A response to William Lane Craig’s criticism of scientific anti-realism in his book Reasonable Faith

In a chapter of his book Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig wrote an argument against scientific anti-realism as one of his side notes. It is not the most important part of the book, but I think it deserves some attention, so I have written a short article on it. You may read the article for yourself here. An excerpt:

In the course of attempting a philosophical presentation of the truths of Christianity, specifically in the chapter on historical knowledge, William Lane Craig took aim at scientific anti-realism of the Kunhnian variety. Thomas S. Kuhn is the famous philosopher of science who posits that science advances in paradigm shifts or revolutions, and that there is a certain incommensurability between the science before and the science that comes after such paradigm shifts. In his later years, Kuhn stresses the incommensurability thesis, stating the incommensurability can be seen in the scientific language used. Kuhn of course was not the only scientific anti-realist around, and his theories should not be confused with other anti-realist views of science. In this engagement with Craig’s views therefore, I will be focused strictly on Kuhn’s version of anti-realism.

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Ontology and science

On the classical Aristotelian metaphysics inherited by the medieval scholastics, every primary substance ... has a secondary substance-kind ... that pertains to it and without which it could not exist. ... (Thomas H. McCall, An Invitation to Analytic Christian Theology, 104)

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that seeks to deal with the nature of reality. Part of that is the nature of all reality, thus they deal with questions involving whether reality is actually real in a material sense or not. That level of metaphysics goes beyond scientific examination because it deals with the ultimate reality of things beyond that of science. However, there is another level of metaphysics which in the modern world has mostly gone obsolete, that of Aristotelian substances and accidents, where that level of metaphysics seek to discover the nature of things as they are present in real life. In the modern world, science in the fields of physics, chemistry, and biology have supplanted this level of metaphysics, and have provided answers to these questions that are far more practical and much better approximations to the truth. Nevertheless, a new level of interest in Aristotelianism has arisen recently. Perhaps such is due to the failure of modern philosophy to provide a unitary vision of the truth. Perhaps it is due to an interest in virtue ethics of which Aristotle has much to contribute. Or perhaps it is due to influence from certain fields of theology where Aristotelianism has laid dormant and are now uncritically accepted due to a unbiblical view of what theological retreival should mean for a Reformed Christian. Needless to say, this resurrection of Aristotelian metaphysics is deeply troubling. Part of that of course is that the notion of Aristotelian substance and accidents are just plain wrong; science has shown that to be the case. The same people who are resurrecting Aristotle, either Aristotle himself or Aristotle as mediated through Aquinas, are the same people who are benefitting from the applications of modern science, science that would not be possible if scientists stuck with Aristotelian metaphysics!

Reality can be described and explained in many ways. There is therefore nothing wrong with using Aristotelian categories if one understands them to be mere descriptions. However, the claim that these are true of reality is an ontic claim, and that is a problem because such claims are demonstrably false. For example, a dog as substance would possess the "substance-kind" dogness or caninity. But there is no such ontological thing as "dogness." A dog is an emergent substance formed by the expression of instructions found in the canine DNA of dog cells. "Dogness" is at best information encoded by DNA. That information in turn does not produce an ontological substance called "dog" but rather a bunch of phenotypes that we collectively called "dog." Platonism with its view of forms is more amenable to modern science here, since dog phenotypes can be called its "form." Even then, there is no "dog substance" that is combined with a "dog form," since the substance of DNA, proteins, and carbohydrates are common to all animals.

The substance of living things are the molecules that form the thing, or the particular permutation of molecules in various cellular structures. The substance of all living things are therefore the same, since all living things have DNA, proteins, carbohydrates and so on. There is no "dog substance," no "human substance" and so on. Dog cells and human cells, the fundamental living unit of dogs and humans respectively, are emergent substances that form as the "form" from the instructions on the DNA imprints unto the cells to form these different dog and human cells. Dogs are made of dog cells, tertiary substances that can only emerge from the imprint of dog DNA information unto them. There is no primary substance called "dog"‐ never has been and never will be.

With the resurrection of Aristotle, we can expect to see bad philosophy, bad science and bad theology. In philosophy, one can obviously find alternatives to Aristotelianism. That cannot be said to be true of much of classical Christian theology, which needs a good round of de-Aristotelianism to bring it out of captivity to this false philosophy.

