Without generalising and extending our epistemology science will go down the tubes
Once again I find atheist Larry Moran’s blog an excellent frizzen for creating the sparks to ignite some thoughts on epistemology: The following quoted material can be found here.
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I think there IS a conflict between science and religion. For
example, I think that a proper understanding of evolution leads inevitably to
the conclusion that there is no purpose or goal in evolution and that the
evolution of humans on this planet was largely a chance event. This conflicts
with many religious views.
My Comment: A proper understanding of
evolution, even as it is understood by
the academic establishment leads inevitably to the conclusion that it is highly directed in the sense that its probing “gaseous” fingers of probabilistic diffusion must be limited to very narrow
channels in the space of possibilities, otherwise nothing interesting would
evolve in realistic time scales. Using phrases like “chance event” fails to do
justice to this background structure that guides the process of evolution. See this post where I discuss the channelled nature of evolution with one of Larry Moran’s commenters, a
commenter who, like Professor Moran himself, seemed unable see the logic of his
own position.
Let me just say by way of
qualifying myself, that I'm not committed to the academic establishment's view of
evolutionary mechanisms and I'm here only pointing to the implications of what
people like Larry Moran must himself be committed to even if he is unaware of
it.
There may be a conflict between
science and religion if one conceives God’s involvement in natural history as necessarily being that of a
kind of jumped alien homunculus who majors in tinkering with the natural order, making science, as we currently know it, fail at those points. (See:http://quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/does-intelligent-design-make-testable.html)
As for the concept of “purpose” let’s
be clear that this notion has no meaning unless we are talking about a context
where sentience is implicit and consequently where such concepts as plans, goals
and aims are meaningful. In contrast there is no intrinsic “purpose” to be
found in the mechanisms of evolution any more than one can find
purpose in some man-made artifact without imagining the social context
in which it functions. "Purpose" is an extrinsic property of an object and it exists by virtue of the object's relation to its context. In a similar vein: One can’t
find purpose in the mechanisms of evolution any more than one finds sentience at
the low level of brain neurons. Purpose and sentience are only found at the
high system level. If purpose is to
be found in evolution it will only become apparent in the higher context of the
world-view within which one interprets the meaning (or lack of meaning!) of evolution.
Therefore contrary to what Larry Moran says it follows that a proper
understanding of evolution is not in itself sufficient to throw light on the
subject of purpose (or lack of purpose)
I think that science can, and has, dealt with supernatural
explanations and found them wanting in all cases. I do not believe in
non-overlapping Magisteria. There's nothing that science can't investigate.
My Comment: I agree that there is nothing
that can’t be investigated scientifically and I don’t myself believe in non-overlapping
Magisteria. But this is not to say that science’s investigations will always be
successful; as I have said here, amenability of an ontology to
scientific investigation will have a bearing on the level of scientific
success. It is quite possible to imagine intractable ontologies that do not
readily yield their secrets to scientific epistemology.
I’m not really sure what Larry
means by “supernatural explanations” but I suspect this is all bound up with the
Western dualist mindset that makes a sharp distinction between natural and
supernatural agencies.
I believe that Kevin Padian is wrong when he says that religious
scientists such as Ken Miller, Michael Behe, and Francis Collins "do not
place religious views above empirical evidence." They all believe in
miracles, they all believe that humans have a soul, and they all believe in
life after death. They all believe in the existence of a personal, creator God
in spite of the fact that there's no evidence that such a being exists.
Larry Moran appears not to
understand how “evidence” really works: There is even evidence for David Ike’s bizarre
world of reptilian conspiracy, but whether it is sufficient evidence and interpreted
with epistemic discipline is another matter. Human beings do not proceed
logically from evidence to theoretical narratives but are inclined to work from theoretical narratives to evidences.
These narratives serve as sense making and explanatory objects of those
evidences. This very human and open ended capability comes with all the
potential epistemic hazards of imaginative and undisciplined over-interpretation.
