Thoughts in a Haystack

Heh!

Jerry Coyne has an amusing post at his notblog.

First of all, Jerry reports on Darwin's Doubt, the latest "Game-Changing New Book" on Intelligent Design Creationism by Stephen C. Meyer, that will be "a paradigm shift" in the evolution "debate."

Jerry notes that it is being published by HarperOne, which describes itself as publishing "[t]he most important books across the full spectrum of religion, spirituality, and personal growth."

Wait a minute! Doesn't the Discoveryless Institute keep telling us that ID has nothing to do with religion?

Opps!

But that's not all!

Jerry goes on to say:

If Meyer can't adduce positive evidence that a designer created the Cambrian explosion—and I can't imagine how he could possibly do this—his argument would rest only on our current ignorance of why it happened (Emphasis added).

You know, I've mentioned once or twice, that Jerry may just not understand the concept of Methodological Naturalism.

But maybe he is getting a glimmer. After all, if he cannot "imagine" how science could confirm the action of a "designer," how could science discomfirm the action of a "designer"?

However, I suspect his own words will fail to sink in.

Labels: Designer As God, ID Not Religious, Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 8:58 PM 10 comments

Labels: Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 11:13 PM 24 comments

Steve Novella has a good discussion of "anomaly hunting," which bears, I think, on the question of whether science can ever be brought to bear on the existence of god(s):

[A]nomalies are the beginning of discovery and of the generation of new hypotheses. But by themselves they are not evidence for any particular conclusion.

When an anomaly is encountered in science the first step is to make sure it is an actual anomaly. The simplest answer is always that there is an error in measurement and observation, so that has to be ruled out first. When the measurements are all triple-checked and scientists can be as certain as possible that the anomaly is real, then all possible explanations need to be sought within our current scientific theories or paradigms. Only when an exhaustive attempt to explain the apparent anomaly within conventional theories fails, should scientists conclude that they have a genuine anomaly on their hands.

Then scientists can start to generate new hypotheses to explain the anomaly, usually requiring a revision to existing theories. Kuhn characterized this phase as "revolutionary science" in which one paradigm will shift to another in order to resolve the anomalies. He thought such shifts were large and rare. But later philosophers criticized this position as being a false dichotomy – revisions to theories in order to resolve anomalies are actually quite common and range the spectrum from minor tweaks to wholesale replacement with no sharp demarcation at any point.

Further, often revisions to theories involve not replacing old ideas but deepening them – adding layers of complexity that are compatible with the simpler theories but increase their precision and predictive power. Again – a perfect example is the progress from Newtonian mechanics to relativity. Newtonian mechanics still work in most situations, but at high velocities and gravities relativistic effects become important and measurable.

The role of anomalies, therefore, is entirely within the context of discovery and generating new hypotheses. Anomaly hunting refers to the misapplication of anomalies to the testing of hypotheses. The process involves generating a hypothesis then pointing to apparent anomalies as if their existence supports the specific hypothesis.

At best the mere presence of anomalies would indicate weaknesses in the current theory, but would not support any particular new hypothesis. That would require demonstrating that the new hypothesis resolves the anomalies. Even then this would only indicate that the new hypothesis is plausible and interesting – but it would need to make predictions that are later validated in order to be truly scientific.

Labels: Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 10:24 PM 6 comments

Massimo Pigliucci has a good post on the nature of science, "Why plumbing ain't science," the title of which, Pigliucci explains, "is a reference to Jerry Coyne's occasional remark that there is no substantial difference between plumbing and science because plumbers test hypotheses based on empirical evidence." The gist, I think, of Pigliucci's argument is:

What separates science from other human activities is, I suggest, its extremely more refined methods, its sociological structure, and its historical context. ...

Graduate students learn the art (yes, I'm using the term on purpose ...) of setting up controlled experiments, analyzing massive amounts of data using sophisticated statistical techniques, and writing cogent papers to present their results to the world. None of this is done by plumbers, and for good reasons.

[S]cience is a particular type of social activity, certainly as conceived and practiced today. It has a complex — and necessary — structure of peer review, edited journals, funding agencies, academic positions, laboratories, and so on. Of course science has not always been practiced this way (see my next point about history), but a good argument can be made that it has evolved into a mature discipline precisely when these sort of social structures came to be implemented. ...

