During his recent dialogue with Archbishop Rowan Williams, Richard Dawkins invoked the anthropic principle to say that even if the origin of life is improbable, it “had to” happen at least once on this planet since we are here.[1] At that point the moderator, Anthony Kenny, an agnostic philosopher, asked Dawkins what kind of necessity he had in mind when he said life “had to” originate here. Kenny noted that there are two kinds of necessity: metaphysical necessity and epistemic necessity. Metaphysical necessity means it is impossible that some X not exist, whereas epistemic necessity means it is impossible not to know that some X is true. He went on to explain that epistemic necessity does not entail metaphysical necessity, so while it may be epistemically necessary that we exist (we cannot not know that we exist), it does not mean we had to exist. Our existence may be contingent, even if knowledge of our existence is not. As expected, Dawkins clarified that he was not saying our existence was necessary, but only that it there can be no doubt that life did arise at least on this planet since we are alive.
What struck me about Dawkins’ response was not his answer to the question, but what he said immediately before his answer: “I don’t know the words ‘epistemic’ and so on, so I’m not going to use that.” Really? That is a term so basic to the study of philosophy that no student could pass an intro-to-philosophy course without knowing it. It leads me to believe that Dawkins does not know the first thing about philosophy (which should not be surprising to anyone who is familiar with Dawkins’ arguments).
I find that this is all-to-typical of scientifically-minded atheists. They often disparage the field of philosophy as dribble, not knowing the first thing about philosophy. How can one excel in rationality when they are ignorant of even the basics of rational thought and critical thinking? It strikes me as bizarre that some of these self-styled “brights” are as dim as night when it comes to philosophical understanding.
What’s so ironic about this is that these same individuals pride themselves on being rational, and say that they prize rationality. Do they not realize that philosophy is the discipline that focuses on rationality? While we use our rational faculties in the sciences, science itself is an empirical discipline, not a rational discipline. While I do not expect for scientists and other non-philosophers to be expert philosophers, as those who extol the virtues of rationality they should at least have a good command of the discipline of philosophy since it provides them with the tools they need to excel in rational thought. Their ignorance and disdain of philosophy demonstrates that what they really prize is empiricism, not rationality.
[1]Conversation starts at about the 1:08:00 mark.
Thinking to Believe 
April 23, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Thanks for the great post. That’s a pretty juicy quote there, too. It is baffling to think that Dawkins thinks he knows enough to talk about these topics when he can’t even thoughtfully comment on something as basic as epistemology.
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April 23, 2012 at 6:00 pm
It’s little wonder why he won’t debate William Lane Craig. He would get pwned!
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April 23, 2012 at 7:45 pm
The conversation was about “The Nature of Human Beings and the Question of their Ultimate Origin.” Upon that topic, I would trust Dawkins quite strongly. He has advanced our understanding of of evolution, particularly by discrediting ideas of group selection. If you insist upon judging people by what they don’t know about philosophy, you will have to limit your conversations to a rather limited corner of humanity.
Dawkins is undeniably a first-class intellect, even if he is not a philosopher. As it turns out, most first-class intellects do not breath the rarified air of philosophy. Since the Renaissance, science, mathematics and engineering have produced an explosion of real improvements in people’s lives. I can’t see how philosophy can claim any successes that rival science for advancing our understanding of the universe, life or humanity. If given the choice of the contributions of Kant or Salk, I would prefer Salk; I personally knew a victim of polio, and I would rather see a cure for polio rather than discovery/creation of the Categorical Imperative.
Rather than asking if they can defend the philosophical basis of their positions, scientists ask if they can ‘do the math.’ This has proven to be an effective way to separate accurate thinking from muddle. What tools of philosophy have any of the power of mathematics in assisting practicing scientists with “the tools they need to excel in rational thought.” I turn to applied mathematics, not philosophy texts, when I encounter design descisions that need to be resolved. This is an old tradition started by greater minds than mine, Laplace wrote, “Les questions les plus importantes de la vie ne sont en effet, pour la plupart, que des problèmes de probabilité.” (The most important questions are primarily problems of probability.) So he then went on to develop the foundations of Bayesian statistics (independently discovered by Rev. Bayes). Science turns to Euler more than to Kant.
Returning to this talk: How has philosophy improved our understanding of human origins? How as biology improved our understanding of human origins? For me, science has proven itself time and time again as the more powerful tool for discovery.
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April 23, 2012 at 8:16 pm
Great post. I come from a science background myself, and my grasp of philosophy is admittedly somewhat limited. But I’m happy to say that I’m familiar with the word “epistemic”. 🙂
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April 23, 2012 at 11:27 pm
robertfolkerts,
This is not an issue of science vs. philosophy. Both are valuable disciplines and both make their separate contributions to our knowledge.
The issue here is that philosophy is the discipline of rationality; the only discipline that specializes in how to think properly. It provides us with the tools for right thinking. Philosophy tells us how to make valid inferences and deductions, and pinpoints errors in thinking. Anyone who claims to prize rationality (as the new atheists claim they do) ought to know at least something about philosophy since that is the only area of study that specializes in rationality. Unfortunately, most of these atheist types don’t anything about philosophy. And that is why the commit the most basic of errors in their arguments against God and for atheism. I just find it ironic that they extol rationality with their lips but do not have a clue about the singluar discipline that teaches the principles of rationality. This is like someone saying how great science is and how much everyone needs to know about science and use science in their life, and yet cannot tell you anything about science. Wouldn’t that be ironic? Likewise, it’s ironic for Dawkins et al to extol the virtues of rationality and yet know nothing about the disicipline of rationality. And in the same way someone who is ignorant of physics is bound to make a lot of mistakes when discussing physics, these atheist types make a lot of mistakes when it comes to rationality because they have not trained themselves in the elementary principles of philosophy.
Jason
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April 24, 2012 at 12:06 pm
robertfolkerts writes,
Since philosophy is something about which Jason writes a good deal, your objection is curious at best. One would expect a philosopher to comment on philosophical issues.
robertfolkers continues,
As Jason has already observed, science doesn’t even get off the ground without a philosophical foundation. J. P. Moreland observes,
“Philosophy undergirds science by providing its presuppositions: Science (at least as most scientists and philosophers understand it) assumes that the universe is intelligible and not capricious, that the mind and senses inform us about reality, that mathematics and language can be applied to the world, that knowledge is possible, that there is a uniformity in nature that justifies inductive inferences from the past to the future and form examined cases of, say, electrons, to unexamined cases, and so forth. These and other presuppositions of science . . . are philosophical in nature.”
Every aspect of scientific investigation involves a metaphysical assumption, and that entails a philosophical apparatus making such assumptions coherent. If a scientist such as Dawkins is going to get into the business of criticizing metaphysical arguments proving the existence of God, then he had better know what he is talking about. Given his criticisms of theism, it is obvious he doesn’t have a clue.
Your criticism of Jason is thus without warrant. Since Jason never denied to contributions of science, you have skewered a straw man.
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April 24, 2012 at 10:12 pm
> “I don’t know the words ‘epistemic’ and so on, so I’m not going to use that.”
Wow. Just, um… wow.
robertfolkerts: Being good at science doesn’t mean you have to be ignorant of basic philosophy or vice-versa. It wouldn’t be a problem if Dawkins confined his outspoken comments to biology, but he clearly doesn’t.
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April 29, 2012 at 1:36 pm
I listened to the discussion in its entirity. This was a discussion between experts in different fields. I did not hear Dawkins claim to be an expert in philosophy. He was participating in a discussion on the origins of man. As a evolutionary biologist at Oxford, he is expert on that subject. When he asked a question of philosophy, he admitted ignorance. Admitting ignorance is a virtue. The opposite of this called bs.
I recognize that Jason is an expert on philosophy, so I do not doubt that he understands the field. My point was that it is important to discuss issues with a wide variety of experts, and criticizing experts in another field for having mastered your field is a curious way to encourage cross-disciplinary cooperation. Philosophy is of interest to scientists, but so is music and wine making; and I dare say that both music and wine making have contributed more to science that has philosophy.
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April 29, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Several of the comment imply that science rests upon philosophy. Morehead’s quote is an example of this. I find that Morehead has almost everything in his statement backwards. It is only after science stopped being a ‘natural philosophy’ and started to be based upon observation that it blossomed.
Galileo’s simple observation of imperfections on the sun overturned centuries of philosophy that argued that the sun was perfect. (arguably, this was based upon observation under very poor conditions; namely that the sensor was designed for much lower intensities of light.) This was the cause of his famous struggles with the Church. Now, we simply realize that the metaphysics of the west was wrong and that Galileo’s observations were correct. We know this because we can see it for ourselves, not because it is deduced by some philosophical proof by a Professor Pangloss who examined the philosophic underpinning and found them logically inconsistent.
