On October 16, in response to a comment by frequent UD commenter Dr Liddle to the effect that we have misunderstood Harvard prof Lewontin in the infamous 1997 NYRB article snippet, I did a markup of the snippet highlighting fourteen points of concern:
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>> . . . to put a correct view of the universe [1 –> a claim to holding truth, not just an empirically reliable, provisional account] into people’s heads we must first get an incorrect view out [2 –> an open ideological agenda] . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations [3 –> a declaration of cultural war], and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [ 4 –> this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident [5 –> a self evident claim is that this is true, must be true and its denial is patently absurd. But actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question, confused for real self-evidence] that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality [6 –> Science gives reality, reality is naturalistic and material], and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [7 –> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim: if you reject naturalistic, materialistic evolutionism, you are ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked, by direct implication] . . . .
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world [8 –> redefines science as a material explanation of the observed world], but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [9 –> another major begging of the question . . . by imposition of a priori materialism as a worldview that then goes on to control science as its handmaiden and propaganda arm that claims to be the true prophet of reality, the only begetter of truth] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. [10 –> In short, even if the result is patently absurd on its face, it is locked in, as materialistic “science” is now our criterion of truth!] Moreover, that materialism is absolute [11 –> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [12 –> Hostility to the divine is embedded, from the outset, as per the dismissal of the “supernatural”] The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. [13 –> a slightly more sophisticated form of Dawkins’ ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked, certainly, irrational. This is a declaration of war! Those who believe in God, never mind the record of history, never mind the contributions across the ages, are dismissed as utterly credulous and irrational, dangerous and chaotic] To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen. [14 –> Perhaps the second saddest thing is that some actually believe that these last three sentences that express hostility to God and then back it up with a loaded strawman caricature of theism and theists JUSTIFY what has gone on before. As a first correction, accurate history — as opposed to the commonly promoted rationalist myth of the longstanding war of religion against science — documents (cf. here for a start) that the Judaeo-Christian worldview nurtured and gave crucial impetus to the rise of modern science through its view that God as creator made and sustains an orderly world. Similarly, for miracles — e.g. the resurrection of Jesus — to stand out as signs pointing beyond the ordinary course of the world, there must first be such an ordinary course, one plainly amenable to scientific study. The saddest thing is that many are now so blinded and hostile that, having been corrected, they will STILL think that this justifies the above. But, nothing can excuse the imposition of a priori materialist censorship on science, which distorts its ability to seek the empirically warranted truth about our world.]
[[From: “Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997.] >>
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On Oct 22, Dr Liddle has made a main response, which I now present below, and insert markups in dark red, continuing my enumeration from 15 on:
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>> First of all, the NYRB article was a review of a book by Carl Sagan, called The Demon-haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. It is very important, I would argue, to keep this in mind as you read the review. [ 15 –> Yes, it is a review; it is also an article in its own right, as many NYRB articles are.]
Lewontin starts off by contrasting Sagan with Gould: Gould, he says, was concerned to explain how knowledge is constructed; Sagan’s project, he says, is “more elementary” – simply to disseminate a “knowledge of the facts”. But he then says:
But Sagan realizes that the project of merely spreading knowledge of objective facts about the universe is insufficient. First, no one can know and understand everything. Even individual scientists are ignorant about most of the body of scientific knowledge, and it is not simply that biologists do not understand quantum mechanics. If I were to ask my colleagues in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to explain the evolutionary importance of RNA editing in trypanosomes, they would be just as mystified by the question as the typical well-educated reader of this review.
