Science Religiously Defined?

naturalism
n 1: the doctrine that the world can be understood in scientific terms without recourse to spiritual or supernatural explanations.

But when that is converted into the method of science (methodological naturalism) it turns into: Science must not invoke spiritual or supernatural explanations.

Does it strike anyone else as strange that science is being religiously defined?

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Nature of Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

141 Responses to “Science Religiously Defined?”

Daniel Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 6:26 pm
No, you're just re-framing naturalism to sound dogmatic. Science, in reality, is simply pragmatic - using what demonstrably works, and discarding that which doesn't.

Seeing as supernatural explanations cannot be demonstrated, only speculated upon, they're discarded.

Nothing religious about it.

Comment by Daniel — May 25, 2006 @ 6:26 pm

Steve Petermann Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Hi Daniel,

No, you're just re-framing naturalism to sound dogmatic. Science, in reality, is simply pragmatic - using what demonstrably works, and discarding that which doesn't.

How am I making it sound dogmatic? I'm just referring to common definitions. While I agree that pragmaticism should be part of science that is not included in methodological naturalism.

Seeing as supernatural explanations cannot be demonstrated, only speculated upon, they're discarded.

Just saying that does not make it so. Isn't that what the debate is all about?

Nothing religious about it.

Of course there is relative to methodological naturalism. Just strip out the reference to spiritual and supernatural from the definition and nothing remains.

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 25, 2006 @ 6:43 pm

trrll Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
It is rather the fact that science is limited to testable hypotheses, which requires the ability to make definite predictions, which if wrong would disprove the theory.

Predictability arises from limitations. A theory makes strong predictions because there are some things that a particular mechanism is incapable of doing. On the other hand, most people like their gods to have free will and to be uncontrainted–in other words, not to be predictable. So it is not so much that the domain of science is religiously defined as that people's religious preferences tend to place their beliefs outside the domain of science.

Comment by trrll — May 25, 2006 @ 7:21 pm

Steve Petermann Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Hi trrll,

It is rather the fact that science is limited to testable hypotheses, which requires the ability to make definite predictions, which if wrong would disprove the theory.

This is the old "jump the argument" tactic. It usually ensues when the argument can't be met. The argument of this thread is that methodological naturalism (and science) is religiously defined.

So it is not so much that the domain of science is religiously defined as that people's religious preferences tend to place their beliefs outside the domain of science.

But the domain of science according to MN automatically places religious beliefs outside the domain of science (i.e. MN is religiously defined)

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 25, 2006 @ 7:44 pm

Deuce Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
Hi, Steve, you make a good point here. Naturalism *is* a metaphysic by definition, so talk of "non-metaphysical" naturalism is actually a contradiction in terms. The adjective entails a denial of the noun, as in "square circle". I think that's why discussions of MN vs PN get so long and convoluted. Fundamentally, there's a direct logical inconsistency there, which no amount of rationalization can make disappear. As with any attempt to show the truth of both sides of a contradiction, things get confused and long-winded, because words can't dispense with a contradiction, only obscure it.

Comment by Deuce — May 25, 2006 @ 8:49 pm

macht Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
I think what today is called methodological naturalism actually has its roots in logical positivism and its denial of metaphysics. It isn't a feasible position anymore to hold that we require science to be free from all metaphysical principles so today it is restricted to the requirement that science be free from a subset of metaphysical principles (namely, religious ones). (This is why you see people saying things like the term "supernatural" isn't even meaningful.)

Comment by macht — May 25, 2006 @ 9:10 pm

BenK Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
"This is why you see people saying things like the term "supernatural" isn't even meaningful.)"

Well, it certainly seems to be defined ad hoc. My guess is that when the smoke clears 'supernatural' will simply mean 'opaque to science' or somesuch, making MN a tautology.

Comment by BenK — May 25, 2006 @ 10:12 pm

MikeGene Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Daniel:

No, you're just re-framing naturalism to sound dogmatic. Science, in reality, is simply pragmatic - using what demonstrably works, and discarding that which doesn't.

Then why not jettison the term "methodological naturalism" and replace it with pragmaticism?

What's more, if it is only a pragmatic rule, it can't be used to rule out the introduction of supernatural explanations. Science would have to reject it after it has been introduced, weighed, and determined not to work. It would have to be part of science in order to be discarded from science.

Comment by MikeGene — May 25, 2006 @ 10:44 pm

Daniel Says:
May 25th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Steve -
The problem is that MN, despite it's philosophical roots, is pragmatic in practice. By claiming that science is religiously defined, you're suggesting the opposite: that MN is maintained by dogmatic insistance. Nothing could be further from the truth… MN is maintained because it facilitates scientific progress.

So it's not that science isn't allowed to include spiritual and supernatural explanations, it's that such explanations offer zero usefulness in describing the natural world.

MikeGene -
Jettison MN for Pragmatism? Maybe, but MN is much more specific, referencing the methodology of science (hence it's alternative name "scientific naturalism").

What's more, if it is only a pragmatic rule, it can't be used to rule out the introduction of supernatural explanations. Science would have to reject it after it has been introduced, weighed, and determined not to work. It would have to be part of science in order to be discarded from science.

You're confusing things here: supernatural explanations (such as an omnipotent Designer capable of Special Creation) are by definition unmeasureable and unobservable. We can't even conceive of a way that a Designer might be confirmed or falsified, can we?

Because of this, such supernatural explanations are neither discardable nor acknowledgeable by science - the possibility of a Designer is completely outside the perview of science.

Evolution, including descent with modification and natural selection, is testable by such methods, and has been robustly confirmed in every field of biology. Only the "gaps" or "missing links" remain to complete the picture - but the absence of total knowledge is hardly refutation of any theory.

Comment by Daniel — May 25, 2006 @ 11:39 pm

bFast Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 12:06 am
I am personally quite comfortable with science having a committment to methodological naturalism, as long as it actively avoids philisophical naturalism. Methodological naturalism, with a committment to avoiding philisophical naturalism will actively seek the "we don't know's" in its field. Because, alas, if there is a supernatural, which the avoidance of philisophical naturalism must entertain, then that supernatural will be found in the "we don't know's".

Consider, for instance, physics. Physics announces its incomplete state with a very clear "we don't know" position. Physics points to: dark matter, dark energy, string theory, the disunity between Einstinian and quantum physics. Physics discovers the strong Antropic principal, and seriously wonders (recognizing that the wonder is outside of science) if God himself has been discovered, if the big bang was the moment of a divinely precise creation.

Yet evolutionists agree with Daniel who says:

Evolution, including descent with modification and natural selection, is testable by such methods, and has been robustly confirmed in every field of biology. Only the "gaps" or "missing links" remain to complete the picture - but the absence of total knowledge is hardly refutation of any theory.

Evolutionists happily fill in the gaps with "we haven't found the answer — yet" rather than the scientific "we don't know". Evolutionists are quick to point out that abiogenesis is not their science. (I love that one.) Evolutionists are not puzzled at the cambrian explosion, or the fact that phyla decided to quit evolving as soon as the explosion was over. Evolutionists are quite comfortable with the fact that the entire phylogenic tree rendered itself on planet earth "in order", domains, kingdoms, phila, orders, classes, families, genuses and finally species.

Evolutionists are not mystified that the cytochrome C molecule renders an idealized phylogenic tree. (They answered that question with the molecular clock. The fact that the molecular clock hypothesis is proving much to insconsistant as a clock to explain the tree got lost somewhere.)

