Revealing in-thread exchanges on the imposition of evo mat scientism/ naturalism (and on the tactics to deflect attention from that)

The imposition of evolutionary materialistic scientism (aka naturalism) is one of the key issues driving the march of folly in our civilisation. It is also very difficult to discuss as there are some very powerful rhetorical deflectors at work.

Sometimes, then, the best thing we can do is to clip from one of UD’s exchanges and headline it so we can see what is going on from the horse’s mouth:

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It is amusing at first (then on deeper reflection, quite saddening) to trace some of the onward discussion in the thread from which the OP comes:

JDK, 94: >>Hi JAD. I don’t think there has been anything in this thread about purposelessness. The OP has been about teleological explanations in science, which is a more limited matter than teleological explanations in general.>>

[–> notice this highlighted misleading point, as JDK knows or should know that scientism rules the roost, and in fact in the OP the whole point of the study was to try to identify teleological thinking as the root of both “Creationism” AND conspiracism, AKA tinfoil hat conspiracy theorising]

ET, 95: >>Oh my. Teleological explanations pertain to purpose, Jack. They even say it in the first sentence of their article.>>

JDK 96: >>Yes, teleological explanations in science, as I said.>>

ET, 97: >>But if you have science saying one thing- the one that goes against what you know to be true because of the preponderance of evidence- even the scientific kind- that is akin to what john a designer is talking about. Then you get atheists jumping all over what science sez to rub it in the faces of those who know better.>>

JDK, 99: >>to JAD: Many millions of religious people (and thus not atheists) agree that teleological explanations do not have a place in scientific explanations. To single out atheists as believing this is true misconstrues the situation.

I know we’ve been over this many times, and it’s not the subject of this thread. Also, I know that many here believe that teleological explanations do have a place in science, which is the topic of this thread, but I want it to be clear that those that do believe this are just a subset of all religious people.>>

JAD, 100: >>If there is no purpose to the universe or life here on earth then there is no ultimate purpose for human existence. That’s what atheists say that science says. But if that’s true, how do they know it and what is the point of convincing everyone else it is true.

Here is a quote from article cited in the OP:

Because teleological and animist thinking are part of children’s earliest intuitions about the world and are resilient in adulthood [8, 9], they thus could be causally involved in the acquisition of creationist and conspiracist beliefs. However, our results do not rule out the possibility that acceptance of such beliefs could, conversely, favor a teleological bias. Yet, in both cases, the ‘everything happens for a reason’ or ‘it was meant to be’ intuition at the heart of teleological thinking not only remains an obstacle to the acceptance of evolutionary theory, but could also be a more general gateway to the acceptance of anti-scientific views and conspiracy theories.

In other words, we are all “hardwired” to believe that there is some sort higher purpose evident in nature. How does the atheist come to the dogmatic conclusion that this intuitive sense of purpose is all an illusion that needs to be suppressed? What’s the argument?>>

ET, 102: >>jdk:

Many millions of religious people (and thus not atheists) agree that teleological explanations do not have a place in scientific explanations.

I would need evidence for that. I could easily say billions of others do.

Also, I know that many here believe that teleological explanations do have a place in science, which is the topic of this thread,

They definitely do and have since the time of the ancient Greeks like Plato and Aristotle. Fast forward to Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern science, who definitely allowed teleological explanations into his science.

Laplace helped stop that but with nothing but hand-waves and concepts he didn’t understand. Darwin tried to get rid of Paley but now we know he also failed.

but I want it to be clear that those that do believe this are just a subset of all religious people.

Except they are the subset, ie those who say what you claim.>>

JDK, 103: >>JAD, did you understand my points in 99 and 94?

To repeat, many people have religious beliefs that the universe and human life have meaning and purpose, but also believe that explanations about such meanings and purpose are not part of science.

Here’s a simple example, which I’ve used before, although I don’t recall that anyone has ever addressed the distinction I’m making with the example. A man misses an airplane flight because a newspaper flies in front of his car on the way to the airport, causing a small accident, and thus causing him to miss his plane. The plane crashes and all aboard are killed.

The man then expresses the quite orthodox Christian belief that God spared him: that it was not part of God’s plan that he die that day.

