(unedited draft, not final copy)
[12] There are various ways in which this intuitive problem can be more precisely formulated as an argument against the existence of God. One of the most sophisticated versions is the abductive argument of Paul Draper. See Paul Draper “Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists” (1989) Noûs, 23 pp 331-350.
Science, Reason and Skepticism[1]
Stephen Law
What are science and reason?
Humanists
expound the virtues of science and reason. But what are science and reason? And
why should we think it wise to rely on them?
By
science, I mean that approach to finding out about reality based on the
scientific method. This is a method that was fully developed only a few hundred
years ago (though of course we find elements being applied even in the ancient
world)). Science, as I’ll use the term here, is a comparatively recent invention[AC1] , its development owing a great deal to 16th and
17th Century thinkers such as the philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
So what
is the scientific method? Here’s a rough sketch.[2]
Scientists collect data through observation and experiment. They formulate
hypotheses and broader theories about the nature of reality to account for what
they observe. Crucially, they also try to test
their theories. Scientists derive from their theories predictions that can be
independently checked by observation.
Systematic
and rigorous testing, rooted in what we can directly observe of the world
around us, is the cornerstone of the scientific method and thus science as I
define it. Emphasis is placed on
formulating theories and predictions with clarity and precision, focussing
wherever possible on phenomena that are mathematically quantifiable and can be
objectively and precisely measured, e.g. using a calibrated instrument.
Scientists are often able to confirm their theories. A theory is
confirmed by observation if what is observed is more probable given the theory
than it would be otherwise.
Notice that to say a theory has been confirmed
is not to say that it has been
established as true. Even false theories can be confirmed. To say a theory is
confirmed is just to say that it is supported by an observation, even if just
to a small degree.
Nevertheless, theories are sometimes
strongly confirmed. Suppose,
for example, that we can derive from our theory a prediction that is highly unlikely
if the theory is false. Establishing the prediction is true will strongly confirm
that theory.
Here’s an illustration. To explain the erratic
orbit of Uranus given Newton’s Laws of Gravitation, astronomers posited the existence
of a further, undiscovered planet tugging Uranus out of its predicted path.
From their theory, they predicted the location of this hypothetical new planet,
looked, and discovered a planet there (Neptune). Because it was highly unlikely
that there should just happen to be a planet at that position if their theory was
false, this observation strongly confirmed their astronomical theory.
Of
course, theories can also be disconfirmed
to varying degrees. Take for example, the old Aristotelian theory that all
heavenly objects revolve around the earth. With the aid of an early telescope
Galileo observed that Jupiter had moons that revolved around it, not the Earth.
This observation disconfirmed Aristotle’s theory. Indeed, this observation
established beyond reasonable doubt that Aristotle’s theory was false.
True, scientists are human.
They are vulnerable to various social, psychological and financial pressures.
They have their biases. Still, rigorous application of the scientific method is
able to reveal such biases. No matter how psychologically wedded the scientific
community might be to the hypothesis that blancmange cures baldness, and no
matter how much money the blancmange manufacturers might pump into their
research, if blancmange doesn’t cure baldness, a properly conducted scientific investigation
will eventually reveal that fact.
Non-scientific approaches to rationally
assessing beliefs
The
scientific method is a powerful tool, but not every reasonable belief is
arrived at by means of it. People held beliefs, and held them reasonably, long
before the appearance of science. Beliefs can be reasonably held if they are
well-supported by evidence and/or argument, or perhaps because we can just
directly observe that something is the case and we have no reason to suspect we
are deceived, deluded.
Suppose my
friend tells me he has a real elephant in his trouser pocket. Given the absence
of any enormous bulges round his middle, it’s reasonable for me to judge the
claim false. True, I make this judgment on the basis of what I observe, but what
I’m doing here could hardly be called science – certainly not as defined above.
We made these kinds of judgment long before the development of the scientific
method.
Remember,
too, that beliefs can also be supported or refuted by non-empirical means (that’s
to say, without appeal to observation). Take mathematical truths, for example.
That twelve times twelve is one hundred and forty-four is something you can
establish from the comfort of your armchair by reason alone. So can other
conceptual truths. It’s possible, for example, to figure out whether my great grandmother's uncle's grandson
must be my second cousin once removed by just unpacking these concepts and
examining the logical relations that hold between them. Again this can be done from
the comfort of an armchair. No empirical investigation is required. Or suppose
an explorer claims to have discovered a four-sided triangle in some remote
rainforest. Do we need to mount an expensive expedition to check whether this
claim is true? No, again we can establish its falsity by conceptual, armchair
methods.
So, even while acknowledging that science, as characterized
here, is an extraordinarily powerful tool, let’s also acknowledge that other
non-scientific but nevertheless rational methods also have their place when it
comes to arriving at reasonable belief – including armchair methods. Science is
merely one way – albeit a very important way – of arriving at reasonable beliefs.[AC2]
What’s so great about reason and science?
Why
should we favor the application of science and reason over other methods of
arriving at beliefs, such as picking them at random, believing what we would
like to be true, or accepting whatever some self-styled authority[AC3] tells us?