The history of science is a fascinating illustration of how a practice that initially truly was barely distinguishable from plumbing eventually became a major branch of philosophy (natural philosophy), and then flourished spectacularly as an independent type of inquiry beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries (Galileo and Newton), culminating in the 19th and 20th centuries (modern physics, biology after Darwin) and beyond. ...

[T]here is of course a sense in which science and philosophy, and indeed math and logic, are connected. ... William Whewell ... coined the term scientist. He got it from the Latin word scientia, which means knowledge in the broadest sense. ... I think it is reasonable to see the totality of third-person knowledge (as opposed to first-person, phenomenological knowledge) along a rough continuum from completely or almost completely abstract (logic and math ...) at one end, to necessarily coupled to empirical evidence (science), passing via an intermediate field where empirical evidence is relevant but most of the work is done via analysis and logic (philosophy).

This is the sense in which I think scientia, but not science sensu stricto, can reject the supernatural (Coyne's and Dawkins' project), or arrive at non arbitrary moral judgments (Harris' project). ... [I]t is in this sense — the continuity and yet individuality of these disciplines within the broader category of scientia — that I argue that plumbing ain't science, as honorable and necessary as that trade is to our everyday lives.

Labels: Accommodationism Incompatiblism, Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 12:20 PM 2 comments

Having hit a slightly slow spot in life that, I'm sure, won't last long, I'm taking the time for another drive-by of the paper by Maarten Boudry, Stefaan Blancke and Johan Braeckman ("BBB"), "How not to attack Intelligent Design Creationism: Philosophical misconceptions about Methodological Naturalism."

Consider their definition of "supernatural":

[W]e propose to define 'supernatural' as referring to any phenomenon which has its basis in entities and processes that transcend the spatiotemporal realm of impersonal matter and energy described by modern science ...

Consider the claims of IDC. ... [I]f God has left observable traces in our material universe, as IDC proponents claim He did, these are in principle open to scientific investigation, and thus God would be reduced to the realm of the 'natural', by a matter of philosophical definition. Pennock thinks it is ironic that, in the course of introducing God in science, IDC theorists actually naturalise God without realizing it. That may well be true according to Pennock's definition of 'supernatural', but by the same token IDC theory does not violate the strictures of IMN any longer, and Pennock's argument on the basis of IMN misses the mark.

Imagine that IDC theorists, contrary to the actual state of affairs, had provided us with clear and unmistakeable evidence for intelligent design behind functional biological complexity (in the next section we will consider what could constitute such evidence)*. Following Pennock's logic, even if the designer were to reside beyond the known material universe, forcing a complete revision of our metaphysics, our reply to the IDC proponents would be something like this: 'You see, now we have a scientific proof for Intelligent Design. By definition, that means that we have to do with a natural phenomenon. Thus, I was right after all, supernatural causes and forces have no place in science.'

[W]hen Pennock and Forrest adopt this analytical definition of the 'supernatural', they can no longer challenge IDC by using IMN as a philosophical shield, because it misses the mark by their own definition. Instead, they will have to convince IDC theorists that the so-called Intelligent Designer would be 'natural' like anything else. This is a different route to the same conclusion we are defending in this article: that claims of IDC have to be confronted head on, and rejected on scientific grounds, instead of being excluded by fiat on shaky philosophical grounds

Labels: Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 9:20 AM 30 comments

PZ Mxyzptlk continues to resist the notion that the existence of gods (or the supernatural) can be demonstrated by science.

I read Greta Christina's list of events that would convince her [reccomended by Jerry Coyne], and I have to say that none of them would sway me. They'd convince me that there are unexplainable phenomena and beings greater than myself, but I already believe that with no problem and without budging from atheism. I've already dealt with the 900 foot tall Jesus fallacy (it's not a prior conclusion of religious thought), and while finding amazingly detailed scientific information in a holy book would be impressive, evidence of beings in the past who were smarter than me isn't evidence of a god. Also, they haven't because they didn't, so postulating circumstances that have been shown not to have occurred is only persuasive in the most abstract and imaginary way possible.

