Saturday, July 11, 2009

Empiricists behaving irrationally: Show me the laws of nature

Gee, these experts on rationality seem to be popping up everywhere. In addition to biologist Jerry Coyne, who can't seem to understand the distinction between metaphysical and methodological naturalism, and physicist Sean Carroll and a few others who can't seem to figure out the difference between science and history, we now have the "Reason Lyceum," which has taken me to task for not knowing the law.

Not the civil law, mind you, but natural law. He notes my quote from Jerry Coyne, in which Coyne asserts that virgin births or resurrections are impossible, and my response, which was that the only way someone could know this is through a priori reason, to which the Reason Lyceum responds:
There is no a priori assumption. The argument by Coyne is completely a posteriori. The argument is based on the scientific observations of similar events. We have never seen a human female produce asexually, nor have we seen someone raise from the dead a whole 3 days postmortem. Additionally, all biological research has shown that these events should be biologically impossible. Therefore, it would be simply silly to assume that it should happen, especially without copious amounts of evidence.
Now for those philosophically uninitiated, a priori (Latin: "from the prior") simply means knowledge obtained independently of experience; whereas a posteriori (Latin: "from the following") means knowledge obtained from from experience.

Why does Coyne (and Lyceros, author of the post at the Reason Lyceum) reject the Virgin Birth? Because he has seen many births and none of them are parthonogenic. Why does he reject the Resurrection? Because he has seen many deaths and none of them have been followed by the person coming back to life. In other words, he bases his view on the impossibility of an event by the fact that he has seen many other events similar to them that have not involved related miraculous events.

I'm trying to think how this kind of reasoning be received at, say, a trial. Say, a murder trial. Say, the O. J. Simpson trial:
Judge: Does the defense have a witness?

Defense: Yes, Your Honor, we have quite a number of them.

Judge: Are these witnesses to the alleged murder the defendant's wife?

Defense: No, Your Honor, they are not.

Judge: Then why are you calling them to the stand?

Defense: Your honor, we are calling them to the stand because they did not see Mr. Simpson commit the murder.

Judge: Were these people at the scene of the alleged crime?

Defense: No, Your Honor, they were not.

Judge: You mean to tell me that the witnesses you are calling to the stand were not at the scene of the crime in which the defendant is alleged to have killed his wife?

Defense: That is correct, Your Honor,

Judge: Counsel, what value could your witnesses possibly have if they were not present when the crime was alleged to have happened.

Defense: Well, you see, Your Honor, the prosecution has called witnesses that saw the crime. But we have witnesses who didn't see the crime, and furthermore, we have many more witnesses who didn't see the crime committed than the prosecution can produce who did see it. You see, these are people who were present in circumstances similar to those which Mr. Simpson and his wife were in when the alleged murder occurred. And they never saw him murder his wife.

Judge: Will counsel approach the bench?
Now Coyne and Lyceros may find this kind of reasoning convincing, but I'm trying to think of any other circumstance in which it would not be laughed out of the room.

"It’s a blow to the belief in the miraculous," says Lyceros, "because it requires a cessation of the natural laws in order to happen." Ah. Natural laws. And what are they? Are they like civil laws? Do they say certain things must happen or cannot happen under certain circumstances? Where are these "laws"? Has Lyceros seen them? Can he quote them verbatim? Are they prescriptive? Are they, like, decrees?

Of course, Lyceros knows there is no evidence for a "law" in this sense--the only sense in light of which we can say any event we have not observed is"possible" or "impossible". All we have is the descriptive evidence that things have always happened a certain way. But somehow, Lyceros jumps from the descriptive evidence to a prescriptive law. One wonders how he does this.

Maybe he could enlighten us.

Lyceros has no evidence that there can never be exceptions to these laws--that there can never be a virgin birth or a resurrection--precisely because he was not been there to witness them. The only evidence we have for what the "law" is are numerous events we have observed.