Morehead’s supposition that mathematics is the foundation of science is clearly based upon the physical sciences (physics and chemistry). But in other areas of science, it is not at all clear that nature is amenable to mathematics. It may be that we can create a mathematics that will have explanatory, but that will be empirically tested, not proven by logic. As Mandelbrot repeated stated, the world is full of observations that have complex patterns that could not be described by the mathematics of the day. In his case, he invented fractal geometry and found that it agreed with a wide range of observation. So it is not that mathematics is the language of god, but that mathematics is a useful tools to describe patterns. We have learned that we can create mathematics to describe observed patterns.
So it is not that science requires a philosophic ‘foundation’, but that science requires nothing more than observation and pattern seeking. These are processes that predate humanity (and even quadrupeds for that matter). We are just the best abstract pattern seekers on the planet. I would argue that philosophy is simply an attempt to find patterns where there is insufficient observation to perform an empirical investigation. The Reverend Bayes called this ‘guessing’. His famous theorem explains how to convert a guess into an inference by means of observation. Science does this, philosophy does not.
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April 29, 2012 at 5:21 pm
Jason,
This post is bringing forth a bit of prejudice against philosophy. Scientists and those who follow them are sometimes that way. Scientists think of themselves as the high priests, you know, and no one is allowed to question them. I think, though, the fight between the philosophers and scientists was started by the philosophers – when Plato told the world that all the kings should be philosophers. 🙂
Incidentally, I was a philosophy major for one year. I changed majors because someone told me that the very smartest people were studying philosophy. It was quite a year. Can’t say I really fit in. To be honest, when I went to college, everybody in Philosophy was, well, how can I say this? They were absent minded. Very, very intelligent, but did things like forget to come in out of the rain. And None of them wore matching clothing.
However, on a serious note. God’s truth. The most important thing I learned in college came from studying philosophy. I learned that human beings only know that which in someway is experienced by the senses.
Randy
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April 30, 2012 at 10:19 am
robertfolkers writes,
Then you are misreading Morehead.
Again, this is incorrect. The metaphysical theory (Aristotelian-Thomistic, A-T for short) is a branch of philosophy. Logic is another branch. A-T’s theory of causation (formal, material, efficient and final) are easily disentangled from mistaken scientific observations. For example, to prove that rotting meat does not spontaneously generate worms does not disprove causality; it merely demonstrates the observation that it does so is incorrect.
“Observation” and “pattern seeking” are meaningless without a rational apparatus making sense of those observations and patterns. To observe is to assume genuine knowledge may be obtained by what you observe (a philosophical position), and drawing inferences from observed patterns entails logic in order to make those inferences cogent. As stated above, science doesn’t even get off the ground without a presupposing the authority of reason, and that entails philosophy.
Simply because you or I can be mistaken about an empirical observation neither refutes science nor the authority of reason. You again skewer a straw man.
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May 3, 2012 at 6:44 pm
In what sense are pattern seeking and observation meaningless without a rational apparatus? All animals use their senses and pattern seeking to stay alive. It simply is not true that a rational apparatus is a prerequisite for either pattern seeking or observation. You may wish to make some aspect of philosophy foundational to science in your metaphysical theory, but that has no causal relation to do with the observations and pattern seeking of animals that predates your metaphysical theory. Or is this a way to introduce an unmoved mover as a prerequisite to any (other) rational agent?
Your example of trying to use rotting meat as a way to disprove causation seems to miss the mark and suggest that you don’t appreciate how science works. Overturning a theory of biology does not show that an observation is incorrect. Science has never advanced by demonstrating that any (repetable) observation is incorrect. What you described was clearly a faulty inference of the physical system being observed. The observation was that maggots nearly always appeared in rotting flesh. This doesn’t happen when the meat is frozen or under some other unusual cases. The relationship between flies and maggots was not fully appreciated and this is was lead to the faulty inference about the origin of maggots. This in turn lead to faulty theories of spontaneous generation of life. Science has a demonstrable way to improve the quality of inference. In your example, the microscope was invaluable in sorting out where maggots come from. Even in the case of an optical illusion, the observation is not incorrect. Inferences about underlying causes are often incorrect. (there can be faulty observations in the case of mental impairments, but hallucinations are not repeatable and not particularly germane to this discussion.)
Nowhere in the study of rotting meat did philosophy make any meaningful contribution to our understanding of what causes maggots. Expounding upon the nature of causation does not help anyone understand the causes of observations.
I would claim that the pattern seeking is often correct, even when a faulty causal relationship is inferred. As you seek to find patterns that involve a wider range of observations, it seems natural that have the origins of both science and philosophy. Inferences are hardly ever correct in an absolute sense, but by observation, pattern seeking and tools like mathematics, we can improve our inferences.
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May 3, 2012 at 8:09 pm
I do not argue with all of Moreland, only the statement presented in this thread. Scientist should doubt every one of the presuppositions noted by Moreland. At least as I use the word, if I doubt the veracity of a claim, that claim is not a presupposition. And by doubt, I also mean willing to be swayed either way by evidence. I can still use a statement as a working hypothesis, even if I have doubts about its veracity. Bit this is only a practical way to move forward, not a metaphysical truth claim.
At the advent of quantum mechanics, the capriciouness of nature was called into question. It was not at all clear that our assumptions of an intelligible universe were correct. Feynman clearly stated ‘if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics”. I spent several years diffracting beam of atoms and I cannot say that I understand wave-partical duality, especially in the case of something as structurally complex as an atom. I clearly saw it and I got pretty good at finding the patterns and making the calculations. But to say that this requires an intelligible universe seems incorrect. I just do the best I can and see if it gives agreement with the shared perceptions of everyone who care to examine the same issues.
In order to talk about the philosophic concept of causation, you need the concept of time in order to be able to discuss ‘before’. Relativity has profoundly changed our understanding of time. It did this even though special relative seems completely unreasonable when you first study it. Without observations, metaphysics would never have divined this aspect of the nature of time. This has very practical consequences on how we apply the idea of causality to the world.
Bell’s theorem will not be resolved by philosophy, but it is considered important for the philosophy of science. The proof, or disproof of Bell’s theorem will come from physics, where observation trumps theory. Zeno’s Paradox will never be resolved by philosophy, unless philosophers agree with Carl Boyer that is it simply an application of a geometric series. If you don’t agree with this, it seems that you will never resolve Zeno’s Paradox.
So if you say that science cannot get off the ground without philosophy, I think that you are simply incorrect. If a philosophy contradicts science or even less formal observations, it is the philosophy that should be suspect, not the science and most certainly, not the observation. Observations and patterns are not wrong, but inferences based upon them are never exactly right. The further the inferences are from the observation, the more suspect are the inferences.
Sciences are closer to the observations than is philosophy. Therefore, I suspect that the theories of science are more accurate than the theories of philosophy. Science doesn’t need to get off the ground, it is grounded. Science builds up from observations of the world. It is skyhooks that we need to avoid. Ideas don’t come from on high, they come from the ground up.
By the way, comparing scientists to Priests seems rather disingenuous. There is nothing in science that should be accepted on athority. Doubt any claim by any scientist. But if you want to go further and claim that the scientist is wrong on some logical conclusion, be willing to show evidence to support your claims. This is quite different from most Priests that demand conformity to Orthodoxy. Good science celebrates doubt. Do priests celebrate Doubting Thomas?
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May 3, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Scalia said,
To observe is to assume genuine knowledge may be obtained by what you observe (a philosophical position), and drawing inferences from observed patterns entails logic in order to make those inferences cogent.
In college, a drunk threw a baseball bat at my head at night. When the bat passed a streetlight, I dropped to the ground. The bat flew over my head and crashed into a fence. I don’t know what is meant by genuine knowledge. I certainly did not have genuine knowledge of the bat, only a glimpse in the dark. As I bounced up from an instinctual burpee, I was aware of ‘line dot line’. (latter, I used the ‘dot’ to infer that the bat had been coming right at my head.) But I had already reacted; the though was after the fact. I used observations and subconscious pattern matching to survive – just like any other ape would do.
I can agree with the claim that I used logic in making inference about what HAD happened. But I don’t think that the explanation after the fact was more genuine that the instinct that made me drop to the ground. The claim that
“Observation” and “pattern seeking” are meaningless without a rational apparatus making sense of those observations and patterns.
seems exactly backwards to experience; without observation and pattern seeking, a rational apparatus (including the frontal cortex?) would be meaningless.
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May 3, 2012 at 9:50 pm
from the original post:
I find that this is all-to-typical of scientifically-minded atheists. They often disparage the field of philosophy as dribble, not knowing the first thing about philosophy.
Richard Dawkins is a friend of Daniel Dennett. With a little effort, you can find Dawkins speaking kindly about some philosophers, including Dennett and Hume. Daniel Dennett is clearly a respected philospher. Many consider the polymath David Hume to be a philosopher as well. So it is not the case that Richard Dawkins “disparages the field of philosophy as dribble”. So if the antecedent is false, any value of the consequent is logically consistent, at least in first order logic. If we are talking about one person (Dawkins), first order logic is all we need. If you want to talk about ‘most’, we can discuss statistics ;-).