Book Review: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Part 5): Induction and the History of Religions

Part 5 of my book review of Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is up at the Daily Genevan site, here. In this central part of my review, I point out the main problem with Harari's telling of history, which is the problem of induction. While the problem of induction is minimized in normal historical reconstruction since we can get an appoximation to the truth, looking especially into pre-history erases guide posts that alllow us to make such an approximation, as I argue in the review here.

After demonstrating Harari's problem with induction, I shift to the issue of religions, noting how Harari's view on religion is disrespectful towards all religions, and pays zero heed to what those religions actually say. You can read more about it in the review.

Book Review: Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind (Part 2: History of Science)

What do the progressive globalists believe as it relate to science? Through an examination of Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens, I continue to explore the supposed history of humankind, as it relates here to the history of science here.

Book Review: Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind (Part 1)

In collaboration with Rev. Shane Anderson, the first installment of my review of Yuval Noah Harari's book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind has been posted at the Daily Genevan here.

Book review: Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science

With the reflections done on various passages in the book, I have compiled and rewrote some of the reflections and joined them together in a review of the book. Here is my review of Edward Feser's book Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science. An excerpt:

How should we understand the world and how it works? What is the nature of reality itself? In the modern era, the natural sciences are taken to be the study of reality. The success of the natural sciences is due to the correspondence their theories have to how reality seems to function, and the ability to apply the knowledge gained from the natural sciences for the betterment of humanity. While the natural sciences are always developing, their explanatory power and technological advancement has gained our trust that they do in fact teach us what reality is and how reality functions.

The philosopher Edward Feser however demurs from this depiction of reality. Rather, he asserts that Aristotelian philosophy is properly basic and that the operation of science presupposes Aristotelian categories and terms. ... [more]

How does color emerge?

The atomist maintains that when the banana goes from being green to being yellow, the only change that occurs in the banana itself is a change in the arrangement of atoms and their impact on the sense organs. Neither the greenness nor the yellowness we see is really there in the banana in the first place, but only in the conscious experience of the perceiver. … But in fact this neither reduces qualitative change to local motion nor eliminates it, but merely relocates it. For example, the qualitative change from green to yellow is now, in effect, located in the conscious perceiver himself rather than in the banana. It is a transition from the perceiver’s experiencing greenish qualia to his experiencing yellowish qualia. (Edward Feser, Aristotle's Revenge, p. 210)

Why do we see color? As explained by science, light waves of certain wavelength (in the visible light spectrum) have certain colors. In the object being seen, some light is absorbed by the surface of that object due to the photons with that energy level being absorbed by electrons in the atoms in the molecules on an area on the surface of the object. The light waves that are not absorbed are reflected from the object, and the wavelength of these light waves have a certain color. When we observe that object with our eyes, the light waves reflected from the object enter our eyes and our minds read the color of the object from the wavelength of light that has entered our eyes.

The reason why I have briefly gone through the science of optics here is to correct what seems to be confusion on the part of Edward Feser. Contrary to Feser, color changes are not changes in the perceiver only. In the case of a banana being ripened, the cells of the banana have ripened, and this ripening came about through a cascading set of chemical changes within the banana cell. Part of this ripening process is the changing of molecules on the surface of the banana, causing the electrons of the atoms in the molecules on the surface of the banana to start reflecting yellow light and not green light. Certainly, in the philosophy of mind, the question of how the color is translated into what we know as "green" and "yellow" is asked, but that is not the issue in question here.

When it comes to secondary qualities like color, the term "secondary" is not synonymous with "imaginary" or "false" or "not real." Rather, the term "secondary" means that these qualities are derived qualities that come into being due to the interaction of objects with subjects. It is subjective in that sense. For imagine if an alien organism has the ability to see infrared radiation as well, the banana would not appear to that organism purely "green" or purely "yellow," but probably tinted with shades of red. Since for that alien organism the banana does not appear "green" or "yellow," does it mean that the banana suddenly lose its "attribute" of being "green" or "yellow"? The asking of this question should manifest to us why color is said to be a secondary quality not a primary quality. Or take another example in a spaceship that is travelling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. All incoming light at the front of the spaceship would be blue-shifted. At a certain speed, anyone looking out of the front of that spaceship would see infrared radiation as visible light. Do these celestial bodies in front of the spaceship change their color "attribute" at all? Again, the question itself make no sense since it ignores how color is perceived in subjects.

