Methodological naturalism: If that’s the way forward, … let’s go sideways

I like how the common idea of science includes only purely naturalistic explanations, so of course evolution can explain everything we see. xD

Why can’t people just be nice? It seems like with evolutionists it all has to do with better surviving, or in other words: being selfish.

The problem is always the same. “Nature” is a word which has no definite meaning, because it can have (and definitely has) too many of them.

The consequence is that anybody can use it as it is good for him, implicitly defining it in a convenient way so that his personal position be warranted.

Because, while having no precise meaning, that word holds, for unknown reasons, a very strong suggestion of “goodness” and “positivity” for most people.

So, let’s be “natural”, and nobody will dare be against us.

In modern scientistic materialism, the only real meaning which is implicitly attributed to the word “nature” is something like “the things we believe about reality”, in other words “the general model of present day science”, or still “any model of the universe where matter and energy and the laws of physics, as we conceive them today, are still the only reality”. Those definitions are more or less equivalent: what they have in common is reductionism, reducing everything, more or less directly, to what we already believe to be true.

So, affirming that “science can consider only natural causes” is more or less equivalent to stating that “science can consider only what it already believes to be true”, or “science can know only what it already knows. The fundamental assumption is that science, while being free to ascertain interesting details (what would scientists otherwise do for a living?), in essence already knows all. That assumption is not new: its last incarnation was at the end of the 19th century, when it was generally believed that physics was practically finished, and that all that was left to mathematics was a detailed final formalization.

And then came Einstein, Bohr, Godel, and other good friends…

Excellent point from gpucci regarding the definition of “nature”. One of the frustrating things about the materialist sciences is that because they’ve been the established doctrine for so long, the materialists have gotten to define all the language- at least as far as the public is concerned.

“Darwinism” its self for example; these days most people seem to think it’s synonymous with “evolution”. At least, most of the people I’ve tried to argue with do…

For what its worth , here is my two cents on this whole methodological naturalism controversy:

The Quantum Teleportation experiment is truly a wondrous experiment. The experiment goes to the very foundation of what is currently known, scientifically, about reality and dramatically restructures our understanding. In the experiment, through some very clever manipulation, scientists have the entire information content (properties) of one photon of energy being teleported, instantaneously, onto another photon of energy. The second photon of energy assumes the complete identity of the first photon, while the first photon loses its complete identity. Yet, the shocking thing is, scientifically, energy is currently understood to be the ultimate foundation of all matter in this universe. From Einstein’s equation of E=mc^2, we know that all matter was ultimately created out of energy, and is theoretically reducible to energy. From Einstein’s equation we can also gather that time, as we understand it, comes to complete stop at the speed of light (Light is understood to be eternal). And From James Joule, the author of the First Law Of thermodynamics, “Conservation of Energy”, we understand that energy can not be created nor destroyed by any known material means. These facts give some impressive weight to energy as the ultimate and irreducible basis of reality, yet here we have information, which is completely transcendent of any energy/material basis, telling energy exactly what to be/do in these teleportation experiments. Anton Zeilinger, a top notch scientist in quantum research, went so far as to, very unscientifically, quote Bible scripture in trying to get a handle on this revelation from quantum teleportation.
Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? By A. Zeilinger, Paul Davies http://www.metanexus.net/magazin e/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/5896/Default .aspx

excerpt from article:
“In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word (Logos).”

Needless to say, when I read Dr. Anton Zeilinger quote John 1:1 from the Bible, my ears perked up immediately. And as I have mulled this experiment over during the past few months, I’ve realized that there is a overwhelming line of logic that solidifies this inference of Dr. Zeilinger’s to the Word (Logos) of John 1:1-3. It may be stated that since energy cannot be created or destroyed, anything displaying control over energy cannot be created of destroyed also. (this experiment is actually the establishment of the law of Conservation of Information in science since the information is shown, unlike simple quantum entanglement experiments, to be completely independent of any possible energy basis) That is to say; All logically true information that can possibly exist, which would most likely be infinite information, can and already does exist completely free of any known energy/material basis and as far as the energy/material basis of this universe in concerned can be said to precede and even exceed it.
Or to put it in more concrete terms we may more readily understand as Christians: All things that can possibly be known are already known by the Infinite and perfect mind of God. It may also be stated; since information is enforcing this “teleported” control completely free of any known energy/material basis, that information must of necessity be foundational, in some major and significant way, to energy/matter just as energy itself is found to be foundational to matter and to exert control of matter in a major and significant way (producing work and force in matter). Indeed the Genesis account of creation; And God said, “Let there be light”: and there was light, just gained a tremendous amount of credence as far as the methodological naturalism of hard science is concerned.
This revelation also dramatically changes the whole fight between atheistic evolutionists and Theistic creationists. Atheistic evolutionists have always chided Theistic creationists for being out of the scientific scope of the methodological naturalism of science for not explaining to a energy/material basis, yet here we have transcendent information being brought into the very foundation of reality and science and into the center of the scope of methodological naturalism. Indeed, now atheistic evolutionists have had their feet taken completely out from under them, scientifically speaking, and now they must defend why should science (as practiced in methodological naturalism) presuppose that information can arise by totally energy/material means in an organism’s genome when information is now known to be foundation to energy/matter in the first place. Indeed since the fossil record shows a sudden appearance of fossils with much required rich information content, especially in the Cambrian explosion, and the DNA molecule is now also known to be the “richest information storage device” known to man (far surpassing mans ability to do as such in computers by orders of magnitude), as well as the universe is now known to have suddenly appeared with “preset information” parameters (fine-tuned transcendent constants) that defy definition to any energy/material basis, Why should science be forced to presuppose that energy/material is generating this hyper-rich information content in any of the parent species genomes of living organisms (especially since all concise mutational studies to genomes are known to be overwhelmingly negative) and the universal constants. No Indeed, since information is now shown to be foundational to energy/matter the burden of proof is now shifted to Atheistic Evolutionists and they now must defend why they are out of the scope of methodological naturalism and why are they being “unscientific” as far as requiring information to be generated by something information is shown to be foundational to.

