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

Heya Mike,

I actually think there's something else here worth considering, aside from
Carroll's sloppy reasoning. And it highlights what has been a theme for me
for years in the ID debate.

I'd ask followers on this list to consider a few things.

1) Is Carroll's view of science novel? Is he coming up with a completely new
definition/border of science? Or is he simply enunciating a view that's been
common for decades, at least in some circles?

2) Now, I think Carroll's definition is ridiculous for a number of reasons.
But I think it's indisputable that under Carroll's definition, ID (among
many other things) is science. It's simply a minority viewpoint in science.
I'd also point out that Carroll goes even further than ID proponents. At
least formally, they argue that their methods and observations point at
design. Identifying the designer is something they say cannot be done.
Apparently Carroll, along with Coyne and others, think they -can- identify
the designer.

3) Right now, someone could make the argument that at least among
practicing/professional scientists, Carroll's view of science is rejected.
Methodological naturalism (I still think that label is utterly incorrect,
and that IDs/TEs should reject that label even if the core standards are
justifiable) is the reigning viewpoint. Let's assume that is true.

But let's also imagine a situation where things are flipped. Instead, the
idea of "methodological naturalism" as the defining limit of science is
rejected, and most scientists go by Carroll's view of science. I think it's
fair to say that both ID and TE proponents would then be entirely justified
in calling their views about God/Designer and the universe scientific, and
citing scientific support for their views. In fact, "justifying" wouldn't be
necessary, because it would by necessity be insisted by their opponents
right out of the gates. That's the whole point.

As I've implied here, I don't think Carroll is really offering some radical
new view of science. The "science disproves God/supernatural" canard is
common, and has been common for decades at the very least. Someone can make
the argument that this view hasn't been standard in professional journals or
research situations (Does Nature ever run results of experiments testing for
God? etc.), but I think it's clear that the view has gotten a whole lot of
airtime in other venues. From Dawkins to Freud, from Stenger to Sagan, not
to mention in popular media as well.

Given this, isn't the ID response to some degree justified? I'm going to
repeat, I don't think ID is science, and I don't think Carroll's views are
science either. But when there's an argument, one not totally uncommon, that
defines the limits of science to include the supernatural - then isn't one
obvious response to say, "Fine - if those are the standards, then here's my
view and argument that complies with those standards."? Even if I think
there's a better response (rejecting the bad outline of science), I cannot
completely fault people for mounting an argument along those lines.

Further, no one should have double standards when it comes to this question.
I recall a recent dustup where Coyne and others accused groups like the NCSE
of having a lopsided approach to questions of science and religion:
Criticizing them for arguing that evolution and religion are compatible,
when Coyne and company disagree. I'd have a response in a different
direction: If ID proponents and the like are threats to science because they
are blurring the line between science and philosophy, then Carroll, Dawkins
and others *are also threats to science* and should receive the same
treatment. No one should accept the standard where if Behe and Dembski (and
perhaps even Conway Morris or Miller!) speculate about science demonstrating
design or purpose in nature, then they pose a threat to science and should
be denounced by going beyond what science can tell us - yet if Victor
Stenger, Richard Dawkins, or others speculate about science demonstrating
the lack of design or purpose in nature, well they're just giving their
personal views and it's not really worth commenting on. This conflict isn't
a one-sided one where only those rejecting metaphysical naturalism have
violated the limits the NCSE and most TEs defend.

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Nucacids <nucacids@wowway.com> wrote:

> 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 <schwarzwald@gmail.com>
> *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 Sat Jul 25 11:44:51 2009