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!
Well said!
Insightful post, and one that needed to be written. It would be difficult, I think, for anyone to come to philosophy of science via an interest in science and not feel some discomfort at the uninformed hostilities.
In my experience, when people of scientific background reject philosophy, the whole notion of “philosophy” that they are talking about is a bit of an ambiguous mess. Reading their arguments, what they seem to oppose are specific schools or strains of philosophy rather than the totality of the thing, whatever it is. I mean, it’s not surprising that scientists would outright reject positions that lead to strong constructionism, when science relies on there being facts and data at the bottom of it all; but I doubt they would have the same reservations about, say, Carnap’s dismissal of Heidegger, or Sokal’s attack on postmodernist cultural studies.
I would suspect there are interesting reasons, worth investigation, behind why philosophy is so often perceived by non-philosophers as one big lump. Invariably, people who think they reject philosophy are really just rejecting specific positions, and making philosophical points in doing so.
In the attack on Ruse that you linked, I think Perakh failed to distinguish between “what Michael Ruse believes is a good idea” and “what Michael Ruse believes is a question worth answering” – one that we need to answer, in fact, if we want to ensure that our exclusion of intelligent-design claptrap from schools is a coherent thing to do. To add further to the confusion, Perakh thinks it’s not a question worth answering, when what he’s really doing is offering an answer while arguing that legitimizing creationism is a bad idea.
But that’s the challenge for philosophers of science, isn’t it? There are serious ethical reasons with concrete policy consequences to grapple with creationism or climate change denial, and we need to establish a picture of science that is socio-historically aware but doesn’t descend into an anything-goes cesspool where we no longer have an explanation of why science works when it does.
As for philosophy’s usefulness to scientists – “garbage clearance” is a good way of putting it, I think.
You are deeply involved with philosophy, and because of that you do not see it from the same perspective as scientists. I might comment on my own blog later tonight, saying some of what I see to be a problem with philosophy as seen by science.
On the matter of Ruse, it is simply false to say that science implies that God does not exist. That’s a conclusion that many scientists might personally reach, but it isn’t an implication of science.
On the NOMA question (also from Ruse), I think there’s some talking past each other there. Scientists tend to be pragmatists. And, from a pragmatic viewpoint, science and religion do overlap quite seriously in practice. Ruse appears to have been adopting something of a stance, whereby one claims that there could be an ideal world where science and religion do not overlap. The general problem with accommodationism, is that accommodation needs to be a two way street, and there isn’t a lot of accommodation coming from the religious side.
As MKR has noted, some people do say that science proves there is no God. Victor Stenger has a book with that very claim. Dawkins expresses the same idea. Various others also say this, and what is worse, they expect this to be taught as science.
Ruse effectively makes the very point you (and I) do: the claim there is no God is not science. But a lot of what passes for science (the philosophical kind) does make such claims.
As to the ideal world, I would love to see it also. I doubt he thinks it will ever arrive – I don’t get the impression he’s a millenarian – but I am sure he thinks that we can rduce the conflict. I have an “elbow room” theory of the relations between science and religion, and sociologically I doubt they will ever stop elbowing each other, but certainly we can set out some rules for the playground they both share.
There is a lot of accommodation coming from both sides. Scientists often make accommodative moves, and so too do theologians. Anyone who thinks one or the other side hasn’t been doing that doesn’t know, or rejects as somehow impure, the literature. Of course, if your source of information is tabloid journalism (including under that rubric a lot of blogging), then of course you can sustain a martyr’s narrative (in either direction) because that is what tabloid journalism is for.
I’ll stick with my personal experience of the people and the literature, though.
‘Victor Stenger has a book with that very claim. ‘
I’ll have to read the book (God the failed hypothesis) again. It’s been a while. But I thought Stenger made the lesser claim that the bog-standard Abrahamic God who intervenes in the universe, etc, should leave certain evidence for all to see. As that evidence doesn’t appear, or what is proferred doesn’t past fairly normal evidentiary standards, we can say that that God and similars don’t exist provissionally. Of course, when evidence comes along then we change the outcome. No mention of proof. Unless we’re using the word proof differently.
Stenger’s target is the god of philosophy (i.e., of traditional Thomist philosophy).
some people do say that science proves there is no God.
