I find myself nodding in agreement with the wisdom of the Kansas Board of Education. Not very much agreement, to be sure; the recent move to introduce official skepticism about evolution into its new public school science standards is just bad. Bad, bad Kansas.
But, amidst the bemoaning of this setback for Enlightenment values, we all had a little fun with the school board’s attempt to change the definition of science, as Risa has already pointed out. (See also John Rennie at the new Scientific American blog.) Seems that they have decided to open the door to explanations other than the purely natural — obviously, so that they can include religious (”supernatural”) explanations within a science curriculum.
But only after reading Dennis Overbye’s story in yesterday’s New York Times did I really understand what they had done. Here’s the new definition of “science”:
The changes in the official state definition are subtle and lawyerly, and involve mainly the removal of two words: “natural explanations.” But they are a red flag to scientists, who say the changes obliterate the distinction between the natural and the supernatural that goes back to Galileo and the foundations of science.
The old definition reads in part, “Science is the human activity of seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us.” The new one calls science “a systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observation, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena.”
At the risk of alienating all my friends — the school board is right. Science isn’t about finding “natural” explanations vs. “supernatural” ones; it’s about finding correct explanations, without any presupposition about what form they may take. The distinguishing feature of science isn’t in the explanations themselves, it’s in the process by which we find them. Namely, we toss out hypotheses, compare them to data, and look for the hypotheses which account for the largest number of phenomena in the simplest possible way. Simplicity here is in the sense of “algorithmic compressibility” — the number of bits, if you like, required to specify the mechanism that purports to do all this explaining.
What the Kansas school board has tried to do is to open the door for unbiased consideration of natural and supernatural explanations by a common standard — that of scientific investigation. This is just what I’ve been arguing for all along. Scientists have to get off this kick that science and religion are completely distinct magisteria that have nothing to do with each other. Quite the contrary; religion (at least in its common Western forms) goes around making claims about how the world works, and it’s perfectly appropriate to judge such claims by the same standards that we judge any other suggested hypotheses about nature.
The thing is, if we judge popular religious vs. naturalist explanations for how the universe works by a common scientific standard, naturalism wins. Without breaking a sweat, frankly; by the beginning of the second half, we have to send in the scrubs from the bench, at the risk of being accused of running up the score. Intelligent Design, to take one obvious example, is laughably bad as a scientific hypothesis. It explains practically nothing (since it refuses to say anything about the nature of the designer, so we have no clue what such a designer would ever choose to design), while introducing a fantastic amount of new complexity in the form of an entirely distinct metaphysical category (the designer). I have no problem saying that ID is a “scientific hypothesis”; it’s just such a bad one that no sensible scientist would give it a moment’s thought if it weren’t for the massive public-relations campaign behind it.
Science doesn’t home in on naturalistic explanations by assumption; it chooses them because those are the best ones. That doesn’t mean that we have to “teach the controversy” in high schools; the number of grossly inadequate scientific theories is far larger than we could ever address in such a context. But it’s about time that we admitted that science is perfectly capable of judging supernatural claims — and finding them sadly wanting.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:54 am
I think this sort of thing risks descending into a definitional morass. That science is the process of looking for natural explanations is almost tautalogical. The process by which scientists arrive at scientific statements isn’t all that important as long as at the endpoint we do get scientific statements. It’s just that scientific statements can be a bit difficult to define. Somewhere in there, however, has to be a notion of falsifiability, and that is where things like ID and last tuesdayism are going to fall short.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:58 am
I would claim that science is about “natural explanations” by definition. Take any supernatural phenomenon, show that it is real using scientific methods and it will no longer be considered supernatural. Before we understood electromagnetism, would an observer really have considered magnetism natural and dowsing supernatural?
Give scientists just a shred of real, hard evidence that God exists and they will soon be busy designing experiments to once and for all find out how and why He created the universe.
November 16th, 2005 at 11:24 am
We already know the answer to that, it’s 42.
November 16th, 2005 at 11:52 am
Yikes, this is an epistemic morass. The process of science cannot be divorced from the type of explanations it achieves. Because scientists are limited to tests conducted in the natural world, they are limited to natural explanations. Moreover, science famously achieves explanations that are “correct” only to a given degree of precision. It might be more accurate to say science seeks “useful” or “repeatable” explanations.
“Correctness” and algorithmic compressibility do not distinguish between natural and supernatural explanations. Indeed, these criterion would probably lead you to choose a supernatural explanation each time (”God did it” = one bit, “God did it this way” = correct by fiat).
George
November 16th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
George– No, it’s exactly the opposite. “God did it” explains precisely nothing, since you would have to simply list every single thing that God would do. That’s the least simple possible explanation. Which is why scientists prefer explanations that look for repeated patterns in nature, rather than arbitrary supernatural interventions.