The emphasis and [cough] methodology may be slightly different from my own but the point is the same: atheism is an honorable and self-sufficient philosophical position that does not need to be weakly, if at all, propped up by science. It can be, as all good modern philosophy, informed by science, but it is not in thrall to it ... or vice versa.

Those who insist that they are do no favor to atheism or to science.
.

Labels: Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 10:04 PM 16 comments

I really do intend to say more about the paper, "How Not to Attack Intelligent Design Creationism: Philosophical Misconceptions About Methodological Naturalism," by Maarten Boudry, Stefaan Blancke and Johan Braeckman.

An unfortunate lack of infinite time and energy has prevented me from clearing this whole subject up for everyone.

In the meantime, however, Sean Carroll, at Cosmic Variance, has weighed in on the subject, in reply to Chris Schoen's "Is "Dark Matter" Supernatural?," with what Chris rightly calls “a thoughtful (and goddamned civil) response.”* Jerry Coyne largely agrees with Carroll, so I thought I'd spend some time on Carroll's conception of the problem.

I don't think Carroll's attempt to classify the potential effects of the supernatural into three categories (the “silent,” the “hidden” and the “lawless”) is particularly helpful for reasons that will have to await a further deposit of time and energy into my account.

Instead, I'd like to focus on what actually would happen if, as Carroll contends, “the best explanation scientists could come up with for some set of observations necessarily involved a lawless supernatural component.”

Chris has already answered this and I agree with him that “studying lawless phenomena (whether chaotic or capricious) with science is logically insensible.” But I'd like to take it from a slightly different angle.

In passing, I'd note that it is hard to imagine just how we'd ever get to the situation that Carroll proposes. The point I believe Chris was making about dark matter is that we have no particular reason to believe it exists, except that it is a natural explanation for the phenomena that we observe that would explain the phenomena and that suggests ways that science could further study the cause or causes of the phenomena.** In short, it is an example of the operation of what the supporters of IMN would call the a priori assumption in science that natural phenomena have natural causes. Carroll acknowledges this but calls it a “preference.” That just raises the question of what we should call something that is universal among scientists and the violation of which is consistently deemed not to be scientific, outside philosophical discussions such as these.

After all, an objection to Newton's theory of gravity that was raised immediately was that it proposed an “occult” force that acts at a distance with no known mechanism. For some 300 years we have been looking for a mechanism that enables gravity to do that, without success, but that has not stopped us from continuing to try. At what point does the scientific community throw up its collective hands and say that any phenomena is “supernatural”?

More importantly, what would happen if they did? Would the normal routine of science -- further observations and experiments, the publishing of results and peer review and criticism – continue? Would scientists propose Goditons and quantum spirituality and try to test them? If so, then they would fall afoul of PZ Myers' criticism that they would then be proposing “natural, repeatable, measurable, and even observable…properties” that can no longer be thought of as “supernatural.”

And if the scientific community didn't do those things – if it agreed that the cause of the phenomena is supernatural and nothing further can be said by science about it – how could we characterize the situation other than as science having “stopped,” at least as far as the causes of that phenomena are concerned?

The real question, then, is how we should characterize the decision to call a halt to scientific investigation of a phenomena. Those supporting PMN would say it is a “scientific result.” Those who support IMN would say that, no, it is a metaphysical conclusion that, at least in this particular instance, science does not and cannot work, not an actual result of a scientific investigation, which, after all, has been called to a halt.

Another way to put it is that, a priori, we know that the only way to conclude that the cause a phenomenon is supernatural is by calling a halt to the scientific study of that cause.

That sounds like IMN to me.

___________________________________

* Incidentally, Massimo Pigliucci and Jerry Coyne have made up and promised to stop sniping at each other and I too will try to restrain my snide side ... at least when it comes to this subject.

** See my discussion of the two objectives of science in my previous post on this subject.

___________________________________

Update: For another, slightly different, take on this issue, see Steve Novella's description of why "anomaly hunting" is not science in his article, "Ghost Hunting Science vs Pseudoscience."
.