Hum… I’d say this is they take as a starting point what religious people define as “god”. Granted these very definitions, a quite reasonable conclusion is theirs. Of course, when I read your comment, I understand that philosophical definitions of “god” are broader than the restricted definition as assumed by a strictly religious point of view. So this lead us to the following question: “should we test the scientific definition of god, or make philosophy statements about its philosophical definition, or make philosophy statements of its scientific definition (probably what we are going to do now
?”
(–note that I doubt we can test the philosophical definition with science, unless both scientific and philosophical are identical but in this case the subject has already been dealt with, so the actual question is “do science and philosophy definitions of “god” just partly overlap or are they completely identical?).
Last, I definitely avoided the philosophical view that truth might be that scientific conclusions about “god” are just false, because it could be that dirty trick “god” played…
Well, OK. I see your point. But isn’t the prime mover argument a non-starter since Newton?
John, I know Stenger isn’t really on topic. But would you say he’s a scientists attacking a philosphical argument or a philosopher using his scientific background (physics) to attack philosophical positions like Thomist philosophy?
Now that you’ve reminded me of his arguments against Prime mover/first cause Thomist like arguments, I think he’s well equipped to do so. Prime mover has been a non-starter since Newton. First Cause was probably a non-starter since Hume, but definitely since Quantum Mechanics. Infinities can be instantiated since Cantor. And so on. Although I really do need to reread his book, because my spasmodic recall is of a chapter where he states that God, as understood by the common man (who is this common man?) should leave traces, but doesn’t. Perhaps Stenger fires his arguments at many gods?
Anyway, Stenger is an adjunct professor in Philosophy, for whatever that’s worth. [ I did send him an email to let him know that Hume did say in his Treatise there could be uncaused events, as he'd written in one of his books that Hume hadn't said that. Apparently the source of his error was William Lane Craig. So I'm not sure how well read in philosophy he is. Probably a lot better read than I but it felt good to let someone more esteemed and lettered know of an error in their work.
] So he seems to be a philosopher, not just a scientist.
http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/VWeb/Home.html
In The God Delusion, Dawkins doesn’t really say that science proves there is no God. More like it casts extreme doubt on that ever-shifting concept.
Really? I would say that the accommodation has come solely from the religious side. Indeed, I would say that it should only come from that side because it can only do so. The practice of science cannot without corrupting itself be accommodated to religion or to any other source of beliefs. (I don’t mean to suggest that you meant anything to the contrary.) But the beliefs propounded within this or that religion certainly can and do change in response to scientific findings. And that is as it should be.
I suppose that everything depends on what you understand by the two “sides.” If by the religious side you mean not all practices of religion but only the more reactionary ones, then it is fair to say that no accommodation has come from that side or is likely ever to do so. But that, I think, is an unduly narrow understanding of religion. And if by the scientific side you mean not simply the practice of science itself but also, say, the atheist conclusions that some, such as Victor Stenger and Richard Dawkins, claim to be themselves scientific, then perhaps that side needs to do some “accommodating”—but only in the sense of doing philosophy better.
I think that many attacks against “philosophy” are attacks against philosophy as a profession rather than philosophy as an activity. Often attacks against philosophy emerge when the arguments/assertions in question are so far removed from everyday experience that a layman cannot understand them. In this case, the question is whether there is any societal value to supporting and respecting expertise in philosophy, or is it just a self-indulgent hobby (or addiction)?
I suspect that there is value in philosophical expertise, but its value is not as readily apparent as the value of scientific expertise, which provides tools/technologies to the laymen.
Basically that is the argument that is made against any technical profession. It is even made against science…
I love it when botanists and molecular biologists, in particular, have a go at philosophers for using jargon.
To be fair, though, the problem with the philosophical jargon that tends to be problematic – the sort that wins the dubious awards for bad writing – is the lack of consensus about what the terminology signifies. (Not true for all philosophy, I know, and far more of an issue with the style we think of as being in the “continental” bucket rather than the analytic one.) Scientists get away with technical jargon as a consequence of standardization.
In some branches of philosophy we speak in -isms with definitions that are largely agreed upon, but in others – particularly those that have a reputation for being indefinite, airy-fairy, and/or unclear – this isn’t the case. Opacity doesn’t come from a specialized vocabulary so much as it comes from vagueness. And as Adam seems to be saying, science has the advantage of giving us the sense that the notion of expertise isn’t entirely socially derived, since there are physical laws in play.
