John Lynch on the DI's purported history of ID

Lynch's succinct summary and analysis does an admirable job stressing not only the Christian, but especially, the Classical Graeco - Roman roots of Intelligent Design. After taking a brief look at the Disco Tute's .pdf file, I couldn't help but wonder whether the actual author of that file could have been the same fellow who has created this:

http://www.designinference.com/teaching/teaching.htm

(In plain English, none other than my "favorite" Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer, one Bill Dembski.)

John Kwok said: ...none other than my "favorite" Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer, one Bill Dembski

Paul Burnett said: ...it's just becoming more and more obvious that intelligent design creationism is all about religion and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science.

Paul Burnett said:

John Kwok said: ...none other than my "favorite" Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer, one Bill Dembski

Between this and Dembski's latest book, The End of Christianity ( http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf ) it's just becoming more and more obvious that intelligent design creationism is all about religion and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science.

An excellent, well-written and researched take-down of the usual DI Dishonesty. Well worth the effort to save and site in the future as needed.

DavidK said:

Paul Burnett said:

John Kwok said: ...none other than my "favorite" Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer, one Bill Dembski

Between this and Dembski's latest book, The End of Christianity ( http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf ) it's just becoming more and more obvious that intelligent design creationism is all about religion and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science.

From Dembski's paper: "Science is supposed to show that any God or intelligence or purpose behind the universe is not merely superfluous but an impediment to reason. Yet evidence from science shows the opposite. The case for a designing intelligence producing life and the cosmos is now on solid ground, as can be seen from such books as The Design of Life and The Privileged Planet." Damn, we've been wrong all these years about what science was about. Thanks for the clarification, Bill. And now we have concrete proof of Intelligent Design as well. Gosh, gee willikers Radioactive Man.

Paul Burnett said:

John Kwok said: ...none other than my "favorite" Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer, one Bill Dembski

Between this and Dembski's latest book, The End of Christianity ( http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf ) it's just becoming more and more obvious that intelligent design creationism is all about religion and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science.

History has shown that assuming that there is any God or intelligence or purpose behind the universe is not merely superfluous but an impediment to reason. And evidence from science shows that no such assumptions are necessary or justified. However, you are still completely free to believe in whatever God you like in this country. You just aren't free to use your beliefs as a substitute for science or to force your religious beliefs on others in public funded schools. That would be the best way to lose the religious freedom you enjoy in this country since the benefits of science are obvious and shared by all. The case for a designing intelligence producing life and the cosmos by divince intervention in the natural world is now regarded as unsupported and unnecessary, as can be seen from such books as The Design of Life and The Privileged Planet. These present no convincing evidence at all but instead depend on unsound reasoning, wishful thinking and the need for people to feel special.

There all fixed.

DS said: History has shown that assuming that there is any God or intelligence or purpose behind the universe is not merely superfluous but an impediment to reason. And evidence from science shows that no such assumptions are necessary or justified. However, you are still completely free to believe in whatever God you like in this country. You just aren't free to use your beliefs as a substitute for science or to force your religious beliefs on others in public funded schools. That would be the best way to lose the religious freedom you enjoy in this country since the benefits of science are obvious and shared by all. The case for a designing intelligence producing life and the cosmos by divince intervention in the natural world is now regarded as unsupported and unnecessary, as can be seen from such books as The Design of Life and The Privileged Planet. These present no convincing evidence at all but instead depend on unsound reasoning, wishful thinking and the need for people to feel special. There all fixed.

Paul Burnett said:

John Kwok said: ...none other than my "favorite" Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer, one Bill Dembski

Between this and Dembski's latest book, The End of Christianity ( http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf ) it's just becoming more and more obvious that intelligent design creationism is all about religion and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science.

What do these readings show you about the origins of intelligent design as an idea?

Is intelligent design a response to modern court rulings or an outgrowth of “Christian fundamentalism”?

Is it dependent on the authority of the Bible rather than the observations of nature and the inferences drawn from those inferences [sic]?

How long have people been debating about whether there is evidence of design in nature?

Psychologists have discovered that humans in general – and children in particular – exhibit three innate biases: • Essentialist bias: all natural kinds have and immutable essence • Teleological bias: what they see must be purposeful and goal-orientated • Intentionality bias: actions and outcomes must be the work of an intentional agent These biases are actually useful for children to make predictions in the world and are defaults that adults revert to at times. We clearly see all three at work in the design argument.

— John Lynch

You just aren’t free to use your beliefs as a substitute for science or to force your religious beliefs on others in public funded schools.

— DS

DavidK said: From Dembski's paper: "Science is supposed to show that any God or intelligence or purpose behind the universe is not merely superfluous but an impediment to reason." Damn, we've been wrong all these years about what science was about.

DS said: There all fixed.

Mike said: Its obvious misrepresentation to claim that science can make conclusions about something that can't be observed.

Yes, Dembski lies about what science is. Science simply has nothing to say about the supernatural. If it can't be observed you can't do science. Please note though that Dembski's misrepresentation of science is exactly the same as that of the "new atheists". If you hadn't attributed the quote I would have thought that it came from Coyne, Dawkins, or Myers, et al. Both groups are screwing over science education for the sake of what they believe to be a greater agenda.

Mike said:

DS said: There all fixed.

There, all broken. I've got a simpler solution. Its still the majority understanding within the scientific community that science has nothing to say about religion, despite anything the "new atheists" claim. The courts and the law also understand this. Therefore teaching religion in a public school science class is against the law. It doesn't need fixing. Its obvious misrepresentation to claim that science can make conclusions about something that can't be observed. But the new atheists need to do this in order to claim that science negates religion. That opens up, what for them is, a tiny problem with applying the establishment clause. If science really can study the existance of God then religion in public school science classes becomes valid.

eric said: ... what scientists can often say is that under the set of experimental conditions X we appear to understand all the relevant variables. Which implies that any other nonobservables have no effect.

Between this and Dembski's latest book, The End of Christianity ( http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf ) it's just becoming more and more obvious that intelligent design creationism is all about religion and has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science.

This extended excerpt from Chapter One of Dembski’s forthcoming book is rather revealing with respect to Dembski’s current thought and why he has decided to challenge “New Atheists” such as Dawkins, Hitchens and others:

I finished what I thought would be my last graduate degree in 1988, a
doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago. On completing
that degree, I began a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). There I was struck by how readily my
colleagues regarded Christianity as passé. They did not think that
Christianity was dangerous and had to be stamped out. They thought that
Christianity lacked intellectual vitality and deserved to be ignored. Its
stamping out was, in their minds, a long-accomplished fact—the war was
over and Christianity had lost.
In the mental environment of my MIT colleagues, Christianity carried
no weight. As a Christian who believed then (and still does now) that the
revelation of God in Jesus Christ is humanity’s chief truth, I found this
light dismissal of Christianity troubling. How could my colleagues so
easily reject the Christian faith? I had to get to the bottom of this question
and therefore set aside a promising career as a research mathematician to
pursue further studies in philosophy and theology.
Much has happened in our culture in the twenty years since my time at
MIT. Notably, the intelligent design movement has grown internationally
and pressed Western intellectuals to take seriously the claim that life and
the cosmos are the product of intelligence. To be sure, many of them
emphatically reject this claim. But their need to confront and refute it
suggests that our mental environment is no longer stagnating in the
atheistic materialism that for so long has dominated Western intellectual
life. That atheistic worldview, supposedly buttressed by science, has
constituted a major obstacle, at least in the West, to taking Christianity
seriously. With atheistic materialism now itself in question, Christianity is
again on the table for discussion.
This is not to say that the discussion is friendly or that Christianity is
about to find widespread acceptance at places like MIT. Instead of
routinely ignoring Christianity as they did twenty years ago, many
Western intellectuals now treat it with open contempt, expending a great
many words to denounce it. But this is progress. The dead are ignored and
forgotten. The living are scorned and reviled. I was therefore gratified to
see the recent rash of books by the “neo-atheists” such as Richard
Dawkins’s The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens’s god Is Not Great
(Hitchens insists on not capitalizing references to the deity), and Sam
Harris’s The End of Faith. These books would be unnecessary if
Christianity, and theism generally, were not again a live issue.
The neo-atheists’ first line of attack in challenging religious belief, and
Christianity in particular, is to invoke science as the principal debunker of
religion. Science is supposed to show that any God or intelligence or
purpose behind the universe is not merely superfluous but an impediment
to reason. Yet evidence from science shows the opposite. The case for a
designing intelligence producing life and the cosmos is now on solid
ground, as can be seen from such books as The Design of Life and The
Privileged Planet. Indeed, the neo-atheists are not having a good time of
it when they attempt to disprove Christian faith simply by appealing to
science. True, their denunciations of Christianity contain many references
to “science.” But the denunciations are ritualistic, with “science” used as a
conjuring word (like “abracadabra”). One finds little actual science in their
denunciations.
Instead of presenting scientific evidence that shows atheism to be true
(or probable), the neo-atheists moralize about how much better the world
would be if only atheism were true. Far from demonstrating that God does
not exist, the neo-atheists merely demonstrate how earnestly they desire
that God not exist. The God of Christianity is, in their view, the worst
thing that could befall reality. According to Richard Dawkins, for
instance, the Judeo-Christian God “is arguably the most unpleasant
character in all of fiction. Jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust
unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic-cleanser; a
misogynistic homophobic racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,
pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent
bully.”
Dawkins’s obsession with the Christian God borders on the
pathological. Yet, he underscores what has always been the main reason
people reject God: they cannot believe that God is good. Eve, in the
Garden of Eden, rejected God because she thought he had denied her some
benefit that she should have, namely, the fruit from the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil.10 Clearly, a God who denies creatures
benefits that they think they deserve cannot be good. Indeed, a mark of our
fallenness is that we fail to see the irony in thus faulting God. Should we
not rather trust that the things God denies us are denied precisely for our
benefit? Likewise, the neo-atheists find lots of faults with God, their list of
denied benefits being much longer than Eve’s—no surprise here since
they’ve had a lot longer to compile such a list!

For the rest, you can read it here:

http://www.designinference.com/documents/2009.05.end_of_xty.pdf

But let me conclude by observing that, in light of his past, often quite repugnant, devious behavior, Dembski’s own “obsession with the Christian God” also “borders on the pathological”. In criticizing Dawkins, I strongly suspect that Dembski sees a kindred spirit working directly opposite from his end of the philosophical/theological spectrum. And, ironically, he sets out the same challenge - that atheism can be "proven" scientifically - which many in the scientific community - including those who are religiously devout - have demanded of religion, especially of fundamentalist faiths like Dembski's peculiar Xian brand.

Mike said: There is nothing in science that is understood so well that we can pack up the lab and move to Fiji.

The certainty of the "new atheists" is as worrisome as fundamentalist certainty.

eric said: The new atheists typically argue for non-existence (of God), not irrelevance (of God). Science certainly does have something to say about irrelevance; about what variables matter in predicting the behavior of some physical phenomena. If a scientist can say with confidence that the phase of moon is irrelevant to how fast a ball rolls down an incline, or to the aerodynamic lift of a wing, then they should have no problem conceding the many other things that are irrelevant to those phenomena. Including prayers to Jo-Bu.

Dean Wentworth said: I don't disagree with your statement, but do you think a theistic scientist like Collins or Miller would? Specifically, do you think they would agree that science consigns their deity to irrelevance?

eric and Dean,

Am reasonably certain that Ken would agree with both statements. Moreover, I heard him say two weeks ago (at a private talk he gave to our fellow college alumni here in NYC) that anyone who belongs to a faith that is intolerant of modern science should think seriously of leaving that faith.

Regards,

John

eric said: Another, perhaps more confrontational way of putting them is: God is irrelevant to orbital mechanics and cholera.

Dean Wentworth said:

eric said: The new atheists typically argue for non-existence (of God), not irrelevance (of God). Science certainly does have something to say about irrelevance; about what variables matter in predicting the behavior of some physical phenomena. If a scientist can say with confidence that the phase of moon is irrelevant to how fast a ball rolls down an incline, or to the aerodynamic lift of a wing, then they should have no problem conceding the many other things that are irrelevant to those phenomena. Including prayers to Jo-Bu.

I don't disagree with your statement, but do you think a theistic scientist like Collins or Miller would? Specifically, do you think they would agree that science consigns their deity to irrelevance?

Dembski delusional xian Dominionist: (MIT). There I was struck by how readily my colleagues regarded Christianity as passé. They did not think that Christianity was dangerous and had to be stamped out.

Big science has expelled smart new ideas from the classroom...What they forgot is that every generation has its Rebel!