A scientific explanation of the situation would mention all the physical causal factors (the wind, the flying newspaper, the auto accident, the circumstances that caused the plane to crash, etc.) The scientific explanation would not include the explanation that this all was God’s will. The fact that the scientific explanation does not mention God does NOT mean that science is denying God’s existence: it just means that the teleological presence of God is not something that falls in the domain of science to investigate.>>

ET, 105: >>[Clips JDK]

To repeat, many people have religious beliefs that the universe and human life have meaning and purpose, but also believe that explanations about such meanings and purpose are not part of science.

And many more believe otherwise.

And your analogy is a joke as it has nothing to do with what we mean by teleological thinking in science.

We’re talking about the origins of the universe, the physical laws, the formation of the just-so solar system we have and our own just-so earth moon system, and you bring up someone thanking God for an accident that spared him from death. Why didn’t God just let him live through the crash? Do you have no shame, sir?>>

JAD, 106: >>Cornell University professor William Provine made the following claim in his 1994 debate at Stanford University with Phillip Johnson:

“Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear, and I must say that these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposeful forces of any kind, no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be completely dead. That’s just all—that’s gonna be the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.”

He’s very clearly claiming that since science shows no ultimate purpose and meaning in nature human existence has no ultimate meaning and purpose.

jdk claimed, “Many millions of religious people (and thus not atheists) agree that teleological explanations do not have a place in scientific explanations.”

That’s a logically fallacious ad populum argument.>>

ET, 107: >>john a designer- Jack doesn’t care. Read his pathetic analogy, his special pleading and emotional response.

But he ain’t no steekin’ materialist, (wink, wink)>>

ET, 109: >>[elaborating on evidences supporting a design inference:]

“The same narrow circumstances that allow us to exist also provide us with the best over all conditions for making scientific discoveries.”

“The one place that has observers is the one place that also has perfect solar eclipses.”

“There is a final, even more bizarre twist. Because of Moon-induced tides, the Moon is gradually receding from Earth at 3.82 centimeters per year. In ten million years will seem noticeably smaller. At the same time, the Sun’s apparent girth has been swelling by six centimeters per year for ages, as is normal in stellar evolution. These two processes, working together, should end total solar eclipses in about 250 million years, a mere 5 percent of the age of the Earth. This relatively small window of opportunity also happens to coincide with the existence of intelligent life. Put another way, the most habitable place in the Solar System yields the best view of solar eclipses just when observers can best appreciate them.”

From what I understand the eclipses have given us a window into many scientific discoveries of light spectra and one even help confirm Einstein’s equation for gravity’s affect on light.

(the above quotes are from “The Privilege Planet”)

Our just-so rotation that mixes the atmospheric gases so we can live from pole to equator. How the heck did cosmic collisions do that? It isn’t like we are a gas giant so the figure skater effect doesn’t apply. We allegedly were bombarded from all angles.>>

ET, 110: >> [picking up from a secondary exchange as it here intersects]

daves, If we were created for a reason and science is about reality, ie the truth to our existence (in this case), then science has to include teleological language or else it is a work of fiction. It is actually doing more harm than good by not allowing us to find and fulfill our purpose.

Did you see “Men in Black”? Right now we are exactly what the cockroach said.>>

JDK, 111: >>JAD: Yes, Provine believes that. So does Lewontin. There are materialists, so of course that is what they believe.

But, many millions of religious people don’t agree with them. Millions of religious people believe, as I explained above, that science limiting itself to non-teleological explanations is the proper scope for science, but that teleological explanations are critical to one’s understandings that go beyond science. Science doesn’t include all knowledge, understanding, or belief.

People like Provine or Lewontin don’t speak for everyone. Just quoting them doesn’t not settle anything other than stating what a materialist thinks, and the majority of scientific literate (or the general populace) are not materialists.>>

[ –> In short, we see here the policy of ignoring inconvenient cat-out-of-the-bag admissions and refusing to engage the substantial issues thereby raised. Just as we have seen since 6 in the thread. This also is a smoking gun, a declared intent to ignore plumb line tests that could correct the crooked yardstick. It also exposes the problem of the enabling fellow traveller who provides useful cover for an agenda, blunting and deflecting correctives. This comment mat be one of the most important, most saddening remarks ever made at UD.]

JDK, 112: >>jad writes, “jdk claimed, “Many millions of religious people (and thus not atheists) agree that teleological explanations do not have a place in scientific explanations.”

That’s a logically fallacious ad populum argument.”

I’m not arguing that they are right just because they are lots of them. That would be the fallacy you mention.

