Amen. Amen. Amen. Please, @Eddie. Tiresome is a milder word than I would use.
4 Likes
So just to clarify a point that is easily missed here. The Discovery Institute (DI) entirely endorsed the Kansas Board of Education Hearings. Based on their goals, Kansas adopted new standards. These standards were favorably discussed by the Discovery Institute Kansas Board of Education in Its Own Words: Students should “learn about the best evidence for modern evolutionary theory, but also … about areas where scientists are raising scientific criticisms of the theory.” | Evolution News. And to this day, while they denounce Dover, they do not think anything wrong was done ID advocates in Kansas.
On November 8, 2005 the Kansas Board of Education approved the following changes to its science standards:
Add to the mission statement a goal that science education should seek to help students make “informed” decisions.
- Provide a definition of science that is not strictly limited to natural explanations. We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design, the scientific disagreement with the claim of many evolutionary biologists that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion. While the testimony presented at the science hearings included many advocates of Intelligent Design, these standards neither mandate nor prohibit teaching about this scientific disagreement.
- Allow intelligent design to be presented as an alternative explanation to evolution as presented in mainstream biology textbooks, without endorsing it.
- State that evolution is a theory and not a fact.
- Require informing students of purported scientific controversies regarding evolution.
(emphasis added)
Kansas evolution hearings - Wikipedia
To date, the DI and IDN have not backed off this position. This is their current political agenda. It is not hard to see why the scientific community sees this as an all out assault on the integrity of our field. We do not agree with any of these claims, and see them as an effort to insert (but not require) ID into school curriculums, and also to redefine science to remove MN.
How many people here agree with or disagree with effort and this statement? For those that agree, do you see why scientists feel like this is an assault on our understanding of science? MN is currently the rule in science, and it is explicitly denied in this statement.
2 Likes
I strongly disagree. This is a blatant attempt to get ID into schools, and represent it as actual science instead of a religious teaching.
Minor disagreements here … mandates declaring we must teach evolution as “theory rather than fact” feed into so much misunderstanding already out there.
But my political disapproval of these kinds of statements really has little-to-no substance. I won’t spend any powder or shot promoting it, and I certainly won’t waste any opposing it either. Living here in Kansas I will carry on teaching whatever needs to be taught of science with little regard for pronouncements whether aligned for or against ones like this.
So very true. A really good documentary film, “Kansas vs. Darwin,” was produced about the 2005 Kansas school board hearings on evolution. I highly recommend it! You can see the trailer here. You’ll see several ID leaders at the hearings.
And here is a short extra clip showing Michael Behe testifying at the school board hearings. His comments are subsequently refuted by Kansas scientists and educators and by the president of the National Academy of Sciences Bruce Alberts.
1 Like
Getting back on topic of Methodological Naturalism in science, I have a list of questions for the ID movement, or anyone else that wants science to consider God’s existence, action, or design in nature. Can anyone give me a good response?
1 Like
Joshua
As I’ve been arguing in recent Hump posts (mainly in response to your raising the question of MN - it’s not a major concern of my own), my problems with it have little to do with the fact that it doesn’t “do God”.
My first problem is that, despite what you say in your piece, there has been an historical assumption in the academy (and not only in natural science) that methodological naturalism really means metaphysical naturalism, which has in too many cases been given a free pass, to the extent of becoming a consensus assumption in many fields. I remain to be convinced that “science” as a profession really has agreed to steer away from any such assumptions.
Even in a New Scientist article within the last month, “There is no need for God in evolution” was assumed to be now incontrovertible, which scarcely makes for “peaceful agreement” with EC scientists unless they are willing to accept dhimmi status. I doubt next month we’ll see an editorial caveat that in this piece, the author did not speak scientifically - nor would a Christian stating an alternative viewpoint get away without raising whoopee.
My second problem is that much that is natural is excluded by MN, because of an outdated Enlightenment division of creation into “natural” and “supernatural”. Only this week, a skeptic mocked that “information” is a useless concept because it cannot be defined - yet the main reason is that information is about final causation (teleology), which is excluded by MN. You can’t define goal-orientated phenomena in terms of efficient causation. Yet meaningful information is neither supernatural nor doubtful - we use it all the time: science is information.
A number of physicists (Paul Davies amongst them - but including leading theorists from former generations), especially in the light of quantum theory, have suggested that information, or mind, are of primary importance to the very physical structure of the cosmos. But the methodology precludes even exploring that idea because it excludes final causes like minds - just as by excluding formal causes, theories about form and other universals cannot justify their relevance to science.
In the most fundamental science, it appears, we can no longer even safely maintain the distinction between “material” and “non-material” categories. This interesting piece reminds us that we have no idea, actually, what “matter” is, or how it relates to consciousness - which is a problem since all science comes to us through the filter that sense and consciousness use to make sense of a deeply mysterious fundamental reality.
And it’s that same consciousness that makes sense of the equally mysterious fundamental reality beyond the material. For one extreme example, in what sense are “powers and principalities” not natural? They constitute a majority of what Paul describes in his lists of created things. Since we do not know what matter is, how do we know they are immaterial? In the end it seems that “Western scientists schooled in naturalism get to call the shots,” which is fair enough as long as it’s recognised to be an exclusive club, not a universal human enterprise in search of truth.
That said, I’m happy for science to be seen as a self-limited pursuit of the workings of “that in nature which is reproducible”. But how limited it will then be! Chance is not reproducible or lawlike, so one would have to accept that any evolutionary theory, or origin of life theory, that invokes unlikely or unique events, like historical contingencies, is not a scientific theory. Will evolutionary biologist be happy to get shifted out of science into philosophy, together with the ID people who posit inherent principles of teleology in nature?
