No, not that Commencement speaker controversy. That Commencement speaker controversy I understand. It’s relatively simple: The left-liberals who run the show at Georgetown have found a way to signal to the world that the nation’s oldest Catholic, and most famous Jesuit, university stands with the Obama administration in its war (to use, if I recall correctly, Kathleen Sebelius’s own word) against the Catholic bishops and others who oppose the HHS mandate as a violation of religious freedom and the rights of conscience (you know, the enemies of women’s “reproductive health”). By honoring Secretary Sebelius, they can help to undermine the bishops’ credibility and blunt the force of their witness as leaders of the Catholic church. I get it. It’s a bold and clever move. Although I find its substance appalling, I can’t help but admire its shrewdness.
But, no, I mean a different Commencement speaker controversy.
My friend and former colleague on the President’s Council on Bioethics, Dr. Benjamin Carson of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is, to put it simply, one of the most distinguished people in the world. His feats in the field of neurosurgery are literally the stuff of legend. His life story is nothing short of inspiring. See here. His works of philanthropy are remarkable in both their generosity and their impact on the lives of people in need. See, for example, here. If there were a Nobel Prize in Human Excellence, Ben (who already has the Presidential Medal of Freedom among countless other honors) would be among the first laureates.
But a controversy has broken out at Emory University, where Ben is scheduled to give the Commencement Address and recieve an honorary degree. What is it about Ben Carson that would cause five hundred people–faculty members, students, alumni–to sign a letter of “concern” about him as the Commencement speaker? Well, it turns out that he is an academic heretic. He doesn’t believe in the Darwinian theory of evolution. Perhaps he doesn’t believe in evolution at all. And he argues that belief in Darwinian evolution, or any form of pure materialism, undermines the basis of ethics.
In their letter of “concern,” warning unwary people about the heretical Commencement speaker, Dr. Carson’s critics place particular emphasis on this last point. They are upset that he must consider people who believe in Darwinism to be unethical. That’s insulting. That’s exclusionary. Etc., etc.
But of course Gentle Ben (and he is indeed one of the gentlest, kindest people one could ever meet) doesn’t believe that his Darwinist friends and colleagues are necessarily unethical. What he believes is that Darwinism is necessarily materialistic. (This is a view about Darwinism that he shares with some devout Darwinists themselves.) And he believes that materialism, if true, is incompatible with free will and with ethical norms (which must be, after all, norms for the guidance of free choices, if they are to have any standing, force, and validity at all). Now, he knows perfectly well that people who believe in materialism are in many cases decent, honorable, ethical people. But he thinks that they lead lives that are much better than their formal philosophical beliefs would require them to lead. He believes that their commitment to materialism makes it impossible for them to give a sound account of the ethical norms which they themselves, to their credit, live by. Of course, he might be wrong about that (though I don’t think he is), just as he might be wrong about the validity of Darwinism as a scientific theory, or the compatility of Darwinism with the rejection of materialism. But it’s certainly not a mean or crazy thing to believe or say. It’s scarcely a cause for “concern” about having him as a Commencement speaker.
I do wish that more contemporary liberals would be a bit more, well, liberal when it comes to tolerating dissent from the orthodoxies of their faith. Or else I wish they would abandon the pretence of being liberals in the old-fashioned sense and declare their faith to be the equivalent of a religion from which various forms of dissent are simply not to be tolerated. Although I would prefer the former course of action, either course would have the virtue of bringing liberal practice and liberal theory better into line with each other.
(Cross-posted at Mirror of Justice.)
May 7th, 2012 | 2:40 pm
Why no link to the letter in question? There is no protest against the invitation and no call to rescind it—just a disagreement with Dr. Carson’s beliefs regarding evolution. I don’t think it is illiberal to point out differences on fundamental issues. If the authors of the letter had claimed that Dr. Carson was unfit to speak or had asked for him to be disinvited, that would be another matter. But of course even a distinguished neurosurgeon who rejects the theory of evolution is in dissent with the scientific community, and as the letter points out, that scientific community includes many religious people who see no conflict between religious faith and evolution.
