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I mean Faith and science in the context of philosophy. As humans we can only concentrate on one thing at a time, so we divide our search for truth into separate disciplines.
Philosophy is the elucidation of those principles which must be true if what we experience of reality is to be possible. It is philosophy, the love of truth, which is the context for the other disciplines. Philosophy integrates the other disciplines into the whole of truth.
Here are three examples of failure to see the compatibilities among the distinct disciplines. The first is my failure for several years to see the relation between morals and science, which was clearly evident to Pope Paul VI. The other two are what I judge to be errors by two evolutionary biologists, incompatibilities between their philosophy and their science.
First Example
The Church is often criticized for having an authoritarian pronouncement on every topic. Upon closer examination, the Church is very careful to avoid topics other than those of faith and morals or those that impinge directly on faith and morals. In one instance it took me years before it dawned on me why Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae, did not address what I thought was the burning question of the year of its release, 1968. I thought the question was: Are the recently developed pharmaceuticals biologically regulatory or are they contraceptive?
Use of pharmaceuticals regulating pressure in the cardio-circulatory system is morally valid, if there is a sufficient reason for their use. Pharmaceutical regulation of the female reproductive cycle would be morally analogous. Yet, the encyclical only discussed the immorality of contraception, by whatever means, and its consequences.
The reason was that the biological action of pharmaceuticals is a scientific question, not a moral one. Consequently, the Pope had nothing to say, pharmaceutically. The pharmaceutical companies and every other competent source affirmed that the new products were contraceptive, not regulative. The pharmaceutical companies were right about the science and Pope Paul VI was right about the immorality and its devastating effects on society which we have witnessed.
It behooves everyone, including scientists, to determine the valid philosophy, which undergirds all areas of human knowledge. Consequently we can’t be harping on scientists’ encroachment on philosophy, especially if they are aware when their expressed views are philosophical and not scientific. Here are two philosophical views of biological evolution expressed by two evolutionary biologists, where their philosophy conflicts with science and/or mathematics.
First, however, consider the philosophy of potency and act with respect to the possibility of science. Science measures the properties of things, that is, things in act. You can’t measure pure potency. Potency is measured in science indirectly by that which is in act. In this lies the philosophical beauty of the DNA molecule and the mapping of genomes. In these, the entire genetic potential of an individual of a biological species is in act as a code.
Genetic potential is fully within the scope of scientific measurement because it is in act in code. In contrast, creation as such cannot be within the scope of science because it involves coming into existence, which does not proceed from a pre-existent potency. Also, levels of being cannot be within the scope of science, because being as being is not measurable.
Second example, first biologist
The evolutionary biologist, Kenneth Miller, sees evolution as continuing creation. If his philosophical/creational view were valid, then biological evolution, as continuing creation, does not proceed from a pre-existent, measurable potency and is thus beyond the scope of science.
Miller’s God does not create an intact biological species spontaneously and inexplicably. Rather Miller’s God spontaneously and inexplicably changes the nucleotide complement of base pair sites or changes those sites within a genome a few at a time. Miller’s God of evolution is a god of small gaps.
The majority view is essentially the same: The scientifically inexplicable gaps are sufficiently small to be explained by the god of scientific gaps under his title, random mutation. Both Miller’s view and the majority view of materially random mutation are forms of creationism, i.e. accepting a god of the gaps explanation as if it were scientific. Miller has the perspicacity to identify it as such.
Third example, second biologist
The philosophy of evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, is much more intriguing. He expresses his views very lucidly. He leaves no doubt about what he thinks. Consequently, his inconsistencies in thought are evident.
According to Dawkins, all material things are at the same level of being. That living things are at the same level of being is evident in that, due to modification through descent, all living variants differ from one another in a continuum, i.e. they differ by degree, not by kind.
Dawkins identifies differences in phenotypic and genomic morphology as not differences in kind, arguing that offspring do not differ in kind from their parents and all living organisms descend from a common source. Applying the vocabulary of Aristotelian philosophy to Dawkins’ philosophy, all living species differ in their accidents, but not in substantial form.
In Dawkins’ view, living organisms differ only in properties measurable by science, but do not differ in kind, i.e. in philosophical nature. The evolutionary spectrum of living things is a continuum, which cannot be divided into discrete kinds. Any discontinuity introduced into the continuum of scientifically distinguishable elements of the biological evolutionary spectrum would be ‘gratuitously manufactured’.
