Today's Botany Photo of the Day features Arabidopsis thaliana, also known as thale cress. 1. A "model organism" is an organism that's extensively studied by a large number of research labs. These species usually serve as representatives of larger taxa. In this case, Arabidopsis is a typical flowering plant.
NCSE is the National Center for Science and Education. This is the main American organization fighting against creationism. I am a member and I urge everyone to support NCSE. This is simply false. We may not be able to convince one another of theological/scientific matters, but can we have the discussion without manifest inaccuracy?Josh links to the NSCE website as proof that the accommodationist position is not the "official" position of NCSE. The statement he quotes is irrelevant to the discussion so let's look further into the NCSE webpages.
Here is NCSE's official position:
"What is NCSE's religious position?
"None. The National Center for Science Education is not affiliated with any religious organization or belief. We and our members enthusiastically support the right of every individual to hold, practice, and advocate their beliefs, religious or non-religious. Our members range from devout practitioners of several religions to atheists, with many shades of belief in between. What unites them is a conviction that science and the scientific method, and not any particular religious belief, should determine science curriculum."
At best, this is an affirmation that some religions may be (or may not be) compatible with science. It is not a blanket statement of absolute compatibility, and suggesting that it is simply misleads your readers.
In public discussions of evolution and creationism, we are sometimes told by creationists and opponents of religion alike that we must choose between belief in creation and acceptance of the theory of evolution, between religion and science. Is this a fair demand? Is the choice that stark? Can one believe in God and accept evolution? Can one both accept what science teaches and engage in religious belief and practice?It certainly looks to me like NCSE is taking up the issue rather than being neutral as I would prefer. It looks to me like there's a tilt toward getting people to understand that you don't have to choose between the extremes of creationism and "antireligious atheists" but, instead, should opt for the "range of more moderate religious views."
These are complex issues, and deserve thoughtful consideration before a decision is made. Theologians, clergy, scientists, and others belonging to many religious traditions have concluded that their religious views are compatible with evolution, and are even enhanced by the knowledge of nature that science provides. Just as vigorously, other theologians, clergy, and members of other religious traditions reject evolution as contradictory to and thus incompatible with their faith positions. And some nonbelievers argue that the methodology and findings of science are philosophically incompatible with any meaningful form of faith. Passions often run high on all sides.
This section of our website offers resources for exploring a wide array of religious perspectives on scientific questions, and scientific perspectives on topics of interest to various religious groups. We also provide resources for anyone interested in a general exploration of the relationship between science, especially the evolutionary sciences, and religion. One goal of this section of the website is to make the public aware that the dichotomous view represented by creationists and antireligious atheists leaves out a large range of more moderate religious views. We hope that you find these materials useful in considering these important issues.
Of course, religious claims that are empirically testable can come into conflict with scientific theories. For instance, young-earth creationists argue that the universe was created several thousand years ago, that all the lineages of living creatures on Earth were created in their present form (at least up to the poorly-defined level of "kind") shortly thereafter, and that these claims are supported by empirical evidence, such as the fossil record and observed stellar physics. These fact claims are clearly contradicted by mainstream paleontology, cosmology, geology and biogeography. However, the theological aspect of young-earth creationism—the assertions about the nature of God, and the reasons why that God created the universe and permitted it to develop in a particular way—cannot be addressed by science. By their nature, such claims can only be—and have been—addressed by philosophers and theologians.That certainly has all the earmarks of an accommondationist position as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps Josh can explain why my interpretation is wrong.
The science of evolution does not make claims about God's existence or non-existence, any more than do other scientific theories such as gravitation, atomic structure, or plate tectonics. Just like gravity, the theory of evolution is compatible with theism, atheism, and agnosticism. Can someone accept evolution as the most compelling explanation for biological diversity, and also accept the idea that God works through evolution? Many religious people do.
The Clergy Letter Project was initiated in 2004 by Michael Zimmerman, now Dean of Butler University in Indiana, as a response to the common misperception that science and religion are inevitably in conflict, especially around the question of evolution. In response to by a series of anti-evolution school board policies in Wisconsin, Dr. Zimmerman worked with Christian clergy throughout Wisconsin to prepare a statement in support of teaching evolution. Within weeks nearly 200 clergy in a wide variety of denominations had signed the statement, and that number has now grown to more than 11,660I wonder if there's a link to similar petitions from scientists and philosophers who think that science and religion are in conflict? Perhaps Josh can point us to such a webpage that NCSE has put up for balance because otherwise one might get the impression that NCSE actually endorses the statement signed by all these theists.