Advocates
of science often point to its extraordinary track record of success. The scientific method, in its fully developed form,
has only existed for perhaps 400 or 500 years – just a few of my lifetimes. Yet
in that short time it has utterly transformed our understanding of the world
and the character of our lives. Five hundred years ago, many Europeans believed
they inhabited a universe just a few thousand years old, created in just a few
days. They possessed almost no effective medicine and relied on their legs or
horse-power to travel the country. By means of science we have discovered the
universe is about 13.8 billion years old, developed electricity and computers,
unravelled the genetic code, created vaccines, and visited the moon.
True,
scientific theories are overturned, and it may well turn out that some of our
current theories are mistaken. Scientific theories are often adopted only
tentatively and cautiously. Nevertheless, the scientific method has allowed us
to overthrow a great many myths and make enormous progress in understanding the
nature of the universe we inhabit. While what scientists assert is sometimes
dismissed by critics as ‘just a theory’ (that’s often said about the theory of
evolution, for example), many scientific theories are extraordinarily
well-confirmed. It is always possible that any given scientific theory, no
matter how well-confirmed, might turn out to be false; that does not mean it is
probable. Many scientific claims and theories, such as the germ theory of
disease or the claim that the Earth goes round the sun rather than vice versa are
now so well-confirmed it’s ludicrous to suggest they’re false.
Science,
and reason more generally, are valued by humanists because of their ability to reveal, or at least get us closer
to, the truth. Science and reason offer us truth-sensitive ways of arriving at beliefs.
Humans
have a remarkable capacity for generating false but nevertheless impressively
rich and seductive systems
of belief[AC4] [SL5] . Almost every culture has evolved beliefs in
invisible and supernatural beings, such as ghosts, spirits, demons or gods. Belief
in magical objects, psychic powers, precognition end-of-world prophecies, etc.,
remains widespread across much of the developed world. Belief in
non-supernatural but nevertheless extraordinary phenomena such as the Loch Ness
monster, alien-piloted flying saucers, alien abduction and conspiracy theories
involving 9/11, the moon landings, and the Holocaust, is also rife. Our
vulnerability to such false beliefs[AC6] is well-documented. Even intelligent, well-educated
people can be surprisingly vulnerable. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of that
quintessentially rational character Sherlock Holmes, believed in fairies, and
was successfully hoaxed by two little girls who faked photographs of fairies
with their box brownie camera.
Very many
of these beliefs
are rooted in testimony – reports
supposedly originating with eyewitnesses to miracles, amazing cures, precognition,
bizarre objects in our skies, and so on. One particularly striking series of
reports concerned an object that appeared over the building site of a new
nuclear power station back in 1967. Sanitation workers claimed they saw a large
lighted object hanging over the plant. A guard confirmed the sighting. The
police arrived. An officer said the object ‘was about half the size of the
moon, and it just hung there over the plant. Must have been there nearly two
hours.’ The object vanished at sunrise. The next night, the same thing
occurred. The county deputy sheriff described seeing a ‘large lighted object’.
An auxiliary police officer reported, ‘five objects – they appeared to be
burning. An aircraft passed by while I was watching. They seemed to be 20 times
the size of a plane.’ A Wake county magistrate who arrived on the scene claimed
to witness ‘a rectangular object, looked like it was on fire… We figured it
about the size of a football field. It was huge and very bright.’ In addition,
there was hard evidence to support these claims: local air traffic control also
reported an unidentified blip on their scope.
A local
news team finally arrived to investigate. The object appeared again at five a.m.
When they attempted to chase the object in their car, the news team found they
couldn’t catch up with it. Eventually, they pulled up and looked at the object
through a long camera lens. “Yep, that’s the planet Venus alright,” noted the
photographer.[3]
Though
this might not otherwise have struck you as remotely likely, those various eyewitnesses
to a large illuminated object hanging over the nuclear plant had seen nothing
more than the planet Venus. That anomalous radar blip was just a coincidence.
What’s
interesting about this case is that if it had not been solved by a bit of good
luck – by those reporters showing up and publicizing the truth – it could
easily have gone down in the annals of UFO-logy as one of the great unsolved
cases. UFO buffs would no doubt have seized upon it and said something like
this:
‘Here we have, sincere,
multiple, trained eye-witnesses - workers, policemen, a deputy sheriff and even
a magistrate. They have produced broadly consistent reports of a large lighted
object hanging over a nuclear plant. They have no motive to give false reports
(indeed, such officials are often hesitant and embarrassed about giving such
reports). It’s absurd to suppose they might just have just seen a planet. Don’t
forget their claims were supported by hard evidence in the form of that radar
blip. Surely the best explanation of this testimony is that there really was a
large lighted object hanging over the plant.’
Fortunately,
we got lucky and now know the truth about this particular case. It illustrates the
point that humans are remarkably prone to generating such false testimony, and
for a variety of reasons. This particular example was produced by an optical
illusion and a coincidence (that radar blip) but take out a subscription to one of the leading skeptic magazines [AC7] and you will discover such amazing reports are
constantly being explained by reference to a wide range of other far-too-easily-dismissed-or-overlooked
mundane mechanisms.
