Do you know? I get the same impression! It is very difficult to unpack such confused thinking.
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: Iain Strachan
To: Peter Loose
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism
Peter,
I hope you don't mind my saying this, but I get the uncomfortable sensation that you're not really listening to what I've said. You accuse me of "special pleading" and "circular reasoning", but I can find no instance of this in what I wrote, so you'll have to clarify what you meant there. Why is your argument a "straw-man"? I would have thought that was clear from what I said, but I'll attempt to elucidate for you.
A "straw-man" is where someone gives a deliberately ludicrous and false description of something, and then knocks it down - the fallacy being that they have knocked down their false description of the thing, and not the thing itself.
You claimed that an adherent of MN might postulate that white noise input into a Schmidt trigger would produce Windows XP out of the other end. That is clearly a false description of MN and doesn't correspond to anything any scientist would postulate, or would be encouraged to postulate. A favourite criticism of evolution by creationists and ID folk is that such marvels of life as we see couldn't have arisen by "blind chance", but that, too is a straw man. As I explained it contains random elements and deterministic elements (natural selection). Please explain to me where you think I'm doing either special pleading or circular reasoning in what I said, because I'm having a problem seeing it myself.
The musical instrument analogy was another way of illustrating that random inputs plus deterministic laws could produce an ordered and complex output. It could be argued that the way the resonating string on the violin picks out the resonant frequencies from the random white noise signal and discards the non-resonant frequencies are indeed a mini-evolutionary process.
You countered by saying that the violin points to a designer. Yes, of course, but the process whereby the note is produced is entirely naturalistic. And in any case, Darwin himself argued that maybe the laws of the universe were designed, as in this excerpt from a letter to Asa Gray:
On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.
For a more detailed examination of the musical analogy, see my blog posting at
http://iainstrachan.blogspot.com/2007/02/gods-flute.html
I deliberately chose the title "God's flute" rather than the violin, to resonate with Genesis ch 2, where God breathes the breath of life into Adam, and the flute is played by blowing on it.
You ask repeatedly for "empirical evidence". The best thing to do is read Francis Collins's book "The language of God" which gives practically irrefutable empirical evidence that evolution has occurred from looking at DNA sequence data of different species. Another pretty convincing argument is this video by Ken Miller on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8FfMBYCkk
The blurb says:
Dr. Ken Miller talks about the relationship between Homo sapiens and the other primates. He discusses a recent finding of the Human Genome Project which identifies the exact point of fusion of two primate chromosomes that resulted in human chromosome #2.
I think that's pretty convincing empirical evidence. I ascribe the fusion of the two chromosomes as a deliberate action of a creator, when the obvious explanation is a naturalistic one makes God look like a deliberate deciever.
I should also add, in case you're wondering that I've been through just about every position on this:
(1) Initially somewhat grudgingly accepting evolution without really thinking it through.
(2) Avid Young Earth Creationist (phase lasted about six months during a bad and depressed stage of my life due to pressure of work, when I wanted something radical and new to cling on to).
(3) Intelligent Design advocate.
(4) Theistic evolutionist.
I don't consider myself about to evolve into an atheist.
Regards,
Iain
On 7/18/07, Peter Loose < peterwloose@compuserve.com> wrote:
Hello Ian:
Just briefly now if I may?
Para 1 – seems to me to be circular reasoning and special pleading. There's no empirical evidence offered for your case. Why is my analogy a 'straw-man'?
Para 2 – think about that carefully – your example backfires and tends to the exact opposite point of view. The bow was designed, the violin was designed, the strings were tensioned and tuned. BUT over and above all that, the violin / bow combination were designed for a purpose – to play music. I think it's a nice story – but where's the evidence it has anything to do with what actually happens in the Biological world?
Para 3 if 'evolution' (understood in a Dawkins form) is true in anything like an accurately descriptive way, then bring forth the evidence. We know unequivocally how software and hardware is designed. Given that Evolution is the reigning paradigm in modern science, it seems terribly weak to have to resort to 'but it doesn't show it had to happen that way' kind of argument.
