Thursday, July 16, 2009
Contrasts
PZ Myers points to Sean Carroll's article as if it is a good thing, demonstrating that Carroll is not alone among scientists who concurrently do not understand philosophy but, nonetheless, deride it -- much as Ray Comfort treats evolutionary biology. Interestingly, PZ also points to Daniel Dennett's article on the belief in belief. I'll leave it to the reader to judge how well he makes the case that belief in religious belief is not necessary (though, inevitably, he does better than Carroll did). What I find interesting is this:"[B]elief in belief" is a common phenomenon not restricted to religions. Economists realise that a sound currency depends on people believing that the currency is sound, and scientists recognise that the actual objectivity of scientific studies on global warming is politically impotent unless people believe in that objectivity, so economists and scientists (among others) take steps to foster and protect such beliefs that they think are benign. That's acting on belief in belief.
But if the public sees scientists asserting what are clearly their own metaphysical beliefs but labeling those beliefs as "science," will not that fact hurt the belief in the belief of science's objectivity?
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Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Good Science, Bad Philosophy
[Sigh!]Here we go again. Scientists are justly upset with people who have no experience or knowledge in their field nonetheless presuming to lecture them on science. For some reason, scientists who have obviously never put much effort into studying philosophy think themselves competent to babble on about it.
The latest to fall victim, in a rather spectacular way, to this syndrome is the physicist Sean Carroll, who is admittedly uninterested in philosophy, but who does not let that stop him. He gets off on the wrong foot (the one with the bullet in it) by claiming that, on the issue of what sort of questions science is competent to answer:
... one popular but very bad strategy for answering this question [is]: first, attempt to distill the essence of "science" down to some punchy motto, and then ask what questions fall under the purview of that motto. At various points throughout history, popular mottos of choice might have been "the Baconian scientific method" or "logical positivism" or "Popperian falsificationism" or "methodological naturalism." But this tactic always leads to trouble. Science is a messy human endeavor, notoriously hard to boil down to cut-and-dried procedures.I'm quite sure that the generations of philosophers (and scientists interested in philosophy) who have formulated, studied, critiqued and attempted to improve on those systems of thought over hundreds of years, would have been, and are, quite surprised to learn that they've only been working on "punchy mottoes."
I'm afraid that it doesn't take any great skill in prediction to surmise that anyone who thinks those philosophical systems are just popular mottoes, unsuitable to cover the "hard to boil down to cut-and-dried procedures" of science, is getting ready to boil science down to some cut-and-dried procedure embodied in something very like a motto. Carroll does not disappoint the prognosticator, even if he disappoints those who hope that scientists might be a bit more cogent and self-aware thinkers.
Carroll sweeps all those mottoes aside by first presenting an example:
Here is my favorite example question. Alpha Centauri A is a G-type star a little over four light years away. Now pick some very particular moment one billion years ago, and zoom in to the precise center of the star. Protons and electrons are colliding with each other all the time. Consider the collision of two electrons nearest to that exact time and that precise point in space. Now let's ask: was momentum conserved in that collision? ...Let's just stop here and note that Carroll is appealing to induction as a process that delivers "truth." But how does he know that? Over 200 hundred years ago, one of those motto producers, David Hume, pointed out that anyone who looks to empiricism cannot justify the truth-delivering qualities of induction because the only possible empiric evidence on the subject comes from experience -- in other words, from induction. We "know" induction produces truth because, in our experience, induction produces truth. That itself is an induction and trying to justify induction by an induction is circular reasoning, a logical fallacy. No one has solved this conundrum in the time since Hume but that doesn't bother Carroll, probably because he is unaware of it and ignorance is bliss.
... The scientific answer to this question is: of course, the momentum was conserved. Conservation of momentum is a principle of science that has been tested to very high accuracy by all sorts of experiments, we have every reason to believe it held true in that particular collision, and absolutely no reason to doubt it; therefore, it's perfectly reasonable to say that momentum was conserved.
Carroll continues:
[S]cience does not proceed phenomenon by phenomenon. Science constructs theories, and then compares them to empirically-collected data, and decides which theories provide better fits to the data. The definition of "better" is notoriously slippery in this case, but one thing is clear: if two theories make the same kinds of predictions for observable phenomena, but one is much simpler, we're always going to prefer the simpler one.This is, of course, Occam's Razor, which is far closer to an empty motto than the Baconian method, logical positivism, falsificationism or methodological naturalism. In fact the razor is a rule of thumb for making a first approximation (less formally known as "a guess"). Carroll cites to the replacement of determinism with quantum uncertainty as an example of science appealing to "the inference to the best explanation." I'd dearly like to know by what metric he determined quantum mechanics to be "simpler" than determinism. In any event, what guarantee of truth does the razor deliver even if you can manage to wield it rationally? As Samir Okasha's Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction states:
The idea that simplicity or parsimony is the mark of a good explanation is quite appealing, and certainly helps flesh out the idea of [the inference to the best explanation]. But if scientists use simplicity as a guide to inference, this raises a problem. For how do we know that the universe is simple rather than complex? Preferring a theory that explains the data in terms of the fewest number of causes does seem sensible. But is there any objective reason for thinking that such a theory is more likely to be true than a less simple theory? Philosophers of science do not agree on the answer to this difficult question.Simplicity is surely attractive to those who want to think simplistically but does it have any truth-delivering capability? After all, it is the inference to best explanation and Occam's razor that the Intelligent Design Creationists appeal to. As Carroll notes, the IDers, like Carroll, don't see methodological naturalism as standing in their way:
There's no obstacle in principle to imagining that the normal progress of science could one day conclude that the invocation of a supernatural component was the best way of understanding the universe. Indeed, this scenario is basically the hope of most proponents of Intelligent Design.Carroll may not understand, or may not care, but, if his account of science is correct, then ID cannot be barred from American public classrooms. It is, under his version of science, a valid attempt at science and, even if he thinks it is wrong or unsupported, it cannot be barred from public classrooms just because it has religious implications. Nor is there any basis under our law to bar it just because it is "bad" science. Of course, simply because it will have bad consequences doesn't mean that Carroll's definition of science is wrong but, if your version of science includes something so clearly not science, it may be time to reexamine your definition.