resources: Spooky action and beyond http://www.signandsight.com/feat ures/614.html

excerpt: What are you doing? Transferring the properties of light particles over certain distances onto other light particles, with no time delay. The procedure is based on phenomena which exist only in the quantum world, and is known as “quantum teleportation.”

http://www.newscientis t.com/channel/fundamentals/quantum-world /mg15721254.900

WHAT does a financial index have in common with Shakespeare’s Richard III, a drawing of a cat and this sentence? Easy. No matter how important any one of them may be to you, they can all be reduced to the ubiquitous digital bits of the information age. And, as such, they can pass from a mind to a machine, flow down telephone lines and spill out unchanged onto a page halfway across the world. Information is nothing but patterns of 0s and 1s. Or so everyone has believed. But now a growing band of physicists is putting forth a more alarming notion. They believe that information is a superweird new substance, more ethereal than matter or energy, but every bit as real and perhaps even more fundamental. For them, information is a kind of subtle substance that lies behind and beneath physical stuff. “Information is deeper than reality,” says Anton Zeilinger, a physicist at the University of Innsbruck.

I agree that science shouldn’t be identified with methodological naturalism. Science can evaluate any hypothesis, natural or supernatural, monistic or dualistic, so long as it has some testable content. For instance, scientists have evaluated young earth creationism and found the evidence for it lacking, same for ID. This is why neither have thus far found a place in public school science classrooms.

Science should also not be identified with materialism, since there might turn out to be categorically mental entities according to some empirically testable specification. For instance philosopher of mind David Chalmers thinks the best explanation for consciousness might be that there are categorically mental phenomena related to physical phenomena by psycho-physical laws. I happen to think he’s wrong, but it can’t be ruled out.

If he’s right, and materialism is proven false, that doesn’t get us to supernaturalism, since it’s still a theory about the natural world and what it contains. To get supernaturalism into the picture, you’d have to use something other than science to establish truth claims about the world, since what science confirms to exist is what we call nature. Thus far, it doesn’t seem science has much competition when it comes to mapping reality reliably. More about this in Appropriating science.

best,

Tom Clark
Naturalism.Org

I like what Tom said. The natural/supernatural distinction is not very useful because if we can study something in the sense of experience it in an objectively testable manner, then it is natural.

twclark,

“Science can evaluate any hypothesis, natural or supernatural, monistic or dualistic, so long as it has some testable content. For instance, scientists have evaluated young earth creationism and found the evidence for it lacking, same for ID. This is why neither have thus far found a place in public school science classrooms.”

I’m sorry, but this rundown is entirely wrong in just about every direction.

The overwhelming argument against ID has been that legitimate science is literally incapable of investigating claims of design, certainly on the level that ID necessitates. The evidence has not ‘been lacking’ - what ID proponents cite as evidence and implied conclusion has been argued to be outside the bounds of science altogether. It’s precisely because of the perceived religious commitment that ID has been barred from mention in public schools - if it were purely a question of science, there would be zero legal justification for excluding it if some school board chose to allow it.

Further, the only way that scientists are capable of ‘investigating the supernatural’ is if the supernatural has discernible natural effects. But in such a case it is the natural effects that would be investigated - they wouldn’t be able to scientifically classify anything as ’supernatural’ because the natural is the sole domain OF science in mainstream consideration.

This sort of intentional confusion is part of the problem in this debate. Science starts off philosophically bounded in such a way that it’s only capable of investigating the natural. Then the explanation comes that all science has discovered is what we would call ‘natural’, therefore only the natural exists. Which is like arguing that only visual data is scientific data, and then it being announced that science has proven that only the visual exists.

nullasalus,

You seem to have misunderstood Tom Clark’s comment. He is arguing (and I would agree) that what determines whether a hypothesis is scientific is not whether it refers to the natural or to the supernatural, but rather whether it is testable.

Young earth creationism posits a God who created the universe several thousand years ago. Most of us would consider the YEC God to be a supernatural entity, but Tom’s point is that the natural/supernatural distinction is irrelevant to the question of YEC’s scientific status. What matters is that young earth creationism makes testable predictions, and that these predictions are not congruent with the observational evidence.

In other words, science shows us that the YEC God does not exist, regardless of whether you label him ‘natural’ or ’supernatural’.

There are claims within ID that are testable, and others that are not. The former can be investigated scientifically; the latter cannot.

ribczynski,

He’s misrepresenting the debate, whether purposefully or not.

First, YEC != ID. No matter how many times people repeat that, they are not the same thing. Further, the legal opposition to ID - an idea which is extremely broad, a collection of viewpoints and perspective rather than a narrow and single scientific claim - had next to nothing to do with scientific falsification. The issue came down to whether ID’s claims are legitimately ’science’ at all, or a concealed religious / philosophical argument. So Tom is flatly wrong on this.

Second, insofar as Tom claims that a supernatural hypothesis can be ruled on by science, he’s either being tremendously sloppy or he’s equivocating immensely. YEC’s claims are capable of being explored by methodological naturalism only to the extent that a particular YEC argument makes naturalistic claims. If a YEC argues that the scientific evidence is invalid and the product of deception by a powerful malevolent force, science is incapable of ruling on this claim. If a YEC makes a specific naturalistic claim that is shown to be false, it does not become the case that science ‘has shown that the YEC God does not exist’, any more than the OJ Simpson trial was an attempt to discover if the OJ Simpson who killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman existed. It indicates, if anything, that either the YEC’s God did not do what they claim He did, or He removed (or allowed the removal of) all scientific evidence pointing at as much.

