This is a follow-up of sorts to Joshua Sowin’s Why I’m Not a Creationist (Anymore). For the purpose of consistency with his post, I will also use the term creationist to refer to YEC (young earth creationism – 6ky to 10ky earth aging).
But as much and as easy as it is for many to reject YEC, the adoption of evolutionary models is often done with such haste so as to miss some serious issues in those models. Common descent is merely the assumption behind the models; it is not the model. The models that are evolution are many and include the various mechanisms that describe the rate of change. Whether one chooses phyletic gradualism, uniformitarian gradualism, punctuated equilibrium, or a synthetic solution that attempts to resolve some of the conflicts of each, the lack of consensus leaves the student with a difficult question: What am I accepting? At this point one only accepts the assumption and then builds his/her own model around the mechanism of choice.
There is room for creation, at least in the beginning. This has, at its minimum, been acknowledged. But after the beginnings of the universe the field is still wide open, at least as far as “science” is concerned.
One of the conflicts we face is in educating the evolutionists about our theological language. For instance, a “literal” interpretation of Genesis 1-2 does not require the granularity of YEC but can employ a literary framework approach to discern the content. We can also deal with the evolutionists understanding of our view of creation and correct the misunderstanding (which is employed as a red herring in evolutionary material) that the original creation remains unchanged.
The net, as I see it, is that Creation includes evolution: C(e). The theistic evolutionist seems to hold the inverse of this, that evolution includes some later factor of creation: E(c). I find this problematic theologically. The science can fit either framework. But it seems most prudent to keep theology in its rightful position.
My view of the when of creation is wide open. The age of the earth and all on it is generally indeterminable. There seems to not have been enough time for the full speciation we see today in the time allotted by the naturalist evolutionist. One can note, for instance, the criticism of Gould by Dennett that PE amounts to a type of saltationism.
There remain too many unanswered questions to allow evolution the upper hand. But YEC is equally weak. Still, creation has its proper place and the genetics behind evolution are likewise useful. The truth of a real, actual creation lies in between.
February 22nd, 2010 | 4:18 pm | #1
Excellent post. Two of my favorite philosophers disagree on this issue. Peter Kreeft believes evolution is the means God used to get to mankind. John Mark Reynolds, from what I understand, is a YEC. I deeply respect both men and would love to have discussion with both men at the same time in order to get some of my questions answered.
February 22nd, 2010 | 6:03 pm | #2
“There remain too many unanswered questions to allow evolution the upper hand. But YEC is equally weak.”
I agree with the first sentence. But I don’t think YEC is “equally weak” to theistic evolution. Theistic evolution is weaker, IMO.
FWIW, I’m against both atheistic evolution and theistic evolution (which is a compromise and aids and abets atheistic evolution). I’ll take Creationism in all its variegated forms over and above a/theistic evolution.
February 22nd, 2010 | 7:02 pm | #3
This is why the Roman Catholic Church is theologically pro-Evolution:
One Can Know God By the Natural Light of Human Reason
Pope John Paul II, March 20, 1985
…A classic text on the subject of the possibility of knowing God – his existence, first of all – from created things is found in St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “Whatever can be known about God is clear to them: he himself made it so. Since the creation of the world, invisible realities, God’s eternal power and divinity, have become visible, recognized through the things he has made. Therefore they are inexcusable” (Rom 1:19-21). The Apostle has in mind here people who “in this perversity of theirs hinder the truth” (Rom 1:18). Sin draws them away from giving glory due to God, whom every person is able to know. He is able to know God’s existence and even, to a certain extent, his essence, his perfections and his attributes. The invisible God becomes in a certain way “recognized through the things he has made.”
…Following Tradition, which has its roots in Sacred Scripture of the Old and New Testaments, the Church, in the nineteenth century during the First Vatican Council, recalled and confirmed the doctrine on the possibility with which the human intellect is endowed to know God through creation. In our century, the Second Vatican Council recalled this doctrine anew in the context of the Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum). This takes on great importance.