The moral
is obvious: a significant number of such otherwise-unexplained reports are likely
to be made anyway whether or not
there really are any visiting alien spacecraft, psychic powers, or miracles.
But then the existence of such testimony is not good evidence that such
phenomena are real.
True,
it’s often reasonable to take testimony at face value. If Ted and Sarah, a couple
I know well and have learned to trust, tell me that a man called ‘Bert’ visited
them last night, I’ll rightly take their word for it. But if Ted and Sarah add
that Bert flew round the room by flapping his arms, died and then came back to
life, and temporarily transformed their sofa into a donkey, it’s no longer
reasonable for me to just take their word for it that these things happened[4].
When it comes to such claims, we should raise the evidential bar much higher because
we know that such reports – including reports that might seem very hard to
explain in mundane terms – are going to be made from time to time anyway,
whether or not they are true.
One
variety of false belief to which we’re exceptionally prone is belief in hidden agency
– in hidden beings with their own beliefs and desires. We’re quick to appeal to
hidden agency when presented with significant questions to which we lack
answers. When we could not understand why the heavenly bodies moved in the way
they do, we supposed that they must be other agents – gods, perhaps. When we
could not explain natural diseases and disasters, we supposed they must be the
work of malevolent agents, such as witches or demons. When we couldn’t explain
why plants grew, or the seasons rolled by, we supposed that there must be
sprites, or nature spirits, or other agents responsible for these things. As a
result of this natural tendency to reach for hidden agents when presented with a
mystery, we have populated our world with an impressive range of unseen and
mysterious beings and developed extraordinarily rich and complex narratives about
them.
Those who
are broadly skeptical about claims such as those outlined above often disparagingly
refer to them as
“woo”. As we have seen, woo claims – or W-claims, as I’ll call them – [AC8] are[SL9] a diverse bunch, involving psychic powers, alien
abduction, cryptozoology (Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, etc.) past life
regression, end-times prophecies, miracles, ghosts, fairies, demons and gods.[5]
They are claims with which we are peculiarly fascinated (which explains why they
feature so much in tabloid newspapers, fiction, films, and so on) and to which
we are easily drawn. Clearly, while perhaps not all are false, a great many
are. Many have been debunked. Many are incompatible. Many god-claims, for example,
are mutually exclusive. A significant proportion of them must be false.
The humanist
position is that we should take a skeptical
attitude towards W-claims. We should not just assume they are false (some may
not be). However, humanists subject such reports and claims to close rational
and scientific scrutiny, and acknowledge that our inability to find a
plausible-sounding but mundane explanation for a report of a miracle or flying
saucer is not, as it stands, good evidence that the report is reliable.
Some
religious believers insist that if there is a miracle-performing God, then such
miracles are neither impossible nor improbable; thus – they say – those who are
skeptical about miracle reports because they assume miracles are impossible or
improbable are guilty of presupposing there’s no such God. We should note immediately,
therefore, that the reason outlined above for being skeptical about such
reports is not that what is reported
is impossible or even improbable[AC10] . It’s not after all impossible or even particularly improbable that there
exist bizarre and as yet undiscovered creatures that humans occasionally glimpse.
The reason we should nevertheless be pretty skeptical about such cryptozoological
reports (‘Nessie’, ‘Big Foot’, and so on) is that they are likely to be made pretty
regularly anyway whether or not they’re true.
The
scientist and humanist Carl Sagan once said, “Extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence”. Under the heading “extraordinary claims” Sagan would
certainly include what I am calling W[AC11] -claims. Sagan is correct about W-claims[AC12] [SL13] . We should raise the evidential bar much higher than usual before
accepting them. Why? If for no other reason than that we have a remarkable track
record of unreliability when it comes to making them.
In addition,
we also possess excellent evidence that many specific W-[AC14] claims are false. If someone claims they can successfully dowse for water, we
should be pretty skeptical about that claim, not just because we know such claims
are likely to be made anyway whether or not dowsing works, but also because we now
possess ample scientific evidence that dowsing doesn’t work.
The world
is chock full of competing W[AC15] -claims, including religious claims. They are, as I say, claims to which we
are easily drawn and peculiarly vulnerable. If we step out into the marketplace
of ideas just as willing to accept someone’s testimony that they have psychic
powers or a direct line to God as we are to accept their testimony that they
had baked beans for lunch, our heads are soon going to fill up with nonsense. If
we value truth, it’s important we apply science and reason as best we can – as,
if you like, a filter. False beliefs may still get through, but subjecting claims
– especially W-claims [AC16] – to rigorous rational and/or scientific scrutiny before accepting them
gives us our best chance of having mostly true beliefs.
It is for
this reason that humanists insist on subjecting religious claims to such
scrutiny. For of course religious claims usually are, or are built around, W-claims[AC17] . Let’s now turn to some examples of religious claims that have failed to
pass the test.