Currently, most mainstream Christian and Jewish denominations hold that the Bible was not intended by its authors to teach us about science — a way of knowing which did not exist at the time the Hebrew oral traditions were set in writing as the Book of Genesis. These denominations do not draw from the Bible the literal truths that the earth is flat, or that a global flood once covered Mt. Everest, or that we inhabit a geocentric cosmos, or that the world was created as we now observe it in six solar days, or that species were specially created in their present form and have not changed since the days of creation.I couldn't find the atheist webpages or, for that matter, the Hindu and pagan webpages on the NCSE site. I'd like to alert Josh to the fact that since these balancing points of view are difficult to find (or non-existent, gasp!) one might easily get the impression that NCSE was only supporting Christian accommodationist points of view.
Rather, they read the Bible as a record of a people's developing moral relationship with the God in whom they placed their trust. In a 1981 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, for instance, Pope John Paul II said, "Cosmogony itself speaks to us of the origins of the universe and its makeup, not in order to provide us with a scientific treatise but in order to state the correct relationship of man with God and with the universe. Sacred Scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth, it expresses itself in the terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer." Viewed as such, the Bible enshrines timeless ideals about the integrity of creation and human responsibility within that creation. For these believers, part of that responsibility is using the gift of human rationality to discover the exciting story of how life ― including human life ― has developed on the earth.
In a recent issue of RNCSE, Larry Witham reported on research he and historian Edward Larson carried out to investigate the religious beliefs of scientists.They had surveyed a sample of 1000 individuals listed in American Men and Women of Science, (AM&WS), using questions originally asked by the Gallup organization in a series of polls of American religious views.The report, entitled "Many scientists see God's hand in evolution", concluded that although scientists were quite different from other Americans in their views of "extreme" positions— such as young earth creationism and atheism—they were very similar to other Americans in the "middle" or "theistic evolution" position.Correct me if I'm wrong but that doesn't sound like a neutral position on accommodationism and it doesn't sound like support for the idea that science and religion may be in conflict. It sounds like accommodationism.
In the table below, the full wording of Gallup's question 1 is, "Humans were created pretty much in their present form about 10 000 years ago." The difference between scientists and other Americans is striking. Scientists also respond quite differently to the third question, "Man evolved over millions of years from less developed forms. God had no part in this process." But scientists' responses to Gallup's "theistic evolution" question—"Man evolved over millions of years from less developed forms of life, but God guided the process, including the creation of Man"—directly mirrors that of the general public. The "middle ground" is apparently equally attractive to scientists as it is to the general public.
The articles below have been selected especially for clergy from various sections of NCSE's website as entry points into topics of interest.I don't see an official NCSE webpage called "Resources for Atheists." I wonder why?
I argue for the separation of methodological from philosophical materialism for logical reasons, and for reasons based on the philosophy of science. It is also possible to argue from a strategic standpoint. Living as we do in a society in which only a small percentage of our fellow citizens are nontheists, we who support the teaching of evolution in the public schools should avoid the creationist's position of forcing a choice between God and Darwin. Creationists are perfectly happy if only 10% of the population (the percentage of nontheists) accepts evolution. I am not. I want people to understand and accept the science of evolution; whether or not someone builds from this science a philosophical system that parallels mine is logically and strategically independent. An ideology drawn from science is not the same as science itself.Josh, while it may be incorrect to say that accommodationism is the "official" position of NCSE, it seems clear to me that it's the only position that your website supports and it's the only position that your leaders advocate in public.
Ironically, I find myself being praised and encouraged in my position by conservative Christians and taking flak from some fellow nontheists, including some scientists. I must say, though, that over the last several months I have presented lectures at several universities and two meetings of professional scientists in which I have argued that a clear distinction must be drawn between science as a way of knowing about the natural world and science as a foundation for philosophical views. One should be taught to our children in school, and the other can optionally be taught to our children at home. Once this view is explained, I have found far more support than disagreement among my university colleagues. Even someone who may disagree with my logic or understanding of philosophy of science often understands the strategic reasons for separating methodological from philosophical materialism — if we want more Americans to understand evolution.