So this statement seems to be the very definition of a straw man argument. At the very least, the subject of this blog (Dawkins) has made statements that are contradictory to those attributed to “all-to-typical of scientifically-minded atheists”.
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May 4, 2012 at 12:09 am
robertfolkerts,
With your initial post, you had simply put your foot in your mouth. It was a common case of pulling the trigger before aiming. After being taken to the woodshed, you should have left well enough alone. Now you are making a total fool out of yourself.
I was actually going to recommend that you pay a visit to a high school teacher for some lessons on reading comprehension until I realized that you are simply trying to save the face of your initial fiasco. Your four additional posts prove your are either deliberately trying to misrepresent what is being said here or you don’t have a sweet clue what is being said. There is no middle ground.
You write,
That qualifies as one of the most vapid statements I have ever come across. The subject is whether science presupposes philosophy and you retort that animals seek patterns the same way a scientist does?? If you’re serious, then you are beyond help. The remainder of my comments are for the benefit of our readers, not you.
The scientific method has basically four steps:
1) Observation and description of a phenomenon or phenomena.
2) Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the phenomena.
3) Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena.
4) Performance of experimental tests of said predictions by properly performed experiments.
Animals observe patterns the same way?? Of course not; and since they don’t, they are not engaging in science.
Humans initiate scientific investigation because they seek answers for observed phenomena. Their observation of phenomena prompts them to discover the reason behind observed patterns. As has been plainly shown, looking for a “reason” (or cause) presupposes the authority of reason (or the principle of causality) which is what philosophy is all about. Investigation (inquiring systematically) presupposes logical structure (again, a philosophical position). One cannot investigate anything without employing logic (another philosophical position). A human being seeking answers to why a lion eats a zebra must, among other things, presuppose the principle of non-contradiction (A does not imply the negation of A in the same respect). Hence a lion is not a non-lion in the same sense. Consequently, one must embrace the philosophical concept of non-contradiction in order to notice such a pattern. If one is not seeking answers for why a lion eats a zebra, then one is not engaged in science.
robertfolkerts writes posts and attempts to prove his self-refuting position that one can engage in science without philosophy; but every sentence he writes attempts to employ logical reasoning to prove his point. In other words, he is presupposing the authority of logic in order to debate this issue. He thus demonstrates that his commitment to logic (of course a branch of philosophy) is the foundation of his position. Without it, he could not argue. If he is not committed to logic, then all he needs to say is, “I’m right because red to fly when door if,” and be done with it. Similarly, unless certain metaphysical assumptions are in play, investigation is unintelligible.
Morehead more than makes this clear in the quotation supplied above. More to follow…
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May 4, 2012 at 12:22 am
robertfolkerts writes,
Again, said poster completely misses the point. I raised it in reply to his ignorant assertion that Galileo disproved “the metaphysics of the west.” Of course Galileo proved no such thing. Among other things, he championed heliocentrism, but the fact he was right about that has nothing to do with scholastic view of causality. Hence, if a scholastic insisted that rotting meat bred worms, he would simply be mistaken. His metaphysical commitment is thus irrelevant. That would be like saying that the disproving of yesterday’s scientific “truth” undermines science itself. Of course it does nothing of the kind. Similarly, nothing Galileo did disproved western metaphysics.
More to follow…
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May 4, 2012 at 12:37 am
robertfolkerts writes,
Again, “to be swayed either way by evidence” presupposes the authority of reason which is a philosophical commitment. A “working hypothesis” presupposes the principles of identity, contradiction and excluded middle, else one couldn’t even formulate a “working hypothesis.” For example, the hypothesis that two molecules of hydrogen joined with one molecule of oxygen will produce water is itself (as every intelligible sentence is) a demonstration of these logical principles. Water is water (identity); water does not imply non-water in the same respect (contradiction); and either water or not water (excluded middle). It is thus manifest that one must be committed to logic to even formulate a hypothesis. Moreover, even if I doubt that what I am seeing is really water, I must be committed to the position that my observations are in some measure intelligible, for what point is there is communicating the intelligibility of hydrogen and oxygen if they were entirely incomprehensible? Consequently, one must be committed to logical principles in the arena of concept formation (which is an essential aspect of scientific investigation).
The reader can thus see that no matter where one turns, the escape routes away from philosophy are slammed shut.
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May 4, 2012 at 12:47 am
With respect to Post 16, I wrote, Similarly, unless certain metaphysical assumptions are in play, investigation is unintelligible.
That sentence should be amended to read, Similarly, unless certain philosophical assumptions are in play, investigation is unintelligible.
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May 4, 2012 at 12:51 pm
robertfolkerts writes,
If the poster didn’t assume some level of universal intelligibility, he wouldn’t waste his time studying patterns and making calculations. Hence, whether or not the universe is intelligible, one must at the very least assume something meaningful can come of the scientific method, for if one did not believe that, then investigation is meaningless. Making assumptions for the practical matter of establishing a “working model” is a philosophical position. Whether one is a skeptic or a realist (both being philosophical positions), assumptions are required if one is going to investigate. Those assumptions are, by definition, philosophical.
??? The reader will recall Jason clearly explained this to the poster, but he continues to be oblivious of the obvious. Again, here is what Jason wrote in Post 5:
When a philosopher makes a scientific claim, that claim can be true, false or mixed. A scientist cannot even begin to refute that claim without being able to utilize the tools of logic in order to make sense of the data he discovers via experimentation, and as noted above, the very act of scientific investigation entails the assumption that reliable data can be obtained to refute the claim. All of that entails metaphysical assumptions. Philosophy, being the discipline of rationality, enables a scientist to support or refute a claim. Again, science does not and cannot work without philosophy. Faulty logic does not negate logic.
robertfolkerts continues,
In order to talk about causation, period, one must make a philosophical assumption. To engage in science, humans, as noted above, make an observation and immediately attempt to draw cogent inferences from that observation (A appears to cause B, and not C, D & E, something animals do not do), but any attempt to derive intellectual categories and concepts from empirical data presupposes logic in the attempt. A rational mind must believe or assume that meaningful data may be obtained by investigation which entails at least a tentative assumption of extra-mental reality, it’s uniformity and intelligibility; and as we’ve shown again and again, that entails a philosophical apparatus.
Science, being the exercise of a rational mind, necessarily depends upon philosophy (which again is the discipline of rationality). Without the ability to reason, no sense can be made of scientific claims. Both the claimant and the listener would be in the dark.
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May 4, 2012 at 10:46 pm
Look at the results of philosophy. Look at the results of science. Can you actually claim that philosophy has made a greater contribution to humanity? on the origin of the universe and life, what has philosophy produced? Compare Aristotle’s five elements with this:
Science is finding that you can start with nothing (the vacuum energy) and produce a universe via quantum fluctuations. From a big bang, the structure of the universe unfolds. From the explosions of supernova, we have the atomic nuclei needed for planets. From the condensation of the dust clouds, planets form. From the chemistry of the early Earth, life began (the details here at not well understood). Life, with a digital genetic material, was able to evolve and cover the Earth. We are made of star dust and we are part of this web of life that goes back unbroken for 4 billion years.
From the chemical and biological processes (primarily) in our brains, we have evolved the ability to think abstractly. We have created digital computers that are able to form very complex logical arguments, they can solve proofs that you and I cannot.
Complexity increases. Intelligence emerges. There is no evidence of any intelligence that exists outside of a body. Darwin’s genius is that he gave a mechanism that shows how complexity can increase through a natural process and that it does not require a designer. In that sense, his is the first natural theory of biology. We know know that we all have a common ancestor in Africa, about 100,000 years ago. We can trace the paths of these ancestors by their genetic markers in their descendents. We can watch the explosion of culture in places like Chauvet cave (France). We can measure the genetic similarity of ‘Cheddar man’ with recent inhabitants of surrounding villages; this give us great insight into the stability of communites and the nature of culture. Everywhere we look, we find that the tools of science are illuminating the world around us.
Science does depend upon logic, but the needed logic is now taught in mathematics; this is much narrower than the various theories of philosophy that have been created by man. As long as the rules of science are followed, it doesn’t matter if the practitioner uses the philosophy of Aristotle, Sidhartha or Medhatithi Gautama. In science, empiricism trumps rationality. All of the claims of rationality can be accepted at postulates, but there is always a chance that a postulate is wrong. So it is not the case that science is built upon philosophy. You would be hard pressed to find a scientist who was professionally limited by no knowing enough philosophy. Empiricism is the foundation.
However, a great deal of empirical study, particularly in computer science, has demonstrated how system with great power to reason can be constructed from machines. (e.g. digital circuits) We do not need anything beyond organizations of matter to create engines with immense power for logical deduction and induction (forward chaining and backward chaining inference engines are becoming common place.) This provides a great deal of confidence in the rules of logic. They work and they are useful. But this desire for practical advantage and for a useful ability to reason about tools seems like the same sort of reasoning that was needed by h. habilis to harness fire and create stone tools.
