An Analogy That Isn’t
Here’s something I don’t get. Or maybe I do get it and just think it’s silly. One of those. It’s from an article by Michael Ruse in Robert Pennock’s collection Intelligent Design Creationism and its Critics, “Methodological Naturalism under Attack,” page 365. Ruse is making the distinction (which featured heavily in the Kitzmiller trial) between metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism; he’s making the distinction and explaining it and arguing for it.
This is not to say that God did not have a role in the creation, but simply that, qua science, that is qua an enterprise formed through the practice of methodological naturalism, science has no place for talk of God. Just as, for instance, if one were to go to the doctor one would not expect any advice on political matters, so if one goes to a scientist one does not expect any advice on or reference to theological matters.
Just as? Just as? I think not. Not just as at all, I would say. Because claims about God are claims that God is real and really exists. They may (or may not) be metaphysical claims, but they are pretty much always truth-claims about God; the claims may include the stipulation that God is supernatural, outside time and space, but since they mostly also include claims about the way God creates or acts on this world, that stipulation seems a tad half-hearted. Especially when it comes to fans of ID, which is Ruse’s subject matter. The whole point of the ID God is that it designed the universe and the earth and wonderful us. So – that means the doctor analogy is an absurd analogy. It is not the case that science is to theology as medicine is to politics. Theology is about is, politics is about ought. You can always define God (and hence theology) as supernatural and metaphysical but in that case no one has anything to say about it, including theologians – it is by definition out of reach and unknowable. But if it is within reach and knowable, then it’s accessible to anyone who looks. Theologians don’t get special technical training that enables them to find God (how to use a special kind of microscope perhaps, or a special microtelescope), they don’t learn research methods and equipment-use that no one else knows, nor do they learn magic tricks. So it’s just bizarre to say that scientists have nothing to say about God while at the same time pretending that other people do have something to say about God. That involves pretending there is some kind of expertise or special knowledge that scientists don’t have. There is no such expertise or knowledge. That box is empty.
The physician may indeed have very strong political views, which one may or may not share. But the politics are irrelevant to the medicine. Similarly, the scientist may or may not have very strong theological views, which one may or may not share. But inasmuch as one is going to the scientist for science, theology can and must be ruled out as irrelevant.
But how can it be irrelevant unless the theology in question concerns something that is wholly outside the natural world and thus inaccessible to human investigation altogether? How? They want to have it both ways; that’s the problem. They want to say that God and theology are in this special magical category that is completely different from science and that science therefore has nothing to say about, while at the same time saying that they are perfectly entitled to lay down the law about God and theology. Well I do not see how it can be both! And I think the idea that it can be both rests on some kind of weird hocus-pocus about what theology is. Either that or it just rests on plain old rhetoric. Or, the original suggestion, that I just don’t get it. Okay let’s assume that I just don’t get it. Somebody explain it to me.
Good post.
But what’s with these people who say “qua” when they could just as well say “as”?
That’s so pretentious.
“Theology is about is, politics is about ought”
Politics is just as much about what *is* as is theology. When Chomsky details his political worldview in which the fate of the world is decided in secretive meetings of evil capitalists, this isn’t an “ought” statement; either the world really works the way Chomsky thinks or it doesn’t. But unless his political views affect his serious work in linguistics, who cares about his political hobby horse? Of course political views *can* affect scientific views: Lysenko is the classic case. Then it *does* matter.
Exactly the same situation goes on in theology. Demski’s Christianity *does* cause him to do bad science. His assertions that natural selection cannot create information are wrong according to actual information theorists and it is clear he is only asserting them for religious reasons. But other Christians like Ken Miller don’t work that way; looking at Miller’s scientific output, I don’t see how his Christianity really matters; it is like Chomsky’s politics.
Oh, silly badger-boy, you dare to suggest that Chomsky isn’t ‘serious’ in his politics? What a wanker.
“…science has no place for talk of God.”
I don’t talk about religion at work (I am not a scientist or minister, pastor, etc.) but I do feel an obligation as an atheist to fight efforts by religious people to inject their religion into public life. I write letters, complain loudly, sign petitions, etc.
I hope scientists, if they are also atheists, would make the same kind of effort when they are not in the lab or the classroom doing their science.
I was taught, in history of science class, that the Christian religion has fought science tooth and nail through the centuries, because modern science poses a direct threat to the Biblical worldview.
If people have found a way to reconcile Christianity and science, or box them in such a way that they have nothing to do with one another, I would like to hear how they do it.
A scientist can ignore religion, but that is not a wise thing to do in today’s United States, where areas of scientific study like evolution and global warming are under serious attack by people who believe the world is 6,000 years old and global warming is a sign of the coming Rapture.
“Somebody explain it to me.”
That’s easy — God has less power than the assistant Secretary of Agriculture.
But seriously, I’m always amazed when I hear people say something like “Science and religion answer different questions and reveal different truths.”
I always just scratch my head and ask “What kind of truths, exactly, does religion reveal? Explain them to me. How do you know that they’re true? Have you ever actually listened to yourself?”
OB: Of course you get it, as you know. It’s the old, fatally-flawed, “non-overlapping” argument.
Anyway, even the politics-medicine bit doesn’t work. Political views influence the availability, and recommendation, of medical options (eg RU486, condoms, abortion, euthenasia).
Michael Ruse’s arguments are just plain bad.
Too many people think science has to keep its hands off religion, but religion can weigh in on every question of science.
Fair’s fair. I say EVERY reasonable person, and every scientist, now has the duty to go after the irrational basis of religion at every opportunity. It’s time for reason to win.
Some of my own further arguments:
http://www.hankfox.com/Batman.htm
http://www.hankfox.com/VirginMary.htm
http://www.hankfox.com/UnevenGround.htm
At the dawn of history, everything was in the realm of the theologian. More and more ground has been lost to science, as explanations were discovered for the genesis of “godly” happenings like lightning, maggots, and plagues.
Today, the only areas left for religious hegemony are inside the head: Why do I feel so lonely/lost/confused? There will continue to be challenges from religious explanations in these areas precisely because science has yet to conquer them.
As cognitive science, psychology, and psychiatry reach their full flower in the coming decades, the theologian will have only his own insecurities remining to which to apply his claim to divine insight.