Divine revelation is indeed at the basis of faith, of man’s “I believe.” At the same time, the passages of Sacred Scripture in which this revelation is found, teach us that man is capable of knowing God by reason alone. He is capable of a certain “knowledge” about God, even though it is indirect and not immediate. Therefore, alongside the “I believe” we find a certain “I know.” This “I know” concerns the existence of God and even, to a certain extent, his essence. This intellectual knowledge of God is systematically treated by a science called “natural theology,” which is of a philosophical nature and springs from metaphysics, that is, the philosophy of being. It focuses on the knowledge of God as the First Cause, and also as the Last End of the universe.
These questions, as well as the vast philosophical discussion connected with them, cannot be examined within the limits of a brief instruction on the truths of faith. Neither do we intend to take up here in a detailed way those “ways” that guide the human mind in the search for God (the Quinque viae [five ways] of St. Thomas Aquinas). For this catechesis of ours, it is sufficient to keep in mind that the sources of Christianity speak of the possibility of a rational knowledge of God. Therefore, according to the Church, all our thinking about God, based on faith, also has a “rational” and “intellective” character. Even atheism lies within the sphere of a certain reference to the concept of God. If it denies the existence of God, it must also know whose existence it is denying.
It is clear that knowledge through faith differs from purely rational knowledge. Nevertheless God would not have been able to reveal himself to the human race if it were not already naturally capable of knowing something true about God. Therefore, alongside and in addition to an “I know,” which is proper to man’s intellect, there is an “I believe,” proper to the Christian. With faith the believer has access, even if obscurely, to the mystery of the intimate life of God who reveals himself.
February 22nd, 2010 | 7:29 pm | #4
R. Hampton: “This is why the Roman Catholic Church is theologically pro-Evolution:”
Not quite. Read this article for a counter perspective.
February 22nd, 2010 | 8:01 pm | #5
And I would offer you this rebuttal:
Address of his Holiness Benedict XVI to the Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
Friday, 31 October 2008
…In choosing the topic Scientific Insight into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life, you seek to focus on an area of enquiry which elicits much interest. In fact, many of our contemporaries today wish to reflect upon the ultimate origin of beings, their cause and their end, and the meaning of human history and the universe.
In this context, questions concerning the relationship between science’s reading of the world and the reading offered by Christian Revelation naturally arise. My predecessors Pope Pius XII and Pope John Paul II noted that there is no opposition between faith’s understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences. Philosophy in its early stages had proposed images to explain the origin of the cosmos on the basis of one or more elements of the material world. This genesis was not seen as a creation, but rather a mutation or transformation; it involved a somewhat horizontal interpretation of the origin of the world. A decisive advance in understanding the origin of the cosmos was the consideration of being qua being and the concern of metaphysics with the most basic question of the first or transcendent origin of participated being. In order to develop and evolve, the world must first be, and thus have come from nothing into being. It must be created, in other words, by the first Being who is such by essence.
…To ‘evolve’ literally means ‘to unroll a scroll’, that is, to read a book. The imagery of nature as a book has its roots in Christianity and has been held dear by many scientists. Galileo saw nature as a book whose author is God in the same way that Scripture has God as its author. It is a book whose history, whose evolution, whose ‘writing’ and meaning, we ‘read’ according to the different approaches of the sciences, while all the time presupposing the foundational presence of the author who has wished to reveal himself therein. This image also helps us to understand that the world, far from originating out of chaos, resembles an ordered book; it is a cosmos. Not withstanding elements of the irrational, chaotic and the destructive in the long processes of change in the cosmos, matter as such is ‘legible’. It has an inbuilt ‘mathematics’. The human mind therefore can engage not only in a ‘cosmography’ studying measurable phenomena but also in a ‘cosmology’ discerning the visible inner logic of the cosmos. We may not at first be able to see the harmony both of the whole and of the relations of the individual parts, or their relationship to the whole. Yet, there always remains a broad range of intelligible events, and the process is rational in that it reveals an order of evident correspondences and undeniable finalities: in the inorganic world, between microstructure and macrostructure; in the organic and animal world, between structure and function; and in the spiritual world, between knowledge of the truth and the aspiration to freedom. Experimental and philosophical inquiry gradually discovers these orders; it perceives them working to maintain themselves in being, defending themselves against imbalances, and overcoming obstacles. And thanks to the natural sciences we have greatly increased our understanding of the uniqueness of humanity’s place in the cosmos.
