Comments on: Intelligent Design and Faith Schools

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 00:12:37 +0000

Just to aggravate the mysterians a bit more: ;)

“… The view implicit in this book, which I now want to make explicit, is that science does not name an ontological domain; rather it names a set of methods for finding out anything at all that admits of systematic investigation. The fact that hydrogen atoms have one electron, for example, was discovered by something called the “scientific method”, but that fact, once discovered, is not the property of science; it is entirely public property. It is a fact like any other. So if we are interested in reality and truth, there is really no such thing as “scientific reality” or “scientific truth”. There are just the facts that we know. … The fact that hydrogen atoms have one electron is a fact like the fact that I have one nose. The only difference is that for quite accidental reasons of evolution, I do not need any professional assistance to discover that I only have one nose, whereas given our structure and given the structure of hydrogen atoms, it takes a good deal of professional expertise to discover how many electrons are in a hydrogen atom.

There is no such thing as the scientific world. There is, rather, just the world, and what we are trying to do is describe how it works and describe our situation in it. As far as we know, its most fundamental principles are given by atomic physics, and, for that little corner of it that most concerns us, evolutionary biology.”

-John R. Searle

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:00:33 +0000

Rollo, I’m not sure what you want. Science shouldn’t study certain subjects until a committee headed by you deems the human race “ready”?

By: Bro. Bartleby

Bro. Bartleby — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 13:02:17 +0000

Bro. Rollo,

I second that! Now, what’s for breakfast!

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 09:58:19 +0000

Reading Steve Fuller, it’s quite clear that he agrees ID is creationism. In fact, he’s arguing specifically for Christian creationism and therefore against (the ostensible version of) ID. So why does he keep referring to ID?

I’d also be interested to know whether he took this line, with explicit Biblical references in the Dover trial where he testified.

By: rollo

rollo — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 09:28:49 +0000

Walt- I’ve pretty much run my string on this, but I’ll try to answer a couple of things you’re saying.
“Incensed” is inaccurate. There isn’t anything in what I wrote to Steve about that quote that makes it apt. The way you reframe it puts the emphasis on his boosting the superior cosmology of science, but the way it’s written it finishes actively dismissive of theology. I stepped into the line of fire to speak in defense of something that isn’t protected by the heavy armor of the two warring parties. That’s clear enough I think.
Also clear is that I’m broadening the collective to its etymological root, “God discourse” isn’t Intellectual Property no matter who says it is. You guys are fighting a particular subset of theological champions, and they’re fighting back.
My consistent and very much repeated point is that this serves to confirm both sides, while disenfranchising any other position.
The battle for the hearts and minds of men, as you call it, is a constant, ongoing thing. Seneca engaged in it, Marcus Aurelius, Swift, Vico, and about a million, or at least a hundred, other brilliant humane thinkers fought for that very thing.
The one indisputable point of agreement we have is the validity of the struggle to keep science classes scientific, with curricula freely chosen by scientists.
One of the reasons it’s a defensive position is the intolerant and hypocritical rigidity of institutional religion, especially the Judeo-Christian fundamentalism that’s been given so much political power and encouragement lately by cynical and manipulative operators.
Another reason is the saturation of the human landscape, which is now virtually identical to the globe itself, with the cornucopian bounty of a scientific progress that has had its head for centuries. Ungoverned, its only principle utility – anything with immediate gain and no provable immediate harm is considered progress and must not be obstructed.
That cornucopia’s looking more like Pandora’s Box every day.
Inasmuch as science examines everything, it certainly does stick its nose into poetry and religion, it’s supposed to, that’s what it does, examine everything.
And there’s one of the more obscure things I’m trying to get at – too much knowledge at the wrong time and in the wrong place can be a bad thing, without a core integrity to process it. Too much self-consciousness on that first date can dampen even teenage ardor; too much awareness of how far down it is, and what would happen, is not conducive to successful free-climbing. Etcetera.
The fact that science is building a knowledge base that by its nature is going to be incomplete has some corollaries that place us squarely in the middle of a gloriously infinite unknown, no matter how much we learn. That has practical implications. And they only get greater and more serious the more we learn how to apply what we learn.
A factory in China, with thousands of identical human automata processing millions of identical battery-raised genetically-modified chickens is one fairly benign example of the application of scientific knowledge stripped of any human moderating influence.
Efficiency without soul – it’s what we used to use insect hives as a metaphor to describe. Soul being a distinctly non-scientific term.
It’s by a failure of both science and religion, not one or the other, that the world has become so dangerous. Even as we’ve gotten so adept at protecting ourselves that every large predator that ever threatened us is now either threatened with or a victim of extinction by our doing.
We’re shaping the human heart right now, and the world itself, so of course the battle’s engaged.
The possibility that anything capable of producing something like us, however it happened, could be already superior to us in ways we don’t have the instrumentation to measure or analyze – I’m asking that scorn for the dishonest arguments of these latest theocratic wannabes not cloud that possibility, and the mandate of care and caution that should accompany it.

