Tuesday, October 27, 2009

"Two Books"

I’m now going to comment on chapter 8 of Dembski’s new book. I didn’t cover that in my general review because, while the issue he raises is important in its own right, that’s something of a side-issue in relation to his main thesis. So it’s best to treat that separately.

“To undermine the constancy of nature for theological gain preserve the integrity of neither science nor theology,” The End of Christianity” (71).

While this is true up to a point, it needs to be qualified:

i) The constancy of nature is a scientific presupposition, not a scientific discovery. A metascientific axiom by which science infers causes from effects.

Without a doctrine of divine creation and providence to ground this assumption, induction is viciously circular.

ii) Moreover, Dembski believes in creation ex nihilo as well as miracles.

“God gave humanity two primary sources of revelation about himself: the world that he created and the Scripture that he inspired. These are also known as the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture…God is a God of truth. As the author of both books, he does not contradict himself (71-72).

Unfortunately for Dembski, this hoary metaphor is fatally equivocal in two fundamental respects:

i) Nature is not very bookish. A book generally contains verbal assertions or propositions. While not every sentence is assertive (i.e. questions, commands), most sentences are assertive. And in the case of non-fiction, they make factual claims. They have truth-value.

By contrast, nature makes no assertions. Nature contains no propositions. Nature doesn’t say anything. Nature is a fact, not a factual assertion. Nature doesn’t assert anything to be the case. Therefore, it’s strictly nonsense to characterize the issue the way Dembski does.

We simply draw inferences from nature. We try to infer causes from effects. Sometimes all we have is trace evidence. We have to interpolate. Fill in the blanks as best we can.

ii) Moreover, to say that nature is revelatory hardly means that nature is self-revelatory. If nature is a medium of God’s self-revelation, this doesn’t mean that nature was designed to reveal anything about itself, such as the age of the universe.

Now, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that nature contains evidence sufficient to date its point of origin. But that’s not a valid inference from Dembski’s premise. That doesn’t follow from the status of nature as a mode of divine revelation. Dembski would need to mount a separate argument to yield that conclusion.

“As distinct witnesses to the work of God, these books can be read individually or together. When read individually, they have an integrity of their own that must not be undermined by using one to invalidate the other” (71).

i) I don’t know how far Dembski intends to take this. Is nature self-explanatory? Is nature its own commentary? Why did God reveal Gen 1-3 if nature is self-interpreting?

Indeed, in Bible history we see an alternation between event-revelation and word-revelation. God’s words interpret God’s deeds. So general revelation is not autonomous.

It’s like looking at a painting. You can learn a lot about a painting just by studying the work of art. But, at the same time, there’s only so much you can learn about it from the artifact itself. It helps to know something about the painter. About his time and place. About his values. You can’t necessarily infer artistic intent from what you see on the canvass. Correct interpretation requires some knowledge of the painter as well as the painting.

ii) I’d also add that there are obvious hazards to scientific autonomy. Science is no better or worse than its practitioners. Science can be politicized. Become a tool in the hands of social engineers–from behaviorists and Social Darwinianist to climatologists, sociobiologists and transhumanists. Should we really deliver ourselves into the hands of anyone who calls himself a scientist?

“Theology may led us to question certain claims of science, but any refutation of those claims must ultimately depend on scientific evidence” (71).

Seems to me that’s overstated. Any scientific refutation depends on scientific evidence. But in some cases it would be possible to refute a scientific theory on philosophical grounds–to take one example.

“Likewise, science may lead us to question certain claims of theology, but any refutation of those claims must ultimately depend on exegetical evidence” (71).

Agreed.

“Theology requires metaphors and concepts that come from our understanding of nature and therefore form science. How can we understand that Jesus is the ‘Lamb of God’ without knowing something about biology. How can we understand that God is light without knowing something about physics?” How can we understand that faith can move mountains without knowing something about orology” (73).

This is a half-truth. Once again, it suffers from a fatal equivocation.

You don’t need to understand modern science to understand Biblical metaphors. These metaphors are prescientific. They simply depend on ordinary observation and experience–as well as a cultural and literary tradition. No scientific theorizing, which goes beyond and behind ordinary perception, is required.

“The history of biblical interpretation includes cases where interpretations of Scripture once universally held were later abandoned–and for scientific reasons no less! For instance, at the time a young earth was unquestioned, the Church also taught that the earthy was stationary. Ps 93 states that the earth is established forever and cannot be moved. A face-value interpretation of Psalm 93 seems to require geocentrism. And yet young-earth creationists accept the Copernican Revolution. We read this psalm today as endorsing not geocentrism but the stability of God’s works” (75).