I’m going to take a stab at this. Feel free to (ahem) stab me back, I’m a big boy and I can take it.
First of all, while it is certainly correct that claims about God are ‘truth claims’, it doesn’t follow that these are the sort of claims which science can examine. In fact, I would argue that here ‘truth’ is spelled with a capital ‘T’ by those who believe; it’s inherently an article of faith— “I am the Way, the Truth, the Light,” etc.
Conversely, science does not really offer Truth in that sense, because its’ levels of generalization (hypothesis, theory, law) are always held provisionally—subject to modification. Our ‘truths’, it seems, are definitely of the ‘lower-case’ variety. (BTW, A good litmus test for when a scientist is straying into metaphysics is a curious tendency to capitalize words that otherwise might not be capitalized)
In that context, ‘methodological naturalism’ proposes testable claims based upon the presumption of natural causes and the data accumulated via that strategy is held to be provisionally ‘true’, whereas an extreme version of ‘metaphysical naturalism’ would make dogmatic, entirely non-provisional claims along the lines of “Nature is Truth, and all that is True is Nature.” (note the capitals)
Now, methodological naturalism excludes supernatural explanations; in that sense, theological claims ARE irrelevant to the business of DOING science. But, when (as will inevitably happen) the implications of our work are explored, the MEANING of science, then the theological claim becomes germane to discussion, even if its’ relevance is simply a case of “this supposed truth claim has been falsified”, as in geocentrism, spontaneous generation, etc.
At any rate, if you can remember that methodological naturalism implies provisional acceptance while metaphysical naturalism implies dogmatism, you’ll be able to know when theology is relevant.
And this isn’t the same thing, by the way, as saying that science can’t say anything about religion! Scientists can make scientific claims about religion all they want to. We are completely free to critique faith-based claims by appealing to natural causes and proposing (provisionally) alternate explanations based on those causes–and, as a rule, when we can, we should. But our method doesn’t permit us to make claims about the Supernatural itself, even negative claims, because then we are in the awkward position of speaking non-tentatively about what we will never be able to test–and that just isn’t science, in my estimation.
For example, as a personal matter I think string theory is a dud, partly because it seems impossible to distinguish any version of the theory as being better than another, partly because even if you arbitrarily choose one version, it appears to be nigh impossible to test.
But, if I dogmatically claim that ‘string theory will never be able to test any of its claims’, I’ve gone too far. In a very real sense I’m not giving the scientific method itself the benefit of the doubt, you might say.
Peace…Scott
Let me play God’s advocate. Theology is in a different category than science.
Science studies physical objects and processes in the observable world, and makes predictions about the non-observable world. It does this out of a spirit of curiosity about the physical world and out of a wish to control or predict it. An example of a scientific enterprise would be observing ants and seeing whether they can find their way home under red lighting.
Theology studies religious doctrines and ideas from and about religions. It attempts to clarify points of doctrine, integrate disparate ideas in doctrine, and connect these concepts to the deepest human emotional and existential needs and motives. An example of a theological enterprise would be reading books of the old and new testaments and coming up with a theory about how Jesus Christ incorporated the laws of the Old Testament into a simplification which captured all the same behaviors but appealed directly to humankind’s heart.
And so, the two fields are different in their basis. Science is based in the observable world. Theology is based in religious doctrine, books, practices, papal bulls, and other such artifacts. They also have different ends.
Finally, they have different ends. Science’s goals are to predictively and mechanistically explain the natural world. Theology’s goals are to elucidate or further clarify religious doctrine for an understanding of God’s mind and intentions.
And so, a theologian could claim that a scientist has “nothing to say about God” because they only admit statements which are based in religious doctrine.
But, you say, don’t the two fields overlap over questions of the nature of the world? From the scientist’s point of view, it sure looks like it. From the theologians, though, there are all sorts of “get out of jail free” spiritual mystery cards that can be thrown out to negate the scientist, at least in the theologian’s mind.
Whether you accept theology as a valid human enterprise or that such negating cards are admissable in the real world is another matter entirely. You clearly don’t.
And I don’t either.
Brilliant punchline, cm!
The science-theology circle has been squared in various ways, and mostly likely there’s no good solution. But we can have fun with it.
For example: what if a theologian were to bite one of the many bullets whizzing about her head and say, “theology isn’t committed to cognitivism about religious discourse.”
(One could simply stipulate, at least initially, that this is separable from cognitivism or non-cognitivism of ethical judgments or value judgments generally.)
Once one embraces religious noncognitivism, statements that use religious concepts (e.g. “God,” “redemption,” “prayer”) are not used to talk about how things stand in the world.
This needn’t detract from what beauty there is to be found in religious texts, art, music, etc. The fact that there was never someone named Hamlet does not diminish the value of the play.
The main thing I like about this idea is that it’s completely unsatisfactory to all sides — an equal opportunity offender.
In themselves, the sciences have nothing to say about God because no current science has any way of conceptualizing God and therefore can’t form a meaningful sentence that would affirm or deny his, her, or its existence. On the other hand, nothing prevents a philosopher or anybody else from reasoning non-scientifically from scientific results as we do all the time in making economic and political decisions using information derived from empirical research.
It isn’t a scientific conclusion that the universe is not haunted, but its pretty damned obvious.
It is the opinion of many of us atheists, rationalists, and scientists that language like this — “non-overlapping” — is demonstrably and testably a more effective way to communicate with folks who are committed to their religion and who consider themselves reasonable, intelligent people.
In other words, this language is — to some of us, anyway — strictly politics. It becomes a way to pretend there is common ground: there is the world out there, which we both agree on, and then there is the world inside your head, where you have God. I will call the world inside your head a ‘non-overlapping reality’ because otherwise you will shut me out and refuse to listen to me.
To others, it’s in fact what they believe, because they are themselves committed to their religion, and consider themselves reasonable, intelligent people.
It is how one maintains both religious faith and scientific understanding. It is admittedly nonrational.
To deny it is to force people to choose, and there is a pessimism among some of us that too many will choose religion over science, because they are one day going to die. It is hard to get over the fear of oblivion.
(Counting on people to choose religion over science is precisely what ID does. Theistic evolutionists can believe they’re intelligent design advocates because of the way it’s presented to them.)
