Science versus Philosophy: Why I.D. Is The Latter
Earlier we had a discussion about how Intelligent Design theory is not science, but philosophy. The Id’ers, including Philip Johnson, want to change the definition of science in order to force their religious beliefs into the scientific picture. I made the claim that the U.S. is in crisis regarding science. Ben asked the following questions:
What do you think is the proper relationship of philosophy to science? If you could also throw in a working definition of each (philosophy and science), I think that would really clarify things for me. In what sense do you think that this country is falling behind in the science arena?
I am happy to discuss any topics of interest to AgnosticMom readers. In this case, I am going to address the questions in two different posts, beginning with the relationship of Science and Philosophy and how modern science developed.
The word “Science” actually has very broad implications, but for our purposes, we are discussing it in terms of Biology, Physics and similar fields. A very simple definition, which I found on a children’s educational site is:
A branch of knowledge based on objectivity and involving observation and experimentation.
I found a more academic explanation in a copyrighted paper. Ethically, I cannot quote it in part so the reference citation is:
Malhotra, Yogesh. (1994). Role Of Science In Knowledge Creation: A Philosophy Of Science Perspective [WWW document]. URL http://www.kmbook.com/science.htm
To paraphrase a paragraph under the subtitle, “The Scientific Method,” there are multiple ways to know something. What sets science apart from other ways is its use of empirical testing. According to Dictionary.com, “empirical” means “proven by observation and experiment.” And “Guided by practical experience, not theory.”
While philosophy may be a means to understanding a particular subject, and while philosophical tools, such as deductive reasoning, may be used to form a scientific hypothesis, or maybe even to aid in the understanding of the results of an experiment, it lacks the actual material observation to classify it as science, or in particular, Biology or Physics.
This is why Intelligent Design is, at best, philosophy (at worst and more accurately, it is religion in disguise). ID comes to its conclusion of a Designer through reasoning only. It stops short of the definition of science because we cannot test its hypothesis. We cannot observe it. We cannot make predictions based on its claim.
Because of this, ID proponents want to change the definition of science and revert to Medieval Scholasticism, in other words, the pre-Galileo days of the a priori method, as opposed to the inductive method which Francis Bacon applied to philosophy, and which constitutes modern science.
From Bluepete.com:
Inductive Thinking:
§ I have always thought of it (inductive thinking) as thinking from the bottom up; as opposed to thinking from the top down (deductive). One who uses a deductive approach accepts notions (often having no basis in reality) and then proceeds to build on such notions; it is, more often than not, a fruitless (sometimes harmful) process; one ends up “building castles in the air.”The inductive approach always builds up from a solid base. A theory, based on real experiences, is struck; it is then tested rigorously and continuously; all experiences must support the theory. Some theories have been so thoroughly tested over years that they have become accepted facts of nature. However, even though they may be well tested and put to considerable use, theories always remain theories.
It has been through the inductive method of thinking that men like Copernicus (1473-1543), Galileo (1564-1642) and Newton (1642-1727) laid down the bricks and cemented into place the foundation of our modern age.
Intelligent Design is deductive reasoning, taking a top-down approach. If you read the interview of Philip Johnson I gave a link to, you will see that he wants to base all scientific knowledge on the presumption that there is a god, even Jesus Christ.
Is it not obvious that without the availability of material observation of a Creator, Intelligent Design has nothing to do with science? It does not necessarily mean that no Designer exists. It just means we should not base our scienitific work, nor our criticism of it (evolution) on the assumption that there is one.
I will continue this topic in an upcoming post where I will focus more specifically on the implications of a religous and political movement aimed to destroy science. We will discuss Ben’s other question about why the state of science in the U.S. is in crisis. There are so many areas of crisis to cover, and I don’t have time to get to them all, so if any of you have articles or other evidence to share, hold onto them for the next post and you can contribute to the comments area.
As I am not an expert in science, and some of you readers are, I invite you to add to this current post by leaving a comment.
February 20th, 2006 @ 1:03 pm
I.D. isn’t even good history the christian judge uttered in his opinion in the York County , Pennsylvania case . He noted that he was totally disappointed in its presentation and the people who subverted the rules of scientific experimentation. It sounded like he was truely upset with the ID advocates
February 20th, 2006 @ 3:13 pm
I have been taught about inductive and deductive reasoning in a different manner than the quote from bluepete.com. Actually, I have been taught that deductive reasoning is the basis for hypothesis driven science because it deducts other possibilities until a good conclusion is reached. Inductive reasoning goes from a specific observation to a general conclusion. For example, we notice that every organism we have studied is made of cells. So, we conclude using inductive reasoning that EVERY living thing is made of cells even though we have not looked at or even found every living organism on the earth. Deductive reasoning builds off of inductive reasoning by taking a general statement and using it to get specific answers by removing all other explanations. For example, if every organism is made of cells, and humans are organisms, then humans are composed of cells. Both types of reasoning are used in science, but one needs to use deductive reasoning in the scientific method to get a specific answer to a question. Inductive reasoning is used in the observational stage and then deductive reasoning helps one to get a specific answer.
