At 06:24 PM 05/08/2000 -0400, Bertvan@aol.com wrote:
>Maybe science should be defined by the methods used. Philosophy and
>religion once passed for science - before religions and philosophy acquired a
>tendency to become doctrines. Now I fear some scientific theories have
>become doctrines rather than attempts to describe reality. Biochemistry,
>micro-biology and genetics have all made progress. However, many
>evolutionary biologists are still defending "random mutation and natural
>selection", a concept articulated 130 years ago.
And they will continue to defend random mutation and natural selection
until a better mechanistic paradigm comes along. ID doesn't provide a
mechanistic explanation and does not represent such a paradigm shift. ID
and evolution really deal with different matters and that is why ID hasn't
been readily embraced by science. It simply does not explain how different
species came about. It only says that it was purposful.
>Bertvan:
>IMHO, any sincere investigation of reality is science. As you point out
>investigating astrology is science; doing astrology is not.
I don't think that you can make this statement if your definition of
science is the exploration of reality. An astrologer would say that she is
trying to understand reality. I will further articulate this point below.
>Trying to
>discover what happened during the history of life is science; searching for
>evidence to promote Darwinism is not.
Trying to prove Darwinism is an examination of realilty. The attempt may
be successful or not, but it represents an attempt of someone to explain
reality. The fact that individuals may have prejudices that color what
they consider to be reality is not relevant, because you obviously have a
similar prejudice. You are basically claiming that the study of the
reality that you favor is science while the study of reality that you don't
favor is not science.
> >Steve C:
> >I go back to my earlier analogies, I use scientific methods when I cook,
> >but is that science? I used to play football, and can assure you that we
> >used scientific methods to plan plays against certain defenses, but I would
> >not call this science, would you?
>
>Bertvan:
>What aspects of reality would you be investigating or trying to describe when
>cooking or playing football?
Cooking: how food, spices and herbs blend together in pleasing, nutritious
and attractive combinations. Sensations and nutrition are part of reality
are they not? Football: Under certain rules and limitations, can I
conceive of and execute a plan that will accomplish certain goals against
someone who is determined to stop me. Identifying goals, planning how to
achieve them, and then doing so or failing, evaluating the results and
making changes in the plans are all part of the reality we live in, no?
> >Steve C:
> >Ok, but using the scientific method to investigate religion, does that make
> >it science? Or would this sort of exercise belong to another discipline,
> >also concerned about investigating reality? Say, theology?
>
>Bertvan:
>If theology is defining doctrine, it is not science. If theology were a
>scientific investigation of the truth of any particular doctrine, it would be
>science. Most religious doctrines would be difficult to investigate
>scientifically, but evidence might be found for some concepts. The
>existence of free will, love and altruism, for instance. I doubt it would
>be worth anyone's effort. Theology is an emotional issue and no amount of
>evidence would convince anyone, neither the believers nor the non believers.
This sounds rather circular. To paraphrase your position, "Doctrinal truth
that is investigated scientifically is science, whereas, doctrine that is
not investigated scientifically is not science." Science, like theology,
can be an emotional issue. Believe me, it can be quite difficult to
convince people of scientific facts even when they are presented with the
evidence. This in fact is a characteristic of science and of any other
human endeavor to understand the world. In other words, emotionalism (or
subjectivity, if you will) is found in all pursuits of reality, including
religion as well as science. Such subjectivity does not distinguish
science from nonscience.
Another side to this coin, is that science can be as doctrinaire as any
religion. But it makes sense that we should be doctrinal about what we
believe to be true. I don't think that doctrinal belief is easily used to
define science.
The philosophy known as empiricism, was quite doctrinal about
reality. They weren't less scientific than non-empiricists, they just
believed that anything relevant to relaity could be perceived with the
senses. If you can see a chair it is real. If you cannot see an atom, it
is not worth talking about. Of course most of us believe that what we see
or touch is real and in this regard, the empiricists were correct and their
science was correct. But many of us also believe that there are real
things beyond what the senses perceive. For example, in religion, is
salvation from sins doctrinal or real? Is healing by prayer doctrinal or
real? To someone who doesn't believe in this sort of supernaturalism, it
is perjoratively called doctrine. To someone who believes, these
supernatural things are very real and constitute part of the doctrine of
what they believe. So, in this example, the concept of reality can be
quite relative depending on whether you are a philosopical empiricist or
theist. For this reason, I think that your definition of science as being
the investigation of reality seems not to be sufficiently selective.
A definition of science obviously should tell us what characteristics
belong to science, but it should also inform us as to what is not
science. While I think that your definition describes what science does, I
don't think that it adequately allows one to determine what does not belong
to the realm of science. Because your definition does not allow you to
readily distinguish the boundaries of science vs nonscience, it makes sense
that you would include things like ID as science. I believe that I make a
sharper distinction between science and nonscience and that distinction
excludes ID from science. I explain this more below.
