Van Till's chapter

From: Steven P Crawford (stevenpcrawford@juno.com)
Date: Tue Jul 25 2000 - 13:31:53 EDT

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    On Wed, 19 Jul 2000 09:34:28 -0400 "Howard J. Van Till"
    <hvantill@novagate.com> writes:

    > Please read my chapter in Lamoureux's book. I will be away from my
    > computer for most of the next two weeks, but hope that you will respond
    > to the views I expressed there.
    >
    > Howard Van Till

    Dr. Van Till, I did not realize you were part of this list. Seems like
    there are many well-educated persons here. This is refreshing compared
    to other lists, but it also makes me feel somewhat out of place. I don't
    quite know what I can say about your views that you haven't already
    probably heard. But since you requested a response, I will add my humble
    two cents to the matter.

    I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed your chapter. Because of
    my ultra-conservative background, I had a tendency to dismiss TE outright
    without giving it any kind of examination. We tended to look at such
    people as "heretics." But after reading your chapter as well as what
    other TE's had to say in the book, I was pleasantly surprised at your
    theological orthodoxy. I do have a few comments on how you look at
    science through your theological-philosophical framework.

    I make a basic distinction between what science "ought" to do and what
    science "can" do. I agree with the mainstream scientific community that
    science should be limited to the study of the natural, material universe.
     This is true partly by sheer definition of "science" and partly by
    convenience and expedience due to our limitations. We humans simply
    cannot deal with the non-natural in a controlled, testable environment
    that science requires. And so, because it make things easier on us,
    science "ought" to seek natural explanations and causes for natural
    phenomena.

    But the key, operating word here is "ought." Science strives to
    understand physical phenomena through natural processes, but there is NO
    a priori guarantee that any given phenomenon "can" be explained
    naturally. Because of its stringent requirements of testability,
    repeatability, and verifiability, scientists should seek physical causes,
    but "ought" does not necessarily imply "can." Science is a method with
    its own set of rules for investigation, but it is impossible for this
    method to grant epistemological certainty to the investigator that
    whatever he/she is examining can be fully elucidated through solely
    natural explanations. Such certainty is, by the very nature of the
    process, a posteriori not a priori. It comes only after natural causes
    have been discovered.

    Here is my opinion on the essence of naturalism: at its heart is the
    belief that all natural phenomena CAN be explained (not merely ought to
    be explained) by appeal to physical processes and causes. As I already
    said, this idea of science as certainly -- not just possibly --
    explaining all things in the Universe is not due to any guarantee found
    in the scientific method itself. Science's rules of "ought" do not
    automatically provide a self-guarantee that it "can."

    This distinction may sound strange to scientists, and they may be
    inclined to dismiss it as just a bunch of semantics. However, it is not
    at all strange to the mathematician. Ask any mathematician if she
    "ought" to answer all number theoretic questions using the standard
    mathematical method of logically deducing theorems from a set of axioms.
    Her answer will be, "Of course." But then ask her if she "can" solve all
    such questions through this method. She will reply, "No way. Kurt Godel
    proved in his incompleteness theorems over 60 years ago that such is not
    possible. Undecidable propositions always exist within any axiomatic
    system that includes simple arithmetic properties."

    Therefore, at least in some cases, the difference between "ought" and
    "can" is non-trivial. A particular discipline may have its rules of
    investigation, but this is no guarantee that those rules will ultimately
    answer any given question concerning that discipline. We are thus
    confronted with an odd sort of arrangement: while a field of study
    "ought" to follow a certain method, it is not necessarily true that it
    "can" do so in all instances.

    So, then, what bridges the gap between "ought" and "can" in science? Why
    are (most) researchers convinced that science CAN explain every
    phenomenon, including the advent of life, in purely natural terms? As
    I've already mentioned, this conclusion is not due to the scientific
    method itself. The method cannot give us any a priori assurance of
    explanatory success. So where does such certainty come from?

    One could make an argument from the history of science. Since science
    has triumphed in explaining so many phenomena by means of physical
    processes, there's no reason to suppose that it cannot always be so. But
    this argument is convincing only to those who are already convinced.
    Past success hardly guarantees present or future conquest. It also seems
    to violate a basic precaution of science itself: it is not too wise to
    base fundamental conclusions on merely an extrapolation from one's data
    points.