Common descent happened? Most IDers (basically) agree. Random Mutation + Natural Selection (with its sub-phenomenon like HGT, punctuated equilibrium (spelled inbreading), genetic drift, etc.) explains it all? No way!

When the field of evolutionary biology gives up its committment to philisophical naturalism, when evolutionary biology discovers the simple phraise, "we don't know", then it will have become a true and respectable science.

Comment by bFast — May 26, 2006 @ 12:06 am

MikeGene Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 12:44 am
Daniel:

Jettison MN for Pragmatism? Maybe, but MN is much more specific, referencing the methodology of science (hence it's alternative name "scientific naturalism").

So there is some aspect of "naturalism" that that is not captured by pragmatism.

You're confusing things here: supernatural explanations (such as an omnipotent Designer capable of Special Creation) are by definition unmeasureable and unobservable. We can't even conceive of a way that a Designer might be confirmed or falsified, can we?

No, I cannot conceive of a way to confirm or falsify the existence of an omnipotent Designer capable of Special Creation (not tonight, at least). I guess I was confused by your notion of discarding things because they were found to be useless.

Changing topics, I can, however, conceive of ways to strengthen or weaken a design inference. But like I said, that's changing topics.

Because of this, such supernatural explanations are neither discardable nor acknowledgeable by science - the possibility of a Designer is completely outside the perview of science.

Sure. If someone hears "God" when design is spoken, and that person believes that God is a useless concept, then that person would consider design to be completely outside their perview of investigation. I have no problem with this. Some of us have the ability to think about design without hearing "God." I'm starting to think it is a gift.

Comment by MikeGene — May 26, 2006 @ 12:44 am

DonaldM Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 12:49 am
More often than not I find dictionary definitions of philosophical terms to be overly simplistic, or problematic in that they capture only a small piece of what a philosophical stance might entail, such as the example given by Steve in the OP. Compare the dictionary definition above with this one from the Meta-Encycolopedia of Philosophy:

Naturalism: Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments, holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing, that the world-process is not teleological and anthropocentric, but purposeless, deterministic (except for possible tychistic events), and only incidentally productive of man; that human life, physical, mental, moral and spiritual, is an ordinary natural event attributable in all respects to the ordinary operations of nature; and that man's ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified on natural grounds, without recourse to supernatural sanctions, and his highest good pursued and attained under natural conditions, without expectation of a supernatural destiny.

The dictionary definition just doesn't quite capture the real implications of what philosophical naturalism (PN) really entails. What's not clear at all is how placing the word 'methodological' in front of the word 'naturalism' transforms the essence of naturalism to some pragmatic rule of thumb that science can not live without else it fall into chaos. What is MN exactly anyway? Does it say "for the sake of doing science we'll pretend that PN is true" That doesn't seem very helpful if the actual truth of the matter under investigation is that it is in fact the result of the deliberate actions of a supernatural intelligence. Of course elminating MN as a constraint on scientific investigation won't guarantee that the actual truth of a matter under investigation will be found, but enforcing MN virtually guarantees that if the actual truth of a matter under investigation is that somewhere in the causal chain of events is the deliberate act of a supernatural intelligence, then science will miss it altogether and be either a)forever incomplete or b)forced to adopt a naturalistic explanation even though it is known that that explanation is wide of the mark.

Philosopher of Science Del Ratzsch puts it like this in his book Science and Its Limits (I don't have the book in front of me, but this is pretty darn close):

Given a natural explanation for some observed phenomenon and given a supernatual explanation for the very same observation why should we be a)forced to choose between them as if they were competitors and b)forced to give preference to the naturalistic explanation? What is the justification for that competition and that preference? Or is it just someone's philosophical preference?

Comment by DonaldM — May 26, 2006 @ 12:49 am

DonaldM Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 1:25 am
Macht:

I think what today is called methodological naturalism actually has its roots in logical positivism and its denial of metaphysics. It isn't a feasible position anymore to hold that we require science to be free from all metaphysical principles so today it is restricted to the requirement that science be free from a subset of metaphysical principles (namely, religious ones). (This is why you see people saying things like the term "supernatural" isn't even meaningful.)

You touch on an interesting point here, Macht. What exactly is the root of MN?
As important a concept as MN seems to be, especially amongst Darwinians, you'd think its history, development, evolution and application as well as some philosophical justifications for it would be neatly spelled out in some comprehensive peer reviewed journal article, like Journal of the Philosophy of Science or something of that caliber. Well, try finding such an article. I've been running searches all over the place and can't seem to come up with all that much.

Even the history of the term 'methdological naturalism' isn't all that clear. Some think it was first used by Wheaton College Philosophy professor Paul DeVries back in a 1983 lecture later turned into an article 'Naturalism in the Natural Sciences,' Christian Scholar's Review 15 (1986), 388-96. A friend e-mailed me that De Vries distinguished between what he called 'methodological naturalism,' a disciplinary method that says nothing about God's existence, and 'metaphysical naturalism,' which 'denies the existence of a transcendent God. But, in the 1982 McLean v Arkansas case, Michael Ruse testified that MN was necessary for science. That would seem to pre-date DeVries. I need to see the transcript of Ruse's testimony to determine if Ruse actually used the phrase "methodological naturalism". If someone knows that for certain, I'd be most interested.

Irrespective of the origin of the phrase, the concept represented in MN has been around much longer. Another friend e-mailed me recently that you could trace it back to Descartes where he wrote:

"Even if in the beginning God had given the world only the form of a chaos, provided that he established the laws of nature and then lent his concurrence to enable nature to operate as it normally does, we may believe without impugning the miracle of creation that by this means alone all purely material things could in the course of time have come to be just as we now see them. And their nature is much easier to conceive if we see them develop gradually in this way than if we consider them only in their completed form."

And in another place:

"There is no doubt that all the world was created with all of its perfection from the very beginning . Nevertheless, to understand the nature of plants or of man, it is much better to consider how they can gradually develop from seeds, than to consider how they were created by God at the beginning of the Universe. Thus if we can think of a few very simple and easily known principles from which we can show that the stars and the earth, and everything else we can observe on earth, could have developed as if from seeds - although we know they did not in fact develop in this way - we could explain their nature much better in this way than if we simply described them as they are now, or how we believe they were created."

Others have argued that the concept represented in MN could be traced back to the Greeks, such as Epicurus. On the other hand, maybe Macht is right and MN has its roots in logical positivism. Whatever the truth of the matter, what does seem to be clear is that MN does not seem to have a very well defined history and use within science. It seems to be only in more recent times, perhaps since McLean v Arkansas, that defenders of Darwinism elevated MN to such a revered status within science, but never bothered to provide the philosophical case for it.

If someone has references to a more complete history or philosophical justification for MN, I'd love to see it. To be sure, there are some excellent refutations of the idea that MN is necessary for science. See, for example, this Del Ratzsch (again!) article Design Theory and Its Critics: Monologues Passing in the Night. While this article is actually a review of Robert Pennock's, Ed, et.al tome Intelligent Design Creationsim and Its Critics, Ratzch includes an excellent critique of MN within the article. Another such article is Alvin Plantinga's Methodological Naturalism Part 1 and Part 2.

For good measure, I'll throw in Plantinga's Naturalism Defeated. A good read for anyone interested.