You would think you would not have to say such a thing to someone who claims to be an empiricist. But it's a funny thing. The very people who claim to want to stick to the evidence of their senses posit "laws" they cannot point to. They cannot see or touch them. These are the people who are always accusing religious people of believing in things they can't see, like God.

Lyceros, show us the law. Not the effects of the law. A religious person could show you the effects of his belief too. I mean the real Law of Nature you believe in.

Show it to us. Where is it?

All Lyceros knows--and Coyne and Carroll and Myers and the rest--is that things have repeatedly happened a certain way. Then they invoke the term "law"--a term that has all sorts of prescriptive assocations based on civil laws (which, I hate to tell Lyceros, have authors)--and everyone is supposed to believe through this process of word magic by which all of these descriptive repetitions amount to something prescriptive.

But they can't say how. They have no rational justification for making this leap. It is a glaring example of the hypostacization of language.

Now I happen to believe in the laws of nature. I believe them for the same reason I believe in God: because I have seen the effects of His existence. Now I'm fine with someone telling me that
that is not a sufficient ground for believing in something. But when the same person starts spouting off about the laws of nature, for which the only evidence are its effects, then I start to wonder about his ability to reason properly--the problem, remember, that only religious people are supposed to have.

In fact, this sounds suspiciously like a bad case of "cognitive dissonance." You know, the thing that scientific rationalists are always accusing religious people of when they claim they are religious and believe in science too because they hold two seeming contradictory positions at the same time.

Here we have empiricists who believe in laws of nature that they have no empirical access to. Yup. A bad case, I'd say.

And the cognitive dissonance doesn't end there. Lyceros engages in the same self-refuting rhetoric as Coyne and his ilk. He defends the position that science "suggests the impossibility," and then, only several paragraphs later, denies what he just said.
Science does not ever prove anything ... It doesn’t prove miracles don’t happen, it just says that by all understanding, they don’t.
"All understanding?" What is that supposed to mean? Everyone's understanding? It can't mean that, since most people in this world believe in miracles in some form. So what does it mean? He doesn't say.

But, more importantly, if science "does not ever prove anything," then how can it suggest the "impossibility" (not "unlikelihood," not "improbability," but "impossibility") of miracles?

I'm trying to tell myself that that these are scientific people, and therefore they are more rational than I am. But it's not working.

18 comments:

TomH said...

Enjoyed this post of yours.

Did you see my analysis of your post about Coyne from earlier this week?

You are now arguing against Hume, which it seems to me that you ought to have done in your reply to Coyne. (Nice job, by the way.)

You could also argue, to defeat Hume, that any given name is unknown by a majority of humanity, therefore, by Hume's reasoning in his essay "Of Miracles" (empirical method + induction), humanity doesn't use names.

Of course, one could also look at the evidence for the existence of some obscure, shy species and do similar things with quite a lot of science.

The issue with Coyne isn't a priori metaphysical naturalism, but both assumed omniscience of "science" within certain categories (i.e., against miracles) and Hume's prejudice against rare, obscure phenomena. I think that Hume also assumed omniscience regarding certain categories of human experience as well. Perhaps he was trying to create an absurdity for those assuming induction, seeing as he also argued that induction couldn't be logically justified.

Martin Cothran said...

Tom,

What is your site address?

TomH said...

The site is only accessible by xanga community members. Getting an account is pretty quick if you want to bother.

Art said...

Several years ago, during the holiday season, my daughter woke me up one morning, very excited. For it seems that she had heard, not once, but several times, hooves dancing on her roof, and she had seen a glimpse of reindeer flying outside her bedroom window. I smiled, and we enjoyed many more years of child’s warm belief in Santa than we would otherwise have. For it was with great reluctance that she let go of her quite vivid memory, as the coming–of-age experience that is the realization that Santa is, um, not exactly real crept into her life.

