Friday, August 06, 2010

 

Who's Sweating?


Jerry Coyne is "doing" philosophy again ... but maybe this time we should forgive him since he is just out of his sickbed. The occasion is Massimo Pigliucci's response to Coyne's last foray into philosophy.

It's the same old topic and the same old result. Coyne is unable to even conceive of the possibility that his personal weltanschauung may not be coextensive with "science."

Coyne has asserted this confluence in the past by equating "science" with a "world view" (though he tried to back away from that, without success, by switching to "the scientific attitude"). He has also called "science" an "approach to the world." Coyne continues in this "tradition" of confusion in his latest piece:

What I mean by “philosophical consistency” is that one’s philosophies are consistent. In the case of a scientist, one’s scientific philosophy is that you don’t accept the existence of things for which there is no evidence. In the case of a religious person, your philosophy requires you to believe in things for which there is either no evidence or counterevidence. It’s just that simple.
I will resist the temptation to say that it is just that simple-minded ... though I will not succeed.

To start with, as I have pointed out before, if, in fact, science is "a philosophy" or a "worldview" (i.e. a metaphysical belief about how best to approach all aspects of life), then it is on equal footing with religion under the American Constitution. If, as Coyne correctly points out, science contradicts at least some religious claims, then science cannot be taught as true in American public schools but, at best, can be taught in comparative religion or philosophy classes as one competing "worldview" out of many.

If, on the other hand, it is not a weltanschauung, there is nothing "inconsistent" in applying the scientific method to some things and not to others, depending on your objectives.

Of course, this does not demonstrate that Coyne is wrong about the philosophy of science. That comes from the fact that the scientific community doesn't act as if science is a "worldview." They do not employ it in such matters as who they should love and what music they should listen to and, more importantly, they also do not take one another's "worldviews" into account in deciding which other scientists' work to trust and incorporate in their own, unless and until it's shown that the science has been tainted by a "worldview." Coyne would, doubtless, accept a paper by Ken Miller on the same basis he would any other scientist.

But the damage Coyne's ignorance of the subject can do to science education in the US may well explain why others are so adamant about countering Coyne's philosophical nativité. I seriously doubt the truth of Coyne's whiney plaint that Pigliucci "doesn’t like me" but I would credit his impression that Pigliucci "thinks I don’t know anything about philosophy and therefore I—and most other scientists—should shut up about it." After all, Coyne has spent much time demonstrating his lack of understanding of philosophy in general and the philosophy of science in particular. I suspect that Pigliucci's attitude toward Coyne when it comes to philosophy is about the same as Coyne's attitude toward any creationist who spouts ignorant nonsense about evolution.

There's much more that could be said about Coyne's post but there is nothing new there and Coyne wouldn't listen anyway. It's ironic that Coyne complains that he has repeated his "points" over and over again. Those who have attempted to correct his primitive understanding of philosophy could say the same thing ... in spades!

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Update: It seems my interpretation of Pigliucci's attitude towards Coyne was right.
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Comments:
NB the unconscious attenuation among the Coynitariat between defensiveness ("those elists don't think we know philosophy!") and derision ("philosophers are incapable of rational thought!"). One might almost be tempted to locate a "philosophical inconsistency" between these two reactions. Ignore the fine points of science and you're a charleton (see Vic Stenger's HuffPo piece on improper interpretations of quantum physics). Ignore the fine points of philosophy and you're just doing your due diligence as a skeptic.

It's not much better over at Pigliucci's blog, with even one of his co-bloggers taking the positivist line. Galef writes "Seems to me like making untestable claims is *very* inconsistent with a scientific worldview," which raises the standard to levels only a Vulcan or android could satify. (Note that her own claim is not scientifically testable, though it is logically evaluable in a tautological sense. Somebody needs to brush up on their Wittgenstein.)
 
(Note that her own claim is not scientifically testable, though it is logically evaluable in a tautological sense. Somebody needs to brush up on their Wittgenstein.)

Later on she says:

Coyne was using a broader definition of "philosophical consistency" for a scientist. His definition goes beyond whether they practice science successfully and get the right answers to scientific questions -- his definition also includes whether they accept fundamental principles of epistemology (like, we have no reason to claim the existence of undetectable entities).

And like I said, Massimo can use a narrower definition of "philosophical consistency", one which focuses just on whether a scientist practices science well, but it's not like Massimo's narrower definition is obviously right and Coyne's broader definition is obviously wrong. One's narrower, one's broader.

So I don't see Massimo's justification for calling Coyne's broader definition "pretentious and naive."


Of course, it wouldn't be obvious to the pretentious and naive, now would it?
 
@Chris Schoen:

When I referred to "making untestable claims," I was not being perfectly precise. I had assumed that it would be obvious I was referring to untestable claims about what exists in the world (I mean, obviously analytic claims like 1+1=2 aren't "testable" but I wouldn't fault a scientist for making them!).

Apparently that wasn't obvious to everyone, though, so I did clarify that point later in the comment thread when someone made your same argument.
 
To start with, as I have pointed out before, if, in fact, science is "a philosophy" or a "worldview" (i.e. a metaphysical belief about how best to approach all aspects of life), then it is on equal footing with religion under the American Constitution.

That may just be a fault of your constitution, but is no argument for or against science providing a worldview.

If, on the other hand, it is not a weltanschauung, there is nothing "inconsistent" in applying the scientific method to some things and not to others, depending on your objectives.

The obvious problem is that scientific results are all interconnected and mutually support each other, and that theories rest on evidence from many different fields. If you arbitrarily accept the scientific approach for phylogenetics but your holy book for geology, how do you arrive at the theory of evolution? There is precisely one (1) physical world out there, and so far we know one (1) approach to generate reliable knowledge about it. Hint: revelation it isn't.

the scientific community doesn't act as if science is a "worldview." They do not employ it in such matters as who they should love and what music they should listen to and...

Oh seriously now. Scientists also do not use science to paint a work of art or to run a footrace. Well done! But who ever pretended otherwise? Science is strictly for one purpose: understanding the world around us, in other words (all together please): to build an accurate worldview! Just like, let me think... say, religion, yes, is not about what music to listen to, but about an understanding of the world around us. Only its "knowledge" usually contradicts science and is not reliable.
 
I was referring to untestable claims about what exists in the world ...

Okay. But I don't understand how that helps you or Coyne. "Testable" as you and Coyne are applying it obviously means "testable by science." What scientific test is there that everything that exists in the world is testable by science? The assertion that the only knowledge worth having is delivered by science is self-defeating if it can't be demonstrated by science.
 
That may just be a fault of your constitution, but is no argument for or against science providing a worldview.

A point I made and, therefore, unneccessary to remind me of. Still, if the result of your position is something that seems wrong on its face, it can't hurt to examine your premises.

If you arbitrarily accept the scientific approach for phylogenetics but your holy book for geology, how do you arrive at the theory of evolution?

But those aren't the claims that are either interesting or the ones Coyne or Pigliucci are arguing over. There's no issue that those who deny the scientific method on matters it can be applied to are being inconsistent with science. The interesting case is a Ken Miller or Francis Ayala, who accept the method in its entirety but merely disagree that it is able to be applied to everything that is or might be real.

There is precisely one (1) physical world out there ...

Any your scientific evidence for that is? Please give citations to the literature. If you can't, aren't you contradicting Coyne's point?

Science is strictly for one purpose: understanding the world around us, in other words (all together please): to build an accurate worldview!

That is another assertion of a philosophical position. I have no doubt that your philosophy is inconsistent with religion. Now, why is your philosophy the same as science?
 
There's no issue that those who deny the scientific method on matters it can be applied to are being inconsistent with science. The interesting case is a Ken Miller or Francis Ayala, who accept the method in its entirety but merely disagree that it is able to be applied to everything that is or might be real.

I do not know the details of what they believe. But assuming for the purposes of this discussion that we are dealing with a catholic scientist, this person would have to believe in virgin birth, transubstantiation, the existence of souls and suchlike. How can science arbitrarily be forbidden to apply to these claims? How could that be justified? If we counted all the religious claims that science cannot reject, we would not need many fingers, and would end up with deism, pantheism or Last Thursdayism, but certainly not with Catholicism.

There is precisely one (1) physical world out there ...
Any your scientific evidence for that is? Please give citations to the literature. If you can't, aren't you contradicting Coyne's point?


Wrong question. Is there any evidence for a second world, or for another reliable way of generating knowledge? No. Okay, let's cut that short. It all boils down to your favorite argument, that doing science cannot be justified from within science. Maybe. But nobody cares (except for philosophers of science I guess). Science as we conduct it today is but a sophisticated and well-formalized but entirely logical extension of the trial and error we use when exploring the world as babies or trying to figure out why the car sounds so weird today. You have an idea; you try if it works; if it doesn't, you try another one. When your idea is one about quarks or genetically modifying wheat to be salt tolerant instead of where your daughter may have dropped her teddy, well done, you are a scientist, but apart from using more complicated machinery and statistics it is the same empiricism: the one approach that works and is justified by its reliable results.

Science is strictly for one purpose: to build an accurate worldview! - That is another assertion of a philosophical position. I have no doubt that your philosophy is inconsistent with religion. Now, why is your philosophy the same as science?

See above: it is everybody's philosophy when results matter more than wishful thinking. But as for science not being about building a worldview, perhaps I would gain something from an explanation how "the earth rotates around the sun", "bacteria cause infectious diseases", "earth is 4.5 billion years old" and "earthquakes are caused by tectonic movements" can somehow be defined as not part of a worldview. Must be some wicked sophistry to justify that conclusion.
 
How can science arbitrarily be forbidden to apply to these claims?

Be my guest. Show scientifically that there was no miraculous virgin birth 2,000 years ago or that the non-material "substance" of a cracker doesn't change or that a non-material soul doesn't exist. But don't just make the assertion.

Is there any evidence for a second world, or for another reliable way of generating knowledge?

In order to make a claim that the "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" you have to establish that it is reasonable to expect there to be such evidence ... in other words, you have to show that "[t]here is precisely one (1) physical world out there" amenable to discovery by scientific evidence. If you can't, then you are making a bald assertion without evidence, precisely what Coyne says religion does.

Maybe. But nobody cares (except for philosophers of science I guess).

Which, of course, was Pigliucci's point: that Coyne is ignorant/dismissive of the philosophy of science. That's Coyne's right, of course, but then others need not take him seriously when he makes philosophical pronouncements like "religion and science are incompatible."

... perhaps I would gain something from an explanation how "the earth rotates around the sun", "bacteria cause infectious diseases", "earth is 4.5 billion years old" and "earthquakes are caused by tectonic movements" can somehow be defined as not part of a worldview. Must be some wicked sophistry to justify that conclusion.

Of course it can and should be part of any worldview ... Ken Miller certainly agrees with that. But Coyne is asserting that it must be all of a scientist's worldview. It's not sophistry to point out that such as assertion is not, itself, scientific and, therefore, that Coyne's position is self-defeating.
 
Be my guest. Show scientifically that there was no miraculous virgin birth 2,000 years ago or that the non-material "substance" of a cracker doesn't change or that a non-material soul doesn't exist.

The third is easily refuted through modern neurobiology, or let us say, it has been so since antiquity. The second is at best word games and play pretend. The first is not decisively disprovable, yes. But so are a lot of silly claims that scientists regularly "are allowed" to reject based on probability, and expect their peers to reject, from alien visitors to Atlantis. There is no difference between miraculous virgin birth and other unlikely claims about history - except in the arbitrary privilege that Massimo grants to the "supernatural", whatever it is.

If you can't, then you are making a bald assertion without evidence, precisely what Coyne says religion does.

Burden of proof.

Which, of course, was Pigliucci's point: that Coyne is ignorant/dismissive of the philosophy of science. That's Coyne's right, of course, but then others need not take him seriously when he makes philosophical pronouncements like "religion and science are incompatible."

