in original)
Rather than presume upon your patience any longer, I will conclude with one brief passage from near the end of the paper which says, in more scholarly language, what some here have also been saying:
The supernatural remains logically possible, and thus an option for belief, only because it is not susceptible to confirmation or disconfirmation on the basis of evidence. But this status is permanent--the metaphysical status of supernaturalism as at most a logical possibility will never change. To become more than a logical possibility, supernaturalism must be confirmed with unequivocal empirical evidence, and such confirmation would only demonstrate that this newly verified aspect of reality had all along never been supernatural at all, but rather a natural phenomenon which just awaited an appropriate scientific test.
Seversky_{June 20, 2009
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Seversky:
It earned that position by being the most effective and productive way of doing science. It gets results.
What results? (The theory of evolution was built and is maintained by ignorance.)Joseph_{June 20, 2009
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William J Murray @ 339
I have found it easier on my soul, and less frustrating to my mind, to acccept the word of the atheistic materialist that they have no mind, and no soul, than to believe that the do have those commodities and persist in asserting the nihilistic negation of their own authority and capacity to reason and of any motivation - other than the same motivation for leaves to make sounds when the wind blows - to debate such arguments.
Far be it from any of us to disturb your sense of comfort but atheist materialists do not deny the existence of a phenomenon loosely called "mind", they just do not see any need for a supernatural - however that might be defined - explanation for it. As for the soul, it is another poorly-defined and unsubstantiated hypothesis of which, like Laplace, they see no need. Neither view makes the world any the less a wonderful and mysterious place or impairs our ability to enjoy our all-too-brief existence within it.
Just as there are NPCs (non-player or computer-generated characters) in a game, I have concluded that there are NPCs in life; biological automotons - just as they say - that are entirely comfortable uttering any inanities that their programming dictates. Unfortunately, then NPCs have taken over much of science and academia and seem determined that the rest of us abandon the fundamental metaphysical principles that make science and argument meaningful in the first place.
Kenneth Miller appears to have no difficulty in retaining his job and his standing in academia, in spite of his religious beliefs. And he is not alone. No one is compelling believers to abandon their "fundamental metaphysical principles" but neither are they immune from challenge and criticism, nor should they be. And the predominance of methodological naturalism in academia did not come about because its proponents furtively insinuated themselves on to various administrative bodies that exercise political control over curricula. It earned that position by being the most effective and productive way of doing science. It gets results.Seversky_{June 20, 2009
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I have a suggestion- Why don't we just settle for the reality- whatever it is- behind what we are investigating? The 2004 Encyclopedia Britannica says science is “any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.” “A healthy science is a science that seeks the truth.” Paul Nelson, Ph. D., philosophy of biology. Linus Pauling, winner of 2 Nobel prizes wrote, “Science is the search for the truth.” “But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding.” Albert Einstein The truth need not be an absolute truth. Truth in the sense that Drs. Pauling, Einstein & Nelson are speaking is the reality in which we find ourselves. We exist. Science is to help us understand that existence and how it came to be. As I like to say- science is our search for the truth, i.e. the reality, to our existence via our never-ending quest for knowledge. Anything else is unwarranted and unnecessary baggage.Joseph_{June 20, 2009
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Mark Frank @ 338:
I have a suggestion. Let’s try working with supernatural explanations in science. So let’s have some supernatural hypotheses about life. What supernatural force, how, when, why? Then we can start to look for some evidence. Without that we have no explanation - supernatural or otherwise.