Comment by DonaldM — May 26, 2006 @ 1:25 am

trrll Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 1:34 am
But the domain of science according to MN automatically places religious beliefs outside the domain of science (i.e. MN is religiously defined)

And I am saying that so-called "methodological naturalism" derives from the limitation of the scientific method to testable hypotheses. Historically, science has never defined itself by exclusion of religious explanations, but rather by the increased recognition of the crucial importance of falsifiable hypotheses. "Supernatural" is essentially a synonym for "untestable," in the sense that it denotes phenomena that are not constrained by natural laws (limitations), and hence cannot be used to derive strong predictions.

Comment by trrll — May 26, 2006 @ 1:34 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 4:18 am
Steve Petermann says:

From the dictionary:

What a lame argument! Oh, look, I've found one dictionary that reads as if science is religiously defined. Stop the presses everyone!

Try looking in another dictionary. Maybe.

How about Dictionary.com?

natÂ·uÂ·ralÂ·ism
# Philosophy. The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.
# Theology. The doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation.

Or Wikipedia?

Naturalism may refer to:

* Naturalism (philosophy), any of several philosophical stances wherein all phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural are either false, unknowable, or not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses
o Methodological naturalism is the belief that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes without assuming the existence or non-existence of the supernatural
o Metaphysical naturalism, the belief that the natural world is all that exists

(At the bottom of the page is the amusing aside: Naturalism should not be confused with naturism, which is related to nudism. Probably just as well for everyone that scientists have not confused the two! )

In fact, Wikipedia has an excellent set of pages on philosophical naturalism

Comment by Odd Digit — May 26, 2006 @ 4:18 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 5:14 am
bFast says:

Evolutionists happily fill in the gaps with "we haven't found the answer "” yet" rather than the scientific "we don't know".

It's the same answer. "We don't know" or it's exact equivalent: "We haven't found the answer" are what makes science so interesting. Both usually have a silent 'yet' hanging around. Filling up the 'yet' is why we do science.

Comment by Odd Digit — May 26, 2006 @ 5:14 am

Steve Petermann Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Daniel,

The problem is that MN, despite it's philosophical roots, is pragmatic in practice.

I agree with Mike that if the cardinal principal of science should be pragmaticism then why refer to MN at all?

By claiming that science is religiously defined, you're suggesting the opposite: that MN is maintained by dogmatic insistance.

I think the judge in Dover would agree that MN is dogmatically insisted upon in mainstream science.

Nothing could be further from the truth"¦ MN is maintained because it facilitates scientific progress.So it's not that science isn't allowed to include spiritual and supernatural explanations, it's that such explanations offer zero usefulness in describing the natural world.

But MN does disallow spiritual or supernatural explanations. Why not just let scientists do whatever they want? If they don't produce without the restriction of MN, they won't stay employed very long.

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 26, 2006 @ 8:41 am

trrll Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Or Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is an open "encyclopedia" that just about anybody can edit. It is actually pretty good on most subjects, but on some topics, especially controversial ones, it can be misleading. It should be regarded as a starting point for research, not as an authoritative source.

Comment by trrll — May 26, 2006 @ 8:44 am

Heaven is not the sky » Blog Archive » A “religious” definition of science? Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 8:49 am
[...] Steve Petermann, over at Telic Thoughts, wonders if science is being religiously defined: From the dictionary: [...]

Pingback by Heaven is not the sky » Blog Archive » A “religious” definition of science? — May 26, 2006 @ 8:49 am

Steve Petermann Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 9:16 am
trll,

And I am saying that so-called "methodological naturalism" derives from the limitation of the scientific method to testable hypotheses. Historically, science has never defined itself by exclusion of religious explanations, but rather by the increased recognition of the crucial importance of falsifiable hypotheses. "Supernatural" is essentially a synonym for "untestable," in the sense that it denotes phenomena that are not constrained by natural laws (limitations), and hence cannot be used to derive strong predictions.

String theory is not testable. Also how can you be sure that supernatural (I hate that word!) explanations aren't testable? Science does all sorts of tests regarding intelligence from human artifacts. Is it totally inconceavable that some features of an absolute mind cannot be discerned by science?

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 26, 2006 @ 9:16 am

Steve Petermann Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 9:27 am
Hi Odd Digit,

natÂ·uÂ·ralÂ·ism
# Philosophy. The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.

Ok but then to make this into a method one would have to parse out what "natural" means. Care to take shot? Can you do that without making metaphysical references?

Naturalism (philosophy), any of several philosophical stances wherein all phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural are either false, unknowable, or not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses

There's that pesky word "supernatural" again.

Methodological naturalism is the belief that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes without assuming the existence or non-existence of the supernatural

And again.

Metaphysical naturalism, the belief that the natural world is all that exists

Once again what does "natural world" mean?

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 26, 2006 @ 9:27 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Steve,

Ok but then to make this into a method one would have to parse out what "natural" means.

Do I understand from the above that you would like me to describe methodological naturalism to you without using the word natural?

Or are you looking for a definition of 'natural'. Is that one not in your dictionary?

Comment by Odd Digit — May 26, 2006 @ 9:48 am

macht Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 10:00 am
DonaldM,
You may want to take a look at Ronald Numbers' article "Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs" found in the book When Science and Christianity Meet. It has been discussed elsewhere at TT. It looks at the historical roots of MN, but I'm not sure of anything that discusses the history of the philosophical roots of MN, which is something I would like to see.

Comment by macht — May 26, 2006 @ 10:00 am

Steve Petermann Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 10:04 am
Odd Digit,

Or are you looking for a definition of 'natural'. Is that one not in your dictionary?

I checked some dictionaries and they all are either tautologies or just beg another question (i.e. physical, material, etc).

You seemed to be claiming that naturalism could be defined without reference to the supernatural. Most of the definitions you provided still refer to the supernatural. A couple of others refer to nature or natural. In order for the naturalism in MN to not be religiously defined a definition of "nature" or "naturalism" must be provided without metaphysical references. I'm asking if you can provide that?

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 26, 2006 @ 10:04 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 10:17 am
In this context:

Nature: everything that exists, i.e. all matter and energy.
Natural: of or relating to nature.

Comment by Odd Digit — May 26, 2006 @ 10:17 am

Deuce Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Nature: everything that exists, i.e. all matter and energy.

The "everything that exists" part is a metaphysical claim, so you've made a metaphysical reference. Do you mean, simply, "all matter and energy", such that anything that isn't matter or energy isn't natural?

Comment by Deuce — May 26, 2006 @ 10:26 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 10:40 am
The "everything that exists" part is a metaphysical claim, so you've made a metaphysical reference. Do you mean, simply, "all matter and energy", such that anything that isn't matter or energy isn't natural?

Is that a metaphysical claim? Depends on how you define metaphysical. And existance. And matter. And energy. Is there a point coming somewhere soon?

Copied from another thread not far from here:

Metaphysics, literal meaning 'beyond science'.

Also defined as: "A priori speculation upon questions that are unanswerable to scientific observation, analysis, or experiment."

And: "the term won a ready acceptance as denoting this part of philosophy because it conveyed the purpose of metaphysics, which is to reach beyond nature (physis) as we perceive it, and to discover the "true nature" of things, their ultimate essence and the reason for being."

Also: "A commonly employed usage of metaphysics includes a wide range of controversial phenomena believed by many people to exist beyond the physical."

Comment by Odd Digit — May 26, 2006 @ 10:40 am

chaosengineer Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 10:59 am
In order for the naturalism in MN to not be religiously defined a definition of "nature" or "naturalism" must be provided without metaphysical references.

How about something like: "Derivable from objective measurements and observations." The key word being "objective"…we can't do meaningful science if we can't come to an agreement on what the data is.