The scientific method is the key to good science. This involves making an observation; asking a question about that observation; forming a hypothesis (a tentative answer to the question); making a prediction based on deductive reasoning (if this is so, then this will happen); test the hypothesis. If the test does not support the hypothesis, the hypothesis must be altered and then retested. If a test does support the hypothesis, it makes the hypothesis stronger. Once a hypothesis has been tested several times and is supported by these tests, it becomes a theory. Science has to use the scientific method to be valid. I have not found any indication of the Intelligent Design movement using valid science to explain their hypothesis….isn’t this odd since they are trying to get it into the science programs in schools? I would think it would be common sense to use a scientific approach if they want it to be taught in science classes.
Philip Johnson states in the interview Noell referred to that he debated Stephen J Gould on evolution and the debate was a draw. I’ve been trying to find some information on this debate and have come up with nothing. I would be interested in seeing a transcript of this debate and knowing who judged the debate as a draw. I just don’t see how one can debate philosophy versus science.
February 20th, 2006 @ 3:51 pm
The explanations on Bluepete surprised me, too, but I don’t think the explanation he gave conflicts with Stephanie’s, which is how it was also taught to me. I think it just depends on the specifics of what you are doing and how you look at it.
Of course, I’m drinking coffee right now and coffee always makes my head cloudy. What do the rest of you think?
As for the rigorous and multiple testing: this is so unique to science. It also confuses mainstream Americans who haven’t received adequate science instruction. People hear the results of one or two tests and they think it is conclusive. Then when they hear different results from a different test, they think science is just problematic.
Also: I remember reading somewhere that the in the Dover trial that the judge requested some scientific backing for ID. They weren’t able to provide it of course. It just doesn’t exist.
February 20th, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
I’m not sure if they ever would be willing to try to use the scientific method in an effort to confirm ID. If they did, it would be open to the possibility of being disproven and they could not take that chance. When they are using a philosophical base, they do not need to provide a test to support their conclusions.
February 20th, 2006 @ 4:21 pm
I agree with you, but I can’t figure out how they could possibly do it in the first place. Can you?
February 20th, 2006 @ 4:29 pm
I have no idea how they could do it. There would have to be a prediction based on the existence of an intelligent designer such as: If life came to be through intelligent design, then….. but I cannot come up with a “then” that could be tested. It would be like trying to prove that God exists using science….it just won’t happen.
February 20th, 2006 @ 5:33 pm
If the ID folks really believe it is science - why wouldn’t they want to establish it using the scientific method? All that would be needed it a little evidence that there is a god - just a tiny little bit.
A smidge.
Surely in all of existence a little bit of evidence exists for what so many people believe in - and are indeed willing to die for (kill for, order whole societies around, etc.)!
In the Bible - Christ’s own deciple asked for some proof that he came back from the dead - surely we poor suckers 2000 years later are marginally more removed than Jesus’ right-hand men? Thomas asked the same question you do, and here is the answer - its written right here in this infallible 2000+ year old book.
Satisfied?
No?
Well - tell Satan I said hi next time you go dancing in the woods with him.
Oh - and, no pot luck for you! And it was going to be REALLY good this time… dumplings and gravy - but NO, you blew it. And don’t even THINK about Mrs. Strathmore’s Apple Brown Betty - there’s only enough for those of us who will be on heaven’s raquetball team (where no one ever looses, or needs protective padding, or even deoderant for that matter - - unless you like deoderant and all of that, then there will be more than you ever thought possible - a mountain in fact - and its FREE).
okay - I may be rambling at this point..
February 20th, 2006 @ 7:23 pm
a couple of vicodan and you’ll be fine
February 21st, 2006 @ 1:37 am
Noell, thanks for the thorough post. I think I have a sense now of what you mean when you say “science” and when you say “philosophy”. But I’m still wondering what you think is the proper relation between the two, or whether you think that the two should more or less steer clear of each other.
I have to doubt that you would hold the latter position, because it sounds like you credit Bacon with laying the foundation, in his philosophical work, for modern physical science.
It also sounds, from what you’ve said, like you would readily agree with this statement: science has no concern with the questions of philosophy. Or, in a more particular form: let philosophers debate about the existence of an unseen intelligence — science will interest itself with what some philosophers would call the works of an intelligence, and what other philosophers would call the unguided interactions of purely material particles.
Are these last two paragraphs fair representations of your position?
February 21st, 2006 @ 7:56 am
Ben- The proper relationship of philosophy and science: some philosophical tools of thought are a part of the science process. Scientists use some of the reasoning skills to formulate hypotheses and to analyze the data.
My understanding is that before Bacon came on the scene, science was more philosophical in nature. Bacon systemized it into the bottom-to-top format: looking at the individual parts and going up from there. Like the example that Stephanie gave, looking at the individual cell and going up from there, rather than working from assumptions at the top (ie. If God created all things, then . . .). I forgot to mention, Bacon was the father of the material movement of modern science. He taught that science needed to observe the natural world, make physical observations, as opposed to just philosophizing.
So it was Bacon who led to a science that uses the types philosophical reasoning appropriate science to analyze the material observations, as opposed to a scienced based more on phiolosophical reasoning based on religious beliefs. At least that is the way I understand it from my various readings.
