Is Science True?

In my experience, everyone bases their "arguments on certain metaphysical suppositions, scientists and non-scientists included. As a good friend and student of E. A. Burtt, I have found his Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science to be extraordinarily useful in this regard. In fact, I have begun work on what I hope will be a companion volume: Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Biological Science, in which I will examine the assumptions that underlie the science of biology as it is practiced today.

One of the bedrock assumptions underlying both modern physics and modern biology is non-teleology: the assumption that natural processes do not include any teleological input. I personally think that this is wrong, and base my objection to this idea on Ernst Mayr's monumental book, Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, published in 1988. Mayr argued very persuasively that teleological explanations are entirely appropriate in biology insofar as they refer to the development and maintenance of living organisms. According to Mayr, both of these processes (and indeed all biological processes) are directed by programs (i.e. genomes, etc.) that pre-exist the entities and processes that they specify and regulate. In the jargon of the current debate, genomes and other developmental programs are "designs" for the assembly and operation of living organisms.

However, Mayr also argued very strongly that the origin of biological programs – that is, the various mechanisms of biological evolution – need not (and apparently do not) include any teleological component. Like all physical processes, there is no detectable "grand design" (much less a Grand Designer) which/Who has formulated beforehand the programs that regulate life. In other words, teleology is entirely appropriate when applied to life and the operation of living programs, but not when applied to the origin of life or the origin of living programs.

So, what does this say about the question of whose opinions to trust when considering these issues? My first criterion is skepticism: if someone claims to know the truth about anything at all (including, of course, the contents of their own mind), my immediate reaction is intense skepticism. Science (at least that version of it that has been practiced since the 17th century) isn't about truth. It's about reasonable confidence in explanatory models, all of which are grounded on a metaphysical assumption of the usefulness of methodological naturalism. Notice I wrote "usefulness", not "truth", because as far as I can tell the only "truth" that exists on either side of the evolution/ID divide is a version of Colbert's "truthiness". It feels like "truth", but isn't really. In my opinion, "experts" are people who keep these distinctions in mind at all times, and do not easily (if ever) use absolute statements when talking about nature.

For example, I have an immediate, knee-jerk negative reaction to the title of Jerry Coyne's book, Why Evolution is True, and indeed to much of what he writes for the general public. Consider a similar title, Why Quantum Mechanics is True, or if you prefer Why the Gas Laws are True. How would a physicist react to titles such as these? I hope (and my general experience has been) that they would object to the word "true", and also perhaps to the question "why". Physics isn't about "truth" and doesn't usually ask about "why" things happen. Physics is about "useful" and "consistent" and "empirically testable" models of reality, and it's about "how" things happen, not "why" they happen.

Indeed, in the natural sciences (including biology) the answer to the question "how" is the same as the answer to the question "why". How do birds come to have wings? They inherit a genetic and developmental program that, via interactions with their environment, produces those structures we call "wings". Why do birds come to have wings? Same answer. How have birds acquired these genetic and developmental programs? They evolved by natural selection and other evolutionary mechanisms. Why have birds acquired these genetic and developmental programs? Again, same answer.

Speculating as to whether the biological processes by which the programs that specify and regulate living organisms and processes are somehow externally/supernaturally directed seems to me to be metaphysical arguments, rather than scientific ones. Interesting, compelling even, but not part of science, at least as it has been practiced for a very long time.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

How Not To Fight A "Culture War"

There has been an interesting and often heated discussion about "methodological naturalism" taking place at Uncommon Descent. After more than 350 comments, the dispute about what "methodological naturalism" was, and how long scientists have been practicing it was resolved in the way that most such discussions are resolved: with the participants agreeing to disagree.

I think it would be interesting for both sides in the debate around methodological naturalism (MN) to consider why this term has become so widely used in recent times. For the sake of argument, let us assume that the entire concept of MN only became "solidified" following Paul de Vries' coinage of the term in 1983. Also for the sake of argument, let us concede that prior to that time the use of "non-natural" assumptions was indeed legitimate for at least inspiring scientific research (as, indeed, history shows us was clearly the case). Let us then further assume that the current application of MN does indeed exclude any reference to "non-natural causes", either in the design of experimental tests of hypotheses or in their interpretation.

One might then reasonably ask, "What happened in the early 1980s that prompted such a dramatic shift in the perception of scientists, so dramatic that it led most scientists to reject what had previously been allowable: that is, the use of "non-natural" hypotheses as an inspiration for scientific research (if not necessarily also in the interpretation of the results of such research)?