I am arguing that the presence of so many people makes it clear that there are different beliefs among people, so that the statements of one person (say Provine) can’t be taken as a definitively true statement about the situation: that is just one person’s belief.>>

[–> In fact, one of the remarks and cites JDK studiously ignores is the July 2000 declaration by the US national association of science teachers, NSTA. Let me cite:

PREAMBLE: All those involved with science teaching and learning should have a common, accurate view of the nature of science. Science is characterized by the systematic gathering of information through various forms of direct and indirect observations and the testing of this information by methods including, but not limited to, experimentation. The principal product of science is knowledge in the form of naturalistic concepts and the laws and theories related to those concepts [–> ideological imposition of a priori evolutionary materialistic scientism, aka natural-ISM; this is of course self-falsifying at the outset] . . . .

[S]cience, along with its methods, explanations and generalizations, must be the sole focus of instruction in science classes to the exclusion of all non-scientific or pseudoscientific [–> loaded word that cannot be properly backed up due to failure of demarcation arguments] methods, explanations [–> declaration of intent to censor instructional content], generalizations and products [–> declaration of intent to ideologically censor education materials] . . . .

Although no single universal step-by-step scientific method captures the complexity of doing science, a number of shared values and perspectives characterize a scientific approach to understanding nature. Among these are a demand for naturalistic explanations supported by empirical evidence that are, at least in principle, testable against the natural world. Other shared elements include observations, rational argument, inference, skepticism, peer review and replicability of work [–> undermined by the question-begging ideological imposition and associated censorship] . . . .

Science, by definition, is limited to naturalistic methods and explanations [–> ideological imposition of a loaded definition] and, as such, is precluded from using supernatural elements [–> question-begging false dichotomy, the proper contrast for empirical investigations is the natural (chance and/or necessity) vs the ART-ificial, through design . . . cf UD’s weak argument correctives 17 – 19, here] in the production of scientific knowledge.

We see here the establishment of evolutionary materialistic scientism in education, here also clearly backed by the US National academy of Scientists, as would come out in the notorious joint letter on Sci Edu in Kansas of 2005, something JDK must have close knowledge of.

I again cite:

{Joint NAS-NSTA statement on the Kansas science standards of 2005 corrective defintition to the 2001 tendentious re-defintition that “Science is the human activity of seeking natural [–> patently, natural-ISTIC] explanations of the world around us.”]:

. . . 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 [–> read, natural-ISTIC, as that is the obvious intent] of observable phenomena, blurring the line between scientific and other ways of understanding.

[–> What, to say that “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 to confuse science with non science? Nonsense!]

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 [–> this is turnabout projection, which will create confusion in the minds of those ill-equipped to judge apart form the credentials of those who speak] are inconsistent with our Standards and a disservice to the students of Kansas. [–> false accusation of educational malpractice, in a jurisdiction with sensible libel laws this would have been come to court with a fat check book time] Regretfully, many of the statements made in the KSES related to the nature of science [–> including, a reasonable and historically well justified correction to the trendentious 2001 redefinition?] 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.

[–> a threat to abuse institutional power and influence to rob students of the accreditation of their education for higher studies and the job market, this is utterly inexcusable on the grounds before us]

Instead, they will put the students of Kansas at a competitive disadvantage [–> outright falsity] as they take their place in the world. [–> intimidation by false assertion backed up by improper use of prestige and power]

Smoking guns left, right and centre.]

ET, 114: >>[clips from above:]

If we were created for a reason and science is about reality, ie the truth to our existence (in this case), then science has to include teleological language or else it is a work of fiction. It is actually doing more harm than good by not allowing us to find and fulfill our purpose.

Period. End of story.

It makes me wonder what Jack thinks science is about>>

JDK, 115: >>But science is not about all of reality. Science is limited to a certain type of investigation: it doesn’t, and can’t, study everything that we know and believe.>>

ET, 116: >>Strawman Alert:

But science is not about all of reality.

1- I didn’t say anything about “all of reality”

2- You aren’t the one who can make such proclamation, anyway.

3- I never said we had to study everything that we know and believe. And if we know it that would mean we already studied it

Science can explore our origins. And science cannot [be] run by dogma, which is the opposite of what you are trying to say is OK. Only dogma disallows teleological thinking from science, Jack. This is worse than what the Church dogma did. At least they had something right.