Para 4 – again Ian, you are resorting to special pleading and you're putting that over against virtually every single experience we have of design. It is actually a meaningless question to pose that Evolution is God's creative algorithm. Yes, it could be in a theoretical sense. But God can do anything. So we make no progress. The question is 'Did God use that algorithm?' . If He did, then it is for empirical science to demonstrate that the process by which we 'create or design' is not relevant to the debate and that there is a way for Matter and Energy, acting as a unique duo to do what every other experience tells us requires pre-existing intelligence. As I read Biology and especially Genetics and the Encode Project – I think the current Evolutionary paradigm is a real God of the Gaps kind of approach. The gap is the evidence that Energy and Matter do beget intelligently designed systems that make even Windows XP look like a toy! It's faith in MN that sustains this quest to fill the evidential gap.
Blessings indeed
Peter
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: igd.strachan@gmail.com [mailto: igd.strachan@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 11:29 AM
To: Peter Loose
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism
Peter,
If, as another Brit, I may respond.
Two points occur immediately to me. Your example of Windows XP coming out of white noise fed into a Schmidt trigger is, I think a complete straw man. Obviously no-one would expect such a thing to happen, but evolution is clearly nothing like that, and it is evidently not a totally random process - mutations may be random events, but natural selection is completely non-random.
If you want an example of a random noise input producing a complex, but structured output, consider drawing a bow across a violin string - white noise is applied by the random distribution of particles on the horsehair bow, and the string, by a form of "natural selection" vibrates at the fundamental and multiples of the harmonic frequencies to produce a beautiful tone. Admittedly it's nothing like as complex as DNA code, but then it happens in a fraction of a second and doesn't take billions of years.
The second point that occurs to me is that, as I'm also a software engineer, I'm also well aware of the intelligent design effort that goes into a complex piece of software. However, it seems to me that it is dangerous to argue from analogy - just because your software and my software gained their information via a design process doesn't prove that therefore the sequences of DNA arose via a similar design process. The best you can say is that a very intelligent programmer _could_ have programmed it in a similar manner to a software engineer. But it doesn't show that it _had_ to happen that way.
Elements of the software I produce are empirical (data-derived) models containing thousands of numerical parameters. These parameters were certainly not individually programmed, but were discovered by an automated learning algorithm whereby an initial guess was adjusted by small amounts on each pass through the data. Although it's not an evolutionary algorithm, it bears quite a bit of similarity to the process. Yes, the algorithm was intelligently designed by a mathematician. But who's to say that evolution wasn't the algorithm designed by God to produce His creation?
Regards,
Iain
On 7/18/07, Peter Loose < peterwloose@compuserve.com> wrote:
Wow George – I am amazed! May I as a Brit make a comment?
What is MN? It's a set of assumptions based around two poles – Matter and Energy. Any outcome must be bounded by those assumptions. Now suppose those assumptions are wrong in any absolute sense? Will that ever be discovered?
Probably not – because MN is almost universally now come to be the only 'correct' way of doing science. And when MN fails, as it has manifestly, in any question about the origin of a single self-replicating cell or indeed on the increasingly vast matters shown up by the Encode project, those who operate by a commitment to MN fall back on another set of commitments. It's deep in the world-view of arguably virtually all scientists. That assumption is that MN is linked, to its logical precursor, Ontological Naturalism. So, if the answer to for example "the origin of life question" is elusive (it is?) then ON informs our Scientism and, by faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by MN. So we wait in faith, committed to MN, for the answer to the question of the origin of the single living cell.
Now a third pole of science ought to embrace something akin to Intelligence or Mind. We know that Information is at the heart of life. No computer engineer can look at DNA without recognising that the cell is programmed for life.
I've spent my life applying computers to Industrial Process Control problems. I've lived with the challenges of designing rugged software that doesn't fall over and cause, in my case, Steel Mills to crash. What I know is how difficult that challenge is. I know that it costs incalculable hours to develop software that runs reliably. I know that any 'glitches' or 'bugs' in the software didn't get better overnight. No, we pored over the code to work out, intelligently, what was going wrong and how to put it right.