Right now religion is based on personal revelation and it's entirely subjective. If two people get different revelations then there's no way that either of them can convince the other. If we're lucky, then one day we'll figure out a way to objectively measure and communicate these revelations, and then we'll know which religion is the true one and we can incorporate it into our body of scientific knowledge. So by this definition "naturalism" doesn't necessarily exclude religion.

(I'm thinking that the answer lies in neuroscience. If we can understand the brain in enough detail, then we ought to be able to see what happens when someone has a religious experience. Does it "come from nowhere", or is it associated with a particular structure in the brain? Do the neurons in that structure fire deterministically based on physical causes, or is there extra energy coming from some unknown source? Obviously we don't have the technology to research this right now, but we could probably do it at some point in the future if no one has any moral objections.)

Comment by chaosengineer — May 26, 2006 @ 10:59 am

DonaldM Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:06 am
odddigit:

What a lame argument! Oh, look, I've found one dictionary that reads as if science is religiously defined. Stop the presses everyone!

Try looking in another dictionary. Maybe.

Odd D, did you read my post with the more in depth description of naturalism?
Most of what you're fretting about I discussed there.

Comment by DonaldM — May 26, 2006 @ 11:06 am

Deuce Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:08 am
Is that a metaphysical claim? Depends on how you define metaphysical. And existance. And matter. And energy. Is there a point coming somewhere soon?

Err… huh? I thought the point of your giving a definition of "nature" was to meet Steve's challenge of giving a definition of methodological naturalism that didn't make metaphysical references. I'm just pointing out that the claim "matter and energy are everything that exist", entailed by the possible definition you gave, hardly avoids making metaphysical references.

I'm just insisting on precision here, to avoid equivocations and stuff. If you're going to get mad and respond by playing dumb about the meaning of words like "exist", you should avoid philosophical discussion.

Comment by Deuce — May 26, 2006 @ 11:08 am

DonaldM Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Macht:

You may want to take a look at Ronald Numbers' article "Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs" found in the book When Science and Christianity Meet. It has been discussed elsewhere at TT. It looks at the historical roots of MN, but I'm not sure of anything that discusses the history of the philosophical roots of MN, which is something I would like to see.

Someone else had given me the same reference, so I am going to try to get that at the library. But you're right, what we really want to see are the philosophical roots and justifications. Where are they? As important as MN supposedly is, you'd think there would be lots of in depth philosophical discussions…but so far I can't find it. I'm still researching, though.

Comment by DonaldM — May 26, 2006 @ 11:09 am

Steve Petermann Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Odd Digit,

In this context:

Nature: everything that exists, i.e. all matter and energy.

If this is the definition used in MN there is really no problem invoking ID because "everything that exists" could include the designer. Since many physicists (including Heisenberg, Davies, Stapp and others) agree that "matter" and "energy" are abstractions created by science they also pose no problem for ID. Abstractions of absolute intelligence could just as easily be formulated.

Paul Davies in The Matter Myth:

Quantum mechanics enables us to relate different observations made on, say, an atom. the theory is to be regarded as a procedure for connecting these observations into some sort of consistent logical scheme — a mathematical algorithm. Use of the word "atom" is just an informal way of talking about that algorithm. It is a helpful means of encapsulating that abstract concept in physical language, but that does not mean that the atom is actually there as a well-defined entity with a complete set of physical attributes of its own, such as a definite location in space and a definite velocity through space.

and

Do atoms really exist? Does the ether really exist? The answers seem to be, respectively, "perhaps" and "probably not"; but science can never tell us.

Heisenberg:

In the experiments about atomic events we have to do with things and facts, with phenomena that are just as real as any phenonmena in daily life. But atoms or the elementary particles themselves are not as real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.

Berkeley phyicist Henry Stapp:

An important characteristic of this quantum conceptualization is that the substantive matter-like aspects, have dropped out. The theory is about: (1) abrupt events, each of which is tied to an experiential increment in knowledge; and (2) potentialities for such events to occur. Events are not substances, which, by definition, endure. And the potentialities have an "idea-like" character because they are like an "imagined" idea of what the future events might be, and they change abruptly when a new event occurs. Thus neither the events nor the potentialities have the ontological character the substantive matter of classical physics. Yet the predictions of quantum mechanics encompass all of the known successes of classical mechanics.

One could just as easily use Whitehead's terminology "occasions of experience" when discussing the fundamental level of reality.

So unless you are willing to go further with your definition I see no reason this type of MN would object to ID.

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 26, 2006 @ 11:17 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:19 am
Deuce says:

"matter and energy are everything that exist" - do you know of any evidence for the existance for anything else?

But whatever. Let's go for nature = "all matter and energy"

And methodological naturalism = "the methodological assumption that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes"

Comment by Odd Digit — May 26, 2006 @ 11:19 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Steve Petermann:

"everything that exists" could include the designer

Which designer? Apparently no-one has identified one. So his/her/its/their existance is a moot point, no?

Anyway, I'm happy to go with the "nature = all matter and energy" definition and leave existance to the philosophers.

Comment by Odd Digit — May 26, 2006 @ 11:22 am

Mung Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Some of us have the ability to think about design without hearing "God." I'm starting to think it is a gift.

A gift from God, or a gift of natural selection?

trrll:

It is rather the fact that science is limited to testable hypotheses, which requires the ability to make definite predictions, which if wrong would disprove the theory.

That would exclude much of evolutionary biology from science, so that cannot be correct.

Comment by Mung — May 26, 2006 @ 11:30 am

Deuce Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Hey macht,

It looks at the historical roots of MN, but I'm not sure of anything that discusses the history of the philosophical roots of MN, which is something I would like to see.

If I had to guess, I'd say that your earlier speculation, that MN is an offshoot of logical positivism, is probably correct. As an actual articulated philosophy, positivism has died out, because it contradicted its own claims, and ultimately couldn't be rationally defended, but that doesn't mean that the sentiment died. Probably the main drive behind MN is the idea that if the sentiment behind logical positivism can be kept around in the form of a methodology, then the practical implications of positivism can be preserved, without having to articulate and defend the philosophy itself. Of course, this still runs you into problems when it comes time to give a rationale, that isn't a non-sequiter, for why the methodology ought to be binding.

Comment by Deuce — May 26, 2006 @ 11:31 am

Steve Petermann Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Odd Digit,

Anyway, I'm happy to go with the "nature = all matter and energy" definition and leave existance to the philosophers.

Ok but unless you've got some response to the rest of my post and what the physicists are saying, it would appear that you should have no problem with ID falling safely within MN.

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 26, 2006 @ 11:32 am

Daniel Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Wow, a ton of comments since I last checked, I'll try to comment on those that link me directly…

bFast - thanks for mischaracterizing most of evolutionary biology in one fell swoop, without trying to actually understand the biological features you refer to. It's a shame I don't have time to go through all of them point by point.

MikeGene -

So there is some aspect of "naturalism" that that is not captured by pragmatism.

No, I'm saying that pragmatism is an extremely broad generalization, which covers many topics, science only being one aspect of it.

Changing topics, I can, however, conceive of ways to strengthen or weaken a design inference. But like I said, that's changing topics.

Yet an inference for a Designer will never be more than pure speculation until you actually find something to support the Designer's existence.

And you mention a distinction between God and the Designer. I personally don't care, except to point out that the existence of either is based upon Faith, and whichever we're talking about must have had deity-like abilities to fit into the ID paradigm.

Steve -

I think the judge in Dover would agree that MN is dogmatically insisted upon in mainstream science.