Science as a threat to religious belief
As a
result of scientific investigation, many religious claims, or claims endorsed
by religion, have been shown to be false, or at least rather less well-founded
than previously thought. Here are three examples:
Young Earth Creationism. Young Earth Creationists (YEC) assert that the
entire universe was created by God approximately 6,000 years ago (certainly
less than 10,000 years ago). This estimate is based on Biblical sources. In the
17th Century, using the Old and New Testaments as his source, Bishop James
Ussher calculated that the moment of creation to be during the night before the
23rd October 4004 BC. Young Earth Creationism has since been empirically
falsified in numerous ways by the cosmological, geological, biological,
archeological and various other sciences.
An Earth-centered
universe. In early
17th Century Europe the dominant cosmology, endorsed by the Catholic Church,
placed the Earth at the center of the universe. The other heavenly bodies,
including the sun, revolved around it. This view was supposedly supported by
scripture. For example, Psalms 96:10 says, “the
world is established, it shall never be
moved." And in Joshua 10:12-13, Joshua commands the
sun to “stand still”, which suggests that the sun moves. This cosmology was
rejected by Galileo (who was accused of rejecting it without proof, and was
subsequently shown the instruments of torture and condemned to house
imprisonment as a result). Science has, of course, established beyond any
reasonable doubt that Galileo was right and the previously dominant religiously-endorsed
view wrong.
The power of prayer. Many people believe in the power of petitionary prayer. For example, it’s often claimed that praying for people with a disease improves their chances of recovery. Yet recent rigorously-conducted large-scale scientific studies do not support this view. Indeed they rather undermine it. In 2006, American Heart Journal published the results of a $2.4 million experiment involving 1,802 heart-bypass patients, conducted under the leadership of Herbert Benson (a specialist who also believes in the medical efficacy of petitionary prayer). The results were unambiguous: prayer had no beneficial effect.[6] A similar large-scale trial of patients undergoing angioplasty or cardiac catheterization also revealed prayer had no effect. That prayer has beneficial medical effects is a religious belief that can be scientifically tested. Tests strongly suggest it’s false.[7]
The power of prayer. Many people believe in the power of petitionary prayer. For example, it’s often claimed that praying for people with a disease improves their chances of recovery. Yet recent rigorously-conducted large-scale scientific studies do not support this view. Indeed they rather undermine it. In 2006, American Heart Journal published the results of a $2.4 million experiment involving 1,802 heart-bypass patients, conducted under the leadership of Herbert Benson (a specialist who also believes in the medical efficacy of petitionary prayer). The results were unambiguous: prayer had no beneficial effect.[6] A similar large-scale trial of patients undergoing angioplasty or cardiac catheterization also revealed prayer had no effect. That prayer has beneficial medical effects is a religious belief that can be scientifically tested. Tests strongly suggest it’s false.[7]
The development of Darwin’s theory of natural selection also poses
significant challenges to religious belief. Most obviously, Darwin’s account is
incompatible with the Bible-literalist account of how the different species
came into existence – including our own species with the creation of Adam and
Eve. It is also incompatible with the Christian doctrine of the Fall, according
to which the entire world is corrupted by the sin of these – it turns out – non-existent
individuals. Darwin’s theory also provides a naturalistic explanation for the
existence of things that, many theists had previously argued, could only
reasonably be attributed to cosmic intelligent design. William Paley, for
example, famously drew an analogy between the eye and a watch. Suppose we find
a watch on a beach. Given it has a purpose for which it is well-engineered, it
is more reasonable to suppose some intelligence designed it for that purpose
than that it is a mere product of natural forces such as the wind and waves.
Ditto the eye, thought Paley. Darwin succeeded in undermining this particular
design argument for the existence of God. He says,
The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly
seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has
been discovered.
Some contemporary theists who accept the theory of natural selection maintain
there is no tension between the theory and the claim that God has guided the
evolutionary process by directing mutations to a particular end – the emergence
of human beings. However, Darwin himself considered the
hypothesis that God guides the evolutionary process in this way is antagonistic
to his own theory[8]. On the theory of natural selection, the mutations that drive the
evolutionary process are random in the sense that they are not goal-directed,
e.g. towards either the adaptive needs of organisms or the production of a
certain sort of species. To the extent
that mutations might be selected by some sort of transcendent being, they would
not be selected naturally.[9]
Religious belief is itself now
increasingly a focus of scientific investigation. In some cases what is
discovered is potentially a threat to the beliefs in question. One example much
discussed in the media is the so-called “God helmet” developed by Koren and Persinger. The helmet produces a weak
magnetic field around the wearer’s head. About 80% of subjects report a
"sensed presence" which they interpret as an angel, a deceased
person, etc. About one percent say that they sense the presence of God. When
the Humanist Susan Blackmore tried the God helmet, she said it produced “the
most extraordinary experiences I have ever had”.[10]
How
might these and similar findings threaten religious belief? Not necessarily by
demonstrating such beliefs are false. As the psychologist Justin Barrett points out:
Having a scientific explanation for
mental phenomena does not mean we should stop believing in them. Suppose
science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me — should
I then stop believing that she does?[11]
Obviously, even if we could show that experiences of God, angels, or the
dead walking among us have a natural, scientifically identified cause, that
would not establish that there is no God, that there are no angels, or that the
dead don’t walk among us. However, were we to discover that these experiences have
such an explanation, and also that, given certain natural facts, people are
likely to report such presences anyway whether or not they exist, that would demolish
whatever support such experiences might be thought to provide such beliefs.