If you consider that philosophical, that is; and if you assume that you have to study philosophy of carpentry before you know how to build decent tables.

Of course it can and should be part of any worldview ... Ken Miller certainly agrees with that. But Coyne is asserting that it must be all of a scientist's worldview.

If you want to be consistent, yes. This is not rocket science: chiding your student for accepting an explanation without evidence and then turning around and doing the same where you want it is inconsistent. That is what the word was invented for.

It's not sophistry to point out that such as assertion is not, itself, scientific and, therefore, that Coyne's position is self-defeating.

I have already addressed this. Humanity tried science, and it produced reliable, universally applicable knowledge; it tried religion, and the priests can't even agree on the number of gods, let alone anything that deserves the name "knowledge". The onus is on them (and you it seems) to demonstrate that a second way of generating knowledge exists; so far they have all failed. That is the justification for Coyne's assertion.
 
Hi John,

I think the paragraph you quote from Jerry is poorly written, with the word "philosophy" being used in too vague a sense to be of any use. He would do better to avoid the word. What I would say is that religious scientists are being inconsistent in their application of epistemological standards (or evidentiary standards) across their range of beliefs, exempting some of their own beliefs from standards they expect others to apply to theirs.

John: If, on the other hand, it is not a weltanschauung, there is nothing "inconsistent" in applying the scientific method to some things and not to others, depending on your objectives.

We all measure consistency by what's important to us. A judge who consistently gives longer sentences to blondes may be consistent by his own standards, but not by the standards expected of him by society.

So I can measure consistency by any standard I like. You don't have to care about my standard. If you don't care, then my criticism will have no force for you. If someone says I'm inconsistent in my choice of breakfast cereal, he may mean it as a criticism--if he has a fetish for such consistency--but it's not a criticism to me because I don't value such consistency. My response is, "So what?"

The problem here is that a vague accusation of being "inconsistent" (with no standard specified) is implicitly understood to mean "inconsistent by some standard you really ought to be consistent by". It's a normative claim rather than a descriptive one. But providing I've said what my standard is, you can respond "So what? I don't care about that sort of consistency."

But I doubt that religious scientists would be happy to say they don't care about the standard of applying the same epistemological standards to one's own beliefs that one expects others to apply to theirs. And I think that's why they (and those who support them) don't just take the line you've taken here. They try to argue that there is some relevant epistemological distinction between their own religious beliefs and beliefs they reject such as YEC. And that's why they invoke MN as a demarcation criterion. So that brings us back to MN again, and puts the onus on supporters of MN to justify that principle, something they have failed to do.
 
Alex:

The third is easily refuted through modern neurobiology

Really? What exact property of a "soul" would be detected by neurobiology? Then defend your attribution of that property to a "soul" scientifically.

The second is at best word games and play pretend.

An assertion you make on what scientific evidence?

But so are a lot of silly claims that scientists regularly "are allowed" to reject based on probability, and expect their peers to reject, from alien visitors to Atlantis.

Yes, asserting such things as part of science would be rejected. We're just back to why scientists are supposed to treat everything as if they are scientific questions.

Burden of proof.

The existence and nature of which is just another assertion not based on scientific evidence.

If you consider that philosophical, that is ...

It was Coyne who started out talking about “philosophical consistency.”

... if you assume that you have to study philosophy of carpentry before you know how to build decent tables.

I've said often that I think Coyne is a good and even great scientist who builds great tables. I just wish he'd stop telling everyone else who builds tables that they have to think like he does about everything else.

This is not rocket science: chiding your student for accepting an explanation without evidence and then turning around and doing the same where you want it is inconsistent.

So Coyne's love of cats was something he arrived at by scientific evidence? Nobody accepts only "explanations" based on evidence. And according to Coyne himself, he doesn't chide his students for their religious beliefs, making him inconsistent with your statement. The only consistency that Coyne is exhibiting is his demand that all scientists must think like he does.

Humanity tried science, and it produced reliable, universally applicable knowledge; it tried religion, and the priests can't even agree on the number of gods, let alone anything that deserves the name "knowledge". The onus is on them (and you it seems) to demonstrate that a second way of generating knowledge exists; so far they have all failed. That is the justification for Coyne's assertion.

Of course, that is not something based on scientific evidence itself but on what you deem to be "consistent" and "reliable." While I agree, I don't pretend it is a scientific result and, if it isn't, you aren't being consistent by accepting an explanation without scientific evidence.
 
Richard:

So I can measure consistency by any standard I like. You don't have to care about my standard. If you don't care, then my criticism will have no force for you.

Sure.

The problem here is that a vague accusation of being "inconsistent" (with no standard specified) is implicitly understood to mean "inconsistent by some standard you really ought to be consistent by". It's a normative claim rather than a descriptive one.

Yes, and Coyne uses it to beat people he disagrees with, such as "faitheists." If he merely said that "I think scientists have to reject religion in order to be consistent but your mileage may vary" there would be no great brouhaha. But, in effect, he is asserting that Miller and Ayala are not "real" scientists.

They try to argue that there is some relevant epistemological distinction between their own religious beliefs and beliefs they reject such as YEC. And that's why they invoke MN as a demarcation criterion. So that brings us back to MN again, and puts the onus on supporters of MN to justify that principle, something they have failed to do.

No, I think MN is justified by being the minimal set of philosophical assumptions that must be adopted in order to do science. It maximizes the objective nature of scientific results with the least in the way of basic assumptions. The religious beliefs of a Miller have no more empiric basis than any other religious belief but there is a distinction to be made between religious beliefs that deny or contradict empiric evidence and those that don't.
 
John: Yes, and Coyne uses it to beat people he disagrees with, such as "faitheists." If he merely said that "I think scientists have to reject religion in order to be consistent but your mileage may vary" there would be no great brouhaha. But, in effect, he is asserting that Miller and Ayala are not "real" scientists.

Criticisms can certainly be made of Coyne's rhetoric. (Though I don't believe he has implied that they are not "real" scientists.) But I say that religious scientists are inconsistent in the way that I gave above, that is by standards that I think most people would agree on, probably including the religious scientists themselves (though they wouldn't agree they've failed to meet those standards). So I think Coyne is broadly justified in saying that they are being inconsistent.

John: No, I think MN is justified by being the minimal set of philosophical assumptions that must be adopted in order to do science. It maximizes the objective nature of scientific results with the least in the way of basic assumptions.

Obviously, those assertions need to be justified in order to make the case.

John: The religious beliefs of a Miller have no more empiric basis than any other religious belief but there is a distinction to be made between religious beliefs that deny or contradict empiric evidence and those that do.

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with MN. It's a different demarcation criterion. And what do you mean by "contradict empiric evidence"? Evidence doesn't come with conclusions attached. Conclusions have to be reached by inference from the evidence. And I think the best inference from all the available evidence is that the virgin birth (for example) didn't happen. It doesn't matter if you disagree with this inference. The point is that the demarcation criterion doesn't work because it doesn't tell us which is the right inference in this case.

I should add that there are plenty of philosophers who have rejected such demarcation criteria. It's not as if you have a consensus of philosophers on your side. Your side of this debate likes to throw accusations of "philosophical naivety", but there's plenty of philosophical naivety on your side too, and the insistence on simplistic demarcation criteria is one example.
 
P.S. Before you even start justifying MN you need to say what it means. You've implied that some religious (and therefore presumably supernatural) claims can be rejected by science on the grounds that they "contradict empiric evidence". That seems to contradict the basic MN principle that supernatural claims cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny.
 
The Wikipedia definition is good enough:

"Methodological naturalism (or scientific naturalism) which focuses on epistemology: This stance is concerned with knowledge: what are methods for gaining trustworthy knowledge of the natural world? It is an epistemological view that is specifically concerned with practical methods for acquiring knowledge, irrespective of one's metaphysical or religious views. It requires that hypotheses be explained and tested only by reference to natural causes and events. Explanations of observable effects are considered to be practical and useful only when they hypothesize natural causes (i.e., specific mechanisms, not indeterminate miracles)."

Barbara Forrest's discussion will also help.

There is no need to assert metaphysical naturalism in order to "do" science.

That seems to contradict the basic MN principle that supernatural claims cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny.

I think you have a limited understanding of MN. The difference is whether or not it is the empiric content of the claim that is being tested or the supposed supernatural content. An example I've used before (see comments here):

Suppose someone claims that a saint in waiting cures a woman of lung cancer. We can test the empiric fact of whether or not the woman is presently suffering from lung cancer and the empiric fact of whether she previously had lung cancer. If the woman is no longer suffering from lung cancer (and we don't just apply that marker for our ignorance, "spontaneous remission") can we then test what the cause of the change actually was? Hume pointed out we don't have any direct empiric experience of causation. We can certainly test to see if any known causes of remission are present ... say the woman was undergoing chemotherapy. But chemotherapy fails as well. How can we test the claim that the cure was supernatural and rule out a miracle scientifically? Under both metaphysical naturalism and MN, we simply assume that the natural cause was what caused the remission instead of a miracle. But an assumtion is just that, not a scientific test.

In short, you can test the empiric claims associated with the supernatural claim without being able to test the supernatural content itself. That's just one particular type of supernatural claim that is, in John Wilkins' phrase, "suitably empirically innoculated" so as to be beyond science's reach.

MN is preferable because it achieves the same objective without entangling science in more metaphysics than is needed.
 
@Julia,

I agree with John that your clarification doesn't accomplish much.
Metaphysical naturalism is an a priori--not empirical--claim. It is not, itself, testable; rather it rests on the supposition (some would say faith) that the cosmos is as orderly and regular as our measurements indicate.

I wonder, by the way what status you would assign dark matter--presently entirely theoretical and untestable--or the Higgs Boson (if the LHC doesn't find it, maybe we just need a bigger collider?). These are things that I presume you agree either do or do not exist "in the world."

@ Richard

I don't believe he has implied that they are not "real" scientists.

If that's the case, we might surmise that Coyne's "philosophical inconsistency" is of no practical consequence, since it cannot be shown to impede scientific discovery. Are we to postulate an Inconsistency-Of-The-Gaps, then, that doesn't actually influence events on earth, but still retains a great deal of Cosmic Significance?
 
John: "The religious beliefs of a Miller have no more empiric basis than any other religious belief but there is a distinction to be made between religious beliefs that deny or contradict empiric evidence and those that do."

Richard: "This doesn't seem to have anything to do with MN. It's a different demarcation criterion. " and "You've implied that some religious (and therefore presumably supernatural) claims can be rejected by science on the grounds that they "contradict empiric evidence". That seems to contradict the basic MN principle that supernatural claims cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny."

I don't mean to interrupt - interesting conversation.

But Richard, I wonder if you could clarify what MN means to you? Because my understand is that MN does mean that supernatural claims about the natural world can indeed be rejected by science based on the empiric evidence - a 10,000-year-old earth being the most obvious example.

But I'd like to hear your definition and I'll try not to interrupt again. Thanks!
 
Blogger comments is screwed up again. I hope this survives this time.

The Wikipedia definition is good enough:

"Methodological naturalism (or scientific naturalism) which focuses on epistemology: This stance is concerned with knowledge: what are methods for gaining trustworthy knowledge of the natural world? It is an epistemological view that is specifically concerned with practical methods for acquiring knowledge, irrespective of one's metaphysical or religious views. It requires that hypotheses be explained and tested only by reference to natural causes and events.[1] Explanations of observable effects are considered to be practical and useful only when they hypothesize natural causes (i.e., specific mechanisms, not indeterminate miracles)."

Barbara Forrest's discussion will also help.

There is no need to assert metaphysical naturalism in order to "do" science.

That seems to contradict the basic MN principle that supernatural claims cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny.