So yes, I would agree with your summation in the last two paragraphs. Otherwise, if the Discovery Institute gets their way we will return to medieval-quality science. People like Philip Johnson seem willing to do that in order to get their god into schools.
February 21st, 2006 @ 1:00 pm
There is a very good commentary on science education issues in the January - February issue of “American Scinetist”. It can be seen at http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/48637 .
A second area of “crisis” is the area of ethics. The “Piltdown Man” scandal hurt the field of paleontology for years. The recent stem cell scandal in Korea has done major damage to that field by possibly pushing theraputic stem cell research back many years.
Fabricated data is not new. It has been uncovered in many fields of research ranging from the science of materials to medical research to basic discoveries of elements. Universities are increasingly tied to corporations as sources of funding or for spawning embryionic companies based on academic research. There are high stakes games being played and scientists are under tremendous pressure to produce results, real or otherwise.
There is another world of ethics that does not recieve the attention in the media. Charles Lindbergh often lamented the path his chosen profession, the world of aviation, had taken when he realized the death and destruction possible in a war with bombers. The dropping of the atomic bomb was the ultimate realization of those fears.
Leo Zillard met with Einstein to discuss the desirability of developing the atomic bomb. Of course the ethical decision was made based on the classical “benefit to the most people” (50,000 enemy deaths vs a projected 100,000 American deaths) arguement plus some politics of course.
But now the modern day scientist contributes to technology whose true benefit to the long term outlook to the human popluation is questionable at best. Is this an ethical endeavor? Consider the scientists that designed the Chernoble reactors that are now a radioactive wasteland and will be for centuries.
As Noell points out, there are so many areas that need so much work to lift the world of science out of the “crises” state that it is good too get them on the table and start digging.
February 21st, 2006 @ 1:42 pm
Noell, you said that Bacon proposed a “bottom-up” approach to science in opposition to “top-down” philosophy based on religion.
A few responses to this. First, I think Bacon’s position was more intricate. Here’s the man himself, from section XIX of Book I of his “New Organon” (hope this works; it’s my first go at “blog-HTML”):
So, in Bacon’s account, the approach that he was seeking to replace did start with observation — he just thought it didn’t do enough observing and was too ready to generalize.
I also don’t think it’s fair to characterize all of pre-Baconian philosophy as based on religion. Take a look at Aristotle’s Physics. It’s a long and fairly rigorous consideration of motion, time, and place, that concludes to an immaterial first mover. It was written hundreds of years before Jesus lived, by a pagan philosopher famous for his voracious observation of the natural world.
Whether Aristotle’s arguments are sound, or his conclusion makes sense, is a separate question entirely. My point is simply that he found himself compelled by observation and rigorous thought to posit the existence of something immaterial. He did not start from principles of faith, and his method was not purely a priori. And his work, especially his Physics, was at the core of scholastic philosophy (at least as I understand it).
An a priori, faith-based system of thought, that rejects conclusions drawn from observation and experiment out-of-hand, because those conclusions conflict with religious dogma, is fideism, not philosophy. If Johnson et al. are truly seeking to inject fideism into public school curricula, then I agree completely that their project is wrongheaded and illegal. Whether they are fideists is still an open question in my mind, but I haven’t read much on it — still have to look at the Touchstone article, to start with.
But setting Johnson and the Discovery Institute aside again, I would like to continue to focus on the question of philosophy and science. Consider this question: on what basis was Bacon able to make his revolutionary proposal? Or, put more generally, how do we know that the scientific method is a valid way to seek truth? I’m asking that as an open question, not a leading one: really, what underlies the assertion that X is an appropriate method of scientific inquiry, while Y is not?
February 21st, 2006 @ 4:14 pm
I tackled this subject in a rather long essay in a letter I wrote to my Mormon sister in law a while back.
BASIC PRINCIPLES
There are two related philosophical axioms that science makes use of even before turning to the scientific method. Scientists and rationalists invoke them particularly when investigating the truth of an existing claim, especially an outrageous one. They are applied before resorting to experimental work.
1) Occam’s Razor: Do not invent unnecessary entities to explain something.
An example: Suppose I have a cat. One night, I leave out a saucer of milk, and in the morning the milk has gone. No one saw who or what drank the milk. Lets say there are two possibilities:
The cat drank it
or
The milk fairy drank it
Occam tells us to reject option 2. This is because option 2 requires us to invent an unnecessary entity - the milk fairy. It is an invention because we have no evidence that the milk fairy exists. She is unnecessary because there is a plausible explanation that does not require the milk fairy - the cat. (We know he exists.)
It is important to note that we haven’t proven that the cat drank the milk. Nor disproven the milk fairy option. Strictly speaking, we keep an open mind about both options. But Occam says that if you insist it could be the milk fairy, you have invented an unnecessary entity. And why would you do that?
The cat hypothesis is simpler in that you haven’t had to invent a new, unproven entity. Also note that there are additional options that one could choose if we abandon Occam. For example, it could have been ghosts, or aliens, or the boogieman or Santa Claus. Why choose one of these over the others when there is an equal lack of proof for any of them?