Other rational threats to religious belief
So, science has threatened and indeed established beyond reasonable
doubt the falsity of some religious beliefs. But that’s not to say such beliefs
can’t be threatened and undermined in other ways too.
Surely we don’t need to apply the scientific method in order reasonably to
rule out the hypothesis that our universe is the creation of a supremely
powerful evil deity
– the application of reason to our experience can tell us that[AC18] . While the
universe contains a great deal of pain and suffering and moral evil, it also
contains an enormous amount of good (in the form of love, laughter, ice-cream,
kindness, rainbows, etc.): far too much good, arguably, for us reasonably to believe
this is the creation of such an evil deity. Perhaps an evil god would allow some
good as the price paid for greater evils, but such is the scale of the good
that exists that it is absurd to believe this world is the creation of such a
malevolent being.
I suspect most of us immediately recognize this just isn’t the sort of
world an evil deity would create. Here, it seems, is a god hypothesis we can
reasonably set aside even without bringing the scientific method to bear. Observation
of the world, I suggest, allows me reasonably to rule out an evil god in much the
same way that my observing your trousers allows me reasonably to rule out the
presence of elephant in your pocket.
But if it’s true that we can observe this is not the kind of world an
all-powerful and supremely evil deity would create, why might we not also observe
that it’s not the kind of world an all-powerful and supremely good god would
create either? Surely, given the quantity of pain and suffering we see around
us, it’s also reasonable for us to cross that deity off our list of likely
candidates? This is, of course, the evidential problem of evil – perhaps the most significant threat to belief in
an all-powerful and supremely benevolent god.[12]
The problem of evil may not pose a scientific threat to belief in an
all-powerful, all-good god, but that’s not to say that it can’t be significantly
enhanced by science. Science is able to reveal huge hidden depths of pain and
suffering. It has revealed, for example, that for the two hundred thousand
years we humans have lived on this planet about a third to a half of every
generation has, on average, died before the age of five (from disease,
malnutrition, etc.). The vast scale of this suffering of both children and
parents over such a long period of time before the one true God finally got
round to revealing himself, his one true salvific religion, and the fact that there’s
a good reason for every last ounce of this horror, strikes many humanists as
further excellent evidence that there’s no such deity.
While science and observation are capable of undermining some god
beliefs, they are not the only threat. Armchair methods are also capable of
refuting a god hypothesis by, for example, revealing that the hypothesis
involves an implicit logical contradiction or incoherence (in much the same way
that that the hypothesis that there exists a four-sided triangle does). So, for
example, perhaps we can show, from the comfort of our armchairs, that the very
idea of omnipotence, or omniscience, or of a non-temporal agent that is the
creator of the spatio-temporal universe, makes no sense.
In sumamry, science, and reason more generally, are able to threaten, and
indeed demolish, many religious beliefs.
Immunizing strategies
When religious and other W-claims are challenged by science and reason,
various strategies may be employed in their defence. Here are four examples.
(i) Selective skepticism
When your W-claim is challenged by reason and science, it can be
tempting to play a skeptical card. There is, for example, a well-known
philosophical puzzle about how to justify our belief that science and reason
are reliable methods of arriving at true belief. Surely, any attempt to justify
reason by making a case for its reliability will itself employ reason. But then
the justification will be circular and thus as hopeless as trying justifying the
belief that a second hand car salesman is trustworthy by pointing out that he
himself claims to be trustworthy.
Similarly, pointing out, as we did above, that science has a great track
record when it comes to exposing falsehoods and revealing the truth is to
employ exactly the sort of inductive reasoning on which science is itself
based. So it might appear that this kind of justification is also hopelessly
circular.[13]
Do these puzzles constitute an insurmountable problem so far as
justifying the humanist’s belief that reason and science are reliable methods
of arriving at true beliefs? That’s debatable. But they do at least provide
those whose beliefs are challenged by reason and science with a nice rhetorical
move. In some theological circles a popular response to any serious
intellectual challenge to their belief is to say: “Ah, but reason and science
are faith positions too, aren’t they?
And thus so are all beliefs based on them. So, in terms of reasonableness,
we’re all square. My beliefs are no less reasonable than yours. It’s leaps of faith all round!” They then head
out the door leaving you to solve the thorny philosophical puzzle they have
just thrown in your lap.
I call this strategy “Going Nuclear”. Those employing it aim to achieve
what during the Cold War was called “mutually assured destruction”. Kaboom! By
exploding this skeptical device they aim to bring all beliefs down to the same
level of (ir)rationality.
The key point to notice about this popular ruse is that the person who
employs it almost certainly doesn’t believe what they say about reason. If they
really believed all beliefs are equally reasonable, then they would suppose,
say, that it’s as reasonable to believe that milk will make you fly as that it won’t.