I go back and forth over whether this political phraseology is good or bad. In my personal life I don’t have a real choice, because I am married to someone who is committed to her religion, and considers herself a reasonable, intelligent person.
cm wrote
That example represents the cosmic oddity shop notion of science, and it’s a caricature. It reminds me of the descriptions of 7th grade science fair projects given by students: “I wanted to find out whether Tide or Oxydol is a better laundry detergent, so I washed clothes in each and judged how clean they were”. That’s neither a scientific question nor, when the data come in, does it constitute scientific knowledge. It’s merely an isolated factoid.
There’s a word missing in cm’s paragraph: “explanation”. Theists purport to offer explanations for stuff — mainly (these days) psych-type stuff (stuff like “meaning”, “sense of purpose”, and so on), though young earth creationists also offer tortured explanations for physical-type stuff. (For example, some posit rapidly changing speed of light, etc, to “explain” observed phenomena.) When theists do that, their explanations universally fail empirical tests. Theists ask “Why does life have meaning?”, while scientists ask “Why do humans perceive life to have meaning?” And the difference between theists and scientists (including scientifically inclined lay people) is in the basis for justification of knowledge claims — candidate answers. Theists in the end appeal to the authority of an invisible entity with no known way of interacting with the world, while scientists appeal to intersubjectively testable processes, mechanisms, and entities. For me methodological naturalism has nothing to do with the nature or content of an explanation (all the blather about how science must reject supernatural explanations is a red herring), and everything to do with how a candidate explanation is tested and justified. If the asserted “truth” (big T or little t) of an explanation varies as a function of the religious beliefs of claimants, it doesn’t meet the intersubjectively testable requirement, and is in my view fiction.
None of that is to say that scientists don’t disagree on truth claims of scientific theories. We do so regularly and sometimes vociferously. But the way disagreements are settled is different in science and theism. Science in the end depends on gathering more data, doing more experiments, discovering new mechanisms and processes. Theism in the end depends on coercion: believe or burn in hell.
RBH
“stogoe’s” comment seems to have slipped over from Comment is Free.
The only way I can think that science has no place for talk of gods is that science is reality-based, gods are fantasy-based. Science also has no place for talk about hobbits, tooth fairies, and other beings that exist only in imagination. Believers can pray to their gods all they want, but when they make claims about the activity of gods in the real world (or for the activities of hobbits or tooth fairies), scientists are very well qualified to address them.
The analogies look very odd to me, they don’t quite fit together.
Scientist – Theologian
Physician – Politician
I would be happy with the idea that a physician is someone who practices a particular sort of science. But a politician does not practice a particular sort of theology, surely? Unless, I suppose, one is the sort of person that thinks if the politician is not a scientist, then theology must be the only other explanation as to how a polititian can operate as a morally sound human being, there being no chance of this without instruction from god. Nonsense of course, but no surprise.
I would have thought that the correct identity to put in the place where he used politician would be a clergyperson of any sort, s/he being someone who practices a particular kind of theology. But then it seems to become too obvious that if we ask “what is this practice?” we see that it consists of making pronouncements, giving guidance and rulings and making judgements over all and every aspect of human existence and activity. And they do not even limit that to living humans: their (imagined) reach extends to the unborn and the dead. So i’d go for it resting on plain old rhetoric, designed in this case to hide what is really being said:- “We not only want it both ways, we want it all, keep off our turf (all of it is ours!) ” And of course, they are being very generous in conceding that scientists are allowed to say stuff about the little areas that interest them (pretty insignificant compared to gods great creation that religionist have inside knowledge about). Gee, thanks for the permission Mr Theologian.
What I always wonder about, when theologians say that God exists as a supernatural being and thus is beyond science’s realm, is whether the people who claim to represent God exist in this realm or not. Whatever one wishes to say about God (and I would prefer it if the concept were well-defined to start with), it would appear to be perfectly scientifically legitimate to discuss the epistemological basis for what various religious leaders claim to be revelations from God.
For example, if Pat Robertson says that God told him that Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans as punishment for gay marriages in Massachusetts, that we can approach that statement from a scientific standpoint. The obvious interpretation is that Robertson is simply lying, but a scientist could probe the question and ask what it means for this God to be talking to Pat Robertson, whether it means Robertson is hearing voices, or getting emails, or letters in the post, or whether the communication is entirely internal, and thereby indistinguishable from a delusion. And just as we can ask why space aliens that have the technology to travel light years to visit Earth still need to leave communications for each other in the form of crop circles, it seems reasonable to ask questions about the consistency and direction of the alleged communications with the divine being.
“…science has no place for talk of God.”
Science has no place to talk of God only if God doesn’t actually exist. If God is a real entity, He can affect and be affected by the rest of reality, and can therefore influence what we observe in reality. Science does not restrict itself from studying parts of reality — if a phenomenon exists, we study it, even if we have to alter our understanding of what the natural world can encompass in the process. Psi is not beyond scientific investigation. Santa Claus is not beyond scientific investigation. Gnomes, sprites, and fairies are not beyond scientific investigation. And so on.
The people who insist that science does not factor into our examiniation of the idea of God are, as far as I can determine, really arguing against the idea that rational thought factors into that examiniation. Rationality is the foundation upon which science stands (not to mention every accomplishment of our civilization), but no one wants to explicitly state that they’re rejecting reason. Instead of discussing how religious doctrines violate basic principles of logic, they misdirect the discussion. Technically, science does not speak about logically incoherent things — because they’re invalidated by the most basic and rudimentary levels of analysis. Any hypothesized Gods that can pass by those filters most certainly ARE within the domain of science, and science has the same power to affirm or refute them as any other hypothesis.
“science has no place for talk of God”
I do wish someone would inform Francis Collins, John Polkinghorne and their ilk of this.
Scott Hatfield: “First of all, while it is certainly correct that claims about God are ‘truth claims’, it doesn’t follow that these are the sort of claims which science can examine.”
Ophelia’s point is there is no way for theology to examine these claims either, other than “making **** up”. The realm of theology which does not overlap science is the realm of unverifiable claims. That’s why there are so many different religions, one person’s ability to make up unverifiable **** is just as valid as another’s.
Scott Hatfield: “At any rate, if you can remember that methodological naturalism implies provisional acceptance while metaphysical naturalism implies dogmatism, you’ll be able to know when theology is relevant.”
