Stumble it!Methodological Naturalism is not like Baseball
posted in Creationism, Science by themaiden |Paul Nelson has a well written article up at IDtheFuture, “Ron Numbers, Methodological Naturalism, and the Rules of Baseball”. He is engaging and readable, and, I think, sincere, but the article rests upon one basic, and flawed, idea, summarized best in the last few paragraphs of the article.
Not a word from Howard Stein about the necessity of methodological naturalism. Russell’s “comparatively detailed considerations” were evidential, not in-principle, and naturalism as a provisional epistemology would work only if evidence, not metaphysics, were running the show.
Because naturalism — the ultimate causal sufficiency of autonomous physical laws — might be false. The best way to discover its actual strength, therefore, is not to assume naturalism’s truth without challenge, but to let other contenders into the field of play. Ordinary testability is more than enough as a ground rule for science.
Unless one wants to win, no matter what the evidence. In that case, make methodological naturalism an in-principle stricture on scientific reasoning.
Rig the game, in other words.
Intelligent Design the Future: Ron Numbers, Methodological Naturalism, and the Rules of Baseball
Rig the game? Like most who complain about methodological naturalism, Nelson misrepresents, or perhaps does not himself understand, its logical underpinnings. Its lines were not drawn arbitrarily. It is not like baseball and changing the rules does not mean that one simply plays a different game. In a very real sense, changing the rules means that there is no game to play. That is, changing the rules leads to a game where it is impossible to sort the winners from the losers, where it is impossible to sort fact from fiction. Really, he is making the same mistake made by Alvin Plantinga in a recent article, so I guess there is consolation in the company.
I’ve addressed the subject many time in the past so I am quoting myself here, with emphasis added.
What does that mean? Well, science is based upon the idea that we mere humans answer questions about nature by appeal to other things in nature. That is, we answer questions by appeal to our senses. By asking scientists to remove the ‘naturalistic bias’ the creationists are asking scientists to allow answers that appeal to things we CAN NOT see, hear, smell, touch, taste or in any other wise detect. Now, the creationists of course need this concession if their theories involving God are going to even be allowed in the door, and at first quick glance it seems a bit unfair to rule things out at the onset. But it only takes a few seconds reflection to realize the problem.
If we remove the ‘naturalistic bias’—the insistence that elements of our theory be detectable in some way—then anything I make up stands on equal footing with anything you or anyone else makes up. There is no way at all to test the various ideas. It is the final stop on the truth-is-relative train ride. Everyone believes what they want. Truth becomes meaningless. This consequence can’t really be avoided.
What does it mean that scientists have a naturalistic bias?
What scientists do is attempt to explain the world in terms of things which humans can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell, via some means biological or technological. In its simplistic incarnation this is what every parent teaches his or her child as that child grows up. “What you make up is not real.” If your child is afraid of a monster under the bed, you tell the child to look and see if the monster is there. You are, in effect, teaching that child the same naturalistic bias that ‘plagues’ science.
In other words, science is biased toward things, explanations, for which we have evidence and against explanations for which there is no possible way we can have evidence—that is, against explanations, or components of explanations, we cannot see, feel, taste, hear, or smell. Remove this restriction, remove this ‘naturalistic’ bias, and anything that anyone can imagine becomes a viable explanation Why does the sun burn? Zeus has bad gas and Hera lights his farts to get even with him for that shape-shifting philandering. Without recourse to something tangible, without forcing the teller of the tale to provide physical evidence, that is a perfectly fine explanation It is only those with a ‘naturalistic’ bias that can’t see the truth of Zeus’ gastrointestinal problems.
Is evolution as scientific as the Earth revolving around the sun?
There are really only two options. On the one hand, one can base reasoning upon things that can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. That option is called empiricism. Empiricism provides one with a means by which to check answers. Arguments can be settled by simply looking for evidence. On the other hand, one has any of several approaches to knowledge which do not require that evidence be of the kind that can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, or smelled. That is, in these other approaches, evidence is not required at all. The result is a situation where any flight of imagination is on par with any other flight of imagination, and there is no way to sort out differences. To what can one appeal for clarification if not the tangible? To a prophet? How does one sort the true prophet from the sham if not by tangible evidence? To a holy book? How does one sort the good book from the bad? This is the philosophical question upon which science rests, “Do we want to base our knowledge upon evidence, or not?” By not properly explaining the ‘philosophical question’ Wieseltier leaves the impression that science is one of several equally reasonable approaches to knowledge. It really isn’t. Science is the one hand that requires evidence; other approaches are evidence-less, and lacking evidence, are eternally divorced from any meaningful conception of ‘true’ or ‘false’. Anything goes in those worlds. Wieselter does not mention this consequence of abandoning science’s ‘philosophical’ bent.
Now, as a six year old I invoked an unseen entity—the thing under the bed—and refused to go to sleep. I was told, by my devout parents, to look under the bed. I looked. They looked. They told me, apparently not realizing the implications for their faith, that if I couldn’t see it or hear it or touch it, then it isn’t there and can’t hurt me. The theory of evolution, like all of science, is an attempt to explain things that we can see, touch, taste, hear, or smell in terms of things we can see, touch, hear, taste or smell. There is a world of difference between the two. Granted, science does insist upon tangible evidence, evidence that can be seen, felt, heard, tasted, or smelled, but there is a reason for this. People realized centuries ago that only tangibles can be verified. Everything else is subject to whim. Intangibles, in other words, are all created equal. What I imagine is equal to what anyone else imagines so long as they are both intangible. Zeus is equal to Kali. Kali is equal to Allah. Allah is equal to Christ. And Christ is equal to talking gnomes that only I can perceive, and there is no way to sort out the mess. There is nothing to serve as arbiter. There is no evidence upon which a person can call. Intangibles do not leave evidence. This insistence upon evidence is not, therefore, a doctrine as Rosenblum claims but it is the only option for rational thought, the only option that allows for rational thought. Remove the condition for evidence and humanity is trapped in make-believe.
PZ Myers, at Pharyngula, has alsoaddresses similar issues in Nelson’s post, and the comments are well worth reading as well. Of special note is a comment which reminded me of something I nearly forgot to mention.
We need to be careful in explaining science to point out that it makes no assumptions about the nature of nature. Science does not have some preliminary rule that leaves gods and ghosts and things that go bump in the night out of its domain. Science goes wherever empirical investigation takes it. If there is something that leaves no evidence of its existence, that is not science’s fault. The gods are shy about revealing themselves. Or rather, their believers go to great lengths to imagine the gods are this way, since the gaps get ever smaller.
This is an important point. Science, or methodological naturalism even, does not rule out things like gods. What is does rule out is intangibles. Intangibles are meaningless. Provide some tangible evidence for gods or for a God, and science will be right there with you.
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