Methodological naturalism

I've posted in this blog several times on theistic evolution.  One of the (seemingly) interesting facts about those who hold a strong theistic evolutionary view is their commitment to a philosophical position called "methodological naturalism".

What's interesting is that's the common position held by atheists...so why should theists hold that same philosophical view?

Methodological naturalism basically says that science cannot ever make statements about God.  In fact, the only kind of conclusions that you are allowed to draw, as a scientist, are naturalistic ones.  You can never take evidence you see in the natural world, and from that evidence, conclude that something supernatual occurred.  It's not allowed.

An aside: The statement, "From science, the only conclusions you are allowed to draw are natural ones, and supernatural conclusions are disallowed," is not a scientific statement.  It is a philosophical statement.  Thus, if you are a scientist, this is something that comes from outside of science that informs you how you do science.  Nothing wrong with that, but it's something every scientist must acknowledge.

Back to the discussion of methodological naturalism.  If a theist, who believes in God, says that in science only naturalistic causes are allowed to be drawn as conclusions, then science is reduced from something that searches for truth (no matter where it lies) to something that is dominated by a particular philosophy, a particular worldview, that can force you to conclude something false about the universe.

Now, as a scientist, I am not just going around saying God did everything.  But I am also not going around saying that God could never be the answer.  If God did act in the world, then there could possibly be some evidence of that.  And it's entirely possible that the particular system that I am studying has been effected by that.  If I rule that out from the get-go, then I am effectively ruling out truth in favor of a philosophical (not scientific) position.  I am slanting my scientific conclusions by my philosophical presuppositions.

Where does this lead us?  This means that we should always be cautious and tentative when it comes to science, and that also includes being cautions and tentative when it comes to examining our presuppositions (i.e., our "baggage") that we bring to the table.

What do we care?

A couple of posts ago, I ended with the question "and what do we care?" This was in regard to whether and how much God has (supernaturally) intervened in the history of the universe to get the events to unfold according to His plan. For example, why in the end should we care whether God had to override the laws of physics to get the solar system to form where it is (ie, in the just-right location in the just-right galaxy) with the composition it has (ie, made of the just-right abundances of elements), etc, or whether the unfolding of the universe under the natural laws He set up at the beginning conspired to make this unlikely place form "naturally"?

I think this is certainly a good point to discuss. It isn't likely that we'll ever know how God did it. Although if we could show that the laws of physics were violated over and over, it would be a good apologetic. But philosophically, who can tell the difference between these two types of miraculous events? The formation of the moon was a miracle, in that it was highly unlikely. The advent of man was a miracle, in that it was an even less likely event. Do either violate the laws of physics? Even that's a difficult question to answer, as statistical thermodynamics, and even more so quantum mechanics, imply that anything can happen, even the most unlikely thing. It is within the laws of physics for all the air in the room you're sitting in to suddenly move to the other side of the room, instantly suffocating you. Its likelihood is on the order of 10^{-25} (or probably less), but it's not impossible. (I'll try to discuss this in a later post, because I'm not doing this justice here.)

Instead, I argue that the question we should be asking is therefore not whether the laws of physics are broken, but instead whether the unfolding of the history of the universe, including the history of life on planet earth, seems to bespeak the supernatural superintent of a creator, i.e., a mind. This is not just a question about probabilities. Rather, it is a question regarding whether the universe's history reflects the expressly-stated purposes of a creator. Sure, regarding evolution, we can try to go and test whether God specially intervened at points, but these would again be based on probability arguments. (For example, the likelihood that whales would evolve from a land mammal given their large body size, low fecundity, and long generation time, is extremely small.)

No, what I am arguing here is that the unfolding of history is following a divine plan. We live in a just right location at the just right time. The history of life on earth followed a just-right trajectory such that we could be here today. The evolution of stars and galaxies prior to the formation of our solar system occurred in a just-right way. In essence, these are all fine-tuning arguments, but they're subtly more than that, I think. It appears that the fine-tuning is no coincidence. It appears that it is following a plan.

And I think this argument demands to be developed further. For now, it's only in its infancy.

Why would God violate His own laws of physics (part 2)?