But of course they don’t believe that. They constantly place their trust in reason.
Indeed, they regularly trust their lives to reason whenever, say, they trust
that the brakes on their car while bringing them safely to a halt.
In fact, your opponent was almost certainly happy to employ reason up
until the point where they started to lose the argument. Only then did it occur
to them to get skeptical. You can also be pretty confident that they’ll try
using reason to prop up their belief again once the intellectual threat you
have raised has been forgotten about.
In short, your opponent’s skepticism about reason is inconsistent. It’s just a smokescreen
device - a position they selectively adopt in order to avoid having to admit
that, according to the standards of rationality that they employ in every other
corner of their life, what they believe is false. That’s intellectually
dishonest.
(ii) Reinterpretation
When a prophecy or piece of religious scripture appears to be contradicted
by the evidence, the believer in it will often reinterpret it to make it
consistent with the evidence after all. Take failed end-times prophecies, for
example. Nostradamus’s famously predicted:
The year 1999 seven months,
From the sky will come the great King of Terror.
From the sky will come the great King of Terror.
This was widely claimed to be a prophecy of Armageddon. When July 1999 came
and went and Armageddon failed to materialize, the passage was simply reinterpreted.[AC19]
More recently, the Christian Harold Camping used the Bible to predict
that rapture and Judgement Day would occur on 21 May 2011. When 21 May arrived
and nothing happened, Camping insisted Judgement Day had indeed occurred, only
in a “spiritual” way (which is why no one noticed). He insisted the Bible was
clear that end of the world would then arrive on 21 October 2011.
The Genesis account of a six-day creation is no longer taken literally
by all Christians (though it still is by many). It too has been reinterpreted.
This kind of shoehorning - reinterpreting scripture, prophecy,
astrological predictions, and so on to make them “fit” whatever evidence shows
up - is an immunizing strategy widely adopted both inside and outside of
religious contexts.
(iii) Explaining away
For Bible literalists, the suggestion that Genesis should not be interpreted
literally is not an option. Evidence supporting a billions-of-years-old
universe in which life has existed for billions of years must be made to “fit” their
religious belief in some other way.
Contemporary Young Earth Creationists (YECs) have developed a raft of
explanations for why scientific discoveries concerning the light from distant
stars, carbon-dating, ice cores, chalk deposits, plate tectonics, the fossil
record and so on do not, after all, constitute a threat to their belief in a young
universe.
The fossil record, for example, is now typically explained by YECs by reference
to the Biblical flood on which Noah floated his ark. The deluge created mud
deposits which formed many of the sedimentary layers we now find beneath our
feet. It also drowned many creatures, including dinosaurs, which become buried
and fossilized with those sedimentary layers. The ordering of fossils within
the layers is explained in terms of different ecological zones being submerged
at different times, in terms of the differing ability of creatures to escape
the rising waters (man, being the smartest, would be last to drown, which
explains why we only find traces of man in the topmost sedimentary layers), and
so on.
Of course, such explanations usually just raise a host of other problems
for Young Earth Creationism (YEC). The Flood theory for example, raises some
interesting puzzles regarding the Ark. How did Noah get two of every “kind” of
creature (including the dinosaurs, such as argentinosaurus at100 tons and 120
feet long each) into a boat with a cross section not much bigger than that of
my Victorian terrace house? After the Ark was finally deposited on Mount Ararat,
how did Noah get the creatures back across vast oceans to their various
habitats? Visit a YEC website and you’ll discover much speculation and theorizing
about these questions. What you can be sure of is that the YECs will be able to
cook up some sort of explanation. One way or another, they will find a way to
make the Biblical account of creation consistent with the available data. Achieving
this kind of “fit” is something YECs pride themselves on. Here’s Ken Ham, a
leading proponent of YEC:
Increasing numbers of scientists are realizing that
when you take the Bible as your basis and build your model of science and
history upon it, all the evidence from living animals and plants, the fossils,
and the cultures fits. This confirms that the Bible really is the Word of God
and can be trusted totally.[14]
What Ham doesn’t mention here is
that any theory, no matter how ludicrous, can be squared with the evidence
given enough ingenuity. Believe that the Earth is run by a secret cabal of
alien, shape-shifting lizards? Or that the Holocaust never happened? Or that
dogs are spies from the planet Venus? Or that the universe is the creation of a
supremely powerful and evil deity? All these beliefs can ultimately be made consistent with what we observe, given
sufficient patience and imagination. One way or another, every last anomaly can
be explained away.
There’s a popular myth about science
that if you can make your theory consistent with the evidence, then you have
shown that it is confirmed by that evidence – as confirmed as any other theory.
Proponents of ludicrous belief
systems often exploit this myth. It is exploited by Ken Ham. It may also be exploited
by those who reinterpret their preferred scripture or prophecy in order to make
it “fit”.
In fact, achieving “fit” and achieving
confirmation are not the same thing.
As we saw earlier, a theory can be
strongly confirmed by making a risky prediction – by predicting something that would
be unlikely, or at least not likely, if the theory were false.