There is no realm of reason other than that which is found within organizations of matter. We are in an age where the working of the brain are being investigated scientificially. The scientific discoveries of the next generation will undoubtably have more to say about free will than centuries of philosophical rumination.
Science can treat philosophical claims as conjectures which may or may not be true. From millenea of observations, man has great faith in the claims of logicians. From centuries of observations, we also have great faith in mathematics. We do agree with Aristotle that science should be empirical. But his ideas on substance are quite inferior to a modern understanding from physics and chemistry. Even the principle of non-contradition looks suspect in light of quantum superposition of states. Even the Final Causes of his metaphysics rings hollow. Darwin showed that reasoning about final causes is illusory in an understanding of the diversity of life. In short, Aristotelean metaphysics is simply wrong in many of its claims.
If you have a philosophy that has evolved to remain consistent with our growing understanding of the natural world, I would be happy to find it.
But the philosophy that I was taught was very much presented a framework for rational thought. But it seems to me that it went well beyond that into realms of great speculation unconstrained by the need to agree with the world around us. Empiricism, rules for inference and deduction, and math are the tools that science needs to increase man’s understanding of the universe, life and increasingly, how we think. Empiricism, not a rational philosophy, is the foundation.
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May 5, 2012 at 5:10 am
robertfolkerts said:
“In science, empiricism trumps rationality.”
And isn’t that the very definition of a miracle? The rational mind might not be able to comprehend, and therefore, not accept what the very eyes (or other senses) have observed, and yet, the observation, as you argue, is still valid and trustworthy, even if the rational thought regarding the observation that comes afterward is faulty, biased, or misinformed?
And so, evidence is based in experience (i.e. the observation as it effects the observer who experiences the same). And an experience, no matter how incomprehensible or against the traditionally acceptable human rational, trumps all?
Therefore, an experience (even if labeled as subjective) can still be considered bonafide and verifiable, even if there is no (apparent) material cause?
And now we arrive at the very claims of the supernatural, do we not?
Am I missing something?
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May 5, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, brothers and sisters:
robertfolkerts replies by repeating his claims and ignoring the obvious refutations thereof. This confirms my earlier observation that he realized he jumped into waters completely over his head and is trying to save his face by repeating himself and hoping nobody notices that his views are self-refuting.
The reader will note said poster no longer claims Galileo proved the inadequacy of western metaphysics. Now he runs to Darwin to claim that mechanism trumps final causality (thus demonstrating his unfamiliarity with the issue). Darwin may have thought that’s what he did, but if so, he failed miserably. Nonetheless, it’s a red herring because the subject is whether or not philosophy enables science. Said poster, by his refusal to engage the argument, cedes it by default. In fact, he admits as much when he writes,
If philosophy presents a framework for rational thought, then science cannot proceed without philosophy. That’s the point. Science either proceeds by rational thought or irrational thought. He can take his pick.
He goes on,
He evidently forgot his earlier remark:
Yet he understands enough of it to question contradiction. Really? So the opposite of that claim is true too? If it doesn’t hold, then he has said nothing. He really should try to look at his words from outside his bubble, but that would perhaps be too embarrassing.
All in all, his remarks about metaphysics demonstrates he doesn’t know what he is talking about, but it’s understandable he is trying to change the subject. He wants the reader to think this whole argument revolves around A-T; and that effort is all that is needed to prove he isn’t even paying attention.
The poster fails to realize that science doesn’t do any observing, people do. As noted above by yours truly and others:
1) Any attempt to derive intellectual categories and concepts from empirical data presupposes their use in that attempted derivation.
2) Universal and necessary judgments would be impossible on a purely empirical basis because any approach to empirical data requires a cognitive structure already as a vantage point of knowledge acquisition, in terms of which such universal and necessary claims are possible. And our knowledge of the principles that make up this structure cannot themselves be based on empirical data for precisely the same reason.
We have shown science cannot proceed without philosophy. The poster just repeats himself, ignores the arguments, and tosses red herrings.
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May 5, 2012 at 6:48 pm
Scala:
Do you really think that you are in a position to insult Richard Feynman? It is now clear that you have no idea what you are talking about. Thank you! At least I am not alone anymore.
In Feynman’s statement, the clear implication is that nobody understands quantum mechanics. I’m pretty sure that after a moment’s reflection, you will agree that this statement is not a contradiction. There is also a great tradition of philosophers admitting that they don’t know anything, go back at least as far as Socrates. So Feynman’s confession of ignorance at least puts him in good company.
If you think that Feynman lived a bubble unto himself, you may want to review the investigation of the Challenger accident. During an long meeting, he calmly dropped an o-ring into ice water and demonstrated fro all to see why the Challenger had exploded 30 seconds after launch. He was the lead on the evening news across the country. Your instructors probably remember the incident.
His book, “Surely Your Joking, Mr Feynman!” was a NYT best seller in 1985. The NYT book review (Jan 27, 1985) compared him with Mark Twain. He was also featured in Apple’s Think Different campaign. So he was not alone in his bubble. Whose bubble of ignorance is embarrassing now?
Feynman discussed at great length about the difference between people who know something and people who know about something. For the most part, book learning is ‘knowing about’, while ‘knowing’ is experiential. One day, he watched some ants crawling over the kitchen floor. He noticed, like many others, that they all followed a trail – know to be a chemical trail. He continued to experiment, and found that if he reverse one of the tiles, that the ants would quickly realize that they were going in the wrong direction and turn around. From this, he concluded that the ants were use (at least) three distinct chemicals to mark their trial. He was the first to make this conclusion. This was logical induction of the highest order and it was fun.
There were lots of people that know about ants, but not not very many that ‘know ants’. There are lots of people that know about inference, but very few who can make inferences at this level.
His thesis defense was attended by Einstein and Pauli. He was invited to join the Manhattan Project. He was also the founder of quantum electrodynamics, which makes some of the most accurate predictions in all of science. The Nobel committee recognized his work. He also conceived of quantum computers, so to say that he ‘understand enough’ on quantum mechanics is something of an understatement.
Feel free to insult me, but insulting Feynman is foolish. If you have an hour, “The Pleasure of Finding Thinks Out” on youtube shows the joy of investigation.
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May 5, 2012 at 7:01 pm
I initially concluded Bobby didn’t have a reading comprehension problem. It now appears I have to revise that. As usual, he totally misread my comment about QM. Since he didn’t understand it the first time around, I’m doubtful he’ll understand another explanation.
Readers: This dialog is regrettably all-to-common among so-called intelligent people who are ignorant of a topic, but they nonetheless feel qualified to comment on it.
It is bad when a philosopher with no scientific training speaks authoritatively on science. It is equally bad when a scientist with no philosophical training does likewise.
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May 6, 2012 at 12:11 am
Aron,
That is actually an interesting question. I’m not sure if that is limited to empiricism, since all philosophers that I have found agree that science uses observations. It is occasionally the case that scientists observe events that do not make sense in light of current theoretical understanding. At one time, all of these events (rainbows, thunder, volcanos, floods, etc) were seen as evidence for supernatural causes. So that does seem to be evidence that the observation of natural events with unknown causes have been attributed to supernatural causes. So at least historically, there are a great many people that have attributed unexplainable events to supernatural causes.
It is the position of modern scientists, and I will not speak for philosophers, is that the parts of science that do not make sense in light of current theory are the fun parts. These are the puzzles that need attention in order to be resolved. The previously mentioned youtube interview with Feynman, “The Pleasure of Finding Thinks Out”, show this view very clearly.
Perhaps because of a better philosophical basis, e.g. postempiricism, better mathematical tools like Bayesian statistics, the advent of computer based modeling, or perhaps just because of a longer record of successful natural explanations, turning to the supernatural to explain observation is regarded as nearly the same as giving up. The only 20th century example of proposing a supernatural explanation for a physical system that I can think of is intelligent design, with its claim of irreducible complexity. To the best of my knowledge, the examples of irreducible complexity have been demonstrated to be ‘reducible’, e.g. the bacterial flagella was shown to be closely related to an organelle in the bacteria responsible for the Bubonic plague, which is only a few of modifications away from being a flagellum. This is really quite unfortunate, because I really was hoping to be able to prove that my sperm were supernatural. (the falgella on our ‘little guys’ are similar to those of bacteria)
But jokes aside, I agree that the observation of unexplainable natural phenomena lead to many supernatural explanations. Is has only been since about 1800 that scientists have been able to state that their theories do not need to postulate a supernatural source. (e.g. Laplace to Napoleon). Based upon the past successes of finding natural explanations, scientist do not accept supernatural explanations for natural phenomena. I am unaware of any philosophic arguments that make such an explanation impossible; but as has been made abundantly clear, that may simply be because I am a philosophical cretin. So I yield to to the other august posters on this point. But from an empirical review, the fact that thousands of supernatural explanations have been replaced by natural explanations in the physical and biological sciences leads to to this conclusion: it is much more likely that a natural process that cannot be explained by science (that is a metaphor for ‘the collective of researchers engaged in scientific investigation”) reflects a limitation of current science more than is represents a supernatural explanation. There is no certainty in science, so we can only say that supernatural explanations of any natural event are exceedingly unlikely.
