Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Science without methodological naturalism
Robert Delfino thinks that methodological naturalism is a dogma that science can do without. That doesn't mean that ID works, only that it can't be thrown out at the outset. Looks pretty good on first read-through.
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He and the folks he cites are wrong that science merely assumes methodological naturalism (which would indeed turn it into a dogma). Science is methodologically naturalistic because MN is so successful compared to the alternative. It now appears like an assumption because it is so entrenched. But it became entrenched because of its overwhelming success when compared to the alternatives (e.g., creationism and friends).
Those that really want to supplant methodological naturalism need to make a substantive contribution to our understanding of nature that isn't based on controversial philosophical arguments and dubious statistical claims. You will need a good deal of evidentiary force to overcome the justified inertia that methodological naturalism now enjoys.
Note while I think natural science should be methodologically naturalistic, I am not a methodological naturalist in general. I don't use the scientific method to figure out if I love my daughter, for instance. I am an ontological naturalist, though, in that I think my feelings and acts of love are just cool bits of nature.
I think the history of science clearly demonstrates that methodological naturalism is a relatively recent development. There are extremely interesting examples of theological arguments playing a role in modern scientific theories. F.e. Newton (or rather his secretary) and Leibniz both argued for their understanding of space by invoking theological arguments. I'm sure there are better examples, but I can't remember any at the moment.
Too bad "naturalism", and therefore "methodological naturalism", is so devoid of actual philosophical meat other than "Not God".
MN is bunk, and more the result of the philosophical and scientific version of marketing than anything else.
Anon2, even assuming you are right, I would say that 'not god' is a quite substantive claim.
MN pertains to Nature if I understand it correctly.
Before disagreeing on God's existence, naturalists and theists often fail to agree on whether God is part of Nature or not.
Naturalists will often claim that God not being part of Nature is unintelligible. They either can't or won't consider God as outside of Nature.
Science without methodological naturalism (MN)? Bad idea. I say this as both a Christian and a scientist (biochemist). MN is an absolutely necessary self-limitation to the scientific method (and ID as "science" is nonsense). Otherwise we would stop at every inconvenient moment and say, "Goddidit". By definition science is concerned with natural causes, but the supernatural is beyond its boundaries.
In a 1998 statement titled "Teaching about Evolution and Science", the American National Academy of Sciences (NAS) said:
"At the root of the apparent conflict between some religions and evolution is a misunderstanding of the critical difference between religious and scientific ways of knowing. Religions and science answer different questions about the world […] Science is a way of knowing about the natural world. It is limited to explaining the natural world through natural causes. Science can say nothing about the supernatural. Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral."
(http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309063647&page=58)
To call MN bunk is as misinformed as the lazy atheist conflation of philosophical (metaphysical) naturalism with methodological naturalism. Science will show that everything *within* the universe that is governed by physical principles will have natural causes, including the origin of life. For the latter, see my article at the leading evolution website Talkorigins.org:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html
What science will not be able to explain is things that cannot be entirely governed by deterministic laws of nature, i.e. human reason. While it can perfectly explain the "how" of the laws of nature, it will also not be able to explain the "why" of these laws. Why these particular laws of nature and not any other?
This "why" is far better explained under theism than under atheism, see:
http://home.earthlink.net/~almoritz/cosmological-arguments-god.htm
Science also has little to say about miracles, since these are one-time events outside the regularities of nature, the observation of which is not reproducible.
Thebutlerdidit is a bad explanation, unless, of course, the butler actually did it. Godidit is a bad explanation, unless, of course, God did it, in which case it's the only true explanation.
Are you telling me that science must accept a false explanation in cases of supernatural intervention, if there are any?
I don't like the 'why' and 'how' way of putting things, which I hear fairly frequently, because it is a superficial linguistic distinction that doesn't really get at anything substantive.
The author of the original post addressed most of your points Al (the creativity sink objection, the 'one off' objection, etc). I largely agree with those, and am mainly criticial of his view that MN is a dogma rather than something earned. That seems clearly false.
It could have turned out that MN was inadequate. Say we had prophets roaming the earth performing miracles on command, solelyt o prove God's glory. We would study them scientifically (say they encouraged it!) and science would not be MN. So the fact that science follows MN is based on how the evidence has fallen on its side, not some a priori dogma.
Science answers 'why' questions all the time. Why does the moon's phase change? Because of such-and-such geometric relation between the Earth, Moon, and Sun. Why did the billiard ball move at such-and-such velocity? Because it was hit with ball X in a collision.
And religion answers 'how' questions. How did Man become fallen?