On the flipside, if by some twist new scientific evidence were discovered that strongly indicated a several thousand year old earth… science would not have verified a supernatural hypothesis either. Such evidence (no, I’m not a YEC, nor have I ever been) would turn our world upside down. Such evidence could lend support to a (non-scientific) YEC claim about God. But science’s role in such an investigation would abruptly stop at the naturalistic aspects. No supernatural claim is testable, such that any ’supernatural’ part of a hypothesis would be effectively be either removed by, or invisible to, the scientific investigation.

The first step of respecting science is realizing just how limited it is.

I confess I have some sympathy with skeptics of altruism. Quite often people do “nice” things simply because it makes them feel good. I think God made us to feel good when we do something nice. Like everything else God has done, this can be perverted by perverting what people believe to be “good” or “bad”. People are sometimes altruistic. This does not mean however that every altruistic act is always the right one.

Just my two cents.

It indicates, if anything, that either the YEC’s God did not do what they claim He did, or He removed (or allowed the removal of) all scientific evidence pointing at as much.

Or we haven’t found it yet. If radioactive decay should be found not to be a constant so much for the main pillar of evidence of an old Earth.

I think the fatal assumption that materialist mentalities endorse is that there is nothing at all testable within the realm of the “supernatural.” This is a common mindset held by atheists and those who share the same worldview.

If you are going to confine science to natural methodology, then you’re never going to perceive evidence for a supernatural intelligence because the very foundation of natural methodology presumes there is none before evidence is even weighed. So given this, if there is in fact a super intelligent creator who designed the universe and everything within it, then this type of “science” would never be capable of finding the truth. The example is as follows:

Imagine the entire global population of organic life on earth was completely wiped out without leaving any trace of biological signatures, yet all of the machinery and inorganic mechanisms survived this event. Later down the road an outside intelligence stumbles upon this barren planet and sees nothing but the remnants of what used be populated cities in many locations around the world. If this being were to solely use natural methodology to find out the history of this planet, the efforts would be absolutely fruitless in detecting the intelligence that was responsible for creating all of the complex machinery that’s left after this apocolyptic event. Instead the being would opt to try and understand how cars, planes, factories, power plants etc… came about from natural causes. Obviously constricting his methods to naturalism would never provide any accurate history of how these machines and complex assemblies came to be. But I bet he’d be able to use his imagination and come up some very very complex theories to explain how everything left on this planet did arise from naturalistic processes. These theories would seem sound at face value, but would completely fail when the details are put into the spotlight.

So ultimately this methodology could come up with flimsy theories at best. Of course this is a theoretical scenario and I realize this, but if science truly is the pursuit of knowledge and truth, then how can we ever know the truth if we’ve already ruled it out? The point I’m trying to make is that if intelligence is indeed a significant source of our origin, then we’d be completely incapable of coming to that conclusion given the current constraints of “science.” Maybe the scope of science is what needs to be broadened.

I hope that you guys understand that Tom Clark of Naturalism.org is, I think, agreeing with you that declaring that science can only deal with what is natural, not with what is supernatural, is a misleading distinction. Science deals with what is empirically testable - that’s the crucial distinction. Do I understand you correctly, Tom?

Well that’s the problem however, not all signs of intelligence are supernatural. So we can apply our knowledge of existing intelligences to detecting a greater intelligence, to say that this is outside the bounds of naturalism would be correct. To say that this would be outside the bounds of science would be incorrect. The problem is that it’s presumed by most scientists today that naturalism is science and science is naturalism. The main issue is that science today is predefined by naturalism. So when Tom Clark says that “supernatural” isn’t detectable, that statement I’m sure actually includes detectable things such as intelligence.

Sure thing Denise. I think it’s valuable to offer alternative explanations for the same thing though.

nullasalus,

I think you need to read Tom’s comment again.

He does not claim that YEC = ID, and he does not assert that methodological naturalism can be used to investigate supernatural hypotheses (of course it can’t, since it rules them out a priori).

Regarding your final point, I agree that the existence of a deceptive God is not a testable claim. However, most Christians (including most YECs) claim that God is honest. When I said that “science shows us that the YEC God does not exist”, I was referring to an honest God.

Hazel,

The problem is that the only things ‘empirically testable’ are within nature. I think even ID proponents would typically agree with this. The YEC example illustrates that YEC claims can be investigated by science - but only insofar as YEC claims are claims about the natural world. ‘The world is 6000 years old’ can be investigated by scientific methods in various ways. ‘The world is 6000 years old, and all current mainstream scientific attempts to investigate this are either mistaken or are false results from a malevolent entity’ cannot be. Even if the world were verified to be 6000 years old, you would not have verified a supernatural claim - verifying the earth’s age does not verify the existence of God, though some would certainly take that as a launching point for an argument.

So the only way science can deal with ’supernatural’ (in the common sense of above or behind nature) claims is indirectly. This point gets confused due to how sloppily ’supernatural’ topics are handled. Look at Sheldrake’s contentions - he believes telepathy may well be real. To him, telepathy would simply be natural. Hell, he believes it would have been developed via evolutionary methods. But I’ll bet you many people would describe his beliefs on the subject as supernatural - and that quite a lot of the reason would be because they think those claims are false. If Sheldrake ever provided overwhelming evidence of his claims’ truth, I have no doubt said claims would be labeled ‘naturalistic’ upon the instant.

Oops. Sorry Denyse.