I think you have a limited understanding of MN. The difference is whether or not it is the empiric content of the claim that is being tested or the supposed supernatural content. An example I've used before (see comments here):

Suppose someone claims that a saint in waiting cures a woman of lung cancer. We can test the empiric fact of whether or not the woman is presently suffering from lung cancer and the empiric fact of whether she previously had lung cancer. If the woman is no longer suffering from lung cancer (and we don't just apply that marker for our ignorance, "spontaneous remission") can we then test what the cause of the change actually was? Hume pointed out we don't have any direct empiric experience of causation. We can certainly test to see if any known causes of remission are present ... say the woman was undergoing chemotherapy. But chemotherapy fails as well. How can we test the claim that the cure was supernatural and rule out a miracle scientifically? Under both metaphysical naturalism and MN, we simply assume that the natural cause was what caused the remission instead of a miracle. But an assumption is just that, not a scientific test.

In short, you can test the empiric claims associated with the supernatural claim without being able to test the supernatural content itself. That's just one particular type of supernatural claim that is, in John Wilkins' phrase, "suitably empirically innoculated" so as to be beyond science's reach.

MN is preferable because it achieves the same objective without entangling science in more metaphysics than is needed.

And MN isn't a demarcation criteria. It doesn't tell you science from non-science as much as explains why science does what it does.
 
The Wikipedia definition is good enough:

"Methodological naturalism (or scientific naturalism) which focuses on epistemology: This stance is concerned with knowledge: what are methods for gaining trustworthy knowledge of the natural world? It is an epistemological view that is specifically concerned with practical methods for acquiring knowledge, irrespective of one's metaphysical or religious views. It requires that hypotheses be explained and tested only by reference to natural causes and events.[1] Explanations of observable effects are considered to be practical and useful only when they hypothesize natural causes (i.e., specific mechanisms, not indeterminate miracles)."

Barbara Forrest's discussion will also help.

There is no need to assert metaphysical naturalism in order to "do" science.

That seems to contradict the basic MN principle that supernatural claims cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny.

I think you have a limited understanding of MN. The difference is whether or not it is the empiric content of the claim that is being tested or the supposed supernatural content. An example I've used before (see comments here):

Suppose someone claims that a saint in waiting cures a woman of lung cancer. We can test the empiric fact of whether or not the woman is presently suffering from lung cancer and the empiric fact of whether she previously had lung cancer. If the woman is no longer suffering from lung cancer (and we don't just apply that marker for our ignorance, "spontaneous remission") can we then test what the cause of the change actually was? Hume pointed out we don't have any direct empiric experience of causation. We can certainly test to see if any known causes of remission are present ... say the woman was undergoing chemotherapy. But chemotherapy fails as well. How can we test the claim that the cure was supernatural and rule out a miracle scientifically? Under both metaphysical naturalism and MN, we simply assume that the natural cause was what caused the remission instead of a miracle. But an assumption is just that, not a scientific test.

In short, you can test the empiric claims associated with the supernatural claim without being able to test the supernatural content itself. That's just one particular type of supernatural claim that is, in John Wilkins' phrase, "suitably empirically innoculated" so as to be beyond science's reach.

MN is preferable because it achieves the same objective without entangling science in more metaphysics than is needed.

And MN isn't a demarcation criteria. It doesn't tell you science from non-science as much as explains why science does what it does.
 
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Really? What exact property of a "soul" would be detected by neurobiology? Then defend your attribution of that property to a "soul" scientifically.

Don't feign ignorance. Assuming that you live in a part of what we call the western civilization, you will have quite a good idea of what believers actually expect from souls.

An assertion you make on what scientific evidence?

Merely looking at the cookie before and after the magic event shows that it has not turned into a bloody chunk of human flesh, so obviously the whole thing is at best metaphorical. And no, that looking at the cookie is not less scientific than going into the Rockies and registering the presence or absence of the curly-billed swamp warbler in a certain valley.

Yes, asserting such things as part of science would be rejected. We're just back to why scientists are supposed to treat everything as if they are scientific questions.

Oh, they don't have to. Just if they want to be consistent. And only to head off your typical whom to love canard*: it is always only about questions of what objects and processes exist in the universe, because that is what science is about. That includes gods, but excludes matters of personal taste.

The existence and nature of [burden of proof] is just another assertion not based on scientific evidence.

So what? This again is not a claim about the existence of objects and processes in the universe.

Of course, that is not something based on scientific evidence itself but on what you deem to be "consistent" and "reliable." While I agree, I don't pretend it is a scientific result and, if it isn't, you aren't being consistent by accepting an explanation without scientific evidence.

I would hesitate to call a pragmatic approach an "explanation", but the important part is, it is definitely not a question about the existence of objects and processes in the universe itself, like the claims of gods and miracles are, although it is the only known method for examining them.

*) Ah damn, too late, you have found another orange to compare to apples. Loving cats is not about what objects and processes exist in the universe. Yes, I know this is kinda repetitive, but maybe that helps to drive home the point. Nobody has ever proclaimed we should use science for every activity. It just so happens that religious claims are of the same nature as the claims that science deals with.
 
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Don't feign ignorance. Assuming that you live in a part of what we call the western civilization, you will have quite a good idea of what believers actually expect from souls.

Yes, and we knew what people expected of atoms before we actually found them. What do those expectation have to do with a scientific investigation?

Merely looking at the cookie before and after the magic event shows that it has not turned into a bloody chunk of human flesh

Well, if we are talking about "expectations" then show me a believer who expects that. If we talking about a scientific investigation, show me how you intend to scientifically investigate an immaterial "substance." At the very least, can you adopt a consistent position?

Oh, they don't have to. Just if they want to be consistent. And only to head off your typical whom to love canard*: it is always only about questions of what objects and processes exist in the universe, because that is what science is about. That includes gods, but excludes matters of personal taste.

Really? Coyne is not a real object in the universe and his personal tastes are not those of a real object? Especially given his recent posts on "free will"?

I'm sorry, I'm a little tired of your special pleading.
 
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That seems to contradict the basic MN principle that supernatural claims cannot be subjected to scientific scrutiny.

I think you have a limited understanding of MN. The difference is whether or not it is the empiric content of the claim that is being tested or the supposed supernatural content. An example I've used before (see comments here)

http://dododreams.blogspot.com/2010/04/unphilosophical-scientists-ii.html

Suppose someone claims that a saint in waiting cures a woman of lung cancer. We can test the empiric fact of whether or not the woman is presently suffering from lung cancer and the empiric fact of whether she previously had lung cancer. If the woman is no longer suffering from lung cancer (and we don't just apply that marker for our ignorance, "spontaneous remission") can we then test what the cause of the change actually was? Hume pointed out we don't have any direct empiric experience of causation. We can certainly test to see if any known causes of remission are present ... say the woman was undergoing chemotherapy. But chemotherapy fails as well. How can we test the claim that the cure was supernatural and rule out a miracle scientifically? Under both metaphysical naturalism and MN, we simply assume that the natural cause was what caused the remission instead of a miracle. But an assumption is just that, not a scientific test.

In short, you can test the empiric claims associated with the supernatural claim without being able to test the supernatural content itself. That's just one particular type of supernatural claim that is, in John Wilkins' phrase, "suitably empirically innoculated" so as to be beyond science's reach.

MN is preferable because it achieves the same objective without entangling science in more metaphysics than is needed.

And MN isn't a demarcation criteria. It doesn't tell you science from non-science as much as explains why science does what it does.
 
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I'm sorry, I'm a little tired of your special pleading.

It is not special pleading to point out a red herring. No Coyne and no Dawkins (and certainly not myself) has ever argued that science is the only way to do anything at all in life. It does not apply to following your taste, just like it does not apply to mathematics. The friggin point is that it is simply the only reliable way to generate knowledge about the world around us, and thus deals with exactly the kind of claims that make religions religions. The question whether science is good for dealing with claims of a nature completely different from religious claims (like those found in pure philosophy) does not enter the discussion at any point except as a red herring, and certainly not the question of whether science is good for dealing with not-even-claims such as an empathy towards cats.
 
John,

MN is a demarcation criterion because it rules out a certain type of hypothesis (any involving supernatural causes) from being accepted as scientific. That's what demarcation criterion means. Compare with Popper's famous demarcation criterion, which ruled out unfalsifiable hypotheses from being accepted as scientific.

I'm still not clear how you think MN applies to the original argument. Perhaps you think it doesn't. (I brought it up, not you.) To be specific, consider the common religious belief that Jesus was born of a virgin. Do you think we can make a scientific inference that this belief is false? If not, why not? Specifically, does the reason have anything to do with MN?
 
The friggin point is that it is simply the only reliable way to generate knowledge about the world around us ...

Yes, that's your philosophical position. It is not a scientific result, however. You have yet to explain why all scientists must share your philosophy.

and thus deals with exactly the kind of claims that make religions religions.

Except, of course, when it doesn't, as I've pointed out.

... MN is a demarcation criterion because it rules out a certain type of hypothesis (any involving supernatural causes) from being accepted as scientific.

Only in the trivial sense of describing what science is and does as an empiric enterprise. No philosophers think there is no distinction to be made between science and non-science, only that there will always be a twilight zone that of close cases. Day may imperceptably merge into night but we can tolerably tell the difference between day and night. No one thinks that Gosse's Omphalos was a scientific hypothesis. Something that by its very terms precludes empiric investigation cannot be science.

I'm still not clear how you think MN applies to the original argument.

Not very much at all. The main impetus for advancing MN, as Forrest pointed out, was that IDers and other creationists before them were attacking science for being a metaphysical belief, which does have bad consequences under our Constitution.

To be specific, consider the common religious belief that Jesus was born of a virgin. Do you think we can make a scientific inference that this belief is false?

You can, of course, make any inference you want. Like IDers, you can point to some fact about the world delivered by science, make an inference, and claim you are doing science. The question is, is there anyway at all to determine whether or not such an inference is, in fact, scientific. I think you can and that is whether the claim is empirically testable. The problem with your example is that your "inference" itself entails a claim that naturalism is all there is. In one sense, you can call that "scientific," since science assumes naturalism but the assumption is not, itself, a scientific result, so the "inference" relies on philosophy, which is not empirically testable. Therefore, I'd call it a philosophical inference.
 
John,

As far as I can understand you, your answer to my question is no, we cannot make a valid scientific inference that the belief (in the virgin birth of Jesus) is false. And the reason we can't do so is that the hypothesis is untestable.

So now you're invoking testability as your demarcation criterion. And the question becomes, what do you mean by testable?

As I understand it, Popper used "testable" as a synonym for "unfalsifiable". Is that what you mean? If not, please explain what you do mean.
 
Anyone discussing this should first read Carriers analysis which refutes many of the claims made over and over: http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2007/01/defining-supernatural.html
 
Correction. Obviously I meant that Popper used "testable" as a synonym for "falsifiable", not "unfalsifiable".
 
Yes, that's your philosophical position. It is not a scientific result, however. You have yet to explain why all scientists must share your philosophy.

Science being the only way to generate reliable knowledge about the universe is more of a scientific result than it is a philosophy. Strictly speaking, of course, it is neither, but a fact. You could just as well say that the idea that autoclaving is a reliable way to sterilize items is a philosophy.

As for why other scientists should share it, well, consistency. You would also be taken aback by a mathematician who adds two and two apples to four but then arbitrarily decides that the same is not true for two and two cars.

Another reason would be respect for your colleagues. If somebody is an evolutionary biologist, they would rightly be appalled by a colleague from chemistry waving away evolution as a hoax or stupid mistake. Yet that is what this evolutionary biologist implicitly does with the state of science of his colleagues in neurobiology if he believes in souls against all evidence, and that is what he does with the work of his colleagues in astrophysics if he believes in a creator god.

You expect others to respect your expertise and grant you the presumption of being honest and competent, so you can well extend the same courtesy to other scientists until the opposite is proven. And it just so happens that if you summarize the current state of science in all areas, the only god not decisively ruled out is one that is indistinguishable from being non-existent. We have actually come to that point by now.
 
