faded_Glory

A new Formal Debate has started in the FD&D Forum <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000011" target="_blank">here</a> between Madmax2976 and Andrew_theist, with the title "Naturalism vs Theism: Where Does the Evidence Point?".

This thread has been opened for general discussion of this debate.

The debate is more formal than what we have seen so far in FD&D. There is a fixed posting schedule, and a panel of three judges to declare a winner at the end (Silent Dave, Bede and myself).

I post here the Ground Rules that were agreed between the participants and the judges:

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Ground Rules for the Formal Debate between madmax2976 and Andrew_theist:

1) The title of the Debate is "Naturalism vs Theism: Where Does the Evidence Point?"

2) The debate is formally structured. Opening statements are due on March 1st, and closing statements on March 10th, with rebuttals on the 4th and 7th.

3) The participants will submit their statements to the moderator (faded_Glory) no later than 08:00 MST on the date on which that particular statement is due (i.e. March 1 for the opening statement). The moderator will post the statements to the FD&D board once he has received both of them. (If prior arrangements have been made, one of the judges can fill in for the moderator in this regard.)

4) The debate participants will refrain from name-calling, personal attacks or other ad hominems during the debate.

5) The participants may use UBB code for emphasis (boldface words, for example), but may not post links or graphics.

6) The participants must cite his sources, and be prepared to cite a source for a particular piece of evidence at the request of any one of the judges.

7) The statements of the debate may not exceed 2000 words for the first three statements, 1000 words for the closing statement. Word count will include citations, section headers, parenthetical remarks and footnotes.

8) There are three judges for this debate: faded_Glory (moderator), Silent Dave and Bede.

9) Each judge will independently score each participant on a 10-point grading system, based on the participants' performance in the debate (see guidelines below). The 10 points will be divided between the participants in a way to reflect the judge’s opinion on their respective performance.

10) The judgements will be posted simultaneously (via the moderator) on March 17th, in the FD&D Debate thread.

11) The participant who receives a majority (two out of three) of the judgements -- that is, the participant who was given a higher score than his opponent by at least two judges -- will be declared the winner. If neither participant receives a majority of the judgements, the debate will be declared a draw.

12) Should one of the participants violate one of the above rules, the moderator will consult with the other judges and decide on the best course of action. This may include reprimand, mutual deduction of points, or even -- in very extreme cases -- outright forfeiting of the debate.


Guidelines used for judging the debate:

1. Organization: The debaters presented their arguments in a logical, coherent, and easy-to-follow manner. They began with a clearly stated thesis, explained the basis on which they intended to argue, proceeded to present their arguments as planned, and summarized their arguments at the end.
2. Strength of the Argument: The debaters’ arguments were logical, explained underlying assumptions, utilized factual data, highlighted important issues, and justified conclusions.
3. Strength of Critique: The debaters identified weaknesses in their opponents’ arguments, articulated their critique in a logical and supportable manner, and justified their conclusions.
4. Strength of the Defense: The debaters countered the critique in a logical and supportable manner, specifically addressed the issues raised by their opponents, and justified their conclusions.
5. Communication Skills: The debaters used clear and understandable language, avoided personal attacks, and conducted themselves in a manner that exhibited common decency, tolerance, and respect.

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Please note that the judges will not participate in the discussion here until after they have delivered their verdict.

fG

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: faded_Glory ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

What a curious paragraph.

• Why are the (decade-old) poll questions not quoted? What is meant by "evolution alone"?
• Did the poll really suggest that 90% of the population viewed speciation as the result of some admixture of evolution and divine intervention?
• And is anti-dogmatism truly the only "answer" that Andrew can fathom? What about the scientific disinterest and illiteracy that enables the widespread belief in astrology, etc.?

This is embarrassingly bad stuff ...

[ March 02, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Vorkosigan

This is embarassingly bad stuff

Yes, I was over there posting at his Challenging Atheism boards, but he simply doesn't have the background in the ideas to sustain a debate of this nature, so I left.

The cornerstone of my opening statement is that science should not be bound or tethered to any scientifically unproven philosophical system, naturalism or theism.