1. Does NCSE have an Atheist Project Director?
I do not think, contrary to some, that science exhausts the realm of knowledge, largely because I have a fairly broad and fallibilistic notion of what it is to know something – you can know that it is wrong to eat fish on a Friday, for example, or that one must not abuse children, neither of which are scientific questions. So I have no truck for those who merely assert that knowledge is all and only scientific – you have to argue for it.I'm one of those naive scientists who don't understand philosophy so forgive me if I make some silly errors in logic.1
1. John Wilkins says, "First of all I have little confidence that scientists and other science-based critics of the philosophical arguments have a good grasp of what those arguments are."
Joshua Rosenau has fired another shot in the accommodationist war. As usual, he focuses more on rhetoric and mudslinging than on the logical arguments that are presented by both sides. In this case, he demeans all those who disagree with him in On the need for grownups [Updated]. Apparently, there are very few honest people on my side of the argument.Josh Rosenau has a sermon on the perils of attacking those who think science and religion can coexist at On the need for grownups [at Thoughts from Kansas]. It’s a pretty damned good sermon. He points out that the claim that science and religion are incompatible is itself an untested, and hence unscientific claim. It’s a point I would like to discuss a bit.Good, let's discuss. We begin by defining terms. I claim that science is a way of knowing based on rational thought, skepticism, and evidence. I claim that when that way of knowing is applied to religious claims, those claims can be shown to be false or, at the very least, unsupported. Thus, if you are committed to science as a valid way of knowing, it follows that, when you stick to that commitment, the vast majority of religious beliefs are not compatible with science.
Back when a philosophy known now as logical positivism was fashionable, the claim was made that whatever was not scientifically verifiable was metaphysical rubbish. This was known as the Verification Principle. Karl Popper, among others, noted that the Verification Principle was not scientifically verifiable and was therefore, on its own account, metaphysical rubbish. That put an end to that version of logical positivism (although no philosophical position ever really dies). It was self-defeating.So far, so good. I'm not a fan of Karl Popper. (However, I note that John is vastly over-simplifying the views of Popper and conveniently ignoring the reasons why the Verification Principle might be valid.)
What Jerry Coyne and the anti-accommodationists are doing, as Josh points out, is a version of logical positivism (Josh does not use that example – that’s me). They are saying that those who attempt to argue that religion and science are compatible or might coexist are being unscientific, are themselves being unscientific. In fact, the data is that science and religion coexist nearly all the time – most of those who support scientific views are religious. This is because most of everyone is religious, of course, but the fact remains: if one approaches this as a scientific matter, science and religion just are coexistent, that’s the fact of the matter.Let's dissect this paragraph. First, my anti-accomodationist argument is that once you accept that science is a valid way of knowing, then it follows that most religious claims are not compatible with that approach to knowledge. I have yet to see a valid accommodationist argument that addresses this important point. True, Ken Miller, Francis Collins, and Simon Conway-Morris have made the attempt but in the end their arguments boil down to a rejection of science as the only way of obtaining valid knowledge. In other words, they limit science to just those areas where it can't conflict with religion and then lay claim to other ways of knowing that rule in the religion magisterium. Presumably, John thinks that is a scientific way of reasoning.
What Coyne and others seem to want to argue is that religion and science should not be coherently expressed by a single person. That is a philosophical position one might argue for, philosophically. It is not a fact of science, though, nor, it seems, a fact of logic. So argue for it. Others, as is the way of debates, will argue the contrary, or some other view. As an accommodationist, I think that whether or not science and religion should be treated as compatible, in fact they are, or as compatible as any potentially competing set of beliefs may be, such as the belief that science is the only way to gain justifiable beliefs, which is not, itself, scientifically justifiable.John, you tacitly admit that science and religion are a "potentially competing set of beliefs." That's the point, isn't it? I argue that if you adopt science as a valid way of gathering knowledge then most everything about religion fails the tests of science. Those who claim to be scientists and still believe that there's a God who answers prayers are expressing two contradictory positions. You can't claim to be thinking like a scientist while holding on to beliefs that have been refuted by science. I claim that almost all claims of religion fall into the set of things that are incompatible with the scientific approach to knowledge (deism is a debateble exception).
