Thinking About Falsifiability and Abiogenesis

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Ronald_Cram

Construct a scenario by which scientists could falsify God’s action (intelligence, intervention, preloading, etc.) in abiogenesis. This amounts to falsifying all Class B Hypotheses, both known and unknown.

I understand the desire to turn my own standards and use them against me, but it doesn’t work. Science deals with nature. Because it is limited to the natural realm, it is not able to comment on or falsify metaphysical claims.

Great.

Then we agree: “God did it” is not a scientific claim, theory or hypothesis. That means you have no alternative offer science. We are just stuck over here with abiogenesis.

@Ronald_Cram

Why should a scientist find it acceptable to attempt to falsify a proposal he doesn’t like but rejects falsification for proposals he does like?

Because it is often not possible. Case in point:

@swamidass

Construct a scenario by which scientists could falsify (using the rules of science) abiogenesis by natural processes alone (including both known and unknown natural processes). This amounts to falsifying all Class A Hypotheses, both known and unknown.

Silence from you. No surprise. This is an impossible task.

Turns out that establishing the limits (or lack of limits) of natural processes like this requires making metaphysical claims. It is therefore is outside science to falsify abiogenesis.

Methodological Naturalism

@Ronald_Cram

I think the issues I raised regarding MN are significant. I know that your position is different from that of Sean Carroll’s and I would like to see you defend your position over his.

Yup I’ve done that several times. I’ve even explained it to you. Perhaps you can try restating my position? It’s not clear you’ve actually understood what I am saying, because I haven’t actually seen you engage it.

Briefly, I talke CS Lewis’s view that science is a dream, and theology is the waking world:

@swamidass

I am certain that in passing from the scientific points of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and [other] religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself.

I am echoing a position synthesized from Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, Richard Boyle, and several other of the early scientists, all of whom justified their position from Christian theology, as do I. I’ve written about this in several places already: (1) Methodological Naturalism, So Falsely Called, (2) The Creator-Creation Distinction - #2 by swamidass, and (3) Why Methodological Naturalism?. @TedDavis has added a historian’s voice too (responding to @pnelson):

@TedDavis

A warning to those who appeal to a largely tendentious history of science, according to which MN was promoted by theists. Open your Boyle, your Newton, your Linneaus, and so forth, and you will find them explaining the origin of biological objects by the action of intelligence. MN in its modern form is the product of post-Darwinian naturalism, where theists made a virtue of necessity and baptized the naturalistic framework they inherited from T.H. Huxley and other late 19th century philosophical naturalists.

I partly agree with Paul, insofar as Boyle and Newton (I assume also Linneaus, whom I haven’t read) certainly held that intelligence was an indispensable part of understanding the origin of the world and its contents–including biological organisms. Indispensable.

However, I partly disagree with Paul, in that there is much historical evidence that Christians helped advance the notion that natural philosophy needed to restrict its inquiries to “natural” (i.e., non-supernatural) causes. This is not necessarily the same thing as what Paul means by “MN in its modern form,” but certainly it’s a kind of limited naturalism, and it’s endorsed by Boyle and many others in the medieval and early modern periods. On Boyle’s endorsement of it, see this: https://biologos.org/blogs/ted-davis-reading-the-book-of-nature/the-miraculous-meniscus-of-mercury

The standard rule at medieval universities, namely, that natural philosophers should keep out of theology, reflects its earlier origins. For example, Galileo (who had taught at Pisa and Padua for many years) alluded to this in a letter he wrote to Fr Pietro Dini (later archbishop of Fermo) in May 1615. “Yet for all of me any discussion of the sacred Scripture might have lain dormant forever; no astronomer or scientist who remained within proper bounds has ever got into such things .” (quoted by Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo , 165)

I’m just recovering this older understanding of what science is, grounding it in theology. We are exploring this in more depth right now too! So, once you’ve caught up a bit on the readings, maybe you could bring a couple questions. We are mapping a “new” way forward, though it is a forgotten old way really. Maybe you’ll find it better than repetitive arguments?

Clinton Ohlers: Two Parables on Divine Action

From July 17 through 19, we will be holding office hours with @rcohlers. Clinton is a good friend of mine is a historian with a PhD from University of Pennsylvania. He is a scholar of intellectual history. He has been studying Francis Bacon, one of the architects of modern science, thinking about divine action. http://henrycenter.tiu.edu/2016/06/evangelicals-genesis/ Please keep in mind that Clinton is in Hong Kong, so late night interactions will probably be easiest, as they will be during his work day. [image1] Recently, he invited me to HKU to give a talk on my work this Fall. I’m going to do several talks, but one of them will be with Clinton on Divine Action. We wanted to pose some questions to the larger academic community, and decided to hash out some of this on the forums. In about a week, when he has some time, we are going to share two parables on science and divine action. This will touch on topics we’ve already discussed on the forums, like Methodological Naturalism, …