Avalonian… yes, those underlying assumptions would be belief if we were discussing some deeper metaphyical truth (which most do when they discuss science, methodology notwithstanding).
Belief, I’ll conceed, is the foundation of all. I do not agree with the use of the word “faith”, however.
I can understand that. I think my definition of “faith” is a little more expanded than most people’s. Faith has religious implications for most, but for me… I can “have faith” in any number of things without ascribing to any religious tenets. It is in that sense that I meant the word, as it applies to science. I can imagine a universe of Riemannian geometry, but for now I have faith in the Euclidian system. It’s almost synonymous with “belief,” other than the idea that faith still does have implications towards metaphysical topics for me.
If you don’t like “faith,” erislover, then what word would you prefer to use? Perhaps it would be an improvement on the words I am using.
I agree that the word ‘faith’ finds use outside of religious implication, but inside the context of belief I do not feel it can be so easily avoided.
I know the sun will rise tomorrow (by my conception of knowledge). I believe I understand why this is so. I believe in the Christian God (via a hypothetical, I don’t actually). I have faith in his wisdom. Faith, to me, is knowledge… on the other side of belief. Make any sense to you?
nods Prefect sense, erislover. I think I hear you now. I wasn’t aware that you were religious earlier. For you, the concept of “faith” is closely tied to your religious beliefs. Would you agree? For me, this isn’t the case.
I actually like what you say… “Faith is knowledge on the other side of belief.” I think I need to remember that. Even though it’s doesn’t carry the religious implications for me, I think it applies to me too.
Anyway… I think we understand one another.
—Theists believe that the universe possesses this sort of order because there is a rationally orderly God who created the universe.—
So? How is that any more supportable than simply claiming that the universe is consistent and rational (I don’t think anyone seriously can claim that it is, on the whole, orderly)? Indeed, the theist account requires several orders more backstory to it to even get off the ground. It’s not that it’s right or wrong: it’s simply that it doesn’t solve the problem of origins any better (I doubt anything can, formally) than anything else.
Further, the original poster did level a valid criticism at the idea: one cannot have it both ways with an “ordering” god: appeal to a natural regularity based on the idea that god is orderly, and also deny that this order could not, at any time, mean what to us would be a glaring deviation in what we believed up until that point was the natural order. This is generally a problem with all such claims about what a god can and cannot do once it has been established that the god is source of the particular concept in question.
—Classical atheism held the universe holds to the metaphysical view of a universe dominated by chance events and hardly implied an orderly universe.—
I think you are being rather disingenous in talking about “classical atheism,” whatever THAT is, or the “holdings” of non-theists.
You are being remarkably lax about what you mean by “orderly” here. If I take your meaning as best I can, perhaps you are saying that the historical linkage of religion with ordered essentialism provided people with the idea that the universe was easily analyzed for universal traits, and this view tended to push in the direction of more systematized scientific exploration. A case can certainly be made for that, though its worth noting that most of the major scientific revolutions have involved a dismantling of essentialist assumptions.
But I still cannot put my finger on what you mean by setting “chance events” in contrast to “orderly.” You seem to be conflating two different levels of chance and order, as well as confusing intentional order with plain order. Certainly, atheists don’t think that there’s any reason to believe that the order of the universe was intended: but that is hardly the same thing as renouncing the existence of order. Even saying the universe is dominated by chance events (talking on at least a cosmological scale view of the universe as we see it: would you really disagree?) is not the same thing as saying that it is disorderly, or that there are no regularities worth studying. Quite the contrary.
—Perhaps some justification could be made that’s compatible with atheism (I think it can be done), but theism proved to be more conducive to the order in the universe when it came to the birth of modern science.—
I’m not sure there were very many atheists running around at the time in the first place, for which we could get any fair “more” comparison. There weren’t very many Chinese people around for the birth of modern disco either, but that hardly says anything about the ability of the Chinese to do the dance.
—Thus, order in the universe and theism can clearly be quite compatible and perhaps even complementary.—
Indeed, but you could have made this conclusion without a pointless an unjustified dig at atheists, who can have just as little problem positing such a universe. You shouldn’t be talking about “cans” with regard to one extremely vague group and “I can think of some examples of can’ts” with another vague group.