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 04:24:23 +0000

The quote of Steve’s that so incensed you is not a comment about the moral implications of science, but its mystical implications. General relativity and quantum mechanics are stranger than anything imagined by theologians. This is not even a particularly anti-religious viewpoint: if you are religious, theology is the handiwork of humans, while physics is the handiwork of God.

The fight over intelligent design is not some final apocalyptic battle for total victory between logical positivism and religious fundamentalism for the hearts of men. Such a battle is a long way away. This is a purely defensive fight, to defend the principle that scientists should decide what’s taught in science classes. Scientists here are not trying to advance into the realms of poetry or theology, but preserve the integrity of science classes.

Science does not purport to be anything like a complete theory of knowledge. That’s the key to science’s success: it answers the questions it can, and leaves the others to another day. Science can’t tell you who to vote for, what the purpose of life is, what right and wrong is, what makes a poem good, and doesn’t pretend to. Scientists have opinions on all of those things, but science does not. What more can you possibly ask?

By: rollo

rollo — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 02:55:15 +0000

Steve- The back and forth has deteriorated some, but before it dies out completely I’d like to make it as clear as I can that I think this issue is paramount – central politically socially and materially,let alone spiritually.
Proceeding directly out of the sense of first cause – whichever p.o.v. you come to, primordial soup, alien jetsam, or divine forge – are the exigencies of moral consequence.
A purely scientific, rational-positivist view will be of necessity partial and incomplete, even as it’s added to daily and carried out to the muon/string boundaries of theoretical physics. Nothing there but the building blocks of matter means no moral p.o.v. but the subjective.
And as bartleby points out there are some pretty nasty subjectivities around.
Not to mention the lack of external obligation meaning that, as the only visible and articulate actors on the stage the human, or anthropocentric, version of cause-and-effect and right-and-wrong etc. is going to be all that matters.
It’s a kind of cosmic sociopathy.
The converse, coming from traditional religious sources, is proprietary and rigid with dogmatic addenda that bring it perilously in line with the aforementioned coldly arrogant moral – if not solipsism – egotism.
I may be flattering myself but I like to think what I’m suggesting is a lot closer to what Einstein was getting at – humble diligence and imperative factual honesty toward all phenomena. That would include the unknown is the point. The unknown not as part of the to-do list, not deferred until known, but as presence now, here, with us.
I’ve watched over the years since Asimov and Heinlein and those guys first clued me in to the limitless nature of the stellar universe the steady advancement of the known contiguous and increasingly fantastic boundary layers of the physical cosmos. And right behind that the Eureka! boys with their constantly-adapted litany of “Here it is!” – the ultimate bit, the last particle, the final outer edge, the stop sign at the end of the universe.
Past that nothing.
So here we are, the only sentient creature in our corner of the void. So anything goes.
That attitude comes right out of that point of view.
And it gets its credence and viability from the nonsense and superstition of the other side – as long as there’s only two sides.
We’re making massive alterations in everything around us, to a degree some think is now inalterably terminal.
I’m holding out for the possibility of the unseen chance – with a rider, that even if it’s too late, going out trying to get it right is more loyal to the best of what we are than despair and cynicism will ever be.

By: Bro. Bartleby

Bro. Bartleby — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 01:36:03 +0000

“Good behavior” is such a “lowest-common denominator” generalization that I would think that the parties thrown in Nazi Germany were filled with folks behaving goodly … while thinking thoughts bereft of morality.