@RichardW

To be specific, consider the common religious belief that Jesus was born of a virgin. Do you think we can make a scientific inference that this belief is false? If not, why not? Specifically, does the reason have anything to do with MN?

This question too quickly assumes that this belief is "commonly" held as a specifically *scientific* fact, which I think is an open question--even among literalists. Garden variety "facts" (e.g. PZ Myers loves his Trophy Wife) are not completely coextensive with scientific facts. And in fact, most Christian theology highlights the non-scientific nature of the virgin birth--whether believed literally or not, its importance is that the world does not generally work that way. It stands in contrast to the normal order of things. There was just one virgin birth, one resurrection. Science is not history. Its concern is with regularity, order and predictability, not, ceteris paribus, in "what happened."

More to the point (the so-called incompatibility), it's not clear to me how belief in a single black swan necessarily *contradicts* the belief that "all swans are white." Belief, in practice, is not such a rigid, either/or thing as this. We all know that water is wet--until you freeze it. We know that matter is atomic--unless superheated to a plasma. We don't usually specify the fine print of our convictions, which leads to confusions like the one we are discussing here, but a great many contradictions can be resolved by digging into the context.

One contradiction many people are struggling with today is the apparent irreconcilability of deterministic naturalism and free will. Scientifically, most materialists cannot escape making the scientific inference that free will is false or illusory, and yet not a single one--even the ones who write books about it--has ever been able to truly inhabit this inference. Fatalism is self-refuting, and we all must live as though we have free will, whatever the "facts."

This crisis seems at least as serious as the one in which people have a personal relationship with a 2,000 year-old ghost. And yet all the opprobrium of incompatibility is reserved for the latter, a fact which which I find worthy of contemplation.
 
Chris: This question too quickly assumes that this belief is "commonly" held as a specifically *scientific* fact...

I don't think you've been following our discussion. I'm the one who's rejecting John's division of facts into specifically scientific and philosophical (or non-scientific) realms.

In the passage you quoted I was asking John to clarify his position, not stating mine.
 
So now you're invoking testability as your demarcation criterion. And the question becomes, what do you mean by testable?

"Subject to empiric investigation." Popper was attempting to solve the problem of induction posed by Hume (if we find, as Alex does, that induction is reliable because induction works reliably, we are engaged in circular reasoning). Popper claimed that science did not involve induction but, instead, only consisted of disproving hypotheses. That's not what I'm claiming. Indeed, one feature of MN is to avoid the problem of induction with a shrug of the shoulders and an admission that science is not justifiable but we're just going to go ahead and do it anyway.

We can certainly test the hypotheses of whether or not human beings, in the course of the regularities that we dub "natural law," reproduce without male sperm. What we can't test is whether "natural law" is inviolable.

I'm the one who's rejecting John's division of facts into specifically scientific and philosophical (or non-scientific) realms.

Now, let me ask you this: Why do you talk about "science" at all if it is completely indistinguishable from anything else?

And Alex, please give me citations to the papers of neurobiologists demonstrating that there is no soul and astrophysicists demonstrating that there is no creator god. You can respect the scientific results of your colleagues (and, as far as I know Miller, for example, does) without accepting their conclusions about the wider world that may draw from those results but which are not directly tested by them.
 
if we find, as Alex does, that induction is reliable because induction works reliably, we are engaged in circular reasoning

There is no circular reasoning involved simply because there is no reasoning. You always treat these issues as if humanity had to sit down and discuss for a few centuries whether science is justified, and only when a satisfactory justification was found we decided to embark on it. No. We tried it, and found that it produced knowledge; and the "reliable" is part of the definition of knowledge. Now a philosopher may think it is important to find purely metaphysical justifications, but that is not how real life works. Science is coextensive with going out to look what makes those weird noises outside (hypothesis: an animal? No, there is none. Hypothesis: machine not running correctly? Oh yeah, the ventilation hatch sounds funny. Hypothesis: it is clogged...), and that is that. And it is not as if the speed of light or the molecular weight of gold suddenly became variable and/or unmeasurable all over the planet the day some philosopher discovered the problem of induction to keep himself busy.

please give me citations to the papers of neurobiologists demonstrating that there is no soul and astrophysicists demonstrating that there is no creator god. You can respect the scientific results of your colleagues (and, as far as I know Miller, for example, does) without accepting their conclusions about the wider world that may draw from those results but which are not directly tested by them.

Sure, nobody says that explicitly, because with rare exceptions nobody is explicitly in the business of disproving religious claims, and many of the early scientists even embarked on their studies with the expectation to find traces of gods influence in the world, or to verify biblical accounts. Rather, the disprove of religious claims is a spill-over effect of scientific discovery.

Just to give one example, from what I read the commonplace concept of souls was basically disproved in antiquity already, when a Greek philosopher noticed that a blow to the head confuses your thinking, while a blow to the foot does not. Correctly, he deducted that our thinking cannot reside in an immaterial soul if trauma to our material body can affect it. The 19th century saw the remarkable case of a gentle and diligent construction worker who suffered damage to his brain in an explosion, and afterwards suddenly had a nasty and violent temper and unreliable habits, showing that our good or evil character traits also cannot have any non-biological component. Since then, similar cases have simply piled up, and even Alzheimer's disease alone would show that our memories are purely physico-biological.

So what is left? No memories to carry over into the netherworld, no thought processes, and obviously whatever would be judged by a god to end up in either heaven or hell would not be the carrier of the character traits it is presumed to be judged on. As per the current state of neuroscience, no "you" is left to reside in a soul, all is biology. That is clearly disappointing from the perspective of any religious believer. "Sophisticated" theologians can play word games to salvage the concept in an indistinguishably diluted form. Fine. But by that measure, I can show the Loch Ness Monster to exist simply by calling my mouse pad by that name and then chiding all serious zoologists for their naivité when they consider its existence debunked.

For additional examples, I suggest reading Victor Stenger's books, in particular God - the failed hypothesis, the title of which Massimo seems to have confused with Dawkins' God Delusion. That, by the way, does not fill me with confidence that he is actually aware of both authors, in contrast to his claims to the opposite, painstakingly making clear in their writing that they never pretend to disprove a shadow god - only those that are actually worshiped by actual believers.
 
John: "Subject to empiric investigation."

That's still vague.

1. If you simply mean that it must be possible to assess the hypothesis in the light of available empirical evidence, then the virgin birth hypothesis meets that criterion. Our existing evidence about reproduction is relevant evidence.

2. If you mean that it must in principle be possible to find new empirical evidence that could affect our assessment of the hypothesis, then again the virgin birth hypothesis meets that criterion. We could, in principle, find new documentary evidence that Mary was not a virgin.

3. If you mean that we must have the ability to go and actively look for new evidence with a reasonable prospect of finding it, e.g. by carrying out tests, then I deny that that such a property is essential for scientific assessment of a hypothesis.


John: Now, let me ask you this: Why do you talk about "science" at all if it is completely indistinguishable from anything else?

I deliberately didn't use the word "science" in my first post here, because I could make my original point better without it. But it's a useful word for referring broadly to the kind of thing that scientists do. The problem is that some people fetishize the word, thinking that if they can attach it to a certain question, fact, hypothesis, etc, they give it some special status. In particular, they want to make some absolute distinction between the kind of thing that scientists do and the kind of thing that philosophers do, so they try to divide questions into "scientific questions" and "philosophical questions", as if that's an important distinction.

My main point is that the kind of reasoning needed to assess the virgin birth hypothesis is broadly similar to some of the reasoning that scientists use professionally. And therefore I think that if religious scientists applied the same type of reasoning to the virgin birth hypothesis as they use in their professional lives, they would reject the virgin birth hypothesis.

You seem to want to argue against this position on the grounds that there is some distinctive feature of the virgin birth hypothesis that renders it immune to the kind of reasoning that scientists use professionally. And that's why you look for a demarcation criterion.
 
I don't think you've been following our discussion. I'm the one who's rejecting John's division of facts into specifically scientific and philosophical (or non-scientific) realms.

I get that. And I'm saying you are too quick to reject this distinction.
 
Richard,

Putting the word "hypothesis" after something is not sufficent to include it under the rubric of science. That PZ loves his wife is both a belief and a fact but it is not a hypothesis until it is scientifically formalized--that is until PZ or someone else signals an intention to use scientific method to validate the belief.

Granted, it is all the rage these days for fundamentalists to call theological claims scientific. But one cannot extrapolate from this that every religious assertion is a hypothesis. (Similarly, neither are most (factual) historical assertions--nor most legal determinations).

Having said that, I agree with you that "subject to empiric investigation" is an overly vague definition of "testing." Science has a great many conventions that distinguish it from a casual, folk empiricism--isolating variables, assigning controls, comparison against a null hypothesis, statistical sampling, etc. We often have to disbelieve the "evidence" of our immediate senses, which would be unempirical if it were not part of a larger effort to rationally clarify our data. But all of this points back to the theme, that we *live* as though there were two kinds of facts, and that such a distinction is unavaoidable in human life.
 
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Alex: " "Sophisticated" theologians can play word games to salvage the concept in an indistinguishably diluted form. Fine. But by that measure, I can show the Loch Ness Monster to exist simply by calling my mouse pad by that name and then chiding all serious zoologists for their naivité when they consider its existence debunked."

You could do that, but it wouldn't be very scientific because the science of anthropology considers religion to be very different than mere folklore - like Bigfoot or fairies or loch ness monsters.

Richard: "And therefore I think that if religious scientists applied the same type of reasoning to the virgin birth hypothesis as they use in their professional lives, they would reject the virgin birth hypothesis"

Actually, some religious scholars do reject a miraculous virgin birth - I don't know how many. There are also many ideas about where that came from and what it means. Viewed in the context of history, it's not necessarily something a religious scientist would have problems with.
 
Of course it would not be scientific. That is the whole point. That is why a scientist is inconsistent if they do something like that. You finally get it!

Or you don't, because you will just claim that supernatural is special or something.

Well, it is no use, apparently. If I were a mathematician who claims that you have to do mathematics to estimate the value of pi, and that reciting that verse of the bible where it is given as 3 is methodologically incompatible with mathematics as well as just plain wrong, you would retort:

1. "You have to do mathematics to estimate pi" is not an equation itself, so my claim is self-defeating.

2. That I am intolerantly forcing all mathematicians to accept my "philosophy" of how to estimate pi even if they are not working on the problem of estimating pi themselves and thus could ignore it without harming their own work.

3. That mathematics is a methodology and not a worldview.

4. That I do not use mathematics to decide if I love my wife.

All of which is completely besides the point, but that has never stopped you from pretending it had any relevance to the matter at hand. But by all means go ahead and pretend that arbitrarily walling off some empirical claims from scientific scrutiny is not inconsistent. This has gone in circles long enough.
 
Oops. Thought you were John Pieret. Sorry.
 
That's OK Alex. I was pointing out that your example was comparing apples (religion) with oranges (Loch Ness Monster), at least according to the science of anthropology.
 
Re apples and oranges:

That actually seems to be the core of the problem with Massimo's position: can you turn an apple into an orange, thus making it incomparable with other apples, simply by scribbling the word "religion" on it?

Massimo says yes, without further explanation or reasoning beyond the fact that philosophy of science textbooks say so. I'd say ad-hoccery = ad-hoccery. Either both are defensible, meaning that science cannot say anything about anything at all ever, or both are indefensible, meaning that lack of scientific evidence is just as good an argument with angels as well it is with the Loch Ness Monster.
 
Chris: The word "hypothesis" after something is not sufficent to include it under the rubric of science.

I haven't said or implied that it is.

Chris: That PZ loves his wife is both a belief and a fact but it is not a hypothesis until it is scientifically formalized.