“But I’ll bet you many people would describe his beliefs on the subject as supernatural - and that quite a lot of the reason would be because they think those claims are false. If Sheldrake ever provided overwhelming evidence of his claims’ truth, I have no doubt said claims would be labeled ‘naturalistic’ upon the instant.”

So true, so true.

Well, if I can twist a phrase, Methodological Naturalism (MN) is Philosophical Naturalism (PN) in a cheap tuxedo!

MN places a completely arbitrary restriction on the practice of science and the category of explanatory resources to which science can turn to explain data. If the real explanation is something outside the restriction, then science must pretend to be blind to it for the sake of “doing science.”

The only way MN makes sense is if we know a priori that nature is a completely closed system of natural cause and effect. But since no one has ever established that scientifically, philosophically, metaphysically or any other way, then MN as an a priori restriction on the practice of science guarantees that if nature is NOT a completely closed system of natural cause and effect, then if the true explanations fall outside the restriction of MN, then science will not see any explanatory possibility beyond that. That’s powerfully close to importing PN into the heart of science by disguising at MN. Science is NOT a collorary of PN and no one has ever provided an argument as to why it should be.

ribczynski,

“I think you need to read Tom’s comment again.

He does not claim that YEC = ID, and he does not assert that methodological naturalism can be used to investigate supernatural hypotheses (of course it can’t, since it rules them out a priori).”

I think you should read Tom’s again, as well as my own. Here’s the first from Tom.

“For instance, scientists have evaluated young earth creationism and found the evidence for it lacking, same for ID. This is why neither have thus far found a place in public school science classrooms.”

So right away, he’s making the claim that ID = YEC without qualification - certainly insofar as why they aren’t allowed in a public school curriculum, and how their claims are judged by the scientific community. If you go read Judge Jones’ decision on ID, this simply is not the case. Questions of scientific evidence hardly applied - the question was whether ID was primarily a religious / philosophical / theological project. It was on those grounds that ID was ruled out - ID was overwhelmingly viewed as ‘not scientific theory/theories’ in the court decision, not ‘a scientific claim that is wrong’. Questions of scientific evidence for ID claims barely registered on the legal radar. Between that and the fact that ID and YEC are two vastly distinct paradigms (though technically YEC may be under ID’s ‘big tent’), arguing they’re rejected for the same reasons is either due to a lack of understanding, or otherwise.

Contrast that response to ID with YEC. Do scientists believe the claim that the earth is several thousands of years old is ‘not testable’ or ‘not a scientific claim’?

As for whether methodological naturalism can be used to investigate a supernatural hypotheses, here’s Tom again.

“I agree that science shouldn’t be identified with methodological naturalism. Science can evaluate any hypothesis, natural or supernatural, monistic or dualistic, so long as it has some testable content.”

Sounds nice, until you realize that ‘having some testable content’ entails methodological naturalism by the current mainstream standards of science. Again, go back to the Kitzmiller decision where you can see Judge Jones, citing claims from the NAS and others (along with, supposedly, nearly photocopying the ACLU’s papers to write his verdict) the the effect that “Methodological naturalism is a ‘ground rule’ of science today.” If there’s another standard of science in play, then it’s an alternative definition compared to what was laid down in Kitzmiller. Guess which side was arguing that?

Be aware of what is involved with arguing that science need not be committed to methodological naturalism. The price you pay in order to argue that science directly disproves the supernatural is that you justify any person in arguing that science proves the universe (and anything in it) was designed and therefore God exists. Many ID proponents would love such a standard, especially when so many ID opponents try to have it both ways by dabbling in this little game.

“Regarding your final point, I agree that the existence of a deceptive God is not a testable claim. However, most Christians (including most YECs) claim that God is honest. When I said that “science shows us that the YEC God does not exist”, I was referring to an honest God.”

Are you aware that some YECs claim that the devil, not God, is doing the deceiving? Or that scientists are flat out wrong and will eventually realize their error (’promissory supernaturalism’ perhaps)? They have no need of positing a dishonest God to explain false appearances - not when the options of ‘powerful but lesser being’ and ‘the data we have is simply incorrect or inconclusive’ is on the table.

And again - ’science has proven the YEC God does not exist’ is a tortured way of describing the situation even among people who accept the scientific data in question, done apparently to get that little penny ante ’science disproved God’ quip in there. But if we’re going to abuse language that much, then hey - science has demonstrated that an atheist eternal universe does not exist by way of the Big Bang. Science has demonstrated that atheist neurology is invalid by way of rejecting Skinner’s behaviorism. Science has been disproving atheistic ideas about the universe left and right for centuries.

How convenient.

Hazel:

“Science deals with what is empirically testable - that’s the crucial distinction. Do I understand you correctly, Tom?”

Exactly.

In response to nullasalus:

It’s true that the main argument against teaching ID has been its religious motivation, but the issue of its testability and truth is independent of its motivation. As a naturalist, I might be motivated to find altruistic behavior in other species, but that doesn’t bear on the truth of that claim, which has to be evaluated on its evidential basis.

ID and creationism could usefully be mentioned in science class as examples of failed hypotheses – students could read Victor Stenger’s book, God: The Failed Hypothesis. ID is a logically possible scenario: that the Earth and its denizens were created by some sort of super-intelligence. The hypothesis fails not because it involves what people often think of as a supernatural agency, but because there’s as yet no evidence for it.

To say that science only investigates natural effects is simply to say that whatever science shows to exist is what we call nature. Science can study creationism and ID (and has done so), and were evidence found of a designer, its characteristics, and the mechanisms of its operations, that designer would perforce be incorporated into nature. If something is certified to exist by science, it gets naturalized. This is why those wanting to use science to confirm ID should be careful what they wish for.