So with resect to modern science, it is not the case that unexplained events are considered supernatural. Does this make sense? I’m not trying to be flippant in my reply.
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May 6, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Scalia summarized the scientific method as follows:
The scientific method has basically four steps:
1) Observation and description of a phenomenon or phenomena.
2) Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the phenomena.
3) Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena.
4) Performance of experimental tests of said predictions by properly performed experiments.
That is a rather good summary of the process of science. For the practicing scientist, your step 2, with its Eureka moment, is the intellectual high of the entire process. But after that moment, you have some choices in your sibsequent work. In some cases, you have found a phenomena in one system so you need to try others. As is now almost cliché, one experiment often leads to more, as you ‘follow the trail.’ But you can also look for experiments to disprove your own theory. All of these sorts of experiments have their role, but the experiments to disprove the theory turn out to be critical in the philosophy of science.
Within your summary, there was no discussion of falsifiability, which is a key issue in the philosophy of science. Karl Popper, a noted philosopher only recently deceased, noted that both science and pseudoscience can formally use the scientific method. What Popper claims to be the defining characteristic of scientific investigation is falsifiability.
So, we can look at Marxism, which has a theory of dialytic materialism that resembles a scientific theory. As Popper noted, once you have read the theory of Marxism, it is quite possible to apply that theory to predict nearly any aspect of social behavior. It is even possible to construct experiments that repeat the initial observations under controlled conditions. Popper then contrasted this with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, GR. When Einstein first published, his theory had essentially all of its current rational arguments. But the world was,to be polite, rather sceptical of such a radical theory which required that space and time ‘bend’ near heavy objects. However, this famous Eddington expedition observed this very effect. So GR is science, while Marxism is not (Marxism could have been scientific if its proponents had noted Marx’s predictions that the proletariat revolution would begin in industrial economies. This prediction was incorrect. But rather than letting Marxism be disproven science, it became a successful pseudoscience (in the same sense that astrology is successful). But not that at the time the theory of dialectical materialism was created, it was following the prescribed scientific method and it only became a pseudoscience by Popper’s definition well after Marx’s death. So it is perfectly reasonable to describe Marx as a social scientist, while describing Marxism as a pseudoscience (at best).
So, here is an example of a philosopher who has significantly altered how scientists perceive how science operates. If you read or listen to the works of the notorious Richard Dawkins, you will find that he empahisizes this philosophical principle when he does science. So it is indeed the case that scientists are paying attention to philosophers.
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May 6, 2012 at 3:36 pm
In the original post, the author included an image of Philosophy for Dummies, a book with a clear copyright (1999), without attribution. This particular Dummies book has an online section “Philosophical Battles: Empiricism versus Rationalism”, which ends:
…
Philosophers do not believe that Descartes succeeded (in defending rationalism). But it was worth a try. Rationalism has remained a seductive idea for individuals attracted to mathematics and to the beauties of unified theory, but it has never been made to work as a practical matter.
________________
Since science is a practical matter, guess what sort of philosophy it has adopted? It seems to me that is one wishes to engage in personal attacks with reference to a book, one should know what is written in the book.
PS: the UK edition of Philosophy for Dummies has a more relevent image to make fun of a biologist. If you violate intellectual property rights to make fun of somebody for admitting ignorance, you may as well do it right. Apparently, that is the Christian thing to do.
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May 6, 2012 at 11:52 pm
robertfolkerts’ discussion with Aaron is something I won’t common on, except to say I also disagree with Aaron, but for different reasons.
It now appears he has more or less formally acknowledged he was mistaken about the foundational role philosophy plays in science (he even now calls it the philosophy of science). I would be willing to leave it at that, but he appears to be chagrined at having to admit it because he makes some, well…shall we say…odd statements.
After acknowledging that my summation of the scientific method is “rather good,” he writes,
Now, how in the world can I be overlooking falsifiability when (4) calls for the performance of experimental tests of predictions by properly performed experiments? Hypotheses or predictions that can be tested are falsifiable else testing would be superfluous.<blockquote)So it is indeed the case that scientists are paying attention to philosophers.
Aside from the fact that the poster took the long route home to make that statement, the record demonstrates that several scientists, Dawkins among them, actually pay very little attention to the philosophical theistic arguments they criticize. Hence, the main topic of this thread. Dawkins should at least know what he is talking about if he is going to enter the arena of philosophy. The above quotation is just one example among many that proves beyond ambiguity he doesn’t.
Said poster then offers a quotation from Philosophy for Dummies to the effect that philosophers reject Descartes’ arguments defending rationalism. Putting aside the inaccuracy of that statement (it should read that most philosophers reject…) one wonders what that quotation is supposed to mean in light of this thread’s topic and the ancillary line about the foundation of philosophy. Jason advocates the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) whereas I favor the Thomistic (TCA) one. Both versions are a posteriori arguments. Although I think we can both agree that Craig’s reformulation of the ontological argument is at least defensible, I doubt Jason is a full-blown rationalist. That said, philosopher Laurence BonJour makes a strong modern case for rationalism with his In Defense of Pure Reason. Moreover, Aquinas specifically rejected the ontological argument of Anselm for God’s existence. The poster appears to assume rationalism is afoot here and then proceeds to attack it. Since rationalism isn’t in play, said quotation hangs irrelevantly in midair.
The poster finally accuses Jason of some law bending or breaking by adding a picture of Philosophy for Dummies (including the name of the author) to this thread. Jason can speak for himself, but after being peeled in debate, it is perhaps understandable he would want to kick Jason on his way out. Of course it’s his foot, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is as guilty as Dawkins: Arguing against a position he doesn’t understand.
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May 8, 2012 at 5:47 pm
It seems to me the confusion may be between “rationality” (using reason) and “rationalism” (the philosophical school).
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May 10, 2012 at 1:19 am
Just for clarification, I realize that ancient peoples have often turned to mythological deities to explain natural phenomena. These of course have since been discredited with the advancement of empirical sciences.
So when I speak of miracles, or how empiricism can trump human rational thought on the matter (taken from the robertfolkerts quote), I am speaking of any observable phenomena that has no apparent, explicable material cause (which would be a very good, if not dictionary based, working definition of a miracle).
I admit that the explanation in many such cases just hasn’t been studied
enough or that no one cares to do so. And so, should an effort be made, many new scientific findings would no doubt come to light.
But again, I am not talking about such cases. Nor am I talking about beating the odds, or being a fluke, or of something being a mere abnormal flux in an otherwise normal data set.
Rather, I am speaking of certain phenomena, quite observable, even experiential, that have no rational explanation, i.e. that there is no scientific way to explain or interpret the observed phenomena.
And while I could speak of divine encounters and answered prayer, for the moment, I’m going to leave off on that and turn to something everyone can agree on: medical miracles.
Medical science is one of the most advanced and stable of all sciences, and yet every doctor in the field has their “story”. Not just of survival, or of beating the odds, but of something occuring with, in, or within their patients that defies all logical, rational thought, or reason.
Here is a fact: the moment someone becomes brain dead, their neural pathways collapse and their synapses break down. And yet, with medically induced resusitation efforts, many people have been brought back literally from the dead, and in many such patients, there is no loss of mental ability, intellect, memory, or brain function at all. In some of these documented cases, the patients have literally been dead for extended periods of time–not just mere moments–but long enough that, should the patient somehow be resurrected, even medically/scientifically and not supernaturally, it would be normative to expect partial to even full brain damage. And yet, in a vast number of these cases, none is found.
The greatest scientific minds–that of doctors, leave the scene baffled. They throw their hands in the air, and say something to the effect of “I have no explanation for this”, glad for the patient’s survival and well being, but perhaps no less dismayed for the anomaly. And that’s the true statement–that they have no scientific explanation for such a thing can be, because there isn’t one. Nor is there ever going to be.
Couple to this fact that in many of these cases, a supernatural explanation is often offered by the patient–based in their experience–or by family/friends who prayed or performed some other religious duty to the patient, and we get ourselves closer to a metaphysical rather than physical account of what really happened. Science has got to be humble enough to admit limitations and for the possibility that some things in this life will never be satisfactorily explained by the prescribed method of “doing” science.
And that is where faith and other disciplines needs must come in. And so they do. But they must not be rejected out of hand, simply because they dare to speak authoritatively on subjects not dominated by the very sciences that can’t offer sufficient explanations for the observed phenomena.
By all means Scientist, keep trying. Don’t quit. But don’t rule out things that your branch of material empiricism isn’t equipped to handle.
Espousing the supernatural is not evil or anathema to your chosen field. More often than not, true science and true supernaturalism live in harmony with each other. The one can and does often help the other.