That seems like an extraordinarily narrow definition of "hypothesis". If you insist on interpreting the word in such a narrow sense, please substitute "proposition" for "hypothesis" in my posts.
 
Alex:

There is no circular reasoning involved simply because there is no reasoning.

[Blink] Reasoning and understanding just what you are doing is unimportant in science? It's just what we do? Does that include when we tend to ascribe phenomena to the acts of an invisible agent because we have a Hyper-sensitive Agent Detection Device?

Sure, nobody says that explicitly, because with rare exceptions nobody is explicitly in the business of disproving religious claims,

So no scientists do it but it's still science?

Richard:

1. If you simply mean that it must be possible to assess the hypothesis in the light of available empirical evidence, then the virgin birth hypothesis meets that criterion. Our existing evidence about reproduction is relevant evidence.

Only if you change the hypothesis to suit your own purposes.

2. If you mean that it must in principle be possible to find new empirical evidence that could affect our assessment of the hypothesis, then again the virgin birth hypothesis meets that criterion. We could, in principle, find new documentary evidence that Mary was not a virgin.

Get back to me when you can. I can't tell what science might include someday. Denying that we can tell what science is today because it might change someday is silly. For one thing, we might find evidence that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and all our old science was wrong. Therefore, "creation science" is science.

3. If you mean that we must have the ability to go and actively look for new evidence with a reasonable prospect of finding it, e.g. by carrying out tests, then I deny that that such a property is essential for scientific assessment of a hypothesis. ...

I deliberately didn't use the word "science" in my first post here, because I could make my original point better without it. But it's a useful word for referring broadly to the kind of thing that scientists do.


That's strange. If we can't tell what science is how can you tell if what you are doing is a "scientific assessment"? If it is "what scientists do" (not a bad start to a definition, BTW) then we're back to the question I keep asking Alex ... where are the scientific papers on the Virgin Birth? The reason I say that science entails empiric investigation is that we can look at what scientists do and see that they all but universally focus on empiric evidence when push comes to shove. And, of course, Chris is right that I was short-handing what "testing" meant (there ia a lot of "method" that goes into empiric testing) but, again, we can look to what scientists do to see how they go about it. But it is a universal feature of science. Even in the "discovery phase" the focus is on if it can be tested and how to do so.
 
Alex:

Of course it would not be scientific. That is the whole point. That is why a scientist is inconsistent if they do something like that.

Once more around the circle. Actual live scientists do unscientific things all the time. Either they are all inconsistent (in which case, so what?) or you have to demonstrate (not just assert) that there is some distinction between the okay inconsistencies and the not-okay ones.

But by all means go ahead and pretend that arbitrarily walling off some empirical claims from scientific scrutiny is not inconsistent.

But that's what we've been discussing all along ... which claims are empiric.

That actually seems to be the core of the problem with Massimo's position: can you turn an apple into an orange, thus making it incomparable with other apples, simply by scribbling the word "religion" on it?

No, you actually have to listen to the claims, rather than just reframe them in your own head to suit your purposes. If someone claims that the Lock Ness Monster is an immaterial being not subject to the laws of nature, then it is not a claim subject to empiric testing. If someone claims it is a plesiosaur that eats and shits and takes up space in the physical world, then it is testable.
 
John,

You are continuing to be vague about what you mean by testability. I offered three possible interpretations, and you didn't pick any. If you're not prepared to explain what your demarcation criterion means, then how can you either apply it or justify it?

"Only if you change the hypothesis to suit your own purposes."

What are you talking about? What change? You can't expect me to accept such vague assertions in lieu of arguments.

"...where are the scientific papers on the Virgin Birth?"

So now your invoking publication as a demarcation criterion. You cannot be serious.
 
No Alex, I was pointing out that, in making a comparison to support your philosophical point, you were disregarding the science - anthropology - that says it's not a valid comparison to begin with. And so your comparison or analogy fails scientifically before we can consider it philosophically.
But knowing you're able to disregard science in order to support your philosophical argument is interesting - and relevant to the conversation.
 
P.S. John, I think I see what you meant. Evidence about reproduction isn't evidence against the hypothesis of a specifically miraculous virgin birth.

I was wrong. The evidence that leads us to conclude that the hypothesis is false is our experience of the regularity of the world, our experience of past debunked miracle claims, and our experience of human nature, all of which make human invention or error a better explanation for the report of a virgin birth.
 
P.P.S. John, I don't think you believe in the virgin birth, do you? What leads you to reject the hypothesis? Do you claim that evidence doesn't play any part at all in your rejection?
 
Reasoning and understanding just what you are doing is unimportant in science? It's just what we do? Does that include when we tend to ascribe phenomena to the acts of an invisible agent because we have a Hyper-sensitive Agent Detection Device?

Your point was always how to justify starting to do science, not, as you now suddenly pretend, that we should examine it later and try to figure out what we are doing and how to better do it.

So no scientists do it but it's still science?

Scientists have disproved every god that is distinguishable from being nonexistent, yes, even if they never set out to do so. If you drive to work and just happen to drive over a skunk it still ends up flat. Even if you get out of the car and scream, "no, it cannot be dead! That cannot be true!", by the way, which would be the equivalent of a religious scientist.

Actual live scientists do unscientific things all the time. Either they are all inconsistent (in which case, so what?) or you have to demonstrate (not just assert) that there is some distinction between the okay inconsistencies and the not-okay ones.

Right, there is no clearer distinction between them than between little white lies and fraud - it is a continuum. But we do not pretend that lying is just swell and we should not criticize anybody for it. Intellectual consistency can be an ideal even if we acknowledge that we will never be perfect.

If someone claims that the Lock Ness Monster is an immaterial being not subject to the laws of nature, then it is not a claim subject to empiric testing.

Of course not. But as long as it is claimed to be part of the world around us it is necessarily subject to parsimony: a superfluous postulate indistinguishable from being non-existent that science can and even must reject. Now there are two strategies to avoid that conclusion, and Massimo seems to be oscillating between them:

1. Argue that a scientist may only apply parsimony to vacuous secular claims, not to equally vacuous religious ones. Apart from there not being any coherent reason why that should be so, it would lead to the inane situation that any claim whatsoever could get the label religious tacked on it at the believers' whim, meaning that religion gets to decide science what is allowed to say.

2. Claim that parsimony is a philosophical concept and a scientist is overstepping his epistemology for using it, which is equally inane, as parsimony (while not the result of a hypothesis test itself, yes, I know) is as necessary a part of science as statistics is a part of population genetics (while not being proven by population genetics itself).
 
John,

In an earlier post I mentioned the following as evidence against a miracle: "our experience of the regularity of the world, our experience of past debunked miracle claims...".

Let me put it another way. Our past experience is that explaining the world in terms of regularities has been effective. Invoking miracles has been counter-productive. I say that this experience is evidence against miracles. And Barbara Forrest seems to agree. In the article you cited, she argues that the "demonstrated success" of methodological naturalism is evidence that supports philosophical naturalism. (She doesn't explicitly call it "evidence", but she gives the demonstrated success of MN as one of the "factors" making PN "empirically grounded".)
 
That seems like an extraordinarily narrow definition of "hypothesis". If you insist on interpreting the word in such a narrow sense, please substitute "proposition" for "hypothesis" in my posts.

That's the point. Science is extraordinarily narrow compared to everyday epistemology. That's what gives it its power. Most basic everyday facts that arise from our experience are not scientific (though they may accord with science), because we do not frame them as such. We could, perhaps, in theory, but we don't, as a matter of practice, because life is too short to take every subjective datum and corroborate it objectively.

If Coyne is right that scientific (objective) and non-scientific (subjective) facts are incompatible, then this is a problem that strikes all of us, inescapably. The immediate absurdity of this problem reminds us that he *isn't* really contrasting scientific with non-scientific facts, he's comparing differing metaphysical pictures. And yes, these are incompatible, since you can only believe the world is ordered in one way at a time. But this has little influence on one's ability to do good science.
 
Chris Schoen:
To which I can only say that 95% of all scientists currently working in what everybody plainly understands to be science would be surprised to learn that they are not doing science. If only a double blind pharmacological experiment with a control group is science, what is then the cladist inferring the evolutionary history of birds, or the geologist helping a company discover oil deposits? Are they priests, maybe? Science is a bit more than what you describe, just like math is a bit more than a few dozen researchers developing new proofs; it is also me using a pocket calculator to get my lab protocol right.
 
Alex,

As John has said in this very thread, there is no Maginot line to separate science from non-science, and I should not have implied the distinction was so easily proscribed. But the fact remains that the "facts" offered us by our subjective experience, even within a secularist, rationalist milieu, are of a different category than scientific facts. You know the saying that data is not the plural of anecdote.

Geologists and biologists quantify and objectively measure their subjects, and they do so with a great deal of rigor. They test theory against data and vice versa. Natural selection and plate tectonics have decades of sustained research behind them. By contrast, most of our everyday experience is taken as given. We proceed as if we know what is going on, but we rarely bother to double check--unless we are obsessive or paranoid. Sometimes we will venture into that gray area between science and everyday experience, for example if we decide to start keeping a family budget, or observe the effects of a new diet. But for every one of these endeavors there are hundreds if not thousands of facts we simply do not question--and many we could not, since there's no way to objectify them (Did I really enjoy that sandwich? Is my employer ethical? -- these may be important questions, but they are not scientific ones).

So if we can take or leave science as our needs dictate, why can't a religious person do the same? (Keeping in mind that even Coyne admits he cannot reproach the scientific work of Miller, or Collins, or Dobzhansky, or Mendel, etc., etc.)
 
And round and round we go, indeed. Coyne wrote about being a consistent scientist, not about having to follow his approach to be a decent human being, or about putting believers into a Gulag if they don't. So what is the issue?

In addition to that, neither he nor anybody else lays in wait in front of a church to see if any scientists enter and then pounces on them trying to convert them to atheism. What a blogger like him does is take public statements, articles, editorials etc. that come first and criticize or praise them only as a reaction.

The pattern is usually: (1) religious scientist says or writes something that is distorting or only selectively presenting science to defend their beliefs, or an accommodationist pretends that there is no conflict between holding beliefs because a holy text says so and holding opposite beliefs because of actual empirical evidence, especially because the 99.99% of believers who have beliefs that could be tested empirically are not True Scotsmen anyway; (2) Coyne makes a post criticizing this for being inconsistent, poor thinking or, rarely, dishonesty. That is called the marketplace of ideas. If somebody does not want to be criticized for their sloppy thinking, why do they have to come out and publicly say "frozen waterfall, thus Jesus, QED, trust me because I'm a scientist", or "you can't believe in special creation, there is no evidence; but god answering your prayers, that's fine even if there is no evidence"?
 
Richard:

You are continuing to be vague about what you mean by testability. I offered three possible interpretations, and you didn't pick any.

And you are vague about what you mean by science, even though you use the term. But I agreed with Chris' explanation of the methods scientists use to empirically test hypotheses. Empiric testing is what scientists do when assessing hypotheses. They propose tests, conduct them, subject them to peer review and jointly assess the results.

What are you talking about? What change? You can't expect me to accept such vague assertions in lieu of arguments.

What does the "assess[ing] the hypothesis in the light of available empirical evidence" (whatever you mean by that!) as to the "natural" means of reproduction have to do with a claim that there was a single non-natural reproductive event that violated natural law? If you are saying that it tests the existence or nonexistence of any non-natural events, then you are "assessing" a different "proposition" (and running smack into Hume's problem of induction).

So now your invoking publication as a demarcation criterion. You cannot be serious.

That is simply shorthand for "where is the peer-reviewed investigation by scientists by the means scientists use to test hypotheses?" Surely, with a "proposition" as long-standing and controversial as virgin birth, if scientists thought it was amenable to scientific investigation, there would have been some publication on the subject. In short, scientists have never treated the claim of a virgin birth as science.