This paragraph is vital as it puts your first quotation into perspective. Let me emphasise: Lewontin is emphasising the ignorance of scientists, and the fact that “no one can know and understand everything”. [16 –> Far more, he is emphasising genuflection of science and scientists before a priori materialism, and of the public before all three] This is important, because what follows is that in some respects, we have no choice but to accept an expert view. [17 –> Not at all, we have no reasonable choice but to test and indeed audit experts to see that they are expert, and that they have got their facts straight, their reasoning correct, and use assumptions that do not beg big questions before the facts are allowed to speak; no expert is better than his or her facts, assumptions and reasonings. Genuflecting before a new Magisterium in the holy lab coat is no better than doing he same before a magisterium dressed in ecclesiastical robes.] We cannot afford simply to disbelieve a scientific proposition simply because we personally do not understand the evidence and reasoning that went behind it. [18 –> A big question is being set up to be begged here, the issue is not whether we have no capacity to understand, as an assumption, but whether we do understand the key logic of an imposed censoring a priori all too well] In order to do this, clearly, it is important, Lewontin goes on to say, that we establish a “social and and intellectual apparatus” that can, on our behalf, establish truth. [19 –> Sorry, we have no duty to surrender out minds and blindly genuflect before any social and intellectual apparatus that presents itself to us as the prophet of truth] This “social and intellectual apparatus” he says, is Science. [20 –> You have neatly sidestepped the key, self-refuting slipup at this point that causes the whole exercise to crash in flames: Lewontin actually writes ” to put a correct view of the universe into people’s heads [this is the PUBLIC he speaks of not scientists bowing with professional deference before other fields] we [the new magisterium of scientists] must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them [ordinary people] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations , and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth.” But, patently, this is a PHILOSOPHICAL not a scientific assertion — and a gross blunder in phil at that, which is not even a field of expertise of scientists, and it refutes itself. Crash! In addition, it is a worldview agenda, and people have a democratic right to demand an explanation and accountability.] Now I am convinced, although I may be wrong, that when Lewontin talks about “truth” he is not talking about philosophical or moral truths, but simply about what causes what – the truth about how tornados form; what makes thunder and lightning; where mountains come from; why we get smallpox; why some children are born with Down Syndrome; why we get cancer – this becomes very clear as we go through the review. [21 –> Nope, this is the terms on which he discusses truth and reality: “To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality“. A self-evident truth is one that is necessarily true and patently necessarily true on pain of reduction to absurdity, and “reality”, “physical reality” to a materialist is all of reality. So, he IS claiming to have cornered the market on truth, and he is claiming that the truths of science are what puts us in contact with reality.] On that assumption [22 –> So, everything beyond this point is error carried forward] I will proceed: However, Lewontin next says, that to ready ourselves for reception of the propositions that science will present us with, but which most of us will be ill-equipped to check personally, first we have to rid ourselves of erroneous ideas. [23 –> He says much more, he in effect dismisses anything outside the materialist circle of self evidently reliable scientific/materialistic truth as irrational, from the outset. That is, he has massively begged the question.] So here is your first commented quotation:
[Second] to put a correct view of the universe
[1 –> a claim to holding truth, not just an empirically reliable, provisional account] into people’s heads
we must first get an incorrect view out
[2 –> an open ideological agenda]
Which you comment amounts to “a claim to holding truth, not just an empirically reliable, provisional account into peoples heads”, and “[opening an] ideological agenda”. (I hope I have parsed your comments correctly). No, I don’t think he is doing this at all, and he certainly doesn’t say so [24 –> As just shown again, that is exactly what he did and did say, cf the above marked up cite]. In the context I have just given, it seems to me he is quite clearly saying: we need to construct a “social and intellectual apparatus”, namely Science, which will reliably tell us the truth about things we ourselves cannot be equipped to check, but in order to receive such knowledge, we must first rid ourselves of what has been shown to be false. [25 –> He does so by blundering unbeknownst into self referential absurdity] This interpretation is to my mind supported by the immediately following passage, that ends immediately before your next quote:
People believe a lot of nonsense about the world of phenomena, nonsense that is a consequence of a wrong way of thinking. [26 –> PEOPLE, not scientists, and the next point is that we already have seen a self-refuting claim at the outset for the scientists; a self-refuting claim is necessarily irrational, and irretrievably fails the very first test of rationality: coherence] The primary problem is not to provide the public with the knowledge of how far it is to the nearest star and what genes are made of, for that vast project is, in its entirety, hopeless.
[ [Rather, ] the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations
[3 –> a declaration of cultural war],
and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth.
[ 4 –> this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting] [27 –> We have gone in a circle, but this shows the basic point, science is being turned into an ideology held by a magisterium of materialistic priests dressed in the holy lab coat, before whom the ignorant and incompetent unwashed masses are to genuflect humbly.]