This is why I made my snide cheap shot about the split in Dawkins’ website. Dawkins, Coyne, and many others (but not all those who happen to agree with them substantially, I hasten to add) are in the business of building an exclusionary group. Ken Miller and Francis Collins believe in religion? Exclude them from science, and damn them to the outer hell of irrationality. The irony that this is itself an irrational behaviour (or, better understood, is an act of strategic rationality rather than conceptual, to keep allies close and enemies away) escapes them, as our own sins always do.John, it doesn't help your cause to write things like that. For years people have been claiming that science and religion are perfectly compatible. As you know, it's the official position of the National Center for Science Education. Scientific groups such as the National Academies and AAAS also promote this belief. It's only in the past decade that people like me have been pointing out the flaws in those positions and advocating a reexamination of that widespread assumption.
For example, Coyne’s term “faithiest” is a term of opprobrium and abuse, just as Josh points out, other racial or sexual epithets are. While one may not identify the exclusion of non-”Caucasians” or LGBT’s in American society with that of accommodationists (or, for that matter of atheists in theist America), they are of the same kind if nowhere near the same degree. Dawkins’ claim that accommodationists “like the idea that someone has faith” or that we “have faith in faith” is a similar act of abuse. But they are rational, of course. No self-defeating behaviour for them, no sir.If this is the main point you want to make then you could have done it much better—and much less hypocritically—by leaving out everything else. Make up your mind. Are you criticizing the position I take or are you just complaining about the rhetoric that's being used on both sides of the debate?
Look, I don’t care if atheists are aggressive or not. Certainly being excluded themselves, they have the right to be loud and proud. I think they should speak out at every turn. But does that require that they must denigrate and belittle those who don’t entirely agree with them? Must they turn into what they themselves despise? It seems, sadly, this is the human condition. But don’t pretend to be the vanguard of rationality when you are just as irrational and tribal as everyone else. The term for that is not “rational”, but “hypocritical”.Pot, kettle black.
1. I can ally with Ken Miller in the fight against extreme forms of creationism and I'm happy to do so. That doesn't mean I have to agree with him on everything else. He's a grownup—as am I—and he can handle people who disagree with him on some issues but agree with him on others.
According to a press release from the University of Liverpool (UK), their scientists have revealed the driving force behind evolution. It's not just adaptation that drives evolution but a special form of adaptation ...Scientists at the University of Liverpool have provided the first experimental evidence that shows that evolution is driven most powerfully by interactions between species, rather than adaptation to the environment.The "breakthrough" has been recently published in Nature (Paterson et al., 2010). Here's the abstract.
The Red Queen hypothesis proposes that coevolution of interacting species (such as hosts and parasites) should drive molecular evolution through continual natural selection for adaptation and counter-adaptation. Although the divergence observed at some host-resistance and parasite-infectivity genes is consistent with this, the long time periods typically required to study coevolution have so far prevented any direct empirical test. Here we show, using experimental populations of the bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 and its viral parasite, phage Φ2, that the rate of molecular evolution in the phage was far higher when both bacterium and phage coevolved with each other than when phage evolved against a constant host genotype. Coevolution also resulted in far greater genetic divergence between replicate populations, which was correlated with the range of hosts that coevolved phage were able to infect. Consistent with this, the most rapidly evolving phage genes under coevolution were those involved in host infection. These results demonstrate, at both the genomic and phenotypic level, that antagonistic coevolution is a cause of rapid and divergent evolution, and is likely to be a major driver of evolutionary change within species.Imagine that—phages evolve to infect bacteria and bacteria evolve to resist infection. Is that the sort of "breakthrough" that merits publication in Nature and spectacular headlines about new driving forces in evolution?
Steve Paterson seems to think so, according to the press release. Dr Steve Paterson, from the University's School of Biosciences, explains: "Historically, it was assumed that most evolution was driven by a need to adapt to the environment or habitat. The Red Queen Hypothesis challenged this by pointing out that actually most natural selection will arise from co-evolutionary interactions with other species, not from interactions with the environment.The Red Queen Hypothesis has been around for a long time and it's a perfectly reasonable explanation for arms races. I find it difficult to believe that this paper is the first demonstration of this phenomenon. I find it even more difficult to believe that "most" adaptations are the product of "co-evolutionary interactions with other species."
"This suggested that evolutionary change was created by 'tit-for-tat' adaptations by species in constant combat. This theory is widely accepted in the science community, but this is the first time we have been able to show evidence of it in an experiment with living things."