So I prefer a distinction that gets more directly at the difference between the two.
Are you telling me that science must accept a false explanation in cases of supernatural intervention, if there are any?
No, supernatural intervention is simply outside what science can study. What should a scientist say in the face of miraculous healing? S/he can only say that there is no scientific explanation for it, and that's that.
***
Delfino's article is extraordinarily disappointing in its sloppy, tendentious reasoning. I am surprised, Victor, that you would post the link to it without qualifications.
Two examples:
1. The principle of discovery is related to what I call the principle of evidence, which states that scientists in their search for truth should follow the evidence wherever it leads. Methodological naturalism violates this principle because no matter what evidence we might gather we are never allowed to follow it to a supernatural cause. Recently, Antony Flew, a philosopher famous for his atheism, stated that he now believes in some kind of God based on scientific evidence about the origin of life and the complexity of nature. Had Flew strictly followed the principle of methodological naturalism he could never have reached this conclusion. However, Flew stated that his “whole life has been guided by the principle of Plato’s Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads."
No, Flew's conclusion is not a scientific conclusion, but a *philosophical* conclusion *from science* (and it cannot be camouflaged as a "scientific conclusion from an extended understanding of science incorporating methodology beyond MN"). I am already impatient when atheists do not understand the distinction between philosophy and science, but do theists need to have the same difficulties of distinction? Very disturbing. And Delfino is a professional philosopher no less.
(BTW, I do not share Flew's conclusion, I think evidence of God is to be found elsewhere than in complexity of nature and the origin of life; for the latter, see above. Evidence for God can for example be found in the fine-tuning of the laws of nature -- which allow for the complexity -- and in human reason.)
2. Methodological naturalism is opposed to realism because it violates the principles of discovery, evidence, and self-correction. Scientists opposed to realism are called antirealists. Methodological naturalism is closest to the idealist kind of antirealism.
What an unbelievable nonsense. MN is, as I said, an absolutely necessary self-limitation of science. If something cannot be discovered with MN, then so be it, but it is simply not science. That does not mean that nothing exists beyond what science can discover. And it does not mean that science is opposed to realism.
The attitude displayed by the writer is just as questionable as the one of, even famous, scientists who get upset when someone suggests to them that there are things that simply cannot be studied by science, e.g. a multiverse.
(The multiverse cannot be observed because of the particle horizon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Cosmological_horizon)
Science answers 'why' questions all the time. Why does the moon's phase change? Because of such-and-such geometric relation between the Earth, Moon, and Sun. Why did the billiard ball move at such-and-such velocity? Because it was hit with ball X in a collision.
No, in the context that we discuss I would say those are really 'how' questions -- how do the laws of nature work. A real 'why' question would be "why are there laws of nature that allow for the existence of a moon that changes phases"?
There are a lot of complex issues swirling here. The first is the concept of science, which on one level seems to be a human institution that makes certain decisions about what to accept. So, if someone is asking about, say, divine intervention, science can say "Sorry, these are our rules. We have to rule this our because that's who we are." But then we might still want to figure out whether God intervened or not, and to do that we might want to engage in various science-like operations that would not be, strictly speaking, science, but would still could be rational inductive inquiry. Science failure to support the supernatural could not be used to undermine belief in the supernatural, because science isn't looking for the supernatural, and therefore no big deal if they can't find it. NOMA, etc.
But this is going to get pressure from both sides. Atheists are going to say that science didn't start off with MN, but reached it through the force of negative evidence against supernaturalism. What we thought required God turned out not to require God, and science would have affirmed theistic theories in the area of, say, speciation if the evidence had been there. ID advocates are going to wonder if demarcating God out of the picture wasn't done in some arbitrary manner, perhaps as a result of positivist philosophy. And some philosophers of science are going to doubt whether a clean set of demarcation criteria can actually be found.
One could even be a six-day creationist and leave evolution alone, on the grounds that, of course, science has to do its thing even if it comes up with a radically false theory. In a way, Dawkins's crusade seems to be as much a crusade for scientific realism as it is a crusade for atheism. He's not going to like it if you say "Oh, yes, evolution's the best science. I just don't think it's true."
There are a lot of complex issues swirling here. The first is the concept of science, which on one level seems to be a human institution that makes certain decisions about what to accept. So, if someone is asking about, say, divine intervention, science can say "Sorry, these are our rules. We have to rule this our because that's who we are." But then we might still want to figure out whether God intervened or not, and to do that we might want to engage in various science-like operations that would not be, strictly speaking, science, but would still could be rational inductive inquiry. Science failure to support the supernatural could not be used to undermine belief in the supernatural, because science isn't looking for the supernatural, and therefore no big deal if they can't find it.