You're speculating on what's going on inside Judge Jones' head - he didn't address any such concern in his decision about the "dogma of MN." Not to mention I suspect that you're quite wrong: Judge Jones wouldn't likely have upheld the "centuries-old ground rule of science, ruling out supernatural explanations" if he thought MN was dogmatic.

But MN does disallow spiritual or supernatural explanations. Why not just let scientists do whatever they want? If they don't produce without the restriction of MN, they won't stay employed very long.

Yes, MN does disallow such explanations, but not for "just-so" or "dogmatic" reasons - such explanations are ruled out for very practical reasons (they're not confirmable nor deniable).

And although you weren't addressing me at the time, you said:

String theory is not testable. Also how can you be sure that supernatural (I hate that word!) explanations aren't testable?

But String Theory is testable, theoretically. The problem is we don't have the technology to observe or conduct experiments at such small length-scales, several orders of magnitude smaller than atoms, so we can test it theoretically, we just can't conduct the tests.

ID, in contrast, doesn't offer anything that we could ever conceivably test, measure, experimentally control, or otherwise study.

… I really wish I had more time to explore (and explain) these things further…

Comment by Daniel — May 26, 2006 @ 12:13 pm

Rock Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
"Faith in the possibility of science, generated antecedently to the development of modern scientific theory, is an unconscious derivative of medieval theology (Whitehead, A.N. 1925. Science and the Modern World. MacMillan. NY. p. 19.)."

Yeow!

Writing in 1925 one has to wonder just how much Whitehead knows about our "modern world" or "modern scientific theory." But the point about the "unconscious derivative" is even more true today. Contemporary scientists (and "philosophers of science") seem to be even more "unconscious" of the roots of modern science in an essentially religious (Even worse, medieval religious!) worldview.

And "faith" in science?! Uh, yeh. Science has nothing to do with "faith."

LOL "Modern science" is positively medieval! Literally and figuratively!

Comment by Rock — May 26, 2006 @ 12:42 pm

trrll Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
String theory is not testable.

I am impressed that while top theoretical physicists are still struggling with the extraordinarily mathematics of string theory and trying to figure out the limitations of what it predicts in order to derive ways of testing the theory, you have apparently already solved the math and proved that no tests exist. This is certainly a Nobel-prize caliber accomplishment! Where is this great achievement published?

Also how can you be sure that supernatural (I hate that word!) explanations aren't testable? Science does all sorts of tests regarding intelligence from human artifacts. Is it totally inconceavable that some features of an absolute mind cannot be discerned by science?

Testability arises from limitations–from what a theory cannot do. So as I wrote on another thread, I think that it is conceivable in principle that there could be a testable theory involving some kind of creator–one with limitations that make the theory testable. However, I'm not holding my breath for anybody to develop such a theory. Biologists don't see much need, since the existing theory seems to be working well and yielding great progress. In general, scientists are reluctant to add elaborations to a working theory until absolutely convinced that the theory will not work without them. And such a creator would be unlikely to be of much interest to the religiously motivated, who generally don't like their gods to be limited. Whether the term "supernatural" would be appropriate for such a hypothetical creator seems debatable, although that is essentially a matter of semantics. I would personally consider anything that exists, and that is limited by defined natural laws (i.e. that satisfies the scientific requirements for testability) as "natural."

Comment by trrll — May 26, 2006 @ 12:56 pm

Daniel Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Rock said:
Contemporary scientists (and "philosophers of science") seem to be even more "unconscious" of the roots of modern science in an essentially religious (Even worse, medieval religious!) worldview.

What do you base that opinion on? As a molecular biologist, that statement of yours sounds more like an outsider's ill-informed impression of scientists, as opposed to someone who's actually involved in scientific research…

Comment by Daniel — May 26, 2006 @ 1:14 pm

Rock Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
I'll take your (implied) advice and attempt to open my mind to scientific research.

Comment by Rock — May 26, 2006 @ 1:32 pm

bFast Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Let me put in my two-bits in support of Methodological Naturalism.

Science has taken on the challenge of figuring out how everything works. This challenge has been very fruitful. By continuing to ask the question "how does this work", and by continuing to look for a "cause" to everything, we have discovered a whole lot about the universe and all that is in it.

Now, there are two possibilities as to how it all came about:

1 - God did it. If this is so, then God is a very mechanistic thinker, or the amount of mechanism we have found would not have been available to find. If God actually had done it in 6 days about 6,000 years ago, then what we would have found surely would have been much different. It seems, therefore that if God did it, God is an extremely patient and logically oriented entity.

2 - It just happened. The big problem with "it just happened" is that everything we know says that everything that happens had a cause. We now understand that the universe had a very distinct beginning. The state of the art in physics is that time itself had a very distinct beginning. We have bumped squarely into the issue of first cause. Of course there are a bunch of untestable hypotheses flying around trying to deal with the first cause issue. They all seem like wild attempts to avoid going where the data leads, to God.

So lets consider the "God did it" perspective. What we do know about God did it, is that there is all sorts of very logical cause-effect activity within this "God did it". If we take our eyes off of the cause-effect activity, and focus on God, we tend to miss perfectly good cause-effect activity, perfectly valid scientific knowlege. In truth, the longer I look at the miriad of cause-effect phenomenon in the universe, the more I think that a realistic abiogenesis may be found, that a realistic explanation for the cambrian explosion may be found, that all of biology may be the simple result of a universe engineered from the big bang to create life as we know it. If so, then the only evidence for God that will ever be discovered by science is the antropic principal. This position is, of course, a thiestic evolutionary position. However, if theistic evolution is correct, let us discover it! If we are too quick to say "it is dynamically engineered", we will miss a lot of knowledge, a lot of knowledge about the God who made this precisely tuned universe.

The flip side of this coin, of course, is that we may eventually run into the limits of methodological naturalism, we may eventually be forced to conclude that RM+NS (with sub-theories) doesn't explain it. Because of this, we can never be sure that any gaps in the knowledge derived from MN will ever be filled. Some of these gaps may truly be the product of the hand of God. The only way to find out, however, is to play the MN card as hard as we can. Yet we must never make the leap of assuming that the MN card will produce results — maybe the next time MN will find its limit.

To over-extend the MN card, assuming that MN will find results the next time, is to move into philisophical naturalism. Science needs to avoid philisophical naturalis like the plague!

Comment by bFast — May 26, 2006 @ 1:38 pm

Daniel Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
bFast wrote:

The flip side of this coin, of course, is that we may eventually run into the limits of methodological naturalism, we may eventually be forced to conclude that RM+NS (with sub-theories) doesn't explain it. Because of this, we can never be sure that any gaps in the knowledge derived from MN will ever be filled. Some of these gaps may truly be the product of the hand of God. The only way to find out, however, is to play the MN card as hard as we can. Yet we must never make the leap of assuming that the MN card will produce results "” maybe the next time MN will find its limit.

Uh, I know you're trying to look at both sides here, but you're missing some details when you consider the MN side. Namely, RM+NS has explained an astronomical amount of observations since it was first suggested in the 19th Century, and we've yet to come to a tangible piece of evidence that controverts it, we've only found that we haven't found everything, don't know everything, etc. Further, evolutionary biology has filled in gap after gap after gap over the last 150 years, so saying "we can never be sure that any gaps in the knowledge derived from MN will ever be filled" just reeks of ignorance.

The only limit of MN is that there'll always be something else to find out - we'll never know everything, you know.