But Carroll isn't done with the razor. Based on it he declares:
In the real world, by far the most compelling theoretical framework consistent with the data is one in which everything that happens is perfectly accounted for by natural phenomena. No virgin human births, no coming back after being dead for three days, no afterlife in Heaven, no supernatural tinkering with the course of evolution. You can define "religion" however you like, but you can't deny the power of science to reach far-reaching conclusions about how reality works.In short, Carroll is maintaining that philosophical naturalism is a scientific result. I wonder when he will be publishing this in the scientific literature? I'd suggest he try publishing in a philosophical journal but I think philosophers would take him even less seriously.
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Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Skilling the Messenger
Okay, I've made my case for the overreaching of the "incompatiblists." Now it's time to turn to the "accommodationists," in particular Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum. At their blog, The Intersection, they say this:Science and religion are not mutually exclusive and must not continue to be portrayed as such. Though some very vocal voices in the science community disagree, I assure you they are not representative of the whole. I continue to work day to day with scientists who hold a very broad array of beliefs across fields from molecular biology to physiology to conservation. And when it comes to issues like climate change and ocean acidification, everyone must be engaged if we're to get anywhere. The new atheist movement takes an adversarial approach, but only succeeds in alienating the majority of the planet away from science. When it comes to enacting sound policies on what really matters, this will always be a losing strategy.
Just as I think that it is unrealistic for some "atheist-scientists" to think that religion will go away soon, Mooney and Kirshenbaum are being unrealistic to think the atheists and their harsh criticism of religion is going anywhere either. A significant group are going to continue to portray science and religion as mutually exclusive and Mooney and Kirshenbaum need to deal with it. Their continual whining (and that is, I'm afraid, what it is) over that fact is exactly what they claim the atheists are engaged in: a losing strategy. It is an adversarial relationship that only succeeds in alienating people who, by all objective measures, are already the kind of effective communicators that Mooney and Kirshenbaum wish more scientists were. That, in turn, actually draws more attention to the atheists' position and makes the controversy loom larger in the public consciousness.
If, in fact, as Mooney and Kirshenbaum imply, there is a wellspring of accommodationists in the scientific community, their time would be much better spent encouraging those scientists to speak out and giving them the kind of communication skills Mooney and Kirshenbaum are so fond of talking about, rather than in hectoring atheists.
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Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Monday, July 13, 2009
Designing Design
"There have been 23 elephant-like animals in history, and yet only two survive today (and we add, they're not doing very well). Clearly, this is the mark of an all-powerful creator who is stuck on the same stupid idea and can't figure out why the hell they keep dying off. Hmm, perhaps it's because giant, big-eared mammals with huge, prehensile noses are ridiculous? I mean, WTF? A giant, powerful, grasping... nose? It looks like something a preschooler would make up."
You know how there are some people who think there is a good Designer and an evil Designer and I wondered which one was responsible for inept design in the world? Now maybe we need to posit a third Designer, who we could call the Dusfus Designer. As RaulVB at Daily Kos points out, the DD would have a tailor-made spokesperson who just happens to be between jobs ...
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Of Methods and Madness
Here is a bit more on the "incompatiblist" position on religion and science. An "Anonymous" commenter [Konrad Scheffler] on my last post stated this:As often with this sort of debate, it seems to come down to quibbling about definitions. The word "science" is commonly used to denote at least four distinct concepts:
1. A body of knowledge
2. An "establishment" consisting of people and organizations, and an associated set of rough consensus views
3. A methodology for producing knowledge
4. A philosophical system of thought.John (as well as, I assume, most religious scientists) is using definition 3; Larry et al (along with, I hope, a majority of scientists) are using definition 4.
The point is somewhat moot because most non-scientists use other definitions such as 1 or 2 (in which case "science" is obviously compatible with all but the most fundamentalist religions - no debate required).
However, the commenter expresses a preference for the process of science being viewed as "a philosophical system of thought." I disagree strongly for at least two reasons.
First of all, I do not think that is an accurate description of how the scientific process works. Let's start with a thought experiment: suppose Michael Behe were, tomorrow, to come out with some original and important work in biochemistry that happened to be valuable to Larry Moran's area of research (I know you said you are a teacher now, rather than a researcher, Larry, but it is a thought experiment). Would Larry ignore Behe's work because he has the "wrong" philosophy? Certainly, because Behe has trashed his own reputation within the scientific community over the past decade by doing pseudoscience, Larry would likely want to check the work very carefully, perhaps going to the trouble of recreating the work in its entirely, since merely citing to Behe's work might not be enough to convince other scientists in the field. But, assuming that Larry was convinced that Behe's work was accurate and useful to Larry's scientific work, would Larry refuse to use it? In short, what is more important, the science or the scientist? I think it is obvious that it is the scientific results that are more important to the process of science and to Larry's work within that process.
This shows, I believe, that the process of science is a methodology, where it is the results that count, not the "right-thinking" of the researcher. Nor is my belief founded only on thought experiments. Theodosius Dobzhansky is generally regarded as one of the giants of evolutionary biology of the 20th Century and rightly so. He is, of course, well known for his phrase: "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution," from a speech by that title. Less well known is that, in the same speech, he said: "I am a creationist and an evolutionist," by which he meant he was what we now call a "theistic evolutionist." Do contemporary biologists, such as Jerry Coyne, ignore Dobzhansky's work because he did not share Coyne's "approach to the world" or his "worldview" or his "scientific attitude" or whatever else Coyne is calling his personal philosophy today? Other important scientists did not or do not share Coyne's personal philosophy, such as R.A. Fisher and, contemporarily, Francisco Ayala.