Everything we know about Information tells us that it only arises from pre-existing Intelligence. It is neither matter nor energy. Those who hold to MN might as well postulate that Windows XP (or any other 'language' ) could arise simply by squirting a long string of 'white noise' into a bi-level device (e.g. - a Schmidt trigger) and expecting as output a string of code that when married with an X86 Instruction set would suddenly become Windows XP or any other Operating System. The real world simply isn't like that. There seems to be a complete absence of empirical evidence to say that the biological world is any different. But because we've assumed MN we have formed an attachment to it that is so inseparably linked to science, that anyone who argues science can be done with an additional pole, such as Information, or Mind, then that person is ostracised - "he's not doing science".
I am amazed too that one can set aside the enormous ramifications of 'The Resurrection' in a single sweep of the hand " But - bracketing off for a moment claims for unique historical events like the resurrection - we don't have any reason to believe that there are any such phenomena." What do you mean by your phrase "Any reason"? Most of the New Testament challenges that statement. While the Resurrection is clearly absolutely huge, it is by no means the only 'Singularity' in either the NT or the OT.
Then we come to such themes as spelled out in Hebrews 1:3 (NIV) The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
I am engineer, not a scientist or a philosopher – but I am old now and I've heard enough and seen enough to know than MN is a limit on science and is the territory of the a priori commitment to Naturalism. What's the difference between Naturalism and Atheism?
Peter Loose
Chelmsford
UK
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 2:18 AM
To: George Murphy; David Opderbeck; Ted Davis
Cc: PvM; Gregory Arago; asa@calvin.edu; (Matthew) Yew Hock Tan
Subject: Re: [asa] Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism
After a long lapse, another of the typos you all know & love. Below read "Of course that doesn't mean that what it's able to study exhausts all reality, or that we may NOT encounter observable phenomena that such science can't finally explain."
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: George Murphy
To: David Opderbeck ; Ted Davis
Cc: PvM ; Gregory Arago ; asa@calvin.edu ; (Matthew) Yew Hock Tan
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism
2 comments -
1) Those who've been on the list for awhile may remember that Hunter was on it a couple of years ago & that some of us debated these issues then.
2) All the history, philosophy & theology involved in this discussion is interesting, but we shouldn't lose track of one crude empirical fact: Science operating within the constraints of MN works - it has been working for ~400 years & continues to work very well in explaining known phenomena & predicting new ones. Of course that doesn't mean that what it's able to study exhausts all reality, or that we may encounter observable phenomena that such science can't finally explain. But - bracketting off for a moment claims for unique historical events like the resurrection - we don't have any reason to believe that there are any such phenomena. Of course that's where ID raises it's distinctive objection, but the best it's done so far is to point to some phenomena that haven't yet been explained fully. There is simply no good reason for scientists, whatever their religious beliefs, to abandon MN as a presupposition for doing science: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: David Opderbeck
To: Ted Davis
Cc: PvM ; Gregory Arago ; asa@calvin.edu ; (Matthew) Yew Hock Tan
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 11:51 AM
Subject: Re: [asa] Science's Blind Spot: The Unseen Religion of Scientific Naturalism
Ted said: I also believe it is much more accurate; the term MN itself
probably arose with Christian philosophical reflection on the limits of
science and the reality of a "supernatural" God, and our definition reflects
this.
But what Hunter seems to be saying is that what we now call MN is rooted in the epistemology and method of Bacon and Locke. For the Enlightenment empiricists, empirical study of the world is an effort to obtain unified knowledge about reality-as-it-is. If reality-as-it-is includes the empirically observable hand-of-God, then that observation properly falls under the umbrella of "science," or, to use an eighteenth century term, "natural philosophy." The gist of Hunter's argument -- at least what the book review seems to reflect -- is that "science" should return to this broader notion of "natural philosophy." The current restrictions of MN would reflect an improper, a priori skeptical elision of God from nature, as well as an improper turn away from "empirical," observational, inductive Baconian science towards more speculative deductive methods ala Popper.
But my first question about this is how to return to Bacon and Locke after Darwin, Einstein, and Heisenberg -- in other words, do Bacon and Locke work after Newton's mechanism has been dethroned? And my second question is how to return to Bacon and Locke after the collapse -- or at least undermining -- of foundationalist empistemology's naive view of culture, history and language.