Labels: Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 9:46 AM 13 comments

A while back, Larry Moran, the Arthur Murray of the NANAs, touted a paper, entitled "How Not to Attack Intelligent Design Creationism: Philosophical Misconceptions About Methodological Naturalism," by Maarten Boudry, Stefaan Blancke and Johan Braeckman ("BBB"), two of whom Larry met recently on a trip to Europe. I was going to comment on it then but real life, not least of all having my throat cut and discovering the fragility of the human body in comparison to speeding automobiles, got in the way. Now Jerry Coyne, still stinging from Massimo Pigliucci's criticism of his primitive philosophy, has seized on the paper as showing that "serious philosophers" share his view that science can produce evidence supporting the existence of gods (and, of course, as far as Jerry is concerned, since it hasn't produced such evidence, we can take that absence as evidence that there are no gods).

Now, the paper is very well written (especially if you assume that English is not the authors first language) and certainly raises legitimate objections to the concept of Methodological Naturalism ("MN"). They propose, instead, Pragmatic Methodological Naturalism ("PMN"), which they describe as "a provisory and empirically grounded commitment to naturalistic causes and explanations, which in principle is revocable by extraordinary empirical evidence." Ultimately, I think that their objections to MN and their recommendation of PMN fail. (I also have to point out that the mere fact that some "serious philosophers" happen to converge on something similar to one of Coyne's opinions doesn't mean his philosophy isn't still primitive.)

The stated aim of BBB is to first show that "the most widespread view, which conceives of MN as an intrinsic or self-imposed limitation of science, is philosophically indefensible" and, secondly, it is also an ill-advised strategy to counter the claims of [Intelligent Design Creationism] and other forms of creationism."

I won't be able to do this all in one go but at the heart of my objection to BBB's proposal is the fact that they fail to take into account that science has (at least) two great objectives. The first (and lesser) objective is to determine which phenomena of the world are real -- that is, to empirically investigate and document what actually happens. The second (and greater) objective is to discover why phenomena happen -- that is, to develop testable theories as to the causes of phenomena that link those phenomena to the regularities of the world that we call "natural law."

This is actually nicely illustrated by BBB themselves (p. 230). In discussing the argument that MN is simply part of science by definition, they state:

The definition argument for IMN sits uncomfortable with the fact that reputable scientists and sceptics have investigated allegedly paranormal phenomena which, if corroborated through repeatable and careful experiments, would point to the existence of supernatural forces, or at least so they claim.

There is no conflict with MN in investigating whether or not a claimed phenomena occurs. Doing repeatable and careful experiments to determine if, in fact, there is some correlation between, say, recovery from illness and prayer, is perfectly respectable science. The issue of MN arises only with the claim that supernatural forces are the cause of the phenomena.

Let's look at BBB's example that Coyne fixed on (even if that's not fair to BBB because Jerry is likely to glom onto their weakest arguments):

... suppose [a randomized controlled trial] in American Heart Journal turned out to confirm the hypothesis of therapeutic efficacy of intercessory prayer. Moreover, suppose that further experimental work following this demonstration, which would arguably mark a complete revolution in science, indicated that this form of supernatural causation is predictable because it exhibits certain regularities. For instance, it works only with prayers officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church, only if the ill person is baptised by a Catholic priest, etc. Though it may be ridiculous to speculate that anything of the sort would ever happen, as no alleged case of miraculous healing has even been authenticated scientifically, if it would, there is no obvious reason why the scientific enterprise would immediately and entirely collapse. The fact that some prayers actually do help people recover would admittedly cause a complete metaphysical revolution in science (imagine the enthusiasm of theologians), but if the range of action of this supernatural power turned out to be restricted, why would it endanger the rest of our scientific endeavours?

Notice anything missing here? They have posited a situation where we have a scientifically confirmed phenomena. But where is the extraordinary empirical evidence that this phenomena is caused by God? There is nothing but an assumption that because the phenomena involves Catholic prayers and Catholic patients that the cause must be supernatural. In point of fact, from a scientific standpoint, all you have is a phenomena that, at this time, is unexplained. We have lots of those and science does not go around assigning their causes willy-nilly to god(s). We still don't know how gravity acts at a distance. But if someone says the reason gravity works is "Intelligent Grappling," is that any different or any more scientific than just assuming "Catholic Healing"?