As I said before, these examples are not given to show that their philosophies/theologies are compatible with Jerry Coyne's philosophy; they are given to show that even Jerry Coyne treats science as a methodology instead of a philosophy, where good scientific work is an equalizer that makes personal opinions unimportant.
The other reason not to conceive of science as a philosophy is that there is no way to objectively determine which is the "proper" philosophy and, therefore, no way insure that the philosophy in any one community of scientists or in the scientific community as a whole is actually conducive to good science. The result can be Lysenkoism or Nazi "racial science" or "Republican science" or less obvious, but no less damaging, distortions of the process of science. Jerry Coyne's philosophy might not damage the scientific process but, once science is just another philosophy, there is no guarantee that such will always be the case. On the other hand, if science is judged only on the empiric results at hand, there is an objective test of good science that does not depend on the vagaries of the currently popular philosophy.
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Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Blogflation
Thony C., the longtime and generally rational commenter on John Wilkins' blog, Evolving Thoughts, has taken the deeply irrational step of starting his own blog, The Renaissance Mathematicus -- the intellectual equivalent of owning a boat, i.e. a hole in the water into which you pour all your money. Thony will now be pouring all his thought into a hole in his time (as I well know). The reason he gives for that decision:The doorbell rang and when I opened the door this albino gorilla with a thick Aussie accent said, "Yer should start yer own effin blog or I'll sit on yer!" so here I am…
Drat it!
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* Hat tip to John Farrell, whose blogs are also worth a perusal.
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Joint Philosophies
That well-known New Agnostic, Larry Moran, has once again entered the Accommodationist-Incompatiblist fray with at least something new (to me, that is, as far as my memory goes), the so-called "Doctrine of Joint Belief." Larry cites to a short piece by Clay Shirky at The Edge on "Religion and Science" that asserts that:The idea that religious scientists prove that religion and science are compatible is ridiculous, and I'm embarrassed that I ever believed it. Having believed for so long, however, I understand its attraction, and its fatal weaknesses.
The Doctrine of Joint Belief isn't evidence of harmony between two systems of thought. It simply offers permission to ignore the clash between them. Skeptics aren't convinced by the doctrine, unsurprisingly, because it offers no testable proposition. What is surprising is that its supposed adherents don't believe it either. If joint beliefs were compatible beliefs, there could be no such thing as heresy. Christianity would be compatible not just with science, but with astrology (roughly as many Americans believe in astrology as evolution), with racism (because of the number of churches who use the "Curse of Ham" to justify racial segregation), and on through the list of every pair of beliefs held by practicing Christians.
Contrary to Larry's claim, however, if you don't accept the premise that science is a philosophy or belief, there is no logical fallacy in "Joint Belief" because no method need be applied to everything, anymore than all tools need to be hammers. The point of giving examples of religious scientists who consistently employ the scientific method to science is to demonstrate that, contrary to the claims of the incompatibilists, the method is not a philosophy.
The question is and has always been whether the philosophies of some scientists are the same thing as "science." Thus, unlike Larry, I do not see Jerry Coyne, in his post "Eugenie Scott and Chris Mooney dissemble about accommodationism," as exhibiting "a great deal of patience when he explains, for about the millionth time, why the doctrine is logically absurd." In fact, Coyne is, once again, simply asserting that his personal philosophy* is coextensive with science, without justifying that claim or reconciling it with the methodological naturalism of science that he has (sometimes) recognized.
Merely repeating the same assertions without addressing the real claim involved, as Coyne does, is not addressing the logic of anything. Instead, it bears more in common with the sort of blind assertion we expect from creationists.
That Coyne asserts that disagreeing with him on this point is "dissembling" is symptomatic of his level of intellectual discourse.
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P.S. Larry has said, in response to a comment of mine at his place:
[T]he logical fallacy has nothing do do with whether science and religion are compatible. It has to do with whether the existence of Francis Collins proves that science and religion must be compatible. Or, for that matter, whether the existence of Jerry Coyne proves that science and religion are NOT compatible.Although I did address that above, let me expand on it yet some more. The existence of religious scientists who scrupulously apply the scientific method to science (without any objective signs of the much-misunderstood concept of "cognitive dissonance," so let's not go there) is not offered to show that science (when conceived of as a philosophy) is consistent with the philosophy/theology of religion. It is offered, instead, as evidence that science is not a philosophy but a methodology that can be utilized appropriately by many different people who have very different philosophies. Larry, Shirky and Coyne are misconstruing what the evidence is being offered for and, therefore, have not identified any logical error but their own.
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* Coyne has added yet another descriptor for his personal philosophy, "approach to the world," to go with his previous "worldview" and "scientific attitude."
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Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Novel Religion
Sometimes I think David Klinghoffer is more un-self-conciously honest than the other Discovery Institute drones because he is more literary and, therefore, cannot help but reveal himself through the stories he uses as tropes. The latest, and perhaps the funniest, is his "argument" against Simon Conway Morris' claim, adopted as well by Ken Miller, that the well-known cases of convergence in evolution (multiple evolutionary origins of eyes and wings, for example) suggest that an intelligent creature was bound to arise somewhere in the universe through evolution.The argument goes that our own example -- going from an obscure and highly localized primate on the edge of extinction to world-spanning, environment manipulating and resource dominating super-organism, in a few tens or hundreds of thousands years -- is a testament to the selectionist power of intelligence. The importance of this, theologically, to Conway Morris and Miller is that it suggests that there may be at least some sort of directionality to evolution which, in turn, would make it more "suitable" for use by a provident god as a means of creating creatures "in his image."
Needless to say, there are many objections to this notion. Atheists such as Jerry Coyne are against it as much as conservative theists are, and for much the same reason: neither want evolution to be seen as compatible with religion. There is certainly something appealing about the notion that, once we "hit" upon intelligence (actually, a combination of intelligence, social organization, ability to manipulate the environment, particularly through fire, and who knows what other traits), we were destined to be an evolutionary success. The problem is that there is no way to settle the argument as long as life on Earth is our only example. Determining whether we are a fluke or inevitable based on a single instance of developing life is like trying to determine if a coin is fair or rigged on a single toss.
