Something that I never really fully understand is why academics feel the need to denigrate other academic disciplines. Just because one happens to think something is so worthwhile that they devoted their lives to it doesn’t thereby mean that everything else is crap. But that seems to be the attitude of many scientists and advocates of science towards philosophy. Do a Google search for “philosophy is useless” if you disbelieve me.
I know, I think, why some people seem to think that all that matters is science. I too think science is pretty damned important. But once you stop knowing about things, and start arguing about things you cannot know by science, you are doing philosophy, and so it is a little, dare I say, hypocritical, to argue, philosophically, that philosophy is crap. Not to mention self-contradictory.
Scientists sometimes think that any attempt to be philosophical about science is otiose. Feynman once remarked, although I can’t find the reference, that philosophy of science is about as useful to science as ornithology is to birds. This might very well be true (although in times when the birds are under threat, ornithology can be of very great benefit indeed), but the value of a study is not the things one can sell from it. It is surely true that philosophers like Popper and Hempel and Carnap tried to constrain and prescribe science, and that project failed. But the philosophy of science is about understanding how science is done when it works. Surely that’s not for nothing. How is this just “entertainment“? Is philosophy of science something scientists should ignore and deride?
Recently, Mark Perakh, a physicist, posted on Panda’s Thumb another attack upon Michael Ruse, the philosopher and historian of science, because Ruse asked this question:
If “God exists” is a religious claim (and it surely is), why then is “God does not exist” not a religious claim? And if Creationism implies God exists and cannot therefore be taught, why then should science which implies God does not exist be taught?
In the context of the US Constitution and legal precedent, this is a sensible question to ask. It doesn’t make much sense outside that sort of context, because in most other educational jurisdictions, what gets taught is decided by educators, not the courts, and, for example, in mine (Australia) religion is regarded as something that should only be taught comparatively or in religious education classes that are voluntary (and even those are hardly widely accepted). So is Ruse leading up to some horrible accommodationist error? No, he merely asks that question. Taking a view he calls “independence” – that science and religious claims are independent of each other – he says
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want science removed from schools. I want an answer to my question, one which comes up because of the dictates of the Constitution. The independence position does not raise this issue, because it argues that science has no implications either way about religious claims. You cannot argue for the independence position because of that, but it is a point in its favor.
Now I think that science, being a human activity that engages many of the same questions traditionally approached through theology, yes, and philosophy, is not entirely independent of religious questions. I have said many times that if a religion makes contrary-to-fact claims, so much the worse for that religion. So I do not agree with Ruse’s position here. But I cannot think that he is merely being stupid or just the sort of entertainment one might get from watching a demented drunk dance, which is the tenor of Perakh’s comment.
Ruse, is being a philosopher when he asks questions that scientists think are dumb. Philosophers often ask questions that scientists, and other firm believers in a set of shared views, think are too stupid to even challenge, because, well, that’s what philosophy has always done. And what history teaches us is that philosophy, in asking those questions, often points up some weaknesses in the “common sense” views, leading to interesting conceptual developments.
Perakh thinks that philosophy of science has done nothing to help science. And yet, scientists like him constantly do philosophy of science. One of the most influential philosophers upon science, its practice and debates, was a physicist named Percy Bridgman. Bridgman’s “operationalism” was a philosophical attempt to leave philosophical aspects of science such as truth claims to one side. It affected everything from physics to taxonomy. Einstein was no philosophical slouch either (and he did not feel the need to denigrate philosophy: like many of his contemporaries, he had a good humanist education), nor modern physicists like Max Tegmark. So it seems that, from the perspective of a physicist, the only philosophers of science who should be mocked and denigrated are those who do not say things that the physicist writing agrees with. In short, do philosophy so long as it concludes what I think is true…
What upsets many of these “critics” (I scare quote this because real criticism involves reasoning, not merely the restatement of prejudicial beliefs) is that some philosophers, like Ruse, do not assert that the sole method and mode of rationality is to deride, exclude or a priori reject religious credibility. Ruse, an avowed atheist, does not attack religion at every turn, and instead seems to think that religious views have a social role and place even if he disagrees with them. This is not enough for the absolutists. One must not only disagree, one must strive mightily to eliminate. The old Enlightenment principle of the right of every person to believe as they will and play a role in society, under which it became possible to be a public atheist at all, is now to be abandoned.
The way to achieve this Utopian vision is, of course, to mock and deride any person, profession or technique that does not arrive at the preferred conclusion which we all knew, really, was true before we began. Philosophy, which must take seriously views that we dispute (so long as they are not factually false; only a few metaphysicians might accept that one could hold those views reasonably, and then only for the purposes of argument), is stupid. Useless. A waste of time and brains. Blah, blah, blah.