Intelligent design, which holds that only an unspecified superior intellect can account for the complexity of life forms, is increasingly appearing in science forums and journals as an alternative to evolution theory. Evolution has been widely accepted in scientific circles ever since Charles Darwin's Origin of Species revolutionised biological sciences 145 years ago. But the new theory's support by a handful of biologists and non-scientists has put Darwinists on the defensive, while encouraging groups who consider evolution hostile to their religious beliefs. Pro-evolutionists brand the new idea an unscientific melange of politics and religion. [emphases supplied] www.discovery.org/a/2445

Design Theory: A New Science for a New Century Materialistic thinking dominated Western culture during the 20th century in large part because of the authority of science. The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture seeks, therefore, to challenge materialism on specifically scientific grounds. Yet Center Fellows do more than critique theories that have materialistic implications. They have also pioneered alternative scientific theories and research methods that recognize the reality of design and the need for intelligent agency to explain it. This new research program-called "design theory"-is based upon recent developments in the information sciences and many new evidences of design. Design theory promises to revitalize many long-stagnant disciplines by recognizing mind, as well as matter, as a causal influence in the world. It also promises, by implication, to promote a more holistic view of reality and humanity, thus helping to reverse some of materialism's destructive cultural consequences.

There is much work still to do, but as yet mainstream science has not yet managed to argue away this new science. www.overwhelmingevidence.com/oe/blog/sbwillie/evolution_an_idea_on_the_verge_of_extinction

Although I served at an institution supporting scientific research into the new theory of intelligent design and consider myself a proponent of the same, in all my time at Discovery Institute I consistently held to our public policy position that public schools should not mandate the teaching of the theory of intelligent design. www.evolutionnews.org/2005/12/statement_by_seth_l_cooper_con.html

Q. In your opinion, is intelligent design a religious proposition or a scientific proposition? A. It's essentially a religious proposition. Q. We're going to spend the rest of our time together exploring your reasons for that opinion. What do you understand intelligent design to be? A. I understand it to be a reformulation of an old theological argument for the existence of God, an argument that unfolds in the form of a syllogism, the major premise of which is wherever there is complex design, there has to be some intelligent designer. The minor premise is that nature exhibits complex design. The conclusion, therefore, nature must have an intelligent designer. Q. You said this is an old tradition. Can you trace the antecedence for us? A. Well, two landmarks are Thomas Aquinas and William Paley. Thomas Aquinas was a famous theologian/philosopher who lived in the 13th Century. And one of his claims to fame is that he formulated what are called the five ways to prove the existence of God, one of which was to argue from the design and complexity and order and pattern in the universe to the existence of an ultimate intelligent designer. The second landmark -- incidentally, Thomas Aquinas ended every one of his five arguments by saying that this being, this ultimate, everyone understands to be God. And William Paley, in the late 18th and early 19th Century, is famous for formulating the famous watchmaker argument, according to which, just as you open up a watch and find there intricate design and that should lead you to postulate the existence of a watchmaker, so also the intricate design and pattern in nature should lead one to posit the existence of an intelligent being that's responsible for the existence of design and pattern in nature. And like Aquinas, William Paley also said to the effect that everyone understands this to be the God of biblical theism, the creator God of biblical religion. Q. How does intelligent design build upon or modernize this old tradition of natural theology? A. Well, it simply appeals to more recent findings about the complexity of the world by contemporary science, for example, what are called irreducible complexity and specified informational complexity. www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day5pm.html

Now, in our day, a new idea has indeed come along, and it is embodied in the information found in a DNA molecule. It is beyond ridiculous, then, to suggest that men like Francis Bacon, Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, Faraday, Maxwell or Lord Kelvin — all of whom were in part motivated by religion and whose religion gave meaning to their science — would ignore or dismiss such evidence of design because of its possible religious implications. www.uncommondescent.com/faq/

I can summarize Dembski's arguments easily.

Science proves god exists and his name is Yahweh, the xian god.

There is absolutely no proof of this so everyone will have to take Dembski's word on it. As to why anyone much less everyone would take Dembski's word about anything, it s complete mystery much more unsolvable than what came before the Big Bang.

This is claimed to be sophisticated philosophy, science, and theology.

Shorter Dembski, "I know everything, so shut up and believe."

raven said: I can summarize Dembski's arguments easily. Science proves god exists and his name is Yahweh, the xian god. There is absolutely no proof of this so everyone will have to take Dembski's word on it. As to why anyone much less everyone would take Dembski's word about anything, it s complete mystery much more unsolvable than what came before the Big Bang. This is claimed to be sophisticated philosophy, science, and theology. Shorter Dembski, "I know everything, so shut up and believe."

Not going to read first hand anything by Dembski. Not worth spending a valuable resource, lifespan.

How does science prove that the Intelligent Designer is a xian god, Yahweh?

Why not Zeus, Brahma, Buddha, Allah, or Bob the Rain God? Why is there only one Intelligent Designer. Lots of religions have fleets of gods.

Not asking why Dembski names the god he does. I know why. Why does science prove it is Yahweh?

Not asking why Dembski names the god he does. I know why. Why does science prove it is Yahweh?

— raven

raven said: How does science prove that the Intelligent Designer is a xian god, Yahweh?

eric said:

raven said: How does science prove that the Intelligent Designer is a xian god, Yahweh?

I think in most cases they fall back on the ontological argument. That gets them to monotheism and traits like omniscence, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc... I'm not defending that argument, just telling you how I think they get there. I agree with Glenn D.'s argument that the ID crowd is speaking out both sides of their mouths. But to be honest, I don't see anything particularly nefarious about this. Turn on the TV and half the advertising out there will use the same strategy. One day Ginsu knives are best because they have a solid performance record. The next day, they have an all-new steel formula that makes them even sharper. That religious folks use standard advertising techniques doesn't bother me. What bothers me is when people fall for such transparent marketing strategies.

Dan said: In particular, Miller argues that the deity is relevant to interpersonal relationships, to human motivation, etc. "A Christian sees his life, his family, and his small place in history as parts of God's plan. He has faith that God expects him to use his talents and abilities in God's name. He accepts the adversity that comes into this life as a challenge from God, and he sees apparent misfortune as an opportunity to do good in the service of both God and man." (Finding Darwin's God, page 236.)

eric said:

Dan said: In particular, Miller argues that the deity is relevant to interpersonal relationships, to human motivation, etc. "A Christian sees his life, his family, and his small place in history as parts of God's plan. He has faith that God expects him to use his talents and abilities in God's name. He accepts the adversity that comes into this life as a challenge from God, and he sees apparent misfortune as an opportunity to do good in the service of both God and man." (Finding Darwin's God, page 236.)

I'd argue that Miller's point is really about belief in God. He's making a statement about faith's impact on the world, not God's impact on the world. Faith can be relevant while at the same time the object of that faith is not. Given that there are many mutually exclusive religions in the world, that statement almost has to be true. :) Kids produce pressure waves in the air when they clap their hands. And they may clap long and hard to bring tinkerbell back. This does not make tinkerbell "relevant" to science. At best, it makes belief in tinkerbell relevant, but you have to have a very broad, squishy definition of relvancy to even say that.

Glen Davidson said: Here is an excerpt from an article that the DI put on their site, apparently without any concern that it portrays ID as a "new theory":

Intelligent design, which holds that only an unspecified superior intellect can account for the complexity of life forms, is increasingly appearing in science forums and journals as an alternative to evolution theory. ... www.discovery.org/a/2445

IOW, they're pushing the idea that it is a new idea, a new theory. Here's what used to be on the DI's website: ...

Design Theory: A New Science for a New Century We know very well that ID is not a new idea, it's a pre-scientific idea that can only win if science standards are essentially destroyed.

Glen Davidson http://tinyurl.com/6mb592

I find it interesting how the arguments in the pdf from the faith and evolutions site presents us with one great big giant red herring.

Who has ever denied that there is a multi-religion or theistic world view argument from design? Who has ever said that the argument from design was of logical necessity specifically Christian?

In addition, the pdf confuses multiple positions: rational deists and theistic evolutionists and others with similar views can accept the idea that reflection on the grandeur of natural law, leads to the inference of a designer of natural law. That's not the same as saying that the evidence for a designer has to be found in areas where we cannot find an explanation based on natural law.

The pdf also ignores that over time, the philosophical underpinnings of science have changed.

But why have they changed? At one point in time we can point to respected scientists of their era who believed in natural theology, lamarckism, vitalism, teleology (note the latter three don't necessarily imply natural theology) but over time the need for some "third force"-be it a designer, magic, vitalism, etc. has been rejected because those explanations simply didn't work out.

People are free to try and reconsider discredited arguments, but they have an obligation to present new evidence as to why those arguments should be reconsidered.

The modern proponents of the ID movement do not do so.

Also, I liked how this post distinguished between a generic argument from or to design, and the modern ID movement. I've had this very same discussion with a colleague of mine. In a very abstract way, there is nothing wrong with academic discussions about arguments to or from design, though I think they are vulnerable to critique. But just because something is worth discussing in a philosophy or intellectual history class does not make it good science.

As a scientist, I have to say that many things in my life, even in my professional life (e.g. College committee meetings, grant reviews, etc. Gee, I've just finished the assessment report for my department), are not science.

Lots of things are irrelevant to science but are relevant to life: art, justice, love, politics, spiritual affinity, beauty. Fine dining that provides the same nutrition as poorly cooked food is relevant to daily life, even if it's irrelevant to nutritional science.

Without speaking personally on Ken's behalf, I would say that he agrees with you on this:

"The original question was whether Ken Miller would find a deity relevant, not whether he would find a deity relevant to science."

"I think Ken Miller would reply that the deity is relevant to many things, but not to science."

In fact, it was one of the points he stressed in a private talk he gave to our fellow university alumni here in New York City two weeks ago.

Dan said: I think Ken Miller would reply that the deity is relevant to many things, but not to science.

Lots of things are irrelevant to science but are relevant to life: art, justice, love, politics, spiritual affinity, beauty. Fine dining that provides the same nutrition as poorly cooked food is relevant to daily life, even if it's irrelevant to nutritional science.

Chip Poirot said: Dan Said:

As a scientist, I have to say that many things in my life, even in my professional life (e.g. College committee meetings, grant reviews, etc. Gee, I've just finished the assessment report for my department), are not science.

Well, obviously, one can make a common sense distinction between doing a lab experiment and engaging in the actual practice of biology and attending a committee meeting. But I can still maintain my critical faculties during a committee meeting (if I take enough deep breaths). So I can approach committee business in a scientific fashion and thus in a sense, be doing science, or at least be doing things scientifically. So I don't buy that "science" is something I do in one area and don't apply in other areas.

Lots of things are irrelevant to science but are relevant to life: art, justice, love, politics, spiritual affinity, beauty. Fine dining that provides the same nutrition as poorly cooked food is relevant to daily life, even if it's irrelevant to nutritional science.

Again, the same principle applies. I may not be able to arrive at precise, quantifiable rules for art, justice, love, politics, spiritual affinity and beauty. But I can judge warrant of belief and discuss these matters in terms of evidence and reason.

Dan Said

think we can all agree that critical thinking is good in all aspects of thought: thought about nature, thought about marriage and other interpersonal relationships, thought about love and beauty and cooking and justice. Critical thinking is good in thought about religion.

But that doesn’t mean that marriage, love, beauty, cooking, justice, and religion are part of science

But is science just a subject area (the study of the physical and natural world)? If so, then obviously, the common sense distinction of studying plants and deciding who is going to take the Vet or do the cooking or how to arrange the family finances is pretty clear.

Or, is science a general approach to knowledge and if so, how do we distinguish that approach from other approaches?

IMO, what we have come to call a scientific approach to thinking in our era is the systematic application of reason and experience to knowledge. And that in my opinion makes the natural sciences one aspect of science and it so happens that more precise answers are obtainable in the natural world than in other areas of our lives.

But if science is an approach to knowledge, then strictly speaking, **nothing** really lies outside of science.

We can still make a common sense distinction perhaps between the study of knowledge motivated just by idle curiousity and the application of knowledge to many areas of our life (I would call the application of knowledge technology).

Now, knowing human beings, I would not expect people to always approach marriage or committee meetings with the same spirit they might approach the study of amoebas. But on the other hand, I would expect a marriage counselor to help me apply valid and warranted knowledge about family dynamics to marital issues. I wouldn't go to a marriage counselor who was steeped in pseudo science (which I actually suspect most marriage counselors are) and told me the answer to marital problems was to pray and read the Bible or to follow Bill Gothard's principles of patriarchal authority. Nor would i go to a marriage counselor who came at issues from feminist view point theory.

So, long story short-I wouldn't put even my marriage outside of science.

Chip Poirot said: So, long story short-I wouldn't put even my marriage outside of science.

John Kwok said: eric and Dean, Am reasonably certain that Ken would agree with both statements. Moreover, I heard him say two weeks ago (at a private talk he gave to our fellow college alumni here in NYC) that anyone who belongs to a faith that is intolerant of modern science should think seriously of leaving that faith. Regards, John

But by your definition science is the same as “everything”. I would just use the word everything.

raven said: Not going to read first hand anything by Dembski. Not worth spending a valuable resource, lifespan. How does science prove that the Intelligent Designer is a xian god, Yahweh? Why not Zeus, Brahma, Buddha, Allah, or Bob the Rain God? Why is there only one Intelligent Designer. Lots of religions have fleets of gods. Not asking why Dembski names the god he does. I know why. Why does science prove it is Yahweh?

