Ok. Whatever.
When you get bent out of shape by the use of the word “yet”, perhaps you should rethink your approach to the subject.
You mean scientists doing research expect to find an answer!!! EGADS!!! WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO!!!
Oh, we certainly do; which is why I want to use words like “true” and phrases like “what nature is really like”; but as you can see above, you and others here are chafing at any claim I make that science purports to reveal truths about nature.
You can’t have it both ways; you can’t take a stance that science isn’t about truth, but only about generating more predictions, etc. (what good would even verified predictions be, if they didn’t reveal some truth about nature?), but then turn around and chastise me for not admitting that science has discovered some truths. Of course science has discovered some truths. That’s why all this yammering about scientists not using the word “true” or “truth” is just drivel; scientists in fact are motivated to get at the truth about nature, and regard themselves as in many cases having successfully done so. Jerry Coyne tells us “Why Evolution is True”, and not one of you guys here is on his case for using the word; but when I use it, I’m jumped on.
I’m glad you mentioned the tides, by the way, because Galileo was wrong about the tides precisely because he insisted on a methodological rule regarding science (“science doesn’t deal with occult forces or magical ideas such as action at a distance”); his determination to lay down the law about what science could or could not include caused him to err. There is a lesson there for those who today rule that science can’t deal with teleology or design. The future may show that conceptions of design in nature, teleology, etc. are extremely useful for understanding nature, as “action at a distance” later proved fruitful. Science should not operate by methodological fiat, but unfortunately, in these origins debates, that’s exactly what the purported champions of science practice – the uttering of methodological fiats.
Then why did you say this?
Science doesn’t make truth claims in an ontological sense. That is what we keep saying.
That’s not the methodological rule in science. If occult forces or magical forces were detectable and measurable then they could be included in science. If ID were able to measure design in a scientific manner then it too could be included in science.
Yep, you’ve got it. Now all you have to do is add in the additional fact that the answer they expect to find – in advance of actually doing the research – is that “no design was involved,” and you will accurately grasp the hidden metaphysics in the word “yet.”
So what should motivate a scientist to do research?
Galileo said that it was. My point is that he was in error, though he was perhaps the greatest living scientist in his day, and was in error precisely because he limited the sphere of causality to the sphere of interactions involving touch – direct contact. You are saying that this is no longer a rule in the science of 2019, but that is not the point. It was a rule for Galileo, and it caused him to err. So how do you know that “teleological explanations have no place in science” or “design explanations fall outside of science” will not turn out, a century down the road, to be misguided limitations that prevent full understanding of nature? A little history of science might temper the tendency you and some others have to be dogmatic on such methodological questions. But of course, history of science is not required in the training of any scientist at any secular university. That is something that should be changed.
The desire to find out what is true about nature – regardless of the consequences (be they atheism, or a recognition of intelligent design).
Philosophers tend to say that knowledge is justified true belief. I suppose that’s an example of their “rhetorical framing”. But many scientists see this as a mischaracterization of scientific knowledge. They don’t see scientific theories as belief systems. They would be better described as systems of empirical practices, than as belief systems.
So what?
I am saying that RIGHT NOW they have no place in science because they are not scientific. I have no idea if teleological explanations will be developed to the point that they can be considered scientific in the future, but what I do know is that they aren’t scientific now.
Physician, heal thyself.
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Why not?
I don’t see any conflict between those.
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True as in microbes cause infectious diseases according to scientific evidence, or true in an ontological sense?
Also, why don’t we see any scientists doing ID research that produces positive evidence for scientific ID hypotheses?
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I don’t see scientific theories as belief systems, either. I don’t regard the germ theory of disease as a belief system, but as a statement about the way nature really works that has been repeatedly tested and confirmed. That is what I mean when I say scientists are trying to get at the truth – what is really the case about the way nature operates.
You don’t see any conflict between A and not-A?
Does anybody who holds that microbes cause infectious disease based on scientific evidence seriously take the position that “microbes cause disease” is not also true “in an ontological sense”? I haven’t met anyone who does. Perhaps you need to explain what you mean by that phrase.
I doubt there is any research that ID people could do that you would accept as providing “positive evidence.” I think you would class every possible argument for design as an “argument from ignorance” – i.e., you would say that there may be non-designed causes that we haven’t discovered yet, and it is premature to infer design until we have canvassed all those possible causes. So even the strongest prima facie case for design (and I think there is plenty in the basic architecture of cells, the DNA-protein system, etc.) would be regarded by you as inadequate, unscientific, etc.
You wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to agree that a grandfather clock was designed (even if you had never seen a grandfather clock before in your life, but knew the workings of it), but you would put up ferocious resistance to arguments (parallel in logical structure) that the cell was designed. Against that resistance, I can’t think of any facts ID people could produce, any set of astounding fit-for-life coincidences, no matter how numerous and tightly interrelated, that you couldn’t set aside as non-decisive because future research might show how these systems could come together without design. So what is the point of trying to meet your demands?
Perhaps you could state what sort of evidence would convince you that organisms or cells are designed. And please, if you can control yourself, refrain from the cheap “a stamp ‘made by YHWH’ in the genome” response. We are talking about reason and evidence here, not revelation.
Of course, that’s a conflict. But that’s not what is involved here.
Yes, science produces true statements.
If science is pragmatic and concerned with prediction, then it will produce true statements about its methods of predicting. Our language requires that. But whether those true statements about predicting are also true statements about nature – isn’t that the kind of metaphysical question that you want science to avoid?
But surely the germ theory is a statement about how scientists predict and explain disease. Here, germs could be considered theoretical entities defined by their role in the theory.