I don’t think so Scott. Why would metaphysical naturalism imply dogmatism? My metaphysical naturalism is open to new evidence, and therefore is not dogmatic. It’s just that the evidence continues to fail to appear.
Presuming I accept the distinction between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism in my pursuit of science, I’d have to be pretty clueless to not notice how well the former works.
cm: “Theology studies religious doctrines and ideas from and about religions. It attempts to clarify points of doctrine, integrate disparate ideas in doctrine, and connect these concepts to the deepest human emotional and existential needs and motives. An example of a theological enterprise would be reading books of the old and new testaments and coming up with a theory about how Jesus Christ incorporated the laws of the Old Testament into a simplification which captured all the same behaviors but appealed directly to humankind’s heart.”
I’d like to point out the distinction between theology as a disinterested study of various religious doctrines and practices; i.e. a sort of sociology and history of religions and the religious, and actual advocacy of religious claims as truth. You seem to be conflating the two in that paragraph.
The claim of methodological naturalism is that we are capable of studying only the natural world. The claim of metaphysical naturalism is that the natural world is all there is to study.
I can’t help thinking that the discovery of persuasive evidence that a god exists would have the effect of depriving god of the protective custody of the supernatural. An existant god would necessarily be a naturalized god. Such a discovery would, necessarily, falsify a great number of theological claims.
“Methodological naturalism” vs. “metaphysical naturalism”
I can accept that only the former is required for the pursuit of science, but a scientist or indeed anyone knowledgable about the prusuit of science would have to be pretty clueless not to notice how well methodological naturalism works. In order to carry out any experiments at all I have to assume that no angels or demons will sneak into the lab at night and mess with my cultures. It does not seem parsimonious to believe that angels, daemons or other supernatural agents are running rampant elsewhere.
quote wamba:
“The realm of theology which does not overlap science is the realm of unverifiable claims.”
This is the big thing. Afaict, every claim of every religion falls into one of two camps:
1) Scientifically verifiable (and thus falsifiable, by the same coin).
2) Stuff that can be answered just as cogently (if a bit more ridiculously) by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Some statements fall into both camps, depending on which part you are looking at. For example, the claim that a natural disaster hit a city because of some god’s anger at some group (pick any disaster, city, god, and group – it’s fairly likely the claim will have been made about it) has a testable component and an FSM component.
The testable component is this: Is this group/sin that caused the wrath more prevalent now than before? Is it more concentrated at that particular point than at another? Assuming the god is rational in its wrath, one must assume that it would strike where it would do the most damage and make the greatest impression.
The FSM component is this: What group/sin is the god mad enough about that it would do this? One god may say infidels, another may say homosexuals, yet another may say lack of pirates. There is no testable way to determine which explanation is correct, and thus *any* explanation is as good as another.
If someone could come up with a religious claim that didn’t fall into one of these two, I’d be very interested.
Xanthir: Good luck – I’ve been suggesting for a while that a good characterization of religion is “a world view with unfalsifiable views of human nature or the universe as a whole.” (This has the consequence that Soviet Marxism, Objectivism, the views of some sports fans, and a few other political and economy ideologies are religions, which seems fair enough.)
As for the metaphysical naturalism stuff, well, I agree with Ophelia. This is because the conclusion of metaphysical naturalism is a conclusion from the history of science – why should one suppose that our metaphysics is settled once and for all? Instead, we can see infer from the success of science what the necessary metaphysics of its practice consists in. This is materialism, and a few other choice philosophical questions can be decided this way either in part or completely. (To the extend that anything in science is complete, anyway.)
RBH, in response to my example of a scientific enterprise–using red lighting to observe how ants navigate–said:
“That example represents the cosmic oddity shop notion of science, and it’s a caricature. It reminds me of the descriptions of 7th grade science fair projects given by students: “I wanted to find out whether Tide or Oxydol is a better laundry detergent, so I washed clothes in each and judged how clean they were”. That’s neither a scientific question nor, when the data come in, does it constitute scientific knowledge. It’s merely an isolated factoid.
Oh? Silly me, you’re right, my example was not REAL SCIENCE. So I guess the editors of the Journal of Insect Physiology let this one slip past them:
“The influence of red light on the aggregation of two castes of the ant, Lasius niger.” Depickere S, Fresneau D, Deneubourg JL. J Insect Physiol. 2004 Jul;50(7):629-35.
Wamba said:
I was just picking up where the original post left off. OB was using theology not to mean “study of religions as historical entitites” but to mean “study of God and the meaning of existence”. Obviously there’s no contention with the former definition of theology–that’s just a type of intellectual history.
To respond further to OB, I think theologists would claim that they do in fact get “special training” that scientist’s don’t get. OB said:
Again, playing God’s advocate… You’re wrong, there is such expertise, and that box is filled with something scientists tend to overlook. Theological expertise comes from years of careful study of the Bible/Talmud/Torah/Koran/etc. You immerse yourself in the words of the prophets, in the writings of the best of the church scholars, you connect it to your own life and experiences, and you begin to get SPECIAL INSIGHTS over time. This takes patience, commitment to the texts and doctrines as holy, and use of a special faculty of mind that is only partly rational. The other part is the mystical sense. Scientist’s do not get this training, and do not have this expertise, and therefore are unable to use this mystical intuition to make sense of the doctrines and stories of religion. It is as if science is a tuner which does not register anything broadcast on the mystical frequency.
This is the “hocus-pocus” you refer to in your post.
Perhaps the correct analogy is that science is to theology as _journalism_ is to politics.
It’s true, a journalist may have an incomplete or flawed notion of how decisions are made in government. But the journalist has the best tools for understanding the results of political discourse when they eventually happen.
Similarly, a scientist may not be on a first-name basis with God, but he can certain see if there are any large footprints laying around the landscape.
“OB: Of course you get it, as you know.”
No, I don’t know. I really meant “I don’t get it.” I don’t get why Ruse is making what looks like such a feeble analogy; I don’t get it partly in the sense that I’m not at all sure I’m not missing something. It was exactly the same with Gould and the non-overlapping magisteria. That idea seemed patently ridiculous to me, but it’s not as if I think I’m smarter than Gould, so I wondered if I was missing something. But I also thought it was possible that both Gould and Ruse lapse into rhetoric on occasions like this, in which case relative intelligence is not the issue, and I’m entitled to point and say “nuh uh!”