Comment by Daniel — May 26, 2006 @ 2:04 pm

MikeGene Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Daniel:

Yet an inference for a Designer will never be more than pure speculation until you actually find something to support the Designer's existence.

If what you say is true, then so be it. Yet I have never heard a good reason why the designer-centric approach is the One True Way.

And you mention a distinction between God and the Designer. I personally don't care,

Then you are an exception. Many others seem obsessed on this relationship.

except to point out that the existence of either is based upon Faith, and whichever we're talking about must have had deity-like abilities to fit into the ID paradigm.

Wrong "“ a designer with "deity-like abilities" is not needed to fit into my "ID paradigm."

Comment by MikeGene — May 26, 2006 @ 2:37 pm

Steve Petermann Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Hi bFast,

So lets consider the "God did it" perspective. What we do know about God did it, is that there is all sorts of very logical cause-effect activity within this "God did it". If we take our eyes off of the cause-effect activity, and focus on God, we tend to miss perfectly good cause-effect activity, perfectly valid scientific knowlege.

I don't think it has to be either/or. It seems to me there is plenty of room in science for both the telic and atelic minded. If a telic minded scientist say like Behe thinks that its a waste of time to look for direct Darwinian evolutionary steps that created the flagellum and move on to something he thinks would be more fruitful, so what? If he's right then a lot of time has been saved for more fruitful explorations. If he's wrong then there are plenty of others who will look for those pathways.

I can't imagine any scientist worth her/his salt who is just going to throw up their hands, say "God did it", and then just sit there. I just think scientists should not be dictated to by some establishment on how they should proceed in discovery or penalized (a priori) for their methods. After all it's their necks if they don't produce.

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 26, 2006 @ 2:52 pm

Mung Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
RM+NS has explained an astronomical amount of observations since it was first suggested in the 19th Century, and we've yet to come to a tangible piece of evidence that controverts it, we've only found that we haven't found everything, don't know everything, etc. Further, evolutionary biology has filled in gap after gap after gap over the last 150 years, so saying "we can never be sure that any gaps in the knowledge derived from MN will ever be filled" just reeks of ignorance.

I guess it all depends on what you are willing to accept as an explanation. Some people I guess think that RM+NSdidit is a better explanation than goddidit. Personally I don't see the difference. We find no evidence that controverts RM+NS because it's incontrovertible. It's nearly as incontrovertible as goddidit, but not quite.

And all these gaps were filled by explanations of how RM+NSdidit? I think not. I'll tell you what reeks of ignorance, and that's trying to shoehorn everything into RM+NSdidit.

Comment by Mung — May 26, 2006 @ 3:42 pm

Daniel Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
MikeGene wrote:

If what you say is true, then so be it. Yet I have never heard a good reason why the designer-centric approach is the One True Way.

It's simple - ID suggests, on the absense of evidence (aka "Gaps") that a Designer must exist, and such a suggestion merely posits the theoretical existence of such an entity, right? That's not much to go on, especially considering that the existence of such an entity is completely outside of the realm of observable, measureable and reproducable human experience.

And even such gaps were something substantial, the next question would be regarding the Designer, right?

Wrong "“ a designer with "deity-like abilities" is not needed to fit into my "ID paradigm."

Yet how could any entity introduce "irreducibly complex" structures without a trace, and still remain confined within the natural laws of the universe. As far as I can see, the Designer would have to bend the rules of the Universe to accomplish such feats as IDers have suggested.

Comment by Daniel — May 26, 2006 @ 3:47 pm

Daniel Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Mung said:

I guess it all depends on what you are willing to accept as an explanation. Some people I guess think that RM+NSdidit is a better explanation than goddidit. Personally I don't see the difference. We find no evidence that controverts RM+NS because it's incontrovertible. It's nearly as incontrovertible as goddidit, but not quite.

Clearly, you haven't read too many journal articles on evolutionary biology.

Comment by Daniel — May 26, 2006 @ 3:48 pm

Daniel Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Oh, Mung, just for an example of RM+NS and descent with modification (over a short, one month, timespan), check out the paper I discuss here.

Sorry for the multiple postings.

Comment by Daniel — May 26, 2006 @ 3:50 pm

trrll Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Contemporary scientists (and "philosophers of science") seem to be even more "unconscious" of the roots of modern science in an essentially religious (Even worse, medieval religious!) worldview.

Some are interested in that history, some are not. It's not all that relevant to the modern process of science, because science as a discipline has developed, resulting in a great explosion of technological and scientific progress. One can find a lot of things back in the "roots of science" that are nonsensical, such as astrology, numerology, alchemy. They may have been immensely important to the development of science, in that they got people started making the observations that ultimately led most scientist to realize that they are nonsense. But do modern astronomy and chemistry, you don't really need to know anything at all about astrology and alchemy.

Comment by trrll — May 26, 2006 @ 4:14 pm

bFast Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Daniel:

Further, evolutionary biology has filled in gap after gap after gap over the last 150 years, so saying "we can never be sure that any gaps in the knowledge derived from MN will ever be filled" just reeks of ignorance.

Again, you fail to grasp the need to hold dogidly to the childlike wide-eyed wonder about what will come around the next corner. Once you have crossed the line into philisophical naturalism, which you clearly have, the wonder is gone.

Daniel, you discuss gaps as 'we haven't figured that out yets'. The gaps presented by Behe, Irreduceable Complexity, are gaps which his calculations show are not reasonably crossable by RM+NS. If we use Dawkins' metaphore of "Climbing Mount Improbable". RM+NS requires a path up mount improbable that contains no cliffs! Behe has suggested that he has found a bunch of cliffs with no path around them. This is an RM+NS stopper. "RM+NS did it," without good evidence that RM+NS actually could realistically do it, is a religious leap of faith!!

Comment by bFast — May 26, 2006 @ 5:26 pm

bFast Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Daniel, thanks for the link to ResearchID.org

Comment by bFast — May 26, 2006 @ 5:35 pm

Farshad Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
The main problem regarding scientific methods is the pre-commitment to a belief system which ignores supernatural events. Instead of trying to explain them using scientific methods they prefer denial. Can scientists develope tools to detect supernatural events? Yes, but first of all they must become open-minded and give it a try!
For instance there are methods developed for aura-imaging. The quantum physics leads us to circumtances where particles behave in a weird way and the reality behaves totally different than what we used to experience. The effect of will power to control and decrease the level of entropy in a closed system could be observed and measured by scientific methods. Putting all of these togather it becomes evident that the supernatural can be measured using scientific methods. However, many scientists will never take such findings seriously because their materialistic defenition for science has blinded them to the supernatural, no matter if they can observe it using scientific methods or not.

Comment by Farshad — May 26, 2006 @ 5:52 pm

MikeGene Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Daniel:

It's simple - ID suggests, on the absense of evidence (aka "Gaps") that a Designer must exist, and such a suggestion merely posits the theoretical existence of such an entity, right?

That you personally cannot take your eyes off the designer is not a compelling proof that the designer-centric approach is the One True Way.

That's not much to go on, especially considering that the existence of such an entity is completely outside of the realm of observable, measureable and reproducable human experience.

Lucky for us that design and intelligence are not outside of the realm of observable, measureable and reproducable human experience.

And even such gaps were something substantial, the next question would be regarding the Designer, right?

You are projecting your designer-centric approach on me. That's not the next question in my mind.

Yet how could any entity introduce "irreducibly complex" structures without a trace, and still remain confined within the natural laws of the universe.

I see. So if some form of intelligence designed the first cells over 3500000000 years ago, we should have a videotape of the designer caught in the act? Do you have a suggestion as to where we might look for this tape?