In science therefore, to state something is a secondary quality is not to say these things do not truly exist except in the mind. All secondary qualities do exist, but they are emergent qualities not fundamental qualities. Feser should really brush up on his science, because not understanding science is undermining his case.

The modern versus the Neo-Aristotelian conception of scientific laws

The standard view of laws of nature regards them as universal regularities, ordered in something like a pyramidal structure, and where at least the laws at the apex of the pyramid are ontologically fundamental in the sense that they don’t presuppose anything else (except God, for proponents of the standard view who are theists). They are universal in the sense that they hold everywhere and always. … When we reach the laws at the top of the pyramid, we have (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor) reached metaphysical bedrock. (For the atheist, anyway. Again, the theist who is committed to this picture of laws would say that God is the cause of the laws. Even for such theists, though, there is nothing in the natural world that is more basic than the laws.) (Edward Feser, Aristotle's Revenge, p. 177)

There is another way to understand laws of nature, however, which is most famously associated with Nancy Cartwright and first set out in the essay collected in her influential book How the Laws of Physics Lie (1983). On Cartwright’s view, each of the tenets of the standard view is false. First, laws are not universal regularities. Or to be more precise, if interpreted as universal regularities, laws turn out not to be strictly true; whereas if they are interpreted in a way that makes them come out true, they are no longer strictly universal. … Laws are true only ceteris paribus, only when certain conditions obtain. In that case though, they correctly describe the behavior of the entities they govern only under those particular conditions, and are not true of the entities universally. (p. 178)

A second way Cartwright departs from the standard view is by denying that laws are ontologically fundamental. What are fundamental to the entities studied by physics and the other sciences are rather their natures and capacities (Cartwright 1999, pp. 59-73, 78-90). By virtue of these natures and capacities, entities “try” or “tent” to behave in certain distinctive ways (1999, pp. 28-29), and the tendencies of one entity can combine with those of another to produce a joint effect. (p. 178)

Such an arrangement constitutes what Cartwright calls a “nomological machine” (1999, chapter 3). Laws are essentially descriptions of the regularities characteristic of a certain kind of nomological machine. … (p. 179)

The third way Cartwright’s position differs from the standard view is that she takes laws to form a “patchwork” rather than a pyramid (1999, chapter 1). There are the laws describing the behavior of this nomological machine and the laws describing the behavior of that one, but we have no reason to believe that anything unites them all. In particular, we have no reason to believe that laws are arranged in a hierarchy or that there is some one most basic law or set of laws from which all the others follow. (p. 179)

… there is nothing in the actual findings of modern science that favors the standard view over hers. Empirically speaking, the rival views are evenly matched at best, with the choice between them essentially philosophical rather than scientific. (p. 179)

As an alternative to the "mechanical" view of science and the world, Edward Feser sets forth an alternative vision whereby science is merely descriptive of systems not of things. Things rather are as Aristotle sees them, as things with their own natures and capacities, borrowing from Nancy Cartwright's view, and thus things rather than laws are fundamental. Lastly, laws are disparate not connected together, since they are not fundamental for reality but merely descriptive of systems. Feser further asserts that the difference between these two models of reality are empirically indistinguishable, and therefore science does not and cannot disprove his alternate ontology.

On a surface level, the two models seem indistinguishable. However, I would assert that it can be proven that Feser's alternate model is unable to justify science and the workings of science, and I would do so by looking at each of the three Cartwright tenets that Feser embraces.

The first tenet is a rejection of the universality of scientific laws. Feser asserts universality to be false because things in real life do not follow scientific laws, as the laws only apply in ideal situations which are not found in this life. In a sense, it is true that there the real is different from the ideal, but it is a leap of logic to assert that therefore laws are not universal. The fact of the matter is that under certain situations, we can approximate the ideal. For example, under high temperature and low pressure situations, all gases approximate the Ideal Gas Law, regardless of whether it is chlorine, argon, or carbon dioxide gas. In chemistry, the stochiometric ratio of the reaction of sulfuric acid with sodium hydroxide is always 1:2, and this applies to the reaction of any diprotic base with a monoacidic base. Newton's First Law can be easily proved in space where friction is negligible if not absent. In other words, the distinction between the real and the ideal does not in any way invalidate the application of scientific laws.