I believe that if one examines what was happening the early 1980s vis-a-vis evolutionary biology, the answer to this question is obvious: the rise of "scientific creationism" (especially of the "young Earth" variety) as a political force in the U.S., culminating in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)'s decision in Edwards v. Aguillard (
482 U.S. 578) in 1987. During the 1960s, American science was promoted very vigorously, both by the U.S. government and by scientists themselves, as a reaction to scientific advances by the Soviet Union (particularly the launching of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite). Part of this promotion involved the formulation of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) protocol and its associated textbooks (the "blue", "green", and "yellow" versions). All three versions stressed evolutionary theory as providing a foundation for the biological sciences. This was virtually the first time since 1925 (and the conviction of John T. Scopes for having violated Tennessee's Butler Act by teaching evolution in a public school classroom) that evolutionary theory had been so prominently featured in biology textbooks that were widely promoted in the American public school system.

This caused an immediate negative reaction among American evangelical Christian groups. Legislative bans on the teaching of evolution similar to the Butler Act were either reinstated or promoted in several states. At the same time, Henry Morris and other "scientific creationists" founded and promoted the "scientific creationism" movement, which sought to provide scientific evidence for their version of "young Earth creationism" (YEC). Not much actual science was done by these self-described YECs, but strenuous political efforts were undertaken to have their YEC reinterpretations of existing scientific information incorporated into public school curricula in several states (most notably Arkansas and Louisiana).

In reaction to these efforts by YECs, the scientific community partnered with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and allied organizations to bring such efforts to the attention of the SCOTUS, with the intention of having them outlawed as violating the first amendment to the US constitution. These efforts were ultimately successful, as both laws banning evolution from public school science classes and the attempts to insert YEC in public school science classes were struck down as unconstitutional by the SCOTUS. These events, and not the subsequent rise of Intelligent Design (ID), are the context within which the adoption of MN by the scientific community in the 1980s can most effectively be viewed.

From my interactions with them, I have found that some ID supporters are very strongly in sympathy with the YECs, and view ID as a way of getting their version of YEC back in the public schools. This was clearly the case in the Dover Area school board's 2005 attempt to provide students with alternative biology textbooks incorporating ID, as shown by the sworn testimony by several of the members of that school board and other members of the board who were present at meetings at which this plan was discussed and approved.

However, in my interactions with other ID supporters (and especially the members of the Cornell IDEA Club and some commentators at Uncommon Descent), I have come to understand that a significant fraction of ID supporters do not accept that YEC is a legitimate empirical science, nor support it's incorporation in public school science curricula.

The dispute that has occurred in this thread (and similar recent disputes elsewhere) seem to me to be examples of people "fighting the last war" rather than dealing with the situation as it exists today. ID supporters who are not YECs need to understand that most evolutionary biologists lump the two together, partly because of the behavior of the Dover Area school board and similar, more local situations in which YECs have persisted in pushing their views into the public schools. At the same time, evolutionary biologists and their political supporters need to understand that there is no necessary connection between YEC and ID, nor are they united in their conviction that YEC and ID must be incorporated into the public school curriculum today.

A recognition of the political contexts within which both evolutionary biologists and Intelligent Design supporters have come to their positions, and what these contexts imply about the value of possible further actions would be valuable for both sides in this debate. I have had many ID supporters say privately to me that Dover was a disaster for ID, and especially for its quest to be accepted as a legitimate empirical science. I have also had many evolutionary biologists express to me their opinion that there is essentially no difference between YEC and ID, a viewpoint that I have learned through experience is clearly in error.

Ergo, I have concluded that the most effective way to move forward in this debate is the way I have been conducting it since the mid-1990s. That is, to invite supporters of both sides of the debate to make presentations in my evolution courses and seminars at Cornell and to conduct such debates in public forums such as this website. Ironically, I find this venue to be much more congenial to such debates than places like AtBC, in which character assassination is the order of the day, rather than the last resort of people who are either confused about their own position or uncertain about its logical force.

And so, I recommend that all participants in this debate avoid name-calling and ad hominem arguments. For each committed commentator on both sides of this issue, there are many thousands of quiet observers who are trying to come to their own conclusions about the issues being debated. While mud-slinging is fun, it's fun in the same way that smoking or drinking heavily is fun; it provides short-term personal gratification, but in the long term it undermines everything one is trying to accomplish.

I believe that clarity should be our goal, not necessarily agreement. If we come to clarity about our positions and agree to disagree, then we have accomplished a great deal more than we would have accomplished if our goal was simply to attack our opponents' characters or to question their personal motives. Going forward I will do my best to pursue this course of action, and recommend that all who genuinely wish to come to clarity on these issues and, by doing so, help the "silent watchers" of this forum to do so as well, treat each other as colleagues (in the "collegiate" sense of that word) in their pursuit of what they perceive to be the truth, rather than as enemies in a culture war.