There you go. Ultimately, the "rules" of methodological naturalism flow from the fact that there are no constraints upon what can and cannot be said to arise from supernatural agency, and hence the action of supernatural agency is not subject to empirical disconfirmation. That renders the postulate empirically useless, and IIRC everyone agreed above that whatever else science is or is not, it is necessarily empirical. Regardless of the origins and purposes of the term itself, and regardless of the theistic or atheistic predilections of particular scientists, that fact remains. Erase the "rule" and it remains the fact that no useful empirical science is accomplished by postulating the action of the supernatural. Further, it is safe to say that the specific questions pondered by the "theo-astronomy" of the early 17th century (say, the relationship of the planets and their sun) have since been completely resolved, and that, from the vantage of contemporary astronomy, it is apparent that no instances remain in which supernatural agency remains a competitive explanation. It follows that, however much astronomy of that day was motivated and guided by a theistic framework, that theism was ultimately conceptually and empirically unhelpful in determining the actual facts of the matter.Diffaxial_{June 20, 2009
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Oh yes, you are the one who sent me to another thread, pointing me to a blogger’s argument against my position as if was the last word on the subject. Naturally, you didn’t bother to scroll down and read my answer to and refutation of his argument.
Actually, Stephen, I told you once already(at 278) that I read the entire thread, that I found your argument unconvincing, and the flaw I saw in your argument. So, to answer you in the same tone you employ, I would strongly suggest that the reading comprehension problem here is not mine, but yours. Listen, I am no Darwinist. But, you have lost me. You use your privileged platform here not to try and convince but to shout down. You are poor witness, but since witnessing obviously isn't your goal I don't expect that to matter much to you. You enjoy a privileged platform here. That you chose to use it to burnish your own ego is your choice. That the moderators see fit to condone your tone is theirs. And it tells me what I need to know about both.specs_{June 20, 2009
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I have found it easier on my soul, and less frustrating to my mind, to acccept the word of the atheistic materialist that they have no mind, and no soul, than to believe that the do have those commodities and persist in asserting the nihilistic negation of their own authority and capacity to reason and of any motivation - other than the same motivation for leaves to make sounds when the wind blows - to debate such arguments. Just as there are NPCs (non-player or computer-generated characters) in a game, I have concluded that there are NPCs in life; biological automotons - just as they say - that are entirely comfortable uttering any inanities that their programming dictates. Unfortunately, then NPCs have taken over much of science and academia and seem determined that the rest of us abandon the fundamental metaphysical principles that make science and argument meaningful in the first place.William J. Murray_{June 20, 2009
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I have a suggestion. Let's try working with supernatural explanations in science. So let's have some supernatural hypotheses about life. What supernatural force, how, when, why? Then we can start to look for some evidence. Without that we have no explanation - supernatural or otherwise.Mark Frank_{June 20, 2009
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David Kellogg, ------"Clive, you’ll notice I was responding to herb’s excellent coinage of “theo-biology,” I'd rather have that than atheo-biology. Or, more to the point, folks like Dawkins posit atheo-bio-philosophy. Clive Hayden_{June 20, 2009
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f --> By contrast, the material part of the Theory of Evolution -- we are not talking about what has been termed microevolution -- is about trying to make a "plausible" reconstruction of an unobservable, projected remote past of life based on traces in the present and on extrapolation of currently observed or "reasonable" processes and principles. That is, it is an origins science, a fundamentally historical investigation based on principles of inference to best explanation. Its findings and explanations on the reconstructed, extrapolated and projected natural history of life are thus inherently less well tested than those of theories that deal with present accessible and directly observable reality. g --> So also, the too often seen tendency to over-claim the degree of warrant for evolutionary reconstructions of the remote past naturally provokes controversies, especially where rhetorical resort is far too often made to misleading icons. Therefore, broad-brush dismissive claims such as "all modern theories of science are continually tested and verified" -- i.e. in effect confirmed as credibly true for practical purposes -- constitute a highly misleading over-reach. h --> Worse yet, given the primary reference in context of "these standards," all of this is backed up by a subtle -- and on the evidence of events since 2005, successful -- unjustifiable intimidatory threat. For, it is simply not true that students exposed to the traditional, historically well-warranted understanding of what good science is (and/or should strive to be) "will not be well-prepared for the rigors of higher education or the demands of an increasingly complex and technologically-driven world." And, "Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation, that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building, to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena" is a reasonable summary of that historically anchored understanding, in the context of the needs of school-age or early College level students. i --> Instead, we can note that NAS and NSTA hold significant prestige, and are viewed by a great many people and institutions as responsible, reasonable and authoritative. So, if they refuse their imprimatur to the Kansas Board's work, then it could materially damage the prospects for Kansan students to get into so-called "good" Colleges, jobs, etc. In