November 16th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
Because scientists are limited to tests conducted in the natural world, they are limited to natural explanations.
Sigh. And this is a limitation how? Do non-scientists have the option of conducting tests in some other world? By definition, isn’t everything in the world natural? What the hell is an explanation that isn’t natural, anyway? All sensory data we have about the world around us is “natural.” Whatever structure is present in our brain that interprets these data is also “natural.” So any explanation that is not natural must be positing something unobservable. How is this reasonable?
November 16th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
Sean,
I think the point you make is an excellent one. Two small remarks though:
1) I think there is something to the claim that things are classed as supernatural precisely because they are non-scientific. For example walking on water is considered supernatural precisely because according to our well-tested and empirically sound scientific theories, it can’t happen. If that wasn’t the case there’d be no reason to class it as supernatural; there’s no a priori logical reason why walking on water should be impossible. It just so happens to be, as far as we understand things.
2) You say “The distinguishing feature of science isn’t in the explanations themselves, it’s in the process by which we find them.” I don’t really see why the process is important. In my opinion it doesn’t matter how the explanations are arrived at (whether from logical thought/supposed revelation from God, whatever); what matters is that they work, i.e. are well substantiated to a high level of rigor before being accepted.
I agree completely though that the qualification “natural” shouldn’t be part of the definition of science; at best it’s redundant and at worst it’s misleading.
November 16th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
I should really stop commenting here and get back to work, but:
“If that wasn’t the case there’d be no reason to class it as supernatural; there’s no a priori logical reason why walking on water should be impossible. It just so happens to be, as far as we understand things.”
No, no, no. Walking on water should be considered impossible because it doesn’t happen in the world we observe. There’s a reason it was considered miraculous long before science as such had really developed.
But then, there’s no “a priori logical reason” for anything. Stop me before I go on my tirade against “rationalism.”
November 16th, 2005 at 1:51 pm
Anonymous,
I’m sorry, I don’t understand why you think you’re disagreeing with me. I thought that was precisely my point; walking on water is classified as supernatural precisely because it is unscientific (i.e. not supported empirically) rather than because it is a priori impossible.
November 16th, 2005 at 1:59 pm
michaeld, you had written “because according to our well-tested and empirically sound scientific theories, it can’t happen.” I was arguing that it just doesn’t happen, independent of any theories. The empirical observation that it doesn’t happen long predates any scientific theory about why this is true. If you just meant that it is not supported empirically I don’t see why you mentioned theories. I think one should distinguish between “science” and “that which is supported empirically”, since science seeks a unifying explanation for what we observe. It is not simply the collection of all that is supported empirically.
And on that note I will refrain from further comments for a while.
November 16th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Here is a discussion about walking on water:
http://star.tau.ac.il/QUIZ/96/A01.96.html
November 16th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
Anonymous, we probably have different notions of what a theory is but I don’t want to belabour the point, since it’s tangential.
November 16th, 2005 at 3:16 pm
Sean
Glad you said this: I had exactly the same reaction. To burden science with the idea of distinguishing the natural from the supernatural is really, really silly. It is a distraction from the real role of science, which is the evaluation of hypotheses and theories, and establishment of levels of confidence in the various theories we have. As you point out, the scientific method is perfectly capable of evaluating ID and relegating it to the list of abject failures whether they be, in any sense, naural or supernatural.
November 16th, 2005 at 3:19 pm
Count Iblis, nice link, and a nice way to show that scientists are just plain wierd for caring about stuff like this
The calculation does give you an appreciation for the power of a dolphin as it “walks” on water using its tail.
Myself, I’d use a trampofoil instead. They look increadibly cool the first time you see one:
http://www.trampofoil.com/
November 16th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
About the term “natural” :
I’m sorry but I don’t agree.
The “natural” term as in the natural sciences is very very relevant.
Science can’t be reduced only to the “scientific methodology” pioneered by Galileo. What is the object of Science in general ? It’s the study through the application of the scientific method to phenomena pertaining to our natural world.
Reducing science only to a method is really preposterous, since then the object of science wouldn’t be focused anymore on our natural world.
November 16th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
All this epistemological commentary (I was tempted to write “blather”) ignores the fact that the definition in the Kansas Standards occurred in a socio-political context that gives it a quite different meaning to the meaning that the definition in isolation might have. In context, the redefinition as generated by a predominantly Christian creationist state board means just that ‘The Christian God is now an acceptable explanatory construct in science, and school children may now be justifiably taught to disregard actual tested and corroborated scientific explanations of phenomena and substitute God as a sufficient explanation’.