Elliot: “The claim of methodological naturalism is that we are capable of studying only the natural world. The claim of metaphysical naturalism is that the natural world is all there is to study.”
What’s the difference? These sound like synonyms to me.
Theists are a bit like 5-year old children at dinnertime. They ask, “What’s for dinner?”
“Rice, green beans and some really nice chicken,” you say with enthusiam.
“Oh,” they say, disheartened. “What else is there?”
“This is dinner,” you explain. “This is what I made for dinner and this is what we’re having for dinner.”
“OK. But what else could I have for dinner?”
Your choices about what there is to study or understand rationally are the natural world, or nothing. The 5-year old might eventually get away with something different, but if you’re holding out hoping there’s some other part of reality for you to enjoy, you’re going to go to bed hungry.
“OB was using theology not to mean “study of religions as historical entitites” but to mean “study of God and the meaning of existence”. Obviously there’s no contention with the former definition of theology–that’s just a type of intellectual history.”
Yeah – I was using theology the way Ruse seemed to be using it in that particular passage – theistic theology, one might call it. I certainly have no argument with theology as intellectual history, or as interpretation of texts, either.
Argh! ALL science is atheistic. Argh! Burn the library before more people find out.
cm: “Again, playing God’s advocate… You’re wrong, there is such expertise, and that box is filled with something scientists tend to overlook. Theological expertise comes from years of careful study of the Bible/Talmud/Torah/Koran/etc. You immerse yourself in the words of the prophets, in the writings of the best of the church scholars, you connect it to your own life and experiences, and you begin to get SPECIAL INSIGHTS over time. This takes patience, commitment to the texts and doctrines as holy, and use of a special faculty of mind that is only partly rational. The other part is the mystical sense. Scientist’s do not get this training, and do not have this expertise, and therefore are unable to use this mystical intuition to make sense of the doctrines and stories of religion. It is as if science is a tuner which does not register anything broadcast on the mystical frequency.”
I recognize that you’re just playing “God’s advocate” (as if Mr. Omniscient would need someone to advocate his cause), but the reasons stated don’t hold up.
Relying on scriptures or so-called prophets only adds a layer of indirection. Instead of “making **** up” it is “relying on someone else who is making **** up”.
As for this “mystical sense” and “mystical frequency”, there is no evidence for their existence, and no viable scientific theory as to how any supernatural entity would communicate to the human brain, which is naturalistic. I’d be willing to let the theory slide if someone could just demonstrate in a scientifically testable way that this “mystical sense” actually works better than “making **** up”.
Deepok Chopra says:
“I think if God has a chance to come back seriously, it will take atheists to rehabilitate him (or her).”
Drek.
cm wrote
cm’s description of the research was
That is not a description of a “scientific enterprise”. The money quote from the abstract of that paper is
That’s a scientific enterprise. They weren’t merely gathering data to establish an isolated factoid, as cm’s original description assserted. The research was tied into a larger conceptual and explanatory framework, and that’s what makes it REAL SCIENCE.
RBH
Even beyond claims of metaphysical vs. methadological naturalism, science and religion collide when religion ventures over to make truth claims about the physical world. It would be nice if they didn’t, even if they held to metaphysical supernaturalism, but they do. What many believers want (and this they share with the New Age flakes) is magic; the invocation of supernatural agencies for earthly power. Many believers are, at heart, sorcerors. And to some extent, the magic works–although usually the power they derive from these invocations is political. The real adversary of science is magic. Oddly enough, this used to be a no-no in religion too, but I guess the pull of the dark side is too strong… `;)
Wamba:
I understand Ophelia’s position, but again I think you have to be clear what you mean when you say ‘truth claims’. Granted that theology is no more efficacious than science in evaluating the non-falsifiable claim in SCIENTIFIC terms, but that really isn’t the goal of theology, is it? They aren’t interested in “truth” which is data-driven, testable and held in some sense provisionally. They are interested in discovering an immutable “Truth”, which is to say God. And, like it or not, there are some very detailed, elaborate ways in which theologians consider claims within their realm, make-believe or no.
As far as the connection between metaphysical naturalism and dogma: I’m happy to concede that you, personally, might hold the position provisionally and be open to new evidence. But, as a rule, I think you know that once people stake out a position they tend to hold it dogmatically. And I never implied in my post that a person MUST hold MN dogmatically. I said that MN (like any metaphysical position) implies dogmatism.
Now here’s a question for you: if you can hold MN provisionally, could a Christian hold their beliefs provisionally?
Peace….Scott
RBH found my original example objectionable because I didn’t take the time to write an Introduction section for my example. Ok.
Religion is based on speculation and authority. This is useless when facing reality, and religion has been forced to back off most of its claims. In this sense science has already affected the discourse on gods.
The post and comments expose some weaknesses of in the core of remaining religion. Religion makes a number of special pleadings: religion makes claims on Truth, gods exist, gods are supernatural, supernaturals are inaccessible to observational theory. It proposes a number of pluralisms: supernaturals, souls, yin and yang.
Those weaknesses are exposed by science in a number of ways. As a tool to explore the world, science is secular and makes no a priori assumptions. It doesn’t choose to make conflict with religions, those conflicts are problems of religions.
The most obvious conflicts regards observational facts and theories. Both are well justified beyond reasonable doubt. For well established theories there are no realistic alternatives to explain the mass of observations and ties to other theories. Even if theories are known to be effective instead of basic and can be subsumed later, their phenomena and facts stands. Other claims of truth and existence aren’t well justified.
Other conflicts regards the a posteriori findings of good methods. Methodological naturalism is amongst those. We know that supernaturalism and special pleading are bad methods to gain knowledge. Causality ties the natural world together and that tells us that pluralisms are bad ideas too.
In fact, most pluralisms have been outright defeated by observation and theory. What is the reason to think the remaining, supernaturals, should stand indefinitely? Special pleading is not the way to argue.
From the above one seems to find that metaphysical naturalism isn’t special pleading. But do we have to confine ourselves to accept this as a reasonable conclusion only?