In my previous post, I introduced this topic and gave a very simple example why He would violate the laws of physics. In addition to that, we know that God did intervene in certain circumstances. For example, He intervened at the beginning of time. He intervened at the incarnation. Jesus (and the old testament prophets before Him) performed many miracles. I don't find this to be a good answer to Ken Miller's question, however, as God had specific purposes in history to perform miracles, and these acts of divine intervention were well-documented in the Bible. Thus, it does not answer generally about the history of the universe.

My next comment is that, in a way, I sympathize with Ken Miller and Francis Collins and other theistic evolutionists on on this point. When creationists argue that God must have intervened in specially creating life, including humans on the sixth day of creation, I wonder how that would be different from a special creation of the moon. We think we know in pretty good detail how the moon was formed, from a mechanistic, laws-of-physics standpoint. However, the fact that it happened is essentially a miracle. If the moon didn't exist in a very finely-tuned fashion, neither would we. In other words, if the moon hadn't formed in just the right way from just the right materials at just the right time in just the right place with just the right mass, advanced life would not have been possible on this planet. (I can't go into the details, as I do not know them. However, take my word for it that the formation of the moon is generally accepted to be a finely-tuned event, even among atheistic scientists. Also, I found a cool movie here about this, narrated by Captain Jean Luc Picard.) The chance that the moon would form in just this way is so small as to be essentially zero. But it can be explained in a very simple way: a Mars-sized body revolving around the sun about 4.4 billion years ago at the same revolution radius as the earth was suddenly kicked out of its stable orbit. It slowly got closer and closer to the earth until the two bodies collided at a low relative velocity and at a highly oblique angle. The laws of physics can completely explain it. But they do not explain why such an event, which must have been so finely-tuned, would have happened.

Applying this to life's history, Darwinian evolution is certainly a plausible mechanism to explain life's history, given the concession that life evolving this way (i.e., in just the right way to produce us) is extremely unlikely. However, I don't see anything in direct contradiction of the laws of physics, barring a second law of thermodynamics hand-waving argument. In other words, it isn't absurd to imagine that God supernaturally superintended each of life's events such that evolution according to the natural laws would occur just as He would have it. In the same way that it isn't absurd to imagine that God supernaturally superintended the formation of the moon just as He would have it such that we could later exist. He guided an extremely unlikely set of events to get us in the end. Did He do this by setting it up from the beginning and forgetting it (like a roticerie chicken machine)? Or did He have to perform "midcourse corrections'" such as NASA ground control often must do? And what do we care?

So, this discussion leads us logically to a point that I have discussed many times, about how all theistic evolutionists should also be proponents of intelligent design, and I won't repeat them here.

Why would God violate His own laws of physics?

I was listening to a lecture by Francis Collins recently. The specifics of his beliefs on God's direct creative intervention in history, whether it be in respect to the anthropic principle or the origin/evolution of life, were not that clear. (Perhaps this is a good thing; why be too dogmatic about an unimportant issue. Indeed, the answers to these questions may be something we never know until we ask Him ourselves.)

A few of the things he said, however, reminded me of something Ken Miller once said when I had the great opportunity to have a lunchtime discussion with him. He asked, "Why would God need to violate His own laws of physics to make things happen?" Meaning, if God is the author of the laws of physics, and the creator of the universe, certainly He had the ability to fine-tune the initial conditions of the universe (presumably at the moment of creation) in order to get everything to turn out as He wanted. Ken used this as an argument that evolution and theism are not in conflict; indeed, evolution makes even more sense than special creation in his opinion.

I have several comments about that. I'll talk about the first one here.

I can certainly imagine a hypothetical scenario in which God would need to violate the laws of physics and intervene in a very special way to make things happen. Imagine God wishes to fire a cannon and have the cannonball fly through a ring suspended in the air. (No, the ring being suspended is not the violation of the laws of physics; it could be hanging by a string or sitting on a post.) Simple. All He has to do is aim the cannon correctly, pack the right amount of gunpowder, and He can achieve His objective. (This is, of course, assuming the ring is not so high or so far away as to violate the physical constraints of the cannon. Assume, for this example, that it is an "infinitely powerful" cannon that can be aimed in any direction.)

Now imagine He also wishes to have the cannonball fly through another ring. No problem; it just constrains the parameters further. (In the case of only one ring, there are multiple ways to achieve this goal.)