RBH
November 16th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
I think a philosopher of science really needs to weigh in here, so that we don’t reinvent conceptual wheels. But here are two observations. First, in practice a supernatural process would distinguish itself from a natural one by the fact it did not fall into established patterns — either patterns directly observed or ones inferred from some broader theoretical framework. Following your argument that science is a search for patterns, it has a built-in bias against supernatural explanations, and therefore cannot be said to approach the natural vs. supernatural question agnostically.
Second, suppose I accept, for sake of argument, that Occam’s razor (aka algorithmic compressibility) a priori leads us to prefer natural explanations. Then, again, science has a built-in bias against supernatural explanations, with exactly the same effect as if I defined science at the outset to be restricted to natural explanations.
To put it differently, you seem to be using Occam’s razor as a metaphysical choice, which leaves it vulnerable to the fact that other metaphysical choices are possible. I prefer to think of Occam’s razor as an epistemic, or pragmatic, choice, which brings us back to my point that science is about finding *useful* explanations, as opposed to “correct” (whatever that means) ones.
George
November 16th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
Sean — the Kantian in me disagrees; I think you can separate religion and science adequately. I’m guessing not too many scientists or theists agree with me though. Scientists build and test models. There’s then some mapping function from the models to some unknowable truth. There’s the obvious and simplest mapping function which is the identity function — the models *are* the truth. But there’s no uniqueness proof, and religion is free to say there’s a different mapping function to a different truth.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:27 pm
I am not sure I follow. Never mind that there are several definitions and views on the meaning of ’supernatural’ (see Wikipedia). But the general distinction seems to be that these things have never been observed in nature (gods, magic).
So, granted that these things are known by enormous amounts of observation to not exist, how can one claim to base scientific theories on them and what would be the purpose?
Take ID for example. The religious creator is supernatural so is out due to earlier observations. The panspermia creator is locally unprobable and globally doesn’t explain anything. So while ID is not entirely supernatural (only in its usual meaning) it is void of explanatory power because of what we already know.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
Suppose science was characterized as a method of making assertions about how the natural world behaves that are subject to falsification by experiments which take place in the natural world. In such a characterization, we might assert that a charged particle will move in an electric field in a particular fashion because it was enchanted by the Invisible Elf. You couldn’t really test the elf hypothesis, but you could certainly perform an experiment to determine whether or not the particle moved in the way predicted. In that case, we would have the same descriptions of physical reality, but there would be this untestable hypothesis attached. Moreover, someone else could come along with a competing hypothesis – the electron moves the way it does because the Flying Spaghetti Monster so wills it – that makes the same predictions about how the electron moves. So, in terms of making falsifiable predictions about natural phenomena, the IF and FSM theories are indistinguishable and so, to most practicing scientists, irrelevant. However, I can easily see a bloody holy war arising between the passionate (and mostly non-scientist) adherents of IF and FSM.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
I think RBH makes a decent point. To Ugo, of course it’s important that science is supposed to be about nature; it’s just I don’t think that science should rule out “supernatural explanations” (whatever that means) – at best such a restriction is redundant and at worst misleading.
It seems a lot of this argument is purely semantic. But I’ll just try and rephrase what I believe to be Sean’s original point (which I think is a very important point). To be concrete I’ll phrase it in terms of God rather than the supernatural (since the latter seems to be generating the semantics).
If the hypothesis of God led to a good solid, testable and empirically sound theory explaining the origin of species then it would be completely legitimate to class this as a respectable scientific theory (like evolution). Further, if the God hypothesis was useful in developing a quantative, testable theory of quantum gravity then that also would be great! The point is not that God is some sort of “no go” area that science isn’t allowed to go near. The point is that the God hypothesis simply doesn’t accomplish anything scientifically. If it did that’d be great, but because it doesn’t it is not science. The reason to reject ID and creationism (scientifically at least) is not because scientists have some sort of a priori prejudgice against the bible and religion but because ID and creationism have not led to one iota of scientific insight regarding the origin of species and appear to have no explanatory power whatsoever. Their only purpose is to support preconceived beliefs that people want to hold on to, not to help us understand the issues involved.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
Ahem. Of course, if the religious creator only act is to create life, then it is not out due to earlier observations and Sean’s reasoning follows. I got momentarily fooled by the usual meaning of the creator, which one can not overlook as long as ID refuse to say anything about the creator.