Two problems:

i) While I agree with Dembski’s interpretation of Ps 93, he doesn’t bother to argue for his interpretation on exegetical grounds. So, as it stands, his paradigm-case is question-begging.

ii) Actually, I don’t think that a “face-value” interpretation of Ps 93 seems to require genocentrism. That’s quite deceptive. Dembski isn’t coming to this text with the mindset of an ancient Israelite. Rather, his impression of the text is filtered through later scientific theories and controversies like Ptolemaic astronomy. Geocentrism is a system of celestial motions. Celestial mechanics.

Ps 93 doesn’t teach a system. It doesn’t discuss the relative position of the earth. There’s nothing about the position of the earth in a dynamic system involving the sun. It doesn’t attempt to situate the earth at the crossroads of time and space.

That’s a theoretical grid which postdates Ps 93. It reflects the synthesis of Babylonian star charts with Greek mathematics.

Because the modern reader is a child of science, there’s danger of seeing so much more in the text than is actually there. Reading the text through the subsequent history of science.

“Charles Hodge faced the challenged of balancing the science of his day with the interpretation of Scripture” (76).

But, of course, that example cuts both ways. If you read Hodge’s attempt to harmonize Scripture with science, the exercise is hopelessly obsolete. So that example accentuates the peril of reinterpreting Scripture in light of the “cutting edge” science of the day. We have to revise our interpretation every decade or so–in which case our interpretation is external to the text rather than internal to the text. An extraneous gloss which we superimpose on the text, rather than finding that explanation within the text itself–or the historical horizon of the target audience.

5 comments:

  1. Steve pointed out:
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    Actually, I don’t think that a “face-value” interpretation of Ps 93 seems to require genocentrism. That’s quite deceptive. Dembski isn’t coming to this text with the mindset of an ancient Israelite. Rather, his impression of the text is filtered through later scientific theories and controversies like Ptolemaic astronomy. Geocentrism is a system of celestial motions. Celestial mechanics.
    ---

    I would also add that the scientists of the day that stated the Earth was the center of the universe that bucked Galileo too, and the "theological" interpretation of the Psalm was based on the scientific wisdom of that time. Namely, Aristotelian notions of perfection influencing the concept of what the universe "must" be like.

    So it's not just that Dembski is looking at this with a current scientific mindset, but so too did theologians in 1600. Neither of which matched what the ANE would have thought.

    This is why I think atheists need to realize that science is a tool--a very powerful tool, but one that is enslaved to a control philosophy.

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  2. Peter Pike,
    What "control philosophy" is science enslaved to exactly? Does it have a name? The study of nature is governed by scientific method which is a methodology that insures science isn't governed by any kind of philosophies or preconceived notions.

    William Dembski isn't doing any kind of science. He's promoting a Christian religious hoax. Intelligent Design magic isn't science because real science produces usable, tangible, viable results. When have the Intelligent Design magicians or the creation "scientists" ever produced a new medicine, vaccine, better food crop or better poison to protect food crops from insects or any other product that improves our lives somehow? Hoaxers like Dembski tell us that evolution is a theory is crisis yet evolutionary biologists keep right on getting tangible results from their "theory in crisis" that make the world a better place while Dembski and the other ID hoaxers can only write books. Books that aren't really peer reviewed yet thankfully scientists have taken the time to meticulously refute anyway. What a bunch of nonsense.

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  3. Boris said...

    "What 'control philosophy' is science enslaved to exactly? Does it have a name?"

    Methodological naturalism.

    "The study of nature is governed by scientific method which is a methodology that insures science isn't governed by any kind of philosophies or preconceived notions."

    Preconceived notions like...methodological naturalism, you mean?

    "William Dembski isn't doing any kind of science. He's promoting a Christian religious hoax. Intelligent Design magic isn't science because real science produces usable, tangible, viable results. When have the Intelligent Design magicians or the creation 'scientists' ever produced a new medicine, vaccine, better food crop or better poison to protect food crops from insects or any other product that improves our lives somehow?"

    How many new medicines, vaccines, insecticides, &c., has string theory produced? Is Ed Witten a magician?

    "Hoaxers like Dembski tell us that evolution is a theory is crisis yet evolutionary biologists keep right on getting tangible results from their "theory in crisis" that make the world a better place..."

    Name the medicines, vaccines, insecticides, &c., that the theory of macroevolution or common descent produced.

    "...while Dembski and the other ID hoaxers can only write books. Books that aren't really peer reviewed..."

    Name the title of the last book penned by Richard Dawkins which was peer reviewed?

    "...yet thankfully scientists have taken the time to meticulously refute anyway."

    Like ACLU lawyers? "Scientists" like that?

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  4. Boris asked:
    ---
    What "control philosophy" is science enslaved to exactly?
    ---

    Steve did respond with the most common current control philosophy of science today. However, my point was more nuanced than that. The fuller answer to your question is: Whichever philosophy is currently favored.