2) Burden of Proof:
A claim without any support is not one which merits rational belief. The keyword here is rational – as it also determines if we can even talk at all with someone about something. After all, there is no use debating the hallucinations of a schizophrenic! Thus, anyone making a claim which they consider rational and which they expect others to accept must provide some support.
An important principle to remember here is that some burden of proof always lies with the person who is making a claim, not the person who is hearing the claim and who may not initially believe it.
Again, you can use the saucer of milk example.
In regard to the supernatural, then, this means that the initial burden of proof lies with the believer, not with the skeptic. More specifically with regards to religion, both the atheist and the theist probably agree on a great many things, but it is the theist who asserts the further belief in the existence of a god.
This extra claim is what must be supported, and the requirement of rational, logical support for a claim is very important. The methodology of skepticism, critical thinking, and logical arguments is what allows us to separate sense from nonsense; when a person abandons that methodology, they abandon any pretense of trying to make sense or engage in a sensible discussion.
The principle that the claimant has the initial burden of proof is often violated, however, and it isn’t unusual to find someone saying, “Well, if you don’t believe me then prove me wrong,” as if the lack of such proof automatically confers credibility on the original assertion. Yet that simply isn’t true - indeed, it’s a fallacy commonly known as “Shifting the Burden of Proof.” If a person claims something, they are obligated to support it and no one is obligated to prove them wrong.
If a claimant cannot provide that support, then the default position of disbelief is justified.
PARANORMAL EXPERIENCE AS EVIDENCE
Paranormal experiences doesn’t prove God, even to oneself. I was married for 7 years to a professional psychic who was extremely accurate. Nothing in her experience led her to conclude anything, one way or the other about the existence of God, especially not about the validity of any particular religion. I, myself, was a paranormal aficionado for many years, practiced psychic healing, studied astrology, I Ching and Tarot, with uncanny results comparable to anything I’ve heard first hand that involved similar results attributed to religious powers. But because these methods don’t involve faith, they basically must stand or fall on the accuracy of results. Problem is scientists and skeptics who investigated their accuracy have falsified them all countless times. Without alot of data it is very easy to mislead oneself with anecdotal accounts.
Now, researching if there is any validity to these kinds of experiences and what might cause them is a worthwhile undertaking. You may know that the the military has investigated these “powers” to see if they can harness them to kill people. There is nothing particularly religious about them or that points even vaguely to the existence of God, let alone the validity of any one religion. So much for miracles.
FALSIFIABILITY: CAN FAITH BE FALSIFIED?
Conjecture based on mythology, intuition usually gets it wrong. For instance, not only is there zero empirical evidence for milk fairies or gods, but also every assumption about them seems falsifiable at every step from consistency of doctrine, to accuracy of prediction, to personal religious experience.
This puts people in the position of there being nothing that could ever prove an idea wrong; that faith alone can validate unconditional trust in his actions (which sounds like the very definition of blind faith to me). If there is nothing that can falsify a believer’s claim that the god is not a fallacy, then we have to take a look at what can falsify the basis of that: Faith. As a way of knowing, it would seem to require a lot of trust of one’s instincts and emotions – highly unreliable tools for getting to the right answers.
Nevertheless, here are some questions for people who would faith rather than science as a method:
1. What would be acceptable to you as proof that faith itself is not reliable and leads to erroneous beliefs? (There are countless examples of people of faith that have caused their trust to be seriously misplaced: Jim Jones and Heaven’s Gate, for example.)
2. How are you different?
3. How can you know you are different?
4. If faith cannot be falsified, what protects you against error?
FAITH PROVING ITSELF
Whatever the answers, just for the sake of argument, let’s abandon the rational, paranormal and even falsifiable and simply go with faith. This assumes that there is another way of knowing things which requires no evidence beyond the subjective. I believe the Mormon challenge along this line is to pray about it.
OK. so say I did that and there was nothing. Based on the terms of the faith challenge I believe I have proven you wrong! You, as a believer, now have a few choices as to what to believe: either I am dysfunctional (which doesn’t seem quite fair), or I am lying, or else there is some question as to the reliability of faith as an instrument of knowledge.
WHY IS THERE FAITH AND BELIEF, THEN?
A little background. I have a bachelor’s degree in Cultural Anthropology – focusing on the Anthropology of Religion. My studies have led me to conclude that, just like language, the aptitude for religion is as instinctive in humans as that for language. Unfortunately, this means that the contents and structure of religion is also just as relative as language (e.g., there is no real word for “tree”).
Like everything else that exists, religion evolved as a survival mechanism in humans for instilling/indoctrinating the cultural knowledge of society into its members. Knowledge that was proven successful at perpetuating the prevailing economic system (whether how to hunt or when to plant the rice). Intricate mythologies, initiation rites and ritual behavior work to minimize errors in the information.
Culture and religion are no more and no less than the vehicle for speeding up evolution’s passing on of survival traits (e.g., the accumulated human invention of a society) to the young. Though cultural skills can evolve more rapidly than, say, the length of the horns on a deer, in order to achieve better adaptation to changes in the environment, there is still a great deal of inertia built into the process. A law of nature is that if it isn’t broke don’t fix it, so for hundreds of thousands of years conservatism has ruled when it comes to cultural skills. As an example it took 300 years for the church to accept that the earth was round after Galileo had proved it! Perhaps even slower than the pace of change in language. Consequently, the main way change has spread is through conquest of one - obviously more successful - group by another. The conquest can be either military or economic.