[HatTip: RichardDawkins.net]
Paterson, S., Vogwill, T., Buckling, A., Benmayor, R., Spiers, A.J., Thomson, N.R., Quail, M., Smith, F., Walker, D., Libberton, B., Fenton, A., Hall, N., Brockhurst, M.A. (2010) Antagonistic coevolution accelerates molecular evolution. Nature. 2010 Feb 24. [Epub ahead of print] [doi:10.1038/nature08798]
Thanks to Ryan Gregory for alerting me to the latest issue of Carnival of Evolution [Carnival of Evolution #21: The Superstar Edition].There’s a tendency, especially among anthropologists, to diagnose everything as an adaptation. You come up with a ‘Just So’ story that describes why a trait exists. Problem is, there’s really no basis for the story and it risks turning the trait into something that it’s not. There have to be some aspects of our development that are merely artifacts—byproducts of the evolution of other traits, or things that just came about by chance in the process of building other parts of our body. For example, there’s nothing adaptive about having white bones. Our bones are white because the calcium phosphate compound that is the main ingredient of our bones happens to reflect all wavelengths of light not because having white bones gives us a particular advantage. So I’m excited that what we’ve found offers an example of a non-adaptive trait. The initial changes in human hands that led to our improved tool use were really just a result of changes to our feet. It was a byproduct of bipedalism. Our study provides a warning out there to human anthropologists to think of alternative hypotheses to some of the ‘Just So’ stories they come up with.Nice to see there are some smart anthropologists who understand evolution.
Rolian, C., Lieberman, D.E., Hallgrímsson, B. (2010) THE CO-EVOLUTION OF HUMAN HANDS AND FEET. Evolution. 2009 Dec 31. [Epub ahead of print] [PubMed] [DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00944.x]
1. When you combine the two rounds of olympic competition (summer and winter) Australia still comes out ahead in terms of total medals. If you count gold medals, the score is Canada 17 : Australia 16. It would be interesting if John could re-calculate his table of medals per population now that the complete results are in. Australia still does better than Canada but many of the values in the table will change significantly.
[Hat Tip: Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant]
Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini have just published a book called What Darwin Got Wrong. I haven't read the book but from the reviews I've seen, it's not something that I'm looking forward to. However, their main thesis is that natural selection has been oversold as an explanation for evolution and I have a great deal of sympathy for that point of view. Furthermore, I think that adaptationism—the assumption that adaption is the default explanation for everything that evolves—is a scientifically bankrupt position. I'm a pluralist.Like I said, I haven't read the book so I can't really comment on the specifics. But I can comment on what Micahel Ruse says about the book.Origin of the specious
This new critique intends to rebut Darwin’s ideas but seems largely to misunderstand evolutionary theory.
“What Darwin Got Wrong’’ is an intensely irritating book. Jerry Fodor, a well-known philosopher, with coauthor Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a cognitive scientist, has written a whole book trashing Darwinian evolutionary theory - the theory that makes natural selection the main force of change in organisms through the ages.
You would think that somewhere in the pages there would be one - just one - discussion of the work that evolutionists are doing today to give a sense of how the field itself has evolved. Peter and Rosemary Grant on Darwin’s finches for example; Edward O. Wilson and Bert Hölldobler on ant social structures perhaps; David Reznick on Trinidadian guppies perchance? But no such luck. A whole book putting in the boot and absolutely no serious understanding of where the boot is aimed.Aren't those interesting examples? Just what you'd expect from a myopic adaptationist. What about studies of molecular evolution which are almost entirely based on neutral changes and random genetic drift. You'd think that someone who claims to be on top of modern evolutionary theory would recognize the growing evidence of non-adaptive change, wouldn't you?
Why write such a book? The authors would respond in two ways. First, in a section that would be better described as “What Darwin Didn’t Know,” rather than “What Darwin Got Wrong,” they tell us that today’s cutting-edge biology has all sorts of explanations of organic origins that make Darwinism otiose. We learn that life is constrained by the laws of physics and chemistry, and that something like natural selection, which supposedly molds organic life into sophisticated bundles of adaptations, simply cannot get off the ground. To the contrary, evolution is all a matter of molecular development, guided by the self-organizing laws of the physical sciences.In their various published articles Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini have over-emphasized "constraints" and they come off sounding like some new-agers who have just discovered molecular biology.