As I see it “explanations” for natural events (lightning-bolt-hurling gods; disease-causing witches; fiery horses pulling the chariot of the sun across the sky), and delegate the task of explaining these things to a social and intellectual apparatus (i.e. system of methodologies) we call “Science”. [28 –> You have ducked out on the first major problem, self referential absurdity, as was there from step one.]You, on the other hand, read it as a “declaration of cultural war” and a “self-refuting” philosophical claim. [29 –> I did not just declare, I SHOWED. A claim to ground knowledge and to be the only reliable ground of knowledge is not a scientific claim, but properly belongs to the field known as epistemology. AmHD: “The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.”] I think this is quite wrong. On the assumption that I have made that Lewontin is talking about “factual” truth, not “moral” or “philosophical” truth, which may of course be wrong, but I don’t think so, I think that all he is saying is something with which you would probably agree [30 –> Nope, he is making a claim about the grounds of knowledge, and the validity of knowledge claims, i.e. and epistemological statement, and one that denies to epistemological statements — which are not scientific but actually prior to science — the possibility of being valid] : that post-Enlightenment, instead of resorting to “superstitious” explanations of natural phenomena, and consulting oracles, or witch-doctors, or even priests about how the universe works, we delegate the task of finding out those explanations to the “social and cultural apparatus” of Science. [31 –> Nope, he has made a far stronger claim than this, and in so doing he has set up a new materialist priesthood before whom he expects the unwashed masses to mindlessly genuflect.]
He then sets up his argument that “the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality” [32 –> Again, you skip over the key point, the claim to SELF-EVIDENCE, i.e to necessary and patent truth on pain of immediate absurdity; this is an extremely strong epistemological and logical assertion] thus confirming btw, my interpretation that what he is talking about is, merely “physical reality” not moral or philosophical truth. [33 –> To the self-confessed materialist,there are no other truths than physical truths, for there is no reality beyond the material] To do so he says:
The reason that people do not have a correct view of nature is not that they are ignorant of this or that fact about the material world, but that they look to the wrong sources in their attempt to understand…Sagan’s argument is straightforward. We exist as material beings in a material world, all of whose phenomena are the consequences of physical relations among material entities. The vast majority of us do not have control of the intellectual apparatus needed to explain manifest reality in material terms, so in place of scientific (i.e., correct material) explanations, we substitute demons. As one bit of evidence for the bad state of public consciousness, Sagan cites opinion polls showing that the majority of Americans believe that extraterrestrials have landed from UFOs. The demonic, for Sagan, includes, in addition to UFOs and their crews of little green men who take unwilling passengers for a midnight spin and some wild sex, astrological influences, extrasensory perception, prayers, spoon-bending, repressed memories, spiritualism, and channeling, as well as demons sensu strictu, devils, fairies, witches, spirits, Satan and his devotees, and, after some discreet backing and filling, the supposed prime mover Himself. God gives Sagan a lot of trouble. It is easy enough for him to snort derisively at men from Mars, but when it comes to the Supreme Extraterrestrial he is rather circumspect, asking only that sermons “even-handedly examine the God hypothesis.”
The fact that so little of the findings of modern science is prefigured in Scripture to my mind casts further doubt on its divine inspiration.
But of course, I might be wrong.
I doubt that an all-seeing God would fall for Pascal’s Wager, but the sensibilities of modern believers may indeed be spared by this Clintonesque moderation.
Although Lewontin doesn’t think much of Sagan’s “But of course I might be wrong” in regard to God, in no way does he contradict it. On the other hand, he thorough approves (as presumably you would too) the rejection of “to UFOs and their crews of little green men who take unwilling passengers for a midnight spin and some wild sex, astrological influences, extrasensory perception, prayers [34 –> No5tice how prayers are discredited by invidious association, as I pointed out repeatedly before; in fact there is serious evidence known to millions that prayers are heard and answered; of course there are those who insist on dismissing the evidence without a fair or serious hearing], spoon-bending, repressed memories, spiritualism, and channeling, as well as demons sensu strictu, devils, fairies, witches, spirits, Satan and his devotees”. And he also approves that fact that:
Most of the chapters of The Demon-Haunted World are taken up with exhortations to the reader to cease whoring after false gods and to accept the scientific method as the unique pathway to a correct understanding of the natural world.