In the end, if there was a scientifically testable alternative to ID , then we could say science doesn’t need it so it is OK to disallow it- teleological thinking.>>

[–> as will come out in 118, naturalism, the driving force behind the impositions, does entail that science is about all of reality]

JAD, 117: >>jdk wrote,

But science is not about all of reality. Science is limited to a certain type of investigation: it doesn’t, and can’t, study everything that we know and believe.

But it’s okay for atheists, like Will Provine, to argue that science shows that “There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.” And he’s not alone. Do you want a longer quote from Stephen Pinker who unabashedly promotes scientism– the view that science can serve as a basis for one personal world view

Pinker writes,

[that] the findings of science entail that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures—their theories of the origins of life, humans, and societies—are factually mistaken. We know, but our ancestors did not, that humans belong to a single species of African primate that developed agriculture, government, and writing late in its history. We know that our species is a tiny twig of a genealogical tree that embraces all living things and that emerged from prebiotic chemicals almost four billion years ago. We know that we live on a planet that revolves around one of a hundred billion stars in our galaxy, which is one of a hundred billion galaxies in a 13.8-billion-year-old universe, possibly one of a vast number of universes. We know that our intuitions about space, time, matter, and causation are incommensurable with the nature of reality on scales that are very large and very small. We know that the laws governing the physical world (including accidents, disease, and other misfortunes) have no goals that pertain to human well-being. There is no such thing as fate, providence, karma, spells, curses, augury, divine retribution, or answered prayers—though the discrepancy between the laws of probability and the workings of cognition may explain why people believe there are. And we know that we did not always know these things, that the beloved convictions of every time and culture may be decisively falsified, doubtless including some we hold today.

In other words, the worldview that guides the moral and spiritual values of an educated person today is the worldview given to us by science.

Why aren’t you criticizing Pinker?>>

KF, 118: >>JDK,

as you know or should know, “millions” have been indoctrinated with the premise behind the opening remark in the paper I have put on the table since comment 6:

Main Text

Although teleological thinking has long been banned from scientific reasoning,

[–> banned by whom, on what grounds, when, with what sound inductive warrant, given say discovery of alphanumeric code, thus language that functions algorithmically in the heart of the living cell? Coded language and programs are inherently teleological]

The questions I asked a few days ago regarding imposition are still relevant and are still unanswered. Which is itself revealing.

That’s a smoking gun.

So is the indubitable parallel to the well known remarks by eminent scientist Lewontin which you tried to dismiss with a laugh. Tellingly, you have been silent on the parallel since I began to lay it out in 88:

Consider key parallel no. 1:

Pascal Wagner-Egger, Sylvain Delouvée, Nicolas Gauvrit, Sebastian Dieguez, annotated, Aug 2018:

>> teleological thinking has long been banned from scientific reasoning . . .

[–> banned by whom, on what grounds, when, with what sound inductive warrant, given say discovery of alphanumeric code, thus language that functions algorithmically in the heart of the living cell? Coded language and programs are inherently teleological]>>

vs.

Lewontin, annotated, 1997:

>>It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us [= the evo-mat establishment] 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 [–> another major begging of the question . . . ] 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 [–> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door . . . [–> irreconcilable hostility to ethical theism, already caricatured as believing delusionally in imaginary demons].>>

Do we see the ideological imposition and its consequences for science and for truth-seeking?

Going further, it is notorious and obvious from the just cited that a dominant and domineering faction in science, science education and linked policy-influencing circles advocates or enables evolutionary materialistic scientism, indeed in a recent discussion we had here at UD it emerged that this is a key component of much of so-called naturalism.

I remind, from AmHD, sense 3:

nat·u·ral·ism (n?ch??r-?-l?z??m, n?ch?r?-)
n . . .
3. Philosophy The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.

However, this whole scheme is inherently, inescapably self-referentially incoherent and self-falsifying, thus false and misleading. Indeed, it dresses falsity in the lab coat and sets out to establish it with power and manipulation. Precisely the might and/or manipulation make ‘truth,’ ‘right,’ ‘rights,’ ‘knowledge,’ ‘justice,’ etc that I have often warned against.

But I get ahead of myself.

Let’s review.

For one, scientism as summarised in AmHD as it defined naturalism, in effect implies that evolutionary materialism circumscribes reality (which is by its insistence physicalist) and infers then insists that all “real” or serious knowledge is therefore scientific. Whatever knowledge claims others make on other grounds are either nonsense (the delusional perceived demons in Lewontin’s and Sagan’s language) or are trivial and displaced once big-S Science comes knocking with its evolutionary materialistic agenda.