So I’d say science isn’t “philosophically bounded in such a way that it’s only capable of investigating the natural.” The scientific method as actually practiced doesn’t invoke the natural/supernatural distinction, it only invokes methods of investigation and criteria of explanatory adequacy that certify whether phenomena reliably exist or not. Science gets to weigh in on the existence of purportedly supernatural phenomena if they have any testable characteristics. For more on this, see http://www.naturalism.org/science.htm , especially “Some criteria for good scientific explanations.”

The claim that only the natural exists isn’t part of science, but rather the conclusion you reach if you stick with science as your mode of knowing about the world (and no student is forced to do this). So science isn’t biased toward naturalism as proponents of ID often suggest. It’s only that what science shows to exist is what we call nature.

Re YEC: if its proponents make testable claims about the actions of their god, and those claims are disproven (as they have been), that lowers the probability of the claim that their god exists. Likewise for claims about anonymous intercessory prayer. The studies showing zero or negative effects of such prayer can’t help but reflect badly on the god hypothesis. Of course science can’t prove god doesn’t exist, but by providing no support for claims about god’s action in the world, it lowers the probability of god’s existence, if you take intersubjective evidence as dispositive about what exists. See Yonatan Fishman’s paper on this, “Can science test supernatural worldviews?” linked at http://www.naturalism.org/science.htm , especially section 2 starting on page 8.

When Christians and others make empirical claims about the existence of the supernatural, they are making claims about reality, period. Science, kept honest by philosophy and critical thinking, is by far our most reliable method of deciding what’s the case about reality, so it seems to me it can, and should, weigh in on such claims. The purported existence of the supernatural is too important a question to be left to religion. This gets discussed in “Reality and its rivals” at http://www.naturalism.org/epistemology.htm .

Some excellent and well-stated thoughts, Tom.

Tom writes:

ID and creationism could usefully be mentioned in science class as examples of failed hypotheses – students could read Victor Stenger’s book, God: The Failed Hypothesis. ID is a logically possible scenario: that the Earth and its denizens were created by some sort of super-intelligence. The hypothesis fails not because it involves what people often think of as a supernatural agency, but because there’s as yet no evidence for it.

I have take issue with this statement, especially that last sentence. The claim of “no evidence” is often used to dismiss ID. But what does that claim really mean? As commonly used, it seems to mean that science doesn’t know of or see any connection between some data set and the possibility that the data set is the way it is because of the actions of a supernatural intelligence. Put another way, science views all data through the lens of MN. But data isn’t data per se. That is to say, data in the form of some observed phenomenon doesn’t come with a little label attached telling the observer what it is evidence for. Rather, the observer (i.e. the scientist) assigns evidential value to the data based on other considerations and background knowledge.

An example I’ve seen elsewhere. Suppose it is sometime before 1900 and two physicists are talking and one says “you know, I think that atoms are mutable and can be either split apart or mashed together.” The other physicist would have sniffed “Hogwash, you have no evidence for that.” And at that time, the second scientist would have been right because the relevent discoveries that would connect the concept of the mutability of atoms to the data had not yet been made. On the other hand, the was overpowering evidence for the claim of the first scientist that the entire world experienced that rose every morning and set every night: Sunshine! If not for the mutability of atoms, there would be no sun. But, no one knew that prior to (or about) 1900. But the evidence for it was there all along.

Why couldn’t ID be in the same category? It seems to me that there’s all sorts of evidence…that is to say data, observed phenomenon, for ID across all of Nature. What the ID critic means with the claim “no evidence” is that there isn’t any data set that she takes to be evidence for ID, which is a very different sort of claim. That claim usually implies that no one knows of any relevent data or background knowledge that legimately connects certain data sets with ID. And, usually the ID critic goes one step further and claims that no such connection will be forthcoming ever…that is the gist of taking MN seriously into the heart of scientific practice.

The relevant and obvious question to put to any ID critic claiming there’s “no evidence” for ID is “what would you take to be evidence for ID?” That’s a question I’ve asked repeatedly in forums like this, but have to receive an answer that doesn’t betray the a priori assumption of MN.

When one understands the role of evidence in science and when and how evidentiary status is actually ascribed to a specific data set by a scientist, a lot of the starch of saying “no evidence” goes out the window.

Tom, quick question. According to your long elaboration on how science “naturalizes” what it observes, would this mean that you would consider intelligence to be natural? How about design? If so, then why can’t they be under the consideration of scientific observation?

Basically what you’re saying is anything that science doesn’t deal with isn’t “natural.” Therefore concepts such as design and intelligence wouldn’t be “natural.” Yet the search for intelligence in outer space remains a “scientific pursuit.” It seems your assessment of how science naturalizes what it observes has more than one standard. You can try and explain it however you like, but ultimately you’re going to end up contradicting something that’s already been established (i.e. detecting intelligence in outer space).

I’m sorry but you’ll have to come up with something new or explain more specifics on how IDers can’t detect intelligence but “mainstream scientists” can…

Tom,

“ID and creationism could usefully be mentioned in science class as examples of failed hypotheses – students could read Victor Stenger’s book, God: The Failed Hypothesis. ID is a logically possible scenario: that the Earth and its denizens were created by some sort of super-intelligence. The hypothesis fails not because it involves what people often think of as a supernatural agency, but because there’s as yet no evidence for it.”

There’s plenty of evidence for design - and Stenger’s book is a blatant example of the sort of double-standard hypocrisy that goes on with regards to ID. When it’s argued by ID proponents that there is evidence or inference of design in nature (whether biological, geological, cosmological, or otherwise) the response is that such claims go beyond science, are the stuff of religion and philosophy, and therefore are not appropriate to teach in a school setting. When Stenger argues the opposite - that science proves that there is no God - he’s either ignored or celebrated. Somehow, it’s only an abuse when the conclusion is not atheistic.

