Sophomorisms

Tuesday I was walking on campus and came upon a co-ed standing at the top of some steps and reading out loud from some document, much like some campus preachers read Scripture to passers-by. There was a guy with a camera filming her, and another guy who shoved a leaflet in my hand entitled, “What is a Free Thinker?”

Under that was the following:

“free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Free thinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.”

“No one can be a free thinker who demands conformity to a bible [sic], creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”

“Two Roads Diverged in a Wood…”

{Note:  Today will be the last post for about a week while I take a few days to recharge. Feel free to peruse previous posts until then!}

Back in January, I did an episodic version of my essay, “What is Science?” It is my primer on the history and philosophy of science—the how and why we do science the way we do. It also covers, very briefly, the nature and types of proof, and how scientific proof is not universally appropriate in all fields of science, and how confusion can easily arise over the issue.

In other posts, the difference between philosophical and methodological naturalism has been examined.

Next week, the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) will be discussing the adoption of various supplemental materials in science courses to update the textbooks to reflect changes in the state public school achievement exams.

Evidence?

Yesterday, I wrote about another interpretation of data showing that some regions of the brain seem to be responsible for religious experiences. The problem with my interpretation, an atheist would say, is that there is no evidence that such regions are a hardwired means for a spiritual God to interact with physical people.

I argue that there is also no evidence that it isn’t a plausible explanation. Hold on, let me explain.

If there is a supernatural dimension to existence, what would we expect evidence of that to look like?

That is a critical question. If we don’t know what to look for in terms of falsifiable data, then not finding it is not proof against it.

5.What is Science?: Method

Now that you are thoroughly bored, confused, and/or intrigued by all of the last four days of background, what is science? It is a method for describing the natural universe in an ordered manner. This is done via a process called the Scientific Method. The steps are Observation, Question, Hypothesize, Test, Analyze, Modify Hypothesis, and Repeat.

Most humans rarely ask questions purely out of the blue. Typically, we see an object or a phenomenon then ask, “What is it?” or “What happened?” Those are the first two steps, and are very natural behaviour for us. Hang around a three-year-old child and you’ll see what I mean.

When we ask the question, we then try to answer it based on our understanding of the world. “How is what I just saw similar to what I already know?” “How is it different?” By answering these questions, we try to categorize the object or event. This categorization leads us to make an ‘educated’ guess or hypothesis as to what we saw.

Next we try to study the situation and see how good the hypothesis is. “Is it alive?” We poke it with a stick to see if it responds. This is an experiment to test our hypothesis.

Based on what happens (Did we just get bitten for poking it?), we refine our hypothesis by either asking new questions or modifying the old question. If nothing happened, then we might modify the original question to, “Was it alive at one point?” If it bit us, then a new question would likely be, “Is it poisonous?”

Now we enter the scientific cycle of testing the new hypothesis, and so on. That is really all there is to science. We now know what it is and how to do it, and we see that it is a very human thing to do. Scientists have just formalized the process and named it after themselves, but at its heart, it is pretty simple.

Let’s face it, coming up with a hypothesis is fun. We see something we don’t understand, and we want to figure out the puzzle. There is a certain amount of justifiable pride in solving a mystery; hence, the popularity of the detective/mystery genre. On the surface, this is harmless. In science, there is a danger here of which we as scientists must be aware. Since we humans like to be “right,” it can be tempting to even subconsciously design our experimentation to see if our hypothesis is right rather than to see what the answer to the question is. Remember, science is meant by definition to impersonally and impartially determine the character of the natural universe. Ultimately, it really doesn’t matter who figured what out, just that it is understood.

Unfortunately, humans do science. Unfortunately, most scientists are not independently wealthy. Unfortunately, folks who do pay for science tend to want results more than they want to understand reality. Therefore, there is more than a passing interest on the part of scientists to demonstrate that they have a better handle on understanding nature and how to use it to produce results that other scientists, so that they get more funding to do their research. It isn’t a matter of good or evil as much as it is a fact of human nature. Not that it would be any better if there was infinite funding. Then everyone who had some harebrained idea could get money to create the ultimate flying penguin or some such.

SDG

Define Your Terms!

I got into an argument with a friend the other day over evolution. He argued that basically evolution had done nothing good for the world, and I maintained that, in spite of some questions about the ultimate accuracy of the model, it had successfully guided research into some useful discoveries. He responded that they were made using what Bacon, Newton and others had developed long before Darwin came along.

We went round and round until I realized that we were talking past each other. He was arguing against evolutionary philosophy, and I was talking strictly about the scientific theory of evolution as a mechanism. I realized that this was the agent-mechanism debacle that I keep railing about, all over again. In his mind, ‘evolution’ refers to the entire kit and kaboodle of atheistic evolutionary theory and philosophy of origins. In my mind, I see distinct separations between Darwin’s scientific theory (and subsequent derivations) and the naturalistic philosophy with which it is often paired and which tend to feed off of each other.

Therein is the confusion—to many people, Christian or otherwise, there is no separation between the scientific mechanistic theory of evolution and the naturalism prevalent among atheistic/agnostic folks. Thus, to talk about one, you are talking about the other.

Unless one recognizes that they are separate (though closely related), it can be difficult to evaluate the theory on its scientific merits or lack thereof (depending on your viewpoint). The theory says the diversity of life arose through genetic changes over time. The philosophy says therefore that God did not have any hand in getting us here and, in fact, doesn’t exist.

Thus, it is imperative to carefully define your terms in most any discussion and make sure all parties agree to them. Unfortunately, even once I realized the confusion and explained it to him, we were forced to agree to disagree, as he seemed unable or unwilling to concede my assertion that they were separable.

For those folks who are ‘theistic evolutionists,’ this is the uphill battle they face. There are all too many people on both sides like my friend who don’t see them as separable. Therefore, many Christians see them as heretics, and many naturalists see them as cheap compromisers trying to find a way to allow for their faith in the face of ‘overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.’

In nearly every field, there is at least one issue that causes bitter division. What is it in yours? Can some of the heat in the division be reduced by taking a step back, and starting from first principles, set up the definition of terms such that jumbled ideas can be separated? (Maybe this isn’t possible long term as the jumbled ideas may truly be interrelated, but is it possible to temporarily set up a separation for purposes of argument and theory refinement?)

SDG