Can you say “special pleading“, children? I knew you could. Can you say “fallacy of affirming the consequent“? Can you say “circular reasoning“? A bit of philosophical training might have helped Perakh a bit, before he dismissed an entire profession for the simple reason that it is not what he, personally, likes.
I do not think Ruse’s claim that science is inherently metaphorical works as a general statement (I fail to see, for example, how mathematical models and their interpretations are metaphors), but a lot of it is, and the failure of people like Perakh to see this is one of the reasons why philosophy of science is of service to science. We do the garbage clearance, when we do our job well. Perakh’s snide comment is garbage. One of the ironies of this little set-to is that it is a theological philosopher who rightly takes Perakh’s exclusivism to task. The post is entitled “Mark Perakh and the Ironies of Philosophy and Science”, so there’s meta-irony as well.
As to Ruse’s actual question, my view is this (and it is a philosophical view, like Perakh’s): If the claim is made that some scientifically investigable object does not exist, like the Yangtse River Dolphin, then that assertion is science and can be taught in a science class in America. If a scientist claims that science asserts the non-existence of an object that is, by definition, not investigable, like a deity outside time and space, then that is not science, no matter who makes the claim. The argument that a lack of evidence for God leads us to conclude there is no God is not science; it’s fracking philosophy! and philosophy should not be taught in science class.
That we have no scientific reason to think there is a God, well, yes, that’s the point. Is science all one should rely upon in belief formation? That’s another philosophical question (which I, unlike Ruse, tend to think the answer to is “yes”, but not entirely).
Now Ruse seems to have a wider definition of science than I do, and that, too, should be discussed in a philosophical situation (what counts as science? Is it everything some archetypical physicist believes is true? Should Sheldon from Big Bang Theory be our arbiter of reasonableness?), but so does Perakh. Where Ruse seems to think that any belief set that is strictly derived from scientific ideas is science (I do not, for that would include Mary Baker Eddy’s idiocy), Perakh is a scientific hegemonist. Science (the physicist’s science) rules all and nothing else is worthy. Ruse is too inclusive, while Perakh is too restrictive and at the same time imperialistic. Ruse wants the League of Nations, while Perakh wants … what? The Napoleonic Empire? And the whole point here is that this is a philosophical debate we’re having, even if Perakh doesn’t think it is.
Forgive me if I am a bit testy. I have spent decades listening to scientists, even as they make philosophical arguments, tell me how useless philosophy of science is. It’s a reflex action instilled into undergraduate science students that they uncritically seem to disgorge upon the slightest stimulus for the rest of their lives. Of course not all, or even most, scientists do this (most don’t care, but there are a large number of philosophically educated and interested scientists out there. In fact, they drive the philosophy of science, in my opinion). But just like being poked by a younger brother in the same place often can lead to an outburst eventually, I am provoked. Mum, he started it!
I’ve considered writing a post on this subject, but so far haven’t had the time. However, here’s my take for what it’s worth:
Science assumes the non-existence of a willful intervening God because if such an entity exists the scientific method fails to work. (The same can be said for psychic powers.) The outcome of any experiment can only lead to further refinement of the paradigm if we assume (as the overall paradigm does) a system of consistent, predictable, natural laws. Random variation in outcome can be dealt with (IMO this is essentially what quantum mechanics does), but willfully created patterns of variation cannot.
This being said, it’s hardly surprising that scientists, or perhaps I should call them science fan(atic)s, reject any question of this basic assumption. It’s outside the paradigm, and thus a threat to their careers and mental stability. Thus they also reject a field such as philosophy which explicitly gives credence to such outside-the-paradigm hypotheses.
These are, of course much the same population who reject what Kuhn called “revolutionary” science, for exactly the same reason. Still, I suppose there is some difference in scale, or perhaps degree.
Inductively, we could claim that science has been “proven” by the vast array of predictive conclusions it’s provided our society, ranging from basic thermodynamics (which explained and helped to refine the designs of steam and internal combustion engines) to quantum mechanics (ditto transistors and consequent modern electronics) to nuclear physics (nuclear power and weapons anybody?).
If the argument were phrased in Bayesian terms it (the argument) could perhaps be classed as science (certainly meta-science), although in religious terms it would probably be more the “science” of theo-psychology than anything else. We should also note that even in such inductive terms science cannot prove the non-existence of divine (or psychic) intervention, but only place limits on its probable rate of occurrence. IMO a quick and dirty study of how scientific researchers treat unexpected results, especially when they aren’t duplicatable, would end up placing a pretty high upper limit on such interventions. (And a more careful one would probably end up with an even higher limit.)
