"Issues in the Creation-Evolution Controversies"
-- Jonathan Wells
"Evolution: Fact and Theory"
-- Chris Colby [of t.o fame]
"Why believe in a Creator?: Perspectives on Evolution"
-- Loren Haarsma
Congratulations to Loren on an excellent article, hopefully
everyone will be able to get hold of a copy. Here I want to
mention a sentence from the second paragraph of Loren's
article:
"People who dispute evolution's philosophical extrapolations
therefore have two alternatives: criticize the metaphysical
reasoning, or criticize the scientific credibility of the
theory itself."-- LH
I am envious of anyone able to say so much with only one sentence ;-).
I strongly believe that the best way to criticize the metaphysical
reasoning is first to make it absolutely clear that such reasoning
lies outside the domain of science and the best way to do this is
by sticking rigorously to methodological naturalism. If Dawkins
or Dennett or Weinberg or Monod want to say that science reveals
a Universe without purpose then we should politely ask to see their
purpose meter. If they produce one, we should then enquire as to
how it was calibrated :-).
At 03:39 PM 4/11/96 -0500, Loren wrote:
>
>
>ABSTRACT: Science cannot prove that some past event was "supernatural;"
>however, it can in principle establish that no known natural mechanisms
>could account for that event. In that limited sense, science can address
>the supernatural.
>
Here I have to disagree somewhat, depending on what you mean by
"address the supernatural". From a scientific point of view, all
that can be said is "no known natural mechanisms could account
for that event".
Perhaps this is just a problem with my interpretation of "address the
supernatural". After giving your 5 conclusions later on you write:
"Science _qua_ science cannot distinguish between these
possibilities", a statement that I agree with. Since science
cannot distinguish between them, it cannot address the supernatural
even in the limited sense suggested (to me anyway) by the above.
[...]
>LH:======
>When science investigates a puzzling event (either an "origins" event long
>ago, or a more recent event such as an unexpected healing), science cannot
>determine whether or not that event was supernatural. What _can_ science
>do? It can try to determine, to the best of its abilities,
> --what the conditions were before the event,
> --what the conditions were after the event, and
> --what effect known natural mechanisms could have had during the event.
>
This is well said.
>(Note: I use the word "event," but it could also refer to a series of
>events spread over time, such as macroevolution.)
>
>As scientists study the initial conditions, final conditions, and
>known natural mechanisms, they could reach three possible conclusions:
>
>1) Sound empirical models predict that known natural mechanisms can
> account for the event. (*1*) (Let's call these "natural events.")
>
>2) We do not have sound (or sufficiently thorough) empirical models, but
> we believe that known natural mechanisms can account for the event,
> and future improvements in empirical knowledge, elegant models, and
> computing power will eventually allow us to prove this.
> (For this article, let's call these "non-empirical events.")
>
>3) No known natural mechanisms could account for this event.
> There are empirically sound reasons for ruling out all known
> natural mechanisms.
> (For this article, let's call these "non-mechanistic events.")
>
Although I understand what you mean by the term in context here,
I still have some trouble with the word "mechanistic" for several
reasons.
First the term carries a lot of metaphysicsl baggage. For example,
in your article mentioned above, you wrote:
"Modern understandings of quantum mechanics and chaos
theory seriously undermine the extrapolation from Newton's
mechanics to metaphysical determinism."
If one of our goals is to "criticize the metaphysical reasoning" of
philosophical Naturalists, we would do well to avoid
metaphors which play into their hands. Although the term "natural
mechanism" can be used very broadly to refer to any natural phenomena
it can also lend itself to readily to the mechanistic world view.
That the universe is just a giant mechanism, a machine. Organisms
are also just machines. This is why Dennett makes the (at first
seemingly outrageous) statement "Biology is not just like engineering,
it is engineering". Biologists are just glorified engineers since
organisms are just machines.
My second objection is that, depending on how the term is
defined, "natural mechanisms" are not necessarily "mechanistic".
For example, on the cover page for a symposia entitled
"Evolutionary Dynamics and Artificial Life" I found the
following slogan:
"The mechanical world view will be swept away and replaced
by the picture of a self-creating world."
I think this statement comes as quite a shock for most of us
who have become accustomed to science giving us a mechanical
view of nature. Needless to say, the contributers to this
symposia do not feel that the phenomena they are studying
are supernatural or beyond scientific study. What is meant
by "mechanical world view"? This should be interpretted in
terms of the Newtonian mechanics paradigm in which systems
are viewed as changing (evolving) due to the actions of
external forces. In this sense Neo-Darwinism would definitely
be mechanistic, with organisms changing (adapting) to external
forces (changes in environment). The above slogan is typical
of the self-organizing view of nature. I spent a lot of time
trying to figure out exactly what is meant by the *self* in
self-organization. I believe it boils down essentially to this
point. The dynamics of a self-organizing system is not
strongly influenced by the external (initial and boundary)
conditions. In this sense then, self-organizing systems are
certainly natural phenomena but are not mechanistic.
After having said all this, I would be hard pressed to suggest
a better terminology. "Natural mechanism" is a very natural :)
and useful term. Perhaps this should still be used with some
explanation that purely natural phenomena are not necessarily
mechanistic. I would prefer not labeling (3) as "non-mechanistic
events".
Continued in part 2 ...........................
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Brian Harper |
Associate Professor | "It is not certain that all is uncertain,
Applied Mechanics | to the glory of skepticism" -- Pascal
Ohio State University |
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