But, Feser will object, that only proves that the laws work only under certain conditions, does it not? No, for the beauty of science is that in non-ideal scenarios, the other variables can be factored into the equation and applied then. For example, the Van der Waal equation with variables a and b work for real gases. In mechanics, the force of friction can be measured and taken into account. In chemistry, impurities in chemicals can be ascertained and factored into chemical reactions. In other words, scientific laws do not apply only under "certain conditions." The simple form of the law can be seen only under ideal conditions, but the laws do apply under all conditions.

Compounding the problem with Cartwright's first tenet, a rejection of the universality of laws breaks the practice of science. If laws are not universal but particular, then science and technology would grind to a halt. Why should anyone think that the application of a certain temperature in an industrial plant would result in fractional distillation of petroleum? Rather, if universality is rejected, each industrial application must be investigated anew since what works for one "substance" (e.g. alcohol and water) may not work for another "substance" (i.e. petroleum). We cannot assume that gravity on other planets would necessarily follow either Newton's Law of Gravitational Attraction or Einstein's General Theory of Relativity either. Therefore, while Cartwright's first tenet cannot be disproved empirically, it vitiates the practice of science altogether. For science to be science, laws must be both universal and true.

Cartwright's second tenet places things as being fundamental not laws. The problem with this new take on Aristotle is that it can be proven that laws are more fundamental than things. The ability to transform one element to another through radioactive decay, through bombarding things with energetic particles (e.g neutrons, alpha particles, other atomic nuclei), or through nuclear fission and fusion, have proven that atoms are in fact real and fundamental and that Aristotelian "substances" are at best an emergent quality. The creation of anti-matter, and the ability to destroy matter by combining that matter with anti-matter to form pure energy, are not hypotheses but actual experimental science. On this second tenet therefore, science has indeed disproved Cartwright's new take on Aristotle.

On Cartwright's third tenet, that is debatable. Scientists have not yet discovered a unifying theory of everything, and it is uncertain if they ever will. However, the problem with the third tenet is not that there are certain disparate sets of laws, but rather Cartwright's denial of all hierarchy goes against our understanding of how the various scientific disciplines connect to each other.

The convergence of scientific disciplines (and here I focus only on the natural sciences) is seen in for example biochemistry, whereby biology and chemistry are integrated. The biochemical pathway of glycolysis for example show how chemistry underlies biological nutrition, and thus chemistry is more fundamental than biology. When one looks into molecular structure in bond length, angles of chemical bonds, valence electrons and dipole movement, it can be seen that physics is more fundamental than chemistry. All of these prove that there is some hierarchy among scientific disciplines and scientific laws. Along with the rejection of second tenet, the scientific picture of atoms and laws of nature appears more credible than the Neo-Aristotelian version of substances being fundamental. A deeper understanding of science here thus falsifies Cartwright's third tenet.

As it can be seen, on the surface, it seems that Cartwright's and Feser's model of ontology and science is empirically indistinguishable from the modern ("mechanist") model. But a deeper understanding of science falsifies that model. One can reinterpret certain scientific laws in line with this Neo-Aristotelian model, but the model cannot and does not work for actual scientific practice and understanding. Cartwright's and Feser's model of science and scientific laws are therefore to be rejected as contrary to how science actually works.

Mind independence and subjectivity in science

Now, the empiriological description of nature is essentially what Sellars calls the “scientific image” of the world, as opposed to the “manifest image” of common sense and ordinary experience. Since the subclass of “empirioschematic” sciences make use of concepts that are widely regarded as merely regulative rather than corresponding to anything in mind-independent reality, there is a tendency to identify the scientific image, strictly construed, with the emperiometric description of the world, specifically – that is to say, with a mathematicised conception of nature of the kind toward which the “mechanical world picture” tended, and that has become definitive of modern physics. That is not to say that those who take the scientific image to exhaust reality would all hold that everything real can be reduced to entities within the ontology of physics. Some would say instead that everything real need only supervene on the latter. Either way, though, for those who take the scientific image to be an exhaustive picture of reality, the ontology of physics “wears the trousers,” as it were.