Methodological naturalism is the standard for scientific investigation, argued by the plaintiffs (among whom were some major scientific organizations and representatives) - and methodological naturalism, even conceded ribczynski, cannot investigate supernatural claims. For Stenger to make the move he does, he has to adopt a new standard for scientific investigation - in which case, one has to decide whether he’s doing exactly that (Which means he’s making the same move most ID proponents are) or he’s being dishonest (By arguing ’science’ diisproves something which it rules out from the beginning.)

“To say that science only investigates natural effects is simply to say that whatever science shows to exist is what we call nature. Science can study creationism and ID (and has done so), and were evidence found of a designer, its characteristics, and the mechanisms of its operations, that designer would perforce be incorporated into nature. If something is certified to exist by science, it gets naturalized. This is why those wanting to use science to confirm ID should be careful what they wish for.”

No, Tom. Methodological naturalism and mainstream science operate with a starting ground rule that all it can and will investigate is nature itself, and ‘natural things’ are all it is capable of proposing as explanations. Further, science does not ‘certify to exist’ anything - all science is capable of doing is falsifying proposed natural explanations, and shaping theories as a result.

Further, ID proponents do not want science ‘to confirm ID’. They believe a proper definition of science would include ID explanations and proposals. Big difference. The argument at Kitzmiller was not that ’science proves ID’. It was that ‘ID theories and explanations are scientific’.

If you want to argue that ID explanations and theories are themselves scientific, you’re the one who should be careful what you wish for. The price of making ID scientific is not that you get to disprove God on the cheap a la Stenger - you make design (and by way of inference, God) a scientific argument, even if it’s a minority viewpoint. This sort of hijacking of science to pursue desired social and political ends always turns out to spoil.

“So I’d say science isn’t “philosophically bounded in such a way that it’s only capable of investigating the natural.” The scientific method as actually practiced doesn’t invoke the natural/supernatural distinction, it only invokes methods of investigation and criteria of explanatory adequacy that certify whether phenomena reliably exist or not. Science gets to weigh in on the existence of purportedly supernatural phenomena if they have any testable characteristics.”

Are you even reading what you’re writing here? You already said that whatever science ’shows to exist’ is naturalized. It goes without saying that anything science can investigate is natural - that’s part of the package of methodological naturalism. The point was that a supernatural phenomena amenable to investigation and testing by science is - guess what? - not supernatural. It’s natural.

“The claim that only the natural exists isn’t part of science, but rather the conclusion you reach if you stick with science as your mode of knowing about the world (and no student is forced to do this). So science isn’t biased toward naturalism as proponents of ID often suggest. It’s only that what science shows to exist is what we call nature.”

Methodological naturalism does not make the claim that only the natural exists. Methodological naturalism makes no claims in and of itself - it’s a method, a standard of investigation for the scientific field. Further, if you ’stick with science as your mode of knowing the world’, you do not ‘arrive at’ naturalism. You’re already there the moment you make that intellectual commitment, because science as defined in the mainstream only does - and only can - concern itself with naturalistic explanations. Committing yourself to only (under the methodological naturalism standard) scientific explanations for anything does not lead to metaphysical naturalism - it IS metaphysical naturalism.

“Re YEC: if its proponents make testable claims about the actions of their god, and those claims are disproven (as they have been), that lowers the probability of the claim that their god exists.”

No, Tom, it doesn’t. Any more than making a claim about Abraham Lincoln that is later disproven would in and of itself lower the probability that Lincoln existed. It indicates that, if anything, they have a wrong belief about God. Science is incapable of estimating probabilities of God - or even investigating the existence of God, certainly God as classically imagined in western theism.

“Likewise for claims about anonymous intercessory prayer. The studies showing zero or negative effects of such prayer can’t help but reflect badly on the god hypothesis. Of course science can’t prove god doesn’t exist, but by providing no support for claims about god’s action in the world, it lowers the probability of god’s existence, if you take intersubjective evidence as dispositive about what exists.”

Science under methodological naturalism is utterly incapable of providing evidence in favor of or against God by the very ground rules it operates under. Science redefined to be outside the scope of methodological naturalism necessarily entails metaphysical, philosophical, and theological commitments and additional ground rules that explode the possibility to evaluate these questions within science, because the evaluation changes depending on the metaphysical and philosophical assumptions you’re now including (and which will surely change from person to person, or group to group).

Further, controlled ‘anonymous intercessory prayer’ is utterly foreign to the western theistic tradition (as is the idea that you can use prayer to test God - this idea is closer to blasphemy in tradition than anything else), nor has it ever been viewed as a surefire miracle-making method. Prayer was first and foremost between person and God, focused centrally on ‘thy will be done’. Which is why Christians ministered to the poor and sick, rather than tried to pray themselves up some ministration. When they wanted to help people, they didn’t pray and make sure to do so anonymously - they built hospitals.

Meanwhile, if we’re going to play this game, atheistic psychology and neuroscience argued for decades that the ‘mind’ had no causal role on the brain, and that behavior was the only thing that needed to be studied. Now that view has been jettisoned (after doing quite a lot of damage to the mental health of many people unfortunate enough to be treated under that paradigm), the placebo effect is a widely-recognized reality, and people’s minds are viewed as instrumental to mental health. Surprising, I know.

“When Christians and others make empirical claims about the existence of the supernatural, they are making claims about reality, period. Science, kept honest by philosophy and critical thinking, is by far our most reliable method of deciding what’s the case about reality, so it seems to me it can, and should, weigh in on such claims. The purported existence of the supernatural is too important a question to be left to religion.”