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May 12, 2012 at 11:05 am
Scalia,
I have not said that science does not have a philosophic foundation. I do not think that foundation is quite what you think it is. As in all matters philosophic, the honest answer seems to be “I don’t know for sure.” The foundation of science seems to be skepticism and observation. As you seem to have little interest in how we came to know the world before Aristotle, I will stop speculating about how our earlier ancestors, particularly those in China or India could have come to any real knowledge before Classical Greece.
Socrates noted that the ability to do arithmetic was one of the strongest evidences that man is rational. In Principia Mathematica, Russell and Whitehead demonstated with considerable, but not complete success, that arithmetic can indeed be derived from logic. In my opinion, PM is much harder to read than is Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. (I did have a translation of Newton’s Principia). If you want to call Newton’s book philosophy, I would disagree and call it physics. But I really don’t care what you call it.
Back to Russell. In PM, he came up with Russell’s Paradox. I mention this because I recently came across the very same paradox in a book on Relational Database Design by de Haan and Kooppelaars. What was arcane philosophy a century ago is now discussed in books of applied mathematics. as it is used in the ubiquitous relational databases that are essential in commerce and government. So I can easily draw a chain from logic to science and engineering; probably in more detail than you.
What I should have said was that the philosophy of natural science has been extraordinarly fruitful. That is not proof, but is is evidence, that there is a great deal of truth in the philosophy espoused by many scientists.
Contrast this with the case of Galileo. It is certainly the case the metaphysics of his day stated authoratively that only the Earth had been corrupted by Original Sin and that the Heavens were uncorrupted. There were Inquisitors that were more than willing to torture in order to stop Galileo from describing what he saw. I don’t think that there is anyone here who wants to defend this aspect of pre-Galilean metaphysics.
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May 12, 2012 at 11:56 am
Scalia,
You describe the cases where the predictions of medicine are found to be in error as evidence of miracles. There are three obvious problems with this line of argument.
First, the predictions of medicine are probabilistic in nature. If you doubt this, I can introduce you to members of the statistics department as the University of Iowa who work closely with the U of I Medical School on research. It is the nature of any any statistical prediction to have variation.
Second, as medical science progresses, we are likely to see 1) more accurate predictions and 2) more effective treatments. It would seem that would imply a diminution of the miraculous at the very time that human suffering is decreasing through the good works of mankind. This is, to put it mildly, ironic.
Third, if you assign medical miracles to the Divine, what do you say to the victims and next of kin of the very same diseases that did not have a miraculous recovery? I am unaware of any evidence that praying for a miracle increases the likelihood of a unexplainable recovery. Does God simple not care about the 9 million children that die every year before they reach the age of five? Many of them are from religious home with parent that are devoutly praying for recovery. If He can cause cancer to go into remission, can he not stop progression from diarrhea to dysentery that then progresses to millions of deaths annually? Perhaps God works in mysterious ways, but then I have my suspiciouns this very mystery is likely to limit the utility of philosophy. Philosophy gives us an examined life, but it doesn’t give us answers.
God can work through doctors, nurses and sanitation workers to reduce suffering. It may even be possible to reduce the suffering from HIV and other STDs by distributing condoms, medical treatment and dicouraging promiscuity. (probably in that order of cost effectiveness, but I am willing to be swayed by evidence, not dogma) But I do not see the evidence of medical miracles that you claim. If God is going to reduce suffering, it will have to be via human agents, not direct intervention (miracles).
Finally, your description of brain death seems inaccurate. It is common knowledge that brains function can stop for about 3-4 minutes before the damage is irreversible. Hypothermia, because of the well known dependence of chemical reaction rates upon temperature, can extend this time considerably.
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May 13, 2012 at 12:38 am
I’ll reply to Post 33 first. robertfolkerts addresses me and writes,
The poster must be getting me mixed up with somebody else. I never wrote any such thing. I think he intended to reply to Aaron.
I would normally overlook such a minor error, but the poster’s mistakes in reading comprehension and his inability to follow an argument make mistakes like this appear to be par for the course. He doesn’t appear to know what he is arguing, and as will be shown below, he still doesn’t get it.
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May 13, 2012 at 1:17 am
Now to Post 32: robertfolkerts writes,
In Post 9, said poster wrote,
Morehead wrote, in part, that “Philosophy undergirds science by providing its presuppositions…” Said poster writes that Morehead “has almost everything…backwards.” The only logical conclusion one can draw is that philosophy does not undergird science. In fact, the last paragraph of the same post states:
Thus, said poster is spinning out of control. He cannot even remember his own argument. If his memory is that poor, he should perhaps be doing something else. Bizarrely, he writes,
Well, that’s an impressive example of chest thumping! He continues,
Back in Post 6, I wrote, “Since Jason never denied [the] contributions of science, you have skewered a straw man.” The contributions of science have never been denied by either Jason or yours truly.
Another gem,
Yet another example why one should study philosophy before commenting on it. After inserting his foot in his mouth over and over, one would think he would be just a little more cautious. The position he describes is a theological position, not a metaphysical one. A/T metaphysics deal with first principles, the relation of universals to particulars and the teleological doctrine of causation. The scholastics studied theology, metaphysics and physics. That many of their assertions with respect to physics were incorrect is affirmed by all, but that has no bearing on their metaphysical or theological positions. As Feser notes,
In other words, he acknowledged that their physics may be mistaken, but a mistaken scientific observation has no bearing on the validity of logic or philosophy itself. This is a great mistake made repeatedly by Dawkins-bots who have no clue what the history of philosophical thought is.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why said poster wants to embarrass himself over and over again, but it does make for an interesting psychological case study.
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May 13, 2012 at 8:37 am
Scalia,
I used the word metaphysics in the sense used in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for ‘old metaphysics’, since that was what was in effect at the time of Galileo. SInce that time, the scope of metaphysics has been refined (in the sense that a metal ore is refined) to remove many questions that are more effectively answered by science. In earlier times, the distinction between metaphysics and theology was less distinct. From arguments that we would all agree are theological (God created the heavens and imperfections were introduced to Earth by Original Sin), there were inferences made about the cosmological (the sun is perfect). It his common to include cosmology within ‘old metaphysics’. But I think it is at least defendable to use the term metaphysics to describe the ‘pre-physics’ that caused Galileo to be the target of the Inquisition. Even after Galileo, Christoph Scheiner, a Jesuit, wrote “Introductory Treatise in Favor of a Moving Sun and a Stable Earth against Galileo Galilei,” It is likely that Scheiner saw sunspots before Galileo, but he still argued the theological position in contradiction to the observation.
So,while Aquinas many have been open minded to additional astronomical observations, there were many who were not. There are, of course, discordant views on nearly any subject at nearly any time. Therefore, it seems dangerous to make blanket statements about the view of practitioners of a field. I will confess to have fallen victim to this myself, as you have clearly shown.
Within science, we have the ability to make observation and to compare that with theoretic claims (based upon models and rational claims). At every point, scientists can see if they are veering from accurate claims. Within philosophy, or even mathematics, it is quite possible to create self-consistent schools that differ radically in their postulates. There can be illogical models that can be disposed up immediately. But that still leaves many schools that have models that are logically self-consistent, but are radically different in their postulates.
It is unquestionable that science needs logic in order to function. But is seems quite possible that there are multiple philosophic schools that are consistent with science. Science, as a discipline, has little to gain by determining which school has a correct model. Science obviously has a great deal to gain by logical thinking. So there is a tiny subset of philosophy (logic) that is clearly relevant to the endeavor of science.
It seems to me that an honest philosopher can favor one school or another, but that they should be able to discuss the strengths and weakness of any schools (perhaps after more study, I don’t expect them to be an walking encyclopedia of every school ever devised). An honest scientist should be able to take any truth claim in one’s field of expertise and evaluate it by comparison with observations. There is no need for warring camps to argue about the qualities of a theoretic model in science. All scientific claims can be falsified, so if you disagree with a scientific claim, you can attempt to falsify it. Einstein was famous for disliking the nature of quantum mechanics, but he still came to accept it because it proved to e consistent with observation.
I assume that you do not agree with the philosophy of Bertrand Russell, who is described by many as a leading philosopher of the 20th Century. What tools do you have for choosing one school over an other?
Science is not investigating the same issues today that it did a century ago. In science, an issue can be settled. In philosophy, the issues never seem to change. How does philosophy philosophy build upon the past?
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May 13, 2012 at 3:39 pm
robertfolkerts writes,
This is entirely irrelevant to the point I made. He continues,
Again, whether or not a person is open-minded is in itself irrelevant. No matter how tightly a person weaves h/er metaphysics into h/er theology and physics, they are not the same subjects, and it is fallacious to argue that a refutation of an assertion under one category refutes either that category or any other one. I’ve already provided examples of this above, but the poster has clearly demonstrated his inability to remember his own argument, let alone mine.
The poster asks,
That is not the topic of this thread. Given the ebb and flow of the above “discussion,” I am doubtful of any fruitful dialog along that line with robertfolkerts. As is demonstrated by his latest posts, he denies saying what he clearly said, attempts to refute positions I do not hold, and betrays a glaring lack of philosophical education. Since dialog on another topic would probably evidence more of the same, I have no interest in it.