(I also don’t think it’s helpful to say without further explanation that “the universe” is orderly, when it is really only CERTAIN things about it are orderly, which is the whole point)
—There really is no logical principle to tell us that physical laws will hold true in places where we haven’t tested them (even if that place is the future).—
Indeed. But, and I think you’ve missed the crux of this matter if you neglect this point: if they DIDN’T then it would be unintelligible to speak of physical laws. And perhaps it IS unintelligible to speak of them: I agree that we have nothing outside of philosophical assumptions to assure ourselves that it is not. However, if we ever wish to have discussions about this thing we call “truth about the universe” in the first place, then we are going to need to simply grant the axioms that make the concept at least operationally meaningful. The entire enterprise may well be fruitless, but that is simply the chance we take for wanting to ever make such “universal” statements in the first place, and at least we know exactly what we have as opposed to yet another groundless essentialism.
—Most professional scientists do believe they are discovering the truth about nature. For instance, they believe that there really are such things as atoms, DNA, and so forth. They don’t use such theories just because it’s convenient to describe a pattern. They accept them because they believe them to be true. —
This argument relies upon seeing into the minds of others in a way I don’t think is quite fair. It neglects the fact that most real scientists may, and do, have much more sophisticated views on the matter than your account gives your conceptual people credit for. Not only of what they are doing, but what they MEAN by “truth about nature.” They could well have a more constrained operational definition of what they mean by “the truth.”
Personally, I don’t think it’s fruitful to speak about “truth” outside of pure logic unless we have some sort of operational definition of what we mean by it. Far too many discussions of the nature of truth run aground simply because no one thought to define what they mean when they say that something is “true.”
—More to the point though, what are the ultimate foundations of science? First, I think we need to recognize that science has more philosophy integrated into it than some might think.—
Indeed: it’s a whole school of thought unto itself.
—Why is it not a scientific thing to do to reject the five-minute hypothesis as false? Scientists automatically reject this hypothesis when they choose the theory of the universe being much older. It certainly seems to be a very strange thing to have truth not be a relevant factor when the decision is made in choosing scientific theories.—
I think that it could be more a matter of: if the five minute hypothesis is true, then there’s not much more to say about the matter (certainly no scientific evidence can be proffered that does not beg the question). So, while we can’t reall say if it’s true or false, we are still interested in the various things we could discover if it were not the case.
—I have this hypothesis that everything in the universe is random and unconnected. What looks like cause and effect is really just coincidence.—
We actually have no way of telling if there is such a thing as cause and effect, as Hume and Kant both discussed extensively. What we do seem to have, according to Kant at least, is the IDEA of causality ingrained pretty firmly in our minds: perhaps innately.
—Similarly, next time you add 1+1 together, you’ll get 19. Sure, every time before, you’ve gotten 2, but that’s just another coincidence.—
This is quite different, or at least, whether it is or not is very controversial. 1+1 don’t equal 2 because we’ve proven that they do via many trials. 2 is simply the answer by definition, once you accept the basic axioms of covnentional math.
—This is a universe in which cause and effect don’t exist. And it would look just like our universe, but science would be useless as a predictive tool in such a universe—
Not at all. Science works at being predictive because there is, so far, regularity in what you call coincidences, not because we can be sure that causes truly act to bring about their effects. This MAY BE a universe in which there is no cause and effect, and all regularity is merely a coincidence. And science still seems to work okay, whether or not it really is valid in assuming one regularity or another is just something I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.
Consider this gedankenexperiment. Imagine you are locked in a windowless room. One wall of the room is covered by numeric displays and knobs. Some of the displays are steady, others are changing.
You have no information as to what these displays represent nor do you have any information as to what, if anything, the knobs control. Can you use the scientific process to explore this system?
Yes, you can. You can begin by formulating and testing several hypotheses. One of the hypotheses would be that none of the knobs have any effect on the displays. You test this hypothesis by manipulating one of the knobs and observing one of the numerical displays. Does it appear to change in response to turning the knob? No. Repeat with the next display, etc. After you’ve observed all the displays, repeat with the next knob until you’ve tried them all.