On 7/16/07, Ted Davis < TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
>>> PvM < pvm.pandas@gmail.com> 7/15/2007 5:01 PM >>>quotes Wikipedia on
Methodological naturalism, as follows:
<quote>Naturalism does not necessarily claim that phenomena or
hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural do not exist or are wrong,
but insists that all phenomena and hypotheses can be studied by the
same methods and therefore anything considered supernatural is either
nonexistent, unknowable, or not inherently different from natural
phenomena or hypotheses.</quote>
Then, Pim adds the following comment:
If all Hunter is interested in is pointing out that there may have
been some who had religious motivations to restrict science, such
should again not be confused with a methodological approach. Science
neither approves nor disapproves of the supernatural, which for all
practical purposes is the logical complement of natural.
Here are my comments:
First, this is not an adequate definition of MN, IMO. In fact, ironically,
it lends support to the incorrect argument from ID advocates, that MN simply
collapses into metaphysical or ontological naturalism. Thus, I'm surprised
that Pim quoted it. Note the language: " all phenomena and hypotheses can
be studied by the
same methods and therefore anything considered supernatural is either
nonexistent, unknowable, or not inherently different from natural phenomena
or hypotheses." Here is my paraphrase, aimed at making my point: If
scientific methods (ie, naturalism) can't detect it, it ain't real, it's
only a figment of one's imagination. Am I missing something here? If so,
please be explicit about what I'm missing. I do think this is the tone and
intent of this very poor definition.
Second, Pim, the definition you cite from wiki contradicts your own
comment, when you wrote: "Science
neither approves nor disapproves of the supernatural, which for all
practical purposes is the logical complement of natural." If the
supernatural is "nonexistent" or "unknowable," (see wiki), then the latter
part of Pim's sentences is entirely emptied of content. If the
"supernatural ... is not inherently different from natural phenomena or
hypotheses," then it collapses into the natural, and I fail to see how it
becomes "the logical complement of natural." Please have another look at
that wiki definition, Pim, and clarify your own view in light of it.
Third, I offer a much better (IMO) definition, taken from the entry on
"Scientific naturalism" that I wrote with philosopher Robin Collins for the
Garland encyclopedia of science & religion
( http://www.amazon.com/History-Science-Religion-Western-Tradition/dp/0815316569),
a shorter version of which (essays unabridged, however) from JHU press
( http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/2308.html). Here is our
definition of MN: "the belief that science should explain phenomena only in
terms of entities and properties that fall within the category of the
natural, such as by natural laws acting either through known causes or by
chance (methodological naturalism)."
Why do I believe this definition is much superior? First, it spells out
that MN is a belief; one might even call it a belief about beliefs, in terms
of its implications. Our definition leaves ample ground (as it should) for
one to make reality claims about a God who really is bigger than "nature,"
and who actually interacts with "nature," which is better called "the
creation." It simply affirms, properly, that inferences about God go beyond
what science itself can claim. It in no way rules out the legitimacy of
such inferences. Second, when read in context (our definition of part of a
much longer definition of four types of naturalism), it is clear to people
that MN does not equate to or collapse into overreaching forms of
naturalism. Thus, e.g., we define "scientific naturalism" (our term for the
most wide reaching kind of naturalism) as follows: "the claim that nature is
all that there is and hence that there is no supernatural order above
nature, along with the claim that all objects, processes, truths, and facts
about nature fall within the scope of the scientific method." Our
definition of MN is designed, properly, to leave this type of speculation
aside entirely. Whereas the wiki definition, IMO, strongly suggests or
implies precisely that nature is all there is--at least, all that is
genuinely meaningful to discuss, which is the spirit of the logical
positivism that still underlies efforts to ridicule belief in God and keep
it out of the academy.
The definition Robin and I give, in what is frankly a far more reliable and
academically serious publication that wikipedia, is (I believe and I hope
others agree) a definition that is much more appropriate to consider on the
ASA list. I also believe it is much more accurate; the term MN itself
probably arose with Christian philosophical reflection on the limits of
science and the reality of a "supernatural" God, and our definition reflects
this.
Ted (ASA member, and glad of it)
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