After all, what we know of nature constrain mightily what supernaturalism is allowed. If it doesn’t cause any observations we know we should deny its existence, otherwise special pleading again raises its ugly head. If it causes all observations to fool us into thinking natural theories are correct, it is superfluous – unless special pleading is used. Last thursdayism isn’t the answer, even less so the different types of creationism that pushes last thursdayism into the distant past of our universes beginning. And those have also definite answers by cosmology.
What remains is partial nonnatural causation, confined causes from without the causal nature of our natural universe. Those should be both observable and constrained since they would mess around with the amount of natural massenergy. We now know acausal phenomena also messes with the local stability of our gauge theories. If we don’t see anything of that after the usual amount of observations to verify existence of natural causes only, the existence of the supernatural should be denied. It had its day in the empirical court. That wouldn’t be an exiting and useful result, but that is the nature of the supernatural. It’s a dead end.
.
[as “Theologist”] Ahh, but you see, you are trying to evaluate my evidence with improper methods. You cannot use the tools of science to detect my evidence. You ask for a “viable scientific theory”, but again, this is not a matter of science but of direct knowledge.
There is nothing I can demonstrate to you using your methods. Nonetheless, this knowledge is available to me, and I think it’s arrogant of you to assume that since you cannot detect it with your methods therefore it must not exist.
Gee, I wish PZ would tell his commenters to come over here every day. Cool discussion.
[shouting] Have fun in the Twin Cities, PZ!
“I said that MN (like any metaphysical position) implies dogmatism.”
Dogmatism – “Arrogant, stubborn assertion of opinion or belief.” I don’t see how that could be. A metaphysical position on facts could be overturned with new facts. It isn’t arrogant either, it is both reasonable and not based on special pleading as is metaphysical supernaturalism. A metaphysical position on faith implies dogmatism, since in principle nothing can overturn it. They shouldn’t be confused IMO.
Maybe it’s worth pointing out that God could be conceptualized in some of the old philosophies. The classic statement of the cosmological argument for the existence of God was Aristotle’s Physics, for example, where God literally makes the world go round. The old thinkers did have trouble figuring out how the more or less reasonable notion of the unmoved mover related to the God of Judaism or Christinity and a tremendous amount of ink was spilled explaining how an immaterial spirit, i.e. a demon or an angel or God himself, could interact with a human being, granted our materiality. Still, people used to try to make sense out of religious ideas. Apparently they’ve pretty much given up on that unless somebody has a description of God in differential equations or matrices that I haven’t seen.
So many insightful comments! I feel like I owe someone tuition.
I thought RBH made a particularly valuable contribution.
And this from Matthew George:
Technically, science does not speak about logically incoherent things — because they’re invalidated by the most basic and rudimentary levels of analysis. Any hypothesized Gods that can pass by those filters most certainly ARE within the domain of science, and science has the same power to affirm or refute them as any other hypothesis.
Thanks also to Hank and wamba.
“Nonetheless, this knowledge is available to me, and I think it’s arrogant of you to assume that since you cannot detect it with your methods therefore it must not exist.”
Not so fast, Theologist. Which one is being arrogant here – the one who wonders how “direct knowledge” known to one person only can be valid evidence, or the one who claims that “direct knowledge” that cannot be investigated by any scientific method is nevertheless valid evidence? I know, I know, you’ll have some form of words to answer that too, but it will still boil down to “trust me on this.”
Yeah, Doug, that’s just what I was thinking. This is one of the richer discussions we’ve had around here.
Somebody should forward it to Michael Ruse. He might even find it interesting.
OB: “No, I don’t know. I really meant ‘I don’t get it.’ I don’t get why Ruse is making what looks like such a feeble analogy; I don’t get it partly in the sense that I’m not at all sure I’m not missing something.”
Now *I* get it!
You’re asking:
Is this argument as feeble as it looks? I think it is.
If it is that feeble, does Ruse really believe it?
Or is he really just using it to convince people of the validity of the position he endorses?
[I admit that there are other possibilities.]
[as Theologist] First, you are being disingenuous. You are not “wondering” whether such direct knowledge can be valid evidence–it’s clear that you deny it’s validity and dismiss it before any deeper look into it. That certainty has been forged in a materialist echo chamber allowing no room for other ways of knowing–this is why I called you arrogant.
Second, my type of knowledge is not available to “one person only”. In fact, it has been apprehended, to a greater or lesser degree, by perhaps millions of people over history–far more than the tiny fraction of humans who are or have been scientists. Top theologists, of course, are the equivalent of scientific greats in your field. You have your Newton, and we have our Calvin. You, Galileo; we, St. Thomas Aquinas. Et al.
Thirdly, you are begging the question (in the philosophical sense of that phrase, which is the only one I like to hear used). Our contention is over the validity of our different approaches to gathering knowledge, correct? But, in trying to label me the arrogant one, you wrote:
But this is just restating your point that I must prove myself using your methods or be dismissed as holding invalid evidence. But why should I? You have given no other reason to believe that your method is in any sense better than mine. Simply demanding it over and over does not strengthen your case one bit you know?
Finally, you don’t have to merely “trust me on this”. You can study theology as I have, learn my methods, put in the requisite time, talk with the right people, meditate, pray, work, fast, and other such practices which I will show you, and then you will see for yourself.
Even if it is about theos, theology has to have some logos in it! I’m not disatisfied with modern theology because it isn’t science—lots of meaningful kinds of discourse aren’t science. I’m unimpressed with it from a philosophical point of view because for some time now it hasn’t proposed a theory or concept of God sufficently coherent even to reject. This is tough on us would-be atheists and agnostics who can’t tell what it is we disbelieve in or doubt.
cm wrote: “You can study theology as I have”.
I don’t see how. First I have to choose which religion. How would I do that? Every religion contradicts all the others, and even within a religion there can be differences with lethal consequences. Your ‘direct experience’ gets me nowhere: the direct experience of a Hindu is that there are many gods, while an observant Jew will reject the notion that his God is the same as that of trinitarian Christians even as he proclaims that there is only god. So which is it? How am I to decide?
‘Direct experience’ is obviously not infallible but your argument requires it to be.
Scott Hatfield: “And I never implied in my post that a person MUST hold MN dogmatically. I said that MN (like any metaphysical position) implies dogmatism.”
The distinction escapes me. Since there is no evidence whatsoever for anything supernatural, the sensible default position seems to me to be unbelief. Whereas most supernaturalists not only believe in the existence of supernatural entity or entities, they hold specific and unevidenced beliefs about the properties of those entities; i.e. dogma.