The most recent attack on philosophy as a profession that I’ve personally come across (I don’t come across many, not moving in that circle) is the following. It’s an example of the old “some philosophy is bad therefore all philosophy is bad” argument.
http://thelousylinguist.blogspot.com/2010/11/death-of-philosophy.html (Note: The blog, which I read regularly, has a wierd bug whereby the post is duplicated above the comments.)
“In the context of the US Constitution and legal precedent, this is a sensible question to ask.”
Absolutely not. The question revealed his ignorance about the law. In a nutshell (which doesn’t address some important subtleties):
- unproven and religious = impermissible to teach in public school
- proven and compatible with a religion = permissible to teach
- proven and incompatible with a religion = permissible to teach
- unproven and not religious = permissible to teach (at least not impermissible with respect to “separation of church and state”; This is why the DI and the ICR tried mightily to obscure the religious connection, because being unproven garbage is not sufficient, alone, to make it constitutionally impermissible to teach).
What’s impermissible about teaching creationism is not merely that it implies God, because if it was nonetheless correct, then the religious aspects of it are irrelevant. If the Hindu creation story turned out to be correct, it would be permissible to teach, despite directly contradicting the religious beliefs of the majority of Americans.
Quite apart from the difficulties of terms like “proven” and “unproven” (philosophically and legally) is the question of what counts as “religious”. After all, ID eschews religious arguments. Their arguments in favor of ID are “unproven” but not overtly religious and, under your simplistic categories, it is arguably okay to teach under the 1st Amendment. The other side of that coin is: IF, as some scientists claim, science is a “worldview” AND that worldview rules out the existence of god(s), how can we say it is NOT “religious”? And, if it is religious, can we say it is “proven” that there are no god(s)?
The actual constitutional analysis is (fortunately) not so simplistic and the fact that a few scientists make statements about science that would seemingly make it a religion is not enough grounds for the courts to rule it is such. But Ruse’s question is hardly insensible.
Divalent,
Ruse’s question was whether US public school science courses may teach that there is no God, as a matter of science. This bears on two further questions: (1) Whether atheism can be considered a scientific fact, and (2) how such a fact would jibe with the First Amendment injunction against state-sponsored dismissal of a religious doctrine.
I think it is far from evident that the first question is settled (Even Dawkins relies largely upon philosophical argument, like the Ultimate 747, not hard data.) But Ruse’s point is that even if it were indisputably empirical that God does not exist, it is still nonetheless a religious question whether or not God exists, on which US public institutions are constitutionally bound to remain silent.
This may not be a desirable problem, but we can’t just wave it away.
“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.”
I quite like this rant and think philosophy is indispensable to scientists – we would all be served by having it and history of science as part of the standard curriculum. I however think the quoted section above is off base – why is not ok for atheist to “believe as they will and play a role in society” – just like any religious person is able? Why should arguing against religion forbidden or at least not to be engaged in?
I did not say that it shouldn’t be.
“… philosophy should not be taught in science class”, you say. Well that’s a philosophical view. But don’t you think that if you set up restrictions on topics to be addressed, those restrictions need to be made clear to the class? It seems to me, then, that a bit of philosophy has then been included in the science class — though not enough to be dignified as formal instruction in philosophy. Epistemologically privileging science to the extent of denying the legitimacy of other ways of explaining experience is “scientism”, as I understand it. Peter Medawar coined the neat phrase “poetism” for the privileging of narrative discourse to the exclusion of other modes of understanding, such as science.
There are some nice reflections on this topic by Massimo Pigliucci: The Future of Philosophy of Science.
The site rationallyspeaking.org has a nice slogan: “Truth springs from argument amongst friends”.
I was overly curt. I should have said that one should not teach a particular philosophical conclusion or doctrine in a science class as if it were science/factual. Any more than, say, teaching a particular interpretation of Wordsworth in a history class, or a dress style in cookery.
I love “poetism”. It is a nice counterweight to attacks on faux scientism… Real scientism is as inappropriate as ever, though.
restrictions on topics to be addressed…denying the legitimacy of other ways of explaining experience
I think the critical term is “legitimacy”. Science’s legitimacy is in its own realm – whether or not there are experiences to be explained outside the realm of science is a question that could be discussed in science class, but the realm of science is pretty clear. Personally, I would not maintain exclusivity of science to “explain experience”.
