Mark: Only a conscience steeped in OBJECTIVE NORMS (read: 10 Commandments) is a reliable COMPASS to navigate this complicated world we live in.

Why stop with those 10? Why not keep reading the next chapters (Exodus 21-23), and apply the rest of what God told Moses to your life? Probably because it’s a bunch of bollocks, and if you did, you’d be locked up in a mental institute or prison?

Depends. How old are you? Is your conscience WELL FORMED with objective norms, or is it a hodge podge of moral relativism like Luke’s where YOU have decided what is good and bad, right and wrong, etc? If the latter, your conscience is worthless. Only a conscience steeped in OBJECTIVE NORMS (read: 10 Commandments) is a reliable COMPASS to navigate this complicated world we live in. There is a reason GRAY is the devil’s favorite color.

Luke I would say to “come home” to Christianity, but I can now see you were never home to begin with. In order to find Christ you will need to start all over with him. My advice is to look up those two Catholics who departed your church about the same time you did and sit down and talk to them about TRUTH. If you are as open to finding truth as you say you are, then how about hearing what they have to say?

as I see it, the witch doctor has two options:

(i) He can *modify* his thesis and claim that the demons do not directly cause measles, but cause the viruses to move in certain ways, so that we can still say that demons cause measles *indirectly*. But then, the scientist can point to the natural causes of virus movements, and the initial problem crops up again.

(ii) The witch doctor can maintain that measles are overdetermined: they are caused by viruses *and* demons. this is a logically possibility, and I do not think that we can *prove* that it does not obtain. Nevertheless, we are justified in rejecting it – in the same way that we are justified in rejecting phlogiston theory, once we know that burning is explained by oxidation. Why treat demons differently than phlogiston?

At the end your comment, you say:

“My point is that strictly supernatural claims can’t be refuted scientifically. It’s only when they impinge on the physical world that they can (and should) be refuted.”

I partly agree with that. But only partly, because many supernatural claims *do* imply that supernatural beings affect the physical world in some way. Therefore, many supernatural claims are scientifically refutable.

I guess the issue is that at that point it’s totally useless to even discuss anything with the witch doctor. We have plenty of evidence that scientific inquiry works really well, but that unfounded random claims are useless… so you would be completely justified in not listening to him.

The witch doctor’s claim that measles are caused by little invisible demons does not necessarily contradict the scientist’s claim that measles are caused by a virus. The demons are not (I take it) empirically detectable, and are thus scientifically irrelevant. Perhaps the witch doctor would claim that the viruses (the proximate cause of the illness) are under the control of the demons (the ultimate cause of the illness). If this were true, vaccination against the virus would still make sense. But if the witch doctor denies the existence or causal role of the virus, then that claim can be refuted scientifically. If the witch doctor claims that certain ritual practices can ward off the illness then that can also be refuted scientifically.

My point is that strictly supernatural claims can’t be refuted scientifically. It’s only when they impinge on the physical world that they can (and should) be refuted.

Yes, because this “devotee of scientism” provides compelling evidence that wieseltier is an ignoramus. so what’s wrong with that?

Ayer: “And then there are those areas which science cannot by definition address (which happen to be the most fundamental questions humanity grapples with); see:
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12”

This is a more serious issue. But I think that your claim that the supernatural is “by definition” outside the area of science is, at least in its generality, clearly false.

Consider a witch doctor who proposes a supernatural explanation of measles (e.g. “measles are caused by little invisible demons”). Now, if scientists show that measles are caused by a virus, they have – by any reasonable standards – *refuted* the witch doctor’s supernatural claim. Therefore, there are supernatural claims that can be adressed (and refuted) by science.

If science isn’t the only valid source of knowledge about the world, can you give one example where a nonscientific means has provided information about the world? Religion certainly doesn’t count.

Don’t you see that your position contains the hidden assumption that the only valid source of knowledge is scientific knowledge? If that is so, then of course there is “nothing left to explain” when the limits of science are hit, but that is just assuming away the issue, not addressing it.

Scientism is the position that science has authority over other domains of inquiry when it comes to explaining the natural world. I also think of it as the position that everything is explained by natural forces. It is not the position that humans will eventually explain everything using science.

