Hi Schwarzwald,
You are saying things better than I did, so let me bounce off them some more.
“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!"”
He’s just following the lead of Dawkins, who wrote, “the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis." The NAs were not pleased with the Dover decision precisely because it took away the authoritative role of science with regard to God’s existence. They want to portray God’s existence as a falsified scientific hypothesis and not something that falls outside the realm of this authoritative judgment.
It is instructive to remember how the ID movement was defeated at Dover. The core, central point of contention was whether ID is science. The ‘ID-as-science’ claim is a necessary part of the movement, as without this claim, there is insufficient leverage for the movement’s cultural objectives.
It was the NCSE and TEs who defeated the movement in court, not the NAs. And they did so by challenging this core claim as follows:
1. Establish that ID was religious and was invoking a supernatural cause.
2. Focus on the arguments of ID to show they were negative, God-of-the-gaps arguments, thus not science.
3. Reassert the necessary role of methodological naturalism.
Yet the NAs have taken all of these off the table. They have also removed the need to do experiments and publish results in the peer-reviewed literature (can anyone point to a NA who did this to rule out the existence of God?).
“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.”
Very well stated. The NCSE/TEs focused on the methods of ID, showing that these methods were not science. The NAs have put themselves in a position where they cannot do likewise. If MN is dispensable, and science can include supernatural causes/miracles (i.e., Coyne’s 900-foot-tall Jesus), and the way to include supernatural causes is to first identify a gap (something natural processes cannot account for), then the only thing the NAs have left is the judgment that the ID methods have failed. But disagreement and minority views are common in science. In fact, it comes with the territory anytime a new and/or radical scientific hypothesis is introduced into the scientific community and it can takes generations for that hypothesis to become widely accepted. The ID folks can simply argue that they recognize their scientific hypothesis is controversial and a minority scientific view and they are working on that.
-Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: Schwarzwald
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 12:27 AM
Subject: 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 11:04:41 2009
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