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 00:41:30 +0000

Why do you want to seek moral exemplars only among the practitioners of a particular profession? Why not seek models of good behavior, if such you require, wherever you can find them?

By: rollo

rollo — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 22:57:51 +0000

Walt – Gee, that’s a tough one to disagree with. I take it you mean the creationist/evolution-somethingist debate. Or possibly you mean the original post which wasn’t as I took it so much an argument as Harry’s advocacy of religion as subject in public school curricula, and his throwing that question out for general discussion and opinionating.
Or maybe the argument you mean is the Newton-was-an-alchemist-yes-but… sub-thread?
My specific reference above to Steve Labonne’s smug dismissal of all theologians with the pithy phrase I’ve already quoted twice and won’t again should have indicated a tangent, a narrower target, and the clear intent to nitpick. Maybe it wasn’t so clear.
Also I did say I thought the overall context for all this – which I’m sure you’ll agree is the rising intensity of pressures, social and political, around the worldviews behind the massed armies of disagreement viz. Darwin v. Bible and the “clash of civilizations” trope that pits Judeo-Christian militancies against those of Islam – was structured so that whichever side emerged victorious the real victor would be anthropocentric, as there were no other officially-sanctioned teams on the field without that attribute.
A point I haven’t managed to make to my own satisfaction here is the apotheosis of selfishness inherent in virtually everything that’s held up as superior by the culture’s preponderant voices.
Ungoverned selfishness being pretty easily revealed as the base-metal of all iniquity, great and small.
What the ID/evolution contest is really about isn’t being made plain I think, therefore a lot of the participants and most of the spectators aren’t resolving anything so much as confirming something that isn’t being overtly acknowledged.
So in the sense that that is to me crucially important, much more than the silly wasting of energy and time the authorized debate’s been organized around – yeah I’m interested in a different argument.
But you know, this thing where one individual sort of represents the “group” – as in “on offer here” – in pointing out the lack of cogency of another disputant? Kind of a refuge for the lacking-in-sufficient-rebuttal, but-wanting-to-push-back, type of thing, no?
Plus a comments thread that’s moved from contemporary education to the alchemical endeavors of Isaac Newton can’t really be said to be all that tightly focused, I mean, can it? I mean you know, as far as specific arguments being “on offer” or not.
Returning to the immediate discussion – if scientists aren’t to be our moral exemplars, and theologians aren’t either, well then who the hell is? Paris Hilton? Dr. Phil? Rupert Murdoch’s minions?
Scientists, the exciting ones anyway, are operating at the absolute edge of the real, out where things get manifested, plucking what we encounter next out of the well of the possible. Maybe they shouldn’t be exemplars, but they damn sure better be as moral as it’s possible to get. Or are we jettisoning morality entirely now?
And you know that was kind of the point for me all along. In fact I said that. Already. Twice, at least, in so many words.

By: Bro. Bartleby

Bro. Bartleby — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 13:59:45 +0000

Bro. Steve,

In the words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Maybe I could start a new church, instead of pews, we could have long, narrow lab tables and stools, and each church goer would have a microscope and various scientific instruments to work with as the sermon is given. And who knows, if the church really grows, we could have a thousand laity doing labwork for a thousand Sunday mornings, and perhaps we could come up with not a Shakespeare sonnet, but something of scientific equivalent … say some stemcell research that would bolster the research of … of say Dr. Hwang’s lab in South Korea.
;)

Bro. Bartleby

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 13:30:27 +0000

No one is advocating that they be considered our moral exemplars, or that they become a substitute for our consciences. Good God, I sure hope not, considering some of the cutthroat competitors I was aware of when I was in academic science. And in turn, I would hope that nobody who has even a nodding acquaintance with church history would propose setting up theologians as moral exemplars either. ;)

By: Bro. Bartleby

Bro. Bartleby — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 04:38:51 +0000

If I recall, the Paladin self propelled howitzer system will go into production next year, I’m sure some in the military are anxious to field test it in Iraq … before the war is over. Nothing like the thrill of firing a Paladin howitzer at some terrorist hiding in some spiderhole over the horizon. And funny, the last I’ve checked I found not one theologian on the list of patent holders for the new weapon system. In fact, I’ve checked many of the weapons and systems and again, not one theologian on the list that is replete with scientists. But then again, most theologians are most likely spending all their time thinking of paradise and … perhaps pondering the morality of inventing ever newer weapon systems.