Look, if you want to make a post-modernist claim (much like creationists) that there is no such thing as "science" that we can identify and understand, fine. But then you have to agree that that Coyne is wrong to say that scientists who are theists are being inconsistent, because there are no identifiable standards.
 
John: Empiric testing is what scientists do when assessing hypotheses. They propose tests, conduct them, subject them to peer review and jointly assess the results.

Not necessarily. Scientists sometimes assess hypotheses on the basis of existing data, without further tests. Are you going to insist that such assessments are not scientific?

How much of "The Origin of Species" was based on testing? When Darwin was sitting at home reflecting on the evidence he'd collected on his voyages and what he knew of animal breeding, are you going to insist his reasoning wasn't scientific, because he wasn't planning a test?
 
P.S. Even when scientists conduct tests, there comes a time after the test has been conducted when they have to assess the hypothesis in the light of all the available data. Now, no doubt their thinking will be a bit different in cases where (a) some of the data are from tests conducted specifically for the purpose of assessing that hypothesis, as opposed to cases where (b) all of the data came from previous tests or were collected without testing. But it seems absurd to suggest that these are such fundamentally different types of thinking that one assessment should be labelled distinctly scientific and the other distinctly non-scientific.
 
Scientists sometimes assess hypotheses on the basis of existing data, without further tests.

But that date undoubtably came from testing.

How much of "The Origin of Species" was based on testing? When Darwin was sitting at home reflecting on the evidence he'd collected on his voyages and what he knew of animal breeding, are you going to insist his reasoning wasn't scientific, because he wasn't planning a test?

Quite a bit, including his work on barnacles, pigeon breeding, how plants and animals could reach islands, etc., etc. He also built on the testing done by others. Perhaps most importantly, he knew others would be and welcomed them when they came. Science is, after all, a collective enterprise. And, yes, he was planning more tests himself, which he later published, on orchids and earthworms among other things.

Now, no doubt their thinking will be a bit different in cases where (a) some of the data are from tests conducted specifically for the purpose of assessing that hypothesis, as opposed to cases where (b) all of the data came from previous tests or were collected without testing. But it seems absurd to suggest that these are such fundamentally different types of thinking that one assessment should be labelled distinctly scientific and the other distinctly non-scientific.

But the data still has to bear on the hypothesis in question or it's not science, it is armchair philosophy.

Anyway,
here is, amusingly, a perfect example of what I was talking about.
 
And round and round we go, indeed. Coyne wrote about being a consistent scientist, not about having to follow his approach to be a decent human being, or about putting believers into a Gulag if they don't. So what is the issue?

There is no issue. "Incompatibility" is a MacGuffin because it (1) has no perceivable bearing on how science is conducted, and (2) is equally shared by all humans who engage in science. Coyne has no point to make here, he's just trying to wrap his disdain for religion in philosophical respectibility.

As for your "marketplace of ideas," Coyne has never given a specific example of how religion has marred the work of theistic scientist. The best he can come up with as a consequence is "cognitive dissonance," which, ironically, he pleads guilty to experiencing himself in the "conflict" between free will versus determinism, which even the deepest commitment to naturalism cannot liberate him from.

Remember Coyne's question: "How would I know if I were wrong?" Well how would he know he was wrong about science and religion being incompatible, given that he can't come up with any way to objectify and quantify the consequences. To paraphrase Wittgenstein, what would theistic science look like if science and religion were *not* incompatible?
 
John: But the data still has to bear on the hypothesis in question or it's not science, it is armchair philosophy.

Come on, John. Pay attention to the argument. I'm arguing against your testability criterion, and now you fall back on the much wider criterion of whether there are data bearing on the question. I've already argued that there are data bearing on the hypothesis of a miraculous virgin birth, and you didn't object to those arguments.

I went to the trouble of proposing three increasingly narrow interpretations of "testable", and you've never chosen between them. But your previous post implied that you are interpreting the word roughly in the narrowest of them, my sense #3. That is, a hypothesis is only testable if it is possible to conduct a test of it, which I interpret to mean collect new data specifically for the purpose of assessing the hypothesis. But now you are in effect switching to my much wider sense #1. You're committing a fallacy of equivocation.

Please make up your mind what you mean by "testable", state it clearly, and then stick to it.
 
P.S. I think I misinterpreted your last post, John. Let me reply again. (It would help if you replied more fully, and not just with one-liners.)

John: But the data still has to bear on the hypothesis in question or it's not science, it is armchair philosophy.

You're conflating two different issues here: (1) whether an assessment of a hypothesis is valid or not, and (2) whether it's a matter of science or a matter of philosophy. If an assessment is based on data that have no bearing on the question, then it's not going to be a valid assessment, regardless of whether it's a matter of science or a matter of philosophy. (You suggested earlier that I was being "post-modernist", but I have no problem with the idea that some assessments--and therefore some conclusions--are valid and others are not.)

You're using your demarcation criterion to divide matters between science and philosophy, saying that even if a miracle claim (for example) can be validly assessed and rejected, that assessment will be a matter of philosophy not science. So I'm testing your criterion by comparing different cases of _valid_ asessments. Thus, in my argument, it was supposed to be understood that _both_ the assessments in question were valid, so both were based on data that bear on the hypothesis. With that in mind, please read my argument again...

Even when scientists conduct tests, there comes a time after the test has been conducted when they have to assess the hypothesis in the light of all the available data. Now, no doubt their thinking will be a bit different in cases where (a) some of the data are from tests conducted specifically for the purpose of assessing that hypothesis, as opposed to cases where (b) all of the data came from previous tests or were collected without testing. But it seems absurd to suggest that these are such fundamentally different types of thinking that one assessment should be labelled distinctly scientific and the other distinctly non-scientific.

Do you agree that such a distinction would be absurd? I haven't connected all the dots to show that your testability criterion leads to such a situation, but I think that follows quite easily.
 
I've spent far too much time on this already, so I'm going to sum up and then call it a day, before I'm tempted to respond to another reply.

Your testability criterion leads to a very narrow definition of science that excludes much of what people normally call science. It means that, if scientists draw a perfectly valid conclusion based on pre-existing empirical data, without conducting new tests, they can't call that a scientific conclusion. I doubt many scientists would agree to constrain their speech in such a way.

The real meanings of words like science and philosophy are complex and rich. Trying to limit them with simplistic definitions is naive. Real life isn't that simple.
 
Richard:

Let me put it another way. Our past experience is that explaining the world in terms of regularities has been effective.

Exactly Hume's problem of induction. That's circular reasoning. We should rely on our inductions because our inductions work.

I say that this experience is evidence against miracles. And Barbara Forrest seems to agree. In the article you cited, she argues that the "demonstrated success" of methodological naturalism is evidence that supports philosophical naturalism. (She doesn't explicitly call it "evidence", but she gives the demonstrated success of MN as one of the "factors" making PN "empirically grounded".)

The point of MN is that we recognize that what we are doing is not logically justified and, then, don't try to extent it to things beyond science's self-imposed limits. There are many things that are "empirically grounded" that are not science. My knee hurts, therefore it is going to rain. Quite true and empiric but I don't expect meteorologists to be trying to get my knee into scientific peer-review research. Don't conflate my shorthand of "empiric testing" with the notion that everything that is empirically grounded counts as "science." What we call "science" is a particular method applied by the people we call "scientists." You are free to call our empiric experience evidence against miracles but I think you shouldn't call it scientific evidence unless you have engaged in the method. If you don't like the word "philosophy" for that nonscientific conclusion about the empiric world, call it "reasoning" or "realism" or whatever ... though I can't, for the life of me, understand why you would want to disassociate yourself from many of the greatest thinkers the world has ever known.

It would help if you replied more fully, and not just with one-liners.

Do you really think we can engage in anything more than one-liners in the comment section of a blog? If you want to even begin to investigate this area, I suggest Understanding Philosophy of Science by James Ladyman as a starting point.

If an assessment is based on data that have no bearing on the question, then it's not going to be a valid assessment, regardless of whether it's a matter of science or a matter of philosophy.

Really? So if a person decides that murder is wrong based on the Ten Commandments and we grant that the Ten Commandments have no empiric content bearing on the question, that means the proposition that murder is wrong isn't a valid assessment? Interesting.

To be continued ...
 
Richard:

So I'm testing your criterion by comparing different cases of _valid_ asessments. Thus, in my argument, it was supposed to be understood that _both_ the assessments in question were valid, so both were based on data that bear on the hypothesis. With that in mind, please read my argument again...

It hasn't helped. I'm certainly not saying that the only "valid assessments" of the world are the results of science ... quite the opposite.

Even when scientists conduct tests, there comes a time after the test has been conducted when they have to assess the hypothesis in the light of all the available data.

But only with the understanding of what it is exactly that they are "assessing," its tentative nature and the need to keep testing. The conclusion that there is no God is as scientifically premature as a conclusion that there is no Higgs boson based on our present evidence. Less so, given how little we've actually scientifically tested the "God hypothesis" compared to the Higgs boson.

Now, no doubt their thinking will be a bit different in cases where (a) some of the data are from tests conducted specifically for the purpose of assessing that hypothesis, as opposed to cases where (b) all of the data came from previous tests or were collected without testing. But it seems absurd to suggest that these are such fundamentally different types of thinking that one assessment should be labelled distinctly scientific and the other distinctly non-scientific.

Who said philosophy was a "different type of thinking"? Philosophy can be quite logical and empiric. Science, however, has a method that is distinct from other things we call "thinking." That's what MN is after. Sitting down and thinking about things that happen to have been empirically derived is not science. Proposing testable hypotheses, proposing actual tests, conducting those tests and airing them all for other scientists to consider and test is what science is.
 
Richard:

I've spent far too much time on this already, so I'm going to sum up and then call it a day, before I'm tempted to respond to another reply.

Fair enough, though it has been enjoyable and instructive.

Your testability criterion leads to a very narrow definition of science that excludes much of what people normally call science. It means that, if scientists draw a perfectly valid conclusion based on pre-existing empirical data, without conducting new tests, they can't call that a scientific conclusion.

No, I don't think so because "conclusions" are not part of science. What you call "assessments" are starting points in science.

The real meanings of words like science and philosophy are complex and rich. Trying to limit them with simplistic definitions is naive. Real life isn't that simple.

Of course! But just because I see different complexities than you do doesn't mean I'm being simplistic. I deny that my definition is any narrower than it needs be to define what is generally considered to be "science" or that it excludes any (significant) things that people normally call science. There is always going to be fuzz around the edges, but that's no reason to throw up our hands and say that there is no way to define "science" at all.
 
Chris (in case you are still around):

Coyne has never given a specific example of how religion has marred the work of theistic scientist.

I have alluded to the fact that religious scientists sometimes come out publicly to publish their personal brand of superstition with "quantum, thus Jesus" or suchlike. If they work on the properties of nano-surfaces, that does not matter for their work, but science it ain't, and they use their standing as scientists to propagate it.

The best he can come up with as a consequence is "cognitive dissonance," which, ironically, he pleads guilty to experiencing himself in the "conflict" between free will versus determinism,

Sigh. There is a difference between admitting that nobody is perfect and celebrating your vices.

Well how would he know he was wrong about science and religion being incompatible...?

That is an easy one. What is the "methodology" of religion for producing "knowledge"? Things like revelation and personal faith. If we lived in a world where prophets revealed divine "knowledge" that actually deserved this name, e.g. accurate information about very specific future events that could not be derived in any other way but then turned out to be true, or if every spiritually inclined person in the world felt the same specific "truths" in their heart (as opposed to the widely diverging ideas of souls and gods that people feel to be true in different religions), that would validate those approaches like the universality and reliability of scientific knowledge validates science.
 