November 16th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
Excellent post Sean. I often worry that many scientists run the risk of being hypocritical by dimissing supernatural claims offhand. We might win more hearts by giving ID and other such claims their rightful day in court. Which isn’t to say that we should teach these things in school. But we must be honest and at least admit to the world that ID is a legimate scientific hypothesis; and then soundly explain why it belongs to the dustbin of terribly bad hypotheses. Of course, most scientists don’t want to spend their time beating down every crackpot hypothesis that comes along. However, when that crackpot hypothesis gains such a following that it begins to affect the laws of our land and the education of our childern, I think it is our duty to take the time to do so.
November 16th, 2005 at 6:00 pm
To Jeff Olson :
Can you explain in what terms is the ID hypothesis a scientific hypothesis ?
Or more in general, what is a scientific hypothesis ? Because either we agree that “metaphysical” entities pertain to the language of the natural sciences and therefore we can elaborate scientific hypothesis about them or not.
What is then the scientific value of a hypothesis contaning metaphysical terms ?
November 16th, 2005 at 7:57 pm
I think that the view that science is simply hypothesis testing and that any and that where these hypotheses come from isn’t part of science is a little over-simplified. Read the description of intelligent design given at intelligent design network. They say that intelligent design is more a framework in which evidence of design is searched for. I believe that evolution is also a framework rather than a hypothesis. The concept of survival of the fittest is a tautology: that which survives is the fittest. It is useful if we can find simple ways of classifying what allows one to survive. In the same sense, Newton’s laws are useful if we find just a few forces out there.
So taking away the word “natural” in the type of explanations science allows is an appeal to use a new framework (or paradigm) such as ID. Again, its only valuable if we find just a few types of design principles. If not, its not useful.
So the appeal for ID is an appeal for a paradigm shift. And these are rather hard to argue against. You have to say things like, “ok, try using that for awhile and see how far you get.” I guess you judge the result by how simple the resulting picture is, which will often be to some extent subjective. To someone with God as a regular category of explanation in their mind, they will probably judge the result as more simple than someone who doesn’t invoke God.
November 16th, 2005 at 8:01 pm
What’s interesting about this controversy is that we’ve been on this earth for what amounts to a fraction of a femtosecond in the history of the universe, and yet we feel to speak so authoritatively in these matters.
Now, there are reports that some among us are about to design living organisms. Might evidence of such efforts be referred to as “unintelligent design” down the road a few seconds from now?
November 16th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
Recently, a new way to test ID by analyzing the CMB was proposed by S. Hsu and A. Zee:
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510102
”We argue that the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provides a stupendous opportunity for the Creator of our universe (assuming one exists) to have sent a message to its occupants, using known physics. The medium for the message is unique. We elaborate on this observation, noting that it requires only careful adjustment of the fundamental Lagrangian, but no direct intervention in the subsequent evolution of the universe.”
Douglas Scott and J.P. Zibin have distputed this, see here:
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0511135
”A recent paper by Hsu & Zee (physics/0510102) suggests that if a Creator wanted to leave a message for us, and she wanted it to be decipherable to all sentient beings, then she would place it on the most cosmic of all billboards, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) sky. Here we point out that the spherical harmonic coefficients of the observed CMB anisotropies (or their squared amplitudes at each multipole) depend on the location of the observer, in both space and time. The amount of observer-independent information available in the CMB is a small fraction of the total that any observer can measure. Hence a lengthy message on the CMB sky is fundamentally no less observer-specific than a communication hidden in this morning’s tea-leaves. Nevertheless, the CMB sky does encode a wealth of information about the structure of the cosmos and possibly about the nature of physics at the highest energy levels. The Universe has left us a message all on its own.”
November 16th, 2005 at 9:19 pm
Nope, I gotta disagree. Science is explicitly a search for naturalistic descriptions of the way the world works. If we succeed in finding a naturalistic explanation for something, then it is natural and not supernatural. Heck, you could relax that a bit to say that if we observe it, or if it’s consistent with what we observe, then it’s naturalistic. Without observation, or at least serious attempts to link an idea to observations, it. is. NOT. science.
Ignoring the line in the GEM song (”My model and you data disagree — your data must be wrong!”), we require repeatable, testable hypothesis for a reason. It has been, since well before Galileo. Saying anything else ignores our history and program. More to the point, tell it to the grant reviewers and see if they agree. We can say science is this, science is that, but that doesn’t make it true.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
Just two quick points, as I have real work to be doing:
1. Of course, science does prefer completely naturalistic explanations. All else being equal, scientists will vote for theories featuring rigid patterns that are never violated, rather than allowing for occasional supernatural interventions. But perhaps not all else is equal. If there were a theory that did allow for supernatural events, and there wasn’t any more naturalistic theory that fit the data nearly as well, any scientist worth their salt would happily accept (at least provisionally) the supernatural theory. Like Steven Weinberg says, it wouldn’t be difficult to convince him that God exists; all God has to do is walk through the door and start demonstrating omnipotence right and left. Scientists would also have prefered not to give up on deterministic evolution, but confrontation with the data eventually convinced them to accept quantum mechanics.
