Creation and Evolution (Part 15)

Discussion

Question: Basically, you are talking about evidences and you have used that term of evidence but is it not also possible that there can be a bias in the collection of evidence and the presentation of evidence? We, as philosophers looking at this, have sort of an assumption that the evidence that is being accepted is true evidence properly presented. I am not saying it is not – what percentages we don’t know – but that caveat should be understood from the very beginning that not all evidence is really true evidence. It is biased by the collector.

Answer: I think that is a fair comment and it is true that sometimes people who are scientific mavericks get excluded from the mainstream discussion because they disagree and they look at anomalous data that doesn’t fit. But I must say in all honesty, I think one of the wonderful things about science is its self-correcting nature. It is true that these kinds of things happen but what you find, I think, is over a generation or so the anomalies surface and come back and subsequent scientists come to see the biases and the prejudices that blinded earlier thinkers and that evidence has to be freshly dealt with again. So these anomalies I don’t think can be suppressed forever. Science really does have a wonderful kind of self-correcting feature to it that makes it hard for the evidence to be perpetually twisted and distorted in such a way that it can’t be seen correctly. But certainly those who are going against, say, a mainstream view will need to exhibit courage and tenacity in demanding that their data be looked at and that the scientific paradigm, the mainstream view, look honestly at this anomalous data that they are presenting. I think that is right.

Question: I would be curious how you would respond to one of the most common defenses of scientific naturalism, which is that it seems to work. You will often here people comment that physics and chemistry has been so successful in describing the world around us that scientific naturalism must be the right way to go because it has been successful.[4]

Answer: This is exactly the defense that Alex Rosenberg, whom I am going to be debating at Purdue[5], takes in justification of what he calls scientism, or as you put it, scientific naturalism.[6] What I want to say about this is that this term covers a diversity of viewpoints that need to be carefully distinguished if we are not to be misled. First, there is what we can call epistemological naturalism. What is that? Well, epistemological naturalism says that we should only believe what can be scientifically proven; science is our only source of knowledge and truth. That is epistemological naturalism. Metaphysical naturalism, on the other hand, is the view that only physical things exist. There are no supernatural realities like spirits, souls, God, and so forth. So we have epistemological naturalism which says science is the only source of knowledge and truth and metaphysical naturalism which says that only physical things exist and there are no supernatural entities.

With regard to epistemological naturalism, the justification would be the success of natural science in giving us truth about the world. It has been enormously successful in telling us what the physical world is like. What I would say to that is that that goes no distance whatsoever in showing that science is the only source of knowledge and truth. What it does is show that natural science is the best way of discovering truth about the physical world. It is what will give us knowledge of the physical world. But to say that, therefore, there are no ethical truths, there are no aesthetic truths, there are no mathematical or logical truths, and there are no metaphysical truths (like that the past has existed longer than 5 minutes or that the external world is real) would be, I think, an overly restricted theory of truth and knowledge. We can know things even though they can’t be scientifically proven. And, indeed, this kind of epistemological naturalism would actually undermine science itself because science is, itself, permeated by assumptions that cannot be scientifically proven. So if you adopt this view, it would in fact undermine the very project of science.

What I think we want to say is that the incredible, amazing track record of empirical science simply shows that science is the best tool for knowledge and truth about the physical universe but it doesn’t imply that there are other types of truth. The philosopher Ed Feser gives a wonderful analogy.[7] He says imagine you have a metal detector which is so calibrated that it will detect anything metal – it is so infallible that it is the best metal detector you could find. He asks, “Would that prove that there are no non-metallic objects? That the only things that exists are metallic things?” Well, obviously not. And that is exactly the same error that the epistemological naturalist is making. Because his metal detector, so to speak, is so good and so efficient at discovering empirical physical truth he concludes there is no other kind of truth and that there is no other source of knowledge. That is as silly as the person who thinks the metal detector would show there are no non-metallic objects. That would be epistemological naturalism.