You are equivocating here to such a degree that I can’t help but think it’s purposeful. When ‘Christians and others make empirical claims about the supernatural’, they are making naturalistic claims by default. But the claims that ‘Christians and others’ make regarding the supernatural are far and away hardly ever empirical in nature, and with the possible exception of YEC almost never fundamental to their faith. The ‘existence’ of the supernatural is forever walled off to the investigation of science (unless the mainstream definition of science in changed, in which case congratulations for doing exactly what some ID proponents have been asking for for some time), and the fact that you think science has been ‘kept honest’ - by philosophy, no less - indicates that either your understanding of science and naturalism is woefully inadequate, or that you’re willing to misrepresent both to further social and political aims.

Why are the people who praise science the loudest inevitably the ones abusing it the most?

Methodological naturalism is nothing but political correctness in a lab coat—an arbitrary rule established by bureaucrats to protect other bureaucrats who have nothing new to say. No one ever heard of such a thing until the 1980’s, and it just happened to rear its ugly head at the very same time that the ID movement began to define itself. That alone should tell us something. It is beyond presumptuous for one group of scientists to establish an “acceptable” methodology for another group of scientists or to insist that only those who agree with that methodology are really doing science.

In fact, only the individual scientist can decide which methods he should use, because only the individual scientist knows which problem he is trying to solve. That is why the 20/80 rule applies to most scientific progress. It is the vital few scientists, the minority, that drive most of the new discoveries. The others are just dutiful little worker bees that cling to the status quo and use the power of inert institutions to justify their existence. They need the academy to help them plug in to the established technology, secure grants, and inform us about such mind bending truths as the fact that men are different than women, or that self control may help people to stop smoking.

Meanwhile, the geniuses are persecuted for breaking away from the herd and trying to say something interesting and useful. It hasn’t been that long, after all, since the astronomers caught all kinds of hell for doing that very thing—-discovering evidence for the big bang. And who was it that gave them all that hell? Why it was the herd, of course. And what was their rationale? Well, it seems that they were fearful that [hide the kids now and pull down the shades] someone might think that God created the universe. To suggest that this same herd should now be telling innovators like Dembski and Behe how to do their business is beyond unconscionable.

It is also a rather curious fact that, for some unknown reason, advocates for methodological naturalism always just happen to conflate creation science with intelligent design. For those who continue to blur that distinction, either through ignorance or malice, I can only offer the following exhortation: Please learn the difference between a religious presupposition, which is faith based, and a design inference, which is empirically based. Your capacity for dialogue will improve immeasurably.

DonaldM,

I like your post but think it needs a few emendations, as below, (with a few minor typos also corrected).

Well, if I can twist a phrase, Methodological Naturalism (MN) is Philosophical Naturalism (PN) in a cheap tuxedo!

MN places a completely arbitrary restriction on the practice of science and the category of explanatory resources to which science can turn to explain data. If the real explanation is something outside the restriction, then science must pretend to be blind to it for the sake of “doing science.”

The only way MN makes sense is if we [assume that PN is true and therefore] know [have faith] a priori that [what PNers think constitutes] nature is a completely closed system of [what PNers think constitutes] natural cause and effect. But since no one has ever established that [PN is true] scientifically, philosophically, metaphysically or any other way, then MN is an a priori restriction on the practice of science guarantees that if nature is NOT a completely closed system of [what PNers think constitutes] natural cause and effect, then if the true explanations fall outside the restriction of MN, then science will not see any explanatory possibility beyond that. That’s powerfully close to importing PN into the heart of science by disguising [it] as MN. Science is NOT a collorary of PN and no one has ever provided an argument as to why it should be.

What do you think of that?

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. Here are some responses, necessarily incomplete given the volume of discourse.

Hazel: thanks for the kind words.

Patrick: Sorry about the conflation of various ID/creationism hypotheses, I was merely adverting to a generalized “god did it” hypothesis and saying that science could weigh in on it if it has testable content. Re falsifying testable claims of ID, isn’t the issue that such claims on the part of ID are nearly non-existent? Possible example: I think it’s Behe that argues the flagellum couldn’t have been the result of natural selection, but there are eminently plausible accounts of how it could be. But the main problem with ID/creationism is that it doesn’t specify a mechanism for how the designer/creator did it, or any independent evidence for the existence of a designer/creator apart from the fact that things might seem designed/created (although that’s debatable too, given all the functionally sub-optimal forms and processes in nature). Unexplained and unevidenced explainers that are tailored to fill explanatory gaps don’t survive in science since they don’t add to our understanding.

Re Naturalism.Org: You’re quite right – it isn’t intended as an unbiased informational site about naturalism in all its varieties. As a production of the Center for Naturalism, it’s intended to present and promote a particular version of naturalism as a worldview. As it says at the top of the home page: “For background and FAQs on *this understanding of naturalism*, please see…” That said, I think the version of naturalism presented is broadly consistent with many currents of philosophical naturalism as it’s developed over the last century, in particular the naturalistic turn of philosophy in taking science as an epistemological resource.

So Naturalism.Org is on board with Quine’s statement you quoted. Entities and processes gain existential support - that is, we start believing they’re real - if they provide explanatory benefit in science (and, I would add, aren’t merely posited to fill an explanatory gap: there has to be independent evidence for them). This isn’t the case for an intelligent designer. Once entities gain existential support from science they are of course no longer considered supernatural (if indeed they were in the first place) - they are perforce naturalized.

I agree with you about MN. I think it’s a total distraction and red herring, used by science-promoting organizations in an effort to reassure religionists that science won’t encroach on their turf (but of course it does, see “Reality and its rivals” at Naturalism.Org). Science should be characterized by it’s actual method, which in practice makes no reference to the natural/supernatural distinction, see for instance here.

