[This edited letter of mine was published in the February 16, 2007 edition of The Chronicle Review. It responds to an article by Lawrence M. Krauss, "Reason, Unfettered by Faith," The Chronicle Review, January 12.]
To the Editor:
Lawrence Krauss does little more than assert that religious beliefs are unfounded. ...
For example, he says, "Even scholars with years of training in theology and history have trouble combining the possible existence of divine purpose with a universe governed by natural laws." But the concept of a universe governed by nothing but natural law is the very definition of naturalism (or philosophical materialism), a worldview that excludes in principle a creator or designer. Of course naturalism is incompatible with theism; no theologian — or anyone else — could make them friends.
While theistic philosophers and theistic scientists readily accept the existence of natural laws,...they also point out that empirical investigation has given good evidence that the universe was created (otherwise the Big Bang has no cause or explanation) or designed (otherwise the fine-tuning of so many cosmic constants necessary for life remains inexplicable, and many irreducibly complex molecular machines cannot be adequately accounted for). ...Moreover, there are solid philosophical and historical arguments for biblical miracles such as the resurrection of Jesus (see Richard Swinburne's The Resurrection of God Incarnate).
Professor Krauss fails to interact with any of these arguments. Instead he simply claims that religious beliefs must emanate from bad sources. Now who is being unreasonable?
Douglas Groothuis
Professor of Philosophy
Denver Seminary
Littleton, Colo.
Isn't this sort of assertion -- without any appeal to reason and without allowing any dispute -- simply another form of fundamentalism?
ReplyDeleteSecular Fundamentalism is what Kraus offers. He did the same in a NY Times article against ID, which I also responded to. Maybe I should debate him in person.
ReplyDeleteThe anthropic factors are necessary for life, but not sufficient. The smaller scale features show that intelligence is required. Laws and constants are not sufficient to explain them. So, there are two levels of design, and no contradiction between them.
ReplyDeleteThese are not arguments from ignorance. That claim just presupposes naturalism: "If we don't know what caused X, it must be a natural cause. Just wait until we find it." Call it "the matter of the gaps argument." So, for the naturalist, if you don't know what it is (you are ignorant) it must be material. That seems to be an argument from ignorance. Perhaps the cause it not material. If so, how could you ever know it if you always assume naturalism?
The ID arguments are based on new knowledge, such as that of the inner workings of the cell. Its specified or irreducible complexity is best explained by intelligent design and not by merely natural causes.
John wrote:
ReplyDelete"It is clear that all of the chemistry and physics that we know do not give us answers to the questions of the origins of life and the origin of the universe, and to a great many other questions, as well. It is also clear that we do not know all of chemistry and physics. Hundreds of thousands pieces of new scientific knowledge are published every year; it doesn't seem to be tapering off.
So, until we know all of the relevant chemistry and physics, we cannot rule
out that future understanding of chemistry and physics will answer those questions. Maybe further scientific investigation will never resolve these issues. However, we do not have sufficient knowlege to make that claim. (Even if further scientific investigations don't resolve those questions, we we will learn something in the course of those investigations."
Let me try to paraphrase these paragraphs just to make sure I'm not strawmanning. It seems that John is saying something like this: There's a lot out there to know about physics and chemistry, and we don't know it all yet. Maybe, someday in the future when we know more, then we can answer those interesting questions about the origins of the universe, etc. But look, even if we can't, at least we'll have learned something.
If this is what John means, then I have a one comment and a question.
(1) Here's the comment. The "at least we'll have learned something" bit is a non sequitor. Nobody's arguing against that; who in their right mind would deny that, given a bit more time, science will uncover new and interesting features of the universe? But who cares? THE QUESTION will still not have been answered. This leads me to my question...
(2) Is there a date of payment on that promisory note?
Next main point: John, you're wrong about criticising Doug's comment as being a strawman "at best." As far as I can tell, presupposing naturalism means that the answer must be a natural one. You've already claimed that you don't know what it is, and you've also claimed that you may never know what it is--but we should still believe you're looking in the right place, right? If you can't answer (2) above, and refuse to contemplate whether it may be naturalism's fault, and still expect me to believe there to be a natural cause you can't experiment on, then you've got yourself a big argument from ignorance.