I have alluded to the fact that religious scientists sometimes come out publicly to publish their personal brand of superstition with "quantum, thus Jesus" or suchlike. If they work on the properties of nano-surfaces, that does not matter for their work, but science it ain't, and they use their standing as scientists to propagate it.

What you describe here does not sound like what I asked for--how religion mars the work of the theistic scientist.

Scientists have had potty ideas since the days of Newton, if not before. Hoyle believed in panspermia, Crick believed in epiphenomalism, Watson that blacks are inferior, Lynn Margulis is an AIDS denialist, and on and on, but we have only one criteria for judging their scientific work, and that is method. None of these potty ideas in themselves cast aspersions on the science itself (just as Coyne's work on speciation is not called into question because he likes to use his standing as a scientist to, ahem, propagate, specious and amateurish philosophy on his blog. Ditto PZ Myers for his work on development.)


Sigh. There is a difference between admitting that nobody is perfect and celebrating your vices.


No, this is much more than "nobody's perfect." It's the pot calling the kettle black, and holding a different standard for someone else's irrational beliefs than one's own because that person belong to the wrong tribe.

If Coyne truly tried to live out his "belief" that we are "molecular automatons" for just one hour, he might have a harder time judging theistic scientists for their "inconsistency."

That is an easy one. [To my question "how would he know he was wrong about science and religion being incompatible?"]

Not quite as easy as it seems. John has been trying to demonstrate the circularity of your argument that rationality is self-affirming, but I suspect you don't have enough of a foundation in philosophical logic to see his point. You will have a very difficult time finding any philosopher today (even those most sympathetic to naturalism) who will argue that metaphysical naturalism is demonstrable through empirical means. (Even Dennett, when pressed, will concede that verficationalism is based on norms).

At any rate, I didn't ask what the world would look like if revelation were epistemologically valid, I asked what the world would look like if religion and science were *not* incompatible. The reason you cannot answer this is that it is not a meaningful question: incompatibility is a concept Coyne has failed to intelligibly define.
 
what I asked for--how religion mars the work of the theistic scientist.

Ah, but I do not know why you ask for proof for something that nobody has ever claimed. This started with being about consistency, not about doing your job of critical examination well while promoting superstition in your free time. You could just as well ask me why a firefighter is worse at holding a hose for being a pyromaniac on weekends. He isn't, but that is not the point.

Scientists have had potty ideas since the days of Newton, if not before...

Yes, and they have been tested and found lacking. And we criticize and ostracize scientists who are racist or AIDS denialist. And Coyne criticizes scientists who have the next potty idea that Jesus was born to a virgin. And that is so remarkable in comparison because...?

If Coyne truly tried to live out his "belief" that we are "molecular automatons" for just one hour, he might have a harder time judging theistic scientists for their "inconsistency."

I share his belief, but I am at a loss to know what I should do different with my life for thinking that there is no free will. Should I commit suicide or what? Seriously, expecting any different behavior from people who have come to that conclusion is like expecting all atheists to rape and murder because they don't believe in god.

John has been trying to demonstrate the circularity of your argument that rationality is self-affirming, but I suspect you don't have enough of a foundation in philosophical logic to see his point.

No I don't, but what I have seemingly tried to convey in vain all that time is that I don't care, and neither should you two. Again: (1) nobody pretends that all useful knowledge comes from science, (2) but science is the only way to generate knowledge about the objects and processes in the universe that works reliably. (3) all gods except one that is indistinguishable from being nonexistent are claimed to influence objects or processes in the world. (4) the onus is on advocates of "different ways of knowing" to show that theirs works as well as science does.

Armchair philosophical deliberations about how to justify doing science do not enter. We have already tried science and a myriad of other approaches, and science is the only one that produces what we define as knowledge: true, justified, objective beliefs. (I feel it in my heart that Vishnu exists does not make belief in Vishnu justified or objective; and 1+1=2 is true, justified, and objective, but it is not about objects and processes in the universe).

incompatibility is a concept Coyne has failed to intelligibly define.

Oh, we must be reading different blogs. To the best of my knowledge he uses two different definitions: one would be methodological compatibility, relating to the "justified" part of knowledge. This is obviously out, as religion is by definition about blind faith. This second definition is compatibility in the sense of arriving at the same conclusions. This would theoretically be possible, and it is what we would expect if a god actually existed and conveyed accurate information to his prophets.
 
I could add that a perfect example of compatibility would be science in the strict sense and math: they deal with completely different things - building a coherent description and understanding of the specific objects and processes that make up our particular universe and building a coherent description and understanding of quantities and forms in general. Consequently, although they use different methodologies, they are compatible because they deal with genuinely different claims and do not arrive at contradictory conclusions about the same things.

Religion, on the other hand, does deal with the same claims as science and arrives at different (and wrong) conclusions, such as earth being in the center of the universe or prayers influencing anything.
 
Alex,

Given your stated indifference to logic I guess it should be no surprise you have failed to pursuade me that what you are calling "consistency" has any tangible importance to my life. I care only that a person doing science does it well, and transparently. Whether she also has a personal relationship with Jesus or Hunk-Ra isn't really my concern.

You've proposed some deeply unempirical things in this thread-- molecular automatons, babies employing the scientific method, religion favoring geocentrism over heliocentrism. These are ideological, not factual assertions. (The third is just historically false, the second and first are just philosophically confused). If you want to keep calling them "scientific" ideas, then we've hit the same impasse a geologist hits when discussing fossils with a YEC. Best to just change the subject at this point, wish you well and luck to your local sports franchises.
 
Chris,

If inconsistency and illogic in public statements by scientists do not bother you, that is your prerogative. But please don't try to censor others who want to criticize it.

Given your stated indifference to logic

I do not remember having written that. I merely pointed out that science is justified by its continued success, so we do not need to justify it philosophically, and that the question whether science can be justified with a scientific experiment is a weird red herring / strawman hybrid.

Imagine you want to paint your house white, and you find that using a brush and white paint works well for that. Now I come and start throwing mud at your house. Now to deduce that both activities are incompatible, do you honestly feel obliged to launch into a discussion starting from first principles about how you can logically justify painting the house white instead of smearing it? What would you say if I demanded that you show the suitability of using white paint instead of mud to paint a house white using only white paint and a paintbrush to make the case? No, you would probably think I am mad.

molecular automatons, babies employing the scientific method, religion favoring geocentrism over heliocentrism. These are ideological, not factual assertions. (The third is just historically false, the second and first are just philosophically confused).

I have no idea what a molecular automaton is; I presumed you were referring to the "no free will" discussion. Babies: I said, echoing people like Haldane and Einstein by the way, that our everyday empirical thinking is coextensive with science. If you want to reduce the scientific method to such a narrow definition that there are only about 50 scientists on the planet, again, go ahead, but don't expect the rest of the world to follow, and least those millions of scientists who you don't consider to be that. Geocentrism: that was just an example. Of course religion does not persistently favor it over other positions, but certain religions did at certain historical moments. Will you seriously argue that religions have never made counterfactual claims? Then I would have to ask who is a denialist here.

If you want to keep calling them "scientific" ideas

This is presumably again the blatant strawman that I would only accept scientific ideas. No, for the umpteenth time. Logic, math, moral philosophy, all great and useful stuff. But they don't and can't answer the question whether the earth was created or whether angels exist. For that and all other religious claims going beyond Last Thursdayism, you ask science.

Seriously, what is so difficult for you guys? There are two kinds of religious claims: those that are empirically testable, and those fail the parsimony test precisely because they aren't.
 
Oh, and I forgot about lambasting you for not accepting the existence of anything that is not a brush, and for not painting your girlfriend white.
 
If inconsistency and illogic in public statements by scientists do not bother you, that is your prerogative. But please don't try to censor others who want to criticize it.

Like Chris, I think it best to just change the subject at this point but I can't let a few things here go unchallenged. Who is trying to "censor" anyone? Criticizing someone, even mockingly, is not censorship ... or all the Gnu Atheists are censors. It's amazing how often Gnu Atheists wind up sounding exactly like fundamentalist theists.

I merely pointed out that science is justified by its continued success, so we do not need to justify it philosophically ...

Well, if you don't mind making illogical statements in public.

No, for the umpteenth time. Logic, math, moral philosophy, all great and useful stuff.

... or inconsistent statements. Philosophy is great and useful ... except when you find it inconvenient.

Have a nice life.
 
Fine. You are right in that this discussion is going nowhere. It is like trying to explain why a mathematician should not publicly proclaim that pi equals three, reshuffling arguments in this and that way so that the coin may finally drop, only to continuously be confronted with "can you mathematically prove that math is all that exists?", "but you do not use math to chose your spouse!" and "who cares if he does not personally work on approximating pi?", none of which has any relevance at all to the issue.

Even if I were doing something completely unjustifiable, like randomly bashing in innocent peoples' heads, it would still be possible to identify things that are incompatible with it, e.g. restraining me or giving everybody a helmet.

You fail to address the argument so spectacularly and you burn down so many strawmen that I am beginning to suspect that it may be on purpose instead of due to a misunderstanding. So yes, maybe a fruitful discussion is impossible. Regrettable.
 
Alex,

I'm curious why you would feel that I want to "censor" Coyne et al. What have I ever said that indicated he, or anyone, should not have fair access to debate his ideas? The suggestion seems a little scurrilous to me, but rather than get stuck in name-calling, I'd rather ask, with sincere interest, if you really believe that criticism of the kind in this thread rises to the level of censorship? I've seen this kind of intimation before, and I'd really like to understand it better.
 
Upon further reflection the term censor was more due to my anger than to sensible word choice, so sorry for that. I am of course under normal circumstances aware that censorship can only come from an enforcing authority above you, and not from your partner in a discussion.

What I wanted to express with that is the curious point that Massimo (and by agreeing with his stance you appear to concur) seems to want to forbid scientists from stating that most likely there is no god, and treat making that kind of statement as a privilege to be granted to philosophers only. Which is kinda like trying to keep an entire profession from contributing to a discussion.

And that in spite of the facts, I may add, that its contributions are highly relevant to the issue, and that the totality of philosophy that you need to justify the conclusion in question can be summed up with "burden of proof" and "Occam's Razor". Not exactly what you need to get a PhD in philosophy of science for.
 
What I wanted to express with that is the curious point that Massimo (and by agreeing with his stance you appear to concur) seems to want to forbid scientists from stating that most likely there is no god, and treat making that kind of statement as a privilege to be granted to philosophers only.

Wrong again (and do, please, explain the difference between "forbid" and "censor").

I (and, I'm sure, Chris) have no intent to "forbid" scientists from stating that most likely there is no god. We want merely to argue, through reason and logic and history that, to the extent that they claim that their (call it what you will ... conclusion, belief, metaphysics, philosophy) is a scientific result, they are wrong.

... the totality of philosophy that you need to justify the conclusion in question can be summed up with "burden of proof" and "Occam's Razor".

[Sigh} Assuming you can philosopically or otherwise justify imposing some arbitrary burden of proof and/or a guess like Occam's Razor.
 
Alex, I'm surprised you can't see the double standard here. See my original comment in this thread.

Biologists don't like it when people without scientific training try to debunk evolutionary biology (whether from a religious point of view, like Johnson, or secular, like Fodor). Physicists don't like it when people without training in science draw illegitimate conclusions about quantum mechanics--like Deepak Chopra).

Philosophers, likewise, don't like it when people without philosophical training try to reduce complicated issues as though the details were unimportant. Jerry Coyne is not just untrained in philosophy, he is disdainful of it (selectively), and it is the combination which Massimo calls "pretentious."

To a trained philosopher--or even to a dilettante like me--the notion that methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism are interchangeable is a lot like the notion of irreducible complexity in biology. It's a signal that someone has stopped thinking, whether through fatigue, emotional distress, or intellectual limitation. Heterodoxy is important--sometimes the best ideas come from outside the silo--but when no professional philosopher will take your ideas seriously it's a good indication that it's time to hit the books anew.

