quote:
It really is about how you approach evidence and knowledge, and for example not throwing out knowledge (or the ability to gain knowledge) just because it might result in something you don't like. This is an epistemological problem both evos and creos share (though evos seem to like to ignore it amongst themselves).
sfs made a good point earlier, a point which relates to this epistemological problem, when he said:
quote:
Perhaps it's because I haven't read the thread carefully enough, but you seem to be to be advancing two rather different ideas. One is that the inspiration for a scientific theory may later prove to be incorrect or useless for science, as Galileo's astrology turned out to be. The other is that some large claims within a theory can turn out to be wrong, even while smaller claims turn out to be correct, as Galileo's heliocentric model of the universe proved to be wrong. I think it's important to distinguish the two points, since they have different practical implications.
I think it comes down to the employment of deduction and induction, the two sides of the "faculty of reason." It also relates to a posteriori and a priori knowledge. The principles of verifiability and falsifiability are deeply intertwined too.
Coming back to holmes thoughts:
quote:
In this case Darwin and Galileo were using science, though did not have enough data at the time to have the greater certainty we have now about their general theories. That did not make them pseudo-scientific, nor their theories. They were scientists working on cutting edges.
The difference between Galileo and Darwin is that we have more evidence to put his work into perspective and make the claim you found in the quote. We don't have that perspective with Darwin, except to the extent that Sylas detailed.
To suggest that the ToE will fall is a bit pseudo-scientific. That it could is one thing, that it will and people should view the ToE that way is something else.
This was an intersting input that really got to the heart of what I was geeting at. Before I proceed further though, I'd like to make one small correction:
I'm not suggesting that the ToE
will fall.
I'm presenting a risky prediction that the greater claims of evolutionary theories will disprove themselves based on the development of science over the last 500 years or so -- and that this will only come about by further dedicated research into the theory.
In other words, I'm not suggesting that people "should" view the ToE that way.
Likewise, I'm not even suggesting that it should be abandonned even if the greater claims were eventually falsified beyond a reasonable doubt.
I'm saying that we must wholeheartedly investigate the theory to its fullest extent and be open to the possibility, based on the developments of science over the last 500 years or so, that its greater claims evenutally could be falsified as new data is brought into the scientific fold.
Really, as you said above, what it all comes down to is how one appraoches their own scientific theories -- the evidence and the knowledge.
Logic is a safe bet if all there is to this world is material. But logic is limited to the finite aspects of this world. Technically speaking,
it seems to me that pure logic cannot even prove with 100% accuracy that we even exist -- let alone prove God's existence 100%.
I may be wrong about this, but when taken to the extreme, pure logic seems to lead to an infinite number of questions leading to forever more questions.
In response to this, some might respond that
our existance must be taken as an axiom -- that it is necessary to understand that we and other people exist as we perceive them in order to be having this discussion in the first place.
If one were to claim that we are only the figments of a dreaming giant's imagination, then there is no way we can prove it, but on the other hand it doesn't mean anything. Our reality would still be what we perceive it to be, despite who or what may have dreamed it up. With no way to observe that which lies beyond reality we have no way of knowing what the dreaming giant looks like, or even if it exists.
In their opinion, it would be concluded that it is therefore irrelevant to us in every way.
While I generally tend to agree with this, I would also admit that, in pointing out this dilema, it leads to some things which further clarify the proper usage of logic.
Some have said that reason will only fail where there is nothing to be gained. They would then ask if I could give a concrete example of a situation where reason would provide a worse course of action than faith.
Logic is the study of what constitutes valid reasoning. From what I gather, it is essentially a search for a method by which valid and consistent reasoning can be "distinguished" from invalid, inconsistent reasoning.
An important factor for logic includes epistimology -- the study of knowledge.
I guess, in this sense, it comes down to some interesting questions: What is knowledge? How do we obtain it? How can we verify it? What are its limits? What is the relationship between the knower and the known?
It seems that the most common and simple definition of knowledge is true, justified belief: I know something if I believe it to be true and that belief is justified. In this sense, however, the question of what "knowledge is" is basically so elusive that the answers seem to be by-products of a particular world-view rather than objective attempts at definition. For example, Plato considered knowledge simply being the opposite of opinion. Marx saw it within the construct of economic relations. For Wittgenstein, it was considered practical know-how within a specific social context. This perspective of knowledge is often either a) heavily debated due the doubt involved of gaining true knowledge, or b) ignored due to the doubts of its very existence.