The obvious problem with Lewontin’s “science [is] the only begetter of truth,” or the claim summarised by AmHD “all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural [= evolutionary materialistic] causes and laws” is that this is, necessarily a philosophical claim, an epistemological one.

So, it self-destructs.

Going further, the evolutionary materialism reduces our minds, consciences etc to GIGO-driven computation on a material computational substrate, brain tissue in effect. That instantly undermines rationality, responsibility, knowledge and bodies of knowledge. That has stood on the table since Haldane’s telling observation:

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” [“When I am dead,” in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209. (NB: DI Fellow, Nancy Pearcey brings this right up to date (HT: ENV) in a current book, Finding Truth.)]

Reppert draws out the computational substrate issue (echoing and extending Leibniz):

. . . let us suppose that brain state A, which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.

In short, we see here the imposition of the sort of crooked yardstick I pointed out in 86 above and have also headlined separately:

. . . there is a silly little mental game we can consider.

[The Crooked Yardstick Effect:]

Step one, define that a certain crooked yardstick, S, is the standard of straight, accurate and upright.

Once that is done, no stick I that is genuinely so can ever conform to S: I != S. So on the S-standard I will always be rejected.

This seems silly, until it is in place on an ideologically tainted matter, ask, how can we move from S to the incommensurable I. Only, by interposing a plumbline P that you are willing to accept is naturally upright and straight. But, if you are committed to S, you may well refuse to acknowledge P.

So, if we can be led to set up a false standard S, it can be self-sustaining in the teeth of all corrections, until something catastrophic forces a change.

Resemblance to too much of political (and so also military and ideological) history is NOT coincidental.

Therefore your ad populem/ bandwagon argument is not only a fallacy but a pernicious technique in establishing a crooked yardstick. The ruinous effects are increasingly evident all around us.

But of course, all of this is in a sense secondary.

Underlying is a battle for truth and submission to truth rather than to the power brokers of some ideology or another as a core principle of science. Where, what is truth is also in the stakes.

If science seeks to discover and provide support for accurate description of the facts and principles/laws of the empirical world through observation, experiment, hypothesis, testing, analysis, discussion etc, then it must be free to follow the evidence. The sort of ideological captivity to evolutionary materialistic scientism that is yet again being exposed inadvertently, therefore speaks volumes.

Going on, the key issue at stake is freedom to follow the import of discoveries and massively evident facts on the table. For instance, from 1953, alphanumeric code was found to lie at the heart of the cell, in DNA (and by extension in RNA and proteins, thence the working of the living cell). This is language and algorithms with associated storage, reading and execution machinery that may be profitably studied by comparing von Neumann’s 1948 on kinematic self-replicating machine framework — I often abbreviate, vNSR. Moreover, such functionally specific complex organisation and associated information (FSCO/I for handy short) have — per trillions of observed cases and blind needle in haystack search-challenge analysis alike — precisely one empirically and analytically plausible cause: origin by intelligently directed configuration, aka design. Which is of course purposive.

Going back a step, it is trivial to observe that language is inherently intentional and purposive, with algorithms and associated machinery constituting a capital example, here, a cybernetic system.

[I add, from Crick’s March 19, 1953 letter:]

Trivial and patent, but demonstrably ideologically banned by the evolutionary materialistic scientism establishment.

The evidence of what 100 trillion cells in our bodies screams, design and purpose, is being suppressed by imposition of a crooked yardstick.

The implications of such imposed and established error and folly for our civilisation cannot be good.

(But of course, pointing out such dangers — even by someone who has lived through two societies marching off the cliff — is silly apocalypticism, to be dismissed without serious consideration. As, obviously, is the sort of exposition laid out above.)

It is time for serious rethinking and for taking seriously the obvious plumb line tests:

[a] the necessity of responsible rationality for even science to be done (so the only viable worldviews are those with room for that — and evo mat scientism is not one of these);

[b] the patent reality of code, language, algorithms and associated execution machinery in the living cell (so that purpose in the world is massively evident through scientific study, regardless of silly bans such as we see announced in the paper discussed in the OP).

The power of the plumb line is that it is naturally straight and upright.

But many will studiously ignore its correction to the crooked yardstick.

As we have seen in and around UD for years.>>

The imposition stands exposed.

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Food for thought. END