May 7th, 2012 | 3:33 pm
If the letter is one of “concern” about Dr. Carson as the commencement speaker, that certainly is a protest against the invitation. It is far more than “just a disagreement with Dr. Carson’s beliefs about evolution.” It is a warning that his beliefs are not respectable in an academic setting and not to be listened to. If it were just about a disagreement, the letter, if there were a letter at all, would set forth rational arguments against his belief, explaining why the signers think he is wrong. I haven’t seen the letter, but based on the usual reactions to dissenters I doubt that’s what it is. I’d guess it is rather a tribal reaction to let outsiders know they are not welcome, and defining who the outsiders are. I have no doubt each signer has emailed the letter all around, as a marker of his membership in the tribe.
May 7th, 2012 | 4:23 pm
I haven’t seen the letter, but based on the usual reactions to dissenters I doubt that’s what it is.
Judy K. Warner,
There is no need to speculate on the contents of the letter. I gave a link to it in my initial message, which I will repeat here.
If you check out The Emory Wheel, you’ll see a debate has been going on since an editorial in January expressed misgivings about the selection. There has been an extended debate, and I haven’t had time to read it all, but in what I have read, I have found no one calling for Carson to be disinvited. No one questions his accomplishments as a surgeon.
There is no doubt, by the way, that it is academic heresy to deny evolution. I see nothing inappropriate for four members of the Emory Department of Biology to weight in on the already ongoing controversy by writing a letter to the editor of the school paper and seeking co-signers for it. Up until now, the matter has been almost completely confined to discussion within the Emory community. Whether Robert George opening it up to wider discussion will make things better or worse remains to be seen.
Ben Carson has a perfect right to express his opinions about evolution, but so do professors in the Department of Biology at Emory or any others who disagree with Dr. Carson. No one is trying to silence Dr. Carson, and as long as they don’t, this is about freedom of speech, which is not illiberal.
May 7th, 2012 | 4:53 pm
Dear David and Judy,
I went to the letter at the link David provided and, based on my reading of the letter, you each have valid points.
In support of David’s contention, the letter’s first paragraph cites Dr. Carson’s medical and humanitarian achievements. It also asks readers to be aware of Dr. Carson’s views on evolution as they listen to the speech, implying, at least, that they do not seek his removal as speaker.
However, the remainder of the letter, including the very first sentence, not only recites arguments in favor of Darwinian evolution but casts various aspersions against Dr. Carson for his views, real or imputed. In particular, the quote they cite in which he expresses his views on the incompatibility of Darwinian materialism and ethics is clearly taken out of context and truncated. They do not make an honest attempt to either understand or respond to his views. The letter makes one or two references to Dr. Carson’s scientific training in a way that makes the letter sound like the admonishment of a heretic.
The letter does serve as a kind of “tribal reaction” as Judy put it. It appears that the primary authors were two members of the Biology faculty. I would venture to guess that most of the co signatories barely read the letter.
May 7th, 2012 | 5:58 pm
The problem is in the second “theory of evolution.” The first is a simple side effect of death. Those individuals less fit for their niche tend to contribute less to succeeding generations because they tend to die before getting their licks in. Blyth thought that this maintained fixity of species; Wallace and Darwin thought it drove the evolution of species. Socialists thought it was simply laissez faire capitalism imagined onto the natural world.
The second theory of evolution is a socio-political one. It holds that the first theory is the result of a materialist metaphysics and is used primarily as a put-down for the unenlightened untermenschen. It uses the scientific theory as a mask, because by dressing up in a white lab coat it can pretend to be scientificalistic instead of philosophical. From my understanding, Carson is objecting to the materialism of many self-styled evolutionists, not to the notion that the unfit die more frequently.
+ + +
The second confusion is between theory and fact. Evolution is a fact. Natural selection is a theory. It is entirely possible to suppose that species have changed over the eons without buying into the proposed mechanism. It does however enable one to equivocate over what is being denied.
Imagine Einstein saying that Newton’s theory of gravity was wrong and then being denounced because he denied that weights fell to the ground or planets orbited the sun.
May 7th, 2012 | 5:58 pm
This is simply free speech in action–as is any criticism of Geogetown’s commencement speaker. There is nothing wrong with expressing opinions about commencement speaker qualifications.