There are many ways to define science. I prefer to think of science as a way of knowing that involves rationality, evidence, and healthy skepticism. This way of knowing can be applied to anything, including the possible existence of supernatural beings.
In general, philosophers are the leading experts in scientific thinking and most scientist should take some introductory courses in logic and critical thinking in order to improve their approach to gaining true knowledge. As we can see from the scientific literature, there are huge numbers of scientists who need help in this area.
Science as a way of knowing does NOT rely on any assumptions about the existence of God. That’s a fallacy and it illustrates my point (and John’s) about the naive way scientists think about science. If God exists then science, as a way of knowing, will find him eventually.
This brings us to the point that Michael Ruse is making. If we concentrate on teaching science correctly then what we are really teaching is critical thinking. That process will always lead to conflict with religious beliefs since we are asking our students to apply evidence, rationality, and skepticism to everything – including the idea that there are supernatural beings that should be worshiped. We may not specifically address this conflict between science and religion in class but the only way to avoid the implication is to make up some crazy story about how science is not allowed to ask certain questions.
Some of us believe that the scientific way of knowing can be used to attack any question. We reject, for example, the distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism that Ruse and others support. What Ruse is saying is that, given our position, the correct teaching of science by our definition is anti-religious. If that’s true, then American courts may step in to prevent that sort of science from being taught in the public schools. In other words, Americans need to teach science Ruse’s way in order to avoid legal challenges.
Other countries can teach science correctly.
I prefer to think of science as a way of knowing that involves rationality, evidence, and healthy skepticism.
So, anyone who claims to being doing those things is a “scientist”? There are no mechanisms to check and correct those claims? In which case, ID is “science” and should be taught in science classes (even outside the US, with our peculiar constitutional framework).
If there are mechanisms to check such claims, such as peer review, where are the reviewed scientific papers on the existence or nonexistence of god(s)?
You can’t have it both ways, Larry. If “science” is anything that you want to say it is, then it is anything that anyone else says it is. If science isn’t just anyone’s personal definition, but requires a mechanism to validate it as “science,” show where your personal opinion of what science is has been validated!
In fact, the issue of whether or not god(s) exist is not a scientific question for the simple empiric fact that the scientific community does not treat it as such.
Some of us believe that the scientific way of knowing can be used to attack any question.
Yes, that is your personal philosophy, Larry … but the fact that you happen to be a scientist does not make your philosophy “science.” But it does mean you missed John’s point entirely!
I’m not going to get into any did/did not arguments here. Science as a formal method assumes (as I said above) a consistent and predictable system of natural laws, which in turn tacitly assumes the absence of divine intervention. Such is my take, and when I have time sometime I may actually work up a post with appropriate references. Science is not going to find God, however He exists, without either modifying its overarching paradigm (which does assume the non-existence of a willful, intervening God), or making some limiting assumptions WRT theo-psychology that would probably (IMO) be abhorrent to almost every actual believer in God.
“Science as a formal method assumes (as I said above) a consistent and predictable system of natural laws, which in turn tacitly assumes the absence of divine intervention.”
But not necessarily the absence of the devine. For instance, one could say “God exists, but if so we assume that he chooses not to interfere with our study of a consistent and predictable system of natural laws.”
One could also say “God does not exist and etc.”
From a practical point, all those get you to about the same place in terms of being able to do science. But I don’t see how either of my variations can be considered scientific and therefore be taught in public school science class in the U.S.
Yours works without going too far in either direction, but also allows for anyone to assume the other two.
The fallacy of Ruse’s position is this. Any question about the existence or non-existence of “God” is a religious question because it is about “God”. But most science is completely unrelated to such questions. I do not need to even contemplate the existence of a supernatural being to ask what chemical reaction occurs when I combine two chemicals. I do not even need to contemplate the existence of a supernatural being to investigate the behaviour of human ancestors 2 million years ago which evolved into modern humans. It is just not a question. So science is not religious in any way at all unless religious people say it is so, and then it is so only because they are religious not because of the nature of science.
You haven’t even understood Ruse’s position. He’s starting with the assumption that science and religion are in conflict. He doesn’t believe that himself, but (apparently) some other people do, so he’s trying to draw out the logical conclusion from that position.
Isn’t science a subset of philosophy? I feel like “science” is to “philosophy” as “human” is to “animal”–the latter technically includes the former, but the former is so remarkable (whether objectively or subjectively) that we often implicitly exclude it when we mention the latter.