But Klinghoffer's attempt to answer the question is, shall we say, telling:
Picture a majestic T. rex receiving the tablets of the Ten Commandments in its undersized forelimbs, or an elegant octopus crucified on an old rugged cross with four crossbars instead of one.
Such images are what Kenneth Miller presumably has in mind with his comforting Darwinist thought that intelligent creatures were guaranteed to pop up even in the course of an evolutionary process of purely unguided, purposeless churning. ...
He and others (such as Obama's favorite geneticist, Francis Collins) invite us to imagine God being delighted with such creatures, noble and impressive in their way, as the culmination of the evolutionary process that He chose not to guide. But what if the intelligent creature that resulted from all the purposeless churning, and that was intended to reflect God's own image, had been something really horrible. [Emphasis in original]
Sure, they're just stories -- and often kind of silly ones at that, though wickedly entertaining. Yet after reading him, you can't comfortably go back to the naïve Ken Miller way of thinking that Darwinian evolutionary was somehow certain to provide God with children over whom He would approve with the Biblical formulation, "And behold it was very good."
Of course, to us Cthulhu, with his tentacles and such, would appear grotesque and abhorrent. However, to such a being, WE would doubtless prove to appear the same.
Obviously there is no particular cosmic standard of beauty between squid and man, snake and bird, dolphin and planaria. Even within traditional theology, beauty remains a subjective concept in the eye of the beholder, at least at the physical level.
As for the non-physical, of course Cthulhu would seem abhorrent to us...he is opposed to our very existence. (Although honestly, he's simply indifferent to it...man matters not to the Great Old Ones, just as ants matter little to man.) Of course, you can rest assured that to animals in factory farms, or deer on the run from hunters, we too seem terrifying and abhorrent. This is nothing more than a matter of perspective.
Perhaps there is room for discussion and debate concerning evolution, intelligent design, et. al. But the idea that the specific physical form of man as a bipedal hominid somehow reflects perfect beauty, and the likeness of God, requires the most facile and thoughtless reading of Scripture imaginable.
Klinghoffer would rather read some cheap, mindless, bubble-gum of a novel that makes him comfortable than face the heart of darkness.
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Update: That unreconstructed cephalopodist, PZ Megahertz, has taken a hand ... er ... tentacle, as has John Lynch.
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Friday, July 10, 2009
Peter Principle
Are we supposed to take Jerry Coyne seriously?I understand that he is a great scientist but what are we to make of his primitive philosophy and un-self-aware and contradictory statements on science, religion and atheism? Quite apart from the embarrassment of having Martin Cothran at the Discovery Institute Ministry of Misinformation pointing out his philosophical errors, now there is this on the appointment of Francis Collins:
I expect Collins to resign from BioLogos if he wants to maintain any scientific credibility. Yes, the guy has every right to believe what he wants, but a director of the nation's most prestigious research foundation has to have some standards, and BioLogos is beyond the pale. Mixing science with faith as it does, it gives people the wrong view of what science is all about and gives his official imprimatur to essentially private beliefs. Certainly, private expressions of faith are absolutely fine, but Collins has chosen to make his views public, and discuss their relationship to science.
Sometimes all you can do is shake your head.
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P.S. While I think Coyne's take here is hopelessly muddled, that is not to say that there are no valid criticisms of Collins. These by PZ Myers are very pointed:
He's a big-science guy, who headed the National Human Genome Research Institute. I have some concern that he has a mindset that may not promote the diversity of scientific research — he represents a very narrow, gene-jockey style of research, which is valuable and does churn out lots of data, but I've often found exhibits a worrisome lack of understanding of the big picture of biology. I'd have liked to have seen a leader with more breadth: someone with an appreciation of systems biology, or environmental biology, and a little less shackled to the purely biomedical side.I don't think Collins follows the DI's argument in claiming that, because we don't understand something, therefore God must have done it, except perhaps in the case of the "moral sense" of humans, but it is something of a valid concern.
He doesn't understand evolution. He has said that he thinks humans are no longer evolving, that junk DNA is functional, and he can't understand how altruism could have evolved. RPM summarized these deficiencies well. I know he argues well against the specifics of intelligent design, but ultimately, he's following the same gods-of-the-gaps formula that the Discovery Institute does ...
This is a big one for me: he will use his position to act as a propagandist for Christianity, entirely inappropriately. We already saw this in the announcement of the completion of the draft of the human genome project, where he actually brags about getting Clinton to include religious language in his speech, and where he himself made claims about the DNA sequence being "the language of god".I'm more sangine about such pious platitutes as "language of God," "the God Particle" and statements by even atheist scientists to the effect that finding fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background is like "looking at God" but Collins' deliberate attempts to co-opt government-funded scientific discovery to religious ends is a justifiable objection.
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Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Compatible Education
PZ speaks:I recommend something different. Our next generation of great science communicators should be flesh-and-blood people with personalities, every one different and every one with different priorities, all singing out enthusiastically for everything from astronomy to zoology, and they should sometimes be angry and sometimes sorrowful and sometimes deliriously excited. They shouldn't hesitate to say what they think, even if it might make Joe the Plumber surly. If you want to improve American science and the perception of science by the public, teach science first and foremost, because what you'll find is that your discipline is then populated with people who are there because they love the ideas. And, by the way, let them know every step of the way that science is also a performing art, and that they have an obligation as a public intellectual to take their hard-earned learning and share it with the world.
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Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Next!
The Sensuous Curmudgeon has been following the tentative steps of the Spencer (Iowa) School Board as it prepares to wade into the deep waters of Establishment Clause jurisprudence. The Des Moines Register has provided a copy of the Board's Draft Policy on Religion which can be downloaded here. Some thoughts:Right from the start there are questions about what's paramount in the Board's mind:
This nation was founded on the idea of religious liberty. A well rounded education must include an understanding of the ideas which molded the nation, many of which were religious.Quite aside from the fact that the ideas of our country's founders, and the religious freedom they embraced, arose out of Enlightenment philosophy, particularly that of John Locke, much more than any religious traditions, which tended to support the divine right of kings and the exact opposite of freedom of conscience, why has the Board sought to take on this culture war? Shouldn't the Board properly focus on the children in their system rather than worrying what public education in general is doing?