You might say, well, if there were a Creator he surely would have given his creation this instinct. The problem with that is that the religious instinct works just fine without a Creator and because of it’s utility for group survival of humans surely would have evolved no matter what. Being on the inside of an instinct like that can be a bit misleading though. Cultural skills may rapidly become maladapted due to competition, not from the environment, but from other groups.
The change from economies of hunter-gather to agricultural swept the agriculturalists rapidly into economic dominance - no less because the mythic model of monotheism promoted hierarchical social systems all the way through from family patriarchies to royalty and military organization. Defense and ownership of property, including fields, chattel, spouses and offspring was centrally controlled. Unlike pantheist, hunter-gather cultures and modern, humanist information cultures, women are relegated to menial and property status, as they don’t rate in terms of pure physical power in either field or battlefield. (Why any woman would continue to tolerate such a systems past its usefulness is one of the major mysteries to me?)
IF IT’S NATURAL, THEN WHY NOT RELIGON?
So, if religion is natural, then what’s the problem? The problem is that, now, the world is smaller and change is faster. Rational systems and individual invention have changed the world, remaking economic realities at an accelerating pace. The printed page and other media ensure the integrity of information and they distribute it and keep it updated at a pace that is more in-synch with the rate of change.
Because humans are nothing if not adaptable, these changes have caused the religious instinct to lose most of it’s utility, incurring a disadvantage on those who cannot control it in themselves (rationally, like many of our other instincts, which no longer serve us).
There are no mythological answers for making decisions about corporate ethics, environmental protections, birth control, abortion, cloning, steroid enhancement, or drugs – legal or otherwise. When they are attempted, the result is a ridiculously tortured and twisted extrapolation. Worst of all, the inertia built into the obsolete reasoning of religion tends toward domestic and international conflict in a world where cultures are increasingly interdependent.
SUMMARY
Zero evidence for God - except for stories. Lacks falsifiability – rendering the knowledge specious. Faith an unreliable tool. Easily explained as a built-in mechanism for survival as well as self-delusion.
February 21st, 2006 @ 10:06 pm
Ben-
I’m not sure where you and I differ in terms of Bacon. I think your quote only further clarified my point about his contribution. I did not mean that there was no observation at all in previous science practice, that they thought with their eyes closed. They would need an observation to base a theory on. As for a priori methods, I was mainly referring to medieval practice, as you will see I specified. But going back to Aristotle: he DID observe, and he practiced “rigorous thought,” as you put it. But rigorous thought is not the same as rigorous testing. Aristotle, who was not relgious, made observations, then based his answers on what he could not see: there must be Prime Mover, which would explain X+Y.
I believe this was the difference that Bacon contributed. Scientific discovery would continue to look for a material answer for X+Y. Bacon said himself in the quote you provided that this method was not yet being practiced.
But Ben, here’s the thing: Philip Johnson not only refutes materialistic observation, he also refutes the notions of reasoning and rationality altogether. In the interview, there are about three paragraphs where he explains why you can never know if your premises are correct, therefore, you always end up in circular reasoning. He then came to the conclusion that Jesus is the only premisis to work from:
Johnson expects us to accept the Jesus-premise simply because Jesus said it. (Or at least the later writers of The Gospels said he said it).
To answer your last question: What was Bacon’s premise? I have no idea. I am not THAT well-studied. Perhaps you are? You question the validity of the Scientific Method. While it is not perfect, and we can never be 100% sure of our conclusions, I think the fact that it demands the same conclusions be reached over and over again by different scientists and with different variables make it the most effective method yet known to man.
My evidence: All that this form of science has given us since its inception. We’ll start with modern medicine. How about electricity and light? Aircraft, spacecraft and automobiles. Genetic Engineering. Nuclear Physics and the atomic bomb. Computer techonology. Telecommunications. How long should I continue? Where did reasoning alone, without the material testing of the Scientific Method get humankind? It got us to the Dark Ages. Bacon, Galileo, Darwin, and a few others got us out.
February 21st, 2006 @ 10:13 pm
Stephanie, Greg and Hifi: thank you for your contributions. There are so many directions this path can take, so I appreciate everybody’s angles.
Hifi- I am intrigued with your paranormal background. Did you honestly believe that what you were doing was truly psychic? And you based that on your anecdotal evidence? Putting stock in the experiences that seemed to work out, while ignoring or rationalizing the ones that didn’t?
Ben-I would like to know what YOU propose is the most effective way of gaining knowledge or understanding. If it’s not the Scientific Method, what is it? Hifi laid out an argument about what the only possible ways are that I know of. Do you choose one of these? Do you think there is another way entirely?
February 22nd, 2006 @ 10:59 am
Noell, I’m a bit short on time this week. let me think a bit and perhaps read or re-read some things and then get back to this thread. I don’t claim to have a thoroughly developed position, or to have figured all this out. I have read a lot of philosophy, though, ancient, medieval, and modern, and I’ve spent some time studying some of the foundational works of modern science. I’ve also read some of the not-so-modern scientists, so I think I have some sense of the history of science, at least.
