Tercel

It certainly wasn't a deliberate straw-man. I'm not sure I see how it is a straw-man. Would you be happier if I replaced "atheism" with "Metaphysical Naturalism"? I'm not sure the difference is important: If as you point out, the atheist is someone who is reasonably sure Metaphysical Naturalism is true, then shipwrecking Metaphysical Naturalism would seem to leave the atheists high and dry.

Science is a methodological naturalist enterprise not a metaphysical one.

If I've been around long enough to know what atheism is, you've certainly been around long enough to know better than to write that. Or has things like Lourdes, the Catholic saint-making miracles, prayer studies etc conveniently slipped your memory? Even if you their findings are wrong, it's dishonest to pretend they don't exist. Bodies of specialist scientists set up to examine the authenticity of miraculous healings and their accepting some as inexplicable to science doesn't count as "nothing".

Tercel

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Tercel ]</p>

madmax2976

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That I figured out all by myself

[qb] Really?

You said:
Its seems to me that showing an intelligent being to be more parsimonious than natural creation is exactly what your trying to do.

In any case, I'll come back to your argument if and when you present the criteria necessary to demonstrate that intelligent creation by a supernatural entity is parsimonious. Till then I'll just chalk it up to your theistic opinion.

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: madmax2976 ]</p>

hezekiah jones

Eek because he's a "Fellow" with the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, a singularly unsavory conglomeration of political operatives masquerading as scientists and philosophers.

After the <a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3878_analysis_of_the_discovery_inst_4_5_2002.asp" target="_blank">hijinks</a> his fellow "Fellow" and fellow "philosopher" Stephen Meyer pulled in Ohio, I wouldn't trust any of these bozos as far as I could throw them.

jj

Well, I see your trollish attituces haven't changed any. Science isn't on any side, it simply attempts to find out what really works, and to the extent possible, why. It's not on any side.

Science, furthermore, does not use faith at all. Science is in a very real way the converse of faith, rather than 'have faith', the whole test is "does it work". The requirement for falsification alone completely dismisses the idea that science uses faith.

I guess this is more of your redefinition nonsense, you want to redefine science so it somehow involves faith.

Well, atheism isn't a religion, and neither is science, and you're a weak troll with an offensive attitude.

Tercel

I don't see how you can say "masquerading". The first link you posted makes it very clear that Robert Koons is not masquerading but is an qualified philosopher. First class honours at Oxford, PhD from UCLA, and currently a lecturer in Philosophy at the university of Texas can hardly be construed as "masquerading".

I have never heard of the "Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture", but the actions of others who belong to the same group shouldn't necessarily damn all members of the group: Unless of course you can show Koons approved of the "hijinks" or was involved in it...?

hinduwoman

Some accept things that are inexplicable to science?

Are you sure by that they don't mean, we don't want to do further research in case it upsets our faith? Everything was inexplicable in the middle ages, now they are not.

Vorkosigan

It struck me that if the MMW hypothesis was indeed the case then we have no reason to think the simplist physical laws were selected in the case of our universe. Hence the principle of parsimony, especially its empirical verification, serves as damning evidence against the MMW hypothesis.

Parsimony, as both HRG and I pointed out, isn't a good guide for the reasons we gave.

I personally dislike the MMW as an argument against Fine Tuning; Fine Tuning is basically a misunderstanding of how the universe actually works, and is worthless as an argument.

There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.

Well Terce, everyone in the 17th century Europe was a theist, and you seem to think it that is a vital statistic in understanding how science really doesn't support metaphysical naturalism. Since any 17th century European would have been a theist, it isn't a point for science that it was invented by theists. The more interesting point is that the theists tossed out everything that had to do with theism -- authoritarian values, suppression of information, belief in supernatural causation -- and created an entirely new way of doing things.

Be very careful before interpreting statistics that the obvious trends are not the result of secondary influences.

Thanks. I'll keep it in mind. I'd be careful about advising others on how to think about things. It can lead to a sudden attack of foot-in-mouth disease.

The relevant statistic here would seem to me to be "How many scientists nowsdays became religious or dropped their religion as a result of their scientific discoveries?"

Great. Do you have any numbers? Didn't think so. Fact is that the majority of scientists now are not theists, and nearly all great scientists are atheists.

The fact that the majority of scientists are not religious seems to me to be more likely to be because atheists are more likely to become scientists than theists.

Problem: roughly 40% of scientists are theists, but less than 5% of great scientists are. Randomly selected, we would expect that this ratio would hold all the way up. Why does the ratio shift so dramatically toward atheism the higher one goes on the scientific ladder? Could it be that the deeper your understanding of the nature of reality, the sillier supernatural explanations seem?