Now, finally, there is a third ring He wants the cannonball to go through. Now we have a problem. What if the third ring doesn't lie along the parabolic path defined by the first two rings? (Actually, you can also think of a case in which He cannot even shoot the cannon through two rings. However, the illustration with three rings is easier to envision, and also helps lead the reader to the result, which is always the better teaching strategy.) For example, if the second ring is lower than the first ring, but the third ring is higher than the second, we are stuck. With God, however, nothing is impossible. He can simply "perform a miracle," i.e., break the laws of physics, to achieve His objectives.

OK, the illustration was silly and simplistic, but it shows that it is plausible, if not necessary, for God to have intervened in history to ensure the unfolding of events up until this point. This includes the formation of the galaxy, solar system, earth, moon, continents, etc., as well as the origin and history of life on this planet. It isn't entirely clear to me that any of this could have happened solely according to the laws of physics operating on the initial conditions of the universe at the singular cosmic creation event. Note that I have not proved that God intervened specially, I have only answered Ken Miller's question of "why." In other words, his asking that question and leaving it at that, as if that philosophically proves the case for the "fully-gifted creation" viewpoint, is not sufficient.

Francisco Ayala wins the Templeton Prize

A recent article in the LA Times reports on a local (UC Irvine) professor of biology, Francisco Ayala, winning the Templeton Prize. I think it's great that such a big prize in spirituality is being awarded to a scientist.

Although, I must say I don't agree very much with his philosophical views -- at least, with those espoused in this article. And of course who am I to address these things? Ayala is apparently an ordained priest. He's also a professor of biology, which is more than I can say about myself. (And between the two of us, who has won a Templeton Prize?)

So, he carries more clout than I do. But you can judge his points of view against mine regardless of our backgrounds (so that you avoid the ad hominem argument). For example, the article says, at one point:

Evolution "is consistent with a religious belief in God, whereas creationism and intelligent design are not." This, [Ayala] said, is because intelligent design suggests that the deformities of the world are God's design, whereas science shows them to be "a consequence of the clumsy ways of the evolutionary process."

I don't understand this. Even if evolution were clumsy, doesn't that also reflect in God, just as if He were the creator/designer? I guess this goes along "recent" posts of mine describing how even theistic evolutionists should, at some level, be proponents of intelligent design (note the lowercase letters).

The article then goes on to say:

"The Bible is a book about religious truths; it is not how the Earth was made," [Ayala] said. He added that he rejects the idea that one can read the Bible "as if it were an elementary textbook of biology or physics."

This is a common straw man against reading the bible literally and consistently with science. It doesn't have to be "as if it were an elementary textbook of [science]" in order to have some truths about the world and the way it was made. Indeed, if "the bible is a book about religious truths" (emphasis mine), then wouldn't it necessarily be about truths regarding origins? Because the origins of the universe, of the earth, of life, and yes, even of man, all have religious content.

For example, loooong before any of this became a scientific controversy, there was this little doctrine called creation ex nihilo (for an incomplete list of bible verses, see Gen 1:1, Heb 11:3, and 2 Tim 1:9 ). The earliest Christians believed that God created the universe out of nothing. That is, He did not use existing starting materials. That directly addresses the origins question, and is definitively from a religious point of view. So if the bible is about religious truth, and thus what is says about the origin of the universe is true, then at the very least it is consistent with our current understanding of the beginning of the universe (ie, the Big Bang). You can get all of this from the bible without treating it as an elementary science text. It comes directly out of theological commentaries.

Theistic evolution and intelligent design (part 5): Are we bold enough to test it?

In my last post, I drove home the point that intelligent design and theistic evolution, in the most generic sense of the two, should be welcome bedfellows. This is not to say that intelligent design of the kind that says "the bacterial flagellum is too complex and thus evolution cannot be true" should be wedded to theistic evolution; instead I am saying that evolution or no, God is sovereign, and He designed this universe and all life at some level.

However, if we accept that, we are denying what many people (in academia and elsewhere) equate with the theory of biological evolution: a naturalistic worldview. We should have no problem with the idea that all life on earth is related, but we should have a problem with the idea that, since we descended from an ape-like ancestor that also gave rise to chimpanzees (in common vernacular: we came from monkeys), we do not have inherent moral value. Or that we have the same moral value as chimpanzees. Or that we are different in degree only, not in kind. Folks, we were made in the image of God! Tarnished now, but that is true for no other creature (including the angels). And none other has the chance for redemption that we do.