“He believes that their commitment to materialism makes it impossible for them to give a sound account of the ethical norms which they themselves, to their credit, live by. Of course, he might be wrong about that (though I don’t think he is), just as he might be wrong about the validity of Darwinism as a scientific theory, or the compatility of Darwinism with the rejection of materialism. But it’s certainly not a mean or crazy thing to believe or say. It’s scarcely a cause for “concern” about having him as a Commencement speaker.”
You’re certainly entited to your opinion. Other very intelligent people disagree with you, concluding the above-expressed views are uneducated, and while not “crazy,” evidence of ignorance and sloppy thinking–unworthy characteristics of a commencement speaker.
A lot of those people probably also object to Sebilius on other grounds.
An accurate understanding of science, biology (in general) and evolution (in particular) is not a matter of “liberal-conservative” interpretation. There is no “conservative” view on evolution, just as there is no inherently conservative view of gravity. There is, however, a scientifically accurate understanding held by biologists of all political persuasions.
Apparently, the proposed speaker does not share that accurate understanding.
YMMV.
May 7th, 2012 | 6:16 pm
He’s allowed to believe that. He’s even allowed to say it.
He’s not allowed to demand respect for saying that, however. And it’s quite possible to back up every single point they make about why the reasons he advances for his dismissal of evolution are, quite simply, wrong.
He’s wrong about that, too. But note that even if it were correct, it’s entirely irrelevant to whether or not evolution is true. It does offer, however, a reason why someone might bias their interpretation of evidence to avoid an unwanted conclusion, though…
May 7th, 2012 | 7:20 pm
He’s not allowed to demand respect for saying that, however. And it’s quite possible to back up every single point they make about why the reasons he advances for his dismissal of evolution are, quite simply, wrong.
And he argues that belief in Darwinian evolution, or any form of pure materialism, undermines the basis of ethics.
He’s wrong about that, too. But note that even if it were correct, it’s entirely irrelevant to whether or not evolution is true.
The problem here is that colleges are supposed to be exposing students to diversity of thought, not shielding them from anything that threatens an ideological dogma.
Do you understand how protectionism works? Because good ideas do not need protections; they can survive in the free market of ideas.
I have a good deal of confidence in the theory of evolution; as far as I’m concerned, it’s not a question of “if” it is true but rather how far it has the power to describe reality – where are its limits. But of course this fellow is right about how excessive devotion to materialism does in fact undermine ethics – and of course that is why people who are quite convinced in the ‘truth’ of evolution nonetheless feel the need to shut up its critics: it is not the truth of the scientific facts, but rather of the implications they wish to draw from those facts, that is vulnerable, and they are right to feel threatened.
I am not one of those who is squeamish about disinviting speakers; universities have many stakeholders, and it’s not always appropriate for one group of stakeholders to impose their vision on the majority. I would say it’s inappropriate when that vision contradicts the stated purpose of the institution. If the institution is supposed to be inculcating Catholic values, then the decision to invite Sebelius is questionable. If the institution is supposed to be teaching kids to be critical thinkers, then trying to impose a materialist doctrine – to the point where the students need to be “protected” from hearing another point of view – is questionable. If they’re capable of thinking critically, why do they need to be protected from another point of view?
May 7th, 2012 | 7:25 pm
An accurate understanding of science, biology (in general) and evolution (in particular) is not a matter of “liberal-conservative” interpretation.
The question is one of where scientific limits are located – or, more accurately, whether science has any limits.
Is it the case that science can only describe what is material?
Or are we to accept science can describe everything, because everything is material?
That science (“by definition”) can only describe what is material is fact. That science can describe everything – because everything is material – is not fact: it is (“by definition”) an article of faith.
Real science does not require a leap of faith. In fact, one could accurately say that requiring leaps of faith is detrimental, not advantageous, to the search for truth.
May 7th, 2012 | 8:12 pm
“He’s not allowed to demand respect for saying that…”
You don’t demand respect, you earn it. He has.
I imagine he has as much scientific knowledge and sense as anyone writing here.