… The basic idea of this “absolute conception” is to construct a description of the world that is entirely free of any explicit or implicit reference to the point of view of any particular observer, or any particular type of observer. As Nagel emphasizes, the conception in question regards anything that depends on the point of view of particular observers as “subjective,” and thus it takes itself to be by contrast an entirely “objective” description. … The distinction between primary and secondary qualities became the standard way of expressing the idea, with secondary qualities regarded as reflecting the observer’s subjective point of view and primary qualities alone constituting the truly objective features of reality. (Edward Feser, Aristotle's Revenge, p. 133)

Part of what this chapter has been concerned to show is that the manifest image, the world as it appears from the “subjective” point of view of the conscious subject, cannot coherently be eliminated and replaced entirely by the “objective” or “absolute” perspective of the scientific image. For the latter presupposes the former, in two fundamental respects. First, abandoning the manifest image while trying to maintain the scientific image is tantamount to attempting to keep the apex of the “arch of knowledge” aloft while destroying its feet and legs. As Colin McGinn writes, the scientific image “purchases [its] absoluteness at the cost of removing itself from the perceptual standpoint” (1983, p. 127). Hence, “to abandon the subjective view is to abandon the possibility of experience of the world” (p. 127), and thus to abandon the evidence of observation and experiment on the basis of which the claims of the scientific image are supposed to be justified. It is also to abandon the reasoning processes that take us from that empirical evidence up to the scientific image and then back down from it to testable predictions. For the subjective view includes the cognitive (as well as the perceptual) states and processes of the scientist. (p. 134)

In short, an “objective” description is itself an extension of the “subjective” point of view, and the scientific image is itself merely a component of the manifest image. (p. 135)

The practice of science involves human beings, and humans with regards to both their practices and theory choices are not objective. That said, the shift from seeing science as this objective enterprise that scientists are involved in to something that focuses on the subjectivity of scientists is in my opinion a swing from one extreme to the other extreme.

Thomas Kuhn in dealing with the history of science took note of the changes in paradigms that have taken place in science. He had noted how paradigms are by nature resistant to change until a crisis occur due to one too many breakdowns with the older paradigm. While this idea of "crisis" was overplayed by Kuhn in his early formulations of his philosophy of science, there is a sense in which crises do precipitate major changes, even if not all major changes come about through crises. Kuhn's historicist focus however does not necessarily imply any form of relativism, for the simple reason that scientists are genuinely searching for the objective truth. The problems with paradigms is not that they are "socially constructed," but rather the reason why different paradigms emerge is because of the finitude of human knowing even as it grasps after objective reality. This is seen in the problem of induction that pervades science, such that science while grasping after truth can never fully attain it.

Having said this, it is because there is a grasping after objective truth that science does to some degree approximate the truth, and scientific laws approximate the laws of nature. That is why, while Newton's Laws of Gravitation are superseded by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, Newton's formulas can still be used in most cases where the effect of gravity on the curvature of space-time is not significant. Science is not pure objective truth, but it does approximate it to some degree.

It is because of this that Edward Feser's view concerning science is disturbing. Feser's position, while not being fully subjective, undermines the objectivity of science in such a manner that the subjectivity of scientists must be considered in science itself. It is understandable why Feser would do this so he can bring Aristotelian teleology into science, but the argument he uses is flawed. The issue with regards to science is whether there is something beyond the practice of science, and I will assert that there are in fact laws of nature that science as a discipline grasps after, albeit imperfectly. Since science grasps after the laws of nature, the subjective striving of scientists should be seen as an artifact of the discipline of science, not as part of the subject of science. For Feser, science needs to encompass the practice of scientists in understanding their observations, instead of focusing on the imperfect practice of scientists in attempting to understand the objective truths of nature. For Feser, perceptions informs science, while I would suggest it is nature that informs science, with perception being the instrument of knowing.. In other words, Feser in my opinion confuses the process of science with the subject of science, and this I think is a major categorical error on his part.