> >>Bertvan:
> >>I have no problem with either materialism or design in science. Both
> should
> >>be included in the debate. Neither should be excluded. It is true that I
> >>do not favor materialism. I, personally, regard it as an inadequate
> >>description of reality.
I agree that materialism is an inadequate way to fully describe
reality. But, I also believe that reality is not fully describable by
science. I believe that there are real things to this world that we cannot
address with science and that need to be addressed by other means. This is
called the complementarian view of science. Simply stated, science, along
with other forms of philosophy (like logic, math, metaphysics, etc),
religion, art and other endeavors together complement one another in the
description of the world in which we live.
> >Steve C:
> >So, you keep returning to describing reality as a definition of science. I
> >submit that there are different types of reality. Some physical, other
> >metaphysical. Would you agree with this?
>
>Bertvan:
>No. I would argue there is only one reality. We understand some aspects of
>reality better than others. Is the nature of light, gravity or "fields"
>part of reality? Is quantum non-determinism part of reality? Is love part
>of reality? Is consciousness part of reality? Materialists might call
>everything they can't weigh or measure "metaphysical", but that idea might
>turn out to be a materialist "god of the gaps".
I can accept that there is only "one reality" (although I would be hard
pressed to describe what that means--St Augustine has a wonderful quote
that goes something like this--I know full well what time is, so long as
you don't ask me). It simply depends on whether one is a lumper or a
splitter. But even if we agree that there is only one reality, this
doesn't mean that there is any single human pursuit that can fully
describe that reality. This is my point, as a complementarian. And I
don't believe that a materialistic God of the gaps criticism that you make
above is a bad thing. Let me explain why.
First of all, science is a human undertaking. This sounds trivial and
obvious, but I believe that it should be a very important component of any
definition of science. If you agree that science is something that humans
do, than it follows that what humans do not do cannot be science. This
gives the rest of my definition an important flexibility that allows the
definition of what is science to change as our understanding of the world
changes. This, I believe mitigates your God of the gaps criticism.
For instance, I would say that the study of the physiology of angels is not
science, because humans simply cannot study angels. Note, however, that
this could change. A new instrument or a new understanding or application
of physical laws could make this possible and suddenly humankind has a new
branch of science. Not many years ago, molecular genetics was not science
because there was no concept of what a gene was. Scientists had no idea of
how traits were passed on and, therefore, had no way of knowing how to
splice genes. You probably get my drift here.
This important part of a definition of science allows for the possibility
that something like ID could be a part of science while it currently is
not. Note, here, that this also leaves open the possibility that design
theory will never be a part of science because it may be permanently
lacking in the other two characteristics of science to which I now turn.
Upon my questioning of you, you went back and forth as to whether science
could be defined by its methods or by its subject matter. Maybe you
noticed that it is very hard to define science only with one or the
other. Method is not adequate to define science because there are many
human activities that employ the scientific method of empirically testing
hypotheses. Thus, my examples of cooking and football very much rely on a
scientific method.
I also believe that it is not sufficient to try to define science simply by
its subject matter. You favored the idea that science is that which is
involved in the subject matter of reality. Others have tried to define
science as that human activity which addresses the natural world. But it
is not hard to think of human endeavors that deal with reality or the
natural world that we recognize as not being science. I think that you'd
be hard pressed to find any philosopher who thinks that science can be
defined solely by its subject matter.
While method and subject matter can be useful in describing certain
characteristics of science, neither alone is sufficient to tell us what
science is not. For this reason, I favor an amalgam of the three things I
have mentioned. Science can be distinguished from nonscience as being a
human activity that employs empirical testing of hypothesis regarding the
natural world. According to this definition, the current construction of
intelligent design is not part of science.
Having said that, let me explain that my background is Christian
evangelical. I believe that an intelligent being that is the
Judeo/Christian God created everything. I also believe that humankind
shares certain attributes with God (i.e., we are created in His image), and
one manifestation of this is our ability and desire to understand the world
He created. Science is but one way to do this. Theology is another
way. There are more ways to explore the reality of the created world. All
of these ways take us back to the designer, but in different ways.
>I enjoy such non-acrimonious discussions, Steve, and so far this has been
>delightful
It has been fun. I wish that I had more time to spend on the reflector but
I must pick and chose what I read and respond to. I enjoy being stretched
by thoughtful people. Discussions like this have helped me understand what
science is which is good since I do science. Thanks for your respectful
responses.
Steve
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Human Oncology and
Member, UW Comprehensive Cancer Center
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine
600 Highland Ave, K4/432
Madison, WI 53792
Office: (608) 263-9137
FAX: (608) 263-4226
ssclark@facstaff.widc.edu
http://www1.bocklabs.wisc.edu/profiles/Clark,Steven.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri May 12 2000 - 11:38:27 EDT