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As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

Chance and Necessity

AUTHOR: Allen MacNeill

SOURCE: Original essay

COMMENTARY: That's up to you...

One of the main disagreements between evolutionary biologists and "intelligent design" supporters is the role of "chance" (also called "randomness") in the origin of biological objects and processes (especially adaptations). In many cases, it seems that this disagreement is exacerbated by a disagreement about what the antonym of "chance" might be. In my experience, many people on both sides of the EB/ID disagreement think that the opposite of a "chance" event is an event that was "caused". However, this ignores the fact that many scientific explanations now include "chance" or "random" processes in causal explanations of natural objects and processes.

In this context, therefore, I propose that the antonym for "chance" is "necessity", as was first pointed out by Democritus of Abdera in the 4th century BC, whose two famous aphorisms were:

"All things are the fruit of chance and necessity"

and

"Nothing exists except atoms and the void".

The phrase "chance and necessity" is often used as a descriptive term in modern science. It means essentially "all natural/physical causes", or what one might consider to be the "Newtonian" world view. The reason that evolutionary biologists consider that Darwin founded the science of biology is that he proposed a theory of descent with modification and the origin of adaptations that was based entirely on "chance and necessity", thereby "unifying" biology with the other natural sciences.

However, it is clear that there is a myriad of objects and processes in the universe that are not entirely the "fruit of chance and necessity", just as there are clearly "things" that are neither "atoms" or "void". In purely physical terms, we now recognize at least three "things" in nature: mass, energy, and information. Only the first of these three qualifies under Democritus second aphorism, as neither energy nor information qualify as "things". Energy, of course, is interconvertable with matter according to Einstein's famous energy/matter equation. However, in the form of "pure" energy (such as electromagnetic radiation), energy is not detectable unless and until it interacts with matter (this is why outer space appears black, even though it is filled with light).

The "detectability" problem of energy is even more difficult in the case of information. It seems clear that all forms of information involve some sort of "translation", in which matter/energy relationships are "translated" into information, which can be stored and transmitted in forms that are not entirely reducible to the original matter/energy forms which they represent. As Korbzybski famously said, "the map is not the territory"; the representation (in the form of information) is not the "thing" represented".

No one, including hard-core "naturalists", suggests that information doesn't exist. The problem (and this is where EB and ID run into serious difficulty), is how (and perhaps by whom) information can become "translated" in the first place. It is not even completely clear that simple "natural" processes (such as the photoelectric effect) do not include an exchange of "information" as well as an exchange of energy (in the form of a photon, for example). In quantum electrodynamics, does the exchange of a photon (or, even worse, a virtual photon) constitute an exchange of "information" between the interacting particles?

In classical physics, there is no "arrow of time". Newtonian mechanics can be run forward or backward in time, with no contradictions (and no way to tell which way the process is happening). However, in those branches of modern physics in which random processes play a part (statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, and quantum mechanics), randomness is necessarily tied to "time's arrow". The same is apparently the case with information, at least in its Shannon form.

Ergo, it seems to me that the problem of information is one that is necessarily tied with the concept of "chance". Indeed, I have come to think that information is a manifestation of one of the operations of "chance" in nature; without information, chance overwhelms everything and the universe disintegrates into permanent incoherence.

This is clearly the case in biology. The "fixing" of information in the physical form of the genetic material is the only thing that makes biology possible. Without such "physicallization" of information (in the form of DNA, RNA, proteins, etc.) biological systems would be impossible, as they would disintegrate into incoherence.

Ergo, the transition from purely physical (i.e. mechanical/Newtonian) processes that do not include the translation and transfer of "translated" information to biological processes that necessarily involve the translation and transfer of "translated" information is the central problem of both biology and the physical sciences. As I have written before, I am not sanguine about our ability to answer this problem using historical information, as the transition occurred at a time (and perhaps in a place) which has left no traces from which we can infer its dynamics.

This leaves us with theoretical models, which are of course based on metaphysical assumptions about reality. I believe it would be fair to say that IDers assume that information can exist without a physical referrent (i.e. something that "carries" or "transmits" the information), whereas EBers (along with most other natural scientists) assume that information must have a physical referrent (i.e. it cannot exist in purely "disembodied" form).

Furthermore, it seems clear from previous discussions in this forum that IDers assume that information can be "foresighted"; that is, it can somehow anticipate future outcomes, not by "induction" from the past but by some kind of "deduction" from the future. EBers (again, like most other natural scientists) assume that "time's arrow" cannot point backward, and that the future is therefore relentlessly driven by the past.