Now, thanks to Martin’s flawless logic and reasoning, I can tell her that we have it all wrong. All those parents who admit to doing Santa’s work, all those dept. store stand-ins, all of the empirical data that tell us that Santa is not real – by Martin’s standard, they do not apply to my girl’s experience. Santa is real! Yes kids, real! REAL!! BELIEVE! Because you have no reason not to. Any event or occurrence that has not been dissected under a microscope can have any explanation whatsoever. And if you believe that those footsteps and the fleeting image are reindeer, then who the heck is anyone to tell you otherwise.

Of course, this marvelous news comes not a moment too soon. What with the economy and all, the real Santa (THANKS MARTIN!) looks to have a lot of slack to pick up this coming holiday season.

Martin Cothran said...

TomH:

I'm sorry, you were referring to a comment on my original post and I was thinking you were talking about something off site. I did miss it, but read it yesterday.

I will be commenting on this and a few related matters over the next few days. Thanks.

Lee said...

Art, I must have missed Martin's endorsement of solipsism. Could you point it out?

Art said...

Hi Lee,

Interesting question. (just thinking out loud here ...) I guess if one rejects material causes for past events (especially for no particular reason other than the material explanation conflicts with some metaphysic), what else is there but solipism? What else can there possibly be? After all, doesn't all that is supernatural/non-material boil down to the voices in one's head?

I'll think about this some more, but after I get out to beat the shopping rush for items for Santa. I'm gonna get a great new cookie plate and the best darned mug ever for his eggnog. I'm so excited.

Martin Cothran said...

I'll have a fuller comment on the "Santa Claus" argument, a not very sophisticated response to the philosophical argument for the possibility of the miraculous, but it surprises me that even people who make that kind of an argument would go in for this mystical view of laws of nature.

Art, are you saying you think laws of nature are prescriptive? I'm having a hard time believing that.

I mean, an intelligent guy like you.

Art said...

I'll have a fuller comment on the "Santa Claus" argument, a not very sophisticated response to the philosophical argument for the possibility of the miraculous,

Um, Martin, if you think "were you there?" is a sophisticated philosophical argument, then I'd like to talk to you about some real estate deals.

TomH said...

Um, Martin, if you think "were you there?" is a sophisticated philosophical argument, then I'd like to talk to you about some real estate deals.

Art, your point about the need for a philosophical defense of skepticism about forensic methods is well taken.

Your initial post was off-topic. I guess that Martin isn't too picky about that. Me, I would have called you out. I want to see you defend Hume's error or else acknowledge it as an error.

Martin Cothran said...

Art,

If that's the only argument you saw in this post, perhaps a little remedial training in reading comprehension is in order.

You still haven't answered my question: Are the laws of nature descriptive or prescriptive?

TomH said...

Looks like Lykeros has a problem with reading comprehension both in his reply to you and to me. I don't see any point in correcting him after having clarified my position once already.

Art said...

Hi TomH,

I’m not sure I see how a paraphrasing of Martin’s argument is off topic. And I am of the opinion that Hume’s ideas, basically that the results of investigation rooted in “hypothesize, test using controlled and repeatable experiment, and revise” are more reliable than anecdote, revelation, and the like (basically, what I would call the voices in one's head), are spot on.

Martin, you said: “If that's the only argument you saw in this post, perhaps a little remedial training in reading comprehension is in order.”

Well, as I see it, if you remove this statement:

“Lyceros has no evidence that there can never be exceptions to these laws--that there can never be a virgin birth or a resurrection--precisely because he was not been there to witness them. The only evidence we have for what the "law" is are numerous events we have observed.”

And if we delete the fictional anecdote that is entirely an homage to “were you there”, then your essay is pretty empty, Martin. Because without “were you there”, your message devolves into a pretty sad misrepresentation of Coyne’s ideas. (Coyne and Lyceros, FYI, aren’t going down the “natural law is prescriptive” path. The ideas that natural law is descriptive, and that the process of “hypothesize, test using controlled and repeatable experiment, and revise” can lead to the conclusion that such-and-such a purported miracle did not occur, are not at all contradictory. I recommend that you and TomH think long and hard about just what science entails. For it seems as if you both are missing something.)