    Science doesn't function on its own. That was my point. Science is an epistemological method, and an epistemology does not a philosophy make.

    Put simply, philosophy needs at least three things (although some would say it needs five things). 1) A metaphysic; 2) An epistemology; 3) Ethics. (Added to this by some, although I believe they are subcategories of the above, would be 4) Aesthetics and 5) Logic.)

    Since science is an epistemological method, it only satisfies one of the three necessary ingredients to be a full-fledged philosophy. Therefore, by definition, it must be wedded to some other control philosophy.

    Which, as Steve has pointed out, is currently naturalism (or materialism, as these two words seem to be synonymous these days). That is the most common philosophy controlling science, and indeed is the philosophy that most scientists will demand be accepted. But since the scientific method is subservient to naturalism, it is quite possible to have another philosophy that uses the scientific method as an epistemological method without agreeing to the tenets of naturalism.

    For example, there is no reason that the scientific method could not apply to a supernaturalist philosophy. After all, science is an epistemology and therefore can say nothing about the metaphysics of a philosophical position. Nor can science be used to prove a metaphysical position.

    You say:
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    The study of nature is governed by scientific method which is a methodology that insures science isn't governed by any kind of philosophies or preconceived notions.
    ---

    Firstly, the fact that the scientific method, in your mind, seeks to be ungoverned by any kind of philosophy...is itself a philosophical assumption on your part.

    But equally problematic, how does one define what "nature" is? How does one determine which areas it is applicable to use science and which areas are not applicable?

    A couple of problems for you to consider: How does the scientific method come up with ethics? (Answer: it doesn't.) Where is the scientific method found in "nature"? (Answer: it isn't.)

    Now dwell on that a bit. People have ethical positions, and these positions do not come from science. People also believe that the scientific method is valid, but that method is not found in nature. Obviously, there are significant truths that are held apart from science, that indeed establish science.

    Once again, a control philosophy over science.

    You said:
    ---
    Intelligent Design magic isn't science because real science produces usable, tangible, viable results.
    ---

    Don't look now, but every single one of those words "usable, tangible, viable" require one to have a philosophy in place to define....

    And once you do define them, I think you'll realize that your argument is a lot less than you thought it was. Because either your definition will be too strict, limiting science beyond which you would wish, or else your definitions would include ID as science. There's no middle ground. And ignorance in leaving these terms undefined is no excuse.

    Further, why should we care that something be usable, tangible, and viable (however you define that)? Answer: depends on your philosophy. The scientific method doesn't tell us. Darn. We have to go back to that pesky control philosophy once again.

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  5. Steve and Peter have already said most of what needs to be said here. I would add that Boris' framing of some of the issues is dubious. Why refer to Christianity without addressing the fact that many proponents of intelligent design aren't Christians? Some aren't even theists. And why ask about whether books were peer-reviewed? What about peer-reviewed articles?

    For those, like Boris, who don't know much about intelligent design, see here and the resources linked within that page. From the page here, we read:

    "Intelligent design theory is supported by doctoral scientists, researchers and theorists at a number of universities, colleges, and research institutes around the world. These scholars include biochemist Michael Behe at Lehigh University, microbiologist Scott Minnich at the University of Idaho, biologist Paul Chien at the University of San Francisco, emeritus biologist Dean Kenyon at San Francisco State University, mathematician William Dembski, and quantum chemist Henry Schaefer at the University of Georgia....Although open hostility from those who hold to neo-Darwinism sometimes makes it difficult for design scholars to gain a fair hearing for their ideas, research and articles supporting intelligent design are being published in peer-reviewed publications. Examples of peer-reviewed books supporting design include The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press) by William Dembski, Darwin's Black Box (The Free Press) by Michael Behe, Darwinism, Design and Public Education by Stephen C. Meyer & John Angus Campbell (Michigan State University Press) and Debating Design (Cambridge University Press) by Center Fellow William A. Dembski and ID critic Michael Ruse. In the area of journals, Michael Behe has defended his concept of 'irreducible complexity' in the peer-reviewed journal Philosophy of Science published by the University of Chicago. There is also now a peer-reviewed journal that focuses on design theory, Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design, which has an editorial advisory board of more than 50 scholars from relevant scientific disciplines, most of whom have university affiliations. Finally, the works of design theorists are starting to be cited by other scholars in peer-reviewed journals such as the Annual Review of Genetics. For more information go to our annotated list of 'Peer-Reviewed and Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting ID'"

    William Dembski discusses one of his recent peer-reviewed works here. Michael Egnor, professor of neurosurgery at SUNY, Stony Brook, discusses how intelligent design concepts have influenced his research and the research of others here. Those are just two recent examples. See the pages referenced above for more.

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