    I believe, rather, that the ultimate reason why most scientists blur the
    differences between "ought" and "can" is their choice of philosophy.
    Atheists have no trouble believing that science can explain everything
    naturalistically because of their philosophical faith that nothing
    non-natural exists. People such as yourself also have little trouble due
    to your faith that the Lord "optimally gifted" His creation with a
    "complete formational economy." So, when atheists or TE's are faced with
    innumerable difficulties in something like the first advent of life, they
    are inclined to summarily dismiss such things -- not because of science
    but because of an outside philosophy. (I realize the opposite is true
    for ID people. When faced with the same problems, they may too easily
    accept them -- not necessarily because of science but due to an
    underlying type of theism.)

    Now, with regard to your essay, the observation I would like to make is
    this: you chide the ID movement for not coming up with a scientific
    theory of their own. They are "against evolution, but in favor of what?"
     However, this common criticism of ID in particular and creationism in
    general seems to be based upon a tendency to mix science's "ought" and
    "can." Unlike yourself and atheism, ID theorists do not need to make the
    unneccessary assumption that science "can" provide an answer to every
    physical question. They instead hold to the theoretical possibility that
    some questions will forever remain undecidable within the narrow confines
    of the scientific method. From this basis they are not afraid to
    investigate if science itself supplies certain techniques and tests for
    determining when it cannot find an naturalistic answer to a particular
    physical problem.

    What amazes me is not that people impugn this as being "unscientific" but
    that they seem to do so unquestioningly. When did the scientific method
    ever tell us that it "can" give all the answers we seek? When did we
    ever have the guarantee that no undecidables exist within the method's
    paradigm? Its rules tell us that we ought to look for natural
    explanations, but the only thing that gives any epistemological certainty
    for finding them is not science itself but our philosophical
    interpretations of it. Therefore, for the ID movement to claim that a
    naturalistic explanation cannot be found for the existence of life is no
    more "unscientific" than for atheists and TE's to claim that it can. It
    may contradict someone's metaphysics, but it does no damage to science
    itself. In other words, if we accept a basic divergence between "ought"
    and "can," then I see no difficulty with ID's or creationism's failure to
    provide a testable theory of origins. Sure, they "ought" to -- but this
    does not mean that they or anyone else "can."

    In short, I believe that science needs to experience the same kind of
    revolution that mathematics went through with Godel's theorems.
    Mathematics came to grips with the notion of undecidable propositions
    within its own paradigm. It was at first unsettling and shook its
    philosophers to their very core. But mathematicians recovered and have
    learned to incorporate such undecidables (e.g. Cantor's continuum
    hypothesis) so that their discipline is now more beautiful than it ever
    was. We even have techniques today for deciding if the truth or
    falsehood of a given proposition cannot be determined.

    Likewise, it will at first be seemingly earth-shaking if science were
    found to have its own version of undecidable propositions. The ID
    movement will do us all a great service if they discover objective,
    empirically based tests for undecidables within the scientific method --
    and then demonstrate how a particular phenomenon passes the test. As is
    evidenced today, any such discovery will probably be met with great
    opposition. But why the establishment should be so offended by the
    concept of scientific undecidables is more a matter of its philosophical
    security than of science's integrity. Science is not destroyed by the
    possible existence of indeterminates. Just as in the case of
    mathematics, it would only mean that we are not able to take it as far as
    we once believed.

    Thus, the real opposition to ID does indeed appear to be philosophical,
    not scientific. The status quo seems to be afraid that scientific
    undecidables would more easily fit into a theistic interpretation rather
    than an atheistic one. I don't expect all scientists of the future to
    become theists if ID supplants the present paradigm. That will hardly be
    the case. But I do think that they will no longer so easily assume that
    science "can" answer all natural, physical questions.

    To be honest, I do not understand why TE's such as yourself should be so
    opposed to this conclusion. The seven reasons you list in favor of TE do
    not seem to explain TE's vigorous conflict with even the mere possibility
    of undecidables within the scientific method.

    Steve C.
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