I would also say that epistemological naturalism is self-defeating because the statement “science is the only source of knowledge” is something that cannot be scientifically proven. That is a philosophical statement. If you only believe what science could prove then you would not believe that statement. Therefore epistemological naturalism is really self-refuting.

What I want to say in addition to that is, with respect to metaphysical naturalism, even if you were an epistemological naturalist, that doesn’t imply metaphysical naturalism because I think you can have arguments that appeal to modern science for positing non-physical realities.[8] A paradigm example of this was the Harvard philosopher W. V. O. Quine who was the most famous epistemological naturalist of the 20^th century. Quine said we should only believe what the natural sciences discover and teach us. Nevertheless, Quine showed himself remarkably and commendably open to the existence of non-physical, immaterial entities. He said if you could show him the indirect explanatory benefit of soul, of a creator, he said he would joyfully accord to them scientific status along with quarks and black holes.[9] As you know, many of the arguments that I use for God’s existence, like the arguments for the origin of the universe and the fine-tuning of the universe, precisely follow Quine’s prescription. They try to show the explanatory benefit of theism with regard to scientifically established facts like the origin and fine-tuning of the universe. In fact, Quine himself actually did believe in the existence of non-physical, immaterial entities. In particular, he thought that modern science requires us to believe in the existence of mathematical objects like sets and that these must also be part of our view of what actually exists. So Quine himself was not a metaphysical naturalist in that sense. He believed that in addition to physical entities, there are these non-physical, mathematical entities like sets. So that is how I would respond to the person who attempts to show on the basis on scientism that belief in God is not reasonable.

Question: We touched on this but aren’t both of these forms of naturalism contradictory? If you are totally a naturalist, any form of knowledge you say you compile from the natural world is illusory – you have no guarantee that what happened years ago or today will happen in the next 30 seconds.

Answer: Yeah, I agree with you. As I said, I think epistemological naturalism is self-defeating in the way I explained. But I also think metaphysical naturalism is ultimately self-defeating because I think Rosenberg is right that in a world of only physical entities there would not be what philosophers call intentional states. What does that mean you ask? Well, intentional states are states that have intentionality or the property of being about something or of something. It signifies the object directedness of our thoughts. I can think about my summer vacation. Or I can think of my wife. So my conscious states, my thoughts, have this sort of intentionality to them. They have this object directedness. They are about something. They are thoughts of something. Now, think about this. No physical object has intentionality. A chair isn’t about something. A stone isn’t about something. A glob of tissue like the brain sitting in your skull isn’t about something. Intentionality is a feature of consciousness, of mental states. So in a world in which only physical objects exist, there would not be any intentional states – there wouldn’t be any thoughts about anything. In that respect, I think Rosenberg is right. But then it just seems to follow clearly that metaphysical naturalism is false because I can think about metaphysical naturalism! Right? I have thoughts about metaphysical naturalism – whether it is true or false. So the very fact that I can think about this theory shows that the theory is false! Because, on the theory, there would be no intentional states. So I think you are absolutely right. Both of these ultimately reduce to self refutation and absurdity.

Question: That intentionality is with a “t” as opposed to an “s,” right?[10]

Answer: Yes, that is right - with a “t.”[11]

Followup: I was wondering if metaphysical naturalists have tried to reduce aboutness to a physical state of affairs.

Answer: I think some would say that aboutness can be explained simply in terms of behavior or function. That, to have a thought about something is to behave in a certain way – a kind of behaviorist view. But that is obviously, I think, incorrect. When I think about something it has nothing to do with my behavior; it is the object directness of my thoughts.

Followup: So there is pretty good support that it is irreducible? Intentionality even among many philosophers of the mind is pretty much irreducible?

Answer: Obviously, there are proponents of every view. I mean, look at Rosenberg. He thinks you don’t exist. Everything is controverted. But I would say that the view that intentional states are not something that is characteristic of a physical object is pretty solid and that, therefore, they require some sort of mental states. And the question would be whether or not the naturalist can make room for mental states in his view. Rosenberg thinks not and therefore he says they are illusory.