What Moran seems not to understand is that religious views are a way of interpreting accepted evidences against
a backdrop of endeavor that seeks to reach an all-embracing world-view by
abduction. People like Miller and Collins don’t differ with Larry Moran about evidences
or the relatively low level physical science narratives in which these evidences
are embedded. But they do differ with Moran in their willingness to put those objects
and evidences in the much wider context of a religious world view. Miller and
Collins are adding to the basic
physical science narratives and not subtracting
from them (as do fundamentalists). That they may believe in the occasional few and far between historical
suspensions of the normal physical regime (i.e. miracles) can hardly be construed
as anti-science heresy (which is, I suspect, the charge that Mr Moran is seeking to bring) and will make little difference to their science.
Postscript
The kind of objections to the
paranormal that we see from Larry Moran may typically have their roots in an a-priori
concept of what reality should be like. Rather than objecting to the paranormal
for the epistemic reason that its observational protocols are far too erratic
to give us a firmly established theoretical narrative the real objection is
actually ontological; that is, there is an ulterior and exclusive line being drawn
around what can be and should be. What is happening here is that when investigations start to go beyond the relatively amenable world of mechanisms established by spring extending and test tube precipitating science, the epistemic
difficulties of acquiring knowledge are wrongly perceived as an
ontological limitation rather than an epistemic limitation; that is, if it’s
beyond the mechanisms within the purview of spring extending and test tube
precipitating science then the default assumption is that it doesn't exist. But
science isn't ontology, it is epistemology, an epistemology that must wait without
prior prejudice on what ontology puts its way. A belief in the identification
of the epistemically tractable with ontology is itself a world view that has
effectively over interpreted the evidence available.
Having said that, however, I nevertheless respect diffidence about belief in the paranormal (which includes the miraculous) because the manifestation of the paranormal in human consciousness is highly erratic. I therefore find no good reason to blame anyone for genuine disbelief in it. I would certainly not take the line of the Christian fundamentalists who use Romans 1 in an indiscriminating and comprehensive way as a pretext to make a cathartic full-on hell-fire attack on their detractors, accusing them of the most heinous sins of blasphemy and/or heresy: We see atheists like Larry Moran accused of being crypto-theists suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness as per Romans 1. The history referred to in Romans 1 is inapplicable to people like, say, Larry Moran who gives every impression of having a clear conscience in their disbelief of the paranormal and of God. Romans 1 is about the rejection of the true God in favor of idolatry; that is, in favor of perverse depictions of God and not atheism per see.
Given the erratic nature of the paranormal
and all that is so bizarre and repugnant about many religious communities there
are cultural circumstances that help fuel disbelief: This is, in fact, the
general lesson that comes out Romans 1; namely, that false depictions of God
promotes disbelief. In this connection I'm sure many an atheist will receive mercy on judgement
day; they only need plead the mitigating circumstances of Western culture which
includes the likes of the Jehovah witnesses, the Mormons, Answers in Genesis,
Barry Smith, William Tapley, Harold Camping, David Koresh, David Berg - the list is endless.
Having said that, however, I nevertheless respect diffidence about belief in the paranormal (which includes the miraculous) because the manifestation of the paranormal in human consciousness is highly erratic. I therefore find no good reason to blame anyone for genuine disbelief in it. I would certainly not take the line of the Christian fundamentalists who use Romans 1 in an indiscriminating and comprehensive way as a pretext to make a cathartic full-on hell-fire attack on their detractors, accusing them of the most heinous sins of blasphemy and/or heresy: We see atheists like Larry Moran accused of being crypto-theists suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness as per Romans 1. The history referred to in Romans 1 is inapplicable to people like, say, Larry Moran who gives every impression of having a clear conscience in their disbelief of the paranormal and of God. Romans 1 is about the rejection of the true God in favor of idolatry; that is, in favor of perverse depictions of God and not atheism per see.
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