This data will either display a “pattern” suggesting that manipulating the knobs has some effect on the displays or a “pattern” suggesting manipulating the knobs has no effect on the displays. All your data could be the result of random chance. However, the stronger the pattern shown in your data, the more additional “random” data you would have to observe before you abandon you hypothesis that the knobs do (or do not) affect the displays.
Let’s suppose that you conclude that at least some of the knobs do have an effect on the displays. Now you can explore a new set of hypotheses. One hypothesis might be that twiddling a particular knob produces no result. Twiddle the knob and observe the first display, repeat with the second display, etc. Let’s suppose after this experiment, you conclude that this particular knob does have an effect on the displays. You now form a new hypothesis that this knob has a consistent effect. Let’s assume experiment shows this hypothesis to be false, i.e., the data shows a pattern consistent with an effect but that the effect caused by twiddling the knob is random.
You can perform experiment after experiment on this system, generate a great deal of data and, though every “conclusion” you draw regarding this system will be provisional and subject to disproof, you can form a very complex theory as to how each knob affects the displays. You need not assume that manipulating a particular knob will cause a consistent result or indeed, any result. You need not assume that the system has any coherent structure at all or obeys any “logical” rules. You need not assume that the numerical displays are “accurate” or that they represent anything in particular.
Of course, if your initial experiments support the hypothesis that the knobs have nothing to do with the displays, twiddling the knobs isn’t likely to yield any additional data. (You could of course, start generating data that eventually causes you to abandon this hypothesis.) Science, however, hasn’t failed, it has just told you everything it can about this system i.e., that there is no system.
Now remember, you have no idea what these knobs and displays represent. They may be just a set of interconnected (or not) knobs and displays. They may be hooked up to physical processes. They may be an interface to an alternate universe. From your perspective, however, this is irrelevant. You have no way of telling what’s actually behind the curtain.
Nonetheless, despite all these handicaps, science still allows you to investigate this system.
**
This is just sloppy, over-extended post-modern foolishness.
Dr. Utian is eliding to very different questions. The first is, “What does the data say?” The second is, “What should we do about it?” The first question is a scientific question with a scientific answer. It is not just a matter of opinion. “Eight more women per 10,000 will get breast cancer each year using hormone replacement therapy for more than three years” is a fact.
The second question has to do with policy. Given that fact, what should we do about it? This is much more complex and involves weighing both objective data and subjective interests. A women, for example, would ask herself, “Given that my risk for heart attack and breast cancer will slightly increase, is it worth running that risk to minimize my menopausal symptoms?” Obviously, no scientist can answer this question.
Unfortunately, you see this kind of thinking a lot, especially in high stakes areas. It is particularly prevalent in things like the global warming debate. Science can provide data about how and why global warming is occuring. However, science can say nothing about what policy would best address it. The best policy decision might be to drastically cut carbon emissions or it might be to not cut emissions and to put aside money to pay for the eventual damage caused by global warming. Or it might be something in between or something completely different. Science can, in principle, tell us the consequences of any decision but it can’t tell us what decision to make.
Avalonian, unless you consider Discordianism a religion, no, I’m not religous.
Truth Seeker
Yes, because you trust your senses to reveal information, because you feel that it makes sense to say things like “This knob may or may not control something”, and because you would recognize the validity of any hypothesis you formulated after gathering data via your senses.
I’m sorry, but I really feel like you are deliverately avoiding this criticism.
[ul][li]Without a pre-defined understanding of logic, what is validity? How can a hypothesis be proved or disproved?[/li][li]How could we test whether or not our senses are in some ways reliable (think: what could you show me to prove etc)?[/li]How would you distinguish random events(?), causality(I flip the switch, light turns on; flipping the switch turns the light on), and statistical effects (dispersion of gas in a new container)? Again, think of it as: how could you show me that there was no underlying rationality to the universe? What sort of experiment would this take?[/ul]
Truthseeker, that’s an interesting experiment. And you’re close to changing my mind here.