For many years public education has often gone too far in excluding religious influences for fear of offense. The purpose of this policy is to restore balance to the issues.
Next we have this non sequitur:
2. DefinitionsWhy is evolution, a matter of science, being defined in a policy on religion in any case? It strongly suggests the Board is confused about the difference between the two. The definition reinforces that impression, in that it calls evolution a "belief," in direct comparison to religious belief. This is an issue already litigated in Edwards v. Aguillard and the Supreme Court has ruled that the government cannot teach that they are both religious concepts.
a. Religion-a specific system of belief which may or may not include a deity, is not limited to orthodox belief systems or practices.
b. Evolution – The belief that an unguided process of mutation and natural selection resulted in the existence of life on earth.
The next interesting part is this:
7. Religion in the CurriculumNow, you might expect that I'd focus on Behe's book being used and, indeed, the specification of it is a potential problem for the Board. Has there been a textbook evaluation by the professional staff as to its suitability for the course? Every time a board rushes to some sort of judgment, they are opening themselves up to claims of favoring religion. And will the Board give a "balanced" review of Behe's book by giving a representative sample of the overwhelmingly negative critique (I know the Board would want to know how to spell that) given to Behe's book by the scientific community?
a. Approach must be academic, not devotional.
1. Curriculum areas that overlap religious faith shall demonstrate respect for affected religious convictions.
2. Electives to be offered at Spencer High School:
a. The Bible in History and Literature
b. Critic of Darwinism, a scientific approach. (provide a balanced review of evidence for and against the theory of evolution, using texts which include "Darwin's Black Box" by M. Behe)
More importantly, in the context of a policy on religion, why are only two electives offered -– one in the Bible and the other supposedly a science course? It would hardly be possible to more strongly signal to objective observers that conservative Christianity of the anti-evolution sort is being catered to by the Board -- short of putting up signs on all the school buildings saying "Proudly Affiliated with Focus on the Family," that is.
Actually much of the policy is a (more or less) correct statement of the First Amendment's requirements -- though, as always, the devil is in the details. When the Board gives details, it shows that it is about to step in the Dover Trap big time.
Last night the Board "tabled the Religious Liberty Policy to be discussed at a later work session." It would be wise if they consulted with the local ACLU and other organizations concerned with the separation of church and state before they take the policy up again.
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Moving On?
Is a perhaps surprising defection in the works?Stephen M. Barr, a theoretical particle physicist at the Bartol Research Institute of the University of Delaware and a "theistic evolutionist", has been having a running argument with John West of the Discovery Institute, proving the uncomfortableness of the middle. So much so that Barr says:
If I am right in saying that evolutionary biology itself is not atheistic in its implications, then how do I explain the fact so many evolutionary biologists are atheists? In my view, there is not a single, simple explanation for this, but a complicated set of historical and sociological factors. Since its inception, evolutionary biology has been the center of a constant battle between fanatical enemies of religion on one hand and biblical literalists on the other, who have fed off each other and in many ways reinforced each other.
That has become part of the narrative surrounding the field of biology, so that many people who go into that area are socialized into anti-religious attitudes. Moreover, certain kinds of people tend to be drawn to certain professions. At least one study concludes that the over-representation of atheists in science is due to atheists being drawn to science as a profession rather than scientific training or information making people lose their faith. This is a complicated subject, and I don't propose to attempt a complete theory of the origins and causes of scientific atheism. It is, however, very simple-minded (and also not very helpful to the cause of religion) to suppose that scientific atheism is just a consequence of the fact that scientific theories logically entail atheism.
Nice work, Steve. You were able to put clearly in writing what has been percolating inside me since I first became interested in science/theology issues during my PhD days at Fordham in the mid-80s.
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Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Alien to Truth
Matt Zeitlin, a sophomore at Northwestern University and an editorial intern at Campus Progress, an online magazine affiliated with the Center for American Progress, has a nice takedown of the Discoveyless Institute's Stephen Meyer and his new book, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. The title of the piece, "The Greatest Trick Intelligent Design Ever Pulled," refers to the slick veneer of science that Intelligent Design Creationism tries to put on the old "creation science":But when asked at the McLean church if young earth creationists—i.e., those that follow a literal biblical timeline stretching back roughly 10,000—had "fueled New Atheism by giving it something to caricature," Meyer said the Discovery Institute takes a "neutral position on this" and that the prevalence of young-earth creationist views didn't matter because "we would have been treated exactly the same way."
It's no surprise that Meyer remained open, or at least didn't condemn, such an anti-scientific belief. Creationists are the ID movement's base. A 2006 Gallup poll showed that 46 percent of Americans believed that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so"—a position that is totally out of line with basic scientific knowledge of geology and archaeology. The Discovery Institute specifically targets these very people. Part of the long-term plan in the Wedge Document is to "build up a popular base of support among our natural constituency, namely, Christians. We will do this primarily through apologetics seminars." McLean Bible Church, for example, hosted an apologetics event a month before Meyer's to discuss how Noah's Ark actually could have held all those animals. So it made sense that Meyer avoided offending his "natural constituency." ...
Meyer, despite his thin scientific coating, is trafficking the half-baked, over-motivated arguments that have always been peddled by creationists ...
But what does Meyer say?:
When I asked him to speculate on the nature of this designer, Meyer hedged and carefully said that his argument left open two possible agents for creation of life on earth, "aliens or God." He just so happened to favor the God hypothesis.
It is a neat demonstration of the ad hoc nature of creationist arguments, if not the conscious dishonesty of them.