Chip Poirot said: My argument about science in this instance is that if we want to have valid claims to knowledge and a sufficient warrant to act with confidence then we should use the method of science (systematc application of reason and experience).

What properties does marriage, art, etc. have that make it unamenable to applying scientific methods?

But if science is an approach to knowledge, then strictly speaking, **nothing** really lies outside of science.

Would Collins and Miller both agree that god is irrelevant to the outcome of evolution? As far as I know, both would not. So then how is that different than saying angels are needed to explain the orbits or the planets?

And while everyone loves to opine on the "limits" of science, I've heard little about the limits of faith. Oh, sure, many agree that it's not appropriate to use faith when addressing empirical questions, but I've never heard a good explanation for why it's appropriate to inform any question. When is faith ever valid? Can faith inform morality, say, in any defensible manner? There's this idea that any question that science can't directly address must somehow be "faith's domain." But has faith ever actually earned that spot? How can faith ever be depended upon to give a non-arbitrary answer on any question imaginable? If it can't, then why would anyone expect to their faith to be given any credence whatsoever?

H.H. said: Would Collins and Miller both agree that god is irrelevant to the outcome of evolution? As far as I know, both would not. So then how is that different than saying angels are needed to explain the orbits or the planets? And while everyone loves to opine on the "limits" of science, I've heard little about the limits of faith. Oh, sure, many agree that it's not appropriate to use faith when addressing empirical questions, but I've never heard a good explanation for why it's appropriate to inform any question. When is faith ever valid? Can faith inform morality, say, in any defensible manner? There's this idea that any question that science can't directly address must somehow be "faith's domain." But has faith ever actually earned that spot? How can faith ever be depended upon to give a non-arbitrary answer on any question imaginable? If it can't, then why would anyone expect to their faith to be given any credence whatsoever?

eric said:

Chip Poirot said: My argument about science in this instance is that if we want to have valid claims to knowledge and a sufficient warrant to act with confidence then we should use the method of science (systematc application of reason and experience).

You are forgetting or leaving out one big part of what is typically called science: the reliance on empirical, objective evidence. I can systematically apply reason and experience to the study of musical taste (your definition of science). But I can't measure music's inherent "goodness" because it has none. Musical quality is not an independent, objective, empirical quantity. Your brain's reaction to music can be measured. But it has no objective quality of goodness outside of your brain.

It would take a long time to unpack this, but you are begging significant questions. In short, you seem to be adopting something along the lines of the logical positivist/Wittgensteinian view of scientific knowledge as empirically verifiable, quantifiable sentences/theories that can be expressed via formal logic or mathematics. I agree that much of the natural and physical sciences lends itself to greater rigor and precision and more exact testing than the social sciences. In turn, some parts of the social sciences at least can be more exact, etc. than the humanities. But I think that if you are arguing the position I think you are arguing you are engaging in fallacy: either we have precise, quantifiable, predictable knowledge or we have nothing at all. It echoes Wittgenstein's dictum that on matters about which we can speak, we should speak clearly and on all others remain silent. I disagree and follow philosophers like Susan Haack and Larry Laudan who point out that we can have degrees of warrant of belief, and that the best warrant of belief is to systematically apply the method of reason and experience. I may not be able to derive a statistical test of what makes good music or good art, or a valid ethical proposition, but I can still have cognitively rational conversations about them. In a sense, I can test these areas by their consequences. Dewey addresses this in several places. Hilary Putnam recently made a similar argument in Ethics Without Ontology , though I wouldn't necessarily adopt everything Putnam says there. But long story short, your definition of science is one that is not particularly well accepted amongst modern epistemologists.

One of the incredibly powerful things about science is that I can write up an experiment, hand that write-up to someone of a comepletely different cultural background, and assuming they can read and follow the instructions, they can do the experiment and end up with the exact same result. To use an earlier example, a ball will always roll down an incline at the same acceleration, whether you're a chanting Chinese buddhist or punk rocker from New York. But I can't write up a musical score that everyone agrees has exactly 10 units of musical quality in it. No matter how much reason and experience I put into it.

OK, but again, it is degrees-not absolutes. And even so, we can compare music and art across cultures and find common elements such as symmetry, order, complexity, etc. that serve to make art or music great. Some Cultural Anthropologists insist that cultural variation is so great and so vast that I can never arrive at such a conclusion. Others (especially the ones I agree with) focus on how there are Universal cultural patterns. This also follows to some degree from cognitive and evolutionary psychology.

What properties does marriage, art, etc. have that make it unamenable to applying scientific methods?

This: the quantities you are concerned about (love, aesthetics) are not objectively measureable. You cannot build a lovemeter the same way you can build a spectrometer. There is more to science than just application of reason and experience; there is also a very limited definition as to what counts as evidence. That definition excludes many fields of study from being "scientific."

So how do you propose to study the social sciences and Humanities? Deep breathing exercises?

Now, as a second and very practical question, I would ask that if you really believe this:

But if science is an approach to knowledge, then strictly speaking, **nothing** really lies outside of science.

Then what do you propose we teach in JHS science classes? Everything?

You really have an incredible talent for the absolutely ridiculous. What did I say: I said that Science is fundamentally and intrinsically bound up with both an ontology and an epistemology that descends to us with modification from the Enlightenment. Science is a worldview. So, IMO, there is no field that can claim exemption from applying the method of reason and experience and resort to knowledge based on deep breathing exercises. But I also said that we could make a common sense distinction between the subject matters of the different specific sciences and the Humanities. As I said several times already I can make a common sense distinction between physics and molecular biology. I can make a common sense distinction between biology and economics. So when you teach a subject area, you need to teach so that students can acquire what is widely accepted as competence in that subject area. So in a class on population genetics for example, you need to spend time on Hardy-Castle-Weinberg. In economics, you spend time teaching supply and demand, and so on. There are occasions when knowledge spills over from one area to the other. If you teach a general survey course in European History for example, you would cover the respective contributions of Newton and Einstein (or at least you should, IMO). Likewise in a physics course you might spend some time on the history of physics. My concern is demarcating valid claims to knowledge from bogus claims to knowledge. As it turns out, when we start specifying what kinds of things constitute valid claims to knowledge, we tend to arrive at a position that is broadly and philosophically speaking scientific. The physical and natural sciences are a specific application of the method of reason and experience-what Susan Haack calls "More so". Susan Haack also notes that the social sciences are in this respect "the same but different." I would extend this to the humanities. Knowledge should be continuous. That doesn't mean we can't make common sense distinctions about what we teach in first period and what we teach in third period.

eric and Chip,

While this is a little bit off topic, it may be relevant to your interesting discussion. In his book "Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul", Ken Miller has made the fascinating observation that the logical reasoning of DI advocates is too reminiscient of the moral relativism that is popular in the humanities and social sciences. By adopting such a stance, ID advocates are threatening the very survival of science itself, by implying that science could be done via such a methodology.

Appreciatively yours,

John

Dembski and other DI folk often admit that they hope that the hapless designer they claim to have caught in Dembski’s filter (or Behe’s mousetrap, take your pick) is the Judeo-Christian God.

I don't believe I have the skill, knowledge, or time to do this justice, but I'm certain its important. As most readers here probably know better than I, the question of what science "is" is of central importance to countering the anti-science education movement. I'm encouraged in the validity of my own pessimistic view of the failure to teach the general public what science is by the various recent studies that show US science scores dropping, the failure of the education community to grasp the importance of teaching crucial aspects of the process of doing science, and popular misconception that science is whatever sounds "sciency". This allows AIG, DI, et al., to confuse science with religion, but they aren't alone.

I'm sorry, but the idea that any experiment in any branch of science tests a God variable shows a large amount of confusion. Like I said, not enough time.

John Kwok said: eric and Chip, While this is a little bit off topic, it may be relevant to your interesting discussion. In his book "Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul", Ken Miller has made the fascinating observation that the logical reasoning of DI advocates is too reminiscient of the moral relativism that is popular in the humanities and social sciences. By adopting such a stance, ID advocates are threatening the very survival of science itself, by implying that science could be done via such a methodology. Appreciatively yours, John

I believe he was actually referring more to epistemological relativism, since he was drawing comparisons between what the IDiots wish to accomplish with respect to "overthrowing" scientific methodology and what Harold Bloom had criticized with regards to the humanities and social sciences in his seminal work, "The Closing of the American Mind". It is the very revolutionary nature of this aspect of the ID movement that Ken regards as especially dangerous.

I think you are making a somewhat erroneous comparison between the creationists wanting to broaden science from methodological naturalism to humanities relativism e.g. Postmodernism.

It is more like heading back to another and very old worldview. The title of a recent book, The Rise of Idiot America captures the essence of what they want.

Presupposialism and Postmoderism would be enough to destroy science. But why stop there when you can go back to the Dark Ages or further?

This would be a recipe for national suicide but they don't care about that either.

Mike said: I'm encouraged in the validity of my own pessimistic view of the failure to teach the general public what science is by the various recent studies that show US science scores dropping, the failure of the education community to grasp the importance of teaching crucial aspects of the process of doing science, and popular misconception that science is whatever sounds "sciency". This allows AIG, DI, et al., to confuse science with religion, but they aren't alone. I'm sorry, but the idea that any experiment in any branch of science tests a God variable shows a large amount of confusion. Like I said, not enough time.

To be more precisely, we should refer to - as Jerry Coyne has done - the “soft” and “hard” versions of ID. The soft version is of course the more “scientific” version that the DI’s mendacious intellectual pornographers have been trying to push through county and state school boards of education for years, claiming that it is science and thus, a “viable alternative” to evolution. However, not once, have any of them - including Behe and Dembski - demonstrated how and why Intelligent Design does a better job than evolution in explaining the origin, history and current structure of Earth’s biodiversity. The “hard” version of course is the religiously-inspired version aimed at the Xian faithful which Dembski, Luskin, Nelson, West, and now, most recently, Behe, have been promoting to the Xian faithful for years:

— John Kwok

I don’t know if creationism, intelligent design and other pseudo-sciences are the sole cause, but I have been around long enough to have seen the formation of the Institute for Creation “Research”, the “Discovery” Institute, Answers in Genesis, L. Ron Hubbard’s spoof, New Age woo-woo, the founding of a “university” by mystic quantum mechanics/Hinduism pseudo-science and a number of other well-funded scams. Since the 1960s, and progressing into the 1970s and 80s, these organizations ramped up and used technology to flood this society with memes, misconceptions, misinformation and pseudo-science crap all of which have a characteristic flavor that tells anyone knowledgeable about science just where this junk comes from. Some of it got rolling in response to the attempts at revising the national science curriculum after Sputnik. These anti-science and anti-evolution campaigns are well-organized and well-funded, and they have now been in operation for decades while disseminating this trash more efficiently each year.

— Mike Elzinga

Frank J,

Once more you've made some excellent points, but again, I have to concur with Jerry Coyne in recognizing that ID does come in two versions; "soft" and "hard". As for Mkie's recollection, I agree it is quite useful, but, I might add, with some slight sarcasm, "So what"? All creationists - at least since the early 1960s - have been engaged in some form of dodging and weaving, in which one of their classic methods has been "quote mining", so that they could substantiate - to themselves, their acolytes and those who are either ignorant of science (or quite simply too stubborn to recognize the difference between real science and pseudoscience) - the "strengths and weaknesses" of modern evolutionary theory.

I think it's useful for those who are unfamiliar with creationism to read either Ronald Numbers's "The Creationists" (which I haven't, but which Genie Scott strongly recommends as the best book of its kind. However, I have heard Numbers speak and spoken to him and found him quite interesting, simply as someone who grew up in a Fundamentalist Protestant home in Canada, and learned evolution only in graduate school) or Robert Pennock's "Tower of Babel".

Appreciatively yours,

John

Chio Poirot said: you seem to be adopting something along the lines of the logical positivist/Wittgensteinian view of scientific knowledge as empirically verifiable, quantifiable sentences/theories that can be expressed via formal logic or mathematics.

I disagree and follow philosophers like Susan Haack and Larry Laudan

I think that if you are arguing the position I think you are arguing you are engaging in fallacy: either we have precise, quantifiable, predictable knowledge or we have nothing at all.

I may not be able to derive a statistical test of what makes good music or good art, or a valid ethical proposition, but I can still have cognitively rational conversations about them.

So how do you propose to study the social sciences and Humanities? Deep breathing exercises?

raven said: I think you are making a somewhat erroneous comparison between the creationists wanting to broaden science from methodological naturalism to humanities relativism e.g. Postmodernism. It is more like heading back to another and very old worldview. The title of a recent book, The Rise of Idiot America captures the essence of what they want. Presupposialism and Postmoderism would be enough to destroy science. But why stop there when you can go back to the Dark Ages or further? This would be a recipe for national suicide but they don't care about that either.

Rubes that famously include Senator Santorum - if he’s not in on the scam, that is.

According to Ken, those who adhere to the other flavors of creationism do support adherence to the scientific method:

raven said:

According to Ken, those who adhere to the other flavors of creationism do support adherence to the scientific method:

Those few are just pretending. It is cargo cult science. Most of the YECs don't even bother to pretend. They just quote bible verses and tell eveyone else they are going to hell. A few toss in some death threats and call it done. About as far away from science as one can get this side of the Taliban.