May 8th, 2012 | 1:21 am
Professor George not only omits the actual letter but omits Carson’s belief in Young Earth Creation.
Blake, I am sure you agree that science is well within its competency to confirm the age of the earth and the course of life on this earth.
YEC beliefs do not deserve respect. They deserve ridicule in the same sense that beliefs in unicorns and dragons are ridiculed.
Nobody can seriously contend that YEC deserves any place in an academic institution. There is no protectionism going on. YEC in the marketplace of ideas is in the looney category, right there with Aiken abductions. YEC proponents have harmed both my pocketbook and my religion.
May 8th, 2012 | 4:28 am
“But note that even if [the 'belief in Darwinian evolution, or any form of pure materialism, undermines the basis of ethics'] were correct, it’s entirely irrelevant to whether or not evolution is true.
Ray, I think you’re begging the question here. The only way we could legitimately conclude that it’s irrelevant whether materialism undermines the basis of ethics is if we already knew that no anti-materialistic version of ethics is true. But that, of course, is the very question at issue. Dr. Carson obviously thinks that there is a true version of that sort and that, therefore, Darwinian evolutionary theory needs to be modified accordingly to remain consistent with the rest of reality.
May 8th, 2012 | 9:01 am
Joe –
In neurosurgery, sure. In biology, not so much.
Consider Linus Pauling. Very smart guy, to put it mildly – the only person ever to win two unshared Nobel prizes, among other things. But he got kinda loopy about the utility of Vitamin C, and made claims that simply didn’t stand up to scrutiny. And then, unfortunately, he continued to make those claims.
Or William Shockley. Co-inventor of the transistor… and a racist.
In other words, there’s no particular call to respect someone outside their field of expertise.
May 8th, 2012 | 9:09 am
Blake –
I pointed out Linus Pauling and William Shockley to joe. Both made important contributions to significant fields, but would you think it odd if people expressed ‘concern’ if they had been invited to be commencement speakers? Not even requesting or demanding that the invitation be revoked, but pointing out problematic positions they’d taken?
I mean, has Kathleen Sebelius’s career been one of eternal hostility to the Catholic Church? Or is there one specific policy that people object to?
May 8th, 2012 | 9:21 am
I have run into a similar problem in these discussions before, a problem of terminology: What is Darwinism? Is it different from believing that evolution has occurred and is occurring? If so, in what way?
May 8th, 2012 | 10:08 am
He is right. If there is no incorporeal component to the human intellect, then ultimately all we think and do is deterministic, the inevitable consequence of antecedent material causes. If that is the case then there really is no such thing as a free will. Without free will, nobody is really responsible for what they do, so there would be no basis for ethics.
Those who are certain that there are no incorporeal realities, such as our rational souls, should also realize that they have no choice but to think that. And they aren’t free to change their minds about that, either. Their minds may change, but not because of their freely choosing to do so – they have no free will. Any conclusion they reach about anything is meaningless because experiencing certainty is just something that happens occasionally – they have no choice about it regardless of how absurd their conclusions are in reality.
So, pure materialism makes objective truth inaccessible to us. I am certain it is inaccessible to materialists. And they can never be certain I am wrong.
May 8th, 2012 | 10:31 am
I could never for the life of me see what bearing materialism could have on ethical judgments. As Miss Anscombe points out:
“The naturalistic hypothesis is that causal laws could be discovered which could be successfully applied to all human behaviour, including thought. If such laws were discovered they would not show that a man’s reasons were not his reasons; for a man who is explaining his reasons is not giving a causal account at all. “Causes,” in the scientific sense in which this word is used when we speak of causal laws, is to be explained in terms of observed regularities: but the declaration of one’s reasons or motives is not founded on observation of regularities. ‘Reasons’ and ‘motives’ are what is elicited from someone whom we ask to explain himself.”
Similarly, supposing “we could, if we had the data that the explanation required, predict what any man was going to say, and what conclusions he was going to form. That would not mean that there was no sense in calling what he did say true or false, rational or irrational.”
May 8th, 2012 | 6:46 pm
Blake, I am sure you agree that science is well within its competency to confirm the age of the earth and the course of life on this earth.