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Monday, July 06, 2009
The Theology of Incompatibility II
Jerry Coyne has reinforced my impression that the nature of claims by "scientist-atheists" (as Coyne calls them) concerning the supposed incompatibility of science and religion are really assertions of the incompatibility of atheism and religion. Coyne claims that Francis Collins, as Ken Miller before him, have allowed "their scientific statements and beliefs to be infected with religion." He cites this from Collins' BioLogos website: The mechanical worldview of the scientific revolution is now a relic. Modern physics has replaced it with a very different picture of the world. With quantum mechanical uncertainty and the chaotic unpredictability of complex systems, the world is now understood to have a certain freedom in its future development. Of course, the question remains whether this openness is a result of nature's true intrinsic chanciness or the inevitable limit to humans' understanding. Either way, one thing is clear: a complete and detailed explanation or prediction for nature's behavior cannot be provided. This was already a problem for Newtonian mechanics; however, it was assumed that in principle, science might eventually provide a complete explanation of any natural event. Now, though, we see that the laws of nature are such that scientific prediction and explanation are ultimately limited.
It is thus perfectly possible that God might influence the creation in subtle ways that are unrecognizable to scientific observation. In this way, modern science opens the door to divine action without the need for law breaking miracles. Given the impossibility of absolute prediction or explanation, the laws of nature no longer preclude God's action in the world. Our perception of the world opens once again to the possibility of divine interaction.
No reasonable person could possibly contend that Collins' statement is claiming that it is certain that God acts within quantum uncertainty, much less that it is a scientific result to think so. Collins, at most, points out the logical conclusion that God, if he/she/it exists, could act in that realm, as science presently understands it, without our being able to detect it or to say that that such action is against "the laws of nature." Note that this is not, as Coyne claims, a god-in-the-gaps argument of the type perpetrated by the Discovery Institute and other IDers. Collins does not take the crucial step that those advocates do of claiming that "because we do not know how this happens, therefore God must have done it."
One observation leaps out: "scientist-atheists" appeal to the facts of the world as revealed by science all the time in furthering their arguments for atheism. Either their views are just as incompatible with science for being infected with atheism or they are special pleading that it is fine for them to use science's facts in support of their beliefs but anyone who doesn't believe as they do is barred from the facts of science. In either event, their argument for incompatibility on those grounds collapses under its self-contradiction.
I think it's telling that Coyne's first impulse is attack Collins' theology on theological grounds, claiming it's ludicrous for God to do anything other than the straightforward thing. Quite apart from the fact that we are well aware of intelligent agents (ourselves) who take other-than-straightforward paths to achieve even good ends, it goes back to what I said in my earlier post: if an infinite, omniscient, etc. agent exists, why wouldn't its means and motives be obscure to finite beings like ourselves? Isn't Coyne demanding that such a transcendent being act like the least subtle of our own species? More importantly, there is nothing scientific about such objections and where, then, is the incompatibility? We already knew that Coyne's philosophy/theology is incompatible with theism; what I thought he was out to do is to show that science is incompatible with it.
Coyne asks what will happen if we eventually find out that what appear to be totally unpredictable events really do have a deterministic causation. He concludes that theologians would not then concede that theism is, therefore, wrong. Collins, as already noted, has not staked his theology on quantum uncertainty and, in any event, science does not give up so easily either, as in the case of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury.
This objection has more than a faintly ludicrous air to it because the same "scientist-atheists" are constantly urging other political/social institutions to become more adapted to scientific results. If politicians and other social leaders adapt their behavior and beliefs to the results of science that is, according to them (and rightly so), a good thing but if theologians do it, that somehow proves that theology is incompatible with science.* The complaint seems to be more that theology isn't holding still and, instead, is presenting a moving target to atheists. I can certainly see why theists would be no more impressed by that argument than deer would be by hunters' complaints of the same ilk.
Coyne and other "scientist-atheists" are free, if they choose, to make theological arguments against any concepts of God that do not directly deny the results of science. As I've said, I think they are pretty good theological arguments -- ones I've largely accepted myself. But we need not take seriously that these objections arise from science or that they demonstrate that science itself is in conflict with such concepts of God.
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* Not all, perhaps:
"I'm Dan Dennett, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and we are forever being told that we should do our homework and consult with the best theologians. I've heard two of you talk now, and you keep saying this is an interdisciplinary effort--evolutionary theology--but I am still waiting to be told what theology has to contribute to the effort. You've clearly adjusted your theology considerably in the wake of Darwin, which I applaud, but what traffic, if any, goes in the other direction? Is there something I'm missing? What questions does theology ask or answer that aren't already being dealt with by science or secular philosophy? What can you clarify for this interdisciplinary project?" (Words to that effect).
Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Pledging In the Creationist Fraternity
There is an advantage to having a curmudgeon around, sensuous or not. Curmudgeons have a need to read stupid stuff to exercise their curmudgeonerliness on. Thus, the rest of us are spared the pain of reading really stupid stuff but still get the chance to laugh at the sillier bits.And speaking of sillier, there is always Casey Luskin, who is quote-mining people who are trying really hard not to be quote mined. Unfortunately for those people, they are rational and think that the way to keep others from quote-mining them is to make it really, really clear that they are not saying what the quote miners want them to say which, of course, is no deterrent at all to the sort of people who want to quote mine them because they think rationality is a bad thing anyway. So, go see The Sensuous Curmudgeon curmudgeonize all over Casey.
But this silly bit leapt out at me. It seems that Casey believes (for some approximation of "believe" that includes "lying through one's teeth") that all his quote mining is evidence that the dissent from neo-Darwinism that he claims is rampant in the scientific community is tolerated "only if one pledges allegiance to materialism." Knowing that no good conspiracy theory is complete without some made-up "evidence," I thought it only right and proper to provide a copy of the super-secret, never-to-be-revealed, materialists' pledge of allegiance:
of the intelligencia of materialism,
and to the Academia for which it stands,
a one-world order under Godlessness, invisible,
with liberty and justice for all atheists
(and nobody else!).