Many good points here. However, Ruse could have avoided annoying someone like Perakh by making his point more clearly. Half of the critics of Ruse’s post are saying (like Perakh, and Rosenhouse), “Duh, obviously science is constitutional, because atheism isn’t a claim of science/evolution!” A careful, sympathetic reading of Ruse (and some vague recollection of his work over the years) would have told them — this is exactly the point Ruse was making!
Ruse is criticizing the people, basically the more extreme wing of the New Atheists, who say that atheism *is* a claim of science/evolution. *If* one takes this position, says Ruse, *then* you’ve got a constitutional dilemma on your hands. Obviously, if you don’t, you don’t — although Ruse uses this as an argument for a fairly strong version of science/religion independence which is more than he needs to argue for here, and which is part of what annoys pretty much all New Atheists, even the more moderate ones.
The inability of some to deal with hypothetical arguments, especially when the individuals concerned are well educated, is more their fault than the fault of those who use such arguments, Nick. Scientists ought to be as able to spot a conditional as any lawyer.
[Looks around for Pharangulistas with pointy sticks and burning torches]
Yes.
John, perhaps you could put together a general audience book about the philosophy of science. You could make various controversies readable and interesting. And you might make some money at it.
I doubt it. I am reliably informed that scientists are not interested in the philosophy of science (and besides, there are some very good texts already out there).
No group is interested in scrutinized. That does not mean it should not happen.
Umm… should read
No group is interested in being scrutinized. That does not mean it should not happen.
Well, I’m I didn’t say write it for scientists but for a general audience. After all, I’d never suggest that a philosopher of science should write with scientists in mind; that would never fly at the Philosopher’s Guild.:)
Any hypothesis that makes a positive assertion (such as “God exists” or “A teapot orbits Jupiter”) has a very small prior (prior to evidence) probability since the number of true positive assertions is very small compared to all possible positive assertions. The complementary negative assertion (“God does not exist”, “A teapot does not orbit Jupiter”) is therefore very likely to be true (1 – P(positive assertion)) prior to the evidence. If science is the process of shifting the prior probability of a hypothesis up or down by thinking of and making observations that strongly affect that probability then one can argue that the lack of such observations that shift the god hypothesis significantly up from the no-evidence probability is a scientific argument in favor of the complementary hypothesis. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
God is not, for most religious believers, a hypothesis at all, and so your whole argument rests on a false assumption. It is a hypothesis for you, but not for them.
I also used the term positive assertion and I think religious people would be hard pressed to argue that “God exists” isn’t one. So the probabilistic argument still applies and I’d still call it science (a matter of definition). But I was mostly arguing against Ruse’s claim (which you seem slightly sympathetic to) that it’s sensible to ask, if “God exists” is a religious claim, why “God does not exist” isn’t also a religious claim.
Seriously whacked – hypotheses are not dependent on personal opinion, but on evidence. If these believers have the evidence that can verify or falsify the hypothesis, then they need to put it forward. The claim that God (whatever that happens to mean for each individual believer) exists is a hypothesis whether they want to believe it or not. For too long we (as a society) have accepted unproven and unevidenced hypotheses simply because of the number of people who accept something. Science has changed some beliefs (flat earth, young earth, etc) through bucking the consensus and looking for (and at) evidence. It’s simply time for the God Question to be brought to the front of the queue.
If I make a claim, such as ghosts exist, I am making the hypothesis whether I believe it to be one or not. Reality is not based on opinion.
I think many object to philosophising because it produces endless piles of words that ultimately go nowhere. Schoolmen, and so on.
Plus, as Adam said (and you failed to engage with): “many attacks against “philosophy” are attacks against philosophy as a profession” – people often have no great objections to philosophy, or indeed to basket weaving, they just resent too much money being spent on them to no apparent purpose.
I think many object to philosophising because it produces endless piles of words that ultimately go nowhere. Schoolmen, and so on.
A really, really bad cliché and false as well. The scholastics (Schoolmen) in the High Middle Ages in their endless piles of words laid the foundations for the emergence of modern science in Europe in the Early Modern Period.
“they just resent too much money being spent on them to no apparent purpose.”
Being a ‘real’ scientist – practicing PhD, Molecular Biologist – I feel the urge to comment on this one: since Richard Nixon made it the goal of science to find a cure for cancer, oh so many years ago, I think the jury can take a vote: what has ‘real’ science actually achieved in terms of putting a man on the moon? We have a bit of a better understanding of the material processes by which cancer and a host of other diseases develop, to be sure, but we are nowhere near a predictive model, if such is even possible (now, there’s an interesting subject on which to philosophise). So, what is the apparent purpose of science, apart from keeping scientists actively employed (versus productively)? That and edu-ma-cating people?