2. Much of the discussion is about how we would ever know that something was “really” supernatural, and we simply hadn’t yet discerned the underlying patterns. Absolutely right. Since naturalistic explanations tend to be simpler, the urge to keep looking for them is a perfectly sensible one. But maybe, provisionally, we can’t think of any, and some good supernatural theory is placed before us. No problem with that; science doesn’t pretend to be in possession of the ultimate immutable truth, we just do the best with the information we have at the time.
The point, don’t forget, is that all these hypotheticals are completely contrary to fact. In the real world, theories that rely on the supernatural are incredibly weak by conventional scientific standards. I’d rather admit that truth instead of pretending we’re not allowed to pass a judgment.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:34 pm
Hume argued in his “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” that it was impossible to find God by deduction from the natural order. It seems to me, that it should also be thus impossible to say that science is always in fact capable of judging supernatural claims. The post seems to disagree:
Sean (or anyone else): Did I miss something here? Maybe I misunderstood Hume, but it seems to me that you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Of course, science is sometimes able to judge supernatural claims about nature, but science is not capable of judging all supernatural claims, and maybe this is what you meant.
November 16th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Scientists have to get off this kick that science and religion are completely distinct magisteria that have nothing to do with each other.
Whoa! Kick? We are talking about two different approaches to seeing the world. One in which belief structures based in authority predominate, without any necessary recourse to experience whatever, and one in which *any* idea must survive in a crucible of observations available to everyone.
I’ve spent a lifetime studying both — the mathematical sciences and the major religions. There is no place in science, for example, for belief in angels … whether or not 75 percent of Americans believe in them. Recently, the Vatican *and* the Dalai Lama have spoken in favor of evolution, the latter saying that experience must count for more than the most venerated scripture.
A science classroom is for science. The great majority of scientists do not consider as science study of the supernatural. “Kansas science” is an embarrassing abberation fostered by times full of fear and confusion and more than a little ignorance of all that science, including medicine, have contributed to the modern lifestyle.
November 16th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
A, I don’t think Hume is always completely consistent. Even in On Miracles, which is directly about this topic, he sometimes appears to say that miracles are logically impossible, while at others seems to argue that they are simply inconsistent with a preponderance of the evidence.
Anyway, whatever Hume may have thought, I don’t think there is any conceivable way of being convinced that God exists except for looking at the natural order — other ways are just cop-outs. And I look at the natural order and don’t see any need to invoke the God hypothesis. Not sure what “always” or “all” really refer to; I just want to say that science can in principle entertain supernatural hypotheses, and finds that they fall short.
November 16th, 2005 at 11:11 pm
I’m surprised that no one has raised the simple point that ID is not science because it cannot be falsified by observations. It is a hypothesis, but not a scientific one. Mathguy (post 20) gets at this. So, unfortunately, the Kansas Board is still wrong, and Sean kinda is too.
ID/Creationism v. Evolution is a great way to explain in Science classes what makes a scientific theory, and explaining the philosophy of science. Arguing that evolution has gaps which therefore begs for a supernatural explanation is not science, and is a bad representation of the philosophy of science.
November 16th, 2005 at 11:15 pm
“The point, don’t forget, is that all these hypotheticals are completely contrary to fact. In the real world, theories that rely on the supernatural are incredibly weak by conventional scientific standards.”
In a sad way, i think that there is a relatively serious consideration that hasn’t been identified yet in the post and subsequent comments. A vast majority of US citizens have more “confidence” in their beliefs (no matter how “contrary to facts” they be) in the supernatural, than they do in their understanding of scientific processes and knowledge. Sean’s post seems too hopeful, in holding that these millions upon millions of people will come to their “senses” so to speak when confronted with a rigorous scientific inquiry of all we conceptualize as reality.
Jeff Olson writes: “We might win more hearts by giving ID and other such claims their rightful day in court.” I don’t think we have a chance of winning more hearts, or minds for that matter. The ID movement is merely a tactic in a strategic battle plan to force creationism (in this case a very restrictive sectarian version) into the standards, frameworks, and curricula of public schools in place of “conventional scientific standards.” The bulk of the people simply won’t care how much effort is undertaken to validate or falsify their “more adequate” explanations, regardless of what they are called.