It seems to me that the foregoing lays out the problems which which any scientific theory of "origins" must come to grips:

• whether information can exist in purely "disembodied" form in nature, without a physical referrent

• whether the origin of the "translation" of information into physical form (i.e. the origin of the genetic translation machinery of living organisms) cannot take place without an input of "disembodied" information

• whether any form of information transfer can be genuinely "foresighted" (i.e. can be modified by events that have not yet happened, rather than simply predicting future events based on events that have happened in the past).

Evolutionary biologists (and the vast majority of all natural scientists) begin with a metaphysical world view in which their starting assumptions answer these three questions with NO. By contrast, most of the ID supporters with whom I have had such discussions begin with a metaphysical world view in which their starting assumptions are exactly the opposite: they answer these three questions with YES.

Personally, I believe that the metaphysical world view of most scientists is easier to work with, as it requires fewer "YES" answers to these questions (i.e. it requires fewer unverifiable assumptions about things that must exist for the universe to work). However, I freely admit that this belief is on a par with my acceptance of "Occam's razor" as a basic principle of scientific explanation. That is, "Occam's razor" clearly isn't "true", it's just useful as a rule of thumb in doing science.

So, where does this leave us? I think it explains why most scientists are uncomfortable with the word "design" being applied to biological objects and processes. As I have pointed out, Ernst Mayr argued for the legitimacy of the concept of design in biology, when what was meant by that term was the idea that organisms are "designed" by the information encoded in their genomes, interacting with the information obtained from interactions with their environments. This is because this view of biological "design" conforms to the three answers to the three questions listed above as answered by most scientists.

However, Mayr (and virtually all other evolutionary biologists) was uncomfortable with the idea that the process by which genomes and environments came into being was also "designed" - that is, that there was some foresighted process in which intention played a part in the bringing into existence of the physically embodied objects and processes in biology. Again, this is because this view of biological "design" does not conform to the three answers to the three questions listed above as answered by most scientists.

Where do we go from here?

As always, comments, criticisms, and suggestions are warmly welcomed!

--Allen

The Resurrection of Formal and Final Causes

SOURCE: Telic Thoughts

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill

Over at Telic Thoughts, g arago commented:

"It would perhaps help to bring in Aristotle's causes again, to the effect that final causes are virtually eliminated from modern science. Postmodernity enables the case for formal causality to re-emerge as a legitimate source of (scientific or non-scientific) knowledge."

It's interesting that this should be proposed, as that is precisely what I will be doing during the very first meeting of my "purpose in nature" seminar at Cornell this summer. It is a sad fact that most undergraduates (and an alarming number of philosophers and scientists) do not know anything about Aristotle's doctrine of causes, nor how they relate to the work they are doing.

Aristotle identified four causes for every phenomenon:

Material Cause: What the object in question is composed of (e.g. a house is composed of boards, bricks, mortar, etc.;

Formal Cause: What formal category the object is an exemplar of (e.g. any particular house is a "house" or dwelling place for people);

Efficient Cause: What immediate processes bring about the existence of the object (e.g. the carpenters, etc. are the efficient cause of the house); and

Final Cause: The purpose of the object (e.g. carpenters et al build houses "in order to" provide dwelling places for people).

In modern science, both formal and final causes are considered to be unnecessary, and are therefore not generally included in scientific explanations of natural objects and processes. However, it is not strictly true that formal causes have been completely eliminated from science. Much of physics, for example, has taken on some of the characteristics of "formal cause" insofar as physical processes are describable and predictable using formal mathematics. This is particularly the case for physicists who believe that actual physical phenomena are "the working out of underlying mathematical relationships."

The same could be said for evolutionary theory insofar as the "modern evolutionary synthesis" initiated R. A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright sought to lay a formal mathematical foundation for biological evolution.

The problem for "intelligent design theory" therefore is to show (if possible) that final causes are necessary (i.e. not just psychologically gratifying or theologically convenient) for evolutionary explanations of natural objects and processes. Final causes (or "purposes") are not entirely missing from evolutionary biology, as shown by the work of Colin Pittendrigh, Francisco Ayala, and Ernst Mayr, all of whom debated the appropriateness of teleological language when referring to adapations. However, no evolutionary biologist has resorted to teleological explanations for the existence or operation of natural selection, speciation, evolutionary development, or other central processes in evolution, at least not recently. The reason for such exclusion has not been an antipathy to theologically based explanations per se, but rather the simple fact that teleological explanations for evolutionary processes have been shown repeatedly to be unnecessary, and therefore irrelevant (notice that I did not say "untrue," as "truth" is also irrelevant in this context).