What's more, as Christians we are in a unique position. We can affirm evolution, but we deny the naturalistic worldview. However, the proponent of naturalism (i.e., the atheist) must affirm evolution, because he/she denies the theistic worldview. (I hope I am not simplifying too much here, but I feel I am more or less correct.) And thus, the veracity of biological evolution carries too much weight; the atheist's worldview depends on it. And perhaps this is why evolution is considered sacred to biologists (as I mentioned in an earlier post).

I understand that most biologists would say that evolution has such high regard in biology because the entire field hinges upon it; it is the foundation for all biological research. I say hogwash to that. The field only hinges upon it if you have a naturalistic worldview.

Anyway, back to my main point. The naturalist's worldview hinges on the veracity of evolution. In contrast, the Christian worldview hinges on the veracity of the resurrection, and not on any "intelligent design" argument. We can go into the evidence for the resurrection later, but my point is that as Christians and as scientists (ok, some of us are scientists), we can take or leave biological evolution.

And so my question is: are we bold enough to test it?

Theistic evolution and intelligent design (part 4): "Will you marry me?"

Hearkening back to my original post in this series, I mentioned that I thought neither the "Theistic evolutionists" nor the proponents of the Intelligent Design Movement (IDM) have it right. I pointed out in part two that theistic evolutionists should, at their very heart, be proponents of intelligent design. In parts 3a and 3b, I spent most of the time talking about the IDM, but did mention that all Christians should be intelligent design (notice the lowercase letters) proponents of some sort.

Why can't then these two positions (theistic evolution and intelligent design) be married together in some way?

Sure, the natural mechanisms of biological evolution (that is, descent with modification, natural selection operating on variations caused by mutations) can promote diversification and speciation. But how does that detract from the fact that this universe and everything in it was part of the Designer's grand plan? Isaiah 45:18 says that God "did not create it [the earth] to be empty, / but formed it to be inhabited." It was God's plan in the beginning that earth should be filled with life. And if I may be so bold: human life was part of His plan as well. In other words, things may have evolved, but life was still designed.

Look at it this way. There are a lot of quotes from famous scientists that tread the edge of intelligent design, while at the same time vehemently denying it. For example, Francis Crick (in his book "What Mad Pursuit") says the following: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved." Uhm, excuse me, but why not both? No, seriously, one would correctly infer from this quote that biological entities, at the very least, appear designed. They do. The common evolutionist answer to that is the appearance of design is what we would expect given the mechanisms of evolution.

I have two things to say to that. First, how do we know? I think that's coming pretty close to putting the cart before the horse. Although I would tend to agree with that statement, I am still disgruntled that we take that at face value and don't test it.

Second, that statement (as well as the quote by Dr. Crick) relies on a false dichotomy. It's either designed, or it evolved. Theistic evolutionists and IDM proponents (and most people in general) play into that game, perhaps unknowningly. Most theistic evolutionists I know are uncomfortable with the idea that life is designed, even though I believe that's a natural consequence of their philosophical position. But we don't have to fall into that trap! Even though God may work through the natural laws and processes that He created, there is no reason to believe that life didn't evolve with a purpose, with a design!

In other words, I'm saying that if you're a Christian, and you believe that evolution correctly describes the history of life on earth and the diveristy of life we see today, you should still believe that it has been designed for the benefit of humanity. And that's just based on a philosophical/theological position. It doesn't even take into account the scientific evidence in favor of that position. (Perhaps I'll describe that evidence at a later date.)

Theistic evolution and intelligent design (part 2): what is theistic evolution?

Last time I rambled about this topic, I remarked on an article describing the Catholic position on cosmic and biological evolution. At the end of that post, I said that neither Theistic evolutionists nor Intelligent design proponents have it right, and that I would have to go into deeper detail about exactly what "Theistic evolution" and "intelligent design" mean, in this context.

In this post, I'll talk about what seems to me to be the most commonly held aspects of theistic evolution. Although, I admit that these may not in fact be the most commonly held, but only appear to be that way because they are held by the loudest proponents.

In summary, it seems that theistic evolutionists are only a step away from deistic evolutionists. Deism, in contrast to theism, is the view that a god or gods created the universe, but sits back and watches as everything unfolds, with little or no participation or intervention. Most theistic evolutionists would adamantly claim that this is not their stance...adopting such a stance would deny the deity of Christ, for example. But it seems proponents of theistic evolution are uncomfortable with the idea that God had a hand in any sort of physical, chemical, or biological process perhaps up until the time of Abraham, and maybe even after. (Again, they would not deny that God specially sought after a relationship with humans.)