Regarding your comments about the tentativeness of scientific theorizing: From what vantage point do you interpret new data? What forms the limiting cases for new theories? As far as I can tell it's merely your current theoretical viewpoint. What if your current theoretical viewpoint is mistaken (which, due to its perpetual tentativeness, is possible), is the interpretation of the new data flawed as well? What about these new theories? The replacement theories are limited by the findings of the old theory being replaced! One may say, "Well we know these parts are true!" Bull! You only think they're true because you get a little bit of empirical success. Larry Lauden has argued quite convincingly in his article "The Pessimistic Induction," that success, reference, approximate truth, and real truth can all come apart. If that's the case, science doesn't really tell us anything about the world. No wonder it's so tentative. Being a "useful" theory does not equal being a "true" or even "approximately true" theory (by the way approximate truth is strictly false). Why get so up in arms over ID when you can't even explain why I should think science is more than useful, but true (specifically regarding Darwinsim).
Maybe you should back up and give some arguments supporting your assumption of methodological empiricism and ontological naturalism. Yelling, "That's not science!" while pounding your fists and stomping your foot doesn't go very far intellectually.
John wrote:
ReplyDelete"It is clear that all of the chemistry and physics that we know do not give us answers to the questions of the origins of life and the origin of the universe, and to a great many other questions, as well. It is also clear that we do not know all of chemistry and physics. Hundreds of thousands pieces of new scientific knowledge are published every year; it doesn't seem to be tapering off.
So, until we know all of the relevant chemistry and physics, we cannot rule
out that future understanding of chemistry and physics will answer those questions. Maybe further scientific investigation will never resolve these issues. However, we do not have sufficient knowlege to make that claim. (Even if further scientific investigations don't resolve those questions, we we will learn something in the course of those investigations."
Let me try to paraphrase these paragraphs just to make sure I'm not strawmanning. It seems that John is saying something like this: There's a lot out there to know about physics and chemistry, and we don't know it all yet. Maybe, someday in the future when we know more, then we can answer those interesting questions about the origins of the universe, etc. But look, even if we can't, at least we'll have learned something.
If this is what John means, then I have a one comment and a question.
(1) Here's the comment. The "at least we'll have learned something" bit is a non sequitor. Nobody's arguing against that; who in their right mind would deny that, given a bit more time, science will uncover new and interesting features of the universe? But who cares? THE QUESTION will still not have been answered. This leads me to my question...
(2) Is there a date of payment on that promisory note?
Next main point: John, you're wrong about criticising Doug's comment as being a strawman "at best." As far as I can tell, presupposing naturalism means that the answer must be a natural one. You've already claimed that you don't know what it is, and you've also claimed that you may never know what it is--but we should still believe you're looking in the right place, right? If you can't answer (2) above, and refuse to contemplate whether it may be naturalism's fault, and still expect me to believe there to be a natural cause you can't experiment on, then you've got yourself a big argument from ignorance.
Regarding your comments about the tentativeness of scientific theorizing: From what vantage point do you interpret new data? What forms the limiting cases for new theories? As far as I can tell it's merely your current theoretical viewpoint. What if your current theoretical viewpoint is mistaken (which, due to its perpetual tentativeness, is possible), is the interpretation of the new data flawed as well? What about these new theories? The replacement theories are limited by the findings of the old theory being replaced! One may say, "Well we know these parts are true!" Bull! You only think they're true because you get a little bit of empirical success. Larry Lauden has argued quite convincingly in his article "The Pessimistic Induction," that success, reference, approximate truth, and real truth can all come apart. If that's the case, science doesn't really tell us anything about the world. No wonder it's so tentative. Being a "useful" theory does not equal being a "true" or even "approximately true" theory (by the way approximate truth is strictly false). Why get so up in arms over ID when you can't even explain why I should think science is more than useful, but true (specifically regarding Darwinsim)?
Maybe you should back up and give some arguments supporting your assumption of methodological empiricism and ontological naturalism. Yelling, "That's not science!" while pounding your fists and stomping your foot doesn't go very far intellectually.