…Distinguished Academicians, I wish to conclude by recalling the words addressed to you by my predecessor Pope John Paul II in November 2003: ‘scientific truth, which is itself a participation in divine Truth, can help philosophy and theology to understand ever more fully the human person and God’s Revelation about man, a Revelation that is completed and perfected in Jesus Christ. For this important mutual enrichment in the search for the truth and the benefit of mankind, I am, with the whole Church, profoundly grateful’.
February 22nd, 2010 | 11:23 pm | #6
Mr. Brendmuehl writes–
I’m afraid I can’t make heads or tails out of this, and this is typical of much of this post. What do you mean that common descent is merely an assumption? There’s lots of evidence for common descent (from genetics, from paleontology, from anatomy, from biodistribution, and so on). There are lots of ways in which the common descent hypothesis could be falsified, but the more we learn in the various disciplines of biology, the more it is confirmed. But let’s suppose for the sake of argument that common descent is “taken for granted” by scientists. Are there good reasons why you regard it as a dubious assumption?
If the “common descent is merely an assumption” claim is simply a variant of “evolution is just a theory,” then simply allow me to simply register my disappointment.
February 23rd, 2010 | 1:31 am | #7
“This is a follow-up of sorts to Joshua Sowin’s Why I’m Not a Creationist (Anymore).”
Here’s another follow-up of sorts to Joshua Sowin’s “Why I’m Not a Creationist (Anymore)”: Here.
February 23rd, 2010 | 7:44 am | #8
Joel,
Remember that you are using an inductive, univocal argument. In that framework the evidence is built as a model under the assumption. While there is plenty of evidence of descent, the full scope of common descent has its issues. Hence even Jerry Coyne has to make the logical leap from the evidence to the assumption when he says that “if speciation is true … then common ancestry must also be true.” (Why Evolution Is True, p. 13-14) I may not have been clear enough, by my concern is neither with the fact of the argument, nor with the facts behind the argument, but with the structure of the argument.
So, no, it is not in any way a variant of the “just a theory” approach.
February 23rd, 2010 | 11:10 am | #9
An important though under appreciated aspect of this whole issue it that of our desire to come to a conclusion. For many of the questions about origins the best answer is, “I don’t know.”
People are often reluctant to say this because many will regard it as a show of intellectual weakness. But for all human based knowledge it is the most common accurate answer.
Through His Word, God does give us certain knowledge (“I know that my Redeemer lives!”) But we Christians believe such things, NOT because we are gullible. On the contrary, it has taken an act of God to provide us with whatever certainty that we have.
It’s appropriate that Christians should retain suspension of belief when the facts thus warrant. Although not to the extent of agnosticism employed by some YEC believers. (When they point to a particular piece of info and conclude that an entire field of enquiry, say, paleontology, geology, or astrophysics is hogwash) But to the extent that human knowledge is hard won and always open to revision. Karl Popper is a good guide on the topic of the epistemology of science.
This was part of what I was saying in my long previous post.
February 23rd, 2010 | 2:12 pm | #10
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences devoted its Plenary Session of 31 October-4 November 2008 to the subject: ‘Scientific Insights into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life’. The Plenum was attended by 45 members of the Academy and by 14 invited guests. Lectures were given by 23 members and 8 additional lectures were given by invited experts. Ample time was devoted to discussions.
Summary
Christian De Duve
The Academy offered a unique setting and intellectual climate for the chosen topic, which is of burning interest – and an occasional source of dispute – for scientists, philosophers, and theologians alike, as well as for the general public. It was particularly valuable to have representatives of all major scientific disciplines and of philosophy and theology gathered together and exchanging views in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and mutual respect.