If such a phenomena was discovered, it might well cause Boudry, Blancke and Braeckman to undergo "a complete metaphysical revolution," but their metaphysics is not the same thing as "science."
.

Labels: Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 9:18 AM 53 comments

PZ Myearshertz has joined those who, unlike Larry Moran, accept that the methodological naturalism of science makes it impossible to scientifically test the existence or nonexistence of the supernatural, at least when those claims do not entail repeatable empiric observations about the world (e.g. that the Earth is only 6,000 years old):

[A]ny evidence of a deity will be natural, repeatable, measurable, and even observable…properties which god is exempted from by the believers' own definitions, so there can be no evidence for it. And any being who did suddenly manifest in some way — a 900 foot tall Jesus, for instance — would not fit any existing theology, so such a creature would not fit the claims of any religion, but the existence of any phenomenon that science cannot explain would not discomfit science at all, since we know there is much we don't understand already, and adding one more mystery to the multitude will not faze us in the slightest.

So yes, I agree. There is no valid god hypothesis, so there can be no god evidence, so let's stop pretending the believers have a shot at persuading us.

Now, of course, it is perfectly rational to reject the god hypothesis because there can be no evidence for it but it does not follow that science has disproved it or can even be brought to bear on it in a meaningful way.

In any case, PZ, welcome to the club.

________________________________________

Update: PZ follows up with a more detailed explanation.

________________________________________

Update II: PZ replies to Jerry Coyne.
.

Labels: Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 11:07 AM 6 comments

I've already linked to Dr. Steven Novella's two part response to what appears to be a shift in emphasis, at least, in the Intelligent Design Movement's war against science. As Larry Moran says:

As a general anti-science strategy, it's easy to see why the mind-body problem is resurfacing. The IDiots have lost the battle over evolution so they have to look around for something else to attack. We (scientists) don't understand exactly how the mind works. That's a perfect gap to shove God into, for now.

This methodoligical approach also deals with the problem of whether or not science can deal with God. The answer is - yes and no. If a supernatural (meaning inaccessible to science) power were meddling with our universe (with stuff science could access), science could detect it, document it, and even describe it. We could say that something was happening.

However (by the premises of this hypothetical situation) if the ultimate cause of these physical effects were beyond scientific methodology, the best science could do would be to describe anomalies. Science comes across anomalies all the time, and the typical approach is to assume (because we really have no choice) that the anomalies are due to either errors in observation, errors in our current theories, or incompleteness in our current theories, meaning there is some new phenomenon to discover.

So far the scientific approach (assuming anomalies will lead to a deeper understanding of reality) has worked out pretty well. This is the best evidence we have that our universe if mostly rational and does not include "supernatural" (by my definition) forces that will remain forever "mysterious." If it did, then we would run across anomalies that we could never explain scientifically. All we could do would be to describe them, but we could never come up with a testable theory of mechanism.

Theories rarely make predictions on their own; rather, auxiliary assumptions need to be brought to bear. For example, the general theory of relativity, by itself, does not make predictions about when eclipses will occur or what features they will have. However, if auxiliary information about various celestial bodies is taken into account, the general theory of relativity does make predictions about these matters [leading to Eddington's famous confirmation of the GTR - JP]. Duhem's point holds for most of the hypotheses that the sciences consider, and it also holds when we recognize that prediction rarely involves deduction. Duhem's idea is that the usual pattern in science is that the hypothesis H does not entail whether the observation statement O will be true; rather it is H&A that will have this kind of entailment, for suitably chosen auxiliary assumptions A.

Saying that science requires methodological naturalism is really just another way of saying that science requires falsifiable hypotheses, which in turn requires the assumption that the universe makes sense - it consistently follows an internal set of rules. ID proponents and others who oppose this view want to inject supernatural explanations into science, by which they mean ideological beliefs that are not testable by science. They try to dress up these beliefs as scientific theories by framing god-of-the-gaps arguments from ignorance (like irreducible complexity) as if they were testable hypotheses - but they are not.

Labels: Methodological Naturalism

Link - Posted by John Pieret @ 10:27 PM 1 comments