To put it another way, even if science gets to its limits in the manner described by your link above, there’s nothing to say that there’s anything to explain beyond those limits. He argues that there are no more great, worldview-changing discoveries left (an bare assertion, first of all), but even if he’s right, you would have to demonstrate that there is something else to explain before you can claim that there’s something science didn’t explain.

It’s always wrong to postulate that there’s a fairy who always stays just out of sight, and it’s always wrong to postulate a deity that always stays just beyond our knowledge of the universe. You have to have positive evidence that there’s something else beyond science before you claim that science failed (for an analogy, if a car runs out of gas as it reaches its final destination, then the car hasn’t failed in any sense: it completed its journey).

Hmmm… you’re right. I should write a followup post. Thanks!

Science has already begun to hit its fundamental limits. See: http://www.searchmagazine.org/Archives/full-horgan.html

And then there are those areas which science cannot by definition address (which happen to be the most fundamental questions humanity grapples with); see:
http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12

Pete: “you’re quoting a well-known philosophical incompetent (cf. http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/why_review_a_bo.html) to support your case against “scientism”? good luck, ayer.”

You’re citing a devotee of scientism to judge a dispute between Wieseltier and another devotee of scientism? Good luck, Pete

Spending a couple of nights reading a book about evolution is pretty much trusting the person who wrote that book.

And, honestly, I’d rather have someone on a school board do a poll of all of the scientists with PhDs in Biology to determine whether Evolution is true or not, than to pick up a book by the Discovery Institute and spend a couple of nights reading it and determine based on that EVIDENCE that Evolution may not be true.

Oh, how about a member of a school board who is making a decision on whether to include Intelligent Design in the science curriculum? I think it’s perfectly acceptable and necessary for them to trust the experts in this case.

It seems to me that your post was talking about more than just the truth about the physical world. Indeed, the use of the unmodified term “truth” as your reader expressed it (“How should I be trying to find truth?”) suggests something much more all-encompassing.

It depends on what you mean by “basically right.” The Newtonian universe is a very accurate description of the familiar, medium-sized world, but modern theories are by no means mere extensions. Relativity and quantum mechanics are starkly alien to the Newtonian world-view. QM got rid of the notion of particles having individual identities and locations. Relativity got rid of the notion that two observers would ever agree on any measurements of space and time. Newtonian physics has been totally replaced and is only still used today because it is accurate enough and the math is much, much easier.

Like architects designing buildings on top of a flat earth, Newtonian physics is useful but not correct.

I seem to be in an argumentative mood lately. This mood seems to have coincided with going home to visit my parents. Odd coincidence…

I think it’s clear from the way I framed the story that I was talking about the discovery of truth about this universe we find ourselves in. That is, the physical world.

Mankind has indeed been much better with practical knowledge than with other kinds of knowledge. But even still, I stand by my language. Newtonian physics is, as far as I can tell, abnormal in that it is basically right and was merely expanded by future physics. Not so with our earlier theories of almost everything in biology, medicine, astronomy, chemistry, and even psychology. This is really a very, very short list.

Now it sounds to me like you think I’m saying that before we can know anything at all about evolution, we should all become paleontologists and go around digging up fossils!

I’m not saying that at all.

What I am saying is that the person who spends a couple of nights reading one of the many popular books out there on evolution and then decides for him or herself based on the EVIDENCE is doing something very different from the person who just says “Many experts believe X is true, therefore, X is true.”

Instead, mankind awoke and tried dozens of different methods and found that one particular set of methods – the ones we call “scientific” – are the ones that work best at uncovering the truth about the world we live in.

Science does provide the best methods for uncovering the truth about the physical world. But do we live only in the physical world? For example, what about the world of mathematics? Mathematical truths are not discovered by the methods of science. At the heart of science is empirical observation. And empirical observation only applies to physical phenomena.

The external world is real.

Truths, concepts corresponding to reality, exist.

It depends what your goal is. If it’s to gain understanding of how something works, then yes. If it’s to make a good, relatively quick decision, then no.

And that is why what Chuck said was wrong: “You are right to accept evolution, but don’t do it because of “authorities”. Do it because of the evidence.”

It’s perfectly acceptable, and necessary to trust the experts. I rely on the consensus of the scientific community of experts in all sorts of areas that I don’t have the time, expertise, or inclination to learn myself.

Most likely, I read your post wrong. It sounded to me like you were saying, “Scientists have been wrong in the past, therefore science is useless.” I hear it often enough that any hint of it grates. Perhaps I should stop reading Pharyngula for a while.