short, the children of the state were being held hostage by ideologised institutions and associated individuals holding positions of great trust and responsibility, but abjectly failing in their duties of care to truth, disclosure and justice. j --> Last, but not least, since scientific work is inherently continuing, provisional and progressive, it is the recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of today's theories that gives us a basis to justify pursuing -- and funding -- research that develops better theories for tomorrow. __________________ Just so we have some context for addressing the evolutionary materialist sophistry above. GEM of TKI PS: It also seems that herb et al need to understand that there is such a thing as an empirically reliable sign of intelligence, so that there is a reasonable face validity to a sceince that studies such sings ands then infers from sign to signified. namely, that in contrast to natural (i.e the product of undirected chance + necessity) we have the artificial or intelligent. Of which posts in this thread are a suitable illustration. To impose the view that he only contrast to natural is "supernatural' is to beg big questions, and in a general context that is often loaded. but then, if he evo mat advocates would simply read and take seriously the weak argument correctives, they would not make such basic errors.kairosfocus_{June 20, 2009
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Onlookers: Just a little reminder on some of what is at stake on this matter of the imposition of methodological naturalism: ______________ Recent School Board controversies in the State of Texas in the United States centred on the idea that students should study the "strengths and weaknesses" of scientific theories. These controversies echoed remarks made in an intervention in the even more contentious Kansas Board of Education case, where the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and National Science Teachers' Association (NSTA) went on joint record in 2005 as follows, in the crucial paragraph: <blockquote.. . . the members of the Kansas State Board of Education who produced Draft 2-d of the KSES have deleted text defining science as a search for natural explanations of observable phenomena [note the impositions and censorships implied by MN here], blurring the line between scientific and other ways of understanding. Emphasizing controversy in the theory of evolution -- when in fact all modern theories of science are continually tested and verified -- and distorting the definition of science are inconsistent with our Standards and a disservice to the students of Kansas. Regretfully, many of the statements made in the KSES related to the nature of science and evolution also violate the document’s mission and vision. Kansas students will not be well-prepared for the rigors of higher education or the demands of an increasingly complex and technologically-driven world if their science education is based on these standards. Instead, they will put the students of Kansas at a competitive disadvantage as they take their place in the world. This statement, however, is deeply flawed and inadvertently highly revealing on what is at stake: a --> First, there is no one "the definition of science" that may be owned or authoritatively imposed by any institution or group of institutions. Nor can such bodies, however august, properly demand that we must take their presented definitions at face value; without critical assessment or drawing our own conclusions for ourselves in light of our own investigation and analysis relative to our needs and purposes. For, science is a vital part of our common heritage as a civilisation, and what it is, and how it works are matters of historically grounded fact and philosophy of science discussion on comparative difficulties relative to those facts, not rulings by any officially established or de facto "Magisterium." b --> Unsurprisingly, the phrase on "blurring the line between scientific and other ways of understanding . . ." therefore reflects, at best, a deep and disqualifying ignorance by the representatives of the NAS and NSTA of the overall result after decades of intense philosophical debate over the demarcation lines between science and non-science. For, there simply is no simple, "fair and balanced" one- size- fits- all definition of science that neatly excludes only and all cases of Non-science. (For that matter, the real epistemological challenge is not over attaching the prestigious label "science," but over (i) whether we are using sound, effective, reliable and fair methods of inquiry, and (ii) the actual degree of warrant that attaches to what we accept as knowledge, however labelled.) c --> So, when we reflect on the effect of imposing the "rule" that science may only seek "natural causes," we can easily see that a censorship is being imposed on current and legitimate issues in science of origins, especially on the vexed question of whether there are certain signs in the available evidence on origins of life and its various forms that may be better explained by intelligent rather than unintelligent causes. Such questions, plainly, should be settled by evidence; not by imposed definitions and authoritative rulings by august bodies. d --> Next, it is simply and manifestly false that the [[neo-] Darwinian Theory of Evolution is in the same well-tested, abundantly empirically supported category as, say, Newtonian gravitation and mechanics circa 1680 - 1880. e --> For, Newtonian dynamics was and is about currently and directly observable phenomena, i.e. so-called operational science: what are the evident patterns and underlying ordering principles of the currently operating, observable natural world? (And, let us observe: after about 200 years of being the best supported and most successful scientific theory, the Newtonian synthesis collapsed into being a limiting case at best, in light of unexpected findings in the world of the very small and the very fast; provoking a scientific revolution from about 1900 to 1930 that resulted in Modern Physics. Science is open-ended, provisional and hopefully progressive. A pattern of progress in which theory replacement is at least as prominent as theory refinement.) [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{June 20, 2009
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David Kellog,
Seems like a good synonym for ID. All science so far!