Again we see, supporting my assumption, that all Lewontin is talking about is “a correct understanding of the natural world”, [35 –> Nope, as shown above he is saying a LOT more than that, and he is saying it in a way that builds on major worldview question-begging and self-referentially absurd assertions] and commends the Scientific Method as the unique pathway to that understanding. [36 –> there is no one THE scientific method, nor do scientific methods have any hope of being THE only begetter of truth; a point you conveniently failed to seriously come to grips with] Now you may disagree that the Scientific Method is a good pathway to understanding the natural world [37 –> Projection, scientific investigations are capable of providing empirically reliable results, that we may use, but they are incapable of guaranteeing truth or of being the ONLY begetter of truth] , in which case you not only disagree with Sagan and Lewontin but with me! And, I suggest, with a good many ID proponents as well. [38 –> Strawman, laced with ad hominems, cf discussion here that you have been pointed to ever so many times] You then quote what follows:
[To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident
[5 –> a self evident claim is that this is true, must be true and its denial is patently absurd. But actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question, confused for real self-evidence]
that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality
[6 –> Science gives reality, reality is naturalistic and material],
and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test.
[7 –> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim: if you reject naturalistic, materialistic evolutionism, you are ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked, by direct implication] . . . .
You interpret Lewontin as saying that reality is natural. [39 –> To a materialist, self confessed,as is in the clip, reality is: material, or physical. That is a matter of definition. AmHD again: “1. Philosophy The theory that physical matter is the only reality and that everything, including thought, feeling, mind, and will, can be explained in terms of matter and physical phenomena.”] I think he is saying exactly what he says explicitly, namely that physical reality (why would he add that adjective otherwise?) is “natural”. [40 –> to the materialist, and he explicitly acknowledges this view even as an ABSOLUTE, physical reality constitutes reality] What else would physical reality be? Why else would physics be called Natural Science? We even talk about the laws of physics as “the laws of nature” which, some claim, are occasionally suspended for Divine purposes. [41 –> Strawman, off on a red herring] In contrast, he says, explanations that invoke demons and sprites and naiads and dryads and nereids – the pantheon of “nature spirits” that served for “explanations” of natural phenomena and had to be appeased in order that the world would continue to turn and the rains arrive “fail every reasonable test”. And they do. Don’t they? [42 –> And, pray tell what was the frame of thought in which Newton penned his General Scholium to Principia, or Query 31 to Opticks? Did he appeal to “demons and sprites and naiads and dryads and nereids” or to “an intelligent and powerful Being . . . . Lord God pantokrator , or Universal Ruler” and even “the Counsel of an intelligent Agent”? Is the epistemic, evidentiary status of God the same as sprites etc? (Onlookers, cf here on) Is this not patently an utterly unworthy strawman misrepresentation?]
So he then asks [43 –> Building on a strawman caricature]:
So why do so many people believe in demons? Sagan seems baffled, and nowhere does he offer a coherent explanation of the popularity at the supermarket checkout counter of the Weekly World News, with its faked photographs of Martians. …
Nearly every present-day scientist would agree with Carl Sagan that our explanations of material phenomena exclude any role for supernatural demons, witches, and spirits of every kind, including any of the various gods from Adonai to Zeus. …Sagan believes that scientists reject sprites, fairies, and the influence of Sagittarius because we follow a set of procedures, the Scientific Method, which has consistently produced explanations that put us in contact with reality and in which mystic forces play no part. For Sagan, the method is the message, but I think he has opened the wrong envelope.
And here is where Lewontin gets interesting. Sagan, he says, thinks it is the Scientific Method that leads scientists to reject the “demons” of pre-Enlightenment. Lewontin begs to differ, and, indeed, goes on to say a great deal that you probably agree with!
First of all, having noted that Sagan doesn’t actually describe the Scientific Method, but attempts to show that it works. Lewontin demolishes each of these claims in turn:
First, we are told that science “delivers the goods.” It certainly has, sometimes, but it has often failed when we need it most. Scientists and their professional institutions, partly intoxicated with examples of past successes, partly in order to assure public financial support, make grandiose promises that cannot be kept.
and he goes on to note various failures of science to deliver on big promises. Then he says:
Second, it is repeatedly said that science is intolerant of theories without data and assertions without adequate evidence. But no serious student of epistemology any longer takes the naive view of science as a process of Baconian induction from theoretically unorganized observations. There can be no observations without an immense apparatus of preexisting theory. Before sense experiences become “observations” we need a theoretical question, and what counts as a relevant observation depends upon a theoretical frame into which it is to be placed. Repeatable observations that do not fit into an existing frame have a way of disappearing from view, and the experiments that produced them are not revisited. In the 1930s well-established and respectable geneticists described “dauer-modifications,” environmentally induced changes in organisms that were passed on to offspring and only slowly disappeared in succeeding generations. As the science of genetics hardened, with its definitive rejection of any possibility of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, observations of dauer-modifications were sent to the scrapheap where they still lie, jumbled together with other decommissioned facts.