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 04:15:37 +0000

Rollo, you seem interested in having a different argument than what’s on offer here. Scientists are not moral examplars—for all I know, they’re worse than average. I’m sure scientists have murdered their spouses, abused their children, exploited their positions of authority for personal gain. If there was a movement to make scientists world dictators, I would oppose it.

The peak of influence and admiration of scientists passed long ago. No one is advocating that they be considered our moral exemplars, or that they become a substitute for our consciences.

By: rollo

rollo — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 03:21:28 +0000

Steve
Fear not, my friend!
While my acquaintance with science has been entirely outside the academy and mostly outside the laboratory, one of my best friends was a scientist! A herpetologist! Snakes, lizards, amphibians!
I think Dennett’s theory of consciousness, as far as he’s gotten it, is great and very close to the mark.
I’ve poked around in E. O Wilson’s more popular work – and, of course, I have an affinity for guys like Tesla and Velikovsky.
I do despise those inhuman creatures who under the guise of scientific discovery have committed ghastly crimes against our animal relatives – I could show you pictures! Aaagh!
This does color my view of science, yes, just as the idiocies of creationists color yours of religion.
Not all science is okay. Not all religion is okay.
You cherry-pick your theologians to dismiss theology generally, then you cherry-pick your scientists to trumpet the magnificence of science generally.
I’ll give you Torquemada and Pat Robertson, but you’ll have to give me Joseph Mengele and a clot of anonymous behaviorists who have put their knowledge and its gain above any moral restraint; and if we’re both going to be honest about it I’m afraid we’ll have to follow the tree of outcomes in both cases to a flawed and somewhat shameful present.
Einstein’s talking about the philosophy of science more than its application, and both he and you elide the necessity for ethical governance of some kind on the near infinite possibilities of scientific exploration.
Where does that governance originate? What moral principles can withstand thorough analysis? Reduced to the subjective, it all disappears into mammalian touchy-feely illusion.
We think things are wrong because they bother us. Solipsism, no?
You know and I know that the behaviorists were straining against their traces, champing at the bit to get their theoretical hands on human subjects as soon as the discipline opened up enough to make that possible.
Which, as obscured by this excessive and indulgent prose as it might be, is my main point.
There is no ethical boundary in the rational-positivist prove-it-first world. Mengele’s “work” can be defined down into meaningless subjectivity. A strategy for advancement no different than any other. Our revulsion to it comes from a morality we got from religion.
The moral stance that condemns it erodes without something more than individual conscience and its inherited mishmash of religiously-based moral dicta and a vague and insubstantial sense of right and wrong we learn as children. There probably isn’t a genetic basis for specific moral distinctions – so where do we get them?
Dennett’s theory as I understand it is that there is no center to the self in the brain, that out of the electro-magnetic cloud of neural activity the process of personality grows a self-consciousness that “we” are.
What I’m saying is that personality is likely mirrored in the larger thing we make together, that thing this debate is a struggle toward directing the course of – humans, being.
And like that personality we need guidance, instruction, example. As individuals we get that from our parents and the social culture around us; where does that culture get it?
Science?
A picture of where we are that places us in the center of a vast uncaring void, a morally neutral environment, puts the onus of direction entirely on what we are already, our resource only the very limited understanding we already have.
Science, even as Einstein has it in your quote, is a movement forward, from the self, to a “mental grasp of this extra-personal world”.
Religion is the attempt to converse with the extra-personal world, with the hope, and faith, that there’s something there to hear us.
They aren’t in conflict in the abstract, but their applications are and have been flawed by the selfishness and arrogance that underly all moral failing.
Forced to choose between the two I’d have to go with science, but we got here by doing both, and it’s to that I’m pointing, not to one or the other. The honesty of science, the humility of religion – that kind of balance is how we walk.

Rilke, Duino Elegies, First Elegy, Robert Hunter’s translation:

The very stars, row on row,
sparkled for your attention.
From bygone days a wave rolled
or a violin yielded itself as you
wandered by some open window.
These were your instructions.
But what could you do-
distracted, as you were,
by all of that significance?-
as though each signpost
pointed on beyond itself
towards something higher yet…