LOL, I suppose I left myself open for that. I do think it would be useful to have simple, public-friendly terms describing the two different approaches to science in question (methodological naturalism and the broader framework which considers possible divine intervention). For example, Michael Behe and Gerald Joyce are two eminent scientists. Behe works within the broader framework which acknowledges the possibility of a God, while Joyce (it seems to me) unnecessarily and perhaps to his own disadvantage restricts himself to a materialistic stance. And guess what? Behe is well-known as a scientist and a leader in the ID movement, while I doubt one person in a hundred has ever heard of Joyce, who spends his time fiddling with RNA enzymes trying to get them to reproduce.herb_{June 20, 2009
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---spec: "Stephen, you are condescending to anyone who has the temerity to disagree with you, even commenters like myself who have only responded to you once. Oh yes, you are the one who sent me to another thread, pointing me to a blogger's argument against my position as if was the last word on the subject. Naturally, you didn't bother to scroll down and read my answer to and refutation of his argument.StephenB_{June 19, 2009
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---David: "Clive, you’ll notice I was responding to herb’s excellent coinage of “theo-biology,” not speaking to He Who Must Not Be Named." Excuse me for reminding you, but you slandered Philip Johnson earlier in the thread, claiming that he used his legal training to deceive the general public about the ID/evolution debate. As I recall, you were going to get back to me on that one. Are you now prepared to provide the evidence for that charge?StephenB_{June 19, 2009
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----seversky: "You must be working from your own private version of MN." I defined it earlier and quoted from Barbara Forrest and Paul Kurtz, whose explanation of methodological naturalism I have been assuming and arguing against. I understand that you have no interest in that fact, but I just thought I would pass it along for anyone who does.StephenB_{June 19, 2009
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Thank you, Clive.StephenB_{June 19, 2009
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----severskyh: "As for the enforcement of MN, I don’t know of any secular institutions which require employees to sign a written affirmation of their absolute belief in - and commitment to - methodological naturalism. On the other hand, I believe there are religious institutions which require just such written affirmations of their faith from employees." I can take up that false assertion at another time. The argument I have been making for the last 100 posts is that there was not such rule in antiquity. Do you have anything to say about that?StephenB_{June 19, 2009
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Clive, you'll notice I was responding to herb's excellent coinage of "theo-biology," not speaking to He Who Must Not Be Named.David Kellogg_{June 19, 2009
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I would humbly suggest (for those who are comfortable with it) that we informally adopt the term “theo-biology” to describe ID, as it allows the consideration of God’s influence on nature.