I don’t see what this has to do with it. I personally do not have any problem accepting the scientific community’s estimates on how old the earth is, but that’s irrelevant.
What is relevant is the question of whether or not it is reasonable to demand 100% commitment to the current scientific consensus or else be shunned and ostracized. It isn’t what science teaches – remember: Ludwig Boltzmann was ridiculed his entire life for his crazy beliefs.
I would say that science ought to be more humble, but I believe it is an arrogance that is really borne of insecurity. So instead I will say, you ought to have more faith. If you are right, you needn’t be afraid of people who question and challenge and seek to disprove you. And if you are not right, you ought to be grateful for the existence of people who question and challenge and seek to disprove you.
May 8th, 2012 | 9:21 pm
“What is relevant is the question of whether or not it is reasonable to demand 100% commitment to the current scientific consensus or else be shunned and ostracized.”
strawman alert!!!!!
nobody is demanding any form of commitment. Nobody is being shunned.
You want to avoid Carson’s YEC beliefs like the plague–and divert the discussion to abstracts. I see that.
However, YEC really is the point, because we can’t adress the legitimacy fo a scientific position in a vacuum. Not all scientific positions are entited to equal weight or time.
Acceptance of YEC requires rejection of vast swaths of science. YEC is worthy only of ridicule–and any “modesty” is unwarranted. Carson is a believer in YEC for the worst possible reason–it is literally heresy for him to believe otherwise. Yet George suggests, without any hint of irony, that Carson is somehow guilty of academic heresy. It’s Carson’s religion that requires YEC under pain of heresy. Therei s no heresy in science. George is simply projecting a routine religious practice into an unrelated field.
Your implied suggestion that pseudosciences such as unicorns, YEC and astrology are to be treated as “equal in stature” as the truth (or with humility) is remarkable.
YEC, in particular, is a cancer infesting the Amercian education system. YEC proponents have repeatedly wasted taxpayer dollars and prevented the teaching of solid biology in high school classrooms across the country. Anybody who values education and the truth will speak up against YEC.
Bolzmann is inapposite. Bolzmann was not offering a rejected out of date theory. Contrary to your representation, his theory was not considered “crazy.” His theory was in fact widely accepted–by scientists–though not by philosophers. (Sound familiar?)
YEC, to the contrary, requires rejection of all forms of science and only appeals to a subset of philosophers. It has already been demonstrated to all but the most wilfully blind that it belongs on the scrapheap of ideas.
When you’re wrong and someone else is right, that person will often seem to be “arrogant.” It’s perception, not reality.
May 9th, 2012 | 2:24 am
“solid” biology? the best my ivy league biophysics professors could do was to “personify” enzymes such as DNA transcriptases…. “it does this, then that, then this.” those arrogant pseudo-intellectuals never ever wondered what sort of voodoo magic they were really invoking.
in the meantime, my chemistry professors would laugh at the biologists, my physics professors would laugh at the chemists, my math professors would laugh at the physicists, and across town, my philosophy professors would laugh at the physicists. i must say the philosophy guys were usually right.
we all know that as far as the sciences are concerned, biology is the low man on the totem pole, and evolutionary biology is more like archeology than unlike it. if all you want to do is “tell stories,” then don’t pretend what you do is “solid” science. stop conning the masses with non-scientific metanarratives and bad philosophy. there are already enough steven pinkers around to give real science a bad name.
May 9th, 2012 | 6:43 am
People with an idée fixe are impervious to argument; for they are convinced an undetected fallacy must underlie any argument to the contrary.
I knew a man, a former colonel in the Royal Engineers, who was convinced that all magnitudes must be commensurate and that, accordingly, Pi and the square root of 2 must be finite numbers. He beguiled the leisure hours of his retirement with a fruitless correspondence on the subject with various learned bodies. On any other topic, he was perfectly rational.
May 9th, 2012 | 9:21 am
JB – Read more carefully please. I didn’t say that it would be an uninteresting or unimportant little tidbit if evolution did, in fact, undermine ethics.
I said that, even if it were true that evolution undermined ethics, that consequence would not have any bearing on whether or not evolution happened.
Imagine if I said, “It would make me feel terrible if my wife cheated on me. Therefore, she didn’t cheat on me.” How do you think that logic scans?