OT, here is a link to Eugenie Scott's interiew in this week's Science.

Subscription required:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/324/5932/1250-b

They’re all “in on the scam” in that their actual objective is to push back at what they perceive (love the spell check) as an atheistic agenda in science education.

— Mike

Once more you’ve made some excellent points, but again, I have to concur with Jerry Coyne in recognizing that ID does come in two versions; “soft” and “hard”.

— John Kwok

eric said: OT, here is a link to Eugenie Scott's interiew in this week's Science. Subscription required: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/324/5932/1250-b

Well put, Frank J:

"Yes, but not in the same sense that classic creationism comes in various versions, with adherents occasionally challenging each other as to which is the “correct” one. IDers all want both hard and soft versions, so they can bait-and-switch them at their convenience."

Theistic naturalists must believe in naturalism to methodologically assume or adopt it in science, and they cannot logically maintain a belief in supernaturalism at the same time unless they maintain that there is absolutely no connection at all between the natural and supernatural worlds. But this is something no supernaturalist maintains. Even the most naturalistic theistic naturalist--a deist who claims that God is the ultimate Creator of the universe, but that everything after that singular event is natural and operates by natural causes--believes in a supernatural origin of the universe. But ontological naturalism makes no exception for the origin of the universe. It must have been natural, too. For supernaturalists who believe in miracles or the dogmas of Christianity, the hurdle is even higher. It is not logically possible for them to describe nature naturalistically when, in fact, they believe in supernatural violations of natural law, i.e. the manifestation of miracles. These arguments suggest to me that methodological naturalism, itself alone required by science, is logically untenable for humans unless one is simultaneously an ontological naturalist.

Dean Wentworth said: In his paper Naturalism is Today an Essential Part of Science, originally presented at the Conference on Naturalism, Theism and the Scientific Enterprise in 1997, Steven Schafersman wrote:

Theistic naturalists must believe in naturalism to methodologically assume or adopt it in science, and they cannot logically maintain a belief in supernaturalism at the same time unless they maintain that there is absolutely no connection at all between the natural and supernatural worlds. But this is something no supernaturalist maintains. Even the most naturalistic theistic naturalist--a deist who claims that God is the ultimate Creator of the universe, but that everything after that singular event is natural and operates by natural causes--believes in a supernatural origin of the universe. But ontological naturalism makes no exception for the origin of the universe. It must have been natural, too. For supernaturalists who believe in miracles or the dogmas of Christianity, the hurdle is even higher. It is not logically possible for them to describe nature naturalistically when, in fact, they believe in supernatural violations of natural law, i.e. the manifestation of miracles. These arguments suggest to me that methodological naturalism, itself alone required by science, is logically untenable for humans unless one is simultaneously an ontological naturalist.

Since the compatibility of science and religion is being discussed here, does anyone know if a theistic scientist (e.g. Collins or Miller) has ever directly responded to Schafersman's thoughts on the subject?

I would be interested too in your thoughts with regards to Genie Scott's observations. Am not sure if it's useful to keep fighting the same battle with regards to Coyne and Myers's inane criticism of NCSE's "accomodationist" stance with respect to religion (A stance that they claim NCSE does have, but which they DO NOT possess at all, according to what they have told me in private.).

John Kwok said: I would be interested too in your thoughts with regards to Genie Scott's observations. Am not sure if it's useful to keep fighting the same battle with regards to Coyne and Myers's inane criticism of NCSE's "accomodationist" stance with respect to religion (A stance that they claim NCSE does have, but which they DO NOT possess at all, according to what they have told me in private.).

Dean Wentworth said: ...Steven Schafersman wrote:

Theistic naturalists must believe in naturalism to methodologically assume or adopt it in science, and they cannot logically maintain a belief in supernaturalism at the same time unless they maintain that there is absolutely no connection at all between the natural and supernatural worlds...

Since the compatibility of science and religion is being discussed here, does anyone know if a theistic scientist (e.g. Collins or Miller) has ever directly responded to Schafersman's thoughts on the subject?

John Kwok said: This sounds again too much like the "all or nothing" approach advocated by Coyne and Myers:

Kevin B said:

John Kwok said: This sounds again too much like the "all or nothing" approach advocated by Coyne and Myers:

I was thinking that it bears a distinct resemblance to Dembski's multiplying up the probabilities and announcing that it couldn't possibly have happened by chance. Schafersman needs to be careful about the distinction "miracles can't happen" and "miracles are not amenable to being measured." He appears to be arguing the former, which is effectively an inverse form of the creationist position, and which is equally open to criticism. While science has to rely on models with statements of statistical probabilities of events, supernatural interference can't be ruled out simply by assertion.

John,

Thanks for your thoughts. The evidence that professed theists can accept evolution and function as exemplary scientists is unassailable. The logic they use to reconcile theism and science is not, apparently. Having one's logic be less than convincing to everybody is hardly an insult.

I have no beef with the NCSE's stance on the matter. If difficulty accepting the arguments of theists puts me in the camp of Dawkins, Coyne, Myers, et al., so be it.

Dean Wentworth said: John, Thanks for your thoughts. The evidence that professed theists can accept evolution and function as exemplary scientists is unassailable. The logic they use to reconcile theism and science is not, apparently. Having one's logic be less than convincing to everybody is hardly an insult. I have no beef with the NCSE's stance on the matter. If difficulty accepting the arguments of theists puts me in the camp of Dawkins, Coyne, Myers, et al., so be it.

eric said: Let us say that as a supernaturalist I maintain that phenomena X is the result of the supernatural. And as a methodolical naturalist I maintain that science only considers natural explanations. What is the conclusion of holding those two beliefs? Its: science will never find the correct explanation for X. This is a far cry from being logically forced to believe there is no connection between the natural and the supernatural. Now, people who make the claims in my example are vulnerable to the God of the Gaps problem: when science explains X, the role of God shrinks. But Schafersman is wrong in implying that methodolgical naturalism + supernaturalist necessarily requires a belief that the supernatural is impotent. It doesn’t. It only requires the belief that science will not be able to explain that which is (believed to be) caused by the supernatural.

eric also said: Perhaps he [Schafersman] is introducing some confusion into his own argument with the term “theistic naturalist.” I am not sure from his description whether such a person is supposed to be a “supernaturalist” (i.e. believe in a supernatural explanation for at least one phenomenon) or not.

eric,

Judging from his paper, I take Schafersman's "theistic naturalist" to be synonymous with "theist who practices methodological naturalism."

Dean Wentworth said: eric, Judging from his paper, I take Schafersman's "theistic naturalist" to be synonymous with "theist who practices methodological naturalism."

I don't understand what there is special about evolutionary biology, what makes it more significant than many other areas of science, as far as being in conflict with religion - unless we're talking about YEC-Noah's Flood-type Biblical literalism. ISTM that reproduction, development, genetics, or even atomic theory or the germ theory of disease would have more potential problems. What is there about variations in populations?

eric said: If I remember my undergrad philosophy of science, the positivists were making a claim about all knowledge. Or what counts as "knowledge." I'm making a much more limited claim about what counts as science. I am perfectly happy, for argument's sake, to concede the point that there may be types of knowledge not captured by the scientific method.

You are the one that said everything counts as science. I am disagreeing with that claim. I am not attempting to create a definition of knowledge in general.

I disagree and follow philosophers like Susan Haack and Larry Laudan

That does not surprise me at all. Laudan has published his opinion that McClean vs Arkansas was decided wrongly because creationism counts as science. And he took the same basic approach you do: epsitemologists have never agreed upon any hard boundaries or specific rules as to what counts as science, its pretty much just the systematic and rational study of a(ny) subject, so creationism counts.

Nope. I'm saying science has rules of evidence that exclude subjective experiences. This is a limitation on what counts as science, not what counts as knowledge.

I may not be able to derive a statistical test of what makes good music or good art, or a valid ethical proposition, but I can still have cognitively rational conversations about them.

I wholeheartedly agree. Where I disagree is when you call such conversations "science."

So how do you propose to study the social sciences and Humanities? Deep breathing exercises?

I agree that you can use rationality & experience to study humanities and thus arrive at valuable conclusions. What I disagree with, if it isn't obvious already, is you calling that science. You seem to be using the word as a synonym for "rational."

@TomS:
There are a few issues here. The first is that the fundamentalists have to start somewhere, and in their minds if they can beat evolution then they can start on geology and astronomy, etc...
Connected to this is the fact that the average person doesn't understand evolutionary theory very well. Add the increasing coverage and tolerance of pseudo-science in the media and it becomes easy to throw doubt on established facts.

Don't forget that evolution includes reproduction, development, genetics and disease resistance. That's kind of the point, evolution is the Rosetta Stone of biology if you will. And it doesn't require the notion of divine intervention, nor does it place us above all other living things, which are common themes in most religions.

Brian P said: @TomS: There are a few issues here. The first is that the fundamentalists have to start somewhere, and in their minds if they can beat evolution then they can start on geology and astronomy, etc... Connected to this is the fact that the average person doesn't understand evolutionary theory very well. Add the increasing coverage and tolerance of pseudo-science in the media and it becomes easy to throw doubt on established facts. Don't forget that evolution includes reproduction, development, genetics and disease resistance. That's kind of the point, evolution is the Rosetta Stone of biology if you will. And it doesn't require the notion of divine intervention, nor does it place us above all other living things, which are common themes in most religions.

Frank J,

No, they may not be fundamentalists, but people have been persuaded by the notion that evolution must still be "only a theory", as stated not only by creos, but also some on the left who are hostile to modern science. But I think too a fundamental reason is that evolution threatens their notions of "security" in the universe, by rendering humanity almost as though it was an "accident" brought forth by natural law, not via the deliberate plan of some Divine Providence.

John

TomS said: I don't understand what there is special about evolutionary biology, what makes it more significant than many other areas of science, as far as being in conflict with religion - unless we're talking about YEC-Noah's Flood-type Biblical literalism. ISTM that reproduction, development, genetics, or even atomic theory or the germ theory of disease would have more potential problems. What is there about variations in populations?

At this point, it might be useful to repost these comments from part of a reply I had posted on an earlier PT thread a month ago:

There are also many moderates and liberals who are Evolution Denialists. Here’s the link to the conversation that physicist Lisa Randall had with the liberal Obama supporter who rejects the evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/coyne09/coyne09_index.html#randall

And here’s some relevant excerpts recounting her conversation:

“By sheer coincidence the day I read this Edge question, a charming young actor sat next to me on my plane to LA and without any prompting answered it for me. He had just returned from the inauguration and was filled with enthusiasm and optimism. Like so many young people today, he wants to leave the world a better place. Prior to his acting career he had studied molecular biology and after graduating coordinated science teaching for three middle schools in an urban school system. He described how along with his acting career he would ultimately like to build on his training to start schools worldwide where students can get good science training.”

“But at this point the conversation rounded a bend. His proposed curriculum would include at least one course on religion. I was surprised—this bright young man had studied biology and in all other respects seemed to have opinions and attitudes grounded in the type of education everyone responding to this question is familiar with. But religion has been a big part of his life and he sensibly said the worst thing that happens in his schools would be that people learn about religion and make their own judgements. But he himself believes in Man descending from Adam as opposed to ascending from apes. I didn’t get how someone trained as a biologist could not believe in evolution. He explained how he could learn the science and understand the logic but that it is simply how Man puts things together. In his mind that’s just not the way it is.”

Frank J said: If that's the "TomS" I have been communicating with for years, I think he means "I don't understand" in the sense of being amazed how so many people fall for the singling out of evolution. I too have been scratching my head about that for years, especially since at least half of those who fall for it are not fundamentalists. Nevertheless they never think of asking the right questions. The answer is of course that most people get their "science" from misleading feel-good sound bites that pervade the media and out culture. And the scam artists play them like a Stradivarius.

TomS,

I hope you recognize that modern evolutionary theory is the single unifying theory for all of biology, whether it is population genetics, evolutionary developmental biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, ecology, biogeography, systematics, functional morphology, anatomy, paleobiology, and even, epidemiology.
That is why those one the pro-science side "single" out evolution. What Dobzhansky wrote back in 1973 is truer now than it ever was before, "Nothing in Biology makes sense except in the light of evolution".

You may find useful this summary of an interview which Science had recently with NCSE's executive director, Dr. Eugenie Scott:

http://ncseweb.org/news/2009/06/eugenie-c-scott-interviewed-science-004823

In that interview Genie stressed that all college biology courses should be taught from an evolutionary perspective from the onset, so that students would understand that evolution is the key underlying set of principles for all of biology. I think once you read that, I hope you realize why those of us who are in favor of valid science only being taught in science classrooms have been stressing the importance of evolution.

Sincerely yours,

John

Did I suggest that there was anything lacking in evolutionary biology? No, rather I pointed out quite emphatically that evolution was an essential part of explanations in biology.