The Theology of Incompatibility
There is an interesting exchange (that may well continue) in the Chicago Daily Observer. A Catholic priest, Fr. Robert Barron, a self-described "Catholic evangelist," has responded to Lawrence Krauss' Wall Street Journal article which took, for the most part, the incompatibilist view of science and religion. Fr. Barron expounded on, if long-ago memory serves, fairly standard Catholic theology: God, in classical Christian theology, should never be understood as one being among many, even the supreme being. He is not, as theologian David Burrell put it, "the biggest thing around." God is not the most impressive instance of the genus "existence," taking his place alongside of planets, stars, animals, us, and all other existing things. Rather, God is, as Aquinas neatly put it, ipsum esse subsistens (the sheer act of to-be itself). God is that unique reality in which existence and essence coincide, which is a fancy way of saying that God is not a type of being, but the very energy of existence itself.
First, authentic religion poses no obstactle whatsoever to the explorations and investigations of nature undertaken by the physical sciences. As the sciences enumerate the various finite causes responsible for a given phenomenon, they should never worry that they have given insufficient attention to God's contribution to the causal nexus, for God is not one more item in the causal nexus. And second, when God acts in the world (as the Bible clearly says he does), he never acts otherwise than as the creator of the whole universe, which is to say, he never acts competitively with creatures, as though he was endeavoring to push them aside or interfere with them. Notice how exquisitively sensitive the Biblical authors are to this dynamic. Over and again, they stress how God acts in and through ordinary political, cultural, psychological, and natural causes, accomplishing his purposes without fussily "intervening" in the affairs of the world.
I am always amazed at theologians' abilities to obfuscate.. what about the God people pray to, the god who performs miracles, the god who tells people what they are and are not supposed to do, the god who banishes people for all eternity if they simply choose not to believe in her.?. moreover, while I recognize the subtlety of the notion:
God is instead the reason why there is something rather than nothing. Precisely as sustaining creator of the whole, God is why there are cherries, water, salt, the heat of the oven, the Gulf of Mexico and the Jet Stream at all.
... and this is one of the Deist concepts I was referring to as marginally compatible with science ... but while it sounds nice, (a) what does it mean? (b) why should I believe it?, and (c) why is such a concept necessary?
Similarly, asking why the concept is necessary is off on a tangent. As Krauss himself pointed out, it is not only unnecessary for science to have any concept of God, it is forbidden to science. But being unnecessary is not conflict. In what sense does a God concept that does not result in the denial of scientific results but is merely unnecessary to them conflict with those results?
Krauss' query as to why he should believe Fr. Barron's version of God is a theological question, one that I myself could find no answer satisfying enough to continue to believe in any God. But I still don't see what that is supposed to have to do with a conflict between science and religion, since both Barron and Krauss agree that science can't provide the answer in the first place?
The one thing in Krauss' reply that somewhat goes to the question originally raised is his complaint that most believers don't adhere to such a notion of a transcendent God, instead believing in the ordinary sense of miracles as suspensions of natural laws. Part of that is theological differences between Catholicism and other faiths. But even if most of the Catholic laity do not understand the theology, does that really go to the question of incompatibility? After all, how many of the 33% of Americans who agree that scientific evidence for evolution exists have a good grasp of evolutionary theory? If we were to ask whether the understanding of evolution by the majority of Americans who accept it is compatible with science, would it pass?
I have no problem with Krauss asking these questions or even with his answers, which I basically agree with. I just find it interesting how quickly he abandoned the issue of incompatibility and went to theological questions and what that means about his actual priorities.
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Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Dear Abbot
The Sensuous Curmudgeon has begun a new feature to which he has exclusive world rights: Dear Mentor™. Mentor, who has devoted his life to studying the science of creationism and the catastrophic errors of evolution, will be answering questions for the faithful on evolution and how to deal with its moral consequences. Since I am a Darwinist and, therefore, have no morals, I will ignore the Curmudgeon's rights and reproduce one of the questions and answers here:Question: Dear Mentor, my daughter started going to college this year, and she's been dating an evolutionist. Now she tells me that she thinks creationism is silly and she wants to major in biology. I fear that she'll end up a serial killer and a cannibal. What can I do?
Answer: This is a tragedy which is quite common. You have my sympathy. Try to guide her back to the truth whenever you see her. Speak of nothing else. But if you aren't successful, then you must recognize that she may be lost forever. Whatever happens, don't allow her to influence your thinking. You must remain faithful to creationism!
Keep your eyes out for this valuable resource at The Sensuous Curmudgeon!
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Saturday, July 04, 2009
Scientists and Philosophy
Francisco Ayala is an unrepentant Popperian.From Ayala's recent contribution to the Sackler Colloquium: In the light of evolution III: Two centuries of Darwin, entitled "Darwin and the scientific method":
The requirement that a scientific hypothesis be falsifiable has been appropriately called the criterion of demarcation of the empirical sciences because it sets apart the empirical sciences from other forms of knowledge (13, 14). A hypothesis that is not subject to the possibility of empirical falsification does not
belong in the realm of science.
The requirement that scientific hypotheses be falsifiable rather than simply verifiable seems surprising at first. It might seem that the goal of science is to establish the ''truth'' of hypotheses rather than attempt to falsify them, but it is not so. There is an asymmetry between the falsifiability and the verifiability of universal statements that derives from the logical nature of such statements. A universal statement can be shown to be false if it is found to be inconsistent with even 1 singular statement, i.e., a statement about a particular event. But, a universal statement can never be proven true by virtue of the truth of particular statements, no matter how numerous these may be.
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Friday, July 03, 2009
Oooooh! Scary!
Camp Dawkins ... opps ... Camp Quest has apparently got some British Christians' knickers in a knot.The Christian Institute has criticised a new atheist summer camp for children that has been set up in Somerset to offer a "godless alternative" to religious camps.
Deputy Director Simon Calvert told The Telegraph, "Atheists are desperate - in their attempts to stamp out faith." ...
"Atheists are becoming increasingly militant in their desperate attempts to stamp out faith. It is deeply worrying that they now want to use children to attack the Christian ethos of their schools."