Hifi, I will have more to say in my next post in response to your philosophical principles, but I’m going to have a hard time taking your general historical claims seriously when you buttress them with an example like this:
Francis Drake completed his eastward journey around the globe when Galileo was about 16 years old. Magellan had sailed westward from Portugal to the Philippines about 60 years before that. In the 13th century Dante, a Catholic, described a spherical earth in the Divine Comedy. He used the accepted cosmology passed down from the pre-Christian ancients and explored in depth by Ptolemy in the second century.
In other words, as far as serious, recorded Western thought is concerned, no one thought the Earth was flat, ever. I believe Galileo’s controversy hinged on the question of whether the earth revolved around the sun, or vice versa. I’m not conversant with the details of the dispute, but I think the answer was not obvious in Galileo’s time, and the only reason we think it’s obvious is that hundreds of years of astronomy have passed between Galileo and us.
February 22nd, 2006 @ 12:08 pm
The catholic church pushed the flat earth theory. There are passages in the old testament that refer to the four corners of the earth. If that isn’t flat what is . Columbus feared he’d fall off the earth on his journey and that was in 1492
February 22nd, 2006 @ 3:31 pm
I think Mark Twain summed it up best when he said,” You know Doc I think I just figured out why I like hitting myself in the head with a hammer so much”…. Ol Doc said,”Why’s that Mark ? Mark replied , “Cause it feels so damn good when I stop,So it is with religion.
February 22nd, 2006 @ 4:09 pm
fran, I’m afraid that Mark Twain himself seems to have harbored flat-earth sentiments. Here’s a quote from Chapter 17 of “A Tramp Abroad” (emphasis added):
You said it best:
February 22nd, 2006 @ 5:28 pm
I think it is safe to say that the Agnostic Mom has chosen to opt for scientific explanations as opposed to religious revelations and obviously did not make the decision lightly . Given that perspective, I remain very interested to see the strategies you intend to develop to address the coming challenges as a Mom. For example …
How do you tell your children to react when they go to school and are asked to pledge allegiance to “one nation, under God”?
How should they react when asked to pray for a friend or relative?
What do you say when they ask why we celebrate Easter?
Do you point out “In God We Trust” on coins and make an issue of it with children?
What does Mom do when they blurt out “We don’t believe in God!”?
Etc. etc.
February 22nd, 2006 @ 8:53 pm
Ben, it is unfair to write off Hifi as being unreliable for making a statement that educators and historians have taught for years. Most people have the understanding that the early Church clung to a flat world.
I only first found out there is disagreement on the matter a few weeks ago when I heard an interview with an author-historian on the subject. And I doubt the majority of historians are ready to jump on board with this idea. I’d say it is up for debate for a while. But like I said, this is all a new idea to me and others. I haven’t heard the arguments for and against.
But my point is, I would hope that you and others don’t write me off completely for making one error of fact, which I know I have, and will again. I can see that you are very cautious to back up your statements with evidence, but I doubt you won’t ever make an accidental false statement. I wouldn’t write you off if you did unless you continued to spread a false statement when you know otherwise.
I look forward to continuing the discussion we started. Like you, I am short on time over the next few days, so I will not be able to THINK about the second part of your question regarding a state of crisis until Saturday. It gives us some breathing room.
February 22nd, 2006 @ 9:02 pm
Greg- It looks like you’re new here. AgnosticMom is now full of posters named Greg. All you Gregs may want to add something to your name in order to give to distinction to your individual Gregliness. While I can see the differences of your emails and websites in my email, other readers only see “Greg,” and I am sure they must think you are all the same Greg. You all may appear to be a single schizophrenic person (oops, my apologies for my un-p.c. and very insensitive joke!) to all the regular readers out who are getting to know each other.
But anyway, Greg, I am very excited to answer your questions in a separate post. I am sure that it will generate a LOT of discussion and I think many people will depart from me on many of the questions. Give me some time to work on it. The next few days are very busy.
February 23rd, 2006 @ 10:13 am
Noell, I accept your chastisement and duly apologize, to you and to Hifi. I do not want to be dismissive.
Hifi, please know that I have not written you off. I meant only to encourage you to shore up your broad and very general historical claims, about large cultural movements in human history, with some easy-to-obtain details (i.e., test your hypotheses :). Noell has rightly pointed out that my statement was not expressed in an encouraging manner, and I apologize again for this.
There seems to be some historical confusion here. Noell, can you clarify what you mean by “early Church”? When I hear “early Church”, I think of the first few centuries after Jesus. I have no idea what the Church held about the roundness or flatness of the Earth at that time, or whether it held any opinion.
But Galileo lived from 1564 to 1642. The Protestant Reformation was in full swing by then — Martin Luther had been dead for almost 20 years when Galileo was born. The Church of England was well established, and the papacy was settled in Rome again, almost two hundred years after its 75-year stint in Avignon. This was not the early Church, in any sense that I’ve ever understood the phrase.