May 9th, 2012 | 9:27 am
andrew –
The kind that actually cures diseases?
May 9th, 2012 | 11:15 am
You want to avoid Carson’s YEC beliefs like the plague–and divert the discussion to abstracts. I see that.
On the contrary, I do not believe I am the one dodging the “real point”: you are.
Why do you keep trying to drag “young earth creationism” in? It’s a red herring.
The point is, and remains:
1. if the school has succeeded in teaching students about critical thinking skills, and if you’re right about this guy’s beliefs, then you don’t need to be scared of him: one can recognize him in the field where he has done good, without being terrified because he’s got a belief that strays from orthodoxy.
2. if you have to use social tactics to prove your point, then it’s not at all clear why we should imagine the thing as “settled”; if it were settled, you wouldn’t have to go after people socially for dissenting.
3. Finally, worth mentioning, the Boltzmann reference was to try to point out to you how ignorant it is for you to imagine that right now, for the first time in history, what scientists “know” as “fact” is The Real Truth, and is not going to be changed, altered, challenged, etc. There was a time when people were convinced that phrenology was real – enough so to convict and execute alleged “criminals” based on the bumps on their head. You can say that science believes X; you can cite the evidence; you cannot pretend to have truth, because you don’t.
Of course, if you have any evidence that this Carson fellow has actually committed fraud in terms of misrepresenting evidence, that’s a different story. But people who try to prove unpopular beliefs are heroes, even though they’re frequently wrong, because it’s from them that new knowledge comes – and IMO it’s petty and small of you to be so threatened by them.
May 9th, 2012 | 11:17 am
if you’re right about this guy’s beliefs
By this I mean, if you’re right that you are right and he is not going to be able to prove his case.
In other words, if you’re really sure you’ve got the truth and he doesn’t, then why do you have to keep him out of sight? If you’re genuinely in possession of persuasive, demonstrable facts, why should you be afraid he’ll be more persuasive than you?
May 9th, 2012 | 11:43 am
ray,
the context of the discussion is not whether science is useful, but whether science by itself is able to explain reality comprehensively, if an extramental reality even exists. you should at least acknowledge that you’re changing the subject.
if i had pressed my professors for an explanation — not a mere description — of how enzymes “know” how to fold a certain way and how to “behave” a certain way, they would look at me as if the question had no meaning.
the reason is that reductionists and materialists are simply unable to “see” plain truths that the poets have known all along: that “life” is an utter mystery, and that these enzymes’ “behavior” is better explained by primitive animism than by mere descriptions masking as explanations.
all scientists — particularly evolutionary biologists and other speculative story-tellers — should study the philosophy of science. maybe then they’d be humbler and therefore wiser, and we’d be spared their bad philosophy.
May 9th, 2012 | 12:37 pm
YEC, in particular, is a cancer infesting the Amercian education system. YEC proponents have repeatedly wasted taxpayer dollars and prevented the teaching of solid biology in high school classrooms across the country. Anybody who values education and the truth will speak up against YEC.
If you’re going to teach your religion in schools, they have a right to expect theirs to be taught alongside of it.
If anyone is “wasting taxpayer money” it’s the people who first brought metaphysics into the classroom in the first place.
Science has not – and cannot – “prove” the origins of our creation. It cannot do this because the scientific method is based on certain assumptions, one of which is the assumption that the problem it is working on is a material problem – therefore it is incapable of answering any question of whether a problem is a material problem. You cannot prove X using X as one of your given assumptions.
So the scientific community wants to advance their materialist humanist ideology, and so they try to act as if science is capable of proving where we come from. It isn’t. The most it is capable of saying is that if the assumptions it relies upon are correct (that is, if only currently-recognized material forces were involved in the creation of the world), then we may say with confidence that this here ABC is what creation looked like. But omitting that “if” is dishonest, when the goal is to persuade people to accept what is actually a leap of faith* – metaphysics – disguised as objective truth.