But I’m still not convinced that, in an irrational universe, science would be useful for forming hypotheses. I suspect that in the knob experiment, our assumption that the universe is rational would be creeping in.
I’m not sure, though. Lemme think on it.
Daniel
**Truth Seeker **: “This is just sloppy, over-extended post-modern foolishness.”
Well I agree that Utian is clouding the issue. Ironically enough, he has the biggest vested interest in pointing to the vested interests of others since the therapy that he has long stood behind is the one being called into question.
But when you call Utian’s comments “over-extended post-modern foolishness”–as opposed to, say, old-fashioned self-interested smoke-blowing–I’m not sure precisely what you mean. Are you suggesting that Utian is a self-conscious and sincere devotee of postmodern philosophy who has, perhaps, been reading Social Text? ;).
I entirely agree with your distinction between the relative ease of interpreting certain data and the murkiness of shaping policy. And I accept the global warming analogy as appropriate.
But it seems to me that you are arguing a position that many who work in the sciences (including the social sciences) don’t necessarily hold. You are basically saying that insofar as it is “positive” (to use the appropriate philsophical term), science has its limits. Science can be positive about producing data under controlled conditions, and it can make certain interpretations about those data positively, but it cannot be positive about where to proceed from there.
And why is that the case?
Because the world is a very complicated place: individual human behavior is incredibly complicated, social behavior even more so, ecosystemic behavior perhaps most complicated of all. Each of these in fact is subject to so many variables that the authority of any particular research enterprise will, almost inevitably, be limited in its ability to positively prescribe the one “right” action.
However once you concede so much you are already close to conceding that the controlled conditions introduced in order to study data, or the decision to study some set of data from a particular view rather than another, or the decision to inquire into the matter at all, are all themselves subject to the same complex variables, the same extraordinary contingencies, named above.
And while it may be the case that actual scientists today are aware that the choices they make on a day-to-day basis will, in various ways (some problematic, others less so), influence the data they produce–while such scientists may be de facto pragmatists, as you seem to be, rather than positivists, as the scientists of the 1950s and before tended to be–that doesn’t mean that everyone who speaks for scientific authority is equally as humble or enlightened.
For all of these reasons, I can understand your frustration with postmodernist conclusions, but I feel you ought to be more respectful of postmodernism’s philosophical aims–at least some of them.
On the whole, I tend to agree with you that once you recognize the complexity and the inevitable contingencies, you proceed by trying to be a better scientist. You try to ask yourself: what kind of questions haven’t I posed? How is my data likely to be inflected by certain conditions that I’m not consciously aware of. Clearly in the case of the hormone therapy research, that kind of questioning is already underway. Researchers, for example, have already noted that it’s hard to find a good control group since women who choose hormone therapy tend–for socio-economic and cultural reasons–to be healthier in the first place than women who don’t. So, yes, I see your point: no postmodernist impasse there, just a number of observable complexities that any good researcher can acknowledge.
But I think it’s important for you to concede that not all researchers are equally good in this way; that even some who aren’t good in this way are treated authoritatively; that the market on which many of these researchers directly depend for support has its own particular agenda; and also that insofar as researchers have become less confidently “positivistic,” the credit is owing in part to postmodernism’s influence.
**Truth Seeker **: “This is just sloppy, over-extended post-modern foolishness.”
Well I agree that Utian is clouding the issue. Ironically enough, he has the biggest vested interest in pointing to the vested interests of others since the therapy that he has long stood behind is the one being called into question.
But when you call Utian’s comments “over-extended post-modern foolishness”–as opposed to, say, old-fashioned self-interested smoke-blowing–I’m not sure precisely what you mean. Are you suggesting that Utian is a self-conscious and sincere devotee of postmodern philosophy who has, perhaps, been reading Social Text? ;).
I entirely agree with your distinction between the relative ease of interpreting certain data and the murkiness of shaping policy. And I accept the global warming analogy as appropriate.