Methodological naturalism is an assumption used in all scholarship and sciences, and confirmed by its empirical success, as well as the lack of confirmatory evidence for competing proposals. It is not a philosophical system. Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophical system.

The philosophy of naturalism is a philosophy, not a fact of science. It is an arbitrary
method that science must explain via nature.

This is gibberish. Methodological naturalism is an assumption that theists made about the nature of reality several hundred years ago. The truth of this assumption is confirmed in the success of science.

No scientific study has confirmed empirically that naturalistic explanations are superior to non-naturalistic explanations.

No scientific study can confirm it, because it is a value. "Superior" is relative. If one values useful and reliable knowledge about reality, science is the most successful collection of methods and values we have. If one values other things -- controlling the minds and bodies of others, for example -- supernaturalism might come in handy. Which is "superior" depends on what one wants to do.

The Value of Thinking out of the Box

Andrew adopts a position commonly held by the vast majority of individuals throughout Western history, but believes he is "thinking out of the box."

In the past 100 years there have been many astonishing discoveries and inventions. Often these discoveries occur when a scientist or engineer is willing to think out of the box or as the result of an accident.

This is popular legend. In nearly all cases, the investigator/inventor is in touch with the latest results in his field, knows what is a problem and what is not, confines his researches to the problems he can solve, and uses methods developed in previous successes to attack current problems. See something like American Gensis by T. P. Hughes.

Einstein is a classic example of such. Working in a patent office rather than with colleagues allowed him the freedom to think along new lines.

Actually, Einstein was unable to find a university position, and worked in the Patent Office because it was one of the few jobs he was qualified for. At that time in his life he often despaired of becoming a physicist.

What Einstein proposed as a solution was unthinkable. Had he been 'groomed' by constituents it is possible he would have overlooked new possibilities.

Actually, Einstein formed a circle of similar minds and they read the latest works together to discuss them. As soon as he received a university position, he began to seek out well-known scientists and work with them. By about 1910 Einstein knew, and was known to, probably every major physicist in Europe.

Einstein was rewarded with the Nobel peace prize on account of his willingness to ask questions and think out of the box.

Einstein was not awarded the Peace Prize. He was awarded the Physics Prize in 1922 for his famous prediction about light deflection experimentally confirmed in 1919.

Imagine if Einstein was only allowed to invoke theories that assume time is fundamental and unchangeable?

Yes, science would be run like the Catholic Church, where free thought is curbed or suppressed. It is fortunate that science does not work in the way Andrew has caricatured it here.

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an
understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community of unsubstantiated just?so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

Andrew veers into rhetorical garbage here. We take the side of science because of its numerous successes. We do not rely on theistic explanations because they typically fail. If Andrew doubts this, I'd be glad to have each of us infected with leprosy. Andrew can use the Biblical cure, and I'll use that of modern medicine. The reason people abandoned supernatural explanations was their failure, not because they all got out of bed one morning and decided to adopt methodological naturalism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

One wonders how Andrew would explain the fact that most scientists, until the second half of the 19th century, were theists. It was the theists who tossed god out of science. I told him this a couple of times. You have my sympathy, MadMax.

disconnect? The answer is that even though people respect scientists highly they are not as dogmatic about materialism as many scientists are.

Scientists are not dogmatic about materialism. They'd abandon it in a flash if they thought that the supernatural offered better explanations of how things work.

If materialism is true some form of evolution has to be true on the basis of deduction alone apart from any evidence. Is it this commitment or evidence that convinces scientists?

This is horse manure. Materialism could be true, but evolution could still be false. There's no relationship between the two.

A gadfly in evolutionary circles Phillip Johnson explains,

More like, a louse in the locks of science.....

For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. We might more accurately term them "materialists employing science." And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence.

Ummm, no. There is no connection between the two.

In summation I have argued that science should be free to investigate unbound to any a priori intellectual commitments.

You've asserted it. You haven't argued it. I suggest you read something like Feyerabend's "Against Method."

I would be curious to see how science could function without intellectual commitments. Such commitments are not limited to methodological naturalism, although Andrew does not seem aware of that. What about free exchange of ideas? Peer critique and review? Publication? Standardization of results? Prestige systems? There's quite a lot of intellectual commitment there that Andrew has not considered. Has he ever wondered if any of these are compatible with theism? Free inquiry most certainly is not; Churches tend to struggle against it.