There was little disagreement on major issues. The participants unanimously accepted as indisputable the affirmation that the Universe, as well as life within it, are the products of long evolutionary histories. They rejected as objectively untenable the so-called ‘creationist’ view based on a literal interpretation of the biblical account of Genesis, a view not to be confused with the belief, legitimately held by many, in a creator God. Benedict XVI in his opening address to the participants proposed a valuable approach based on a metaphysical interpretation of the creation clearly different from that of the ‘Creationists’: ‘A decisive advance in understanding the origin of the cosmos was the consideration of being qua being and the concern of metaphysics with the most basic question of the first or transcendent origin of participated being. In order to develop and evolve, the world must first be, and thus have come from nothing into being. It must be created, in other words, by the first Being who is such by essence.’
…Many discussions were devoted to the origin and evolution of life. It was generally admitted that all known living beings, including humans, descend from a single ancestral form of life that appeared on Earth several billion years ago. How this form originated is not known but is believed by a majority of experts to have involved special chemical reactions that were rendered possible, perhaps even imposed, by the physical-chemical conditions under which they took place. Particularly impressive in this respect is the recent discovery that a number of typical building blocks of life, including sugars, amino acids, and nitrogenous bases, arise spontaneously, together with numerous other organic compounds, in many parts of the Universe. Not all scientists, however, believe this remarkable fact to be relevant to the origin of life.
…On the other hand, no one, at least among the scientists, defended the recently advocated theory of ‘intelligent design‘, according to which certain evolutionary events could not have taken place without the intervention of some higher influence, of which no evidence can be found in nature. Several of the arguments cited in support of this theory were shown to ignore recent findings. In particular, the theory was rejected as intrinsically non-scientific, resting, as it does, on the a priori contention, neither provable nor disprovable, that certain events cannot be naturally explained. These views did not satisfy some theologians who stressed the role of design in creation, an affirmation which, in turn, raised the questions of where and how design is manifested. The issue was not settled during the meeting.
February 23rd, 2010 | 3:43 pm | #11
Only after assumption can one have a model? And only assumption holds a model up?
OK, smart guy, tell me, what assumptions do you need to believe black people are humans and related to all humans (rather than created separately but equally by God)?
February 23rd, 2010 | 5:49 pm | #12
Kyle,
Only after assumption can one have a model? And only assumption holds a model up?
Well, duh. Try building a hypothesis and theory without assumptions.
OK, smart guy, tell me, what assumptions do you need to believe black people are humans and related to all humans (rather than created separately but equally by God)?
Race-baiting is soooo evolutionary. But more seriously, I did acknowledge genetics. That’s not really a problem.
February 23rd, 2010 | 7:07 pm | #13
Mr. Brendemuehl, I still cannot make sense of most of what you’re saying. Yes, science works by inductive reasoning; yes, its data are contingent facts, not timeless immutable forms; yes, its assumptions, models, conclusions and what have you are therefore necessarily open to correction, improvement, reevaluation, etc. The rest of your reply is opaque to me. Perhaps we could pin down one of your claims in the original post?–
Generally indeterminable? Wide open? Really? Really? What can this possibly mean? 4.55 bya is a pretty specific number, and thus open to falsification. So why do you regard the scientific consensus on this number as “generally” unwarranted? Are there any bounds on how “wide open” the numbers are? What is the cause of such indeterminacy in measuring the earth’s age?
Perhaps you agree with the comment by Pastor Philip Spomer, who writes–
And I would recommend that this advice extends beyond Christians to all reasonable persons. Yes, one should form one’s beliefs with due care and hold them tentatively. But it seems to me that you (Mr. Brendemuehl) are trading on the warranted uncertainty that we have about knowledge in order to relativize the explanatory network of beliefs that natural science has woven. This kind of skepticism is corrosive. You conclude your post with–
Sheer obfuscation. Consensus is no guarantee of truth, but granting the infirmity of reason does not entitle us to unwarranted assertions. So: how many unanswered questions are too many? What are your demarcation criteria? What kinds of questions must be answered? Who holds the power to allow or prevent evolution to have “the upper hand?” And the “upper hand” in what, exactly?
February 23rd, 2010 | 7:31 pm | #14
Joel,
The questions arise when one considers the rapidity of speciation. If it as slow as Darwin suggests the perhaps Polkinghorne’s criticisms deserve more attention. If it is as fast as Gould & Eldridge suggested then perhaps Dennett’s criticism should be given more weight.