Here's an example: a quote from Ken Miller, a quite famous theistic evolutionist and professor of biology at Brown University (and author of "Finding Darwin's God" and "Only a Theory"). He said, "Why would God have to break the laws of physics that He created?" In other words, if God directly intervened in the history of the universe for creation purposes, that would go outside the laws of physics. But God is the author of the laws of physics. Why couldn't He have just set everything up at the beginning so everything would play out as he wanted it?

There is more to this story, though. Miller's stance in his second book, "Only a Theory", is that a creationist God, who intervenes over the course of history, specifically in creating new life forms throughout the history of the earth, would be a bumbling, mistake-prone God. Consider all of the plant and animal species that have gone extinct over the last 500+ million years. It would seem like a creationist, intervening God just couldn't get it right.

I don't see how adopting a near-deistic point of view saves you from this precipice, though. Theistic evolutionists, as far as I can tell, still affirm the sovereignty of God, it's just that His plan was enacted from the get go and required little-to-no "midcourse corrections", as it were. In that case, given all of the life that has arisen and gone extinct, wouldn't a theistic evolutionary God also seem to be not "getting it right?"

So here's the beef I have with theistic evolution. I would argue that a theistic evolutionary point of view may be scientifically tenable, but it's full of philosophical loopholes. If we dig really deep into its philosophical tenets, we find that either we believe that human existence is an evolutionary accident (thereby denying the sovereignty of God), or it is part of God's initial, divine, cosmic plan. If we take the second to be true, and follow it to its logical, philosophical conclusions, then every life form that lived and died on this planet was part of a grand design by the cosmic Designer Himself. This further implies that life was indeed designed, a position that every proponent of theistic evolution would be uncomfortable with (at least, upon inference from hearing many theistic evolutionists speak).

So, what's the deal?

Theistic Evolution and Intelligent Design (part 1 of who knows how many)

A friend recently pointed me to a web article about the Catholic position on evolution. The article describes the unanimous agreement among scholars attending a plenary session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (whatever that is) that the universe was ancient. The article goes on to say that the vast majority of scholars agreed that species of life today share common ancestry.

In contrast, the next paragraph of the article points out that none of the scientists attending the session were proponents of the Intelligent Design Movement (IDM), mostly because of its lack of scientific testability.

I think this is fantastic. A bunch of Christians getting together and agreeing on an ancient age of the universe, and allowing the scientific data to speak for themselves regarding cosmic and biotic evolution.

On the other hand, I am quite tired of hearing about the "debate" between theistic evolution and intelligent design. Or anything and intelligent design. Or anything and _____ evolution (be it theistic, biotic, darwinian, etc). In my opinion, neither the IDM proponents, nor the "Theistic Evolutionists" have it right. But to get into a deep discussion about that, I'll have to go into more detail about what the IDM means, and what most proponents of theistic evolution believe. Next time.

Fully gifted creation

One of the hot button topics these days, at least in terms of Christianity and science, is evolution. Most of the time, the debate/discussion is artificially polarized/caricatured into two camps: creationism and evolution. If you're a Christian, you believe in creation, and if you're smart, you believe in evolution. (Whatever "believe in evolution" means.)

Some refuse to be part of that partisianship. Prominent scientists like Ken Miller and Francis Collins (both authors as well) ascribe to a view commonly called "theistic evolution", which loosely means they affirm both God's existence (both would accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior), yet also naturalistic evolution. That is, both would deny that God had a hand in creating any of the life by fiat miracle, as many creationists would state.

Howard van Till calls this point of view "fully gifted creation", in that God, when He created the universe, did it in such a perfect way, with the just-right initial conditions, such that everything would unfold according to His plan.

What is interesting about this point of view is that it isn't just a concession to mainstream science, as some creationists claim, but indeed it demonstrates the existence of an Intelligent Designer. If the universe unfolding this way is according to God's plan, then life's history on earth does have a purpose, even if it can be fully explained by "mere" naturalistic forces. In other words, even in a theistic evoltionary worldview, we would expect to see design and fine-tuning in life's history. It is an inevitable consequence of believing in a God "who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will (Eph 1:11)."

I'd really like to hear someone's (anyone's?) thoughts on this topic.