Re: [asa] New Atheist Logic Lends Support to ID Movement

That's pretty much my estimation. Carroll's probably thinking he's being
real clever here, but he's actually really hurting himself. His move
involves happily arguing that science itself could conceivably explain
things by references to supernatural causes and events - but then he quickly
follows up with "but we've never been forced to do that, therefore science
shows it never happened, and that's that!"

But that doesn't matter whatsoever. As Mike's pointed out, by Carroll's
standards ID really is science (hell, explicit YEC complete with direct
claims about God Himself may really science by these standards) - it just
happens to be a minority position in the scientific community, and one
Carroll (and, of course, other scientists) does not find at all persuasive.
But ID proponents could not care less about their minority status, or what
Carroll or any other ardent atheist happens to think about the subject. Many
would be quite happy with it being recognized that they're actually making
truly scientific proposals and arguments. Let Carroll try to prove what
science says is the "best" explanation for various things, from biblical
miracles to direction in evolution to otherwise - he does not realize that
if he opens that door, no one has to accept his judgment on the issue.

I'm mostly just echoing Mike here, but I'll say it anyway: Carroll thinks
that so long as he can give an explanation which "accounts" for an event or
state of nature, he wins. But being able to account for any given question
about nature or reality is an easy bar to reach - even YECs can perfectly
"account" for all of the results we've gotten from investigating biology,
cosmology, etc. So too can ID proponents. So can, frankly, just about any
person or side which wants to - not having access to modern science did not
keep the greeks (among many other peoples) from coming up with explanations
that accounted for practically every phenomena they were curious about. The
additional hurdle of having to explain scientific data is beyond easy to
jump.

So that's what I see as the real stupid move on Carroll's part. He thinks he
can argue that claims of ID, God, or miracles are really scientific
hypotheses, but so long as he has a hypothesis of his own, then all the
other options are immediately ruled out on the grounds that he thinks he has
the best explanation. All he has to do is ask himself "are there any current
questions in science that have more than one explanation?" to see he's
playing a fool's game.

But I think this is pretty obvious. So I'm left wondering, is Carroll just
giving a speech to the faithful here - reinforcing that whole "we have
science on our side and those religionists and christianists do not!" canard
the 'net atheists love so much? Or is this honest naivete, along the lines
of a professor who hasn't (at least mentally) set foot off campus or out of
the lab in 20+ years, and doesn't realize that there's quite a lot of people
who see things differently and couldn't care less about what he declares to
be the answer to such questions?

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 11:40 PM, Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com> wrote:

> For some time now, I have had a fascination with the similarities between
> the ID movement and the New Atheist movement. One thing that is becoming
> clear is that when the NA’s argue that science has determined God does not
> exist, it becomes much harder for them to argue that ID is not science.
>
>
>
> I myself have long argued that ID is not science. But I also think
> science cannot determine whether or not God exists (ie., NA is not science).
> So look what happens when someone embraces NA thinking.
>
> Scientist Sean Carroll writes:
>
> “This is where talk of “methodological naturalism” goes astray. Paul
> Kurtz defines it as the idea that “all hypotheses and events are to be
> explained and tested by reference to natural causes and events.” That
> “explained and tested” is an innocent-looking mistake. Science tests things
> empirically, which is to say by reference to observable events; but it
> doesn’t have to explain things as by reference to natural causes and events.
> Science explains what it sees the best way it can — why would it do
> otherwise? The important thing is to account for the data in the simplest
> and most useful way possible.
>
> There’s no obstacle in principle to imagining that the normal progress of
> science could one day conclude that the invocation of a supernatural
> component was the best way of understanding the universe. Indeed, this
> scenario is basically the hope of most proponents of Intelligent Design. The
> point is not that this couldn’t possibly happen — it’s that it hasn’t
> happened in our actual world. In the real world, by far the most compelling
> theoretical framework consistent with the data is one in which everything
> that happens is perfectly accounted for by natural phenomena. No virgin
> human births, no coming back after being dead for three days, no afterlife
> in Heaven, no supernatural tinkering with the course of evolution. You can
> define “religion” however you like, but you can’t deny the power of science
> to reach far-reaching conclusions about how reality works.”
>
>
> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/07/15/what-questions-can-science-answer/
>
> Carroll has thus abandoned some of the most popular and powerful arguments
> against ID-as-science.
>
> It is often argued that since ID invokes the supernatural, ID is not
> science. This was the lead reason in the Dover decision. Yet according to
> Carroll, invoking the supernatural is NOT a problem. In his mind, science
> can include supernatural causes and miracles.
>
> It is often claimed that ID is a god-of-the-gaps approach, thus not
> science. Yet Carroll is advocating a god-of-the-gaps approach. Carroll
> clearly states, “There’s no obstacle in principle to imagining that the
> normal progress of science could one day conclude that the invocation of a
> supernatural component was the best way of understanding the universe.” So
> why doesn’t science invoke supernatural causes? Because, “by far the most
> compelling theoretical framework consistent with the data is one in which
> everything that happens is perfectly accounted for by natural phenomena.”
> Entailed in this argument is that the way to invoke a supernatural cause is
> to demonstrate that not “everything that happens is perfectly accounted for
> by natural phenomena.” In other words, some thing that cannot be (perfectly)
> accounted for by natural phenomena. In other words, a Gap.
>
> It would seem that Carroll’s only beef with ID-as-science is the opinion
> that ID has not successfully identified a true Gap.
>
> Yet, as we all know, the ID folks would disagree. And as we also know,
> disagreement is very common in science.
>
> So here is what may be going on. Scientists like Carroll think ID would be
> science if a true Gap (something that is not “perfectly accounted for by
> natural phenomena”) was found. The ID crowd think they have such a Gap
> (whether it’s the origin of IC, CSI, etc.)
>
> So in the mind of the ID people, they, in all sincerity, believe they are
> indeed doing science. They differ from scientists like Coyne and Carroll
> only in their estimation of success with regard to finding gaps. In such a
> context, whether or not a gap truly exists is a scientific question, as both
> sides agree that methodological naturalism has no role in deciding that
> question.
>
> -Mike
>

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Received on Fri Jul 24 00:27:55 2009