November 16th, 2005 at 11:43 pm
Dallas-
Like I pointed out before, I think that ID (if we try to give it the benefit of the doubt as much as possible) is a framework rather than a hypothesis. I’m not exactly sure how the proponents want to do it. An IDer must eventually say things like: shells are really fancy- they were designed in 3000 BC. Horses were designed in 8000 BC. These are now hypotheses that can be falsified: find evidence that they existed before that, or give a plausible means by which they came into being and these weaken or destroy the hypothesis. So, no, the basic framework of ID is not falsifiable, but the specific statements are. And if IDers can’t find enough hypotheses that hold up to existing evidence and cover the same material that the hypotheses in the evolutionary framework cover, then its not a valuable science.
My (not original) view is that there is always this unfalsifiable element in a science. People say that Newtonian Mechanics was falsified by finding that the world is probabilistic. But really, when it comes down to it, we still see stuff moving around and can postulate corresponding forces. Yes, in cases like the double slit experiment the forces seem to have some weird behavior, but I don’t believe it truly falsifies the theory- just makes it extremely unwieldy and quantum mechanics is a much more elegant concise explanation.
Anyway, maybe this is a fringe view of science, but this is where I currently sit with it.
November 16th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
As i understand it the school boards intent is suspect as they want to challange evolution etc. (i confess i do not have detailed knowlege about the specifics of what the kansas board is doing)…
but are these actual definitions a problem?
was the old definition so great? what exactly are “natural explanations” – somewhat ambiguous. some certainly percieve creationism as being very “natural”
and is the new definition really sinister? other than being not well written (e.g. are not measurements a type of observation; what does “adequate explanations” mean?; etc), it seems like a something that i (and i strongly believe in evolution) might come up with if i was asked to define science by my 8 year old daughter…
November 17th, 2005 at 12:06 am
Tony, I don’t see why Sean’s comments are upsetting to you and others here. He seems to merely be saying that any claim or hypothesis can have its scientific worth discerned. Hence a claim can be probable or improbable due to the evidence or scientifically worthless/ful based on its predictiveness and simplicity. Hence I would really like Kansas’s knew definition assuming they then go on to define “more adequate” to mean, more probable(based on observation and experiment) and more powerful(both predictive and simple).
November 17th, 2005 at 12:10 am
mbecker,
It’s not a problem unless one also considers that the goal of the redefining of the nature of science is to enable creationists in local schools (and there are a substantial number of creationist science teachers) to teach spurious and often false criticisms of evolutionary theory, to present ID as though it is on a par (explanatorily and substantively) with modern evolutionary theory, and to introduce unjustified doubts about all science, including (for the benefit of locals here) physics. Recall that many creationist “criticisms” of evolutionary theory require rejecting most of particle physics and astrophysics. Biology is not the only discipline at risk.
I quote from the Wedge document that lays out the current ID strategy:
“Governing Goals
* To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.
* To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and hurnan beings are created by God.”
(http://tinyurl.com/8lzy9)
If that doesn’t bother you, then yes, the redefinition is innocuous.
RBH
November 17th, 2005 at 12:10 am
also note that predictive, in my last post, means that it generates testable predictions, as obviously a theory could generate an infininate number of untestable predictions but no testable ones and hence be unpredictive.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:13 am
oh and specificness of predictions also adds to a claims predictiveness.
/sorry about the spread but I decided that since we are talking about definitions I should be precise in mine.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:32 am
RBH (and, to a lesser extent, spyder)– I understand that there is a political/social context as well as an epistemological one. That doesn’t mean that I have to comment on the former every time I comment on the latter. The correct order should be (1) figure out what is right, (2) try to convince people of it. We shouldn’t be taking intellectual stances for political reasons.
Just wait until I find time to write the post explaining why “falsifiability” is not the right criterion for deciding whether an hypothesis is scientific or not. That’ll really rattle people’s cages.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:41 am
As I once heard long ago, the philosophy of science is the field where you kick up a lot of dust and then complain that you can’t see.
It’s really quite a disappointment that all the blue things didn’t turn green six years ago. Would’ve been quite cool.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:51 am
Well, one conceivable way is to ask why there is something rather than nothing. Atheists take this as brute fact, but a religious person could legitimately attribute it to God. In both cases, it is a matter of pure contemplation. And there are plenty of other metaphysical questions.
There are oodles of unexplained phenomena in this universe for which someone could invoke God. True, they are vulnerable to the usual God-of-the-gaps trap, but until the gaps are filled, people can plausibly see a “need”.
Good point. The question is not correctness of the theory but its usefulness. A creationist theory is correct by fiat but offers no guidance; no supernatural theory could. This is why I object to Kansas’s redefinition of science.
To the extent that scientists comment on creationism as bad science, it is not because of the supernatural agent per se, but because of the lack of a boundary theory — a criterion to tell which processes are or are not explicable by Darwinism. For instance, there is no quantitative theory of “irreducible complexity”.