DavidK said:

raven said: Not going to read first hand anything by Dembski. Not worth spending a valuable resource, lifespan. How does science prove that the Intelligent Designer is a xian god, Yahweh? Why not Zeus, Brahma, Buddha, Allah, or Bob the Rain God? Why is there only one Intelligent Designer. Lots of religions have fleets of gods. Not asking why Dembski names the god he does. I know why. Why does science prove it is Yahweh?

That is precisely the question I directly asked the DI creationist John West after a talk he'd made. He hemmed & hawed & started talking about historical precedences and ... well, he never did/could answer the question. It's a good one to ask any creationist/IDer, even someone like Hovind from a previous PT entry. These are questions that stump them and they'll do everything possible to avoid answering them rather than give some blatantly asinine answer.

So, it isn't as if there was anything "important" to argue about. Everybody agrees that we are very similar to chimps and other apes. Everybody agrees that the only explanation that is at all satisfying involves evolution.

Give me an explanation that does not involve evolution.

As I pointed out, saying "it just happened to be that way" does not count as an explanation.

TomS

Yes, Frank, it’s me. And yes, I intend to explicitly exclude the fundamentalists. But I also “don’t understand” why so many on the pro-science side single out evolution.

— TomS

TomS said: Give me an explanation that does not involve evolution. As I pointed out, saying "it just happened to be that way" does not count as an explanation. TomS

Rilke's granddaughter said:

So, it isn't as if there was anything "important" to argue about. Everybody agrees that we are very similar to chimps and other apes. Everybody agrees that the only explanation that is at all satisfying involves evolution.

And this is where you are completely wrong - or at least haven't been paying much attention to the religious right. Everybody does NOT agree that the only explanation that is at all satisfying involves evolution.

TomS said: Did I suggest that there was anything lacking in evolutionary biology? No, rather I pointed out quite emphatically that evolution was an essential part of explanations in biology.

The standard answer that I have from creationists on this point is that Christianity is different from all of the other religions and that the resurrection is historical fact blah blah 400 predictions that came true blah blah which brings on a whole other debate.

For one thing, I tried to exclude the YEC-Noah's Ark-literalists from my point. They do, I concede, have something like an "explanation" for the Grand Canyon (it was carved by Noah's Flood) and a few things like that. But even they don't have an explanation for - to take one example - why humans are primates. With the understanding that an explanation should at least attempt to explain something, not just say "that's the way it happens to be", even if put in the form of "God, in His inscrutable wisdom and His unlimited power decided to make the human body on the same pattern as that of chimps and other apes." Nor do they have an explanation for the vertebrate eye or the bacterial flagellum. After all, God could give us vision without giving us eyes (Archdeacon Paley recognized that).

Creationism - and most especially in its recent forms, such as ID and "teach the strengths and weaknesses of evolution" - has never been interested in explanations.

Dean Wentworth said: eric, Judging from his paper, I take Schafersman's "theistic naturalist" to be synonymous with "theist who practices methodological naturalism."

eric said:

Dean Wentworth said: eric, Judging from his paper, I take Schafersman's "theistic naturalist" to be synonymous with "theist who practices methodological naturalism."

Dean and John, In that case I guess my reply to Schafersman would be: such a person is not required to believe the supernatural is impotent. Their beliefs merely require them to look for natural explanations when doing science.

They do, I concede, have something like an “explanation” for the Grand Canyon (it was carved by Noah’s Flood) and a few things like that.

Chip Poirot said: So I'm curious: where would you draw the line at "Science"? Does it stop with biology? With ethology? Where would you draw the line in Anthropology-at 60,000 B.C.? Can Psychology be scientific?

You are the one that said everything counts as science. I am disagreeing with that claim. I am not attempting to create a definition of knowledge in general.

Again, your ability to misunderstand and misstate simply boggles the mind.

My argument is that to say that something is Science done badly, is to call it in effect pseudo-science (bad or false science).

I didn't say I would call those conversations science

No-I am using the word [science] as a synonym for good inquiry

eric said: ...In that case I guess my reply to Schafersman would be: such a person is not required to believe the supernatural is impotent. Their beliefs merely require them to look for natural explanations when doing science.

eric said: Chip Poirot said: So I'm curious: where would you draw the line at "Science"? Does it stop with biology? With ethology? Where would you draw the line in Anthropology-at 60,000 B.C.? Can Psychology be scientific?

Eric said: I'd say it involves objective evidence. And rather than try and come up with a philosophical definition of objective where philosophers have failed for hundreds of years, I'll fall back on the example I gave earlier. If you can describe how to measure it, and hundreds of people following your procedure get the same result, its probably objective. When people following the exact same procedure come up with different measurements, its probably subjective.

Chip, you said this: "But if science is an approach to knowledge, then strictly speaking, **nothing** really lies outside of science." Then you went on to explain how you think science is an approach to knowledge. So, lets cut to the chase. If nothing lies outside the realm of science, does creationism lie outside the realm of science?

Then when I say this: "Laudan has published his opinion that McClean vs Arkansas was decided wrongly because creationism counts as science." You hurl insults, and end with "And then he [Laudan] went on to say that YEC was Science but that it was Science done very, very badly." So we agree, but you insult me.

Not only that, but Laudan has also said "Once the dust has settled, however, the trial in general and Judge William R. Overton's ruling in particular may come back to haunt us; for, although the verdict itself is probably to be commended , (my emphasis) it was reached for all the wrong reasons and by a chain of arugument which is hopelessly suspect."

Lets put aside the question of whether one reads this quote to say that Laudan supports mainstream science, or whether one thinks this is a classic example of the rhetorical strategy of damning one's opponent with faint praise (I suspect I disagree with you about this). As far as I can tell, you are basically insulting me for being correct when I said that Laudan thinks the case was decided wrongly, because he does.

My argument is that to say that something is Science done badly, is to call it in effect pseudo-science (bad or false science).

I disagree. To me there is a difference in that science done badly generally accepts the cumulative nature of science and prior observations. Bad science is a result of a poorly designed experiment. Pseudoscience goes beyond that; it is a result of refusing to accept documented scientific observations that run contrary to the result the pseudoscientist believes to be true. The initial Pons and Fleishman experiment was science done badly. Blondlot's N-rays are an example of science done badly. When a creationist claims that the decomposition of the earth's magnetic field proves its only 6000 years old, they are practicing pseudoscience, because they are ignoring the cumulative evidence of field measurements in favor of one single study performed in what, the 1950's.

I didn't say I would call those conversations science

Okay, what you said was: "But if science is an approach to knowledge, then strictly speaking, **nothing** really lies outside of science."

No-I am using the word [science] as a synonym for good inquiry

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree about that. Go into any laboratory in the world and actually watch what they do, it involves more than "good inquiry." It also includes a focus on objective quantities and variables.

In an olympic ice skating event there is a genuine desire to know the truth about who is the best. There is a systematic method of applying reason and experience to find that out: the judges have rules that they follow; certain manouvers count for certain points; there are metrics for deducting points. But one's score in an ice skating competition is not the same as the measured half-life of U-235. They are qualitatively different. Judging ice skating is not science, because the quality of a skating routine is ultimately a subjective quantity.

If, according to your rules, 'nothing really lies outside of science,' then the judging of an ice skating competition is science. Creationism is science. Intelligent design is science. I disagree with you about that.

If people are going to smear Larry Laudan on this forum and follow the YEC example of quote mining him, then they ought to at least take the time to read the PT archives.

http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/06/laudan-demarcat.html#more

So effectively, you are quote mining me to make it appear that I am a YEC supporter or apologist.

What I was criticizing was the view that some areas of inquiry-be it sitting on a faculty committee or marriage counseling should be exempt from scientific scrutiny.

how do you turn someone saying the verdict is to be commended into someone saying the case was wrongly decided? That's either laziness, a lack of reading comprehension or outright dishonesty.

Right, there is no area of inquiry I will put out of the application of scientific method.

My position is that the natural sciences are critical thinking narrowly applied. The Humanities should be critical thinking broadly applied, with the social sciences in the middle. Science is IMO in essence co-terminous with critical thinking.

I respond to you hostilely because you and many others continually quote me out of context and misrepresent me.

TomS said: Give me an explanation that does not involve evolution. As I pointed out, saying "it just happened to be that way" does not count as an explanation. TomS

John Kwok said: While your points are excellent, you err in assuming that the problem of evolution denial is confined only to the religious right:

Rilke's granddaughter said:

So, it isn't as if there was anything "important" to argue about. Everybody agrees that we are very similar to chimps and other apes. Everybody agrees that the only explanation that is at all satisfying involves evolution.

And this is where you are completely wrong - or at least haven't been paying much attention to the religious right. Everybody does NOT agree that the only explanation that is at all satisfying involves evolution.

It's also an issue with many moderates and even liberals, like the following actor, an Obama supporter, who spoke to Harvard University physicist Lisa Randall on an Los Angeles-bound airplane flight soon after Obama's inauguration: “By sheer coincidence the day I read this Edge question, a charming young actor sat next to me on my plane to LA and without any prompting answered it for me. He had just returned from the inauguration and was filled with enthusiasm and optimism. Like so many young people today, he wants to leave the world a better place. Prior to his acting career he had studied molecular biology and after graduating coordinated science teaching for three middle schools in an urban school system. He described how along with his acting career he would ultimately like to build on his training to start schools worldwide where students can get good science training.” “But at this point the conversation rounded a bend. His proposed curriculum would include at least one course on religion. I was surprised—this bright young man had studied biology and in all other respects seemed to have opinions and attitudes grounded in the type of education everyone responding to this question is familiar with. But religion has been a big part of his life and he sensibly said the worst thing that happens in his schools would be that people learn about religion and make their own judgements. But he himself believes in Man descending from Adam as opposed to ascending from apes. I didn’t get how someone trained as a biologist could not believe in evolution. He explained how he could learn the science and understand the logic but that it is simply how Man puts things together. In his mind that’s just not the way it is.”

Eric,

Thank you for clarifying. I think the distance between us is less than we may think.

I think that by contemporary standards of good scientific inquiry, Creationism and/or ID are pseudo-science or science badly done-and done consistently badly.

In applying the Lemon Test to whether or not YEC, ID, or inaccurate criticisms of contemporary Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory may be taught as science in U.S. K-12 curricula, I do not think that it serves a secular purpose. The Lemon Test allows one to test for motivation. And the motivation is clear: people want to introduce psuedo-science because it contradicts religious beliefs.

As a very, very, abstract proposition, I don't think there is a Constitutional test to teaching psuedo-science or bad science. But in this instance, there is.

I agree that there are some areas of human existence that deal in issues of meaning and valuation to a degree that make empirical confirmation or disconfirmation extremely difficult, if not impossible.

I do think that there are cognitively rational criteria by which to judge aesthetic arguments. For example, I think C.S. Lewis pulls a huge bait and switch in most of his books. Philosophically, I'm more disposed to the Golden Compass. But I think on the whole, C.S. Lewis is the better writer.

The sentence "Led Zeppelin Rocks" is in fact subject to empirical confirmation or disconfirmation, if we agree on the definition of "rocks". I think that "rocks" has a pretty clear meaning to speakers of the English language who live in the late 20th century U.S. So yes, the sentence "Led Zeppelin rocks" is true as is the sentence, "Abba was a mediocre band that did some mildly entertaining pop schlock" or the sentence" "Abba was a mediocre band with some occasionally interesting harmonies."

Chip Poirot said: I think that by contemporary standards of good scientific inquiry, Creationism and/or ID are pseudo-science or science badly done-and done consistently badly. In applying the Lemon Test to whether or not YEC, ID, or inaccurate criticisms of contemporary Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory may be taught as science in U.S. K-12 curricula, I do not think that it serves a secular purpose. The Lemon Test allows one to test for motivation. And the motivation is clear: people want to introduce psuedo-science because it contradicts religious beliefs.

The sentence "Led Zeppelin Rocks" is in fact subject to empirical confirmation or disconfirmation, if we agree on the definition of "rocks". I think that "rocks" has a pretty clear meaning to speakers of the English language who live in the late 20th century U.S. So yes, the sentence "Led Zeppelin rocks" is true as is the sentence, "Abba was a mediocre band that did some mildly entertaining pop schlock" or the sentence" "Abba was a mediocre band with some occasionally interesting harmonies."

eric said: Chip Poirot said: I think that by contemporary standards of good scientific inquiry, Creationism and/or ID are pseudo-science or science badly done-and done consistently badly. In applying the Lemon Test to whether or not YEC, ID, or inaccurate criticisms of contemporary Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory may be taught as science in U.S. K-12 curricula, I do not think that it serves a secular purpose. The Lemon Test allows one to test for motivation. And the motivation is clear: people want to introduce psuedo-science because it contradicts religious beliefs.

Eric Said: Here is the problem: science classes discuss old, bad science all the time. Doing so certainly does have a secular purpose. How many of us remember the plum putting model of the atom from HS chemistry class? And Lemon only requires an activity have a secular purpose. If a teacher has a religious purpose in introducing ID but can show there's a secular reason for doing so, it passes. So I think your definition of science allows creationism to be taught. And as I said, the only way out of this result is to invoke a No True Scotsman argument, to state that Creationism just doesn't count even if it fulfills the critical thinking requirement. In my opinion this is intellectually unappealing, and legally weak.