A part of me wonders how non-experts should judge evidence if relying on the opinion of scientists is not an option. Perhaps this wondering is also a part of my misreading.

A slightly related note: the Copenhagen interpretation (wavefunction collapse) is no longer the majority view among physicists; Many Worlds seems to be in the lead among physicists.

You often mention that we’ve been “dead wrong about damn near everything.” But I think that’s being a little bit facetious. To use a common example, Newtonian physics has been (somewhat) replaced by the theory of relativity in physics. Does that mean that Newton was “wrong”? No, of course not. It’s just that relativity gives us a greater degree of accuracy, etc.

I cringe a little bit when people say something about humans before the scientific method being ignorant. Yes, of course, science has made great leaps in knowledge, and opened up new worlds that we never knew existed. But I don’t think that knowledge is always necessarily either “right” or “wrong”, like 1+1=2 is one of the two. There’s also a degree of accuracy in there. Humans, even without the established scientific method, were able to learn migration patterns of animals, blooming times of various fruits and berries, etc. They had a fairly good knowledge about the things that mattered to them. And using science we’ve been able to improve on those even more, but it doesn’t mean they were “wrong”. The elements of everyday experience – moving, collecting/hunting food, building shelters, creating tools and weapons – all these were done fairly well, even without science. So I can’t really agree with you that humans were “wrong about damn near everything.” It seems that they were good at developing strong heuristics that got them by with reasonable accuracy. And that’s no small accomplishment. The fact that they also believed in spirits and gods seems such a small area in comparison. Or maybe not a small part, but certainly not “damn near everything”.

Anyway, that’s it. Like I said…ultimately inconsequential, but I’m picky :P

By the way, the father, son and ghost are all God but also there is only one God. It works out, just trust them.

wieseltier!? seriously?

you’re quoting a well-known philosophical incompetent (cf. http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/why_review_a_bo.html) to support your case against “scientism”? good luck, ayer.

Do you disagree with me, that trying to understand the evidence is better than merely polling scientists? Because that is all I was trying to say.

Why the long diatribe, friend?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theory

Chuck: There was a time when everyone (I am only talking about “authorities” here) believed in something called the Luminiferous Aether. Even now, many “authorities” (if not a majority) believe in a magical faster-than-light force called “wave function collapse”.

You are right to accept evolution, but don’t do it because of “authorities”. Do it because of the evidence.

Do you think scientists came up with the aether and wave function collapse based on no evidence? I’ll give you the evidence for aether. I would do the same for wavefunction collapse (as I have a degree in physics), but I don’t believe you could actually cite evidence against wavefunction collapse (quoting Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn’t count).

Aether: Every wave observed before Einstein’s time was a traveling disturbance of matter. Sound waves were a disturbance through fluids; water waves are disturbances in water; the Wave at a sports stadium is a traveling disturbance of people out of their seats. Every wave had a medium. When scientists discovered that light was a wave, they looked for the medium that was disturbed to generate the wave effects. As the identity of the medium was unknown, they borrowed an old name for mysterious, all-pervasive substances: aether. It was the failure to show the existence of this substance (and the success of relativity and quantum mechanics) that cause scientists to abandon the aether idea.

Does this mean I believe aether theory? No. The evidence against it overwhelms the evidence for it. It’s just a matter of history that scientists believed in the aether first. At the time, it was less wrong than the particle theory of light. Now, we have better theories than both the wave and particle theories of light known as quantum field theory.

Can we count on scientists to always tell us what the truth of the situation is? No, if science knew everything, it would stop. What we can count on is scientists giving us better information than we had in the past.

Planets moving in circles around the sun was a better explanation for celestial observations than geocentrism.

Planets moving in ellipses around the sun was a better explanation for celestial observations than circular orbits.

Curvature of spacetime caused by mass-energy density is a better explanation for celestial observations than Newtonian gravity.

There is always something wrong with our current theories about how the universe works. If you have something better, bring it forward to be evaluated. There is no conspiracy. Everyone is feeling their way through the dark. Scientists have simply tripped over more furniture than most, so we have a better understanding of the lay of the land.

To those who value direct, mystical experience: what knowledge is gained? Since these experiences are so personal as to be incommunicable, is it more likely to be a consequence of what’s outside a person’s head, or inside?