George
November 17th, 2005 at 6:36 am
There have been some attempts on this thread to produce a demarcation between science and nonscience (metaphysics or the supernatural). One approach is to take the subject matter (Nature) as key, another to prefer the disciplinary activity. The philosopher R.G.Collingwood would certainly have counted himself in the latter camp. In fact he wrote a book ‘The Idea of Nature’ describing how our idea of Nature had developed over the centuries, through the overcoming of internal tensions. Taking what you see as our currently best conception of Nature as timelessly correct will in all likelihood be a mistake.
You can see in the following quotation the accent on science as historical process:
“If a scientist, told by a philosophical inquisitor that his methods are faulty and that the science they yield can never give him genuine knowledge, thought it worth while to give any answer at all, the right answer for him to give would be: ‘Eppur si muove. My science is a going concern. I ask myself questions. I invent ways of answering them. I find the answers convincing. As I go on working, I find my old problems dissolving, and new ones taking their place. I claim no infallibility; as my work goes forward, I find myself constantly correcting my own past mistakes; and if it is allowed to go on in the future I shall discover and correct others that I am making now. And I am no individualist; I welcome criticism; but only if it is well-informed criticism, that is, criticism by men who understand what I am trying to do and can give me grounds for thinking that they can show me how to do it better.” (The principles of history: 41-42)
Collingwood would interpret what those of you who cannot see ID as science as saying is that you can conceive of no history of our understanding of life, written at any time in the future, which would have a place for ID as a part of the continuation of the going concern which is currently called evolutionary biology. And by ‘history’ he would mean a history of reasoned argument about subject matter, principles, means of assessing evidence, and so on. In other words if the textbooks of 2200 invoke the principles of ID, something necessarily will have gone wrong for you. Irrationality will have occurred.
David
November 17th, 2005 at 7:34 am
Medieval theologians tended to view the world as representational of scripture, and so when asked why a rose is red, a well-schooled monk might have answered, “A rose is red for the blood of Christ.” It is a prefectly respectable hypothesis, but it is not science. ID is simply the 20th century analog of this. A number things that make ID, and similar representational views of the universe, into non-science have been raised here, but I would like to expand the list.
In science we always ask the follow-up question, but in religion one has to stop at some point and it comes down to faith. If the ID crowd are serious about becoming a science then they have to ask the follow-up questions: What are the properties of this “designer?” Are these properties quantifiable and reproducible, or are they capricious and arbritrary? If they are the former then maybe there is some science to be done here, but if they are the latter then Occam’s razor needs to be invoked. There is, of course, a third option: a proponent of ID might argue that such follow-up questions are inappropriate and the designer works in mysterious ways. If that is so, then it is a form of religion.
Until proponents of ID start a serious discussion of the properties and characteristics of the designer and how they will do experiments to choose between competing theories then they are not doing science and have no business inflicting this nonsense on our school kids.
November 17th, 2005 at 8:50 am
Nick: ”…they are not doing science and have no business inflicting this nonsense on our school kids.”
I agree, but I think that instead of focussing on ID one should improve science education for children. We don’t tell children about many important facts about how the world works. You can’t teach quantum mechanics to children in primary school, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t tell them that everything consists of atoms, that the human body is ultimately an extremely complicated machine.
Children are told about God but almost nothing about science. This leads to a distorted view about the physical world which is difficult to correct in secondary education.
November 17th, 2005 at 11:43 am
“Until proponents of ID start a serious discussion of the properties and characteristics of the designer and how they will do experiments to choose between competing theories then they are not doing science”
I agree; and this is presumably what the Dover process will find.
Boaz, the claim that “survival of the fittest” is tautological is creationist claim CA500. See http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA500.html for responses and references.
I used to respond that it is really a culling, ie some expected to be “fittest” will die. A better response may be that it is not about survival but about reproductive success, which is quantifiable.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Sean wrote “RBH (and, to a lesser extent, spyder)— I understand that there is a political/social context as well as an epistemological one. That doesn’t mean that I have to comment on the former every time I comment on the latter.”
My remarks were stimulated by the title of the original entry, which put Sean’s piece squarely in the socio-political context, invoking all the connotations associated with it. I was tempted to write a Panda’s Thumb entry titled “With Friends Like This …”.
With respect to naive falsificationism (and the “ism” is purposeful), I’ll say only that Popper is abused almost as badly as Kuhn, and was a much more subtle thinker than rote invocations of “falsifiability” as a demarcation criterion imply.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
I can’t wait for Sean’s piece on “falsibility” mostly because in principle i agree with his premise. Also my comment was not intended to hierarchically order or to ask for all inclusive statements/posts. I was reflecting on the public perception of the work of scientists in these matters. It seems the public, and public officials, have some very misguided (okay, seriously flawed and wrong) understandings of how science works, and/or how the universe works. As an example i read the following story today.