Suffice it to say Dawkins is a dingbat when it comes to philosophy. I believe it was Feser who stated that Dawkins didn’t know the difference between metaphysics and Metamucil. Given what I’ve read of Dawkins, it is easy to agree with that assessment. Moreover, as shown repeatedly above, science doesn’t get off the ground without philosophy. My involvement here is solely to defend that assertion. That has been proved. Nothing else needs to be discussed.
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May 13, 2012 at 5:58 pm
Scalia,
You keep stating:
I want to know what this statement means. If you are claiming that science cannot get off the ground without logic, then I will certainly agree with you. I suspect that you have more in mind.
Science depends upon skepticism and empiricism as qualities of a scientist. These words are also used as schools of philosophy, but I suspect that you have more in mind than a deliberate ambiguity of words.
You state:
I cannot draw on experience to understand this claim. I have seen logical errors in papers pointed out, this can cause papers to be withdrawn by the authors. Perhaps you have found a important tool to use in sorting out errors in science. So this potentially a very important claim for the practicing scientist if it has the power to distinguish good science from bad science. I am not claiming that scientists will like this, but it you can demonstrate your claim, they will have to go along with your or end all pretenses of doing science correctly.
Since I am not sure what you mean about every aspect of a scientific investigation depending upon metaphysical assumption(s), I will postulate that you are correct. If a philosopher finds that a scientific paper contains such an error, the philosopher can contact the editor of the journal and present an argument as to the fallacies contained in the paper. How does the editor know if the philosopher is correct? Normally, a scientist would devise a test of an assumption involving a comparison of observation and deductions from that assumptions. What sort of test of the claims of a philosopher are possible for the editor?
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May 13, 2012 at 6:39 pm
Dawkins has had enough biochemistry to tell the difference between Metamucil and bullsh*t. Unless someone can explain the difference between metaphysics and bullish*t, I think we can be confident that Dawkins can tell the difference between metaphysics and Metamucil. (come on guys, somebody has to know a philosophy joke that fits in here)
I would also like to point out that insulting an evolutionary biologist is not an ad hominem attack, what Feser did was just an ad hominid attack. Perhaps someday it will evolve into an ad hominem attack.
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May 13, 2012 at 10:39 pm
robertfolkerts writes,
Perhaps Post 39 is an attempt at lightheartedness. If so, we can let it pass. If not, then when serious philosophers accuse a biochemist of not knowing squat about philosophy, one can rest assured they know what they’re talking about. One can also rest assured they can back that assertion up with a plethora of quotations which prove beyond a shadow of doubt to anybody versed in philosophy the truth of that claim (e.g. The Fifth Way is related to Paley’s watchmaker argument [sic!!]). However, since the poster knows little of philosophy, it would be a wasted exercise to point that out to him.
robertfolkerts writes in Post 38,
Well, yes I do, and I have already explained it. I’m tired of reminding the poster of the previous discussion.
Perhaps the poster is attempting to draw attention away from his selective amnesia, but as I’ve been openly hinting for a couple of posts, I think this dialog has run its course. If any reader would like clarification on any points I have raised, I’ll be happy to reply. robertfolkerts’ inability to follow an argument, to understand what he thinks he is refuting, or to even remember what he has argued renders pointless further dialog.
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May 14, 2012 at 7:32 am
Perhaps Scalia is also a “poster is attempting to draw attention away” from my question. Give me one example of an actual scientific claim in a a published research paper that is invalid because the scientist made a metaphysically incoherent claim. There are multiple claims that scientists are making mistakes because they don’t know squat about philosophy. This claim is made about Richard Dawkins in particular. Show a scientific claim by Dawkins that is incorrect because he made an error in metaphysics. That is a testable claim. Find examples where a failure to correctly apply metaphysics results in an error in science.
I have already discussed falsifiability as a way to separate pseudoscience from science. This is a testable claim. By this test, evolution is a scientific theory as it produces testable claims (e.g. that human chromosome 2 is a fusion of two separate chromosomes still found in modern great apes). Dawkins certainly discusses falsifiability. Since the concept of falsifiability is a concept of how we know something in science, I think that it falls under the category of ontology. It is certainly listed as a theory from ‘analytic philosophy’. So it seems to me that the falsifiability criteria is philosophic in nature. It is also of utility to a practicing scientist.
Now show me what you mean by an error in philosophy that is made by a scientist that results in an error in science.
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May 14, 2012 at 8:02 am
Robert writes,
Again, this is not the topic of this thread.
He continues,
Yet again, this is not the topic of this thread. The dear reader can clearly see that this poster’s inability to follow an argument is shown by every post he offers.
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May 14, 2012 at 8:41 am
Hi, Robert
I think Scalia is right; you were addressing me and not him in post #33.
In terms of what you’ve written:
First, I’m not talking about predictions. I am simply describing real situations in which a medical, biological impossibility came to pass. You mentioned people being dead for 3-4 minutes. I am not talking about such scenarios.
I am talking about things like this:
http://www.leestoneking.com/My%20Miracle.htm
Now, I realize some of the religious language might not be palatable for you (maybe it will be fine?), but, unless you are willing to call it all a fraud (and I’m skeptical enough to understand why you would), there simply isn’t any scientific explanation for this. Now, this is a world-renowned man, and any person, with enough resources, could totally verify the claims made.
But the bottom line is this: he was brain dead, with no breathing or heartbeat for 30 minutes; not the 3-4 you mentioned (no conditions of hypothermia were present, either). There isn’t a doctor in the world that will tell you this is normative, that a person would not only survive, but be functional, even normal afterward. We could, I suppose, turn him over to science and they could dissect him and try to see why he’s still alive and has no brain damage, but no one’s going to find anything.
If you google “boy [or use the word girl, if you prefer] survives underwater” you’ll see many links to proven news stories of children surviving a situation where they should have drowned, even after being underwater for 25 – 30 minutes. Now I realize that if they had drowned in frozen lakes or rivers, your case for hypothermia would be potentially sound, but even so, weren’t not just talking survival, we’re also talking no oxygen to the brain for at least two dozen minutes (But does anyone completely understand how hypothermia prolongs life? I know it is assumed that the cold keep cells alive longer, and suspends their decay — but how? And why should that matter? Where’s the science on that? And wouldn’t it take a philosophical approach to even being to answer those questions?).
As far as the rest of your post, I can’t comment on why or how so many others die, while some, perhaps even, many live. There are variables there beyond my ability to address. One could argue in any direction, and still not know the answer. And if you want, you and others could just chalk it up to there being no God at all. Maybe so. But I think otherwise.
Aside from this, to say more to your interrogative “what do you say…” would be merely subjective, and grossly inaccurate at best.
Can God work through human intervention? Absolutely. I have no doubts about it or qualms with saying it’s so. But when human intervention fails, what then? You say there is no such thing as divine intervention, or that you’ve not seen any evidence for such. I say, look a little more and try a little harder. Apply all your scientifically trained thoughts to the matter, and be as skeptical as you want. I’m not talking about throwing you brain out the window in order to become a believer. But the world is a big place, and so, writing miracles off because of your limited experience isn’t just. Even science won’t write off things that easily, but rather, will make a full examination of all evidence, and then, research more and look for more so as to answer any hypothesis. So why not offer the supernatural the same fair play?
Finally I don’t think I imply a dimunition of the miraculous. I mean, are there even agreed upon statistics to even quantify such???
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May 14, 2012 at 12:02 pm
Scalia
This entire post is about discrediting Richard Dawkins as a scientist because he doesn’t know the first thing about philosophy. I find it refreshing when someone admits ignorance rather than bullshitting (as defined in “On Bullshit”, by Harry Frankfurter, professor emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia).
So, I simply ask you to show why any scientist should be be discredited for reasons of philosophy. I will even give you and example with the falsifiability; Freud’s theory of self was one of three examples given in the original lectures by Kuhn as a theory that fails to be falsifiable. Show me one scientific paper that should be discredited because of ‘metaphysical incoherence’. If you cannot do this, please just say so.
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May 14, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Once again demonstrating his reading comprehension is sub-par, at best, Robert writes,
Simply amazing. It has nothing to do with discrediting anybody as a scientist. Of course, everybody who has read this thread knows that, except Robert. It is Dawkins’ presumption to speak on matters of which he is unfamiliar (philosophy) that prompts opprobrium, not his efforts in biochemistry.
Continuing to swing and miss, and continuing to show he is incapable of understanding what I’ve written, Robert asks me to “show” what I’ve never tried to argue.
Simply amazing.
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May 14, 2012 at 7:59 pm
Can anyone on this site demonstrate a case where a scientist could do a better job by means of philosophy? It it a central claim of the original post that scientists should study philosophy in order to understand rationality better ( by studying the study of rationality). I would like to be able to test this claim because it could lead to better research. I really do believe that Thomas Kuhn has improved science by means of ontology, so I realize that this claim could be true.