A man after my own heart! He agrees with me that “facts” at one levels are merely “models” at another, and must themselves be subject to scrutiny, and their provisional nature borne in mind.
Then he says:
Third, it is said that there is no place for an argument from authority in science. [44 –> cf what has already been pointed out] The community of science is constantly self-critical, as evidenced by the experience of university colloquia “in which the speaker has hardly gotten 30 seconds into the talk before there are devastating questions and comments from the audience.” [45 –> Within the materialist circle . . . that is the issue, all of this is distractive] If Sagan really wants to hear serious disputation about the nature of the universe, he should leave the academic precincts in Ithaca and spend a few minutes in an Orthodox study house in Brooklyn.
In other words, a religious organisation can put scientists to shame when it comes to self-criticism!
And he adds, amplifying his earlier point, that while
within each narrowly defined scientific field there is a constant challenge to new technical claims and to old wisdom
He readily concedes that outside
….the bounds of their own specialty they have no choice but to accept the claims of authority, even though they do not know how solid the grounds of those claims may be. Who am I to believe about quantum physics if not Steven Weinberg, or about the solar system if not Carl Sagan? What worries me is that they may believe what Dawkins and Wilson tell them about evolution.
Eat that, Dawkins 
He then re-frames his question: why do scientists believe the propositions of science? Not because those propositions are, intuitively, credible, he says:
Many of the most fundamental claims of science are against common sense and seem absurd on their face. Do physicists really expect me to accept without serious qualms that the pungent cheese that I had for lunch is really made up of tiny, tasteless, odorless, colorless packets of energy with nothing but empty space between them? [46 –> No, we don’t, we invite you to look at the chain of evidence that led to that conclusion, which is open to public inspection, and which is actually largely comprehensible by an intelligent 12 year old, starting from say Rutherford’s alpha particles fired at Gold foil experiments: why do some of these heavy and fast moving particles bounce right back. He said it was like firing a 15 inch naval shell at a sheet of tissue paper and having it bounce back and hit you.] Astronomers tell us without apparent embarrassment that they can see stellar events that occurred millions of years ago, whereas we all know that we see things as they happen. [47 –> He is mixing in a big chain of inference here, the astronomers are inferring on the distance metrics for the cosmos [from parallax to Delta Cepheid variables to supernovae as standard candles etc etc], which are a deep ladder of inference, and then on the conditions and assumptions about the past of light. There is a telling jump from the present to the deep, unobserved past that is done without explanation.] When, at the time of the moon landing, a woman in rural Texas was interviewed about the event, she very sensibly refused to believe that the television pictures she had seen had come all the way from the moon, on the grounds that with her antenna she couldn’t even get Dallas. [48 –> this is of course the key point where he tellingly omits to mention that the man who sent the rocket to the moon was a Christian and a Creationist, von Braun] What seems absurd depends on one’s prejudice. [49 –> it also depends on what one may know of logic and epistemology, which Lewontin et al failed at he outset] Carl Sagan accepts, as I do, the duality of light, which is at the same time wave and particle, but he thinks that the consubstantiality of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost puts the mystery of the Holy Trinity “in deep trouble.” Two’s company, but three’s a crowd.
In other words: why are scientists prepared to accept such unlikely propositions as wave-particle duality, which comes from scientists, yet balk at the Holy Trinity, which does not?
This is the question that Lewontin attempts to address in the passage you take most vigorous exception to. He starts by saying:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural.
So what is this key?
He answers:
We [i.e.scientists] take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories,because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
[ It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world
[8 –> redefines science as a material explanation of the observed world],
but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes
[9 –> another major begging of the question . . . by imposition of a priori materialism as a worldview that hen goes on to control science as its handmaiden and propaganda arm that claims to be the true prophet of reality, the only begetter of truth]
to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated.
[10 –> In short, even if the result is patently absurd on its face, it is locked in, as materialistic “science” is now our criterion of truth!]
Moreover, that materialism is absolute
[11 –> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ],
for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
[12 –> Hostility to the divine is embedded, from the outset, as per the dismissal of the “supernatural”]
To which you object that he redefines science as a material explanation for the observed world. [49 –> He actually does so right before our eyes. Are you arguing to “Don’t believe yer lyin eyes?]