The strange case of supernatural water
Florida tested ‘Celestial Drops’ to see if they warded off citrus canker
By David Park Musella
Skeptical Inquirer
Updated: 3:08 p.m. ET Nov. 15, 2005
Florida’s citrus crop contributes billions of dollars to the state’s economy, so when that industry is threatened, anything that might help is considered. Back in 2001, when citrus canker was blighting the crop and threatening to reduce that vital source of revenue, an interesting — if not quite scientific — alternative was considered.
Katherine Harris, then Florida’s secretary of state — and now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives — ordered a study in which, according to an article by Jim Stratton in the Orlando Sentinel, “researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test ‘Celestial Drops,’ promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its ‘improved fractal design,’ ‘infinite levels of order,’ and ‘high energy and low entropy.’”
The study determined that the product tested was, basically, water that had apparently been blessed according to the principles of Kabbalic mysticism, “chang[ing] its molecular structure and imbu[ing] it with supernatural healing powers.”
November 17th, 2005 at 2:50 pm
again i am not entirely familar with the precise school board debate, but how does the new definition further the cause of ID? maybe that is their intended goal but how does this further the goal?
November 17th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
Torbjorn- thanks for the link to ID statement that “survival of the fittest” is a tautology. Though, just because they say it doesn’t mean its not true or interesting. But I would agree that its a somewhat extreme interpretation of the phrase, and your statement that fitness means you’re more likely to survive is a more substantive useful principle. I haven’t really read much of what the ID crowd has to say, but I have argued with someone who claims to doubt Darwin. Bringing out this distinction of whether “Darwinism” is a hypothesis, or a useful framework by which to generate other hypotheses, I found to be a productive way to get at what the real disagreement was.
RBH wrote:
Yeah, I admit I’ve been influenced by Kuhn and other sympathetic views (e.g. Holton’s Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought). I’ll have to read some Popper so I can more readily abuse him as well. But seriously, I have been meaning to read him and get beyond the sound bites to his real perspective.
Cheers,
Boaz
November 18th, 2005 at 8:11 am
Boaz, you are welcome. The Talk Origins website seems to be useful, not least for recognising questions on evolution that science has already answered.
November 18th, 2005 at 8:28 am
Sean: ” Much of the discussion is about how we would ever know that something was “really” supernatural, and we simply hadn’t yet discerned the underlying patterns. Absolutely right. Since naturalistic explanations tend to be simpler, the urge to keep looking for them is a perfectly sensible one. But maybe, provisionally, we can’t think of any, and some good supernatural theory is placed before us. No problem with that; science doesn’t pretend to be in possession of the ultimate immutable truth, we just do the best with the information we have at the time.”
Yes, and this does happen in practise. Although humans are not supernatural, one can say that stone tools are an example of intelligent design. Archeologist know how to see the difference between rocks that look like stone tools and real stone tools.
November 20th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
For me the question comes down to this: why does ID belong in a -science- classroom?
Maybe ID belongs in art class, or drafting class. Or political science. It certainly doesn’t arise from the scientific tradition, not as practiced now or as practiced in Hellenic Greece.
Once ID gets in the door, what’s to stop the invention of a dozen other “theories” that can pushed through the door with “science” written on it?
This is about mindshare, not education. I feel sorry for the teachers now compelled to study ID, because they’re required to teach it, without extra compensation. And I feel sorry for the kids, who’ll lose already scarce hours they need to help them stay competitive in a highly competitive, real world.
November 19th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
[...] Natalie Angier is the Pulitzer-Prize-winning science writer for the New York Times, author of Woman: An Intimate Geography and most recently The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. In a new piece at Edge, she points a finger at the hypocrisy of many scientists who wail and gnash their teeth at superstitious craziness like creationism or astrology, but invent elaborate rationalizations about non-overlapping magisteria when it comes to things like the virgin birth or life after death. A somewhat lengthy excerpt, as I can’t help myself: In the course of reporting a book on the scientific canon and pestering hundreds of researchers at the nation’s great universities about what they see as the essential vitamins and minerals of literacy in their particular disciplines, I have been hammered into a kind of twinkle-eyed cartoon coma by one recurring message. Whether they are biologists, geologists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, or engineers, virtually all my sources topped their list of what they wish people understood about science with a plug for Darwin’s dandy idea. Would you please tell the public, they implored, that evolution is for real? Would you please explain that the evidence for it is overwhelming and that an appreciation of evolution serves as the bedrock of our understanding of all life on this planet? … [...]