Followup: I sense supervenience is different than reducibility, right?

Answer: Right.

. . . I didn’t expect to be talking about these things today but it is just as well, they have been on my mind. If I have a mind; I think I do. [laughter]

Question: Would you say methodological naturalism denies agent causation altogether?

Answer: I would prefer to say that metaphysical naturalism would deny agent causation because there isn’t any intentionality if there are just brain states and there are no mental states. You said methodological naturalism – I don’t think that that has to deny these other things. It could admit that there are these non-natural entities and theories and truths about them but I, as a scientist, just can’t consider them. So you have to understand how weak methodological naturalism is. I think a great many Christian scientists would accept it. They would say, and I’ve heard them say, when I go into the laboratory and put on my white coat, I have to only consider what would naturally explain what is going on in this lab experiment. The project of science is just to find natural causes. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any non-natural causes but I, as a scientist, just am not looking for them. So methodological naturalism, I think, is very, very weak and would be completely consistent with saying there are agents who have causal effects upon things but you would not be able to appeal to them in your physical theory. You would just be able to talk about the brain.

Followup: That seems to be a problem because if you just say I can’t really talk about agents – while there might be agents, I can only recognize in my data event causation – isn’t the scientist acting as an agent to bring a set of circumstances about in which an experiment is conducted and therefore really undermining the project all together?

Answer: Well, now, except think about it. The methodological naturalist isn’t offering a theory about what he, himself, is doing. So you might be right that it would imply the reality of agents but he is not denying that and he is not offering a theory about that. So the neurobiologist or the neurosurgeon can offer theories about the brain and why these neurons fire and so forth even if that requires a self-conscious agent to carry out those physical biological experiments. I don’t think that that is self-defeating. That would just be to say that this neuroscientist is adopting a very limited project just like the man with the metal detector is looking for metallic objects and he is not looking for wooden or plastic objects.

To recap, I am not persuaded that the scientist needs to be committed to methodological naturalism. As I say, it could lead to very odd situations where we would be prevented from knowing the truth about the world simply because of our methodology which seems perverse. But, in any case, that is not our project in this class. What we want to do is look at things from a theological standpoint and ask how can we, as Christian theologians, best integrate our theology and the best evidence of contemporary science concerning the origin of life and biological complexity. With that said, what we will do next time is to open the question of the origin of life. How did life come about on this planet and how is this best understood from a Christian point of view? That will be the question that we will begin to explore next time.[12]

[1] 5:13

[2] Phillip E. Johnson is best known as one of the founders of the intelligent design movement and is a staunch opponent of Darwinism.

[3] 10:11

[4] Another example of this can be seen in Q&A #205 “Is Scientism Self-Refuting” on reasonablefaith.org – see http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-scientism-self-refuting – where Dr. Craig addresses the same question/objection.

[5] For a video of this debate, see http://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/craig-vs-rosenberg-purdue-university (accessed July 31, 2013).

[6] 15:16

[7] Dr. Feser uses this analogy as part of his refutation to Alex Rosenberg’s scientism as defended in Rosenberg’s book The Atheist’s Guide to Reality. See Dr. Feser’s blog post at http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/11/reading-rosenberg-part-ii.html (accessed January 28, 2013)

[8] 20:15

[9] “If I saw indirect explanatory benefit in positing sensibilia, possibilia, spirits, a Creator, I would joyfully accord them scientific status too, on a par with such avowedly scientific posits as quarks and black holes.” W. V. O. Quine, “Naturalism; or, Living within One’s Means,” Dialectica 49 (1995): p. 252.

[10] 25:03

[11] This question is just asking for clarification that the concept being discussed is “intentionality” not “intensionality.”

[12] Total Running Time: 30:50 (Copyright © 2013 William Lane Craig)