Seems like a good synonym for ID. All science so far!David Kellogg_{June 19, 2009
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StephenB, I get it. Well put. The problem with methodological naturalism is that, "It discredits supernatural stories that have some foundation, simply by telling natural stories that have no foundation...It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one thing following another), which are, in the true sense of the word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences...I observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened--dawn and death and so on--as if THEY were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as NECESSARY as the fact that two and one trees make three. But it is not...These men in spectacles spoke much of a man named Newton, who was hit by an apple, and who discovered a law. But they could not be got to see the distinction between a true law, a law of reason, and the mere fact of apples falling. If the apple hit Newton's nose, Newton's nose hit the apple. That is a true necessity: because we cannot conceive the one occurring without the other. But we can quite well conceive the apple not falling on his nose; we can fancy it flying ardently through the air to hit some other nose, of which it had a more definite dislike. We have always in our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental relations, in which there really are laws, and the science of physical facts, in which there are no laws, but only weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles, but not in mental impossibilities...The man of science says, "Cut the stalk, and the apple will fall"; but he says it calmly, as if the one idea really led up to the other...But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until they imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the tree and an apple reaching the ground. They do really talk as if they had found not only a set of marvellous facts, but a truth connecting those facts. They do talk as if the connection of two strange things physically connected them philosophically. They feel that because one incomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thing the two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing. Two black riddles make a white answer... A law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation and enactment; not merely that we have noticed some of the effects. If there is a law that pick-pockets shall go to prison, it implies that there is an imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the idea of picking pockets. And we know what the idea is. We can say why we take liberty from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. As IDEAS, the egg and the chicken are further off from each other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears. Granted, then, that certain transformations do happen, it is essential that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the "Laws of Nature." It is not a "law," for we do not understand its general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen. It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the terms used in the science books, "law," "necessity," "order," "tendency," and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess." G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/ortho14.txt As for the dangers of Methodological Naturalism, it eventually includes ourselves: "The process whereby man has come to know the universe is from one point of view extremely complicated; from another it is alarmingly simple. We can observe a single one-way progression. At the outset the universe appears packed with will, intelligence, life and positive qualities; every tree is a nymph and every planet a god. Man himself is akin to the gods. The advance of knowledge gradually empties this rich and genial universe: first of its gods, then of its colors, smells, sounds and tastes, finally of solidity itself as solidity was originally imagined. As these items are taken from the world, they are transferred to the subjective side of the account: classified as our sensations, thoughts, images or emotions. The Subject becomes gorged, inflated, at the expense of the Object. But the matter does not rest here. The same method which has emptied the world now proceeds to empty ourselves. The masters of the method soon announce that we were just as mistaken (and mistaken in much the same way) when we attributed "souls", or "selves" or "minds" to human organisms, as when we attributed Dryads to the trees. Animism, apparently, begins at home. We, who have personified all other things, turn out to be ourselves mere personifications. Man is indeed akin to the gods: that is, he is no less phantasmal than they. Just as the Dryad is a "ghost", an abbreviated symbol for all the facts we know about the tree foolishly mistaken for a mysterious entity over and above the facts, so the man's "mind" or "consciousness" is an abbreviated symbol for certain verifiable facts about his behaviour: a symbol mistaken for a thing. And just as we have been broken of our bad habit of personifying trees, so we must now be broken of our bad habit of personifying men: a reform already effected in the political field. There never was a Subjective account into which we could transfer the items into which the Object had lost. There is no "consciousness" to contain, as images or private experiences, all the lost gods, colours, and concepts. Consciousness is "not the sort of noun that can be used that way." For we are given to understand that our mistake was a linguistic one. All our previous theologies, metaphysics, and psychologies were a by-product of our bad grammar. Max Muller's formula (Mythology is a disease of language) from "The Science of Language", 1864, thus returns with a wider scope than he ever dreamed of. We were not even imagining these things, we were only talking confusedly. All the questions which humanity has hitherto asked with deepest concern for the answer turn out to be unanswerable; not because the answers are hidden from us like "goddess