The matter of time is serious. So how about something more specific: How long between changes, and what were they, between the model-determined “rodent” remaining mammal after the Yucatan impact of 65mya and humans today? The assertion is there, with its assumptions about the beginning species and the necessary rate of development, but we all still wait for evidence. As it is all we have is the model that says what had to have happened. But this model can only be tested against itself and not against any evidence. As such it avoids falsifiability.
You might say that my argument is one from silence. Not really. It is not my model which is empty. My point is that the model lacks the material to come to is conclusion. The model may seem to function, but that does not make it “true” — it must be tested, not only against itself (testing for internal soundness alone) but also against the data.
If these arguments sound like obfuscation, consider Polanyi’s criticism (as to philosophy of science, addressing the model structures, and not one of any creationist perspective) that the models are by their nature obscure. Though he wrote that long ago, the criticism remains valid. The obscurity has merely changed context.
February 23rd, 2010 | 11:15 pm | #15
Oh, yes, I must learn my field better. No doubt about that. Too true, too true.
Meanwhile, at least with your responses a few details trickle in about your actual beliefs and scientific knowledge. And confusion reigns as it does with so many anti-realists. Well, at least we agree that theories are underdetermined by the data!
February 24th, 2010 | 12:31 am | #16
[...] Why I’m Neither a Creationist Nor an Evolutionist, by Collin Brendemuehl [...]
February 24th, 2010 | 8:41 am | #17
Joel,
I removed that last remark before your comment was made as I decided it was less than generous.
You apparently believe that I have not studied the field. Why so? Do you believe the questions I raise to be either invalid or uninformed? How?
You may have noticed that I have *not* dealt with the evidence, but with how the evidence is framed (how it is modeled). So I’m questioning the character of *some of* the science, not the information itself.
February 24th, 2010 | 11:06 am | #18
Collin,
You have read a few things about the field; you have not studied it.
February 24th, 2010 | 11:23 am | #19
That’s ok, James, I’ll just wait for Joel’s response and we will have a civil dialogue on the matter.
February 24th, 2010 | 5:12 pm | #20
Mr. Brendenmuehl,
Ah, I see that the first part of my latest comment now makes no sense :-) No problem, there.
I feign no hypotheses about what you’ve studied. You referenced Polanyi and you use the discourse of the philosophy of science. As you point out, you have not dealt with the evidence but with how the evidence is framed. So my question is simple: how can you arrive at a judgment about the plausibility of a scientific theory without considering the concreta? Just to take an example from your previous comment:
You ask a perfectly reasonable question: “How long between the changes [from the K-T extinction event survivors and modern humans]?” Surely this is a question which admit empirical determination. Yet you seem to poison the well for any concrete answer to your question by the pyrrhonic gesture of knowing in advance that the data are tainted because they are theory-driven. You say “we all wait for the evidence.” But the scientific community has published that evidence. You seem to (and I’m sorry I keep using “seem” but I’m really not sure where you stand on these matters) be in the position to apply an uber-principle by which all evidence is interpreted by the scientists as theory-confirming; i.e., that science is one big exercise in confirmation bias. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) But in point of fact not all observations fit the best working models. There are always anomalies (e.g., the retrogressive movement of the planets within the Ptolemaic model). I would like to know your criteria for theory justification. When are we within our epistemic rights, when is it warrantedly assertible to claim the evolution is true? (Sorry, I’ve had to fling out these thoughts to the aether; I haven’t time at the moment to organize them, but perhaps there’s something here to keep the discussion going if you like.)
February 24th, 2010 | 8:04 pm | #21
When are we within our epistemic rights, when is it warrantedly assertible to claim the evolution is true.
It’s a done deal for Catholics, and Protestants do not require the approval of a religious authority figure, so I think you are asking a different question. Perhaps you mean to ask something along the lines of ‘what will it take Christians like Collin Brendemuehl accept evolution without typical Creationist/Intelligent Design (e.g. ‘microevolution’) equivocation?’