I agree.
But this is going to get pressure from both sides. Atheists are going to say that science didn't start off with MN, but reached it through the force of negative evidence against supernaturalism.
This is historically wrong. The scientific revolution started off with MN, and the first scientists were all believers (Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, Newton etc.). When Newton opined that God has to adjust the planetary orbits a bit from time to time, he did not use the scientific method to come to that conclusion.
It is all about the laws of nature. As biochemist, atheist and Nobel Prize winner Melvin Calvin writes in Chemical Evolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), p. 258: “The fundamental conviction that the universe is ordered is the first and strongest tenet [of science]. As I try to discern the origin of that conviction, I seem to find it in a basic notion discovered 2000 or 3000 years ago enunciated first in the Western world by the ancient Hebrews: namely, that the universe is governed by a single God, and is not the product of the whims of many gods, each governing his own province according to his own laws. This monotheistic view seems to be the historical foundation for modern science.”
What we thought required God turned out not to require God, and science would have affirmed theistic theories in the area of, say, speciation if the evidence had been there.
No, science could not have explained speciation in creationist terms. It simply would have stayed silent on the issue and the issue would have stayed in the domain of philosophy.
ID advocates are going to wonder if demarcating God out of the picture wasn't done in some arbitrary manner, perhaps as a result of positivist philosophy.
And in this they are wrong.
And some philosophers of science are going to doubt whether a clean set of demarcation criteria can actually be found.
Why? Perhaps they need to do some work in the lab, then it would be more clear to them.
In a way, Dawkins's crusade seems to be as much a crusade for scientific realism as it is a crusade for atheism. He's not going to like it if you say "Oh, yes, evolution's the best science. I just don't think it's true."
Well, evolution is true. Dawkin's crusade is one for scientism rather than for scientific realism.
It seems to me that scientists ought to adhere to a strict methodological naturalism in their endeavors, not because of the record of success of MN, but because of the record of failure on the part of scientists in handling questions related to the supernatural.
Scientists simply do not have the tools or training in the relevant fields of inquiry (as evidenced most recently by attempts on the part of some of our most prominent - e.g. Dawkins, Hawking, etc.), and the job should largely be left to philosophers, even those who specialize in the area of philosophy of religion.
Fine with me if questions about gods are left to philosophers. Now just get the Discovery Institute, Sarah Palin, etc to agree with you.
BDK - some of the strongest motivations for some of the founding fathers of ID have been Darwinian scientists clumsily drawing philosophical conclusions about God (see Phillip Johnson's writings in particular). See here for some examples, but Johnson's books are loaded with them:
http://www.origins.org/articles/johnson_blindwatchmaker.html
The most recent ID offering _God and Evolution_ by Senior Discovery Institute Fellow Jay Richards will argue for the incompatibility of Christian belief and Darwinism, and I predict that it will quote the clumsy statements to the same effect from a multitude of mainstream scientists in making its case.
Blue Devil Knight,
I curious how you manage to be an ontological naturalist while using some methodology other than naturalism to determine if you love your daughter. It seems that if all that exists is naturalistic, then ultimately all that happens (including the acquisition of knowledge) must also be naturalistic, and all methodologies must be as well.
Also, Mr. Knight, you said,
Fine with me if questions about gods are left to philosophers. Now just get the Discovery Institute, Sarah Palin, etc to agree with you.
It's odd that you left Stephen Hawking off the list.
Tom: Note I said I was a methodological naturalist when it comes to science, not in general.
This is because I think we can gain knowledge through means other than science. Poetry, art, phenomenology, literature, etc give us knowledge (in particular about the human condition) but are not science. However, this is consistent with with ontological naturalism.
I don't agree that only philosophers should talk about gods. That's like saying only physicists should talk about objects. I'm saying that if this were the case, and Hawking/Dawkins should shut up, so should 99% of Christians (who are also not philosophers).
I don't think any scientist has ever given a light blue fart about methodological naturalism, let alone the onto-philosophical kind. They ask questions, look for answers, and that's about it. Measurement is the key: it's what turns experience into observations into data.
Insofar as MN is a committment to reject certain avenues of inquiry beforehand, or reject certain possible answers, it's not a methodological principle at work at all, it's an ontological committment. And that's just more of atheists and anti-supernaturalists using their potted definition of "science" to score metaphysical points. By insisting that MN is the heart of what science is, and the cause of its "success" (measurement is the real reason for science's success, and measurement is an actual set of methods, not a methodological principle), they can use this bogus nothing called MN as a cudgel with which to beat their opponents in the real argument going on: naturalism vs. supernaturalism, atheism vs. theism.