*The common scientific assumption is something like, “I can explain X without resorting to the existence of a God, therefore there is no God”. But one can only assume that the burden of proof should be arrayed this way rather than in the other direction through faith – not logic. Logic says that neither God nor materialism (the absence of God or of spiritual forces) can be proved or disproved. It is precisely because science requires us to take the assumption that all is material, that we cannot use science to prove that all is material.
May 9th, 2012 | 1:47 pm
andrew –
Maybe you should have asked.
I bet they’d have given an explanation in terms of chemistry. It’s not a completely solved problem, of course… but I’d be really wary of saying it won’t ever be solved.
May 9th, 2012 | 6:45 pm
ray,
i never challenged my professors because it was simpler just to leave the philosophically obtuse alone…. and what exactly does my not challenging my professors have to do with the validity of those challenges?
science cannot solve certain questions without ceasing to be science. in other words, physics and metaphysics are categorically different disciplines. real scientists know the difference and are embarassed by their colleagues who don’t, e.g. john horgan v. larry krauss:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2012/04/23/science-will-never-explain-why-theres-something-rather-than-nothing/
as for explanations “in terms of chemistry,” how do they get the materialists off the hook? biologists appeal to chemists who appeal to physicists who appeal to mathematicians, who are stuck with a strangely ordered universe with physical laws and “logic.” but formally speaking, logic is the domain of philosophers, who are most definitely not “scientists” in the modern sense of the word….
besides, if all thought is reducible to biochemistry, then what exactly are “true” thoughts? if all reasoning is reducible to biochemistry, then what exactly is “valid reasoning?” hmmm. let’s try running experiments to answer those sorts of questions…. i’m not holding my breath.
science necessarily depends on philosophy because science must, non-scientifically, assume realism to be true. and realism is a philosophical position.
May 10th, 2012 | 10:16 am
andrew – At first you were complaining about biology not being a “solid” science. When I point out actual, y’know, science in biology, you retreat to the point where you’re apparently claiming no science could ever be “solid”. :(
May 10th, 2012 | 4:48 pm
ray, thanks for the reply. i take “solid” biology to be the kind that sticks to empirically verifiable truth claims — e.g. put DNA in a gel and run electricity through the gel and the DNA will migrate, which might be useful for answering this or that question.
when biology ventures beyond its proper territory and makes metaphysical claims such as “all that exists is matter,” it becomes bad philosophy. and biology as bad philosophy is the topic at hand.
the same could be said of physicists now claiming that “nothing” is a scientific concept. “solid” science this ain’t, and we all know it.
May 11th, 2012 | 10:02 am
[...] the First Things website, Princeton University moral philosopher Robbie George comes to Carson’s defense. [...]
May 11th, 2012 | 10:37 am
andrew –
Examples of biologists making this claim and basing it on biology?
There are certainly people who point out that we can’t demonstrate the existence of things beyond spacetime and mass/energy… and who think we’re accounting for how things work pretty well without recourse to stuff outside of that. But I think you’re misconstruing what people have been saying about biology.
May 11th, 2012 | 3:27 pm
ray,
krauss certainly believes he’s doing physics when he claims that “nothing” is a scientific concept. as a result, he got a “smack down” from the new york times reviewer.
as for biology and neuroscience, here are two of the loudest bad philosophers babbling away about patently non-scientific questions:
http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge53.html
in case it’s unclear, dawkins thinks evolutionary biology has killed the soul. pinker thinks cognitive neuroscience has killed the soul.
what astounds me is that proper philosophers have debated the mind-brain problem for millenia, and here come these guys with their stories and their fmri’s declaring that the problem has been “solved.” the hubris would be funny if it weren’t so stupid.
here are a few relevant excerpts:
dawkins: Soul One refers to a particular theory of life. It’s the theory that there is something non-material about life, some non-physical vital principle. It’s the theory according to which a body has to be animated by some anima. Vitalized by a vital force. Energized by some mysterious energy. Spiritualized by some mysterious spirit. Made conscious by some mysterious thing or substance called consciousness. You’ll notice that all those definitions of Soul One are circular and non-productive. It’s no accident. Julian Huxley once satirically likened vitalism to the theory that a railway engine works by “force-locomotif.” I don’t always agree with Julian Huxley, but here he hit the nail beautifully. In the sense of Soul One, science has either killed the soul or is in the process of doing so.