The theory of evolution and common
descent, in its fully developed form, does indeed make risky predictions –
predictions that turn out to be true. That means it is strongly confirmed.
Take the fossil record, for example.
The theory predicts fossils will be dug up in a very specific order. It
predicts, among other things, that, because mammals and birds are a
comparatively late evolutionary development, their fossils will never be discovered
within the earlier, pre-Devonian sedimentary layers (which contain over half
the fossil history of multicellular organisms). If the theory of evolution were
false and YEC true, on the other hand, there would be no particular reason to
expect a complete absence of mammal and bird fossils in those earlier deposits
(indeed, YECs wouldn’t be at all surprised had such fossils shown up). Yet,
among the countless thousands of fossils excavated each year, not a single
example of pre-Devonian mammal or bird has ever been found. That’s some coincidence
if the theory of evolution is false. (Note this is just one example of how the theory of
evolution is strongly confirmed. There are numerous others.[15])
By contrast, Ken Ham’s brand of YEC studiously
avoids making such risky predictions regarding the fossil record. Whatever
order the fossils are dug up in is of little consequence to YEC. Mammals and birds
in the pre-Devonian? Fine. No mammals and birds in the pre-Devonian? No
problem. For this reason, while the ordering of those fossils that have been
excavated does strongly confirm the theory of evolution, it does not strongly
confirm YEC.[16][17]
(iv)The accusation of scientism
Those who have subjected religious and other W-claims to critical
scrutiny and found them wanting are sometimes accused of an irrational bias
towards scientism – the view that all
meaningful questions can in principle be answered by science.
Scientism is almost certainly false. Consider the question of why the
universe has the most fundamental laws that it does, or why it exists at all.
These do not appear to be the kind of questions science might, in principle,
answer. Any scientifically established law or principle that supposedly
accounted for the existence of the universe would merely postpone the mystery –
for what, in turn, would explain why that particular law or principle holds?
The most fundamental moral questions are also widely considered to be questions
to which science cannot supply answers. As Hume points out, science reveals
what is the case, whereas morality is concerned with what ought to be the case.
And it appears we cannot justify “ought” conclusions by appeal to such “is”
facts (though Sam Harris has recently challenged this view in his book The Moral Landscape[18]).
Mathematical and conceptual puzzles would also seem to be the kind of
puzzles science can’t solve. Indeed, many classical philosophical puzzles appear,
at core, to be conceptual puzzles the solutions to which will require the armchair
methods of the philosopher.
So I think we should acknowledge that there are questions science can’t
answer (at least some of which can perhaps be answered in other ways). However,
none of this is to say that science, and empirical observation more generally, is
incapable of supporting or refuting religious and other W-claims.
When your belief in a W-claim is threatened, it can be tempting to place
its subject matter behind a protective veil. Many insist that claims about gods,
ghosts, psychic powers and so on are immune to scientific refutation because
they are claims about a realm to which science is necessarily prohibited access.
True, such beliefs may concern a part of reality that is supposedly unobservable.
But the unobservable is not always scientifically off-limits. Subatomic
particles and the distant past of this planet cannot be observed either, but,
because theories about them often have empirically observable consequences, they
are still capable of being empirically confirmed or disconfirmed. The same is
true of religious and other W-claims. If someone insists there exists a God who
answers petitionary prayers, we can check and see if such prayers are answered.
If it is claimed that psychics can communicate with the dead, we can test
whether the information they supposedly receive is reliable, and also whether
it might have been acquired by some other means. If it is claimed that there
exists an all-powerful and supremely evil creator, we can check whether the
universe has the sort of character we should then predict it to have. The fact
that something is, even in principle, unobservable does not entail that it is
not scientifically or empirically investigable.
Admitting that science and reason have not supplied, and perhaps cannot
supply, answers to certain fundamental questions does not entail that science
and reason can’t pretty conclusively rule certain answers out. Suppose I
acknowledge that I currently have no satisfactory answer to the question, “Why
is there something rather than nothing?” Does it follow that I should, then, consider
the Christian answer a serious contender? No. Suppose Sherlock Holmes is having
a bad day. He can’t figure out whodunnit. Still Holmes might still be able
reasonably to rule out the butler, who has a cast-iron alibi. Similarly, humanists
may not be able to answer all of life’s big questions. It does not follow that
they cannot reasonably rule certain answers out – including religious answers.
Further Reading
Believing Bullshit: How Not to Fall Into An
Intellectual Black Hole by Stephen
Law (Amherst: Prometheus, 2011) investigates many of the issues raised in this
chapter. The book focuses on how belief systems can become intellectual black
holes, sucking in the unwary and making them intellectual prisoners. Examples
include Christian Science, Young Earth Creationism and belief in psychic
powers. The book outlines eight key mechanisms that tend to be involved in both
immunizing such belief systems against refutation and creating a veneer of faux
reasonableness.
How to Think About Weird Things by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn (New York: McGraw Hill, 2013) is a good
general introduction to philosophy of science, critical thinking and the weighing
up of extraordinary claims. The book is expensive, but has been through many past
editions, all of which are good and which are often available secondhand.