Whether germs are real is a metaphysical question. And it is up to society as a whole, which include philosophers and theologians, to decide on that question. No doubt the effectiveness of the predictions will influence that decision. It is only after it is decided that germs are real, that it is seen as a truth about nature.
Given your concern about scientists making metaphysical claims, you really should support the view that science is pragmatic and concerned with prediction rather than with truths about nature.
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But you are referring to “ID theory” when no theory exists, just a belief system. You’re trying to make it look sciencey.
Then you agree that “ID theory” does not exist. Why do you keep pretending that there’s any theory behind ID?
The “operates” part here is crucial. Science is mechanistic, unlike ID.
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No, it’s not. We can see the various germs – microbes – with microscopes. And we know what they do. So the germ theory of disease has uncovered a truth about nature. We don’t need to make distinctions between “scientific truth” and “metaphysical truth.” Microbes exist, and have been shown to cause disease. That’s a truth about nature. Rain is caused by evaporation and condensation of water. The earth rotates (proved by the pendulum). That’s a truth about nature. There are more than the seven planets accepted by Aristotle (proved by the telescope). Scientists seek to discover truths like these. What is the problem here?
I have nothing against scientists making metaphysical claims, as long as they are identified as such, and not slipped in as scientific ones. For example, I have nothing against Dawkins saying, “God does not exist”, as long as he does not leave the impression with his readers that “science” has proved that God does not exist.
The overt metaphysical claims can be taken into account when debating with a person. The insidious ones, that slip in unnoticed, are the dangerous ones. Philosophers are trained to notice those.
If someone says, “Scientists have not yet discovered the pathway which turned unliving molecules into the first living cell” (where the context implies that the pathway is accidental chemical reactions), that person is implying that science will one day confirm that life came into existence without design, or that even if science never confirms it, that’s how it happened. That’s a metaphysical assertion. To avoid the metaphysical commitment, one should write either:
- Scientists do not know how life began.
or
- Scientists do not know whether life began due to accidental chemical combinations of simpler molecules, or required some intelligent design to assemble the molecules in a functional order.
Either of those statements would avoid even the slightest hint of metaphysical bias, and would be correct regarding what scientists currently know.
What we know comes from testing mechanistic hypotheses that make empirical predictions.
What we know comes from testing mechanistic hypotheses that make empirical predictions.
Nothing in science is considered to be proven. All conclusions are tentative. More importantly, planets have been identified by means other than telescopes IIRC.
They are mechanistic inquiries. The problem is that no one on your side will even advance a mechanistic hypothesis.
@Agauger has been dancing all around a straightforward one, that creation of enzymatic activities at the levels we observe in nature requires design–that’s the reason she has concocted for refusing to acknowledge 32 years of data from thousands of papers on catalytic antibodies that contradicts Axe’s extrapolation from a single study.
But she won’t test it. Why?
The narrower version of this hypothesis makes a perfectly straightforward prediction that removing catalytic antibodies from the constraint of fitting into the immunoglobulin variable region, then introducing variation and selection, will NOT result in significant increases in enzyme activity.
Please relay this news to the more extreme propagandists for AGW, who, when they indignantly say to their opponents, “the science on global warming is IN!,” and in private e-mails recommend attempting to embargo journals that allow criticism of that received view, and in some cases recommend legal penalties for AGW skeptics for purveying “false information,” do NOT appear to mean that their conclusion is to be regarded as tentative.
Yes, I’m fully aware that some outer planets were first predicted due to perturbations in the orbit of Saturn, etc. But the telescope confirmed those predictions. Civilized conversational behavior generally allows for some shorthand for quickie examples that aren’t the main point.
Neil (and T. aquaticus, if this applies to one of his replies):
I see now where one of my earlier statements confused you. I must have been mixing up two different lines of thought in my head, because my earlier statement does not quite represent my view. I apologize for the confusion. Let me try again. Here is what I wrote:
Somehow I got myself tangled here. I will state what I was trying to get at, but failed to execute:
There are at least three conceptions of science:
-
Science as the activity of making predictions about events, without commenting on how those predictions connect with the reality of anything in nature;
-
Science as the assertion of factual truths about nature (e.g., rain is caused by condensation in clouds);
-
Science as the assertion of factual truths about all of reality, including things not necessarily within the competence of science to establish (e.g., “science proves that God does not exist,” “science proves there is no free will,” “soon scientists will know how life arose by spontaneous chemical activity” [presupposing non-design and therefore making a metaphysical assertion]).
I have nothing against teaching science as 1. or 2. in the schools. Regarding 2, science does achieve genuine knowledge of nature, and the word “knowledge” is appropriate in connection with science. Such claims of knowledge (e.g., about the causes of rainfall) do not import any illegitimate metaphysics. [There is still an underlying metaphysical assumption, but one that is conceded to be valid by atheists and theists alike, i.e., that there is stable causality in the world.]
I’m opposed to teaching science in sense 3. in the schools, because it is not really science but metaphysics of a more contentious kind. So I didn’t phrase my objection properly. I shouldn’t have objected to proper scientific conclusions being taught as “knowledge”; I should have objected only to the use of “scientific knowledge” for claims that aren’t really scientific, but metaphysical, and therefore aren’t within the competence of the science curriculum to deal with.
Again, my apologies for creating confusion by apparently contradicting myself when my different posts were read together. Maybe my position will make more sense to you now. (And to T. aquaticus, if it confused him before.) I take the blame for hasty, unedited exposition.
I’m not seeing that “without commenting on how those predictions connect with the reality” part. Science is very much concerned with how its statements connect to nature. That’s what measurement is all about.
I agree with you about that.
I’ve even brought specific cases of that up with Jerry Coyne in comments on his blog. But I now seem to be banned from commenting there.