I grew up with two older mentors who were both well versed in Heidegger and Nietzsche. I had the exact opposite experience than this author. All I heard for decades from all those philosophers (and still hear from them today) was derision of science/scientism (e.g. Heidegger’ Question Concerning Technology) and so called “reductive” thinking (to which I counter that theirs is “inflationary thinking” [the real negative connotation is that either is unjustified]). Don’t get me wrong, I actually LOVE philosophy and see a need for it- I was in that camp exclusively for years, but eventually also grew to love the experimental empirical verification process and consistency that philosophy lacks. Science/technology works because there is objective consistency in the world, but there are philosophical schools that undermine this fact and that, I think, is what these particular scientists dispute. I agree that Perakh went over the line, but it’s true that philosophers are too unwilling to recognize scientific facts that undermine so much philosophical work of the past (consider neuroscience alone).
As for the god issue, the author here is unfairly conflating a deistic teleological god ( aphilosopher’s god) with more specific verifiable theistic gods to make his case. Reread his post with that in mind and the problem goes away. Science CAN say some things about gods that make testable claims, but can’t about gods that don’t. This has been repeated ad nauseum by the new atheists.
It is an interesting essay, but one that, IMHO, is futile. The
players are on the stage moving through their predestined roles,
mouthing their pre-appointed lines. Complaining about the play
achieves nothing – the play will go on.
Why are intelligent and well respected scientists so ready to make
such condescending and superficial remarks? The answer is simple
enough.
Most scientists are charmingly naive both about philosophy and about
their own ill-formed philosophic conceptions. For that matter they
commonly are quite naive in their understanding of the cultural role
of science and in their understanding of how science as an institution
actually works. However many, particularly physicists, are quite
unaware of this and are happy to lecture the world from within the
hubris of their insularity.
Scientists are not special in this regard. Most people are similarly
naive. They are too busy living their lives, following their dreams,
rehearsing their cultural roles, and just surviving to actually
understand what is going on around them and reason about it
dispassionately. Most people are just as happy to lecture the world
from within the hubris of their insularity.
Scientists are special though, because they are assumed to be
brilliant and actually must use their minds when engaged in their
specialty. The difficulty is that when they step outside their
specialty they are no longer protected by the invisible constraints
that protect them from sloppy thinking.
Forgive me Lord, for I have ranted.
…what is this term “outside”?
As an observer and not as a professional practitioner of either science or philosophy, I am of the opinion that science without philosophy would be merely an exercise in data gathering and ultimately useless. How can one make sense of data without the systematic framework provided by philosophy? Would “hypothesis testing” even be an exercise without philosophy? Even my question is a null rhetorical question, because “hypothesis” and “null hypothesis” are defined by the philosophy of science.
I agree, young Mr. Harter, that we often aren’t aware of how philosophy affects our lives and our decisions. I also think that a rudimentary training in philosophical thought would greatly assist us in making decisions.
Such dismissal of philosophy reveals ignorance of the history of science itself. The Logical Positivists took Wittgenstein’s Tractatus as their bible. See: http://college-ethics.blogspot.com/2010/12/ludwig-wittgenstein-1889-1951.html
“Young” Mr. Harter is highly amused at being addressed as “young Mr. Harter”.
It is a bit misleading to talk about science without philosophy. Are we talking about philosophy as an active presence or merely about a substrate of assumptions and intellectual technology that underlay the practices of the cultural institution called science? Most of the time it is the latter, which is one of the reasons that scientists are often disinterested in philosophy.
There are two time when philosophy is live within science. One is when there are genuine philosophic issues to be resolved, e.g., the establishment of the notion of physical law, subtle questions about the nature of space and time, and the legitimacy of statistical techniques. The other is when scientists reach the end of their active years and ponder about what they have been doing for the last forty years and what does it all mean.
“there are genuine philosophic issues to be resolved, e.g., the establishment of the notion of physical law”
I have often mused that if there is a God, he might be a meticulous accountant. There are many conservation laws in physics that, it seems, cannot be violated. Perhaps they extend to the subjective as well. In one Star Trek Next Generation episode, Picard rescues a primitive Irish culture, and puts them in his cargo bay. One of the main rustic characters, over a drink of synthahol, says to Worf: “Every moment’o pleasure must be purchased with a moment’o pain.” The characters niece then shows up and bitches at him, and he says to Worf, “Do ya remember that moment’o pain I was tellin’ ya about?”
I disagree. For a couple reasons:
1.) If teaching that science proves there’s no god passes the Lemon Test, then it can be taught. There is no law against teaching things which touch on religious topics so long as they satisfy the three prongs of the test required to prove it has a clear secular purpose. (This is why the Christian right wingers keep trying–and failing–to argue that putting Ten Commandment monuments in schools and courtrooms serves a secular purpose. If they were right, it would be allowed. Problem is, they’re wrong.) If it could be scientifically proven that Jesus is our savior, and this was relevant to what is taught in science class for secular reasons, then it could be taught in science class.