As I pointed out in my previous post, explorers had already sailed around the globe in both directions by the time Galileo was 16 years old. When he disputed with Robert Bellarmine in Rome, in 1616, the colony of Virginia had been established for 9 years. The Catholic Spanish had been in the New World continuously for over a hundred years.
These are simple historical facts. Hifi’s statement about Galileo and the Church startled me with its apparent unfamiliarity with these basic facts.
The idea that one of the largest world powers of the day could have insisted, at that time, that the Earth was flat, seems preposterous to me. But if the question is indeed up for debate, I would like to familiarize myself with this debate — any links or references you could post?
At any rate Galileo’s dispute with the Church had nothing to do with the roundness or flatness of the Earth — I don’t think that’s up for debate. If educators and historians have been teaching this for years, then I think we’ve identified another crisis in education, because a simple and easily correctable error in fact, as to what Galileo’s dispute was about, is being perpetuated — and, if I’m right above, the perpetuation of this myth could only occur in the context of a radical ignorance of basic Western history.
February 23rd, 2006 @ 11:37 am
Ben-I think the confusion is just that: historical confusion, at least for me. I have horrible time-sense and it is one of my weaknesses with regard to history! The more I think about it now, the less I remember about the specifics of dates and time-frames for the flat-earth theory. Except with Columbus and his men. I know I was taught THEY thought it was flat. And I’m thinking at Galileo’s time also, but I’m not sure.
When I said “early church” I was thinking pre-protestant times. You pointed out that Galileo came after Luther, so just disregard what I said. Obviously I need to review history!!!!!!
BUT you said no one thought the earth was flat-ever. And that is definitely not what I learned.
February 23rd, 2006 @ 1:42 pm
Columbus thought that the earth was flat in 1492 . That seemed to have been one of his most overwhelming fears. Surely , pretend god would have spoken to the clergy men and told them they were wrong and that they should proceed without fear.
February 23rd, 2006 @ 2:07 pm
Noell, I didn’t quite say that no one ever thought the Earth was flat. I said:
I guess this was a rhetorical overstatement. Let me be more precise: In my reading of Western literature, astronomy, and philosophy, both pagan and Christian, going back to Plato and Aristotle, who lived roughly four hundred years before Jesus, I have never encountered any serious claim that the earth was anything but spherical, and in fact, have repeatedly encountered the assumption or flat-out statement that the earth is spherical.
I can’t dispute your memory of what you were taught about Columbus, but think about how silly it would be for a teacher to say that Columbus himself thought the world was flat. What was he sailing in search of, then? The end of the world? I’m sure these questions didn’t occur to us as school-children, but any kind of later reflection should reveal that someone was, or a lot of people were, telling a pretty big fib.
All I can remember hearing about Columbus is that he was seeking a western passage from Europe to India or China — i.e., he was setting out to sail around a spherical globe.
February 23rd, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
Ben -
Sorry for the confusion. Thoug, you did manage to overlook my primary contribution to the topic of philosophy and religion, you are quite right. I had meant the Copernican theory, that Galileo had defended, and was found guilty of by the inquistion.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/10/31/ING759HH4D1.DTL
“On Feb. 24, 1616, the Qualifiers of the Holy Office concluded that a sun- centered theory was ‘foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical, inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the teachings of many passages of Holy Scriptures.’
The Church won that fight in that long-ago century, claiming that up is down, but it lost spectacularly in the long run.
Over the next century, the epicenter of scientific inquiry shifted from the great Renaissance centers of Catholic Italy and other centers of erudition, moving north into less strident Catholic lands such as France and into newly Protestant nations such as England, the Netherlands and Sweden. There were many reasons for this shift, but one was certainly the rigid dogma of the Church in matters of science and education.
The Catholic Church did not officially rescind its ban on Copernicus’ theories until the early 19th century, 300 years after Galileo sighted Jupiter’s moons, and long after most Europeans had accepted the reality of how celestial bodies move.
By then, Galileo’s Florence and nearby Rome were beautiful cities for vacationing British and French aristocrats on their Grand Tour, but they had become intellectual backwaters.”
Still a most fitting example of a minor point in my little essay. There are hundreds of others of mythic inertia, from thinking tomatoes were poisonsous to denying limes to sailors - both not reconciled for hundreds of years after the evidence to the contrary was in.
Noell-
Of course, the easiest thing in the world is to overlook discontinuities in anecdotal experience and rush to wished-for, forgone conclusions. As any ex-believer well knows. But that is not to say that there is nothing there. Not at all. I have had remarkable experiences.
One of my major regrets about religous obstructionism is that there are vast areas of our beings and world that we are slow to understand because they are so far off the table for scientific discussion. Back in college, we were investigating the foundations of religious experience in individuals, which, unlike the religious mythology and social injunctions that are glommed onto it, is a fact. Trance states, meditation, epiphany, varities of altered states of consciousness, brain centers, brain waves, neurohormonal involvement…
My thesis undertook a study of the intersection of myth, priest, ritual objects, psycho-physiological integrity of the victim and social structure in the healing rituals in Sri Lanka. Sadly, the state of research is now, 30 years later, barely further a long.
February 23rd, 2006 @ 2:29 pm
Hifi- Then I guess I may be adding to your frustration when I say I don’t know ANYTHING about the subject.