The answers to the questions of how the mind obtains knowledge seems to fall into three main categories:
The first one asserts that knowledge is an inherent part of our existence in the world. For example, Plato thought that we possessed an intrinsic but imperfect apprehension of the world of "ideal forms". Along these same lines, Hegel felt that knowledge was produced by our involvement in the dialectical process of history.
The second one asserted that our faculties of intelligence and reason enabled us to draw out the truths the world contained. This was the approach taken by Aristotle, Descartes and Bertrand Russell among many others.
The third asserts that we create what we think of as knowledge out of our experience (which is so thoroughly dependent on our psychological, historical, or social condition that it cannot be considered objective knowledge at all). This third assertion also involves the problem of the relationship between the "object" of knowledge and the "subject". This question was first asked by Descartes and other Rationalists of the 17th-century. In what has come to be known as the "epistological turn," he raise the issue of doubt, separting truth from certainty. Neitze, Marx, and the Phenomenologists have carried this question to new levels so that it still forms the main thrust of modern epistemological inquiry.
There also seems to be a newly added fourth category which relates to neurological studies. I will address it below.
In examining the history of the word logic, I've found that it is derived from the Greek word logos. In this context, it generally means something akin to word, reason, speech, discourse, and principle. While it has been used in a variety of contexts, logos usually refers in some way to a "power that brings the world into order". Thus, the words according to which the world was gathered from "chaos into cosmos" constitute the logos.
Footnote: I find it ironic here that the word which has been at times used to characterize God or gods has evolved into a system in which some demonstrate they are no longer provable. It's kind of like using logic to prove that logic doesn't exist.
Logic also involves "a priori" and "a posteriori" kinds of knowledge.
In the case of a priori knowledge, we are dealing with knowledge that comes "prior to" (or independent of) observation or experiment. A priori knowledge is the problematic side of these two kinds of knowledge. Determining what constitutes a priori knowledge depends on the assumptions one begins with.
For instance, knowledge can be said to be a priori if it is independent of a "particular" experience. For example, I know that if I drop a stone here on earth it will fall to the ground.
Knowledge can also be said to be a priori if it precedes "any" experience. This seems to lead into the concept of "innate ideas" -- the concept that there are certain ideas preexisting in the mind.
To my knowledge, Plato was the first person recorded who held this view and discussed it at length. Much later, the Scholastics basicially worked from this notion of innate ideas too -- albeit, with a Judeo-Christian perspective. Even Descartes seemed to echo some of Plato's thoughts, again with variation added.
The first philosophers to totally reject the notion of innate ideas were the 17th-century Empiricists. They held that knowledge could come only through experience (and was therefore molded by one's particular experiences of the world). Locke, for one, objected by reasoing that if any ideas were innate, they would be known to everyone, everywhere. Kant likewise saw ideas as derived from experience, but shaped and ordered by "a priori" categories of the understanding.
Although the notion of innate ideas is almost universally discounted, a number of schools of thought grant to the human mind a "hard-wired" generative faculty. For example (this is the neurological aspect), the linguistic theories of Noam Chomsky are predicated on the brain's possession of a set of algorithms for the production of language. Contemporary work in neurophysics and computer science tends to support the notion that of the mind as essentially the world's most complex data processor. They have postualted that knowledge is a product of the way neurons acquire and store information.
Some do hold to the opinion that certain statements in logic and mathematics are themselves a priori -- or analytic* -- since they depend on the laws of their discipline. For example, consider Willard van Orman Quine. He's considered perhaps the most eminent analytical philosopher in the spirit of the logical positivists of the late 20th century (with a good dose of pragmatism mixed in). Willard questioned the absolute distinction between analytic and synthetic statements. He basically argued that since the definitions of the words are changeable, imprecise, and disputed, the "synonomy" required to make a true analytic statement may be impossible to achieve.
*An analytic statment is considered a priori because it does not depend on experience. The truth depends purely on the meaning of their terms. For example, I could say the analytic statements, "All bachelors are unmarried," or even "2 + 2 = 4". However, since they tell us nothing new, they are of no practical use.
Others, however, insist that these rules "presuppose" the truth of the axioms that support them. This leads us to "posteriori" knowledge. In the case of a posteriori knowledge, we are dealing with knowledge that comes only after direct experience. This is related to the distinction between analytic and synthetic* judgments -- the difference between statements whose truth depends purely on the "meaning of their terms" and those that require "outside evidence" to determine the "truth of their validity".