No, he doesn’t “redefine science” thus. Science is thus already defined. [50 –> On the contrary, this is one of the classic points where we see a redefinition in progress, and we get to see the materialist cat let out of the science bag.] The entire scientific project is, as he points out, set up to find out what, rather than nature-spirits and demons, cause the phenomena we observe in the observed world. There is no scientific method for testing a supernatural hypothesis, as we have been discussing on the “miracles” thread [51 –> And as has been conveniently neglected, there IS a sci9entific method for distinguishing nature from art, and there is a valid scientific way to see that something is beyond the explanations of science, e.g if we have good observational evidence and/or testimony that leads us to see that a resurrection from death has occurred, that is beyond scientific forces or explanation.] , because scientific methodology involves deriving predictive hypotheses, and miracles, by definition, cannot be predicted. As you seemed to agree when you dismissed (rightly IMO) the big study that showed no effect of prayer. Science operates entirely in the domain of the predictable – it seeks to derive general laws that allow us to make predictive models of the observed world. [52 –> No, there are many explanations in science that do not pivot on natural law, especially when we turn to explaining the unique, unobserved deep past of origins] This is not a “redefinition”. As Galileo allegedly said: “eppur si muove” [53 –> he actually did not say this, and the whole Galileo episode as popularly understood is seriously historically distorted.] – our models need to predict data, so that they can be tested against data.
You also claim that he advocates that science be the “handmaiden” of materialism. [54 –> Do you not notice his pretty direct statements on this? “It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world , but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute . . .” Do you not see why I therefore marked this up as follows:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world [8 –> redefines science as a material explanation of the observed world], but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [9 –> another major begging of the question . . . by imposition of a priori materialism as a worldview that then goes on to control science as its handmaiden and propaganda arm that claims to be the true prophet of reality, the only begetter of truth] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. [10 –> In short, even if the result is patently absurd on its face, it is locked in, as materialistic “science” is now our criterion of truth!] Moreover, that materialism is absolute]
No, he does not. What he says that having set out to discover natural explanations of phenomena our methodology must be such that natural explanations are what it produces, no matter how counter-intuitive those explanations turn out to be. [55 –> by a long shot, that is NOT all he says.] That is not making science the handmaiden of any “ism” at all – it is devising a methodological “apparatus” that will generate explanations that deliver reliable predictions, no matter how counter-intuitive those explanations may be. [56 –> This is, simply counter factual] To which of course you object! [57 –> Also, it is NOT about reliable predictions, it is about MATERIAL EXPLANATIONS and a MATERIALISM that is ABSOLUTE]
This is not surprising, given what I consider a misreading of his intention. [58 –> taking time to go through, it is increasingly evident that the problem is that I and others have read Lewontin all too accurately] But what you are reading as the forcing of the improbable at the expense of the supernatural is, I would argue something quite different: what he is saying is that by rigorously insisting that our models deliver reliable predictions [59 –> He is simply not talking in terms of reliable predictions, but in terms of material explanations, and indeed say the FSCI criterion, Chi_500 = I*S – 500 bits beyond the solar system threshold, is quite reliable where we can test it. It is unacceptable to the a priori materialists because it points to life as being designed, not because it is unreliable.] even when they are counter-intuitive, we can trust what they deliver, unbiased by any a priori ideas about what is, and is not, likely. [60 –> Notice, we have an explicit declaration of a priori materialism that is here bei9ng dismissed as though it is not there right out in public for all to see.] For example, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics are both extremely counter-intuitive – nonsense, on face value. Yet they deliver reliable predictions that other previous models did not. [61 –> Strawman] That insistence on reliable predictions [62 –> Drumbeat repetitions of a demonstrably false declaration in the teeth of the actual fact on record for direct inspection, do not transmute the politically correct version into the truth in place of the evident but unwelcome truth] is what guarantees even the most counter-intuitive of claims. But by insisting on reliable predictions [63 –> Drumbeat repetition] , by the same token, we must exclude causal mechanisms that posit a “demon” [64 –> Strawman] – or, rather, in less fancily poetic terms, we must assume that the universe obeys its own laws. [65 –> the universe is an inanimate object, it is incapable of legislating laws for itself; it follows a set of laws, parameters and physics that are credibly massively finely tuned to facilitate C-chemistry, aqueous medium, cell based