The point is not to "forbid" any discussion at all, but to remind participants that they are joining a centuries-old conversation. (Just as Coyne doesn't want to literally "forbid" Creationists from publishing books and articles through the Discovery Institute).

I'm sure that Massimo--a staunch atheist--has no problem with Coyne asserting that "there is no god." What he wants, rightly, is an acknowledgment that this is a metaphysical statement, in addition to whatever its empirical merits may be. There is a great deal of literature on the nature of metaphysical statements and what it means to defend them. If Coyne, or anyone, wants to call this tosh, he is going to have to suffer the charge of being anti-intellectual--a charge he welcomed by migrating from scientific assertion to philosophical.
 
but when no professional philosopher will take your ideas seriously

I beg to differ. Just under Massimo's own post, see the comments by Maarten, who, if I remember correctly, has published a paper arguing that naturalism is not an essential feature of science but a pragmatic stance taken for the very simple historical reason that nothing supernatural was ever encountered.

What he wants, rightly, is an acknowledgment that this is a metaphysical statement, in addition to whatever its empirical merits may be.

The only really metaphysical statement would be to claim that it is proven 100% that no god whatsoever exists. But nobody claims that. If you read the posts by people such as Coyne, Benson and Myers, or the books by Stenger and Dawkins, what you will find is that they speak of the unlikelihood of god existing - which should really go without saying, as everything a scientist ever says is supposed to be taken as "to the best of our knowledge for now". At the same time, they endlessly harp on "the god that people actually believe in". And that is a god that is supposed to do things that would have empirical consequences. It is wrong to say that you cannot disprove a god: if you show that prayer does not work, you have disproved a god that reliably answers prayer, one of the fundamental features most people expect their god to have. You have not disproved a god that is indistinguishable from being non-existent, but those New Atheist all openly agree with that! They just don't care because such a god can be ignored anyway. That Massimo conflates the irrefutable god that is (arguably) only subject to philosophical arguments with the refutable ones that have empirical claims attached to them is one of my great frustrations in this debate.
 
I think Coyne should keep blogging if only because it sparks threads like this. Thank you, John.

Alex: Neither John or Chris have claimed that science couldn't disprove "a god." I'm just pointing this out so you'll know other people are seeing what you're doing.
 
Okay then, if that is indeed so! And once Massimo Pigliucci realizes that Dawkins, Coyne et al. have all explicitly stated that Last Thursdayism can trivially not be disproved by science (and maybe that a textbook definition of science that excludes >90% of all practicing scientists present and historical should at a minimum be open for discussion, but that is just a wild dream), we can all concentrate on opposing irrationality again instead of squabbling over how many branches of the god tree must hang over the science estate before Mr Scientist is allowed to pick an apple.
 
Having read the thread and been impressed by the participation of all involved, though with preference for the correct view that the OP and defenders of support, I'd like to tangent momentarily:

Alex SL said:
"if you show that prayer does not work, you have disproved a god that reliably answers prayer, one of the fundamental features most people expect their god to have."

It must be extremely irritating for philosophers, especially atheist philosophers when those nominally on their side make deeply erroneous statements about philosophical matters.
Every time Dawkins or Coyne or anyone makes an embarrassingly naive or elementary mistake and propagates it as a considered opinion it reflects badly on their understanding of whatever they're talking about.

Similarly it reflects really badly on people's knowledge and understanding when they talk about religion and make such elementary mistakes as the one I quote above.

Pretty much no one makes the claim that prayers are answered reliably. Pretty much all faiths encourage prayer as a means of communicating with God, and if needed to ask Him for things which he may, or may not, grant - something He decides from his own unknown criteria.
If you suggest that most people consider reliable prayer answering to be fundamental to God then you are woefully under0informed about what religious people believe.
It's akin to saying "evolutionists believe that everything evolved randomly!!!" or "scientists believe that science is always right!!!"

No, no they don't, and the only thing you reveal by saying such things is your own ignorance.

Though I'm criticising you for it, it's actually very useful when people say things like that, as it is a warning sign that you need to read what they're saying more carefully, that you must verify everything they say about what other people believe, since they clearly are not giving accurate information all the time.
If you are engaging with them I advise that you correct their error (and try not to be a dick about it) and see what they say. If they do not accept your correction then you may as well give up because someone who is unwilling or incapable of understanding that they have made an elementary mistake like that is very unlikely to understand any other points you make.*

*This is hard-won experience gleaned from numerous debates with creationists who start sentences with phrases like "Evolutionists believe..." and "Darwinists will tell you..." before finishing with something stupid.
I disdain this type of person, they are misinformed and unwilling to learn the truth.** The same applies to NA style people who perpetuate childish interpretations of religious belief and claim that religious people believe it***.

**Or dishonest and know it.

***I'm clearly in an asterisk-happy place right now, but the qualification is necessary that this does not apply to those who talk about childish interpretations of religious belief that religious people actually do believe. That's fine as long as you don't suggest that a) this is the only possible interpretation b) this is the 'correct' interpretation, an impossibility if the belief is false c) that all religious people do or should believe it.
 
Having read the thread and been impressed by the participation of all involved, though with preference for the correct view that the OP and defenders of support, I'd like to tangent momentarily:

Alex SL said:
"if you show that prayer does not work, you have disproved a god that reliably answers prayer, one of the fundamental features most people expect their god to have."

It must be extremely irritating for philosophers, especially atheist philosophers when those nominally on their side make deeply erroneous statements about philosophical matters.
Every time Dawkins or Coyne or anyone makes an embarrassingly naive or elementary mistake and propagates it as a considered opinion it reflects badly on their understanding of whatever they're talking about.

Similarly it reflects really badly on people's knowledge and understanding when they talk about religion and make such elementary mistakes as the one I quote above.

Pretty much no one makes the claim that prayers are answered reliably. Pretty much all faiths encourage prayer as a means of communicating with God, and if needed to ask Him for things which he may, or may not, grant - something He decides from his own unknown criteria.
If you suggest that most people consider reliable prayer answering to be fundamental to God then you are woefully under0informed about what religious people believe.
It's akin to saying "evolutionists believe that everything evolved randomly!!!" or "scientists believe that science is always right!!!"

No, no they don't, and the only thing you reveal by saying such things is your own ignorance.

Though I'm criticising you for it, it's actually very useful when people say things like that, as it is a warning sign that you need to read what they're saying more carefully, that you must verify everything they say about what other people believe, since they clearly are not giving accurate information all the time.
If you are engaging with them I advise that you correct their error (and try not to be a dick about it) and see what they say. If they do not accept your correction then you may as well give up because someone who is unwilling or incapable of understanding that they have made an elementary mistake like that is very unlikely to understand any other points you make.*

*This is hard-won experience gleaned from numerous debates with creationists who start sentences with phrases like "Evolutionists believe..." and "Darwinists will tell you..." before finishing with something stupid.
I disdain this type of person, they are misinformed and unwilling to learn the truth.** The same applies to NA style people who perpetuate childish interpretations of religious belief and claim that religious people believe it***.

**Or dishonest and know it.

***I'm clearly in an asterisk-happy place right now, but the qualification is necessary that this does not apply to those who talk about childish interpretations of religious belief that religious people actually do believe. That's fine as long as you don't suggest that a) this is the only possible interpretation b) this is the 'correct' interpretation, an impossibility if the belief is false c) that all religious people do or should believe it.
 
This comment has been removed by the author.
 
A poster nymed "Retiripom" has apparently tried three times to post this here without success (I've seen a lot of emails lately saying a comment has been posted that don't show up, so it's probably Blogger's fault). So I'm going to put it up for him. It's totally accidental that he says nice things about me:

Having read the thread and been impressed by the participation of all involved, though with preference for the correct view that the OP and defenders of support, I'd like to tangent momentarily:

Alex SL said:
"if you show that prayer does not work, you have disproved a god that reliably answers prayer, one of the fundamental features most people expect their god to have."

It must be extremely irritating for philosophers, especially atheist philosophers when those nominally on their side make deeply erroneous statements about philosophical matters.
Every time Dawkins or Coyne or anyone makes an embarrassingly naive or elementary mistake and propagates it as a considered opinion it reflects badly on their understanding of whatever they're talking about.

Similarly it reflects really badly on people's knowledge and understanding when they talk about religion and make such elementary mistakes as the one I quote above.

Pretty much no one makes the claim that prayers are answered reliably. Pretty much all faiths encourage prayer as a means of communicating with God, and if needed to ask Him for things which he may, or may not, grant - something He decides from his own unknown criteria.
If you suggest that most people consider reliable prayer answering to be fundamental to God then you are woefully under0informed about what religious people believe.
It's akin to saying "evolutionists believe that everything evolved randomly!!!" or "scientists believe that science is always right!!!"

No, no they don't, and the only thing you reveal by saying such things is your own ignorance.

Though I'm criticising you for it, it's actually very useful when people say things like that, as it is a warning sign that you need to read what they're saying more carefully, that you must verify everything they say about what other people believe, since they clearly are not giving accurate information all the time.
If you are engaging with them I advise that you correct their error (and try not to be a dick about it) and see what they say. If they do not accept your correction then you may as well give up because someone who is unwilling or incapable of understanding that they have made an elementary mistake like that is very unlikely to understand any other points you make.*

*This is hard-won experience gleaned from numerous debates with creationists who start sentences with phrases like "Evolutionists believe..." and "Darwinists will tell you..." before finishing with something stupid.
I disdain this type of person, they are misinformed and unwilling to learn the truth.** The same applies to NA style people who perpetuate childish interpretations of religious belief and claim that religious people believe it***.

**Or dishonest and know it.

***I'm clearly in an asterisk-happy place right now, but the qualification is necessary that this does not apply to those who talk about childish interpretations of religious belief that religious people actually do believe. That's fine as long as you don't suggest that a) this is the only possible interpretation b) this is the 'correct' interpretation, an impossibility if the belief is false c) that all religious people do or should believe it.
 
Oooh! I take part of it back. It seems that Blogger's new trick is to tell you that you are navigating away from the page and posting the comment three times and sending three emails.
 
Oha, still an answer, although I cannot say when as the day does not show on my screen.

John, I have a hard time seeing that as a silly mistake, and I find it irritating how you always pick at minor examples while carefully avoiding the important aspects of the discussion. For what it is worth, this is just an example; you could argue the same for every aspect of a god that would make it indistinguishable from being nonexistent. A god that does not reliably answer prayers is, in that regard, indistinguishable from one that does not exist, just as a homepathic "remedy" that does not reliably work is indistinguishable from one that is not a remedy at all. If something is indistinguishable from being nonexistent, a scientist is professionally required to assume it does not exist, preference of the most parsimonious explanation and all that.

And also for what it is worth, it is simply wrong to say that it is wrong to say that believers do not expect their gods to reliably answer prayers. The energy millions of them invest into praying for health, riches, success of their sports team and whatnot cannot otherwise be explained - this is not communing with god for inspiration, that is trying to strike a bargain: my devotion for your help. But they will of course make irrational excuses when pressed on the fact that prayer does not work, or start to cherry-pick those few cases when it seemingly did (surely you have seen that kind of confirmation bias in action in people around you?).

Yours and Massimo Pigliucci's point is simply to arbitrarily grant the faithful a carte blanche to make these excuses, to move goalposts and ad-hoc: "Religion is impervious to science because it does not have to make sense." - "Why not?" - "Well, because the priest says so. By definition." - "And you simply accept that?" - "Not really, only when somebody wearing a scientist's hat rejects religion. See, now I put on my philosopher's hat and refute religion, based on the awesome argument that it does not make any sense!" Well, at least that is MP's approach. You sometimes come across more as a solipsist, to be honest, a self-defeating position if there ever was one.
 
Ooopsie, there was one not too much in there I think.
 
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