*A synthetic statment is considered posteriori because it does depend on experience. For example, I could say the synthetic statements, "All bachelors live alone," or even "Two of my children are girls and two are boys". As stated above, they require "outside evidence" to determine the "truth of their validity".
In examining this more clearly, I've come across the principles of verifiability and falsifiability. I've also come across the two sides of the faculty of reason: deduction and induction. I'll discuss the "principles" first, the "two sides of reason" second, and some possible conclusions last.
The two criteria for judging the scientific value of a given proposition are universally dealt with by either the extent to which it can be proved (verified) or the extent to which it can be disproved (falsified). According to both principles, only those things which can be addressed in these terms are the valid object of scientific research.
The principle of verifiability sits at the core of logical positivism mentioned above. This is the early-20th-century movement that sought to apply the precepts of both logic AND empirical science to all fields of thought. Within this context, a theory that is not at least capable of empirical evidence -- for instance, the existence of God -- is by definition meaningless.
Footnote: I also find it ironic here that I'm being asked to prove God's existence by using a method that starts with the assumption that metaphysics, religion, ethics, and other matters of opinion and belief are considered scientifically meaningless -- since they assume that he is outside the scope of empirical investigation. Within this context, it seems as though I'm being asked to prove whether nothingness actually has substance or not.
As I and many others before me have pointed out, "verifiability" is vulnerable to the charge that the principle is itself "unverifiable".
Others, however, have gone further.
For example, Karl Popper dueled with this position. He suggested that universal propositions, such as the law of gravity, can never be definitely verified. Cumulative evidence and repeated experimental results merely increase the "probability" that a proposition is sound. We accept the theory of gravity not because it is possible to prove that an apple will never fall upward, but because it hasn't happened so far.
Bearing this in mind, Popper proposed falsifiability as a more useful criterion than verifiability. Only if a theory, in principle, can be disproved can it be considered scienticially meaningful. It seems to be the unsuccessful efforts to disprove it that give it ever more validity.
Take a look at Einstein's methods and you'll see exactly what Popper was talking about.
Einstein almost recklessly -- even possibly "faithfully" -- exposed his General Theory of Relativity to falsification by predicting the outcome of a daring experiment. It goes without saying that if the outcome had been other than as predicted, the theory would have been discredited (or at least very much delayed until much further evidence was accumulated -- not just two proofs). Einstein's scientific method seems to give an excellent base for what "science" is and how it differs from philosophy and religion.
Consider the following quote from Eric J. Lerner's "The Big Bang Never Happened." (one of my fave books by the way -- because it respectfully asks some hard hitting questions concerning Big Bang cosmology)
quote:
In this ten-year-long effort, Einstein continually introduced basic mathematical assumptions which seemed to him necessary. But he knew that any law of gravity must agree with Newton's laws in most cases, since those laws had been confirmed by millions of observations. Again and again he rejected his assumptions when their consequences failed to agree with observation. "That fellow Einstein," he commented ironically at one point, "every year he retracts what he wrote the year before."
In this he followed exactly the method Kepler had used in the early days of the scientific revolution, when he applied various mathematical theories to the known motions of Mars. Eintein finally arrived at an answer not through deductions from first principles, but through a flash of insight -- gravity can be descibed as a curvature of space. If objects travel by the shortest paths in curved space, then their paths will curve regardless of their mass.
The accepted model, first described systematically by Francis Bacon, conceives of science as an excercise in induction.
But is this wholeheartedly the case?
Are not those who embrace Francis Bacon's scientific method also simultaniously rejecting the pseudo-scientifc world-view that he worked from in order to develop his Baconian method?
Deduction and induction are two sides of the "faculty of reason." They are opposed but complementary methods of arriving at sound conclusions.
In the case of deduction, based on its latin root, we see that it proceeds in the the direction of "leading from". It forms the basis of "classical logic." From what I've gathered, deduction starts with a "universal" -- a general truth or hypothesis -- and leads to knowledge of a "particular" instance of it. The classic form of deductive reasoning is the syllogism, in which a necessary conclusion derived from two "accepted" premises. If the initial premises of the deductive statement are "accurate", it is considered virtually infallible. However, deduction is considered a purely mental process independent of experience. Deduction can also fairly easily be manipulated by providing or revealing only those elements that will support a given conclusion.