privitee" from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", but because they are nonsense questions like "How far is it from London Bridge to Christmas Day?" What we thought we were loving when we loved a woman or a friend was not even a phantom like the phantom sail which starving sailors think they see on the horizon. It was something more like a pun or a sophisma per figuram dictionis (sophism disguised as language). It is though a man, deceived by the linguistic similarity between "myself" and "my spectacles", should start looking round for his "self" to put in his pocket before he left his bedroom in the morning: he might want it during the course of the day. If we lament the discovery that our friends have no "selves" in the old sense, we shall be behaving like a man who shed bitter tears at being unable to find his "self" anywhere on the dressing-table or even underneath it. And thus we arrive at a result uncommonly like zero. While we were reducing the world to almost nothing we deceived ourselves with the fancy that all its lost qualities were being kept safe (if in a somewhat humbled condition) as "things in our own mind". Apparently we had no mind of the sort required. The Subject is as empty as the Object. Almost nobody has been making linguistic mistakes about almost nothing. By and large, this is the only thing that has ever happened. Now the trouble about this conclusion is not simply that it is unwelcome to our emotions. It is not unwelcome at all times or in all people. This philosophy, like every other, has its pleasures. And it will, I fancy, prove very congenial to government. The old "liberty-talk" was very much mixed up with the idea that , as inside the ruler, so inside the subject, there was a whole world, to him the centre of all worlds, capacious of endless suffering and delight. But now, of course, he has no "inside", except the sort you can find by cutting him open. If I had to burn a man alive, I think I should find this doctrine comfortable. The real difficulty for most of us is more like a physical difficulty: we find it impossible to keep our minds, even for ten seconds at a stretch, twisted into the shape that this philosophy demands. And, to do him justice, Hume (who is its great ancestor) warned us not to try. He recommended backgammon instead; and freely admitted that when, after a suitable dose, we returned to our theory, we should find it "cold and strained and ridiculous" in "A Treatise of Human Nature", Book I, Part iv, section vii. And obviously, if we really must accept nihilism, that is how we shall have to live: just as, if we have diabetes, we must take insulin. But one would rather not have diabetes and do without the insulin. If there should, after all, turn out to be any alternative to a philosophy that can be supported only by repeated (and presumably increasing) doses of backgammon, I suppose that most people would be glad to hear of it. There is indeed (or so I am told) one way of living under this philosophy without the backgammon, but it is not one a man would like to try. I have heard that there are states of insanity in which such a nihilistic doctrine becomes really credible: that is, as Dr. I.A. Richards would say, "belief feelings" are attached to it, in his book Principles of Literary Criticism, 1924. The patient has the experience of being nobody in a world of nobodies and nothings. Those who return from this condition describe it as highly disagreeable. Now there is of course nothing new in the attempt to arrest the process that has led us from the living universe where man meets the gods to the final void where almost-nobody discovers his mistakes about almost-nothing. Every step in that process has been contested. Many rearguard actions have been fought: some are being fought at the moment. But is has only been a question of arresting, not of reversing, the movement. That is what makes Mr. Harding's book so important. If it "works", then we shall have seen the beginning of a reversal: not a stand here, or a stand there, but a kind of thought which attempts to reopen the whole question. And we feel sure in advance that only thought of this type can help. The fatal slip which has led us to nihilism must have occurred at the very beginning. There is of course no question of returning to Animism as Animism was before the "rot" began. No one supposes that the beliefs of pre-philosophic humanity, just as they stood before they were criticized, can or should be restored. The question is whether the first thinkers in modifying (and rightly modifying) them under the criticism, did not make some rash and unnecessary concession. It was certainly not there intention to commit us to the absurd consequence that have actually followed. This sort of error is of course very common in debate or even in solitary thought. We start with a view which contains a good deal of truth, though in a confused or exaggerated form. Objections are then suggested and we withdraw it. But hours later we discover that we have emptied the baby out with the bath water and that the original view must have contained certain truths for lack of which we are now tangled in absurdities. So here. In emptying out the Dryads and the gods (which, admittedly, "would not do" just as they stood) we appear to have thrown out the whole universe, ourselves included. We must go back and begin over again: this time with a better chance of success, for of course we can now use all particular truths and all improvements of method which our argument may have thrown up as by-products in its otherwise ruinous course." C.S. Lewis, The Empty Universe This essay was first published as a Preface to D.E. Harding's The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth: A New Diagram of Man in the Universe (London, 1952). Clive Hayden_{June 19, 2009
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StephenB @ 283
All this is part of the scientific approach and has nothing at all to do with one group of scientists imposing methodological standards on another group of scientists. We have already established that fact that nothing like methodological naturalism has ever happened before.