As far as I can see, the Designer would have to bend the rules of the Universe to accomplish such feats as IDers have suggested.

If you are going to argue with me, you need to take issue with what I have suggested.

Comment by MikeGene — May 26, 2006 @ 5:54 pm

trrll Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
The gaps presented by Behe, Irreduceable Complexity, are gaps which his calculations show are not reasonably crossable by RM+NS. If we use Dawkins' metaphore of "Climbing Mount Improbable". RM+NS requires a path up mount improbable that contains no cliffs! Behe has suggested that he has found a bunch of cliffs with no path around them.

There is no "calculation" that one can do to determine whether the cliffs are crossable. Behe presumes that he is at least as clever as evolution and can foresee all possible paths (although in computer experiments, search methods based on natural selections often discover paths to problem solutions that brilliant humans have missed). And in fact, plausible paths have already been proposed by other scientists to bypass all of Behe's "cliffs." Are they the right paths? This will require more research to test out whether the proposed paths actually work. Such research is now beginning to be done–and unsurprisingly, it is being done by people who expect that such paths probably exist, not those who presume that they do not.

Comment by trrll — May 26, 2006 @ 6:20 pm

trrll Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
The main problem regarding scientific methods is the pre-commitment to a belief system which ignores supernatural events. Instead of trying to explain them using scientific methods they prefer denial. Can scientists develope tools to detect supernatural events? Yes, but first of all they must become open-minded and give it a try!

It's not as if people haven't tried. There's the PEAR project at Princeton. Unfortunately, the supernatural seems to have an unfortunate tendency to evaporate in the light of scientific investigation. The effects that are reported have a nasty tendency to hover on the edge of statistical significance or turn out to be unrepeatable by other laboratories. In the absence of clear successes of this approach, scientists are hardly flocking to the field.

Comment by trrll — May 26, 2006 @ 7:27 pm

MatthewCromer Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 8:03 pm
It's not as if people haven't tried. There's the PEAR project at Princeton. Unfortunately, the supernatural seems to have an unfortunate tendency to evaporate in the light of scientific investigation. The effects that are reported have a nasty tendency to hover on the edge of statistical significance or turn out to be unrepeatable by other laboratories.

It's the nature of every branch of science that experiments are not always replicable on demand by every researcher. Absolutely true when the research involves psychological research with human subjects of any sort. Sports teams win far more games at home with a supportive crowd versus away games when facing a hostile throng.

That is why when investigating complex, multivariate phenomena such as medical research or psi phenomena, we use statistical meta-analysis of all the studies, not just those who are proponents or opponents of a particular finding.

As for "hovering on the edge of statistical significance", anyone who makes that claim is simply ignorant of the evidence, or else deliberately misleading. And there's that useless word: "supernatural", again. Sigh.

Comment by MatthewCromer — May 26, 2006 @ 8:03 pm

Steve Petermann Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
I just had another thought. If science is religiously defined doesn't that mean that teaching science in public schools is unconstitutional?

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 26, 2006 @ 8:50 pm

Daniel Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
bFast:

Again, you fail to grasp the need to hold dogidly to the childlike wide-eyed wonder about what will come around the next corner. Once you have crossed the line into philisophical naturalism, which you clearly have, the wonder is gone.

Daniel, you discuss gaps as 'we haven't figured that out yets'. The gaps presented by Behe, Irreduceable Complexity, are gaps which his calculations show are not reasonably crossable by RM+NS. If we use Dawkins' metaphore of "Climbing Mount Improbable". RM+NS requires a path up mount improbable that contains no cliffs! Behe has suggested that he has found a bunch of cliffs with no path around them. This is an RM+NS stopper. "RM+NS did it," without good evidence that RM+NS actually could realistically do it, is a religious leap of faith!!

Where did I "cross the line into philosophical naturalism"

Yes, I'm familiar with Behe. I graduated from Lehigh's Bio dept., actually, so I'm very familiar with him. What you miss, however, is that Behe has no such calculations, no experimental demonstration of irreducible complexity, no peer-reviewed support of such claims. Claims about "mount improbable" are an illusion - as Bridgham et al.'s recent paper on evolution of Hormone-Receptor Evolution by Molecular Exploitation, or a number of other recent papers document, when studied in detail, the likelihood of manuveuring the biophysical landscape of protein evolution becomes downright probable. Further, Behe (with Snokes) tried to demonstrate "mount improbable," and only found mount probable.

Regarding ResearchID.org, I'm glad you don't mind me criticizing the "Intelligent Cells" "crackpot-ery".

Farshad said:

The main problem regarding scientific methods is the pre-commitment to a belief system which ignores supernatural events. Instead of trying to explain them using scientific methods they prefer denial.

You're confused. The inference that a "Designer did it" is not seeking to explain supernatural phenomena in natural terms, it's explaining natural phenomena in supernatural terms. The explanation itself is the supernatural.

MikeGene said:

That you personally cannot take your eyes off the designer is not a compelling proof that the designer-centric approach is the One True Way.

Nice try. Let's try re-phrasing the point: either (1) the inference is rock-solid and based upon solid evidence (it isn't, but whatever), and the next question becomes "so who is this Designer fellow?"; or (2) the inference is baseless, and the conclusion (the Designer) is empty handwaiving. Either way, discussion of the Designer's existence or non-existence must come up at some point.

I see. So if some form of intelligence designed the first cells over 3500000000 years ago, we should have a videotape of the designer caught in the act? Do you have a suggestion as to where we might look for this tape?

Oh come now. Many of the irreducibly complex structures that Behe and other IDers point to are far more recent than 3.5bya, and smack-dab in the middle of some of the major events of evolution of complex life, so I know darn well you (or ID in general, at least), aren't talking about the first cells.

Comment by Daniel — May 26, 2006 @ 9:35 pm

MikeGene Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Daniel:

Oh come now. Many of the irreducibly complex structures that Behe and other IDers point to are far more recent than 3.5bya, and smack-dab in the middle of some of the major events of evolution of complex life, so I know darn well you (or ID in general, at least), aren't talking about the first cells.

It would probably help if you familiarized yourself with MikeGene ID.

Comment by MikeGene — May 26, 2006 @ 9:52 pm

Daniel Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
MikeGene,
Thanks for the clarification, and sorry for mistaking your views. Although I've been reading your blog for quite a while, I still tend to forget that your views are very atypical for an IDist.

How do you distinguish between ID and "theistic evolution," then? Either way, it sounds like you accept much of evolution, with an anthropomorphic spin. (Just curious)

Comment by Daniel — May 26, 2006 @ 11:14 pm

trrll Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:29 pm
It's the nature of every branch of science that experiments are not always replicable on demand by every researcher.

A fruitful research direction tends to have a characteristic trajectory. Early on, it is often the case that only a few researchers can get the experiments to "work," but as the work goes on the variables begin to be understood, until it is possible to describe experimental conditions well enough that the work is replicable by almost any decent researcher. There is also a characteristic trajectory of research directions that peter out without any real progress–even after years of work, only a few labs can get positive results. Others try, waste time and money, fail to reproduce the results, and move on with nothing to show for their efforts. After a while, nobody wants to enter the field. The general assumption becomes that the positive results are the result of some unidentified artifact or error in the analysis.

