But clearly your supernatural is subject to investigation by science, whereas Bri says that his/hers isn't. So thanks for jumping in I guess, but we'll have to leave it to Bri to answer my question since you guys are talking about two different things.
Linda
OK, I am not sure of Bri or Westprog's position on this but as you know I define supernatural in a very specific way, and it is not in fact capable of being studied by science - here is why -- it's simple enough philosoophy of science, but I'll take it step bt step...
Science can not address the question of the existence of God, or miracles. I'm sure most people are fully aware of David Hume's Hume defines a miracle as: "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent." Hume's subsequent argument in the
Enquiry is usually misrepresented, but we will take the popular view - that unless the evidence for the miraculous event is miraculous in itself, it will not convince us. This formed the basis for "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", an axiom I think I have demonstrated many times makes a great slogan but is blatantly false.
In itself, Hume's argument lacks any real power. We will return to it in a moment, but first let me show why Science can not talk about Gods.
Science proceeds by a set of philosophical premises or axioms that underlie the scientific methodology. These come before experimental methodology, predictability, replication or any of the other things we talk about in the demarcation debate. Some, like the arguments between the Realist and Non-Realists in Philosophy of Science, need not concern us here. However, one working assumption inherent to all good science should - and that assumption is
methodological naturalism.
I will simply cite the wikipedia definition, but you can look the term up easily enough -
wikipedia said:
Another basic form, called methodological naturalism, is the epistemology and methodological principle which forms the foundation for the scientific method. It requires that scientific hypotheses are explained and tested by reference to natural causes and events.
Explanation here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)
Methodological Naturalism simply states that any phenomena that can be studied by science must have an assumed naturalist causality, that is be in accordance with natural law. If a tea cup falls to the floor, a force was exerted on it, probably gravity. Scientists can not consider that magic pixies were responsible, unless said magic pixies are natural agencies, following natural laws - so a scientist could study Bigfoot, if it was a real hominid living in the woods, but not a miracle in Hume's definition.
Everyone follow so far? Science can not study the supernatural, if by supernatural we mean things that don't follow the laws of physics, or other natural laws. If they are really "magic", and defy causality and the standard operating procedures of the universe, they are outside of the scope of science. Now some naughty people, usually Creationists, take this rather sensible restriction on science and claim that makes all scientists atheists - that is that using Methodological Naturalism (restricting science to the assumption of natural causality) implies Philosophical Naturalism (the belief the supernatural does not exist, and therefore atheism), so science is part of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy. This is a nonsense - it is like saying "because Jerome is a sceptic, Jerome does not believe in ghosts". I am a sceptic by methodology, my conclusion are not negative. Ditto with scientists - their working assumptions are naturalistic, but this tells us nothing about their personal conclusions.
However, there is a problem. Science can not postulate supernatural entities or causality, or arbitrary exceptions to Natural Law. Therefore whatever the evidence for God, and it may be very good evidence, by definition it can not be scientific evidence, and if it is scientific evidence, the God hypothesis is an illegitimate research question by the very parameters by which science works. Methodological Naturalism means science can tell us nothing about God. Therefore to say "there is no scientific evidence for God" is a perfectly circular argument.
Having established the truth of my point 2, I had best explain why we can not just relax the rules a little and allow Science to postulate Gods and miracles, just so we can dismiss them. It actually goes back to Hume and the
Enquiry.
OK, so why does science adopt methodological naturalism, given that it precludes the use of scientific evidence to support, deny or even ask questions about God and the supernatural? The answer is as I hopefully indicated in my last post rooted in Hume. If we reject methodological naturalism, we are forced to throw away all of science.
Now we all know that Science does not "prove" anything, and that scientific arguments are an approach to truth, but never be said to constitute final truth. Science is always provisional. We hear this a great deal on this forum, it is true, admirably sensible and honest, and explains why some scientific theories and a great many scientific hypotheses are rejected or change over time. Scientists do not act like this because they are good people, or learn from their mistakes in history. Scientists know science can not "prove" anything for perfectly logical reasons, and I shall have to briefly explain them here, as people do not generally seem aware of this limitation.
Imagine I say "Red snow never falls in Kent." This is true to all my experience, and everybody I knows experience. We check the records - no red snow. Yet this is based on an observation - we can not observe all the snow that has ever fallen in Kent, or all the snow that ever will fall. There is nothing actually physically or logically incoherent in the idea of red snow - well red sleet at least -if tiny amounts of red dust are in the clouds, red snow can fall.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1761720.html as a recent example. We can not deduce that there will never be red snow in Kent - but we might conclude based on our experience it is unlikely by induction. Induction can never be certain, because we have not observed all of reality - so it's like the argument we can not be 100% certain God doe snot exist ever, but we can believe he does not with a high confidence base don Inductive reasoning. We can deduce and therefore prove there are no square circles - the terms are logically incompatible - but induction is never proof. (Note in mathematics
only, induction is a form of deduction! Confused?
Sorry!)