life. What best explains that?]That is the price of our confidence in counter-intuitive propositions. This is why he says the “adherence is absolute”. [66 –> Not at all, as we can simply inspect from the actual text, he has set up a materialist a priori, and he censors explanations to fit it.] Not because he has a “fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind” nor because of “hostility to the divine” but because scientists (remember he is talking about scientists) can only uncover predictive models. [67 –> Strawman. He is setting up an a priori constraint on especially deep past origins that forces scientists to infer to materialistic miracles, of digital codes and algorithms as well as underlying languages writing themselves out of molecular noise even though the number of Planck Time Quantum states of the observable universe are nowhere near sufficient for that to be remotely plausible, and to infer to an unobserved — metaphysical speculative — quasi-infinite multiverse with sub cosmi so scattered in parameter space that we got lucky. This is the result of an a priori and it ends up wedging in essentially philosophical speculations that have as their principal merit that they fit with a materialist picture of the origin of the cosmos, not because they fit with what we know reliably from empirical investigations on the origin of functionally specific complex organisation and/or information: this, reliably; comes form intelligent design.] What he is saying – and it’s a somewhat subtle point – is that it is only because scientists know that in non-predictive models (as non-material models must be) are rigorously excluded [68 –> Strawman. Intelligence can reliably be detected form traces as just outlined, and this is known and routinely relied on in many scientific fields, jut it is suppressed though materialist a prioris in origins studies, because there is a controlling, censoring worldview: materialism] that can they have any grounds for believing the hugely counter-intuitive models they may be presented with. [69 –> False. Scientific models as a norm, stand for their footing on empirically tested reliability, and on inference to best current explanation in light of the observed facts. Except where the materialistic a priori prevails] To take the quantum example – if we thought that scientists could posit mischievous pixies [70 –> Double strawman. First, this is a case of explanation by mechanical forces and chance variations. Second, the issue to be explained in the cases of origin of life and related major body plans is FSCI, which is KNOWN to be explained on intelligence, with high reliability, similarly the issue on the origin of the cosmos is FSCO which is similarly reliably explained. Save, where the a priori is acting.] to account for quantum weirdness, we’d have no reason to prefer science over pixies. [71 –> appeal to ridicule by strawman caricature] But because we know they can’t, however pixie-like their propositions are, we can grant them credibility [72 –> Begging the question, and resting on a strawman. In my Quantum physics studies,the issue pivoted first on explaining a direct observable: the spectrum of cavity radiation. The models could not explain the peaked curve until Planck used quanta, and he could not reduce to infinitesimals. Then Einstein came along and won a Nobel Prize for explaining the photoeffect on quanta. This was inference to best explanation without any appeal to materialistic a prioris whatsoever. ].
Which is why Lewontin then quotes Beck:
[The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything.
[13 –> a slightly more sophisticated form of Dawkins’ ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked, certainly, irrational. This is a declaration of war! Those who believe in God, never mind the record of history, never mind the contributions across the ages, are dismissed as utterly credulous and irrational, dangerous and chaotic]
No it isn’t. Nothing like, though it is certainly provocative. It is explained by his next sentence:
[To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.
He is saying that in science appeals to a deity are in effect to allow that science is useless – [73 –> he is saying MUCH more than that, he is dismissing those who believe in God as utterly irrational and chaotic. Again, you are clouding the actual direct, cat-out-of-the-bag words] that none of our data can be trusted, that statistically “significant” effects may be “non-significant” and “non-significant” effects may be “significant”, and there is no way to tell, because at any time, the omnipotent deity may be monkeying with the laws we are trying to retrieve. [74 –> Strawman and appeal to ridicule. Of course this dodges the very reason why on theistic worldviews miracles will precisely be rare, and the course of nature will be reliable. THE VERY NATURE OF MIRACLES AS SIGNS THAT POINT BEYOND THE USUAL COURSE OF THE WORLD TO A SUPERVENING ORDER REQUIRES IT. I notice, you ignore what was said in response and reply to yet another strawman.] That is why science cannot “appeal to an omnipotent deity”. It doesn’t mean that God can’t exist, or must be denied; it does mean that supernatural hypotheses have no place – and can have no place – in science. [75 –> Material misrepresentation: the issue is not supernatural hypotheses but he abuse of imposing a materialistic a priori to censor out inferences that may point to an inconvenient intelligence on known and reliable signs of intelligent activity. This, backed up by misrepresentation of the theistic view of the nature and incidence of miracles.]