The sentence "Led Zeppelin Rocks" is in fact subject to empirical confirmation or disconfirmation, if we agree on the definition of "rocks". I think that "rocks" has a pretty clear meaning to speakers of the English language who live in the late 20th century U.S. So yes, the sentence "Led Zeppelin rocks" is true as is the sentence, "Abba was a mediocre band that did some mildly entertaining pop schlock" or the sentence" "Abba was a mediocre band with some occasionally interesting harmonies."

Everyone can agree on the meaning of "rocks" and yet disagree significantly over whether one band or another does so. If everyone agrees on the meaning of "meter," you will find no major disagreement about my height. And that is the difference. It comes back to reproducibility. Scientists want each other's experiments to be reproducible. If you publish an experiment and tell me how to do it, I should get the same result. If I don't, that's a signal that one of us did something wrong. But this type of reproducibility is simply not the case for many other fields. Lawyers spend a lot of time and effort on jury selection because not every group of 12 people will arrive at the same conclusion from the same facts. When they don't, the law does not necessarily consider the difference to be an "error." We elect our politicians because if you give rational, mature, intelligent people the exact same facts about a situation, they can legitimately come to different conclusions about the best public policy. X tons of CO2 will increase the temperature of the earth by Y degrees. It is worth Z dollars to prevent this increase. Get 5 honest, smart, critically thinking people in a room, give them all the exact same numbers for X and Y, and they will arrive at dramatically different values for Z. That is why law is not scientific. That is why public policy is not scientific. Or art, or musical taste, or any number of important, worthy and noble subjects. Science can inform them. It may clarify them by getting everyone to agree on some premises and ground truth, but it cannot solve them. (IMO) They are not science.

Chip Poirot said: As I have said over and over and over again: we can certainly distinguish between biology and stamp collecting. But there isn't any reason why a stamp collector could not use methods similar to those of biologists in at least some respects to improve the practice of stamp collecting.

Finally, I might note that it seems to me that at least some people on PT (and as far as I can judge you appear to be one of them) want to subordinate the entire discussion to "how do we keep YEC and ID out of public schools." In contrast, I am starting by asking the question "what constitutes a valid claim to knowledge".

I too think that contemporary YEC and ID should be kept out of the K-12 Science classrooms, though under some limited circumstances I could see discussions of natural theology being appropriate when the curriculum addresses the history of science. But I see this as an a posteriori conclusion, not an a priori conclusion.

eric said: A stamp collector could, for instance, publish a paper that reviews the last auction price of similar stamps, how many currently exist, trend data in the value of stamps, and then conclude that the stamp in question is worth $X. Peers could review it and find his reasoning good. It could be published in a stamp collecting journal. But...a different collector can simply say "I disagree, its not worth that to me" and guess what? He's got a legitimate point. Compare this to mainstream science. You can't simply say "I disagree, to me eric isn't 5'8" tall" or "I disagree, to me the half-life of U-235 is 10 seconds" and have that opinion be considered legitimate.

Finally, I might note that it seems to me that at least some people on PT (and as far as I can judge you appear to be one of them) want to subordinate the entire discussion to "how do we keep YEC and ID out of public schools." In contrast, I am starting by asking the question "what constitutes a valid claim to knowledge".

eric said: That is an interesting question, but creationists don't want to claim that creationism is a valid claim to knowledge. They want to claim its science. Thus it should not be a surprise to you that people here are somewhat focused on what gets classified as science, not what constitutes a valid claim to knowledge.

I too think that contemporary YEC and ID should be kept out of the K-12 Science classrooms, though under some limited circumstances I could see discussions of natural theology being appropriate when the curriculum addresses the history of science. But I see this as an a posteriori conclusion, not an a priori conclusion.

It is only a posteriori under your broader definition of science. If science is limited to the study of objective, empirical, and reproducible phenomena, that problem disappears. Because creationist dogma is not reproducible but it can include critical analysis. You have, in some respects, created the problem you are trying to solve.

Chip Poirot said: The stamp collector saying "that stamp is not worth X to me" does not falsify the published article. All the stamp collector in this instance is saying is that as an individual market participant, he assigns a different valuation.

Your definition of Science pretty much limits us to observation sentences.

ID'ers are in fact claiming that they can come up with objective, empirical and reproducible phenomena to justify their belief in special Creation.

By your definition, we would have to throw out much of The Origin of Species and much of The Descent of Man .

And finally, you still miss the point. McClean was decided on the grounds of Popperian falsifiability-not on your definition.

eric said:

Chip Poirot said: The stamp collector saying "that stamp is not worth X to me" does not falsify the published article. All the stamp collector in this instance is saying is that as an individual market participant, he assigns a different valuation.

Yes. And the world accepts a different valuation of a stamp as a sane and legitimate practice, because value is a subjective quantity. No one accepts a different valuation of height. Or half-life. You aren't claiming that the value of a stamp is the same type of property as its weight, or my height, or a half-life, are you?

Nope. If the fair market value of the stamp collection can be shown to be reliable, the insurance company is obligated to pay the fair market value of the stamp collection. But anyway, I fail to see the distinction you are making. What is the difference between saying "the fair market value of this stamp collection is X dollars" and "the weight of this stamp collection is X grams". "grams" and "dollars" are just going conventions we agree on to make life easier for all of us.

Your definition of Science pretty much limits us to observation sentences.

No, it doesn't. My definition describes a practical limit on what is considered evidence. It does no limit what one can do with that evidence.

What you are really saying IMO is that Scientific knowledge is limited to areas where the parameters can be strictly set. All you are doing is equating "scientific knowledge" with "precise knowledge." But you still ignore the whole range of background assumptions and cumulative evidence that gets us to a point of being able to say with some degree of precision that the half life of Uranium is X years. We still have to agree on the measurement instruments. We can't wait around 25,000 years and count up the micrograms of Uranium, and then do it again for another 25,000 years. So a sentence like "Fossil X is 100,000 yo" really means-the dial on my piece of equipment points to value Y, and when I chug some equations, this value Y gives me warrant to believe the fossil is 100,000 yo. We all accept this because we all agree on the background assumptions and accept the accuracy of the instrument. But a conclusion like "this fossil belongs in the Australopithecus genus instead of the genus homo" very often winds up provoking a fight among physical anthropologists as do sentences like "the evidence indicates H. Neanderthal was capable of culture."

ID'ers are in fact claiming that they can come up with objective, empirical and reproducible phenomena to justify their belief in special Creation.

Yes but that claim is easy to refute. Lets go to the literature and...nope, no publications. No observations. No descriptions of experiments. Even if we consider their books, nowhere in Behe's or Demski's discussion of SCI is there a description of how an independent scientist could collect evidence about a new structure, perform a calculation, and determine whether it fits the definition of SCI. There is no "there" there.

Right-which is why it is a pseudo-science. There isn't any a priori reason why they could not do these things, though we have pretty good reason to guess what the outcome would be.

Again, as long as you subscribe to a fairly reasonable, work-a-day definition of science as requiring reproducible results, and limiting evidence to objective phenomena, creationism is eliminated. It is only when you expand science to include any rational/critical analysis of any subject, and start to include subjective phenomena (such as the price I would put on a stamp) as evidence, that you get in trouble.

Price is observable. Go to the grocery store. What price do they put on 90% lean ground chuck? You are free to express the opinion you do not like ground chuck and will not pay that price, but you are not free to say to me that the price is different from what is on the package. Suppose I go to www.bls.gov and I say "the BLS reports that the unemployment rate is 9.2%". You can tell me that that number excludes categories X and Y and that the BLS should report a different number. But you cannot deny what is on the BLS webpage-unless you want to resort to some kind of evil demon or brain in a vat theory.

By your definition, we would have to throw out much of The Origin of Species and much of The Descent of Man .

Darwin presented his work in shortened form to the Royal Society. So yes, he did what we would call scientific publication in addition to writing several books.

I think you missed the point. Now you seem to be shifting to a "peer review" standard for Science. I'm talking about Darwin's actual evidence, very little of which depended on precise, quantifiable experiments. The structure of both Origins and Descent is one long argument (as Ernst Mayr puts it). In addition, much of Darwin's evidence in Descent is simply, unequivocally wrong as his generalizations from the anthropological record rest on entirely inaccurate views about non-Europeans.

But beyond that, there is certainly room in science for publishing hypotheses that have yet to be proved. But that is not what creationists are doing. They do not claim to have an interesting but untested idea. They claim to have done the tests. Behe did not say the immune system might be designed, he said he did the calculation and it is.

Which is exactly what makes his work bogus and pseudo-scientific.

Chip Poirot said: What is the difference between saying "the fair market value of this stamp collection is X dollars" and "the weight of this stamp collection is X grams".

What you are really saying IMO is that Scientific knowledge is limited to areas where the parameters can be strictly set. All you are doing is equating "scientific knowledge" with "precise knowledge."

There isn't any a priori reason why they could not do these things

that's just like saying there is no a-priori reason to think we couldn't investigate the ecological significance of unicorns.

fact is, there is simply no way to formulate a hypothesis regarding whether a particular object was designed without knowing how any putative designer interacts with the world itself.

This is why ID simply cannot ever BE science.

it's a ridiculous exercise to say they "could" formulate a testable hypothesis.

comparing the overall concept of ID, to what Behe has done with his argument for "irreducible complexity", IMO is a great case example of comparing pseudoscience to bad science.

What Behe did was make calculations based on erroneous assumptions, and thus drew erroneous conclusions. That's simply bad (REALLY BAD) science.

when we get to the level of formulating a hypothesis for design based on things that don't even exist?

that's pseudoscience.

and this:

But you still ignore the whole range of background assumptions and cumulative evidence that gets us to a point of being able to say with some degree of precision that the half life of Uranium is X years.

Ignore? this is just utter bullshit, Chip.

You really need to study how radiometric dating works sometime.

I'm sure you can google up some good articles on it, or check the talkorigins archive.

Chip said: But you still ignore the whole range of background assumptions and cumulative evidence that gets us to a point of being able to say with some degree of precision that the half life of Uranium is X years.

Ignore? this is just utter bullshit, Chip. You really need to study how radiometric dating works sometime. I'm sure you can google up some good articles on it, or check the talkorigins archive.

What is "utter bullshit"? Are you saying that radiometric testing does not involve a whole host of background assumptions? Are you saying I don't have to rely on the validity of instruments? Sheesh! Even Popper knew better than that.

eric said: Eric Said: The latter has meaning independent of human opinion, the former doesn't.

What you are really saying IMO is that Scientific knowledge is limited to areas where the parameters can be strictly set. All you are doing is equating "scientific knowledge" with "precise knowledge."

I am saying that scientific knowledge is limited to considering objective evidence and the conclusions that can be drawn from it.

Look, I really don't think I'm being particularly revolutionary here. Transistors work and planes fly because the factors involved do not depend on human opinion. Artistic merit, musical quality, legal verdicts, the "best" public policy decision, and a host of other things, do. They have no independent existence in the way that electrical charge and the physical properties of a wing do.

Science is concerned with those things that are independent of human opinion. If you want to say the difference is a matter of degree, of precision of the measurement, well, I think you're wrong. But I'm not going to argue with you about it further because I've made my case about as strongly as I know how, and its obviously failed.

-I think there's a qualitative difference between subjective and objective types of evidence. Between, for instance, the market price of fish and electric charge. You think this is a matter of degree (of precision). Or maybe you think there is a qualitative difference but that "science" can also include the study of the former. If it does, then science includes creationism, with its subjective evaluation of the likelihood of some feature being designed.

-I think there's a qualitative difference between pseudo-science and bad science. I think its the same difference as between fraud and incompetence. You think this is also a matter of degree, with sufficiently bad science being the same as pseudoscience. If you are right, then creationism is science, just very very bad science. And very very bad science can be taught.

If that accurately describes our differences, I think I have nothing further to argue.

Are you saying that radiometric testing does not involve a whole host of background assumptions?

I'm saying your implication that those aren't well tested "assumptions" is bullshit.

Are you saying I don't have to rely on the validity of instruments?

I dunno, do you rely often on untested assumptions yourself?

Ichthyic said: Are you saying that radiometric testing does not involve a whole host of background assumptions? I'm saying your implication that those aren't well tested "assumptions" is bullshit. Are you saying I don't have to rely on the validity of instruments? I dunno, do you rely often on untested assumptions yourself?

Chip Poirot said: I deny that pure "objectivity" in the sense you seem to be defining is possible.

Look, I really don't think I'm being particularly revolutionary here. Transistors work and planes fly because the factors involved do not depend on human opinion. Artistic merit, musical quality, legal verdicts, the "best" public policy decision, and a host of other things, do. They have no independent existence in the way that electrical charge and the physical properties of a wing do.

So in essence what you are saying is that any humans actually do cannot be studied scientifically.

While you claim to be an apostle of objective knowledge, you are actually giving aid and comfort to, and repeating the trash of varieties of epistemological relativists in the social sciences and humanities.