2.) The fact that “God exists” is a religious sentence does not entail that “God does not exist” is also a religious sentence. “Water has a memory” is a homeopathic sentence, but it doesn’t follow from this that “Water does not have a memory” is a homeopathic sentence. In fact, it’s a sentence that denies homeopathy entirely. Presuming that it can be scientifically proven that God does not exist (I’m not claiming that there exists such a proof–just speaking hypothetically), then “God does not exist” would be a scientific sentence (and a denial of a religious sentence), while “God exists” would remain a religious sentence (and a denial of a scientific sentence).
Ruse has asked this question over and over in the past. I’ve seen several people rebut his argument, but I haven’t seen him engaging very seriously with the (in my opinion, legitimate) objections to the presumptions the question makes about constitutional law and the nature of religious claims. So at the end of the article, when Ruse says this:
All I can say is this: Dr. Ruse, People have offered such arguments. Over and over and over. I’ve seen several such counterarguments. And just like a creationist, you just simply ignored them and repeated your argument over and over and over while whining that people are mean to you. Maybe Eugenie Scott called you “dumb” because she was getting irritated by the fact that you keep doing this.
Wes,
As John wrote above, this argument just affirms the consequent. *If* we decide in advance that saying “God does not exist” is not a religious claim, then it stands a good chance of passing the first prong of the Lemon test. That’s a big if, and as you note it relies on a hypothetical no one is ready to defend (proof of God’s non-existence). Not even Stenger uses the P word.
And then there are two further prongs of the Lemon test. I don’t see how even total scientific certainty of God’s non-existence gets by those two, but then if we had total scientific certainty we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation, because theism would be moribund.
(You can read this as my saying there’s no such thing as total scientific certainty if you like, but that’s another topic).
“*If* we decide in advance that saying “God does not exist” is not a religious claim, then it stands a good chance of passing the first prong of the Lemon test.”
No. The first prong of the Lemon test entirely ignores a claim’s status under all religions. It is the other prongs that engage that aspect. Even if it is a religious claim, so long as it is a secular claim it passes the first prong of the test. For example, it is a religious claim that mankind was not on the earth until after fish, but as this is also a secular, scientific claim, it passes the first prong of the Lemon test.
“…if we had total scientific certainty we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation, because theism would be moribund.”
Total nonsense. Many scientific facts are commonly denied. In particular, the most popular gods are the scientifically (not philosophically) disproved ones, i.e. those which create an objective morality, those which wrote the bible, those which are required for the universe to have begun, etc.
Argh,
You’re right that a claim can be simultaneously religious and secular, and still pass the first prong of the Lemon Test. My point to Wes was that the easiest way to ensure passage is to deem a claim secular *in advance,* which of course makes its “secular purpose” a no-brainer.
Wes argued that *if* there was scientific proof that “Jesus was our savior,” there would be a secular purpose to teaching it in science class. Maybe that’s true (I have my doubts), but at any rate it’s not the situation we find ourselves in. Meanwhile, is there a secular purpose to teaching atheism? I don’t see one, since all of science’s methods can be satisfied without a presumption of atheism (agnosticism is sufficient, and numerous forms of theism are compatible with science on a pragmatic level.) The only purpose I see to teaching atheism is evangelical.
But let me concede that the first prong is not where the tough sledding is. Prong #2 and #3 are what make promoting atheism unconstitutional in US public schools. Atheism may not be a “religion,” but it is a stance on religion, which is to say it is not religiously neutral, and as such its promotion violates the establishment clause–even if it’s true. Even if it’s unassailably true. That’s the bargain we made with the First Amendment, for good reason.
“Wes argued that *if* there was scientific proof that “Jesus was our savior,” there would be a secular purpose to teaching it in science class. “
He did no such thing. Wes argued that if there was scientific proof “and this was relevant to what is taught in science class for secular reasons, then it could be taught in science class.” Note the word “and”. In other words, if there was a secular purpose to teaching it in science class there would be a secular purpose to teaching it in science class, in which case it would pass the first prong of the Lemon test. Tautological? Somewhat. Wrong such that you refuted it? Not at all.
“Meanwhile, is there a secular purpose to teaching atheism?”
Clearly, since religion is on balance more obscurantist than enlightening at present. Even if true, religion’s compatibility with science would not mean the state has no reason to promote the alternative just as abstinence’s compatibility with sexual health does not mean the state has no reason to promote the alternative. Regardless, this would violate the second prong of the Lemon test and be unconstitutional.
However, at issue here is not whether (agnostic) atheism as such can or cannot be directly promoted in public schools. It is the ironic situation in which a philosopher, Ruse, revealed his misunderstanding of the law, and scientists who applied their critical thinking to better understand the issue are being called out as unqualified to philosophize about it.