February 23rd, 2006 @ 2:33 pm
Hifi, thanks for the clarification and thanks for the informative quotation about Galileo and the Copernican controversy.
I have not overlooked the more central points of your original comment. As I mentioned above, I don’t have time this week to give even an initial account of my thoughts about the original topic of this thread, which is the relation of philosophy and science.
When I do have time for a proper post, as I also mentioned above, I plan to devote part of that post to a response to your comments about the philosophical underpinnings of science.
February 26th, 2006 @ 11:42 am
You know what the funny part is?
People use philosophy to accuse ID of being philosophy. It’s completely ironic, and makes for good reading for those who see it in that way. To wit, claiming that only the naturalistic, current method of scientific inquiry has validity is… a philosophy! Basically, when people say that ID should be ignored or excluded because it is “philosophy” or religion, they are really saying “My philosophy of science doesn’t allow for your philosophy”. Of course, the point that should be made is that ID cannot be allowed within the current naturalistic paradigm for various *scientific* reasons having to do with difficulty in testing ID hypotheses, verifying fundamental data in the ID model, etc. And contrarily, the IDer shouldn’t be trying to trick people into thinking that they can coexist in the current scientific environment with naturalists. They can’t. They should read Kuhn’s book on Scientific Revelolutions, and then reformulate their battle plan.
February 27th, 2006 @ 5:29 pm
Justin,
Huh? There is another method of scientific inquiry? Seems you didn’t read my post on the uselessness of mulitplying unnecessary entities as a solution to anything. So you are saying the milk fairy and Zuni Corn Gods have just as much merit as science as “the way things work” because they are all just philosophies? Schizophrenics being guided by communications from UFOs by radios in their heads have an equally valid worldview as anyone? There are to be no checks on any baseless fantasy where the evidence is completely lacking? You also seem to imply that ideas validated by mountains of evidence are equal to utterly unsupported ideas? Where would that leave us?
I’ll tell you: the way this all worked before is whoever had the best archers, fastest ships or biggest guns converted the others. Look at the world today and you can see things haven’t changed that much. Except for the new trend for majority cults from Iraq to Iran to America, itself, to simply legislate their completely baseless stories on others.
February 28th, 2006 @ 10:51 am
Hifi, I think you bear out Justin’s basic point when you say:
I think Justin did read your post, quite thoughtfully. He has not attacked the scientific method or proposed a better way to do science, or even proposed that there is such a way. He has simply pointed out, as you yourself said, that there are philosophical underpinnings to the scientific method. These underpinnings can neither be investigated nor judged by the method itself — because the method presupposes them.
You’ve mentioned Ockham’s razor twice now. What you have not spelled out is one other philosophical premise that you’ve combined with Ockham’s razor to draw the conclusions that you draw from it. I think you’ve mentioned it at least implicitly, though:
Your premise here, I think, is that “how do things work?” is the sole question that science is concerned with. In classical philosophical language, and as expressed by Bacon, this might be put more formally as follows: “material and efficient causes are the only causes science cares about.”
A brief side-note on causes. The classical philosopher distinguished four kinds of causes: final, formal, efficient, and material. To investigate each cause of some thing, let’s call it X, was to ask these questions about X, roughly:
1. Why does X exist? (final cause)
2. What is X? (formal cause)
3. What made X exist? (efficient cause)
4. What is X made of? (material cause)
Ockham’s razor alone does not lead to the exclusion of the immaterial. The secular ancient philosopher Aristotle held a principle very much like Ockham’s razor — as far as I know, it’s always been a fundamental premise of developed Western philosophy. But Aristotle argued for purpose in nature — interestingly enough, in a passage where he discusses something that sounds a whole lot like natural selection (remember that this was written about 2,200 years before Darwin!):
In the end Aristotle disagrees with this position, but it’s fascinating to see it expressed in something written so long ago. He is able to disagree with it bcause his philosophy of nature allows him to ask about formal and final cause: i.e., it allows him to ask “what is a thing?”, in a more fundamental sense than “what is it made of?”, and to ask “why does it exist?”.
If your philosophy of nature does not think that formal and final causes are worth investigating, then you will draw far different conclusions than Aristotle drew. Like Aristotle’s conclusions, though, these are philosophical conclusions, not scientific ones.
Are Aristotle’s conclusions incompatible with modern science? If what I’ve sketched out above is accurate, I don’t think he would think so. And if modern science purposefully excludes the investigation of formal and final causes from its method, then I don’t think it would “think so”, either. I don’t think it can disagree with Aristotle, or agree with him, for that matter. By its own principles it has nothing to say on the subject.
I’m not here to advocate a return to Aristotelianism or an abandonment of modern science, but simply to point out that modern science does not have all the answers. It can’t, because it does not ask some of the fundamental questions.
As Noell and others have pointed out, the focus in modern science, since Bacon, on experimental discovery of material and efficient causes, has led to incredible advances in our knowledge of the natural world and in our ability to harness it. This is exactly what Bacon wanted:
And it’s exactly what has happened. But in neglecting the investigation of formal and final cause, I think we may have lost access to a more complete understanding of the universe than modern science can provide on its own. And if