Point is: economic rationalists (those who justify everything by the $$ value of it) are no better than the least amongst the scientists at predicting what might be of value in the future. Anyone who resents money being spent on useless activities should better look to the military spending of most first-world governments before they start criticising education sytems that spare money on disciplines that have, as their final product, whole populations of people who prefer to use their brains to their brawn to solve difficult questions.
This reminds me of my days as a regular at Richard Dawkins website. There was a guy, very smart, a mathematician, who would just call all philosophy ‘psychobabbles’. I’m am the worst advocate philosophy could have due to limited ability to clearly state an argument and not get distracted (and ignornance of course), that when I tried to explain why I thought philosophy had value using examples I could think of, the guy basically had the evidence he desired served up to him. I just don’t get it. I find some philosophy not interesting, like some science (species concepts
) or some (most) literature. Big deal. Doesn’t mean it’s of no import.
On the other hand, when I tried briefly to study philosophy and got into a quarrel with the online tutor, who rejected some pretty well supported science and was a total dick, I came to the conclusion that not all philosophers think much of science and I should immediately quit studying philosophy. So it’s not just scientists who diss other fields.
Every profession has dicks. Including science. I spent the afternoon with a friend who teaches anatomy; he tells me that there are scientists who think that anatomy is not biology (but, not surprisingly, molecular genetics is).
Did they say what part of science houses anatomy? Quantum physics?
Most of Dawkins’ popular books are actually philosophical works, fairly poor quality philosophy but philosophy never the less.
It’s for that reason he’s popular. If he wrote a tract of high philosophy, there’d be no market. He’s not interested in philosophers who have abstract gods that are probably logically coherent. He’s interested in the mass marketed gods that make no sense at all. At least that’s how I take it.
On the Ruse end of the argument, I think part of the problem is that people aren’t quoting this paragraph, only the one which follows it:
If a creationist missed out the part I emphasised, they would be accused of quote-mining.
I just read a posting by John Wilkins where I agree with everything he said!
The end of the world must be nigh.
Larry, see your doctor. I think you must be unwell.
In my opinion, and thus many will disregard it as just an opinion, many scientists conflate philosophy will little more than an opinion, which is oddly enough the type of dismissive that thing many creationists say about scientist’s “opinions”. Proper science has some fairly clear rules about what qualifies as supporting evidence. Its fundamental strength is that this highlights the path of disagreement. That makes it possible to have a “scientific” opinion. Unbeknown to many scientists, philosophy likewise is evidence based making it possible to have a philosphical opinion, but the chain of evidence can be unfamiliar scientists. So rather than address the chain of evidence, or philosophical argument, many a scientist seems to react in the “that’s just your opinion” mode. But that’s just my opinion.
“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.”
Literally everyone believes that religion currently has a social role. Some think it shouldn’t.
“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.”
Never has anyone advocated that regardless of belief every role should be open to everyone. There is a role for everyone, and if you don’t want the role society properly reserves for those who believe that Elvis is still alive and demands you sit in Church 25 hours every weekend waiting for him to reveal himself (or whatever you believe), change your beliefs.
“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!”
So, the problem is that people (scientists) criticizing a specialty (philosophy) have critiques that only work if they take for granted conclusions from outside their specialty (philosophy)? Philosophers would do well to consult with specialists (linguists and psychologists) when defending a “god” that exists only in their own minds. People in the real world use that word to refer to something that is investigable and has been refuted. At the very least people use the word to mean “a physically powerful unchanging immaterial intelligence” and “that which was necessary to begin the universe, it being impossible for it to have arisen out of nothing”.
Next thing you know philosophers will be redefining “flat” to mean “barely round” to defend the delicate sensibilities of the flat-earthers. Perhaps there is a quota of third-world believers that must be met before liberals obfuscate on their behalf, I’m really not familiar with that side of the process.
LOL – I am SO glad you manged to work Sheldon and BBT into this otherwise very pithy post; some neurons in my head have awoken from a very long sleep. They are not happy about it, but they don’t have the vote…
For the record, the years I spent in your company, mulling over the question of pre-cellular Evolution, were amongst the best in my intellectual life.