Soctt Hatfield: “Now here’s a question for you: if you can hold MN provisionally, could a Christian hold their beliefs provisionally?”
Theoretically, yes. However,
1) My experience is that most Christians and other supernaturalists will go to great lengths to rationalize their beliefs in the face of contrary evidence
2) Christianity places value on unquestioning unevidenced belief. If you had the faith of a mustard seed you would understand this.
cm as the Theologian: “Nonetheless, this knowledge is available to me, and I think it’s arrogant of you to assume that since you cannot detect it with your methods therefore it must not exist.”
An arrogance which you share, since you do not believe in a great many things for which there is no evidence; e.g. invisible pink unicorns, china teapot in orbit, etc. In the absence of evidence, unbelief is the default, and the more elaborate the claims, the more elaborate the evidence required.
Also, I object to your calling this information or doctrine “knowledge”, since, as there is no way of verifying these beliefs, we cannot tell that they are true; i.e. that they correspond to reality.
This idea of direct or unmediated knowledge sounds like intuition, as described by The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. That description goes on to say that intuition does not involve inference, memory or perception. I don’t believe it. It sounds to me like turning on an amplifier and unplugging the microphone: nothing in, noise out.
Perhaps the term “intuition” may be rehabilitated. My suggestion: a suspicion that one has experienced a perception for which one has not experienced, or at any rate is unaware of having experienced, a corresponding sensation. Remember, our sensations are real little attention-getters, and in their absence nothing much comes to mind.
Tingey, I like what you say and frequently echo your sentiments, but how’s the blood pressure dude ?
cm [as Theologist]
“First, you are being disingenuous. You are not “wondering” whether such direct knowledge can be valid evidence–it’s clear that you deny it’s validity and dismiss it before any deeper look into it.”
Actually not, which is interesting. I’m really wondering and really asking: how can you make that be valid evidence? Maybe there is some way, and maybe you have it. So tell us about it.
“Second, my type of knowledge is not available to “one person only”. In fact, it has been apprehended, to a greater or lesser degree, by perhaps millions of people over history–far more than the tiny fraction of humans who are or have been scientists.”
But you can’t know that. Being the kind of knowledge it is, it offers no way to know all those millions of people know the same thing instead of millions of different things which you all simply take to be the same thing. Since there is no external validation, there is no way to know whether it is shared or not; that’s the problem with personal experience or “intuition” as evidence
Keith – exactly.
cm says:
“You have given no other reason to believe that your method is in any sense better than mine.”
But we know from experience that anecdotal evidence as you seem to propose is fallable. Are you denying experience?
I love it. cm is doing an absolutely brilliant job highlighting the basic problem with claiming that matters of God are “outside” of science’s ability to examine them. He sounds about right. They charge arrogance in order to refute the charge of arrogance. That’s because they’re open where we are closed.
Bottom line, the scientific method evolved under the selective pressure of the desire to root out subjective bias — and subjective bias is, when you get down to it, the very meat of theology and spirituality. As others have pointed out, science is indeed closed — to cases of special pleading. The experience of the particular, where the universe is no longer dispassionate and objective, but heavily biased itself.
Although it tries to borrow the language of broad-minded fairness and rationality, theology (like all spirituality) is based on storytelling. Each believer casts himself into the role of the character who manages to discover truth due to the purity of his intent (meekness, humility, openess.) It’s not that science couldn’t discover or verify the truths of religion — anyone, even a believer, could tell a story where it did. It’s just that science makes demands which narrative does not — and since it hasn’t managed to show that the spirit is true, that’s clearly the fault of science, not the story.
By treating religion as a theory instead of a True Story discovered through a bias towards what is special, I think atheists are taking religion seriously, as something which might or might not be the case. Believers, on the other hand, tend to take themselves and their lives seriously, and build from that.
Sastra, that’s nicely argued. At the risk of sounding brutish, I can’t see how anyone can still want to worship any deity following the Asian Tsunami 2 years ago… there have been valiant, and sometimes creepily sophisticated attempts from theists to explain it… but none of them make any reasoned sense. Science can explain the Tsunami. Faith can’t. Ultimately, it’s either ‘Buy it or go to hell’…
Well, I dected some running out of steam here, but I will put on the T hat one last time.
[as Theologist]OB, I first need you to tell me what you mean by “valid evidence”–but you are not allowed to define it in terms of your method, because the validity of our respective methods is the very thing that is in contention.
[as myself]
This, I think, is the crux of it. Why is the scientific method the only acceptable way of gaining knowledge about the physical world? Those of us who believe that, who feel that, may think that it is self-evident, but I’m not sure it is. For example, let’s say a tarot reader claims throwing the tarot can tell him facts about the physical world and the future. We say he can’t possibly know it. He says he can. We say he has no good reason to believe it. He asks, what good reason do you have to believe the scientific method? So what do we tell him?
That it has worked well so far? That’s true, but we would hope for something stronger than that. That it is, when done right, as good as people can get at being able to share knowledge and retain any consistency about that process? Again, that’s handy, but that doesn’t give it the kind of epistemological privilege we feel it must have. That it is logical or common sensical? But that’s just pushing the definition back one step to isoforms of the same beliefs that are still unsupported, i.e. why are common sense and logic necessarily right? (e.g., even if we assert the statement “A = A”, someone could object, “that’s what you say!”).
I’m sure beautiful explorations of these questions are in the philosophy of science literature, and I know positions somewhat akin to my Theologist’s position are too (like Paul Feyeraband’s). In the meantime, I’d highly recommend reading Raymond Smullyan’s short story “Planet Without Laughter” (from _This Book Needs No Title_) for a wonderful illustration of how “direct knowledge” can sometimes be perfectly valid while still being fundamentally incommunicable to others (in that case, what it means to “really” laugh as opposed to just making laugh sounds).
Interesting, cm.
“That it is, when done right, as good as people can get at being able to share knowledge and retain any consistency about that process? Again, that’s handy, but that doesn’t give it the kind of epistemological privilege we feel it must have.”
Doesn’t it? Do we? That’s (I think) a fallibilist justification, but don’t scientists (and philosophers) generally think a fallibilist justification is good enough? No, it’s not certain, it’s not like a mathematical proof, but surely reliability (to sum up your version in a word) has an edge over its absence.
