Methodological Naturalism and Centuries Old Rules of Science
Scientists in general have a rather rocky relationship with ‘philosophers of science’, but since many opponents of intelligent design trot out bad philosophy to try to discredit it, it seems a field that can’t be ignored.
This past week I stumbled over a January post on methodological naturalism from Paul Newall at Studi Galileiani. He has a quarrel with the Kitzmiller decision and Judge Jones’ attempt to demarcate on ID out of science, for reasons that were all fundamentally flawed.
I’ll let the good judge speak for himself. From the ruling:
I[ntelligent] D[esign] violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation.
A strong charge, isn’t it? Reason to throw them out of court immediately. It’s one thing to ignore made-up rules, but those awful intelligent design folks have attempted to break the ground rules of science. Do they want to bring us back to the dark ages? But maybe I should rephrase that. It would be a strong charge, if it had any substance to it. As it is… well, we’ll see. Let him explain himself first:
[e]xpert testimony reveals that since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena. This revolution entailed the rejection of the appeal to authority, and by extension, revelation, in favor of empirical evidence. […] While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science. This self-imposed convention of science, which limits inquiry to testable, natural explanations about the natural world, is referred to by philosophers as “methodological naturalism” and is sometimes known as the scientific method. Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.
If it had any substance to it; but on a closer look the charges are pretty vacuous. Newall gives a thorough analysis of where he went wrong (every sentence). The "centuries-old ground rules" he so confidently relies on have unfortunately a lineage of little more than a few decades; how much they are based on pure motivations is questionable. There is no rigorous attachment between methodological naturalism and scientific thought. There is, moreover, no need to rule out explanations a priori; if a given explanation is to be rejected, it ought to be rejected because of lack of warrant. If science is to be an empirical endeavor, the justification of its methods must likewise be empirical. And is "naturalism" any more than a vacant concept?
His entire post is long, but well worth reading. Some bits of it seem well worth discussing…
On Methodological Naturalism
In the meantime, and to follow up on last week’s post on creationist-like abiogenesis, The Panda’s Thumb - has a great post “On the Origins of Methodological Naturalism.” Quite timely, considering The Design Paradigm’s latest post, criticizing Jud…
Trackback by A Concerned Scientist — March 21, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
Here’s a quote from the article in Panda’s Thumb:
In other words, it was creationists themselves who defined the term “methodological naturalism,” and took pains to differentiate it from “metaphysical naturalism” (what I prefer to call “ontological naturalism”), which cannot be either proven nor disproven. Compare this with T. H. Huxley’s “agnosticism,” by which he meant a philosophical position that asserts essentially the same thing: that neither “ontological naturalism” nor “ontological theism” are empirically verifiable. This is one of the reasons why Stephen J. Gould asserted that religion and science constitute “non-overlapping magisteria” (”NOMA”).
The Panda’s Thumb article goes on to point out that “By the late Middle Ages the search for natural causes had come to typify the work of Christian natural philosophers. Although characteristically leaving the door open for the possibility of direct divine intervention, they frequently expressed contempt for soft-minded contemporaries who invoked miracles rather than searching for natural explanations. The University of Paris cleric Jean Buridan (a. 1295-ca. 1358), described as “perhaps the most brilliant arts master of the Middle Ages,” contrasted the philosopher’s search for “appropriate natural causes” with the common folk’s erroneous habit of attributing unusual astronomical phenomena to the supernatural. In the fourteenth century the natural philosopher Nicole Oresme (ca. 1320-82), who went on to become a Roman Catholic bishop, admonished that, in discussing various marvels of nature, “there is no reason to take recourse to the heavens, the last refuge of the weak, or demons, or to our glorious God as if He would produce these effects directly, more so than those effects whose causes we belive are well known to us.”In other words, Christian theologians asserted essentially the same metaphysical position as Huxley and Gould: that “scientific explanations” not only don’t but shouldn’t include reference to supernatural causes.
So where does that leave ID?
Comment by Allen MacNeill — March 21, 2006 @ 5:42 pm
Speaking of Gallileo, here’s what he had to say on this subject:
“By the late Middle Ages the search for natural causes had come to typify the work of Christian natural philosophers. Although characteristically leaving the door open for the possibility of direct divine intervention, they frequently expressed contempt for soft-minded contemporaries who invoked miracles rather than searching for natural explanations. The University of Paris cleric Jean Buridan (a. 1295-ca. 1358), described as “perhaps the most brilliant arts master of the Middle Ages,” contrasted the philosopher’s search for “appropriate natural causes” with the common folk’s erroneous habit of attributing unusual astronomical phenomena to the supernatural. In the fourteenth century the natural philosopher Nicole Oresme (ca. 1320-82), who went on to become a Roman Catholic bishop, admonished that, in discussing various marvels of nature, “there is no reason to take recourse to the heavens, the last refuge of the weak, or demons, or to our glorious God as if He would produce these effects directly, more so than those effects whose causes we belive are well known to us.”
Enthusiasm for the naturalistic study of nature picked up in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as more and more Christians turned their attention to discovering the so-called secondary causes that God employed in operating the world. “The Italian Catholic Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), one of the foremost promoters of the new philosophy, insisted that nature “never violates the terms of the laws imposed upon her.” ((p. 267 of: Ronald L. Numbers, 2003. “Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs.” In: When Science and Christianity Meet, edited by David C. Lindberg, Ronald L. Numbers. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, pp. 265-285.)
Comment by Allen MacNeill — March 21, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
I had a hard time seeing any relevance in the Panda’s Thumb article. Suppose, for the sake of the argument, the term methodological naturalism was coined by Christians, even creationists. So? Some say that Darwin coined the term creationist.
I can’t say I find this analysis of “such and such a philospher said such and such” terribly interesting either. I’m sure you could find people on both sides of the question. An examination of how real scientists like Newton worked seems to me far more relevant.
And what do you think about the issue of science being emperical? Do you think it’s alright to rule explanations out for reasons other than lack of warrant?
Comment by Freawaru — March 23, 2006 @ 5:44 pm