But it seems to me that you are arguing a position that many who work in the sciences (including the social sciences) don’t necessarily hold. You are basically saying that insofar as it is “positive” (to use the appropriate philsophical term), science has its limits. Science can be positive about producing data under controlled conditions, and it can make certain interpretations about those data positively, but it cannot be positive about where to proceed from there.
And why is that the case?
Because the world is a very complicated place: individual human behavior is incredibly complicated, social behavior even more so, ecosystemic behavior perhaps most complicated of all. Each of these in fact is subject to so many variables that the authority of any particular research enterprise will, almost inevitably, be limited in its ability to positively prescribe the one “right” action.
However once you concede so much you are already close to conceding that the controlled conditions introduced in order to study data, or the decision to study some set of data from a particular view rather than another, or the decision to inquire into the matter at all, are all themselves subject to the same complex variables, the same extraordinary contingencies, named above.
And while it may be the case that actual scientists today are aware that the choices they make on a day-to-day basis will, in various ways (some problematic, others less so), influence the data they produce–while such scientists may be de facto pragmatists, as you seem to be, rather than positivists, as the scientists of the 1950s and before tended to be–that doesn’t mean that everyone who speaks for scientific authority is equally as humble or enlightened.
For all of these reasons, I can understand your frustration with postmodernist conclusions, but I feel you ought to be more respectful of postmodernism’s philosophical aims–at least some of them.
On the whole, I tend to agree with you that once you recognize the complexity and the inevitable contingencies, you proceed by trying to be a better scientist. You try to ask yourself: what kind of questions haven’t I posed? How is my data likely to be inflected by certain conditions that I’m not consciously aware of. Clearly in the case of the hormone therapy research, that kind of questioning is already underway. Researchers, for example, have already noted that it’s hard to find a good control group since women who choose hormone therapy tend–for socio-economic and cultural reasons–to be healthier in the first place than women who don’t. So, yes, I see your point: no postmodernist impasse there, just a number of observable complexities that any good researcher can acknowledge.
But I think it’s important for you to concede that not all researchers are equally good in this way; that even some who aren’t good in this way are treated authoritatively; that the market on which many of these researchers directly depend for support has its own particular agenda; and also that insofar as researchers have become less confidently “positivistic,” the credit is owing in part to postmodernism’s influence.
Truth Seeker,
Regarding the knob experiment – I grant that this is science, and that the process of making and testing hypotheses is science.
But it is a very limited view of what science is to restrict science to this process alone.
The world is more complex than any room with any finite number of knobs, regardless of the knobs’ behavior. If science was just that process of making and testing hypotheses, it would not be sufficient to approach the complexity of the world. Science requires something more to function in the world, and that is a process for choosing a hypothesis.
The choice of hypotheses is the source of science’s power and character.
Here, finally, I find a rather clear notion of what I am trying to express via Daniel’s original axioms.
From George Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind (some %20 s in there… hope it links all right):
Hegel has his own ideas about Absolute Truth (™? :p) which don’t belong here, but the above (edited) passage serves me well, I think.
The problem in asserting the value/truth/non-value/non-truth of science, philosophy, et cetera, lies in the circular nature of the argument (“There is no ultimate truth”, “We cannot know absolute truth”, “There are no absolutes”, and similar non-stunning contradiciotns (or their negations, tautologies) of n steps). But that isn’t so much my desire anyway, so yea me. All I hope to say is that when we discuss something we come into that discussion with a set of preconceived notions wherein the method, expression of method, application of method, or meaning of method finds its form.
I am not saying the universe is rational, our senses are accurate, and so on, but rather science requires that this is so at least some of the time, bound by the nature of the conclusion.
**
In a truly “random” universe, science couldn’t tell you much because there wouldn’t be much to tell. The data wouldn’t show any patterns. You could, however, prove the hypothesis that the universe was random.
The “irrational” universe you described (cars turning into eels, etc.) doesn’t appear to be random because it is too organized. Cars are complex things and eels are complex things. Mapping one to the other probably requires complex, though, from our perspective, weird rules that could be explored using the scientific process. On the other hand, perhaps these rules aren’t so weird. We live in a universe where caterpillars turn into butterflys and supernova remnants turn into Henry Kissinger.