The gods that people actually believe in are generally disproved. All of the scientific facts disproving them may be taught in science class and all of the philosophical facts disproving them may be taught in philosophy class.
Tautological? Somewhat.
As I said, affirming the consequent.
Remember what we were originally discussing: whether it was “sensible” of Ruse to ask if teaching atheism in science class broached establishment clause constraints. It goes without saying that if it does it does, and if it doesn’t it doesn’t. But that doesn’t engage the actual question: Does it?
[The issue] is the ironic situation in which a philosopher, Ruse, revealed his misunderstanding of the law, and scientists who applied their critical thinking to better understand the issue are being called out as unqualified to philosophize about it.
Where is this revelation? Nowhere in this thread. Wes refers generically to refutations of Ruse, but cites none of them. What is the argument? It certainly isn’t encapsulated in Wes’ analogy to homeopathy, which is a complete non-sequitur, since it operates outside the logic of the establishment clause. First Amendment case law has been consistently clear that negating religion is just as “religious” in this context as affirming it. At issue in each case is the right of the state to condone or endorse religious views. This does not mean that atheism is “a religion” in the strict sense, but it bears on the question of religious freedom as though it were. The only constitutional position is neutrality. No comment.
Your analogy of atheism to contraception and theism to abstinence is an interesting one. If I’m not mistaken, both are discussed in public health classes in the US in some detail. If either one were promoted at the exclusion of another there would be a bit of an outcry since, again, this would constitute a religious stance on the part of the state.
The gods that people actually believe in are generally disproved. All of the scientific facts disproving them may be taught in science class and all of the philosophical facts disproving them may be taught in philosophy class.
This would naturally explain why there are no scientists or science teachers who believe in these gods. Game over?
My mistake: Only 58% of high school principals describe their sex ed programs as comprehensive, according to a 2002 Kaiser Family Foundation poll. (Though with Obama eliminating Title V from the budget this number should go up dramatically.) That’s not to say there is no outcry about this, as there should be. But I shouldn’t have implied that contraception was more universally taught. I don’t really follow this issue as well as I should, and my ideas about what goes on in sex education today can even be called naive.
I commented near the top of Perakh’s post about how philosopher of science David Buller has shown the philosophical issues/problems/preconceptions that lie behind Pop Ev Psych as just one of the values that philosophers of science bring to science. Steven Toulmin is another invaluable philosopher of science.
That said, many scientists are either ignorant of or defensive about even some basic philosophical concepts. Take PZ Myers and Vic Stenger claiming they have disproved god, which is, of course, logically impossible.
This is why I like you, John. Philosophy on philosophy … fun stuff.
I don’t understand why some scientists think philosophy of science is not important. Here is Einstein’s view.….……
“I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today — and even professional scientists — seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.”
—Letter to Robert A. Thorton, Physics Professor at University of Puerto Rico (7 December 1944) [EA-674, Einstein Archive, Hebrew University, Jerusalem].
If more information is wanted see the entry on Einstein’s Philosophy of Science at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
“the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.”
Ah, but what is truth? Pontius Pilates famous question. What is true to me are things that I experience, and/or things that I read, or think, or hear about. Sometimes they are in agreement, and sometimes they are not. Yes there is faith in many things including science, but in the end, is there someone who can decide other than me?
It’s no good. I held off commenting as I am not deeply into philosophy nor a working scientist, however…
I’m in full agreement with the idea that Philosophy is useful when it teaches people critical thinking. But on the other hand the quote from Keith Parsons (University of Houston) also rings true – “There’s so little empirical grounding and constraint in philosophy.”
Larry Laudan, who knows a bit about scientific methodology, has always claimed that scientific theories don’t just have to confront empirical problems — the historical development of the sciences also involves very interesting conceptual problems (vis viva, anyone?). These simply cannot be resolved by observation and/or experiment. Clear, careful, hard thinking, and not just of the formal variety, is needed.
A minor point: I’m unable to trace the Feynman ornithology quote back any earlier than its attribution to him in the 1998 Science askew: a light-hearted look at the scientific world; the 1998 Causality and explanation places it on Steven Weinberg’s 1987 testimony to congress, when he attributed it anonymously. (It appears a variant on a quote on aesthetics that may be from Barnett Newman, Nicolas Calas, or back further still.) I suspect, like the frequent “definition of insanity” quote misattributed variously to Einstein, Twain, and Franklin that it is a random witticism that attempts to gain a varnish of prestige by claiming a more respected source than the actual – not that Weinberg isn’t respectable, but he lacks the cultural cachet of Feynman.
As a more substantive point…
I would subtly disagree with this.