I deny that pure “objectivity” in the sense you seem to be defining is possible. Objectivity in the sense of intersubjectivity is possible. There are some things that it is perverse to deny. But you can never evade the problem of human perception and how humans interact with the environment. You are confusing what humans know with the object they try to know.

Yes well-its good to know that Eric has decided on the criterion for science by rehashing Hopper and Pempel and declaring that anyone who disagrees with his stew is just a YEC stooge.

Okay jerk, demonstrate some of that vaunted critical analysis you believe in and quote one thing from one post of mine in this thread where I call you anything like a "YEC stooge." I'm waiting.

-I think there’s a qualitative difference between pseudo-science and bad science. I think its the same difference as between fraud and incompetence. You think this is also a matter of degree, with sufficiently bad science being the same as pseudoscience. If you are right, then creationism is science, just very very bad science. And very very bad science can be taught. If that accurately describes our differences, I think I have nothing further to argue.

Lets be clear. Are you saying our measurement of “mass” can never be purely objective (i.e. our knowledge always has some subjectivity), or that the property “mass” itself is not objective? I might agree with the former, but I think the latter is hairbrained.

Chip,

I have no dog in this fight between you and eric, which seems to have degenerated into mutual insults.

One observation, your comments do tend to be somewhat verbose. If you don't want to be misrepresented, as you contend, maybe being more concise would help.

Dean Wentworth said: Chip, I have no dog in this fight between you and eric, which seems to have degenerated into mutual insults. One observation, your comments do tend to be somewhat verbose. If you don't want to be misrepresented, as you contend, maybe being more concise would help.

People like Ken Miller have done a lot of good and I respect him individually. But Miller seems to think that he can fly to mysticism and separate his science from his religion. I think NOMA is a copout.

What I am really aiming at is NOMA. Whether or not it was the original intention of the person who first made the statement “many areas of my life are outside of science” to justify NOMA, in my experience exactly that kind of reasoning is often used to justify NOMA.

Chip Poirot said: This is what you said:

-I think there’s a qualitative difference between pseudo-science and bad science. I think its the same difference as between fraud and incompetence. You think this is also a matter of degree, with sufficiently bad science being the same as pseudoscience. If you are right, then creationism is science, just very very bad science. And very very bad science can be taught.

Now this implication that I am saying YEC can or should be taught in a K-12 Science class as Science flies in the face of all my previous statements. So the implication is clear: you imply I am a YEC stooge advocating for teaching YEC.

Chip and Dean,

You may find worthy of your attention the February 25th and 27th posts from philosopher and evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci's Rationally Speaking blog, in which he recounts real-time and online dialogues he had with Ken Miller (Originally as part of a roundtable discussion on evolution at Brown University, in which Ken served as the moderator):

http://www.rationallyspeaking.org/

In this discussion, Ken agrees with Massimo that he doesn't agree with Steve Gould's NOMA concept.

What I find most useful is Massimo's assessment of Ken's embrace of the anthropic principle, and here I must agree with Massimo's criticism (Incidentally, Massimo has concluded that Ken seems to favor a weak version of the anthropic principle).

Regards,

John

eric said: I do think you are advocating that creationism is very very bad science. You have stated many times that you think "scientific" is the equivalent of critical thinking, and thus investigations of any field may qualify as scientific if they are done in a critical and rational way. Secondly, I do think that the courts have stated that very very bad science can be taught.

Its the same with the relativism argument, and with Popper. You claimed here that I confused warmed-over positivist trash with Popper. But with the exception of a one-line quibble, I've never even mentioned the man, so you are arguing I'm confusing positivism with a theory I've never mentioned. None of my posts mention falsifiability. I've never supported a relativist or postmodernist metaphysics - in fact you accuse me of putting forward a (bad) positivist argument, and positivists aren't relativists!

Chip, whomever you're arguing with, it isn't me.

You're tilting at a strawman of your own invention. I've not brought up Popper.

I've not supported a relativist metaphysics.

I've not said that you have no standing to comment on a court case because you aren't a lawyer. (Where the heck did that come from, BTW?

I guess here where I say "Lemon only requires an activity have a secular purpose." Somehow you interpreted this stament as meaning 'Chip has no standing to comment.' It clearly doesn't.)

Chip Poirot said: As I pointed out to you one of the prongs of the Lemon Test is what the purpose of teaching a particular topic or subject is. And you don’t have to violate all prongs of the Lemon Test-you only have to violate one. YEC and ID are being promoted out of religiuos motives. So if the motive to introduce pseudo-science is religious, the Courts will rule it out of bounds.

The first prong of the Lemon test requires that challenged state action have a secular purpose. See Lemon , 403 U.S. at 612, 91 S. Ct. at 2111. Lemon 's first prong does not require that challenged state action have been enacted in furtherance of exclusively, or even predominately, secular objectives. See Wallace v. Jaffree , 472 U.S. 38, 56, 105 S. Ct. 2479, 2489 (1985) (explaining that a statute motivated in part by a religious purpose may satisfy Lemon 's purpose prong). In order for state activity to pass muster under Lemon 's first criterion a sincere secular purpose for the contested state action must exist; even if that secular purpose is but one in a sea of religious purposes. See id. at 56, 105 S. Ct. at 2489.

2. There is no Constitutional barrier to teching pseudo-science, bad science, or any other deceptive claim to knowledge in K-12 or elsewhere. There is in fact no **Constitutional** barrier to teaching outright falsehoods. A school district could-and in fact quite unfortunately some have done so-open a charter school organized around Afro-centrism.

Just a quick addendum because I think I understand where Chip might have got the idea that having a religious motive is enough to dismiss creationism on the purpose prong.

A single religious motive is enough to fail creationism on the purpose prong as long as creationism is considered religion and not science. Because there can be no valid secular purpose for teaching religion as science. This is, for instance, exactly how Judge Jones ruled in Kitzmiller. (1) There can only be a secular purpose if its science; (2) it isn't science; (3) therefore no secular purpose; (4) therefore a single religious motive is enough to fail the purpose prong.

(2) is integral to this reasoning. Without it, a single (sincere) secular purpose amongst a 'sea of religious purposes' is enough to pass the purpose prong.

John,

Thanks for the link. Among other things, it was an eye-opener to learn that Miller doesn't endorse NOMA either.

Naturally (no pun intended) I found Pigliucci's reasoning the more convincing of the two. To say any more on that would be beating a dead horse.

Their ability to take each other to task while remaining friendly is praiseworthy. It would be interesting to read Miller response to Pigliucci's later post, if he makes one.

Dean Wentworth said: John, Thanks for the link. Among other things, it was an eye-opener to learn that Miller doesn't endorse NOMA either. Naturally (no pun intended) I found Pigliucci's reasoning the more convincing of the two. To say any more on that would be beating a dead horse. Their ability to take each other to task while remaining friendly is praiseworthy. It would be interesting to read Miller response to Pigliucci's later post, if he makes one.

After a searching review of Supreme Court and Third Circuit Court of Appeals precedent, it is apparent to this Court that both the endorsement test and the Lemon test should be employed in this case to analyze the constitutionality of the ID Policy under the Establishment Clause, for the reasons that follow. (p.10)

First, the Board brought the public into the debate over whether to include Case 4:04-cv-02688-JEJ Document 342 Filed 12/20/2005 Page 51 of 139 52 ID in the curriculum as it proposed, advocated, and ultimately approved the ID Policy in public school board meetings. These meetings were such that members of the public not only attended them, but also had the opportunity to offer public comment on the proposal. In those Board meetings, open to the public at large, several Dover School Board members advocated for the ID Policy in expressly religious terms, with their comments reported extensively in the local newspapers, as will be discussed in detail below. Second, at least two Board members, William Buckingham and Heather Geesey, defended the proposed curriculum change in the media in expressly religious terms (p. 51 and 52).

For you, does Creationism count as pseudo-science? Do you therefore see no constitutional barrier to teaching it?

Chip Poirot said: So the issue was not whether it was simply very, very bad Science or pseudo-Science, the issue was the religious motivation. And in addition, the Court spent significant time and gave extensive weight to the specific history of ID and YEC and their connection to religious fundamentalism.

If it leads step-by-step to a more detailed understanding of the natural world along with an increased ability to predict and manipulate the natural world, it’s science.

If it leads step-by-step to exegesis, hermeneutics, etymology, word games, and an ever-diverging bush of warring sectarians or “philosophers”, it’s not science.

Eric,

The issue is **valid** secular purpose. Though again, perhaps I should have been a little more specific. And in addition, the test is also what does a reasonable, objective (note the use of that word by the Courts) observer (student and/or member of the public) conclude by the activity/display.

Suppose a high school wants to erect a display on the multiple sources that have influenced modern Western Law. It includes Hammurabi's Code, English Common Law, Roman Law and in **addition** incorporates the 10 commandments. That is probably OK under most circumstances. The 10 commandments are religiuos, but this exhibit really does serve a valid secular purpose: The Old Testament did in fact have an influence on the development of modern Law.

On the other hand, you can't just make up a pretext of a secular purpose.

My position on YEC and ID is very clear and I have stated it again and again: It is religiously motivated pseudo-science. I have told you before that pseudo-science is an effort to claim valid knowledge by the methods of science, and yet consistently abusing those methods. Now if you want to try and parse that for some kind of hidden agenda, have at.

It would not be unconstitutional to discuss Paley's natural theology during a section on the history of biology. It would be unconstitutional to single out the theory of evolution for specific scrutiny in an effort to discredit by a whole series of religiously motivated bogus criticisms.

Calling something pseudo-science does not mean that it cannot also be religious or an effort to teach religion or to protect religious doctrine.

I suppose that it might be constitutional to teach that aliens built Macchu Picchu if you really could discern a valid secular purpose to doing so. But if you wanted to do that to support Scientology, that would be Unconstitutional.

Your only and sole driving purpose in life seems to be to insure that you have an unequivocal means to keep ID and YEC out of K-12 science curricula. I agree with the goal.

However,I don't start out from an abstract position of how can I demarcate to arrive at conclusion X. I ask how can we demarcate to make relevant distinctions. Then you apply relevant distinctions to concrete instances.

But regardless, your demarcation criterion doesn't do the work you want it to do anyway-among other reasons because it is incoherent.

How we distinguish valid claims to knowledge from bogus claims to knowledge is an incredibly important legal question that goes far, far, far beyond this one issue.

Mike Elzinga said: If it leads step-by-step to a more detailed understanding of the natural world along with an increased ability to predict and manipulate the natural world, it’s science.

Chip Poirot said: But why stop at the "natural world"? This leaves the social sciences entirely out of science. On the other hand, you could argue that human societies are part of the natural world.

Chip Poirot said: The issue is **valid** secular purpose.

How we distinguish valid claims to knowledge from bogus claims to knowledge is an incredibly important legal question that goes far, far, far beyond this one issue.

But is science just a subject area (the study of the physical and natural world)? If so, then obviously, the common sense distinction of studying plants and deciding who is going to take the Vet or do the cooking or how to arrange the family finances is pretty clear. Or, is science a general approach to knowledge and if so, how do we distinguish that approach from other approaches?

So this rules all the social sciences out of Science and confines Science to only the natural and physical sciences.

Mike Elzinga said:

Chip Poirot said: But why stop at the "natural world"? This leaves the social sciences entirely out of science. On the other hand, you could argue that human societies are part of the natural world.

Perhaps some forms of “social science” should be left out of science, especially if they attempt to take the creatures they purport to study out of the context of the natural world.

Chip Poirot said: Right there are scientific ways of doing social sciences and non-scientific ways of doing social science.

Chip Poirot said:

Mike Elzinga said: If it leads step-by-step to a more detailed understanding of the natural world along with an increased ability to predict and manipulate the natural world, it’s science.

But why stop at the "natural world"? This leaves the social sciences entirely out of science. On the other hand, you could argue that human societies are part of the natural world.

Chip said, "What i am saying is that there is no area of inquiry where we are justified in applying some method other than that of the systematic appplication of the method of reason and experience."

But this is, in fact, wrong. YOU are making a value judgement that not everyone shares; a very devout religious person might claim that we are always justified in applying some other method - revelation, for example - to an area of inquiry.

You are mixing your personal preferences up with absolute statements about what people SHOULD do.

Chip Poirot said: So this rules all the social sciences out of Science and confines Science to only the natural and physical sciences.

Rilke's Granddaughter said: Chip said, "What i am saying is that there is no area of inquiry where we are justified in applying some method other than that of the systematic appplication of the method of reason and experience." But this is, in fact, wrong. YOU are making a value judgement that not everyone shares; a very devout religious person might claim that we are always justified in applying some other method - revelation, for example - to an area of inquiry. You are mixing your personal preferences up with absolute statements about what people SHOULD do.

Eric,

Now you are claiming that game theory is science if I incorporate studies of oxytocin?

But you betray amazing ignorance of both the history of the natural and social sciences.

The social sciences, like the natural sciences, grew out of the Enlightenment. This was especially true in Scotland. The whole point was to apply the methods of the natural sciences to the study of the social world.

