Science and philosophy are continuous with each other
Chris Mooney also read the Lawrence Krauss piece in the WSJ. He saw it as yet another chance to say methodological naturalism is different from philosophical naturalism and that scientists have no business going from the first to the second and they’d just better not or else.
What Krauss is effectively saying is that it is rational to go beyond science’s methodological naturalism to also become a philosophical naturalist…But it is an omission on Krauss’s part not to admit more explicitly that in making this move, one is leaving beyond the realm of science per se and developing a philosophical worldview. I think–though I’m not sure–that in a conversation Krauss would probably admit as much. But by not doing so in the Journal, Krauss is helping along the misconception that science itself is inherently atheistic. It isn’t.
Krauss agrees in a comment that that is what he was doing:
I agree with you about it being a philosophical leap… and that is why I began the argument with Haldane, who makes it clear that it is such.. or at least it was clear to me.
But Tom Clark and Russell Blackford dispute this idea of a Great Separation or a leap.
First Tom:
Seems to me Haldane isn’t making a “leap” from his atheistic scientific practice to his global atheistic naturalism, rather it sounds like he believes it’s ethically required of him to apply the same (reliable) cognitive standards in all domains. It’s not only rationally permissible, but epistemically responsible to do so because the standards are reliable. Not to do so is, as he says, intellectually dishonest if we’re interested in truths about the world.
Then Russell:
Science and philosophy are continuous with each other. Yes, Krauss is not speaking as a physicist, carrying out specialist research in an area of cosmology or whatever, when he makes the claims that he does in this article. He is stepping back from that; he is speaking as a person who has an overall familiarity with the image of the world that comes from modern science – which you’d hope any high-level scientist possesses – and is capable of comparing that with the typical claims of religion. Yes, that is an example of what we mean by doing philosophy, but you make it sound as if “doing philosophy” is some kind of exercise discontinuous from all our rational investigation of the world.
Krauss is doing exactly what Dawkins does, or what a philosopher like Philip Kitcher does. There’s no conspiracy to hide this and pretend that Krauss’s article in the WSJ is reporting findings from his lab.
Chris Mooney please note. (Not that he will. He never does. He just keeps repeating his mantra.)
You’re right. He never will “note” it. I used to think Mooney was just misguided in some arenas, but that he was genuinely trying to do his best to be effective and productive. Now I think he’s willfully, and consciously dishonest, at least some of the time. He’s no longer merely exasperating, I feel something close to intellectual contempt for him. Mooney’s lowered himself to nothing more than a common (in the most withering sense of the word) huckster, a salesman. Despite some rumors that he had a break with Nisbet, I see no intellectual separation between their positions whatsoever.
It’s all the more infuriating since he dresses it up with his “friendly, earnest guy” public face. Warthogs in party dresses, indeed.
Well, I think he just doesn’t get it – but he doesn’t seem to make any effort to get it. As if he sticks his fingers in his ears and goes ‘NANANANANANANA’ whenever anyone says it, so that he won’t get it.
This is one of the rare times I disagree with you, O. Well, not totally, but I think that after a certain amount of willful-not-getting-it, it’s reasonable to accuse someone of intellectual dishonesty and hucksterism. I’ve watched dozens of smart, well-educated, rational people (many of them commenters from here) explain these things to Mooney in calm, non-provocative tones. Mooney is clearly intelligent, so I simply don’t believe he innocently doesn’t understand.
Now it may be that he’s working double-time to fool himself into believing that he’s not being willfully obtuse, because I’m sure he doesn’t want to think of himself as that kind of guy. But he is, very much, that kind of guy.
I’ve tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but enough is enough.
Chris Mooney has engaged me on my own blog in the last few hours. So far, all he’s said is that I state his own philosophical position quite well in the opening two paras of my relevant post, but he finds the rest “baffling”. I’ve now re-read the rest and it seems clear enough to me. I’ve asked him to clarify what he finds baffling about it. Have I misunderstood something about what he’s saying? Is my own position baffling to him? Or what? Perhaps he’ll enlighten me. I’m open to constructive discussion with him, but I suspect there are deep intuitions in each of us about the social importance of religion … or something.
Warning, OB, if you have a look you’ll have to avert your eyes to the comments by J.J. Ramsey. Not that the particular comments are so bad, but still …
Most amusingly, I too asked Chris just what it was that he found baffling, while Russell was asking him. We asked the same question at almost the same time. Spoooooky.
But if Mooney can explain – we might finally get somewhere.
Russell, I know, I saw – he and Chris Schoen are all over it. I just held my breath and posted anyway.