According to Dawkins, the scientifically measurable differences in phenotypic and genomic morphology of species in the evolutionary spectrum are irrelevant to distinguishing living things as different in kind. Their lack of any difference in kind proclaimed by Dawkins is necessarily a philosophical conclusion, i.e. beyond the scope of scientific detection through measurement.
Comically his philosophical desire to proclaim the existence of a continuum of evolutionary mutants not differing by philosophical kind, has led Dawkins to misinterpret the mathematics of Darwinian evolution. Gradualism in Darwinian evolution produces efficiency in the total number of mutations generated. This efficiency results in gaping discontinuities in the biologically generated spectrum of ordered evolutionary mutants in comparison to the full spectrum of logically defined and ordered evolutionary mutants.
Dawkins failed to distinguish (1) an increase in the efficiency of mutation producing discontinuities in the generated spectrum from (2) an increase in the probability of success of natural selection. By mistaking the increase in efficiency in mutations due to gradualism for an increase in the probability of success, Dawkins is oblivious to the role of gradualism in Darwinian evolution.
The mathematics of gradualism of the stages in Darwinian evolution produces gaping discontinuities, not a graduated series approaching a mathematical continuum as Dawkins claims. Dawkins let his cherished intuitive belief, that gradualism in Darwinian evolution generates the entire spectrum of intermediates, trump his own mathematical demonstration that such gradualism introduces gapping discontinuities into the generated spectrum.
In conclusion, it is appropriate for a scientist, as a human being, to express and to hold to a philosophy. It is a trespass into science for a scientist to pretend that his philosophy is science.
Science is the determination of the mathematical relationships inherent in the measurable properties of material things due to their natures. Characteristics of their natures are expressed in an active form by their measurable properties. The potential changes to which material things are subject are fully within their existent natures and are implicit in the present, materially active expression of their natures. Thus, science is possible.
Creation is the coming into existence of new things independently of already existent natures. Creation is beyond the scope of science. More importantly, if material creation were occurring during the course of human existence, science would be impossible, because the very nature of things would be changing inexplicably in terms of their present characteristics. Science explains change in terms of present characteristics.
Consequently, Miller’s philosophy that creation is continuing is incompatible with science. His philosophy trespasses into science. Miller’s view appears reasonable due to the fact that a materially creative event and a materially random event are materially indistinguishable from one another. They have the same definition, namely a scientifically inexplicable material event.
In contrast, Dawkins’ philosophical claim that all living material things are of the same nature, is not incompatible with science. However, his claim is philosophical, not scientific. In an effort to support his philosophy, Dawkins affirms a false mathematical interpretation of gradualism in Darwinian evolution in spite of his own mathematical demonstration to the contrary. Dawkins’ philosophy trespasses into and trumps the mathematics of Darwinian evolution.
7 thoughts on “Faith and Science in Context”
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Bob, I’m not sure I understand all you’ve written, but I disagree with what I do think I understand. As a quondam working scientist, I’ll maintain that one’s philosophy is irrelevant to the science you do. I had no philosophy of science or much of anything else until close to my retirement. Einstein’s and Bohm’s philosophy was deterministic and possibly deistic, whence the desire to disprove the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Other theorists have not had this view.
Science is the construction of theories which mesh with the total context of the whole of scientific theory, and such theories must be capable of being empirically tested, i.e. falsified. This is why Intelligent Design is not really good science, because it fails the falsification criterion. (And I was initially a strong advocate of ID.)
I’m not sure, reading your paper, whether you disbelieve evolution, i.e. the common descent notion, or just the Darwinian model for evolution (speciation proceeds by small gradual changes enhancing survivability). Many scientists, some theists, some non-theists, are critical of the Darwinian model but accept evolution–common descent.
My philosophy background is much weaker than yours, but I gather, reading your article, that it proceeds from a Thomistic/Aristotelean (sp?) basis. OK, but there are in facts other philosophical bases which are totally compatible with good science. Please enlighten me.
Bob Kurland
I completely agree with you that the practice of science does not depend upon any philosophy. I once asked a chemist how he distinguished chemistry from other fields of science. He replied, “I don’t. I just do chemistry.” That was a more profound answer than I could possibly have anticipated.
Identifying evolution as the unifying theory of biology, a professor once suggested that no one should be admitted to graduate school in any area of biology who did not believe in evolution. My thesis involved the biochemistry of mitochondria isolated from tomato fruit, a horticultural crop. Evolution has been totally irrelevant to whatever biochemistry I have done. I don’t feel obliged to express an opinion on biological evolution. Similarly a scientist is not obliged to express or even be cognitive of his views on philosophy.