Finally, to try and dispel the quaint (and completely false) notion that historical events are in some way beyond the purview of the scientific method (the notion that Martin wholeheartedly embraces, and is at the core of his “were you there” rant), a couple of "case studies". Enjoy.

TomH said...

Art,

You, like Lykeros, have created a straw man. The point of Martin's post was that all rare, obscure phenomena are discounted by Hume's method, whether natural or supernatural. You changed the phenomena to a case where people actively conspire to create a myth. The epistemic conditions aren't comparable.

Martin, just goes to show that the number one rule of debating is, when you can't defeat the opponent's argument, defeat the straw man.

Also, you could extend your courtroom example, for instance:

1. Argue that there is insufficient empirical evidence to support the theory that people murder one another since most people haven't seen a murder occur.

2. Argue that the experience of 99.99% of scientists shows that murder doesn't occur.

3. Argue that the published court decision is merely hearsay evidence that a murder occurred, since we don't have access to the witnesses.

4. Argue that movies and television have created the false idea that murder occurs and that the trial decision was influenced by the media. Clearly, there is an organized attempt to create the false impression that a murder actually occurred when, in fact, it hadn't in the movie--it was only the appearance of a murder.

5. Argue that the witnesses must have concocted the testimony since science has proven that murder doesn't occur.

6. Argue that the witnesses were biased against the defendant, else they wouldn't have testified against him.

Art said...

"You, like Lykeros, have created a straw man. The point of Martin's post was that all rare, obscure phenomena are discounted by Hume's method, whether natural or supernatural. You changed the phenomena to a case where people actively conspire to create a myth. The epistemic conditions aren't comparable."

Well, TomH, you (and Martin, if he really agrees with you) are wrong about Hume. Heck, I linked to two examples that clearly shows how what Hume would consider an acceptable means of study can be used to decipher and understand exceedingly rare events. Nothing in Hume's discourse tells anyone that we cannot study things like endosymbiosis or the origins of woody annuals using the tried and true methods of science. And certainly nothing in Hume's work even comes close to suggesting that these events did not happen. To hold otherwise is to completely miss the point of Hume's essay on miracles.

I am amazed at how deeply ingrained "were you there" is in the antievolutionist lexicon.

TomH said...

Art,

Perhaps you haven't understood Hume, although you think that you have.

Hume, in "Of Miracles," argues that the baseline test that he proposes regarding the believability of an event, is whether a majority of people will attest to it based on their sensory experience of a similar event.

Hume allows that it is possible that greater evidence than the baseline may be brought to bear; he doesn't specify the nature of the greater evidence or how to determine what sort of evidence would have greater force.

However, Hume's baseline test is prejudiced against anything that is rare or obscure, whether natural or supernatural.

I don't find your examples to be particularly compelling. Mitochondria are responsible for cell death by old age, if I recall correctly; perhaps they are the mechanism by which God ensured an eventual death for Adam. We can't really know such things, though hindsight bias makes our explanations seem compelling to us.

Off topic: One side (common ancestry) states that the other side is using the argument from incredulity and the other (creation) argues that its opponents are relying on blind faith that specified complexity can form without intelligent direction.

Art said...

Hi TomH,

You said:

"Hume, in "Of Miracles," argues that the baseline test that he proposes regarding the believability of an event, is whether a majority of people will attest to it based on their sensory experience of a similar event."

In other words, in Hume's eyes, believability is something that comes along with the repeatable experiment. I've shown how rare historical events can be studied with repeatable (and controlled) experiments.

Thanks for helping me make my point.

Oh, and the remark about my reading comprehension is pretty ironic, given your display of an utter failure to comprehend the essay of mine you commented on.

TomH said...

Art, I was considering not replying to your argument...

ignoratio elenchi

Hume's argument was refuted by both Martin and me, but that kind of whizzed over your head unbeknownst to you.

Martin, would you like to coauthor a paper about "Of Miracles" with me?