The philosophy of naturalism as employed in methodological naturalism is establishing the answer first not based on scientific evidence but dogma.

Whoops! As I told poor Andrew many times, methodological naturalism is an assumption scientists make when they do their work. It is not necessary for a scientist to be a materialist outside of that. Not all scientists are philosophical materialists, and there are many non-materialistic positions among scientists (for example, with the problems of consciousness among cognitive scientists, and with ID among physicists). Andrew has no idea what he is talking about.

...ahead that theism helps us to see the world, indeed make sense of the world in ways naturalism cannot. As a result I will argue that theism is a more complete worldview.

Good luck. Theism is incomplete, incoherent, and empirically unverifiable.

Michael

[ March 02, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

Automaton

Considering about 90% of the population are theists of some kind, it seems natural that they would believe in evolution but with divine intervention. This is a very vague belief, and is usually indistinguishable with totally naturalistic evolution.

joedad

My humble opinion is that Andrew is incapable of distinguishing between scientific knowledge and religious pseudo-knowledge at this point, perhaps because he has never done any science.

joe

Albert Cipriani

Excellent Rebuttals Turtonm,
I appreciated your critique... except for this red herring:


Surely, a man of your intellectual sweep and education appreciates that Copernicus was a priest, that many Catholic cathedrals in Europe were built as solar observatories that demarcated the equinoxes much like Stonehenge (a non-Catholic religious site), that the Catholic Church preserved and disseminated classical thought and law and saved Europe from being overrun by the Moslems who, till this day, are inimical to free thinking. Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Vorkosigan

Surely, a man of your intellectual sweep and education appreciates that Copernicus was a priest, that many Catholic cathedrals in Europe were built as solar observatories that demarcated the equinoxes much like Stonehenge (a non-Catholic religious site), that the Catholic Church preserved and disseminated classical thought and law and saved Europe from being overrun by the Moslems who, till this day, are inimical to free thinking. Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

So you read The Sun in Church....good book.

That's certainly one part of Catholic history. But the other part is the Index, and the various Inquisitions, and suppression of freethought shown in the punishments meted out to Hans Kung and other prominent theologians and historians. The Pope just called for controls on the Internet so people couldn't pick and choose their religion. I can't agree with you, Albert.

MadMax's reply was excellent.

Michael

[ March 02, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

donnerkeil

Praytell, what punishments did the Catholic Church hand out to Hans Kung? Is it a punishment for the Catholic Church to tell the world that Kung does not present Catholicism as Catholicism is defined and has been known throughout the ages? Does not the Catholic Church have the right to say "This person does not represent us accurately?"

That is like a high-profile atheist converting to theism and then going around and telling everyone that atheists really do believe in God, they just don't admit it because they paid to lie about it, or some such other nonsense.

In other words, since Kung refuses to represent Catholicism as Catholicism is defined, it is silly for someone (you) to criticise the Church for making that known.

You have a link to these comments? I suspect you're taking him out of context.

[ March 02, 2002: Message edited by: donnerkeil ]</p>

joedad

Albert,

Great job of being a "Defender of the Faith." You must be an old Baltimore catechumen.

The historical Vatican is primarily an authoritarian empire of pseudo knowledge.

And it is also certainly guilty of heinous behavior, no less heinous or brutal than what we all witnessed recently. If you are saying that it has also done some decent things along the way, I certainly wouldn't disagree. So has Islam. But what's your point? There are plenty of organizations with the same credentials.

IMHO, today's Vatican is still the same old Vatican, only stripped of its old state power to coerce by popular and open access to knowledge and scientific knowledge.

joe

(sorry for the digression fg)

Albert Cipriani

Thank God for you being here Donnerkiel.
It's so refreshing to have someone beside myself picking up the cludgle to use on these guys.

I'd be grateful if you were a garden-variety Christian. But you're Catholic to boot! <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" /> My cup runneth over! -- Cheers, Albert, Your Comrade in Arms in the Church Militant