First, I would note that this subtly but significantly misstates the actual argument; it is more exactly phrased that a lack of evidence for God leads us to provisionally infer there probably is no God. Science does not draw final conclusions, nor conclusions that are attributed absolute certainty; all inferences are subject to re-examinination in the light of new evidence (or new suggested descriptions).
Second, the use of the philosophical principle of parsimony is in fact part of science, both as empirically observed anthropological practice and as abstract philosophical discipline. In so far as parsimony is a legitimate tool of science, the argument is indeed science. The dividing line to philosophy is at the question of why the principle of parsimony is considered valid to use, to what extent it is considered valid, and perhaps what the exact formulation of the principle as used might be. (Those inclined to moderately abstruse math can track down doi:10.1109/18.825807 for a rigorous derivation as an inference from more basic assumptions.) Each of these questions is clearly philosophical.
However, I would generally agree with your further claim that “what counts as science” is within the scope of philosophy – I’d term it one of semantics, in particular. There also seems to be more than one way of counting; at minimum, science as a philosophical discipline, science as a collection of anthropological practices, and science as the resultant body of knowledge.
For myself, I would consider the domain of science philosophically lying after the abstract question of language is settled (which I would consider the realm of mathematics), addressing the questions of the “is” nature of the universe we experience, but not entering into the questions of “ought”. (In a Hume-esque distinction, I would consider the latter to be the demesne of engineering, rather than science.) In contrast, science as an anthropological practice is concerned with what body of human antics are associated with the term “science”. In that sense, there may be a question of whether addressing God via Parsimony is anthropologically legitimate, simply because so many scientists consider application of that tool to that question to be taboo.
Of course, I’m merely an amateur lacking formal qualifications.
“In that sense, there may be a question of whether addressing God via Parsimony is anthropologically legitimate, simply because so many scientists consider application of that tool to that question to be taboo.”
Do they have any good reasons? Or is it just PC prejudice causing them to arbitrarily cast off a valid tool?
Dear Dr Wilkins
I assume you are the same John Wilkins who wrote the article published in Panda’s Thumb about scientists who have nasty things to say about philosophers.
I must admit that I have also – as an outsider – said that philosophy is nonsense, even though I secretly knew that this was an unreasonable position to take. I have here in my study a little book on aspects of philosophy for the general, untrained-in-philosophy public that really made me think hard and deep about things. Reading Lucretius was also a marvellously enriching experience.
On the other hand, though, there have been philosophers who had the effrontery to tell scientists what their findings might be and what they might not be. On South African radio there is a Sunday programme on science and the natural world. One Sunday a letter was discussed that had been sent in by a person who identified himself as a retired philosophy professor at an English-language university. Obviously he wanted people to think this might have been the University of Cape Town or the University of the Witwatersrand (our two top universities) or even Rhodes University, but fact is that the universities established in Black homelands in apartheid days were also English-language institutions and on the whole they were no great shakes. Anyhow, this professor then loftily informed the members of the radio panel how and why they were completely wrong in trying to uphold the theory of evolution. You can imagine the kind of irritation that such an attitude on the part of a non-scientist causes among scientific people. One of the panellists, a professor in geochemistry, firmly put him in his place.
More recently in 2010 a philosophy professor published a series of letters in the press in which he tried to run down the Darwin Year lectures on evolution offered by Free State University in Bloemfontein (more or less in the centre of South Africa). I have known this chap fairly well since school days; he is a very intelligent fellow and not too modest about the fact. He is the author of a book of about 800 pages entitled “Philosophy – Discipline of the Disciplines.” The title by itself is enough to raise one’s hackles.
Anyway, Prof DFM (Danie) Strauss threw all kinds of philosophical terminology into his first letter, obviously to impress and confuse readers. Two scientists published letters refuting his efforts, one of them being a well-known South African paleontologist; for the rest some non-scientists wrote letters pointing out weaknesses in his argumentation. I was one of them and I suspect that Strauss will not greet me again if we should run into each other.
He told me in a private e mail that he had actually read Stephen Jay Gould’s books and some others, which of course is commendable; however, for the rest he has NO post-graduate research experience in the biological sciences and he showed religious bias in one or two of his letters, making it quite clear that at heart he was afraid that his grade 4 Sunday School teacher could be right in saying that he would spend eternity in hell if he ever expressed any doubt about the literal veracity of Genesis (at least as far as the multitude of living species is concerned).
He practised standard creationist tactics by carefully scrutinizing books by Gould and others and then quoting snippets in which the author seemed to be doubting his own theories (e.g. the famous one in which Gould says a secret of paleontologists is that there are no transitional fossils). In one case he quoted words by Richard Leakey directly from some creationist site – this was clear enough in that he even misspelled Leakey’s surname, a mistake often made by creationists.