No, we have evidence that the term is of recent origin but the concept and practice of studying the phenomena of the world according to their natures goes much further back.
“The fact is that even if the bane of all believers here - ‘naturalistic’ and atheist science - were banned by decree, it would not change the need for similar methods to those described above if science were to continue as a distinct human enterprise...And what of the Muslim who proclaims that Allah is the one and only true god, let alone all the other religions and gods? Who is to decide which is the true one? How do you decide which, if any, is the true one?”
That statement is not relevant to the discussion.
Lofty dismissals notwithstanding, science is, amongst other things, a means of deciding between the claims of competing explanations. The different religions of the world can be viewed as offering competing explanations of how it all came to be. How else is an uncommitted observer to make a rational choice as to which is the best if not by the scientific method?
If the line between natural and supernatural cannot be established, then there is no way to enforce or even define methodological naturalism. Did you not even read Dr. Hunter’s post? I can easily discern that you did not.
As you say, if there is no distinction between natural and supernatural then all this complaining about MN is rather pointless, don't you think? As for the enforcement of MN, I don't know of any secular institutions which require employees to sign a written affirmation of their absolute belief in - and commitment to - methodological naturalism. On the other hand, I believe there are religious institutions which require just such written affirmations of their faith from employees. With respect to my opinion of Cornelius Hunter's work, it is better left unsaid.
According to methodological naturalism, any ID inference to design in the biological realm is non-scientific by definition. Again, you have a moral obligation to investigate this subject prior to commenting on it, especially at this late date.
You must be working from your own private version of MN. There is no problem in science with inferences about intelligent design, forensic scientists, anthropologists and archeologists are doing it all the time. But then they have strong evidence for the existence of the intelligent designers they are studying, of course.Seversky_{June 19, 2009
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Also, keep in mind that I have far exceeded the requirements for making my case. While the early scientists did, indeed, claim to be "thinking God's thoughts after him," and while they did indeed appeal to theological beliefs to shape their scientific ideas, [and while I am prepared to provide 50 more examples] the only burden of proof I have to meet is to show that there was no RULE to PREVENT it, which is the essence of methodological naturalism. Obviously, there could have been no prohibition against that which everyone was doing. I know this point of over the head of the Darwinists, but do the rest of you get it?StephenB_{June 19, 2009
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----herb: "Excellent pointB—I missed how RDK had omitted the “theo” (as he is required to do under methodological naturalism, appropriately enough!). I would humbly suggest (for those who are comfortable with it) that we informally adopt the term “theo-biology” to describe ID, as it allows the consideration of God’s influence on nature." Thanks for noticing herb. Also, if you look back at David Kellogg's responses [and RDK's responses] you will notice that they do this with every correspondence. Hence, I coined the term, "fact dodging, context twisting, false framing sophistry."StephenB_{June 19, 2009
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---David Kellogg: "I have no interest in continuing a discussion with someone who behaves in such a manner.” Well, then, why are you continuuing? I have an idea. Why don't you and I enter into a little social contract. You promise not to speak to or comment about me from now until the end of the year, and I will promise not to speak to or comment about you until the end of the year. Further, if either of us violates that contract for any reason, he is, with the administrator's approval, to be put on moderation for the first offense and banned from the website for the second offense.StephenB_{June 19, 2009
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StephenB,
Anton Maria Schyrleus wrote a work on “theo-astronomy” and dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Excellent pointB---I missed how RDK had omitted the "theo" (as he is required to do under methodological naturalism, appropriately enough!). I would humbly suggest (for those who are comfortable with it) that we informally adopt the term "theo-biology" to describe ID, as it allows the consideration of God's influence on nature.herb_{June 19, 2009
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