I’m sure you disagree, but what I am trying to explain is that this is not a “declaration of war” but a perfectly standard view of science[76 –> Kindly see just above, how would you take it if you were misrepresented, caricatured, ridiculed, and dismissed as we just saw?] , held by theist and non-theist scientists alike, and even by many theist non-scientists – and expressed by Gould in his phrase “non-overlapping magisteria”. [77 –> Which is actually a similar trick. Since “science” is the only begetter of truth, then theology is a fading appeal to superstition and rubbish, to be of no account and to be locked out of serious thinking. It is safe to invidiously compare it to superstition that no one takes seriously, and it is reasonable to impose a prioris to lock it out of interfering with serious thinking. Never mind the philosophical blunders involved, all is safe because it is a material universe anyway. See the big begged questions? And, of course the scientific issue is not theology but locking out inconvenient inference to intelligence as cause on inconveniently reliable sins like FSCO/I.]
Finally you say:
[ [14 –> Perhaps the second saddest thing is that some actually believe that these last three sentences that express hostility to God and then back it up with a loaded strawman caricature of theism and theists JUSTIFY what has gone on before. As a first correction, accurate history — as opposed to the commonly promoted rationalist myth of the longstanding war of religion against science — documents (cf. here for a start) that the Judaeo-Christian worldview nurtured and gave crucial impetus to the rise of modern science through its view that God as creator made and sustains an orderly world. Similarly, for miracles — e.g. the resurrection of Jesus — to stand out as signs pointing beyond the ordinary course of the world, there must first be such an ordinary course, one plainly amenable to scientific study. The saddest thing is that many are now so blinded and hostile that, having been corrected, they will STILL think that this justifies the above. But, nothing can excuse the imposition of a priori materialist censorship on science, which distorts its ability to seek the empirically warranted truth about our world.]
There is no “censorship” of science, kairosfocus, at least not in the manner you seem to think [78 –> this is a case of: “don’t believe yer lyin eyes.” Sorry, Dr Liddle, we SAW for ourselves what was said by Lewontin, in support of Sagan, and we see for ourselves what backs it up from the US NAS, NSTA etc.], and Lewontin IMO is not advocating censorship. [79 –> he plainly is: ” we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute . . . “]What he is saying is that the Scientific Method necessarily excludes supernatural hypotheses, not ideologically but methodologically. [80 –> Switcheroo. Sorry, as just cited again, the MATERIALISM is a priori, the created apparatus of investigation censored by it so it conforms to it is secondary and derivative] The project of Science is to retrieve the natural laws that underpin the universe. [81 –> Misconception, the project of science seeks top progressively discover the truth about our world based on observation, unfettered inference to best explanation, prediction, testing and reasoned discussion among the informed. Some of that traces to lawlike patterns of forces of necessity, some of that traces to chance circumstances and factors, and some of it traces to intelligence.] It cannot retrieve any causal agency that is not subject to those natural laws. [82 –> Intelligence leaves empirically reliable traces that can be studied empirically and seen as reliable. that gives us the epistemic right to use these traces as signs of intelligence, as signatures if you will. That is how we can come across a strangely shaped or arranged rock and decide if it is natural or artificial. It is how we can see a coded object, machine language program and identify it as designed without directly seeing the author in action or knowing what method he used to write it, and it is how we see code in the living cell and have every reason to infer that it is designed. Absent a priori materialism waring the lab coat with the label: methodological naturalism forbids . . . tut tut] If it adjusts its methods in order to accommodate such hypotheses, we are back in the situation of being unable to distinguish between Quantum Weirdness and mere Woo. [82 –> Strawman and ridicule] Science cannot illuminate the supernatural – it can’t even illuminate the Divine. [83 –> Strawman and red herring, the real issue is to identify on empirically reliable signs what traces to chance, necessity and intelligence as causal factors.]For that you need theology, or philosophy, or, indeed, a pure heart. But not science!>>
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Having spent a fair bit of time working through the above, I can best conclude by pointing to Philip Johnson’s apt rejoinder to Lewontin in Nov 1997:
All the above has done is to underscore that Johnson saw though the problem of fatally begged questions, right from the beginning. let us hope that we can learn from that. END