Donald M: You make some good points about evidence, e.g., “the observer (i.e. the scientist) assigns evidential value to the data based on other considerations and background knowledge.” No one can rule out that evidence might eventually surface that we are indeed the creations of a super-intelligence. At the moment, however, there’s no evidence, independent of what seems (to some) like the appearance of intentional design in organic forms, that establishes the existence of a designer, or anything about its characteristics or modes of operation. This is what I would take to be adequate evidence of ID. Until such evidence surfaces, the ID hypothesis is empty of content and thus a scientific non-starter. This is what explains its notable absence in established scientific theory - not any conspiracy to suppress it on the part of nefarious Darwinists, nor a bias on the part of science that rules out consideration of supernatural hypotheses (the MN rule you rightly object to).

PaulN: The way I see it, whatever science discovers to exist ends up included in what we call the natural world, so if it discovers an intelligent designer, the characteristics and operations of which can be specified and observed (instead of merely posited), then that designer ends up within nature. ID claims to detect the existence of intelligence, but that claim is based simply on the appearance (to some) of the intentional design of organisms; there’s no independent evidence for the existence or characteristics or mode of operation of the designer. These are the things that would need to be detected for mainstream scientists to accept ID.

nullasalus:

“Stenger’s book is a blatant example of the sort of double-standard hypocrisy that goes on with regards to ID. When it’s argued by ID proponents that there is evidence or inference of design in nature (whether biological, geological, cosmological, or otherwise) the response is that such claims go beyond science, are the stuff of religion and philosophy, and therefore are not appropriate to teach in a school setting. When Stenger argues the opposite - that science proves that there is no God - he’s either ignored or celebrated. Somehow, it’s only an abuse when the conclusion is not atheistic.”

Stenger, myself, Yonatan Fishman and some others think that science can indeed weigh in on the question of god’s existence, not that claims for his existence go beyond science. Stenger’s standard for scientific investigation, and mine, is simply to look at the evidence for a claim, irrespective of whether the phenomena involved are called natural or supernatural. So we reject the MN restriction on science, and thus disagree with the Kitzmiller plaintiffs and Judge Jones’ decision in this regard, which appealed to MN. The reason ID, etc. shouldn’t be taught in school, except as examples of failed hypotheses, is because they are *bad* science, not because they go *beyond* science.

“If you want to argue that ID explanations and theories are themselves scientific, you’re the one who should be careful what you wish for. The price of making ID scientific is not that you get to disprove God on the cheap a la Stenger - you make design (and by way of inference, God) a scientific argument, even if it’s a minority viewpoint. This sort of hijacking of science to pursue desired social and political ends always turns out to spoil.”

I’m of course not saying that ID explanations and theories are scientific, only that they can be evaluated on the basis of empirical evidence (to the extent they have testable content). As I said earlier, they are good examples of *failed* science, of *failed* hypotheses. The proper definition of science gives it latitude to evaluate any hypothesis with testable content since that’s exactly what it does in practice: it has evaluated both YEC and ID and found them fatally wanting. This isn’t to hijack science in service to social and political ends, but simply to adjudicate factual claims about reality using our best available tool. Moreover, if science by definition or fiat isn’t allowed to evaluate creationism and ID, and discard them as failed hypotheses, then one wonders what discipline of investigation, what mode of knowing, *does* have jurisdiction to evaluate supernatural claims? If only religion and other non-empirical domains of discourse are permitted to pronounce on the reality of god and the supernatural, then their existence is a fait accompli, but only by declaration, not by proof anyone should trust. This is why IDers and some other religionists understandably want to get science on their side: only science and other forms of intersubjective empiricism give us convincing evidence for existence claims. Unfortunately, however, science rules against them.

Re science and naturalization, you said that “It goes without saying that anything science can investigate is natural - that’s part of the package of methodological naturalism.” It isn’t the case that science can only investigate what is natural (as per MN) since it can investigate the existence of what are claimed to be, or called, supernatural phenomena, should there be any testable content to the claim. But should these so-called supernatural phenomena actually be shown to exist as demonstrated by science, then of course they end up being natural phenomena – they get naturalized. This could conceivably happen with ID (see Dembski, Naturalist?). If it turns out there’s no scientific evidence for them, the naturalist (who sticks with science in deciding what’s real) concludes they likely don’t exist. The supernaturalist still might claim they exist on the basis of non-scientific modes of knowing.

“Science under methodological naturalism is utterly incapable of providing evidence in favor of or against God by the very ground rules it operates under. Science redefined to be outside the scope of methodological naturalism necessarily entails metaphysical, philosophical, and theological commitments and additional ground rules that explode the possibility to evaluate these questions within science, because the evaluation changes depending on the metaphysical and philosophical assumptions you’re now including (and which will surely change from person to person, or group to group).”

I don’t think that science, in evaluating any and all factual claims, whether termed natural or supernatural, necessarily entails any commitments beyond its method. The commitment comes when one decides to stick with science as one’s only mode of deciding existence claims, which as you properly point out leads directly to metaphysical naturalism. People are free to commit to other modes of deciding what exists.

“When ‘Christians and others make empirical claims about the supernatural’, they are making naturalistic claims by default. But the claims that ‘Christians and others’ make regarding the supernatural are far and away hardly ever empirical in nature, and with the possible exception of YEC almost never fundamental to their faith. The ‘existence’ of the supernatural is forever walled off to the investigation of science (unless the mainstream definition of science in changed, in which case congratulations for doing exactly what some ID proponents have been asking for for some time)…”

The claims that Christians