Re: The language of "punctuated naturalism"

Asst Prof Clarence F Sills Jr (sills@nadn.navy.mil)
Wed, 2 Oct 1996 13:07:29 -0400 (EDT)

It is amusing that Loren Haarsma sees the Copenhagen interpretation as
most closely matching the "realist" attidudes of most physicists. In
fact, Bohr is usually credited with a strong defense of a "non-realist"
epistemology. It is nominalist and pragmatist to the core. Nick
Herbert's Quantum Reality discusses this issue in a useful manner
(although Herbert does not understand the role nominalist views played in
the development of early modern scientific outlook. For this discussion,
the opening chapters of Morris Berman's The Reenchantment of the World is
useful.
At stake is the very conception of "truth." To a metaphysical
realist the word "true" denotes correspondence between a concept and the
underlying reality it describes. To a nominalist, the word "truth"
denotes a correspondence between a predicted observation and an actual
observation--no claim need be made about any "underlying reality"
whatsoever. This is why Bohtr can insist that the math used in quantum
mechanical calculations is merely an "abstract quantum description" which
is not intended to MODEL an underlying reality--it simply permits useful
calculations to be performed. Bohr claims that there IS NO "underlying
reality." To call this "realist" flies in the face of the facts of the
history of philosophy and science...although I will admit that this
confusion is general nowadays.

On Tue, 1 Oct 1996 lhaarsma@OPAL.TUFTS.EDU wrote:

>
>
>
> David Tyler replied:
>
> >LH> For an excellent case-history in the historical sciences, I recommend a
> > > chapter from _Portraits_of_Creation_. (It's either chapter 3, 4, or 5,
> > > I don't remember which.) It gives the history of the geological
> > > sciences, especially through the 18th and early 19th century. Geology
> > > was largely dominated by Christians, confronting the evidence about the
> > > age and history of the earth, trying to make sense of it all. The
> > > chapter probably gives good references for further reading. (I don't
> > > have the book here with me.)
>
> DT> I suppose my general response would be to question the phrase
> > "dominated by Christians". Was Hutton a Christian? He was a Deist
> > and a champion of empiricism - that we know. What about Werner?
> > Did he ever show any interest in Biblical revelation? I do accept
> > that Christians were among the geological community - but my concern
> > is that they did not develop a Christian epistomology.
>
> That's a serious charge to not make. ;-) If you ever do make it,
> you'll need some serious historical evidence to back it up.
>
> DT> The Baconian
> > Two - Book approach dominated and geology developed as an autonomous
> > discipline (despite some rearguard attempts to harmonise). I'll keep
> > reading on this one!
>
>
> First issue: What would you say are the necessary elements of a
> "Christian epistomology" in the natural sciences? A lot depends upon
> what conotations you hang on the words "autonomous" and "harmonise"!
>
> Second issue --- and a very interesting one: To what extent do the
> "leaders" in a scientific field influence its meta-scientific
> interpretations? That's a tough question to answer regarding modern-day
> questions; it'll be even tougher to answer it for the late 18th and
> early 19th century.
>
> No doubt some of the leaders of geology at that time were Deists, and
> some leaders were Christians. Likewise for the "rank-and-file." I
> couldn't guess how the percentages broke down without doing some
> historical research.
>
> But let's stick with this question: the influence of scientific
> "leaders" on meta-scientific interpretations.
>
> Consider quantum mechanics. You will find leading figures of physics
> advocating a variety of quantum mechanics interpretations: standard
> Copenhagen, many worlds, operationalist, non-local hidden variables, and
> a version of Copenhagen which relies on consciousness to "collapse the
> wave function." Yet the overwhelming choice of the rank-and-file
> physicists, for many decades, has been and is the standard Copenhagen.
> Why? It's not because Neils Bohr was more eloquent than advocates of
> the other interpretations. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the
> standard Copenhagen most closely matches the general "realist" outlook
> of physicists.
>
> A better analogy to 19th century geology is the development of Big Bang
> cosmology --- another "historical science." In the mid 20th century,
> most cosmologists had strong philosophical reasons for prefering the
> steady-state model. "Steady state" is not the only model which can be
> made to fit philosophical Naturalism, but it is the simplest and most
> appealing. (Whether it logically *should* be considered that is another
> discussion.) But steady-state was dropped in face of the data, despite
> the initial preferences of both leading and rank-and-file physicists.
> In the same way, most 18th-century geologists believed in a young earth..
> Young earth is not the only consistent and orthodox reading of Genesis,
> but it is the simplist. It was dropped in the face of the data, despite
> the initial preferences of most geologists.
>
>
> Loren Haarsma
>
>