February 24th, 2010 | 10:00 pm | #22
Joel,
knowing in advance that the data are tainted
No, it is not the data which is tainted. It is a problem with the model that wraps around the data.
I would like to know your criteria for theory justification. When are we within our epistemic rights, when is it warrantedly assertible to claim the evolution is true?
That’s probably the best question I’ve yet been asked on this approach. For the sake of space I won’t delve into warrant and justification. We would likely agree on the definitions. Yet my question is not of “evolution” but of the demand assumption of “common descent,” specifically as posed by Coyne. Descent has all the necessary evidence. I accept evolution in its currency. (That is, there are changes in our present world, as with Camel, Llama, Cama, Alpaca, and huarizo. Yet all dogs can still interbreed with all wolves. There is also hemoglobin-c.) But not so fully as does the naturalist.
But let’s look at one failure of both warrant and justification. One pair of errors in framing goes to matters of directionality and teleology. Some, for instance, want to maintain that no changes which are detrimental are maintained within the species. They will disappear, it is asserted, in a short number of generations. Such framing errors seem difficult to accept in light of sickle-cell. It is such poor theory structures which bother me most.
February 24th, 2010 | 10:01 pm | #23
R Hampton,
For the record, I think ID has a regression issue.
February 25th, 2010 | 1:32 am | #24
Mr. Brendemuehl,
So I think we agree about what “taints” empirical data (if you had included the because clause that followed the snip you quoted I think that would be clear): theory drives what features and elements of an experiment are targeted for observation and measurement. So far so good. But I wanted to know why the evidence for the rate of change in mammalian evolution after the K-T extinction (an example you raised) which has been published by the scientific community is something you’ve asserted we’re still waiting for. You said all we have are the assumptions (of the mechanisms and pathways, I presume) and what the models predict. I can only infer that you regard the actual evidence as corrupt, dubious or somehow unreliable. Or are you unaware that it exists? Do you think the conclusions drawn from that evidence are unjustifiable because of confirmation bias or some such epistemic infirmity? If so, I’d be curious what rules are in error or what corrective measures are missing from the evidential reasoning used in the scientific method. What are the criteria for an authorized inference from the phenomena?
As for the rest of your comment, I may have an inkling of what you’re talking about, but you are speaking at such a level of abstraction that I can’t tell whether we basically agree or disagree (and between you and me, if I’m complaining about someone’s level of abstraction, that is saying something). I had originally asked whether the claim “evolution is true” is justifiable. You replied: “I accept evolution in its currency [???] (…) [b]ut not so fully as does the naturalist.” Not so fully? Eh? Let’s set aside for the moment your private beliefs about evolution and return to the question of truth and justification. Let’s try an example.
This proposition is assertible: “there exists an iceberg below the surface of Europa that has the exact shape and weight of the Queen Mary.” It could be true! And it is assertible. But I would argue that it is not warrantedly assertible. Sound evidential reasoning cannot be produced for it. This may change in the future.
“Species do not evolve into new species” was warrantedly assertible by Aristotle. “Created kinds (baramins) have no evolutionary relationship with one another” was warrantedly assertible by Calvin. But (I contend) neither of these propositions are warrantedly assertible now. And as I’ve already said, what may be warrantedly assertible need not be true. But if it is true, it is warrantedly assertible. Lastly, since we are speaking of scientific truth, and we are all good empiricists now, we are dealing with contingent facts and mutable states of affairs. Therefore, “universal common descent is a fact” is provisionally true, a probable truth, and therefore warrantedly assertible. Do we disagree on either a principle of reason or the truth value of the proposition, or both?
February 25th, 2010 | 9:39 am | #25
Therefore, “universal common descent is a fact” is provisionally true, a probable truth, and therefore warrantedly assertible. Do we disagree on either a principle of reason or the truth value of the proposition, or both?
Provisionally? I don’t know that you really want to go there.
As to the currency of evolution I cited the camel relatives as an example but have also noted that the canines, despite serious genetic isolation, show no signs of substantive change. The term currency should be taken in contrast to the all-or-nothing demand of Coyne.