As for meta-analysis, it can sometimes be useful in the absence of well-designed studies with adequate statistical power, but it is also subject to inherent bias due to the fact that positive results are more likely to be reported than negative. If the original studies have some sort of bias (and there are many subtle ways in which even honest scientists can accidentally introduce statistical biases into their results), meta-analysis can amplify that bias. There have been a number of cases where metaanalysis has turned out to be misleading. Meta-analysis is the sort of thing that people are willing to accept early on, but if after a number of years it is still not possible to demonstrate clear results without resorting to meta-analysis, people start to suspect that the investigators are on the wrong track.

Comment by trrll — May 26, 2006 @ 11:29 pm

MatthewCromer Says:
May 26th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
Meta-analysis is the sort of thing that people are willing to accept early on, but if after a number of years it is still not possible to demonstrate clear results without resorting to meta-analysis, people start to suspect that the investigators are on the wrong track.

Meta analysis is the only acceptable technique for examining complex multivariate phenomena such as determining the effectiveness of medical treatment. Meta analysis can easily correct for file drawer problems — see Radin's Entangled Minds for more details. And you cannot compare a repeatable experiment in physics or chemistry with a psychology experiment!

As for psi phenomena, the majority of researchers and labs acheive significant, positive results, only a minority are unsuccessful. And we are not even talking about psi "in the field", where the natural history of the phenomenon is massive and unimpeachable.

Comment by MatthewCromer — May 26, 2006 @ 11:40 pm

Odd Digit Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 6:35 am
Steve Peterman says:

Ok but unless you've got some response to the rest of my post and what the physicists are saying, it would appear that you should have no problem with ID falling safely within MN.

If your designer is natural (and the only one of those I know about is humans), then sure, intelligent design falls safely within MN. If your designer remains curiously unidentified then we can't tell if it/she/him/them are natural or not. In the absence of a candidate for a natural designer of the bacterial flagellum, we can't study the purported 'design' of the bacterial flagellum using MN.

So, Steve, who is your candidate for the Intelligent Designer of the bacterial flagellum?

Comment by Odd Digit — May 27, 2006 @ 6:35 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 6:42 am
Thinking about this topic as a whole for a moment. It's become so commonplace now to see topics discussing religion on pro-ID blogs that I've actually become used to it.

It's strange, because ID is 'supposed' to be science. And here we have ID supporters arguing that actually science is religion. Also on this blog we have 'evolution is ideology and requires belief' and 'evolution is inherently atheistic' which are also contradictory arguments. (Atheism is the absence of belief for those who don't appear to know).

So, which is it? Is science religion? Is ID science? If science is religion, wouldn't that make ID religion too? Is ID religion? Is evolution ideology? Is evolution atheism?

You'd think someone somewhere in the ID movement might have just straightened all this out before getting started…

Comment by Odd Digit — May 27, 2006 @ 6:42 am

MatthewCromer Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 7:20 am
(Atheism is the absence of belief for those who don't appear to know).

Snort!

Comment by MatthewCromer — May 27, 2006 @ 7:20 am

MikeGene Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 8:49 am
Is science religion?

No

Is ID science?

No.

If science is religion, wouldn't that make ID religion too?

I guess so.

Is ID religion?

No.

Is evolution ideology?

No.

Is evolution atheism?

No.

You'd think someone somewhere in the ID movement might have just straightened all this out before getting started"¦

Your mistake is in viewing everyone who posts on a blog as being part of some monolithic movement that takes orders from above. I'd say we're all a bunch of people who share only one thing in common "“ we like to argue about this topic and the Internet has provided us the perfect opportunity and means. That would even include you.

Comment by MikeGene — May 27, 2006 @ 8:49 am

trrll Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Meta analysis is the only acceptable technique for examining complex multivariate phenomena such as determining the effectiveness of medical treatment.

This is nonsense. In the medical field, what has become the gold standard–because of its greatest reliability–is large, well-controlled studies with a uniform methodology and sufficient statistical power to detect an effect if one exists. Meta-analysis is a statistical "trick" used to extract conclusions from multiple studies that individually lack sufficient power. Unfortunately, due to inherent biases, the validity of conclusions obtained from meta-analysis is often questionable, but it can be a useful guide to future research.

As for psi phenomena, the majority of researchers and labs acheive significant, positive results, only a minority are unsuccessful.

This is meaningless, due to the same kind of inherent bias that afflicts meta-analysis. People don't like to beat their heads against the wall, so people who don't obtain positive results do not long remain in a field and often do not publish their results. So even if an effect is bogus, you will often find that most people in the area are reporting positive results. A better indicator of whether a field is healthy is whether it is growing: people are entering the field in increasing numbers, and the number of publications–especially in broad, general interest journals, rather than specialty journals devoted to the field–is increasing exponentially.

Of course, there may really be a phenomenon. The problem is that there is no well-defined physical mechanism (which is, of course, what leads others to apply the oxymoron, "supernatural"). Without a mechanistic theory that makes strong predictions, researchers are largely flailing around in the dark. There are examples where a field will suddenly explode. For example, quantum entanglement has gone from being an oddity on the fringes of physics to a hot area of research and the basis for new techonologies. But in such cases there is usually a well-defined mechanistic theory to guide the research.

Comment by trrll — May 27, 2006 @ 9:17 am

Steve Petermann Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Odd Digit,

It's strange, because ID is 'supposed' to be science. And here we have ID supporters arguing that actually science is religion.

If you do a search on this thread for "science is religion" you'll find that you are the only one who made that statement.

Quite to the contrary, my assertion was that if MN is used to define science then it is very strange that it must use religious language to do so.

So, Steve, who is your candidate for the Intelligent Designer of the bacterial flagellum?

I've never been coy about this. You can go here to find out.

Comment by Steve Petermann — May 27, 2006 @ 9:24 am

Mung Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Mung:

We find no evidence that controverts RM+NS because it's incontrovertible.

Daniel:

Clearly, you haven't read too many journal articles on evolutionary biology.

What would I be looking for? Evidence that controverts RM+NS?

just for an example of RM+NS and descent with modification (over a short, one month, timespan), check out the paper I discuss here.

You seem to be missing my point, and thus making my point.

Comment by Mung — May 27, 2006 @ 9:41 am

Daniel Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 11:15 am
Mung,
I don't think we're "on the same page" here. I'm taking your use of the word "incontrovertable" as claim that evolutionary theory is "just-so" dogma, and that no amount of evidence in the world would falsify it. Such views severely misunderstand the entirety of the last 150+ years of biology.

The reason why we find no evidence controverting RM+NS is not because no evidence could exist, it's that over 150+ years, evolution has been scrutinized with a fine-tooth comb from every conceivable angle, and RM+NS remains by far the most plausible mechanistic explanation for the observable patterns of life on Earth.

The article I described in "Evolution in a bottle" puts the biophysical evolution of a single protein in a large bacterial population to the test, and observes the molecular mechanisms of NS, given a RM background. In it, the pattern of observed mutations that are selected reflect Descent With Modification, not sudden shifts in amino acid sequence designed for molecular perfection, as the fermentator's temperature was gradually raised in the experiment (raising the conditionally selective pressures).

Such is just one experiment. There are thousands upon thousands of such experiments across a broad range of biological sub-disciplines supporting such findings. So as in the course of all scientific theories, Evolution has been tested (to be confirmed or falsified) many, many times, and consistently confirmed.

So Evolution isn't "incontrovertable," it's repeatedly confirmed.

Comment by Daniel — May 27, 2006 @ 11:15 am

Odd Digit Says:
May 27th, 2006 at 11:27 am
I've never been coy about this. You can go here to find out.

Interesting site. I enjoyed this bit:

Biological artifacts are of such incredible