So far so good? Right, so let us take "sound does not travel through a true vacuum". That looks like a deduction - sound waves require a medium to move through, and therefore "in space no one can hear you scream". It is certainly consistent with our observations, and our understanding of the laws of physics. However imagine just past Mars, or 15 billion light years away beyond the event horizon, or in your neighbour's garage, the laws of physics may be different.
Everything falls apart, and huge amounts of our science being based upon induction, we can know almost nothing. David Hume realized this problem, known as The Problem of Induction. It's briefly discussed quite cleraly for wikipedia here -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction
Hume had a response though - we could still have scientific knowledge, if we assume the universe works by the same laws all the time, in all places. This principle of Cosmological Uniformity has been adopted, though it only really works for certain types of science, and basic sciences like chemistry, and physics - it is less successful in say biology, and not at all in psychology. SO by assuming a causal universe working by consistent laws, to allow science to proceed, we use methodological naturalism - but it doe snot, as noted before imply the truth of Philosophical Naturalism. However many people do confuse the two, but this is why we often see the statement "there is no scientific evidence for God" - of course not, that is precluded in the very definition of science, but that does not mean there is no evidence for god.
the claim there is no scientific evidence for God is a simple circular argument fallacy, for the conclusion is within the premise.
Now, people are often confused by how I use "paranormal" and "supernatural", so just to make absolutely clear -- Supernatural phenomena are those which are one of two things
i) are phenomena or entities which exist outside of our space/time, aka this universe
or
ii) are phenomena or entities which do not act naturalistically, that si in accordance with physical law, the laws of nature. So a beasticle which contravened the third law of thermodynamic would be supernatural. Now the problem with this is natural laws are in fact bounded temporally, geographically and contextually, and cosmological uniformity is simply a convenient myth to deal with the problem of induction. So I prefer to use i)
However from definition i), it follows that such an entity could act in nature, being outside nature, in a manner which is arbitrary and contravenes natural law. Imagine a pond, with sticklebacks, and a scientist reaching in and altering the environment by grabbing a stickleback, or introducing tadpoles, or stirring it with a big stick. The pond is time/space, and the supernatural entity the scientist. Now to stickleback scientists if any such existed, the interventions effects would appear mysterious, but entirely naturalistic.
Anyway to get back to your question, yes a supernatural question is outside the scope of science for all time, simply because of the axioms/assumptions which support our science. Such phenomena will never be in accordance with natural law, because they do not have to be. They pond is merely a subset of their potential laws. We are flatlanders, facing a three dimensional intrusion.
The "paranormal" however is just the term I use for the stuff which will be explicable by natural law, is in accordance with natural law, we just don't understand the actual rules yet. We may well do one day.
Multiple universes, if they exist are supernatural. Supernatural is a temporal/geographic non-position, nothing more, nothing less. Things in nature, no matte rhow rare, are natural. So if invisible goblins live on my hat, they are natural, because they occur in nature. If you are asking how can I detect by science the influence fo a supernatural entity on the universe, I can not.
A long time ago I wrote--
" I define Natural as the universe and everything therein, and Supernatural as that existing "outside" or "above" the Universe - the literal meaning of the term.
My first contention is that any Supernatural action within the Universe is by definition therefore Natural, and will manifest in terms of Natural Law. That manifestation may be highly unusual, or extremely rare, but it would not be as in Hume's famous definition of a miracle a violation of Natural Law, as by definition anything that occurs in Nature is Natural.
Therfore, I contend that supernatural causation would be effectively invisible to our naturalistic Science, which by definition is bounded by the natural. While logic and reason (and perhaps mathematics) might be used to explore what lies "beyond" the Universe, experimental and procedural science can not. As a "supernatural event" becomes natural by definition as soon as it occurs in the universe, Science will indeed find no "miracles" - which is not to say that supernatural interventions do not occur. One could only hope to establish if this was the case by logic or reason. Professor Dawkins has suggested that the law of Nature in a Universe created by a deity should look quite different from those in one without - but that we will have to address later.
Let me give a playful example. Let us assume that the Norse Trickster God Loki built the universe. His handiwork is the Laws of Nature, and any examination thereof will reveal nothing but Natural forces acting in accordance with Natural Law. Any arbitrary exception he introduced, such as the Duckbill platypus (I know it's quite explicable really, but you get my point!)would be quite Natural, and entirely explicable by Science. Then imagine a Scientist who looks at the world and says "There is no Loki". Yet equally rational is the Loki-ist theologians, who looks at the same Science and says "we can not see Loki, but we can learn the nature of Loki from his handiwork!" The Loki-ist might remark after JBS Haldane that Loki appears to have "an inordinate fondness for beetles!"
The clear problem therefore is not if there is evidence for Theism - there may be much - but in how one would find and understand that evidence. I would argue that reason and logic should work as well on understanding the Gods as any other thing: the locally prevailing conditions just differ, just as Quantum Mechanics seems counter-intuitive to us whose experience is limited to Classical Physics in a day to day sense, and the local earthly form thereof. I will in a future post discuss how in fact much human knowledge, indeed most academic knowledge, would fail by the criteria used to reject the evidence against Theism, and attempt to develop a case putting forward that evidence."
Any critiques?
cj x