"Many parents will be anxious at the thought of militant atheists targeting their children."
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The Virgin's Strategy
Sarah Palin made a splash in last year's presidential election primarily because she was a political virgin on the national level. Unfortunately for McCain, she couldn't be kept out of the public eye enough to prevent her cherry being popped.Now Palin is trying to restore her virginity by resigning as governor of Alaska. According to Republican political strategist Mary Matalin:
"[Now] she will be freed up and liberated the way Mitt Romney is to raise money and get political chips by spending it and getting political capital. And she is still raising the kinds of crowds and money she always did." ...
"She takes that target off her back with a good record to launch from," Matalin said.
Ed Rollins, another well-known Republican strategist, thinks the move makes Palin look "terribly inept."
The weakness in that assessment is that Palin's base is unlikely to be able to recognize ept.
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Duty and Country II
The Discovery Institute is repeating its history by distorting the country's history on this Fourth of July eve, as noted by The Sensuous Curmudgeon and John Lynch. Therfore, it's only fair and right that I repeat my post from last year:Hey, kids! What better way could the Discovery Institute have to celebrate the Fourth than to discover that Thomas Jefferson was an IDer?
John West is over at the DI's Ministry of Misinformation claiming that "Jefferson not only believed in intelligent design, he insisted it was based on the plain evidence of nature, not religion." And all West had to do was to mangle the meaning of "religion" or "Intelligent Design" or both to do it. It's a given that he misrepresents the meaning of "science."
As for the first part, West quotes Jefferson, from an 1823 letter to John Adams, as follows:
The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organised as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms.From that, West concludes:
Jefferson believed that empirical data from nature itself proved intelligent design by showing the natural world's intricate organization from the level of plants and insects all the way up to the revolution of the planets.Which is true enough. Jefferson did believe that the facts of the world led to the conclusion that there is a "Creator and benevolent governor of the world." The question is whether Jefferson believed, as West's version of ID claims, that it is a scientific conclusion or whether it is, instead, a religious conclusion.
West's claim as to the latter point is based on the following from the same letter:
I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. (West's emphasis)West alleges that Jefferson's reference to his conclusion being "without appeal to revelation," means that he "clearly was arguing that the idea had a basis other than religion." The sticking point should be immediately obvious to anyone who is not him or herself a fundamentalist Christian, who place so much emphasis on scripture. "Revelation" and "religion" are not coterminous; not every concept or proposition that is religious is derived from revelation. Indeed, it is easy enough to see from the letter itself that Jefferson considered his conclusion as to a creator to be a theological, or, at least, philosophical, proposition. Jefferson is discussing the fact that he will never be a Calvinist (and calls Calvin an atheist because he worshipped, in Jefferson's opinion, "a false god ... a daemon of malignant spirit") and then goes on to say:
Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god.Jefferson's context thus becomes clear: Christian theology should include arguments citing to the complexity and order of the world, as William Paley had in his book, Natural Theology. Jefferson's argument for a creator is put forward as a counterweight against those philosophers, such as Ocellus, Timaeus, Spinosa, Diderot and D'Holbach, who argue that:
... it is more simple to believe at once in the eternal pre-existence of the world, as it is now going on, and may for ever go on by the principle of reproduction which we see and witness, than to believe in the eternal pre-existence of an ulterior cause, or Creator of the world, a being whom we see not, and know not, of whose form substance and mode or place of existence, or of action no sense informs us, no power of the mind enables us to delineate or comprehend.Contrary to West's assertion, then, Jefferson was clearly offering his proposition as a theological/philosophical response to arguments against the existence of a god and not as a scientific observation, as today's IDeologists claim it is. There is no reason to believe that Jefferson would support teaching his argument in a public school science class, as opposed to teaching it in a class on philosophy or religion. The latter course is permissible, within limits, under the current state of Establishment clause jurisprudence but IDers have always rejected it.
Furthermore, it is ludicrous to conclude that the author of the Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom, who stated that it was intended to include "within the mantle of it's protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination," could have had such a narrow view of "religion" as to hold that it stops with revelation, especially when Jefferson is arguing in the same letter that it is erroneous for Christian theology to hold that position. At a minimum, it is a serious misreading of the man and his life's work.
The most telling point is that West is neither stupid nor unlearned. To distort the words and thoughts of one of our greatest Founders is an interesting way to demonstrate one's patriotism on the Fourth of July.
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Philosophy and Naturalism
I recently took some interest in Alvin Planting'a evolutionary argument against naturalism, posting here, here and here on it.British Philosopher Stephen Law has taken on a portion of Plantinga's argument, that Law calls the belief-cum-desire component, and, I think, neatly demolishes it. Very briefly, Plantinga argues that our cognitive beliefs are not directly adaptive but only our behavior is. But our behavior is not just a result of our beliefs but also of our desires. That means, Plantinga contends, that, on a naturalistic evolutionary account, we cannot say that our beliefs are reliable because false beliefs can, nonetheless, result in adaptive behavior. Therefore, if one of your beliefs is that naturalism is true, that belief is self-defeating.
One of Plantinga's illustrations is as follows:
So suppose Paul is a prehistoric hominid; a hungry tiger approaches. Fleeing is perhaps the most appropriate behavior: I pointed out that this behavior could be produced by a large number of different belief-desire pairs. To quote myself: 'Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely that the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief.
[W]hen we turn from beliefs to belief-producing cognitive mechanisms of the sort with which we are equipped (e.g. reason, perception, memory), it is no longer clear that there are many (indeed, any) unreliable versions of such mechanisms that, by virtue of unguided evolution pairing them with certain hard-wired desires, will nevertheless result in the sort of sophisticated patterns of adaptive behaviour we exhibit.
Nevertheless, the belief-cum-desire argument, even if not indispensable to Plantinga's larger project, nevertheless constitutes one of the most interesting and initially intuitively appealing parts of Plantinga's larger case, and its loss is significant.