This, I think, could be explained by the idea that many atheists think science can provide the answers that they don't have because of their lack of religion, and that many theists distrust science.

It could be explained by many things. But since you don't have the survey data to back up your assertions...

Now I admit, that if you hold a position of Scientific Anti-Realism (and by your separation of theories from reality it seems you do) it renders most of my argument pointless.

On the contrary, I believe that some of our theories do describe nature very well. Others are simply rough guides, or ways to derive a useful result when doing things. For example, people still use Newtonian dynamics because they give useful results for most speeds humans work with, even though "better" models are available.

I just don't confuse our models with the world, as you did. "Parsimony" in scientific discourse does not refer to the world, but to human judgements about theories.

In fact there are numerous cases of parsmonious theories being annihilated by ugly facts and the world turning out to be messy and complex. The ideal of parsimony works out fine in heavily mathematical physics.....another error of your essay is to generalize from physics to all the sciences. So psychologists, biologists, geologists, and other scientists use parsimony, and in the same way, as physicists?

I am talking about the natural laws which govern the universe here not simply the creation of human beings. Any "aliens" responsible for the creation of the universe are by definition an intelligent creator. If atheists can accept God if I rename him "an alien" I'm happy to do so. Would you like to convert then?

You don't mean "an alien" when you say ID, you mean the Canaanite Sky God Ya. Your position is fundamentally disingenuous, Tercel. Would you give up your belief in Ya if the aliens actually showed up and proved they made our universe? Naw. You'd just push it back one level-- "Obviously intelligent aliens are the product of ID....."

I'd be happy to accept ID, if your side would ever come up with evidence that the universe was contingent on some other process or entity.

I do think metaphysical naturalists have no basis for accepting methodological naturalism, where-as the theists do.

Of course, hardly anyone agrees with you. Most of us metaphysical naturalists root our beliefs in the success of methodological naturalism. I believe the success of science is a good indication that metaphysical naturalism is the correct view of things.

I am inclined to think that metaphysical naturalism would be quite happy in an unexplainable universe where things happened randomly and inexplicably.

It would be happy in any universe where reality could be tested and modeled through interaction with it.

Theism on the other hand seems to predict that the universe would be intelligible, explainable and understandable since it was created by an intelligent being:

What "theism?" Kikuyu? Mayan? In many theistic belief systems the universe is created by some other process, or by accident. In Europe theism came to hold this view only after reason was re-introduced to western Europe in the late medieval period from the outside. As nature came to be seen to be more and more rule-governed (especially after thinkers began developing mathematical models of machines which they then started applying to nature) religion started to modify its stance about how Ya worked in the world, and pushed it to the sidelines. No doubt the deity needed a rest after miraculously sustaining the world for 12 centuries.

This view you're articulating....can you substantiate it in writing about the world from Christians prior to the introduction of reason from the Arab world? It is obvious that it is the result of the success of science, and the desperate attempts of Christians to reconfigure their views in the light of the awesome problems science creates for their beliefs.

Hence the theists would seem to have every basis for adopting methodological naturalism to gain explanations about the universe.

ROFTL. If there is anything methodological naturalism guts, it is supernatural beliefs.
Although, if you would argue this on some of the wackier creationist boards, I would be very grateful.

Maybe you should come at it from another angle. Why does the success of methodological naturalism imply that metaphysical naturalism is wrong? Explain more clearly, please.

Vorkosigan

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Vorkosigan ]</p>

Automaton

Great post Tercel, but your central thesis is wrong. Parsimony is the scientific priciple derived from Occam's Razor, which states, "Do not multiply your entities beyond necessity." It has nothing to do with elegance or beauty, and not much to do with simplicity.

Even if we do accept your formulation of it, is it "simpler" to assume the event that caused the Big Bang was arbitrarily constrained by something, or that it was not constrained, and thus, by deduction, created Many, Many Worlds? The only way we can grant the former is if we assume theism, the very viewpoint the Fine-Tuning Argument seeks to prove.

WJ

jj!

"Science isn't on any side, it simply attempts to find out what really works, and to the extent possible, why. It's not on any side."

Explain then why human's use science to draw different inferences, hypothesis, conclusions, creative ideas as generated by the different view points from the mind? In other words, human's from different backgrounds or perspectives approach the same problem differently, then use the same methodology that science provides, inorder to arrive at their own theories which may or may not be the same. the method is the the same; the inferences different.

Science is on both sides of the personal belief system. It's just another tool.

(?)

Walrus

MortalWombat

That's funny, because in every journal article I read, the conclusions reached by the authors seem to be drawn based on the data that is obtained. I have never read the "Results and Discussion" section of a paper and thought, "wow, this guy must be a buddhist."