From the original post
What are these tools and how can we build a test that can be applied to see if a given scientific argument is lacking some tools that would lead to better science? After all, unless a tool can be used it is useless. (this is merely a double tautology) Since scientists do science (another tautology), I can only assume that the tools would be for doing science.
Scalia was the most willing to talk, but he will not give me an example where improper application of metaphysics has lead to a mistake in science. I really would like to understand how to do this.
It is exciting for a scientist to find out that they are wrong. Many of you also commented on the post about Richard Krauss’s book, A Universe From Nothing. It has been a few decades since I was hanging around with cosmologists, so Kruass’s exuberance is fun. He describes the joys of being shown wrong and of not understanding something. This is really good, because cosmologists were really wrong about inflation for a long time. Now I find a group that beleives Krauss wrong and doesn’t understand something; Hooray! This could lead to better science. I trust that you all read this already, but I just want to reiterate why being wrong is exciting. How do I use a knowledge of metaphysics to to a more rational job of science? Since scientist don’t understand this very well, I can only assume that they are making mistakes that metaphysicians can easily demonstrate.
Can anyone show me examples of this? Please. I really would like to know. Please feel free to insult me, I understand that I am a philosophic philistine. You can even make ad hominidae attacks that reduce me to a great ape; I’ve already done some chest thumping so this should be easy. If you find this cathartic, fire away.
Please just show me examples of error in the reasoning in a scientific paper that can be attributed to a mistake in metaphysics.
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May 15, 2012 at 7:26 am
Jason,
Robert can neither figure out from the quotation he supplied nor from your original post what you mean, and because I’m a generous man, I leave it to you to clarify your intent (although it’s as plain as day). No need to thank me. It’s my pleasure. 😉
Robert writes,
I’ve come up with another theory. Maybe English isn’t Robert’s first language. What part of “Robert asks me to ‘show’ what I’ve never tried to argue” doesn’t he understand? Bobby will search this thread in vain for anything I’ve written that remotely suggests such a thing.
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May 15, 2012 at 1:02 pm
Scalia,
I have not been following the discussion, but I’m going to assume you are referring to Robert’s last quotation of mine in comment 46. If so, my point was that if someone is interested in the topic of rationality, they have to study philosophy because the discipline of philosophy is all about rationality. All other disciplines, including science, use rationality but are not about rationality. That’s why I find it strange that people like Dakwins and Krauss diss philosophy so much while extoling rationality. They act as though it is science that gives us rationality, when in reality it is philosophy.
As for examples of how science has been wrong because their philosophy was wrong, just consider the age of the universe. Philosophy told us long ago that the universe could not be eternal because an infinite past produces absurdities and is incoherent, but scientists insisted it was anyway. The Big Bang did away with that idea, but scientists are turning back to the idea again with the notion of a multiverse. Forget for the moment the fact that one could never prove an eternal universe or multiverse through science. The fact remains that if scientists paid attention to philosophy they would never propose the idea in the first place (or try to interpret their equations that permit an eternal universe in a realist manner).
Jason
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May 20, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Jason,
I simply do not buy the claim that philosophy gives us clear rules of rationality. There are certainly rules for logic, but you are arguing for metaphysical claims. Science studies the material universe and philosophy studies a range of topics including rationality and logic. it is my observation that philosophers often wrestle with problems which cannot be solved. It is valuable to study these problems, if for no other reason that to get some humility with respect to our rational powers. In the lecture you referenced, Dawkins was humble and repeated (at least twice) said that a philosopher might be more appropriate for the direction that the conversation turned. When the conversation was about biology, he was clearly in his element and he spoke with more confidence. I have not argument with calling Krauss arrogant; you will find that that is common attribute of theoretical physicists. There are also talks from Dawkins where I find him strident, but the talk referenced in the blog is not one of them.
It is not difficult to find competent philosophers that will take both sides of an imponderable issue. So, philosophy is not falsifiable in that sense. At least according to its antagonists, each school can be be shown to have inconsistencies. So, there are no objective ways to demonstrate the superiority of a given school of philosophy. The falsifiability of science (a philosophic notion from Popper), cannot be applied to philosophy, since modern philosophy is not constrained by empirical claims.
While Christian philosophers may have argued for a beginning of time in accord with Genesis, Aristotle argued for an eternal universe. Since you can find a philosopher to support or contradict nearly any claim in science, agreement or disagreement with a philosopher is a very weak sort of evidence in support of a scientific theory.
I find your example of the age of universe curious. When a scientist states any scientific position, it is typically expresses as ‘our current understanding is …’. Depending upon the audience, these phrases may be dropped in the interest of brevity. Cosmologists (physicists) have entertained both eternal and universes with a beginning. When there was good physical evidence (e.g. the microwave background) in favor of one model, cosmologists quickly came to accept the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe. So the scientists, as a group, were not dogmatic about the age of universe. Rather, they were swayed by evidence.
If the sun was powered by coal and oxygen, the solar system’s age would agree roughly with the age given by the Bible. This was once considered strong evidence in favor of the Genesis account of creation and a young earth. However, other indications suggested an earth about 4.5 billion years old. Scientists they realized that the gravitational energy of a collapsing sun had even more energy than burning, but that did not resolve the issue. From spectroscopy, we found that the dominant elements of the sun were hydrogen and helium. With an understanding of nuclear processes, we realized that nuclear fusion could explain the observed spectra and produced an age of the sun of around 4.6 billion years. This is consistent (but surprisingly close to deduced age of the earth.) So it is certainly the case that there can be dilemmas in science that cannot be resolved, perhaps for centuries.
Edward Teller came up with an oscillatory theory of the universe which attempted to make the universe eternal oscillations of big bang … live of ‘a universe” .. a big crunch, followed immediately by a big bang. However, this was abandoned on empirical grounds – the expansion of the universe is accelerating as it expands so it will not oscillate. So science, at least the good science, is following the evidence.
After the discovery of quantum mechanics and the truly odd nature of space and time we find in relativity, physicists became very dubious of ‘common sense’ or philosophical arguments. Nobody foresaw quantum indetermanacy or described time as dependent upon reference frames. There are certainly mystics that made statements that can be interpreted after the fact as being consistent with these ideas, but he reaction of most people, including philosophers, was incredulity.
The multiverse is more a consequence of attempting to unite quantum mechanics and general relativity than an attempt of science to discredit a view of the universe favored by a particular religion or school of philosophy. There are many scientists who share your skepticism about theories like multiverses and string theory that have some mathematically elegant features but have not yet been able to produce a single testable hypothesis.
Incidentally, the same skeptcism existed to Einstein’s theory of general relativity until Eddington’s famous photographs taken during an eclipse showed that the sun’s gravitation actually does bend light. We all confirm both special and general relativity each time that we use GPS, so this theory is clearly now a scientific theory of practical utility. Until the multiverse theories produce falsifiable claims, there is no reason to give them the status of ‘science’. They are at best untestable elements of a scientific theory. But, the very mathematical elegance of the theories have been a surprisingly good predictor of ‘scientific truth’, so I would refrain from making definite claims either way about the validity of a multiverse theory.
In all of these cases, I do not see how scientists have suffered by bad philosophy. Science takes the ‘side’ favored by evidence. That, not a bad philosophy, is why the orthodox position in cosmology is that the universe began with a big bang. Philosophy is marked by recurring debates that do not have definitive resolution. There is no way to put a quantitative measure on the believability of a philosophic claim. Just how can scientific claims be resolved by philosophy? Falsifiability is one example, but you seem to be suggesting that there are metaphysical constraints on science that can be used to judge a scientific theory to be incorrect. I really would like to know what these rules are and how they can be applied.
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May 21, 2012 at 4:33 am
[…] system. Apart from Krauss and Hawking, one could cite the recent example of Richard Dawkins admitting that he doesn’t know what “epistemic” means. Note to those who embrace that philosophical system of Krauss et al.: without epistemology, you […]
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May 22, 2012 at 9:28 pm
Science wouldn’t make it anywhere without the philosophical inquiry which lays its entire foundation. http://jwwartick.com/2012/05/21/krauss-jump/
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May 23, 2012 at 6:38 pm
[…] right–philosophical system. Apart from Krauss and Hawking, one could cite the recent example of Richard Dawkins admitting that he doesn’t know what “epistemic” means. Note to those who embrace that philosophical system of Krauss et al.: without epistemology, you […]
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April 18, 2013 at 6:00 pm
Wow that was unusual. I just wrote an extremely long comment but after I clicked submit my comment
didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again.
Regardless, just wanted to say excellent blog!
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July 29, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Great post, I’m a student of Philosophy from Brazil…
Today I saw a couple of videos of Dawkins, and i think that the better of these is a debate between Dawkins vs William lane Craig( who realy knows a lot about philosophy) …but im still a nihilist kkkk
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March 11, 2016 at 1:40 am
[…] “There must have been a time when no physical things existed”), admitted 4 years later that he didn’t know what the word “epistemic” means. Stephen Hawking announced that “philosophy is […]
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