Posted by Anthony on November 13, 2009
Ok, catchy title aside, in fact I mean to demonstrate only that it proves that the transcendent exists and is real- further argument would be required to get to the conclusion that there is a God as Christians understand him. 
We are all aware of the placebo effect. This is often described as being the result of ’sham’ or ‘fake’ treatments or pills with the fact being that the body would have ‘healed itself on its own’ or has its effect because the illness was ‘only in their mind.’
All of these attitudes represent a materialistic outlook, if not outright reductionism. This hard core atheistic outlook has been at the bottom of scientific development in all fields since the early 1900s, and this has certainly spilled over into medicine. This has sometimes been to the detriment, and even the embarrassment, of scientific progress as described in a book that is still one of my favorites, Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz’s The Mind and the Brain
. The book charts the history of brain science up to the point where it was finally admitted that thought itself appeared to be able to shape the matter of the brain.
The placebo effect, or if we wanted to call it the ‘belief effect,’ seems to be a real effect. It would appear that there is a real ability of the thoughts of the mind- which are at bottom, immaterial, to change the physical brain and body.
It is here that I put forward my fundamental point: these thoughts are immaterial. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on March 23, 2009
I’m getting some hits regarding scientism but don’t actually have any posts dedicated to it. I thought if I’m going to be looked at on the subject I should make at least a few deliberate comments. They should not be construed, however, as exhaustive.
Scientism can refer to a few different ideas and I denounce them all. It goes without saying that people who exhibit ’scientism’ would not use the word to describe themselves and they will resent the suggestion that they are as described.
Because this post is pretty lengthy here is a list of the headings in order of appearance:
- Science as the Only Reliable Source for Knowledge
- Scientific Reality the Only Reality
- Science as Club for Ending Debate
- Scientific Inquiry Always Righteous
- Scientism as Fundamentalist Faith: “Atheism of the Gaps.”
- Conclusion
Science as the Only Reliable Source for Knowledge
One aspect of scientism is the unbridled deference to Science in all matters as the only reliable source of knowledge. Apologists such as myself frequently point out that there are numerous areas in our lives where we believe we know things where that knowledge is not derived from science, the scientific method, empirical inquiry, or anything that could possibly be considered ‘Science.’ One can bemoan it, but some things just are not suited for scientific inquiry and there is nothing you can do about it. Experiential realities like ‘love’ and and abstractions such as the law of noncontradiction are things we ‘know’ but not through science. That is reality. You don’t have to like it. Read the rest of the entry… »
Posted by Anthony on April 21, 2008
In a recent blog entry I tried to get to the ‘root’ of the contention between those who think Intelligent Design is not science and those who think it is. In that entry I made three basic claims:
- Many people believe science is the only way to know anything that is important.
- By science they expressly insist on only allowing naturalistic explanations.
- Objectors to ID as science believe they are behaving rationally and reasonably.
My point was not to argue the validity of any of the views, but rather present them. As far as I’m concerned these basic claims represent the crux of the issue, all else is distraction. I also contended that if ID proponents would drop their claim to be legitimately science, much of the ‘heat’ would go away. Recent comments on my entries certainly have corroborated that.
There are a number of reasons why IDers won’t drop the claim, nor do I think that they should. In #2 above, it might be presented as ‘methodological naturalism’ which basically means not to appeal to non-observable mechanisms to explain things, in particular, non-naturalistic ones. (Some non-observable mechanism have been invoked, say Quantum Mechanics, but it is argued that in principle they might somehow one day be observed). The question must be asked: what is to separate methodological naturalism from philosophical naturalism?
This is the first horn of the problem. I would amend what constitutes ‘methodological naturalism’ to mean, basically, not needlessly appealing to non-naturalistic explanations. In other words, if the evidence warranted looking into a non-naturalistic explanation then people should. A method is not a law of nature. Methodological naturalism can be a good general rule, but if you can’t think of ideas on how you might imagine the evidence pointing to non-naturalistic explanations, then you aren’t operating on methodological naturalism at all: you are de facto a philosophical naturalist. It then follows that it is no surprise if your ’science’ never produces evidence for the existence of God or his character.
That is a debate worth having. I was not surprised that comments immediately came wishing to debate it. I was surprised that no one wanted to dig into #1: Science is the only way to know anything important.
This, like #2, is something that most skeptics readily embrace and are not ashamed of. It is also a critical difference of opinion between theists and skeptics/atheists. Heck, it divides skeptics from almost every person on the planet. Most people do not believe that science is in fact the only way to know anything important. Many people believe that science goes too far in thinking that it can provide authoritative information on such critical areas such as self-awareness, human consciousness, beauty, love, poetry, affection, loyalty, altruism, etc. Reducing human consciousness to brain the way the materialist reductionists go might be a logical necessity of the Philosophical Naturalistic program, and it may be a fact that on an MRI thought appears as chemical reactions, but most people understand that they actually experience something altogether different.
Dissecting a frog gives you some information about a frog, but watching a live frog actually go about its life gives even more information- information unavailable once you’ve killed it. Still more information about frogs is available only if you’re actually a frog. Some might say that science has done some good work with dissection, and a little more on observing the live thing, but it goes too far when it aims to speak authoritatively about every person’s experience of reality.
They might say: “Dan Dennett, YOUR experience of reality may just be gooey brain matter, but speak for yourself!”
Here is what I am driving at. Science is very good at learning certain things about reality but in other areas it is limited. Let’s pretend for a moment that IDers decided that they aren’t legitimately science, but they still believe that the best interpretation of biological systems is still that they are designed. Here is where we’d immediately see #1 from above kick in. “Aha! But scientific evidence is the best way to know anything of importance!”
But is that the case? Could it be that something is not properly ‘legitimate science’ but still be true? In a conflict between ‘legitimate science’ or some other method (say, the historical method), must we choose the ’scientific’ one? How if the very question under discussion is whether or not God actually inserted himself into our world to reveal himself? It is self-evident that if science excludes from considering such things that it will produce no evidence for it. Fine, but it is not self-evident that the historical method should exclude the possibility that God actually acted.
And there we see the rub. If there are other ways of learning important facts of reality than ’science’ then we might just be forced, even if ’science’ says otherwise, to conclude that biological systems are designed.
But IDers would argue that detecting intelligent causation (they don’t claim to actually detect God, or the agent itself) is at least as ’scientific’ as many other so called ’scientific endeavors.’ And that is why even if what I have said is valid, IDers shouldn’t drop their claims.