pinker: Cognitive neuroscience, the attempt to relate thought, perception and emotion to the functioning of the brain, has pretty much killed Soul One, in Richard’s sense. It should now be clear to any scientifically literate person that we don’t have any need for a ghost in the machine, as Gilbert Ryle memorably put it. Many kinds of evidence show that the mind is an entity in the physical world, part of a causal chain of physical events. If you send an electric current through the brain, you cause the person to have a vivid experience. If a part of the brain dies because of a blood clot or a burst artery or a bullet wound, a part of the person is gone — the person may lose an ability to see, think, or feel in a certain way, and the entire personality may change. The same thing happens gradually when the brain accumulates a protein called beta-amyloid in the tragic disease known as Alzheimer’s. The person — the soul, if you want — gradually disappears as the brain decays from this physical process.
May 13th, 2012 | 11:06 am
I think everyone is missing an even larger point.
Proponents of Darwin and naturalism repeatedly and loudly claim good science cannot be done unless Darwin and naturalism are first accepted.
Yet, Carson has achieved greatness in an important field of science (including biology, no?) while denying both.
And therein lies their alarm at the thought of Ben Carson speaking to young people.
The exposure of a lie is at the heart of that letter.
May 14th, 2012 | 9:00 am
andrew – Wait, you were talking about “all that exists is matter” – heck, those were even your quote marks.
But your quotes were about human consciousness. Stating that human consciousness is fundamentally based on biology is rather different from the claim that “all that exists is matter”.
Let’s face it: No matter how you slice it, the brain is (at the very least) intimately involved in consciousness, and the brain is very definitely biological. So, yeah – biology does have something to say about consciousness. You may dislike or disagree with what some biologists claim – you may even find flaws in their arguments – but you can’t claim that it’s illegitimate for them to even attempt to make such arguments.
May 14th, 2012 | 9:20 am
Not exactly. If I may draw an analogy: C.S. Lewis and Evelyn Waugh have both said things about how Christians are not automatically good people, and nonbelievers not automatically bad. They both claim the question is, ‘how much worse would bad Christians be without Christianity, or how much better would good nonbelievers be with it?’
In some fields, like physics or chemistry, evolution isn’t terribly important. In others, like biology and genetics, it’s pretty well essential. Even in fields like oil prospecting, evolution turns out to be important – dating rocks and oil deposits by fossils is critical and just doesn’t fit with a ‘successive creation’ model, for example. (See also here.)
Neurosurgery is indeed a field of biology, but a fairly narrow one (even a supremely gifted auto mechanic is not the same thing as an automotive engineer). Still, one wonders what insights and techniques Carson might develop if he took an evolutionary approach?
May 15th, 2012 | 7:32 pm
ray,
if not even the soul is non-material, what else is left that could be non-material? can you imagine dawkins saying “there’s nothing non-material about life, but those rocks over there, i dunno….”
of course biology can “say” whatever it wants to say about “consciousness” as long as it’s scientifically and demonstrably true. but as soon as biology says that “consciousness” is material and that there’s nothing non-material about “life,” what was once biology becomes metaphysics, and therefore no longer science.
for how can you scientifically disprove the claim that beta-amyloid gradually kills the soul? it’s a bald metaphysical statement, debatable as a philosophical position, but not as a scientific position.
May 17th, 2012 | 9:03 am
andrew –
Gods? Angels and demons? Abstract ‘objects’ like the number 2, or pi, or the Mandelbrot Set?
Even if human conscious turns out to be ‘ultimately’ material, that doesn’t mean nothing immaterial could exist. Sheesh.
The idea that life has a certain élan vital, such that metabolism, reproduction, inheritance, evolution, and so forth cannot be reduced to a ‘merely material’ account, has a long and illustrious history. However, every single thing that the élan vital is supposed to ‘explain’ has since gotten a material account.
A soul can’t be disproven, per se. But more and more when studying consciousness in the brain, we find, a la Laplace, that we have “no need of that hypothesis”. Like vitalism, the concept of the soul may be abandoned not because it’s disproven but simply because it has nothing left to explain.
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