As to the rates of development, and the potential for some sort of (what I call) soft saltationism, Roger Lewin contrasts the development of species through the two models, PE & Phyletic gradualism. (See Human evolution: an illustrated introduction, p. 22). He also notes the debate as to which, if either, is predominant. The net is that, no matter what one scientist claims is the developmental path, there is another who holds a different perspective on the functionality.
If the models cannot interpret the evidence properly, then there may not be enough evidence to provide an accurate conclusion from any one of them. Or the models are “wrong” in that each is inadequate, insufficient, or incapable of arriving at the correct conclusion.
February 25th, 2010 | 10:21 am | #26
Ugh, I need to correct an inconsistent statement. Last paragraph, in the middle: “But if it is true, it is warrantedly assertible.” No. What I should have written is: “But if [the prior propositions] are false, then the warrant for their assertibility has changed (from warranted to unwarranted). This is because new evidence has been adduced.”
One last clarification. The first two propositions quoted in the last paragraph are factual claims which are no longer warrantedly assertible. The third claim is confusing when compared to them. Universal common descent is the best explanation; it is an inference from the evidence adduced for a universal common ancestor. Because of this evidence, especially fossil and molecular, the proposition “All living things on earth are biologically related to each other” is now warrantedly assertible. It is conceivable that there will be better theories in the future than universal common descent which explain how all livings things are biologically related to each other, much in the way that Einstein’s general relativity supplanted Newton’s mechanical theory of gravitation. But that future biological theory will have to account for the same phenomena as the current theory.
February 25th, 2010 | 11:25 am | #27
Provisionally? I don’t know that you really want to go there.
Of course I want to “go there.” All scientific theories should be accepted or adopted tentatively. There are degrees of confirmation, and the more evidence adduced for a theory, the less lightly it should be abandoned. But in principle even a well-confirmed theory is subject to revision or even overturning (and there is more involved in doing so than quantity of evidence; e.g., provoking new productive research, integration with other well-established theories, etc.).
As for the rest of your comment, it isn’t until the last paragraph that I understand you. I think your instrumentalist conclusions about model relativism are strained. I think you are inflating real uncertainties in a theory (not the heuristic role of models) out of due proportion. But I contend the degree of skepticism you are encouraging is unwarranted and also perverse. Consider the consequences if applied to biblical hermeneutics.
I’m willing to grant that the interface between science and pseudoscience (or folk science) has some blurry edges, but you seem eager to erase demarcation and other epistemic criteria rather than advance them. To take an example straight from the History Channel, I would say that the “alien architect” theory to explain the Nazca lines in Peru is pseudoscience; it is not warrantedly assertible because there isn’t a shred of archaeological evidence for it. What do you think?
February 25th, 2010 | 1:46 pm | #28
Philosophy of science is just as, for lack of a better term, messy as any other philosophy. But a quality argument, one of the best benefits of American analytical philosophy, does force us to develop better and better structures.
But with biologist scientists like Hubert Yockey acknowledging a creator (of some sort, at least at the beginning of the universe) the proposition that there is no being outside of this universe becomes a less-sustainable proposition. After all, give the nature of the universe and the character of a planet needed to sustain life, we are also likely alone in the universe (Ernst Mayr).
There is a granularity in evolutionary arguments that matches the granularity of YEC. Neither wants something bigger. So, from my vantage point, evolution is a useful explanation. But the broader evidence, including matters outside of empiricism (per Yockey & Mayr), says more. I will continue to look toward the more sufficient, grander explanation.
February 25th, 2010 | 2:11 pm | #29
The question of provisional truth can lead you into what looks like a Cartesian circular argument. The inference to the best conclusion today may not be the best possible conclusion. That seems to be a problem with any model or philosophy which lacks sufficient evidence.
I think your instrumentalist conclusions about model relativism are strained. I think you are inflating real uncertainties in a theory (not the heuristic role of models) out of due proportion. But I contend the degree of skepticism you are encouraging is unwarranted and also perverse. Consider the consequences if applied to biblical hermeneutics.
This methodology is young. It is of my own design, is still in development, and is most certainly subject to substantive criticism. Your assistance here has provided invaluable clarification. Thank you.
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