In contrast, I have expressed my evaluation of Darwinian evolution. I view Darwinian evolution exactly as implied by Dawkins’ explanation of it, i.e. as the repetition of cycles of a mathematical protocol, which defines a cycle as consisting of the random mutation of and the non-random filtering of integers, where both mathematical operations are to same integer base within a cycle. Applying this process, Dawkins insists that biologically generated mutants are of a single philosophical nature and that they form a spectrum simulating an ordered morphological continuum. In contrast, Dawkins’ arithmetical explanation requires the biological generation of a spectrum with gaping discontinuities. His philosophy partially blinds him to his own arithmetic.
Proponents of ID and Dawkins are both trying to solve a ‘problem of improbability’, which could be defined only if the range of probability of 0 to 1, could be divided on some basis outside the logic of mathematics and thereby outside the logic of science. Dawkins divides the range into two segments, one is non-prohibitive of probability’s serving as an explanation of biological complexity and the other is prohibitive of such. Similarly, IDers divide the range into a segment where probability serves as an explanation for biological complexity below a certain ceiling of complexity and another segment where probability cannot serve as an explanation because the level of biological complexity cannot be reduced below the ceiling. Dawkins’ argument is that IDers see the problem, but not its arithmetical solution, which does lower complexity below the ceiling, thereby moving the associated probability into the non-prohibitive range. Dawkins’ arithmetical solution is erroneous. More importantly, no ‘problem of improbability’ can be logically defined. The seeming ‘problem’ is due to a strong emotional prejudice, when a rule of prudence in daily life, namely don’t place an even bet on long shots, is invoked to vitiate the definition of mathematical probability for which such prudence has no relevance.
To define his ‘problem of improbability’ as it applies both to the God delusion and to evolution in a one-off event, Dawkins divides the continuous range of probability into two kinds, prohibitive and non-prohibitive. In addressing the discontinuous mind, Dawkins argues that the spectrum of biological mutants cannot be divided into kinds because the spectrum is linear and continuous. It therefore varies by degree, not by kinds whose distinction would depend on ‘gratuitously manufactured’ points of discontinuity in the linear range. In this argument, Dawkins is right in principle that a continuous linear range varies by degree, not kind. However, that means there is no defined ‘problem of improbability’ of evolution in a one-off event to be mathematically solved by Darwinian natural selection. Likewise, there is no defined ‘problem of (the) improbability’ of God, where its mathematical insolubility renders God a delusion.
My criticism of Miller is his ‘scientific’ identification of biological evolution as presently continuing creation, because material creation is by definition scientifically inexplicable. Aristotelian philosophy identifies material reality as inherently intelligible. We have the capacity to recognize that intelligibility because any change that is taking place is not creation. According to that philosophy not only are minor changes occurring, but substantial changes are occurring within the scope of human observation. The Aristotelian view, that substantial change does not involve creation, is reflected at the inanimate level by the postulate of science that matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed. It is reflected at the animate level by the postulate of science that biological generation is neither spontaneous nor otherwise inexplicable.
Bob, that is a fine reply and helps me to understand your original post. There are some deep/profound thoughts there, and I’ll have to chew them over before giving a reply in depth.
Every scientist “holds a philosophy”, implicit or explicit, in the sense that he or she has overarching principles and/or beliefs that are assumed and adhered to regarding the particular science that he or she does. These principles cannot be “proven” by the scientific method of his or her particular science. Put another way, “all facts are theory-laden.” Some scientists make the mistake of concluding that whatever cannot be proven by their particular method, is not “knowledge” or is not “true.” Truth and knowledge have a much broader scope than only what can be proven scientifically – and much of what has in the past been “proven” scientifically has been shown, later, to be bollocks and balderdash. I wonder if anyone has ever studied this: do you get “better” scientific results, “more encompassing” theories when theories change, or “simpler and/or better” paradigms as a result of a scientific revolution if the rebels proceed believing there is an almighty God creating everything, designing everything, even a God who wants all of us back with Him? Guy McClung, San Antonio
In his Regensburg address, Pope Benedict attributed the flourishing of western thought to the confluence of Divine revelation and Greek philosophy. He then traced the devolution of western culture through the dehellenization of its intellectual tradition the result of which is atheistic secularism with its tragic social consequences. These are historical trends over centuries. Although individual thinkers can be cited as contributing or evidencing these trends, I don’t think it is practical to anticipate a correlation of individual achievement in experimental science with the scientist’s philosophy. It is also a question left to the ages whether the dehelleniztion of western culture will result in an obvious decline in the endeavor of science.