MN is nothing. No one has ever used it outside of philosophical argument. No one ever will.
Patrick: go join a lab. Wait for an anomaly to pop up, something you can't explain yet, and nobody in the lab can yet explain. Suggest that there is a supernatural cause of this anomaly.
You will quickly find out whether MN is important or not to working scientists.
Blue Devil Knight,
You said that you are not a methodological naturalist in these other arenas of knowledge, and then helpfully (ahem) argued that " this is consistent with ontological naturalism."
I'd like to see that extensive argumentation expanded just a wee bit further, in response to what I offered you earlier:
It seems that if all that exists is naturalistic, then ultimately all that happens (including the acquisition of knowledge) must also be naturalistic, and all methodologies must be as well.
Granted, my argument was not book-length, but it did start from a premise and move from there toward a conclusion. I'm wondering whether you disagree with the premise (which I doubt, since it's yours) or with the manner in which I took it toward a conclusion.
It's important, because I think that if you cannot resolve that question, then you are deluding yourself into thinking your MN is limited only to science. Or else your premise is false.
Tom: In that argument, by 'methodological naturalism' I was talking about the scientific method specifically. I just meant that ontological naturalism doesn't imply scientism. I should have been more clear.
Tom: also, I am presently writing up an fairly long (30+ pages it seems) chapter on consciousness where I get at these issues in some detail. I will be asking for feedback once it is written.
PatrickH said:
I don't think any scientist has ever given a light blue fart about methodological naturalism, let alone the onto-philosophical kind. They ask questions, look for answers, and that's about it. Measurement is the key: it's what turns experience into observations into data.
I agree with what BDK said, and I would like to add: while it is (alas) true that most scientists never learn science as a philosophy, and may not even have heard the term "methodological naturalism", all of them learn science as a craft. And in that craft MN is 100 % and in the strongest sense possible implied and applied on a continuous basis -- if scientists learn to recognize this explicitly on a philosophical level or not. Indeed, work in a lab and find out.
A question for Al and BDK -
It goes without saying that most scientists strictly consider physical causes and phenomena while in the lab. This would even be the case, were MN not widely adopted, as, even on almost any form of popular theism, most events are thought to be explicable in such terms. So the "go to the lab and see for yourself!" challenge is a bit beside the point. It is also beside the point because we're having a philosophical conversation about how science ought to be conducted, not about what most scientists currently do in the lab, but I'll let that be....
A more pertinent question would be posed in the context of a field of research that studies phenomena that more commonly lend themselves to non-naturalistic hypotheses. For example, can paranormal studies be conducted scientifically? Can the scientist consider a spiritual or non-physical phenomena in such a field of study, where they would like to see what is actually happening?
Really - such work goes on without the sanction of the blogging community, and has for a long time, but I'd like to see if you two really feel that such work ought to be carried out under strict adherence to MN.
Well, I have no idea what a non-circular definition of "physical" or "natural" is, so I couldn't tell you about MN one way or the other. I think they mean something like "no causal relation without a spatial relation" and "no irreducibly normative vocabulary", in which case they strike me as the only sane analysis of what we're trying to accomplish when we develop empirical models.
It also strikes me for both apriori reasons and historical reasons (which should be obvious), the notion of humanities majors telling researchers what conclusions they are or are not allowed to reach is a practice of rather doubtful utility.
But of course the paranormal can be studied scientifically. If our experience was that certain persons could reliably pass simple Zener card tests, or that persons who claimed to have a "personal relationship with our Savior who knows your innermost thoughts" could reliably predict what numbers you're thinking of, then you'd look an absolute fool to deny that evidence. It just so happened that the experience we have doesn't bear that out.
But I'm not sure what that really has to do with "naturalism" as I (barely) understand it. The only constraint on empirical hypothesis-making is the tautological demand that the claim actually be an empirical hypothesis -- that it actually be a sentence to which assent entails the expectation of some future content of experience. This is why mathematics is not science, nor morality.
Anyone can invoke telepaths or daemons or angels or whatever they want as a potential empirical hypothesis, provided they actually are hypotheses. But you show me a claim that cannot in principle model future experience and I'll show you either a tautology or a noncognitive utterance.
Alex:
It is also beside the point because we're having a philosophical conversation about how science ought to be conducted, not about what most scientists currently do in the lab, but I'll let that be....