But you prefer deep breathing exercises and game theory. Game theory is not an empirical science. It is mathematical masturbation.

Chip Poirot said: Eric, Now you are claiming that game theory is science if I incorporate studies of oxytocin? But you betray amazing ignorance of both the history of the natural and social sciences.

eric said:

Chip Poirot said: Eric, Now you are claiming that game theory is science if I incorporate studies of oxytocin? But you betray amazing ignorance of both the history of the natural and social sciences.

It must be my amazing ignorance, but I consider some studies to be "interdisciplinary," and thus qualify as both a social and natural science at the same time! I know, I'm squaring the circle.

Chip Poirot said: You missed the point-again. You think that throwing in something about oxytocin and decision making transforms game theory into precise, objective, replicable results and thus makes it science.

You haven't refuted a thing. When it gets right down to it, you really have no position and no argument at all.

First you say that Science is limited only to very precise, quantifiable knowledge. This rules out significant fields of inquiry even in the natural sciences. But you refuse to address this question.

Then you criticize Laudan (inaccurately as it turns out) for criticizing Ruse's reliance on Popper, but then deny you are a Popperian.

Then you imply the social sciences are not science.

Then to suggest that some aspects of the social sciences could be studied scientifically, you invent some example that verges on pseudo-science.

So, if **YOU** wish to argue to me that you are perfectly justified in believing you are a brain in a vat and that my insistence that that is an incoherent argument imposes a value judgement on you, then too bad.

When people stake a claim to miracles I apply Hume’s test. First, I define a miracle as a suspension or violation of known natural law (e.g. A perfectly combustible log put in a hot fire does not burn). If you claim to have witnessed a miracle then I will only believe you if not believing you takes a greater leap than believing you.

If claims to miracles worked out, then I would accept that. But so far, the application of the method of reason and experience has invalidated claims to miracles.

So again, anybody can make any claim they want to any other source of authority. But so what?

What i am saying is that there is no area of inquiry where we are justified in applying some method other than that of the systematic appplication of the method of reason and experience.

The only thing you have demonstrated is that there are no arguments to refute either skeptics or true believers.

That does not mean that claims to knowledge or claims to how arrive at reliable knowledge is a matter of arbitrary, subjective, opinion. What the word "opinion" means and does not mean has been a matter of some dispute in these discussions.

I would argue that the way people mean "personal opinion" is on the level of "I prefer chocolate to vanilla", thus implying de gustabus non disputandum . So you argue that one's choice of epistemology is a matter of opinion. Eric argues that if we can't have pure, objective, quantifiable precise knowledge, then we have opinion (though in fairness to Eric he does acknowledge that there are opinions that are based on some degree of reasonableness and evidence vs. purely arbitrary claims). But both of you in a sense are making an argument for some degree of relativism-you much more so than Eric.

You label my definition of Science as both "peculiar" and "limiting". But my definition of Science draws on most of the major figures in philosophy of Science, and in particular Larry Laudan and Susan Haack. Now granted, that doesn't make me infallible or necessarily right-but my definition of science as the method of reason and experience systematically applied in the search for truth is in actuality a fairly common one. My definition of Science acknowledges that there are specific sciences. Some specific sciences, like physics and molecular biology give us incredibly, precise, quantifiable knowledge. Others, like evolutionary biology are not so precise. The social sciences are less precise still. But I see it as a continnum rather than a sharp break. My position is one that advocates the **unity** of science: a position which incidentally has been a long staple of most people who are on the "pro-science" side. I also deny a sharp break between the Huhmanities and the Social Sciences. My position on this is actually not very different from that of biologist E.O. Wilson-though I wouldn't go as far as he does.

So, while you may think me wrong, I am neither peculiar nor limited.

The only way my view of science could be called limited, is that I do rule out a posteriori "poof" or "mystical" or "supernatural" explanations as well as vitalism and teleology.

What is your definition of Science?

I have a simple test for the epistemological relativists. Climb up a very, very high building. Go out on the balcony. Now, I will give you a choice. You can demonstrate to me your belief in miracles and the supernatural (no parachutes or anything else that will break your fall) or you can climb down the stairs and go out the front door.

Chip Poirot said: Eric argues that if we can't have pure, objective, quantifiable precise knowledge, then we have opinion

eric said:

Chip Poirot said: Eric argues that if we can't have pure, objective, quantifiable precise knowledge, then we have opinion

Mischaracterization and projection. I say science concerns objective quantities, you add the rest. Word search the posts on this thread and you will find the only one of us who insists science be "pure" or "precise" is Chip. Chip, feel free to continue your conversation with Rilke's Granddaughter, but I ask as a point of courtesy that you not mischaracterize me as your straw man.

Chip Poirot said: And your insistence on replicable, objective experiments would also seem to fit the word “precise”.

eric said:

Chip Poirot said: And your insistence on replicable, objective experiments would also seem to fit the word “precise”.

For someone who claims to understand the nature of science, you have a terrible misunderstanding of the basic scientific concept of precision.

Precision can also be a measure of statistical variance and also of lack of ambiguity. The sentence: "It is a beautiful day" is imprecise, vague and subjective. In contrast, the sentence: "The thermometer records 30 degrees on the fahrenheit scale and the humidity is 30%" communicates precise, objective information. For some purposes I might want a more precise instrument that makes it easy to read fractions of degrees. A thermometer that registers only whole degrees is less precise than a thermometer that registers fractions of degrees. The precision also improves the objectivity: It removes the guesswork of estimating whether the red stuff has moved halfway between 30 and 31, or 48% between 30 and 31. Or, in making predictions, for example, about how fast a radioactive isotope will decay, I can be very precise. I can go farther and date an object found w/precision. So, for example, potassium/argon dating is often more precise than carbon dating. In this case as well precision improves my objectivity. Or consider a medical diagnosis of something like fibromyalgia as opposed to cancer. There's a precise diagnostic criterion for fibromyalgia. And the reason is to distinguish fibromyalgia from other possible ailments. So an objective observer can examine the data, apply the criteria, and agree that the data fit the definition of fibromyalgia. This objective observer may still express skepticism about the scale. In contrast, if you test someone's blood sugar, the diagnosis of diabetes is much more precise and objective. Greater precision generally does yield greater objectivity. Another example is in Anthropology: In the 19th century, anthropologists relied on traveler's and missionary reports of other cultures. These were neither precise nor objective. In contrast, beginning in the 20th century, Franz Boas, who had been trained as a physicist sought to apply rigor of observation to anthropology in an effort to reduce bias. His method was to train people in participant observation. The ethnography you get from a well designed participant observation will yield both less precise and less objective conclusions than a thermometer reading. But the report from the participant observation is much more precise and objective than a traveler's or missionary report. So again-objectivity and precision are matters of degree. If I misinterpreted your interpretation of objectivity it was at least an honest misunderstanding-not an effort to mischaracterize you or set up a straw man. And it certainly wasn't an exercise in projection. I find it curious though that you would resort to psuedo-scientific characterizations based on pop psychology.

Eric said: In contrast, if I go to a Jonas’ Brothers concert and ask three teen girls to rate the Jonas’ brothers music on a scale of 1 (horrible) to 10 (best music ever written), and the answers I get are 10, 10, and 10, I have achieved excellent precision in my measurement of a subjective quantity. But this precision does not make it science.

Chip poirot said: Precision can also be a measure of statistical variance and also of lack of ambiguity.

Or, in making predictions, for example, about how fast a radioactive isotope will decay, I can be very precise. I can go farther and date an object found w/precision. So, for example, potassium/argon dating is often more precise than carbon dating. In this case as well precision improves my objectivity.

And I don't even know what "precision improves my objectivity" means in this context. The only thing I can say about this statement is it appears you attempted to use an example of a physical process about which you know very little, resulting in a GIGO problem.

Main Entry: 1pre·ci·sion Pronunciation: \pri-ˈsi-zhən\ Function: noun Date: 1740 1: the quality or state of being precise : exactness 2 a: the degree of refinement with which an operation is performed or a measurement stated — compare accuracy 2b b: the accuracy (as in binary or decimal places) with which a number can be represented usually expressed in terms of the number of computer words available for representation precision arithmetic permits the representation of an expression by two computer words>

Chip Poirot said: Other experiments establish relative rates of decay as welll as the relative accuracy of different kinds of tests. Carbon dating yields imprecise dates past a certain point while Potassium-Argon dating becomes more precise and reliable past those dates. Therefore, the use of Potassium Argon dating rather than Carbon dating for many examples improves both precision and objectivity. Do you deny this?

Then when you are done, explain to me how inexact and imprecise theories can be meaningfully tested.

Then explain to me how inexact and imprecise measurement concepts can lead to reliable measurements.

Then explain to me how an inexact and imprecise measuring instrument is going to lead to enhanced objectivity.

If I step on it 1,000 times, the average of all those measurements is going to be very very close to my actual weight. Voila! That is how an imprecise instrument can lead to enhanced confidence in our knowledge of the true value of eric’s weight.

Chip Poirot said: And as I have said over and over and over again, if you want to answer vague questions like "who is the best rock band ever" those kinds of questions do reduce to subjective bias. But that isn't a good way to organize a study. A better question might be "which rock band was the most popular"

oops that should read "quantities" not "entities."

eric said Philosophically you’re not going to convince me that the scientific method can be applied to subjective property A by demonstrating that you can successfully measure proxy value B (unless you can draw a deductive or mathematical relationship between A and B).

Chip Poirot said: The sentence: "Cabernet is better than Merlot" is not the kind of thing that one would seek to study "scientifically".... ...Sentences like "Blake is a better poet than Shakespeare" is not a scientific sentence. ...Certainly my love for my wife is not something that is really scientific.

I'm not even sure saying Blake is better than Shakespeare has meaning.

Eric,

Let's suppose a Humanities Professor wants to attempt to resolve a disputed area on Shakespeare studies.

Should this Humanities Professor:

1. Read Shakespeare and relevant secondary sources on Shakespeare;
2. Investigate Shakespeare's time period and understand the context in which Shakespeare wrote;
3. Arrive at a conclusion based on the evidence and judicious application of reason-
4. Try to publish the results in a peer reviewed journal on Shakespeare and subject his or her work to critical scrutiny:

Or, should this Humanities Professor:

1. Simply say Shakespeare is so sublime that it would be destroying art and beauty to attempt to subject Shakespeare to a critical investigation?

The first strategy is in many ways similar to what natural scientists do. The object of study may not be so precise and of course you can't do a controlled experiment. The data will be more fragmented. And thus the conclusion more tenuous.

But if Humanities Professors were to keep at it and really endeavored to arrive at the truth,it would be possible to increase their confidence in their views on Shakespeare.

Or let's take another example:

A Historian wants to test competing hypotheses about the Nazi regime. There is a historical consensus that the Nazi's systematically murdered about 9-12 million people. But historians disagree about when and how this policy emerged.

How should the historian try to settle this question? Should the historian just declare Nazism to be evil and deem the question inappropriate-or should the historian actually go and read documents, review evidence, compare differing interpretations, publish the results, etc?

You say that people have been arguing about what constitutes good knowledge for quite some time, and then seem to imply that because they argue about it, we should give up on it.

That seems to go against your own stated preference-your own view of objective knowledge bears a faint family resemblance to the early Wittgenstein.

In essence, you seem to be suggesting we should just give up on the fields of epistemology and ontology.

I disagree and while my conclusion may be an opinion (e.g. a conclusion or inference based on evidence) it is an opinion that is shared by many.

In many ways, the physical and natural sciences have been a tremendous epistemological success and at least some of the time a tremendous social success (other times not so much). I think its worth studying the evolution of knowledge in the natural sciences to understand how and why, and to compare other fields to see what is the same, and what is different. The roots of the success lay in Enlightenment philosophy. Given this success, why should we abandon the Enlightenment project?

Areas like ethics may not reduce to mathematical equations. But they are amenable to practical experience and cognitively rational discussion.

Chip Poirot said: Or let's take another example: A Historian wants to test competing hypotheses about the Nazi regime. There is a historical consensus that the Nazi's systematically murdered about 9-12 million people. But historians disagree about when and how this policy emerged. How should the historian try to settle this question? Should the historian just declare Nazism to be evil and deem the question inappropriate-or should the historian actually go and read documents, review evidence, compare differing interpretations, publish the results, etc?

Is Hitler's moustache funnier than Churchill's cigar?

Chip Poirot said: In essence, you seem to be suggesting we should just give up on the fields of epistemology and ontology.

P.S. using Nazis as an example is generally NOT something one does if one really wants to "de-escalate tension."

eric said: P.S. using Nazis as an example is generally NOT something one does if one really wants to "de-escalate tension."

We let theologists worry about Truth and focus instead on useful. I sometimes suspect that philosophers would prefer everyone use relativistic calculations to calculate how much gas a car uses going to and from the grocery store. That would be closer to Truth, but it wouldn’t be useful.

Kevin B wrote: Your example has a single, unambiguous, objectively correct answer (even though the evidence might not exist to actually prove the conclusion.) Eric is concerned with questions that don’t derive from objective facts.