To which Darwinians can only respond, wearily again, that they have known about constraints since “The Origin of Species.’’ Because body weight cubes as length increases, you cannot build a cat the size of an elephant. The elegant feline legs needed for jumping must be replaced by tree trunks able to carry many pounds. And examples of plausible self organization have been fitted into the Darwinian picture for many years. A favorite example is the way that many flowers and fruits (like pine cones) exhibit patterns following the Fibonacci series, made famous by “The Da Vinci Code.’’ Chauncey Wright, a 19th century pragmatist, discussed these patterns in detail, showing how formal rules of mathematics can nevertheless yield organisms that are highly adapted and that natural selection is the vital causal element. The rules give the skeleton, and then selection fills in the details. The order of a plant’s leaves may be fixed, but how those leaves stand up or lie down is selection-driven all of the way.
The second half of the book is a frontal attack on natural selection itself. The main argument is very odd. It is allowed that there is differential reproduction. Some organisms have many offspring, and some have just a few. It is even allowed that the reason why some succeed and others don’t might have to do with the superior features possessed by the winners and not the losers. At which point you might think: Darwinism wins, because what else is there to natural selection?I take it as "gospel" that random genetic drift is an important mechanism of evolutionary change. Why do I get the impression that Michael Ruse has doubts about this? Why does he use the word "gospel" to refer to the ideas of Gould and Lewontin but not Dawkins and E.O. Wilson? Isn't that strange?
Not so fast, however. Our authors take as gospel the argument of the late Stephen Jay Gould and the geneticist Richard Lewontin that although some features may be adaptive others may not. This argument is then used to say that if an organism succeeds in life’s struggles, you can never conclude that a particular feature was essential for this success, because there may be other features linked to it. Perhaps it was the latter features that were essential. Natural selection fails therefore as a mechanism of change.
I read all of this stuff a couple of times. I am just not used to people giving the opposition everything for which they have asked and then plowing on regardless. But, even if you ignore the apparently shared belief that selection is at work - we may not know which features were crucial, but that hardly stops us saying that there was selection at work - the other points hardly crush the Darwinian. It has long been known that features get linked. And in any case, we can ferret out which features are most useful and which are just along for the ride. Suppose eyes, which are surely necessary, are linked to tufts of hair, which may not be. Well, experiment and see how the organisms get along without eyes and then without hair.Non-adaptive features can arise even if they are completely unlinked to adaptive feature. Ruse doesn't seem to understand this basic concept of population genetics. And Ruse needs to take his own advice. Rather that just assume that a feature is an adaptation, you need to do the experiments. This applies to the leaves on a tree and the beaks of the finch.
Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini will not allow this, because apparently we are now ascribing conscious intentionality to the nonconscious world. We are saying the eyes were designed for seeing in a way that the tufts were not. And they stress that the whole point of a naturalistic explanation, to which the Darwinian is supposedly committed, is that the world was not designed.Darwinist are always saying that the world has the appearance of design. Of course it's a metaphor but it's a metaphor based on the idea that natural selection, and not God, is the designer.
In response, one can only say that this is a misunderstanding of the nature of science. The Darwinian does not want to say that the world is designed. That is what the Intelligent Design crew argues. The Darwinian is using a metaphor to understand the material nonthinking world. We treat that world as if it were an object of design, because doing so is tremendously valuable heuristically. And the use of metaphor is a commonplace in science.
Why then do we have these arguments? The clue is given at the end, when the authors start to quote - as examples of dreadful Darwinism - claims that human nature might have been fashioned by natural selection. At the beginning of their book, they proudly claim to be atheists. Perhaps so. But my suspicion is that, like those scorned Christians, Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini just cannot stomach the idea that humans might just be organisms, no better than the rest of the living world. We have to be special, superior to other denizens of Planet Earth. Christians are open in their beliefs that humans are special and explaining them lies beyond the scope of science. I just wish that our authors were a little more open that this is their view too.This is despicable. Evolutionary psychology is a broken discipline. And it's not because there is no genetic components to behavior—of course there is. It's because the field is dominated by adaptationist explanations and crazy "just-so" stories that would make Rudyard Kipling proud.