I have answered that already. MN is a strictly necessary self-limitation of science, so yes, that is how science should be conducted, not just how it currently is conducted.
A more pertinent question would be posed in the context of a field of research that studies phenomena that more commonly lend themselves to non-naturalistic hypotheses. For example, can paranormal studies be conducted scientifically? Can the scientist consider a spiritual or non-physical phenomena in such a field of study, where they would like to see what is actually happening?
The scientist has to try to explain the phenomena using the scientific method, which entails the use of MN. If that fails, then there is no scientific explanation, period.
For the record, I do not believe in the paranormal (telepathy, clairvoyance etc.).
Al: I have answered that already. MN is a strictly necessary self-limitation of science, so yes, that is how science should be conducted, not just how it currently is conducted.
Alex: I don't actually disagree that scientists should, in general, follow MN. But I haven't seen you present any arguments for why it is a "necessary self-limitation". You've just asserted it.
Al: The scientist has to try to explain the phenomena using the scientific method, which entails the use of MN. If that fails, then there is no scientific explanation, period.
For the record, I do not believe in the paranormal (telepathy, clairvoyance etc.).
Alex: Can you summarize the scientific method you're speaking of? I've seen many different formulations and even denial that there is any one such thing. Further, can you show me why the scientific method must be carried out in a methodologically naturalistic way, without just assuming that it must?
I wasn't asking whether or not you believe in the paranormal. What I was asking was: on your view, can there be a valid scientific study of the paranormal, that considers whether or not non-natural entities or abilities actually exist?
Alex:
Alex: I don't actually disagree that scientists should, in general, follow MN. But I haven't seen you present any arguments for why it is a "necessary self-limitation". You've just asserted it.
See my first post in the thread (emphasis added):
MN is an absolutely necessary self-limitation to the scientific method (and ID as "science" is nonsense). Otherwise we would stop at every inconvenient moment and say, "Goddidit". (Or something else non-natural did it.)
I wasn't asking whether or not you believe in the paranormal. What I was asking was: on your view, can there be a valid scientific study of the paranormal, that considers whether or not non-natural entities or abilities actually exist?
And I just gave you the answer above. Science can only investigate natural entities. It can say nothing about non-natural entities or abilities (see also my first post on this thread and follow-ups).
You can also look at it this way: science is simply defined as looking for natural causes for observed effects (it should not be forgotten that historically, it grew out of a discipline called "natural philosophy"). If the plumber comes to your house and finds some fault with the electrical wiring, would you blame him for not being able to work as electrician? Of course you wouldn't, you would call an electrician to work on the wiring while the plumber keeps on working on the plumbing with his own methodology.
This shows how silly it is to demand from science that it should extend its methodology to be able to cover other terrains. Science is science, philosophy is philosophy, and so on. To each area of investigation its own methodology. Science is *not* the study of all reality, and was never meant to be (again, the first scientists were all believers and knew that science can only study the God-given laws of nature). Science is the study of the part of reality that can be investigated by MN, the methodology of its choice. When Delfino says that science is anti-realistic because its methodology does not cover all of reality, this is just terrible reasoning. You cannot fight scientism, which holds that the methods of science cover all of what can be investigated about reality, with making science something that it is not. The problem is scientism, which is a philosophy, not science. Trying to modify the latter in order to fight the former is plain bad strategy.
Al: MN is an absolutely necessary self-limitation to the scientific method (and ID as "science" is nonsense). Otherwise we would stop at every inconvenient moment and say, "Goddidit". (Or something else non-natural did it.)
Alex: This is a really poor argument. What reason is there to believe that anyone would do this? Is this what you do in philosophy when you make an argument for the existence of God? There are just as many inconveniences in philosophy as there are in science. Further, God is not the only non-naturalistic explanatory hypothesis. There are an abundance of hypotheses that are non-naturalistic, and there are specific contexts where these hypotheses are invoked. In principle, there just is no reason why a non-naturalistic methodology must impose a supernatural explanation on any perceived inconvenience. Again, I think MN should be adhered to, on other grounds. But your argument for adopting MN is very weak. Maybe you can try to unpack it a little.
Al: You can also look at it this way: science is simply defined as looking for natural causes for observed effects (it should not be forgotten that historically, it grew out of a discipline called "natural philosophy").
Alex: I agree that if we simply define science as necessarily methodologically naturalistic, then by definition we cannot have a science that does not adhere to MN. This isn't an argument against those who favor a non-naturalistic methodology within science though. It is just your preferred definition.
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