1 Like
Jon, you are correct: The skeptic is wrong. When carefully defined, “information” and information transforms certainly can be studied. So that example doesn’t support the position that ‘much that is natural is excluded by MN’.
A distinction: There are things that are excluded by MN, such as identifying a causal agent to be a God, and there are things that ‘some people believe are excluded by MN’ such as what the skeptic suggested above.
I think the jury is still out on “consciousness”. The study of that is certainly being attempted.
2 Likes
These are not your problems. The problem is the physical evidence for evolution. If you’re not addressing that, then the problem remains. Handwaving about philosophy won’t change that.
2 Likes
I agree, but would note that people are sincerely and empirically attempting to study consciousness. On the other hand, no one who promotes ID is lifting a finger to study it. All the philosophy and metaphysics in the world can’t cover up that refusal.
3 Likes
Jon
I’m not sure how the physical evidence for evolution is relevant to my post. I don’t deny it, and the question of methodological naturalism is bigger than mere evolutionary theory.
On the other hand, your first quote from my comment is very much applicable to the public presentation, at least, of evolution: “Because we have found pluasible efficient causes in evolution, then there is no place for final causes.”
And the second quote is also very relevant: “Because a process may be discerned, it must be autonomous of any divine will.”
A robust philosophy (or even a traditional Reformed Theology) has no problem with physical evidence for evolution: the handwaving comes when teleology is arbitrarily made to disappear by a definition.
[quote=“Eddie, post:134, topic:5441”]
As for ID people, Michael Egnor, a leading American neurosurgeon and ID proponent, has had a few things to say about consciousness, [/quote]
- You’ve not supported your claim that Egnor is a “leading” neurosurgeon in any way. Agreeing with you on ID is not a criterion.
- Having had “a few things to say” about consciousness does not constitute studying it. You’re making my point for me.
I haven’t seen any evidence to that effect. I don’t really view neuroanatomy as an important aspect of consciousness, do you?
That’s because you don’t look for articles that challenge your assumptions. Even a Google search for “pharmacology consciousness” gives more than half a million hits, with most of the first 20 being scientific papers.
Do you think before you reply with such massive (and easily refuted) hand-waving?
I think they are. Your desperate need to categorize people doesn’t work, Eddie.
[quote]In any case, the above comment appears to me to be purely a “shot” at ID people and offers no constructive insight into either the nature of consciousness or the research on the subject. I don’t see how comments of a purely polemical nature advance religion/science discussion.
[/quote]You’re projecting your polemics on to me.
It’s worth noting that Doug Axe uses pure methodological naturalism to show that a protein already selected to be at the edge of stability (a temperature-sensitive mutant) is sensitive to further mutations reducing its stability. This is about as surprising as predicting that the sun will come up tomorrow morning, but he casts this bit of methodological naturalism as being relevant to wild-type proteins selected by evolution.
2 Likes
Here is a pretty phenomenal talk by a TE at the ASA conference on consciousness. I think you will like it a lot @Eddie. It is the keynote for ASA, and really really worth watching. The talk starts at about 34 minutes in. It is by Bill Newsome the Stanford Neuroscientist.
http://www2.asa3.org/movies/ASA2016Newsome.mp4
Also, I’d really encourage you to look at Nancy Murphy’s work at Fuller Seminary. She is a TE, a philosopher, and a theologian and wrote a widely discussed book on consciousness. I’m surprised you have not heard of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Bodies-Spirited-Current-Issues-Theology/dp/0521676762
In @eddie’s defense, this very well maybe true, at least partly. Some neurosurgeons (maybe Egnor too) do intraoperative brain mapping (Cortical stimulation mapping - Wikipedia) which does “emperically” test relationships between consciousness and the brain. This data, however, does lead some to question the metaphysical status of the mind. Though I disagree with that inference, I’m curious how Egnor thinks about it.
In @benkirk’s defense, pharmacology is most definitely related to consciousness. And bacteriologists, yeast researchers, cancer researchers, why should they have to comment on something outside their field? That seems like a strange expectation.
2 Likes
Consciousness as a scientific subject and enquiry is simply extraordinary, and papers and discussions on this perhaps reveal, more than any other area, the commitment by scientists to a particular worldview, be it materialism, physicalism, dualism, (and so on) - and dare I say it, contrasted with Biblical teaching.
A fascinating paper in which the author blithely assumes that it is all like complex wiring, is in NATURE|Vol 446|15 March 2007, “The structure of consciousness - Subjective awareness may depend on neural networks in the brain supporting complex wiring schemes and dynamic patterns of activity.” This outlook can be considered (or perhaps contrasted) with, " ON BRAIN’S NEURAL NETWORKS AND BRAINWAVES MODELING: CONTEXTUAL LEARNING AND PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC IMPLICATIONS, by Dejan Rakovic - in this, neural networks are the major premise - and I have placed the abstract (partly to prove that there are papers with longer sentences than may be found in mine 
)
“According to the oscillator model of a neuron, the EEG rhythmicity is qualitatively
predicted in such a way that an increase in the input causes an increase in the frequency of oscillations, and decrease in their amplitude, offering an unified explanation of EEG waves ranging from delta to gamma - which might basically be also the mechanism of information ascending upon the frontolimbic-amplification from the lower frequency (delta,theta) unconscious form of primordial subliminal thought to the higher-frequency (alpha,beta,gamma) conscious thought - pointing at the very mechanism of thinking, closely related to the mechanism of frontolimbic-amplification of the pragmatic language processing, which is dominantly going on the unconscious level. These results might contribute to improvement and development of new techniques of contextual learning (not only of foreign languages but also of other contents), with possible psychotherapeutic implications.”
In this area, I am glad to follow the Gospel and NT teachings on the human spirit/soul - notwithstanding science can continue on its merry way.
1 Like
Nancey Murphy, not Nancy.
The typos are strong with me.