Anomalistic Psychology: Exploring Paranormal Belief
and Experience, by Prof Christopher C. French and
Anna Stone (Basingstoke UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), is an excellent textbook
on the psychology of weird beliefs.
Why Statues Weep: The Best of “Skeptic”, by Wendy M Grossman and Christopher C. French (eds.) (Rickmansworth:
The Philosophy Press, 2010) contains some entertaining examples of strange
claims being properly investigated.
Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the
Demarcation Problem by Missimo
Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry (eds.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)
is a more academic book that looks at the issue of how to distinguish science
from pseudoscience (the so-called “demarcation problem”.
[1] My thanks to Richard Carrier, Bob Churchill, Wes Morriston, David Papineau and Luke Tracey for helpful comments on previous drafts or partial drafts.
[2] Nothing I say here should be understood to
commit me to the view that, say, observation is not theory-laden, that scientific
progress is uniform, etc.
[3] Philip
J. Klass, UFOs: The Public Deceived
(Amherst NY, Prometheus Books 1983), p 83.
[4] Indeed, we might apply what I have called the contamination principle here: given we should be skeptical
about the many miraculous parts of Ted and Sarah’s testimony, shouldn’t we also
be skeptical even about the more mundane parts, such as that they were visited
by a man called “Bert”? This point is developed in relation to testimony concerning the
existence and miracles of Jesus in
my paper “Evidence, Miracles and The Existence of Jesus, Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2,
April 2011. Pages 129-151
[5] In characterizing W-claims, I (i) say they are
claims to which we are both peculiarly drawn and pretty unreliable, and (ii)
provide a series of illustrations – e.g. miracle claims and claims about
invisible beings. Notice I mean to define W-claims relationally. Being a
W-claim is something like a secondary quality of a claim. What qualifies a
claim as a W-claim is just the fact that it is a claim of a sort with which we
are peculiarly fascinated and about which we are pretty unreliable. For alien
beings with different fascinations and unreliabilities, miracle claims and
claims about invisible beings may not be W-claims. While my characterization of
W-claims is rough and ready, it is clear enough, I think, that miracle claims
and claims about the existence of invisible beings do indeed qualify.
[6] H.
Benson et al., “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessionary Prayer
(STEP) in Cardiac Bypass Patients: A Multicenter Randomized Trial of
Uncertainty and Certainty of Receiving Intercessionary Prayer,” American Heart Journal 151 (2006):
934–42.
[7] M. W.
Krucoff et al., “Music, Imagery, Touch, and Prayer as Adjuncts to
Interventional Cardiac Care: The Monitoring and Actualization of Noetic
Trainings (MANTRA) II Randomized Study,” Lancet
366 (2005): 211–17.
[8] Darwin (1868), p. 236. –
(1868). The Variation of Animals and Plants
Under Domestication. New York: Appleton, 2nd edition, 1876.
[9] For a more detailed discussion of this and
related issues see Herman Philipse, “The Real Conflict Between Science
and Religion: Alvin Plantinga’s Ignoratio
Elenchi” (forthcoming).
[10] Roxanne Khamsi (December 9,
2004). "Electrical brainstorms
busted as source of ghosts". BioEd Online.
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/nature-news/electrical-brainstorms-busted-source-ghosts/
[11] Quoted in an email
exchange with Robin
Marantz Henig in latter’s “Darwin’s God” New York Times 4th March 2007.
[12] There are various ways in which this intuitive problem can be more precisely formulated as an argument against the existence of God. One of the most sophisticated versions is the abductive argument of Paul Draper. See Paul Draper “Pain and Pleasure: An Evidential Problem for Theists” (1989) Noûs, 23 pp 331-350.
[13] For an explanation of this problem of induction
see the chapter “How Do I Know The Sun Will Rise Tomorrow?” Stephen Law, The Philosophy Gym: 25 Short Adventures in
Thinking (London: Headline, 2003)
[14]
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/lie/root-of-the-problem
[15] See for example the talk Origins archive entry by Douglas Theobald, 29+
Evidences for Macro-evolution Part 1: the Unique Universal Phylogenetic Tree.
Available online at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html
[16]
Elsewhere I have said
that because Ham’s theory makes no predictions – takes no risks – regarding the
fossil record, so it cannot be
confirmed by the fossil record. See “But It Fits!” in my Believing Bullshit (Amherst NY: Prometheus Press, 2011). I now
realize I did not get this quite right. Were we to start excavating fossils
that were clearly stamped “Made by God in 4,004 BC”, etc., that might indeed
confirm – even strongly confirm – YEC, despite the fact that YEC does not predict such a discovery. True, such a
discovery may not be probable given YEC, but, given the discovery is
nevertheless considerably more probable on YEC than otherwise, it would still
confirm YEC to a significant degree.
[17]
Also notice that each
new assumption Ham introduces to try to explain away the evidence against YEC
has the effect of reducing the prior probability of his overall theory. Ham
succeeds in endlessly protecting YEC against empirical refutation only by
endlessly reducing the prior probability that YEC is true.
[18] Sam Harris, The
Moral Landscape (London: Black Swan, 2012).
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