Later on, when reports on Hawking’s latest book appeared in the press, Strauss had the temerity to try to correct one of the world’s foremost physicists on his interpretation of physics.
Although I am not a scientist myself (I have a bachelor’s degree in science, but that was mainly mathematical, and also two master’s degrees in Latin literature), I count several scientists among my friends. The general opinion among them is that few people have such inflated opinions about their own brilliance as Strauss. You may well imagine that in their thinking their chagrin taints philosophers and philosophy in general, although quite unfairly.
As you pointed out in your article, some academics feel they have a duty to run down all other disciplines. For example, I know a physicist who disdains serious discussion with anyone who doesn’t have a PhD in physics, chemistry or mathematics. Pity, but there it is.
And thanks for your articles on the philosophy of science which I have spotted on TalkOrigins and elsewhere; interesting and informative reading.
Best wishes
Louis van Ryneveld
Darling
Western Cape Province
South Africa
(Near the City of Cape Town at the southern tip of Africa)
Another guy’s “take,” humbly submitted:
I don’t think philosophy is useless. I just think the scope of its aspirations has been gradually reduced by the brute effectiveness of empirical exploration and physical description, methodically pursued — ie: Science.
Philosophy is a well-developed and indispensably convenient program for exploring the structure of the conceptual and cultural products of human cognition, of the doings of our curious cortices in relation to one another and their intellectual environment. But when it tries to situate itself as the only or always best way to examine that class of phenomena, or launches into realms of pure abstraction untethered by experiment and experience, or tries to generalize, in an extravagant leap, from explaining the way we *think* to describing the way the universe and reality *are*, it stumbles and becomes stupid and distracting. The dogged, candid and even naive simplicity of science beats philosophy all to hell in that broader respect, as many scientists are correct to note (perhaps because reality itself is, in a sense, naive and under no obligation to honor our intellect and language).
Philosophy certainly undergirds and makes possible our science, but only in the sense that science is done by human minds, using the kinds of shorthand and analogy that limited minds must use, in patterns that philosophy can help describe and organize. Since science is done with the mind, it’s important to have ways of helping the mind reflect and check on itself, and philosophy has done good work in that. “Philosophy of science” is useful in this way, and only this way — in describing the limits, peculiarities and pitfalls of our discourse, and alerting us to how those habits and constraints can confuse our inquiry — but not by setting arbitrary limits on inquiry based on philosophical dogma. That amount of influence should satisfy philosophers. Enough is enough for the wise.
As I see it, the real issue and source of conflict here is not the overreaching presumption of science (aka “scientism”), but the presumptuous overreaching of philosophy (which I’ll call “philosophism,” just to return the favor). Philosophy tries to exert prior restraint on what things science can do, and science keeps impolitely marching forward and doing them anyway, just as it did (and still does) when warned by religion that it should not get too uppity (a favorite gambit of His Holiness the pope). The proof of these questions, of what approach can achieve what, is in the pudding, not in the philosophy journals or holy books.
As with religion long since, philosophy is having a bit of discomfort getting its purview pruned, with the kinds of peevish protests being launched at the pruners that we have similarly heard from curtailed clerics, who don’t like having any part of their “magisterium” poached. Happily, we don’t have to decide any of these boundary questions in advance. All “sides” will go forward pursuing their preferred notions and methods, and time will tell what is what. I, for one, know which horse I’m betting on, if we find we are forced to declare a “winner” in the long run. The question is finally not theoretical, but empirical.
Enjoyed the article and many of the followup comments. Good discussion, and I feel too humbled to add more than one small point.
I perceive that the philosophical approach and yes also some aspects of philosophy as a body of ideas, do interact positively and in both directions with science.
I see real progress in some branches of philosophy as a result of scientific findings, and real progress in science in some areas as a result of philosophical thinking. I don’t want to get into nit-picking the details of examples, and I’m not sure I’m qualified to do so anyway. It’s just a very strong impression I get from people who are much more expert than me in a wide range of fields both philosophical and scientific.
I often read accounts by scientists of their essentially philosophical approach that helped them take a new perspective or refine their thinking when considering how to formulate or test a new theory. I often read accounts by philosophers of how scientific discoveries helped them refine their ideas or come up with new ones as well.
Just a general impression from a layman who likes to read in both of these “realms”.
Which of myriad gods do or don’t exist, all the questions of that sort, have not risen to the level of best hypothesis, and thus do not belong in science.
Of the trans-finite number of possible hypotheses, almost all should simply be ignored.
This does not prohibit someone from investigating an unlikely hypothesis. Wake us up when you find something.