What W. Dembski and M. Behe and other ID theorists have attempted to do (in my opinion, so far unsuccessfully) is to re-integrate teleology into evolutionary processes. The more recent discussion by some ID theorists of "'front-loaded' intelligent design" is simply a reinvention of Aristotelian formal cause, and as such is indistinguishable from classical deism. Neither of these approaches to "design or purpose in nature" has yet been successful as scientific enterprises because they have not been shown to be indispensible to scientific explanations. Until they are, they will not be integrated into mainstream science. While I personally do not believe they can be, I am willing to be shown otherwise by people who use direct empirical evidence and strong inference to show how teleological explanations are necessary for scientific explanations.

--Allen

More on Parsimony in Biology

AUTHOR: Robert Skipper

SOURCE: Cladistic Parsimony and Ockham's Razor

COMMENTARY: Allen MacNeill

Robert Skipper has a report on his participation in the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology conference last weekend. He delivered a paper on Cladistic Parsimony and Ockham's Razor, a subject about which both he and I have blogged in the past. In a previous post, Skipper comes to the following (admittedly tentative) conclusions:

At the moment, my thinking is that cladistic parsimony is a special case of simplicity (if it is a case at all). But I won't make the case for that here....One thing I think we can say, from the examples, is that when we're in a situation in which we must choose among competing hypotheses or theories, and empirical evidence isn't definitive, use simplicity to make the choice.

Each of [the authors cited] urge us to run with the simplest model among the relevant alternatives unless we're forced to abandon that model for a more complicated one. What does the forcing is empirical evidence. Indeed, none of the biologists I quoted above said anything about the fact that simplicity is truth-indicative. Burnet in fact said that because the clonal theory is simplest, it's probably false! So, simplicity doesn't indicate the truth of some hypothesis or model or theory. Rather, it's a strategy that directs us toward the truth....At least we can say we've eliminated some fruitless paths of inquiry.

COMMENTARY:

I think it would be helpful to consider two possibilities vis-a-vis the application of parsimony in science:

1) Parsimony is merely "useful" in the sense that it reduces the complexity of hypotheses to a level at which they are empirically testable. When I teach my students about how science is usually done, I give them the "hypothetico-deductive" model first, and then point out that this model doesn't give you criteria for formulating testable hypotheses, it only gives you a method for testing them once they have been formulated. To formulate testable hypotheses requires an additional step: one must "mentally" test one's hypothesis to determine if:
• it's empiirically testable, and
• the emipirical test that one is considering can distinguish between it and alternative hypotheses
If the answers to these two questions are both "yes," then one is ready to actually run the experiment/make the observations to test the predictions that flow from the hypothesis.

In this view, parsimony is simply "useful" in that it is more likely (on average) to yield testable hypotheses whose empirical results are more likely to unambiguously validate or falsify one's predictions.

2) Parsimony might actually be an intrinsic feature of "natural causation" itself. In evolutionary psychology (my field, BTW) there is a concept known as "computational overload (CO)." Basically, CO is used as an argument against the "blank slate" hypothesis for human cognition and motivation. That is, if the mind is a "blank slate" (i.e. relies entirely on "trail and error/reinforcement" algorithms), CO rapidly overwhelms even the largest and fastest computer imagineable. Therefore, EPs like me assume that the brain is modularized, and that each module has a fairly stringent "perceptual filter" that limits inputs as a way of minimizing CO (such filters and modules having evolved by natural selection).*

The same concept could be applied to nature, and especially biology. Biological systems are fiendishly complex, much more so than physical or chemical systems. This complexity, if not minimized in some way, would result in biological systems "seizing up" as the result of CO (where "computation" is interpreted broadly as the binary and higher level interactions between multiple influences, some competing and some complementary).

Natural selection, in other words, has resulted in the evolution of biological systems in which "parsimony" has been encoded into the interactive structure of living organisms and systems of living organisms themselves, as a way of minimizing CO and maximizing effective interaction with one's environment.

Indeed, I would be tempted to argue that (1) may even be a consequence of (2), as our minds themselves are already adapted to minimizing CO, and therefore are predisposed to parsimonious solutions to problems in general, and therefore also scientific problems. In our interactions with nature as in our science, therefore, "good enough for now" is "good enough for all".
--Allen

*I also suspect that this phenomenon is the basis for the "Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)" in humans, as a predisposition for making FAEs would be selected for as long as the results of doing so were as often adaptive as deleterious (i.e. a tendency toward "false positives" in making FAEs would simply be a kind of "worse case analysis", which is almost always adaptive...especially in a dangerous world such as ours, in which even paranoids have real enemies ;-)