In the case of induction, based on its latin root, we see that it proceeds in the the direction of "leading in". It is the foundation of the "scientific method." Induction begins with the "particular" (or "existent") and moves to the universal -- a "generalization" that accounts for other examples of the same category or class. Induction relies on observation and experimentation to determine not a "certainty" but a "high probablity". This is to say, knowledge from induction is always conditional, since the universal itself can never be definitely proved through induction. It's advantage it that, although less definitive, it is generally more useful (since it can generate new information rather than simply exploring aspects of existing knowledge). If one starts believing the inducted idea, however, there's a tendency to filter out any data that doesn't fit it (and it doesn't actually get verified).
In reveiwing induction, I've found that scientists are believed to formulate theories in order to explain pre-existing experimental data, and to verify their theories by accumulating additional supporting evidence. Skeptical philosophers, however, such as David Hume, have questioned whether a series of factual observations could really establish the validity of a general law. It may be the case that one thing follows another thing within our inevitably limited experience, but there is always the possibility that further observations will reveal exceptions that disprove the rule.
This skeptiscism is not merely a logical "curiousity" on my part. Scientists were generally stunned to see the apparently invulnerable edifice of Newtonian physics crumble when modern techniques made it possible to make new kinds of observations.
Likewsie, the hypothetical-deductive approach of Albert Einstein, for whom theories were not generalizations from experience but creative ideas that produce deductions subject to experimental trials, seems to have abolished the notion that hypothesis may be derived only from observations.
In addition to this, the indeterminacy inherent in quantum mechanics has further disturbed the idea of perfect objectivity. Incidently, Planck, who is best known for his quantum theory -- which has revolutionized our understanding of the atomic and sub-atomic worlds -- also worked from a general pseudo-scientific inspiration.
In his 1937 lecture "Religion and Naturwissenschaft," Planck expressed the view that God is everywhere present, and held that "the holiness of the unintelligible Godhead is conveyed by the holiness of symbols." He thought that some attached too much importance to what are merely symbols. Planck was a churchwarden from 1920 until his death, and believed in an almighty, all-knowing, beneficent God (though not necessarily a personal one). He is noted for saying that both science and religion wage a "tireless battle against skepticism and dogmatism, against unbelief and superstition" with the goal "toward God!"
The validity of induction as a basis for science may be philisophically insecure. It may also be just plain wrong. This is to say, scientists do not seem work as the induction model prescribes because observation is always "selective." In scientific practice, the theory normally proceeds the experiment or fact gathering process. In scientific reality, they often do the opposite. Observation requires a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point-of-view, and a problem. Without a theory, scientists would not know how to design experiments, or where to look for important data. Everything would be just a case of serendipity.
It seems to me that it is out of metaphysics, mysticism, and pseudo-science that science has emerged. For example, astronomy owes an enormous debt to astrology and mythology. Modern chemistry owes an emorous debt to its fore-runner alchemy. Even Big Bang cosmology may be indebted to some extent to the "myths" that describe everything created ex nihilo. The point of scientific investigation is not to reject metaphysical doctrines out of hand, but to attempt where possible to transform them into theories that can be empirically tested.
Like I said before, some have suggested that reason will only fail where there is nothing to be gained. They would also ask if I could give a concrete example of a situation where reason would provide a worse course of action than faith.
My asnswer to this is that a theory that appears to explain everything may actually explain nothing. This is to say, a theory with genuine explanatory power makes risky predictions, predictions which excludes most possible outcomes. Success in prediction is impressive only to the extent that failure was a real possibility.
Consequently, a theory's scientific status, in my opinion, may depend less upon its subject matter than upon the attitude of its adherents toward criticism. One may be dogmatic or evasive and therefore unscientific in their method,
while another may state the implications of their thesis so plainly that they invite others to provide examples which refute their claim. I'll go one step further and suggest that scientific methodology exists wherever theories are subjected to rigorous empirical testing, and it is absent wherever the practice is to protect a theory rather than to test it. I've seen plenty of this in the church. But I've also seen plenty of this in science too.
When taken to the extreme, logic seems to lead into the more derogatory classification of scientism: the position that only scientific knowledge is reliable.
It leaves me asking if one could give me concrete example of a situation where logic is not in some way based on faith.
This message has been edited by Magisterium Devolver, 04-16-2005 07:56 PM
This message has been edited by Magisterium Devolver, 04-16-2005 08:01 PM
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