[Image Credit: The photo is from Paul Nelson on the Intelligent Design website. It refers to Ruse's idea that evolution is a form of religion. There's something to be said for this idea, especially when it's applied to confirmed Darwinists.]
Shocking news from England. The General Synod of the Church of England considered the question of science and religion. By an overwhelming vote (241 -2) they concluded that science and religion are perfectly compatible [General Synod says religion and science not mutually exclusive].NCSE and major scientific organizations will be grateful for this show of support.Launching the debate, a computer scientist, Dr Peter Capon of Manchester diocese, said: "We wish to refute the perception that you have to choose between science and faith … the crude caricature of faith as being blind and irrational. We reject the 'scientism' that claims that, in principle, science can resolve all questions capable of being answered.Science is a way of knowing characterized by the use of evidence and rational thought. Modern disciplines like philosophy and the humanities use this approach to gathering knowledge—indeed, philosophy invented it. Thus, neither philosophy or the humanities provide insights and understanding that's outside of the scientific approach to knowledge. They are part of it, as long as they are done properly.
"Most scientists accept that philosophy, theology and the humanities are alive and well and give insights and understanding that complement but are not replaced by scientific understanding."
Photo Credit: The Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Rowan Williams) with a friend.
1. Orac [Desiree Jennings & Dr. Buttar on Inside Edition] and Steve Novella [Well That Didn’t Take Long – Another Dystonia Case Follow Up] say thorough the scam from the very beginning.
Maarten Boudry, Ghent UniversityHere's the problem. You can't just arbitrarily restrict science to methodological naturalism. That's like ruling out supernatural explanations by fiat and not by logic. If God exists, then there's no reason why supernatural explanations can't be a legitimate part of science. This is one of the arguments made by Philip Johnson and it hasn't been adequately addressed by most philosophers.
Methodological Naturalism as an Intrinsic Property of Science: A Grist to the Mill of Intelligent Design Theory
In recent rounds of debate between evolutionists and supporters of Intelligent Design, the principle of methodological naturalism (MN) has been an important battleground. Creationists and intelligent design proponents have previously claimed that the commitment of evolutionists to naturalism and materialism constitutes a philosophical prejudice on their side, because it rules out any kind of supernatural causes by fiat. In response to these charges, some philosophers and scientists have argued that science is only committed to something they call methodological naturalism: Science does not deal with supernatural causes and explanations, but that does not mean that the latter do not exist. However, there has been some philosophical discussion about the correct understanding of MN. The principle of MN is often conceived of as an intrinsic and self-imposed limitation of science, as something that is part and parcel of the scientific enterprise by definition. According to this view (Intrinsic MN or IMN) - which is defended by people like Eugenie Scott, Michael Ruse and Robert Pennock and has been adopted in the ruling of Judge John E. Jones III in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover case - science is simply not equipped to deal with the supernatural and therefore has no authority on the issue. It is clear that this depiction of science and MN offers some perspectives for reconciling science and religion. Not surprisingly, IMN is often embraced by those sympathetic to religion, or by those who wish to alleviate the sometimes heated opposition between the two.
However, we will argue that this view of MN does not offer a sound rationale for the rejection of supernatural explanations. Alternatively, we will defend MN as a provisory and empirically grounded commitment of scientists to naturalistic causes and explanations, which is in principle revocable by future scientific findings (Qualified MN or QMN). In this view, MN is justified as a methodological guideline by virtue of the dividends of naturalistic explanation and the consistent failure of supernatural explanations in the history of science.
We will discuss and reject four arguments in favour of IMN: the argument from the definition of science, the argument from lawful regularity, the science stopper argument, and the argument from procedural necessity. Moreover, we will argue that defining the supernatural out of science is a counterproductive strategy against ID creationism, and, for that matter, against any theory involving supernatural explanations. More specifically, IMN has been eagerly exploited by proponents of ID to bolster their false claims about the philosophical and metaphysical prejudices of evolutionists. As ID proponent Philip Johnson rhetorically noted, if science is about following the evidence wherever it leads, why should scientists exclude a priori the possibility of discovering evidence for the supernatural? Therefore, IMN is actually grist to the ID mill.
We conclude that IMN is philosophically artificial and that its attempt to reconcile science and religion is ill-conceived. QMN, alas, does not provide any such ready reconciliation either, but it does offer a sound rationale for the rejection of supernatural designers in modern science.