Ophelia:
cm is not just questioning the reliability of the scientific method: he is also plugging an alternative, “direct experience”. I’f like him to answer my post above, in particular: since so much of religious “direct experience” is contradictory how am I to choose between religions?
But that’s part of my point, Paul. “Direct experience” is unreliable as a source of knowledge partly because it tends to be contradictory, so I’m asking why a fallibilist empirical method is not more reliable than putative direct experience. We’re asking the same question, at bottom.
Paul asked I respond to his post. Ok.
Theologist might say that you have to go on a spiritual quest to find your way to “the Way” that suits you. We’ve all heard this cliche. E.g., Cat Stevens has an album called “Footsteps in Dark” which is meant to represent his time of spiritual wandering before he found Islam which met his spiritual style and felt like home (Saul on the road to Damascus becoming Paul, etc.) In these scenarios one uses inchoate knowledge as a homing device to seek out and contact formalized knowledge in the form of a body of doctrine. Again, there are cliches for this homing-in process (“it called to me,” “it spoke to me”, “when the student is ready the master will appear”, “the Force is strong with this one”, etc).
Theologist would also argue that, though there are certainly differences of doctrine amongst the various religions, these are either a) corruptions of the underlying divine message, and/or b) surface features, facets of expression which do not fundmentally change the truth of the spiritual practice or doctrine. Those who war against others of faith are mistaking these surface features or corruptions for the spiritual core. In essence, they are practicing bad religion in the same way that careless scientists can practice bad science. Some religious groups, such as the B’hai faith or even the Unitarians tend to emphasize this all roads lead to heaven concept of religion.
And Theologist never said he required infallibility of this direct knowledge. For him, the quest for religious understanding and contact with Truth is a practice, a continual process of attempting to rise above our own fallibility–just as with the fallibilistic proviso that OB mentions scientists include–if only for a moment of clarity, while trying to cultivate a pervasive humility against the backdrop of a vast universe with a loving Intelligence in it. He would also point out that inconsistency, even with regards to fundamentals, is inherent in science too, such as light being both a wave and a particle or Godel’s theorem showing there are true statements that cannot be proven.
OB said:
I agree, and this is how I live my life and the science I have done. My true feeling is something like the following…
At bottom, all we really have are observations. If we stick around for awhile, we tend to notice patterns in these observations, such as every time we release an object from our hand, it falls toward the ground. Every single time. And so, although we can’t know that on this next occasion when we drop the object it will again fall (that’s fallibilism, right?), if we had to bet, the good money is on gravity. Few things are this clear cut, but with time and effort we try to puzzle out the harder issues.
And this is really it. Any statement of the physical world that is not tethered ultimately to observations is not as safe a bet, particularly because one of the observations adults tend to notice sometime around 30 is that people make up all sorts of stuff that do not correspond with anyone’s observations: they lie, or they are mistaken. Often. (and why not? Being wrong is free; being right and knowing it takes research.)
This becomes a safe bet heuristic, too: that people are not to be fully trusted with reporting their observations. This is just what Torbjörn Larsson said, “But we know from experience that anecdotal evidence as you seem to propose is fallable. Are you denying experience?”. And I agree with him, though Theologist doesn’t.
And so special people, called scientists, who have desire to know what is actually happening, live by a special code called various things (the scientific method, reason, logic, rationality, etc), which is meant to filter out as much of the human propensity to distort observation as we can. Built into the by-laws of this code is a fundamental distrust of ourselves, such that even Nobel prize winners insist they be blinded to conditions of their own experiments in order to stay objective.
Perhaps most germane to what we’ve been talking about is that science can also potentially account for any religious person’s “direct knowledge” as simply a psychological state, perhaps a pattern of activation of the temporal lobe (see the work by Canadian neuropsychologist Persinger, for example). There may be some powerful “wisdom heuristics” that this parcel of neural tissue is able to compute, and so the spiritual insights that come from there may be useful to the acolyte, but in reality the window dressing of it–the names of gods, the rites, the types of candles, etc.–is arbitrary.
This is about where I’m at, though I want to remain open to the idea that there may be something more to the spiritual life than I am positing (I hate that word, spiritual, but there I go again).
Yeah. The only thing I would dispute (a little) is the special code. I don’t think it has to be all that special, at least not in the basics. It can be (and often is, but not often enough) taught, pretty much to everyone. A fundamental distrust of ourselves, for instance, can be taught.
Keeping up with blogs during vacation is obviously too much for me – I have a life to keep up with too.
Sastra says:
“By treating religion as a theory instead of a True Story discovered through a bias towards what is special, I think atheists are taking religion seriously, as something which might or might not be the case.”
The special pleading and unsubstantiated claim of a dualism in the form of supernaturals are taken seriously, as is similar claims of souls, telepathy, et cetera.
cm says:
“Why is the scientific method the only acceptable way of gaining knowledge about the physical world?”
Because it is verifiable.
“but that doesn’t give it the kind of epistemological privilege we feel it must have.”
Being about verifiable facts is a epistemological difference. “direct knowledge” is either a solipsistic claim, or a contradictory faith claim.
Your last comment is really interesting.
I would like to thank cm for his detailed description of his ideas on “direct experience”.
However they do not amount to a justification of “direct experience” as a way of attaining knowledge about the universe. The point I made earlier about different religions contradicting each other cannot be gainsaid by claiming that “inconsistency, even with regards to fundamentals, is inherent in science too, such as light being both a wave and a particle or Godel’s theorem showing there are true statements that cannot be proven”. The latter is not any inconsistency at all, and the former is not correct. Light is neither particle nor wave – it has properties of one or other in appropriate conditions but the fact that it has both types of property means that neither label fits. (Some have proposed the word “wavicle” to cover this – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basics_of_quantum_mechanics).
The fact of inconsistency of “direct experience” points to the second failing: there is no way of deciding between rival claims. Statements such as “Those who war against others of faith are mistaking these surface features or corruptions for the spiritual core” require justification: what criteria allow me to tell the difference between corruption and spiritual core, and how could I know if those criteria are valid? Science has logic consistency and observation/experiment as its external auditors, to keep it honest and true. What performs the same role for “direct experience” ?