Science seeks to understand how the natural world works. It seeks to understand objectively how the world is run. Thus for example, it is either true or false that penicillin kills dangerous bacteria, and we can test that hypothesis out. The subjectivity of the scientist, while ever present, does not add or subtract from the fact that penicillin does in fact kill harmful (non antibiotic resistant) bacteria. In the laws of motion, Newton's First Law is either true or false, and the subjectivity of the scientist does not color its truth. From these two example, it should be seen that the subject of science itself is not focused on the process of observation and explaining observation, but about the facts of how the world actually works.

When it comes to complex theories and meta-theories, meta-narratives of science, then subjectivity plays an ever increasing role since human judgment is used in theory choice and construction. This is why scientific theories can be totally false, but this is not to deny their aspirations towards the objective truth, for human error does not disprove scientific truth.

Feser's conflation of process with subject has resulted in his attempt to insert subjectivity into the subject of science, instead of keeping it to the practice of science. The laws of nature are mind-independent, and Feser's arguments to undermine science's objective referent should be rejected.

Is there science before the Scientific Revolution?

If historians of science were to investigate past practices and beliefs only insofar as those practices and beliefs resemble modern science, the result would be serious distortion. (David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious, and Institutional Context, Prehistory to A.D. 1450, 2)

… they were operating within quite a different linguistic and conceptual world and with different purposes; and it is in the light of these that their achievements must be judged. (p. 9)

The second candidate for early modern revolutionary status is methodological—the invention and practice of the “experimental method” (according to the defenders of this thesis) by such sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scientists as Galileo, William Gilbert, Robert Boyle, and many others. According to defenders of this theory, the sterile scholastic debates and syllogistic demonstrations of ancient and medieval natural philosophy came to an end, replaced by experimental science, with its firsthand observation and manipulation under controlled conditions. (p. 362)

For present purposes, I am inclined to define it [the word "experiment" in experimental method" -DHC] narrowly, by what I take to be its primary epistemological function: an attempt to confirm or disconfirm a theoretical claim about the nature or behavior of the material world by an observation (under controlled conditions if necessary) made for that purpose, or the gathering of data against which future anticipated theoretical claims may be tested. (p. 362)

Experimentation continued through the later Middle Ages, wherever it met a scientific need. (p. 363)

… what credit is left for Francis Bacon (1561-1626) popularly celebrated as the founder (or a founder) of experimental science? … what he and the Baconian tradition of the seventeenth century gave us was not a new method of experiment, but a new rhetoric of experiment coupled with full exploitation of the possibilities of experiment in programs of scientific investigation. (p. 364)

Where, then can we locate this elusive revolution of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century science? I believe that Alexandre Koyré, who, in the 1950s and 1960s, disputed Combrie’s focus on experimental science as the revolutionary agent, has put his finder on the right place. The underlying source of revolutionary novelty in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he argued, was metaphysical and cosmological rather than methodological. (p. 364)

Historian of science David Lindberg has written a book showing the intellectual foundations of modern Western science. In its elucidation of intellectual history, I find it compelling. However, Lindberg has seemingly asserted that ancient science is indeed "ancient SCIENCE." My question to that is: Can we actually called what we see prior to the Scientific Revolution "science"?

The question posed here is not to claim that there is no rich intellectual foundations for science prior to the Scientific Revolution. But for science to be "science," it must be distinct from anything that is not science, otherwise the word "science" has lost its meaning. This to me is my main objection to the whole idea of "ancient" or "medieval" science. Lindberg has held up Alexandre Koyré's thesis that the Scientific Revolution was "metaphysical and cosmological rather than methodological" (p. 364). From a philosophical perspective, that seems correct. But I think such is a partial picture, for a shift in metaphysical and cosmological perspective would surely affect one's methodology.

When one does scientific experiments today, one does not appeal to the divine or to spiritual forces as part of one's explanation for why things happen the way they do. The reason is that modern science is committed to what is called "methodological naturalism." That is indeed a philosophical commitment, yet it is necessary for modern science to be "science" as opposed to "philosophy" or "religion." Should science be committed to methodological naturalism? Well, if science is not committed to methodological naturalism, then where is the boundary between "science" and "philosophy," or "science" and "religion"? This is why I find Lindberg's definition of "experimental" in explaining one reason why there is a scientific revolution deficient. Judging by Lindberg's definition of "experimental," certain aspects of philosophy (e.g. that there is a God) and religion (e.g. the resurrection of Christ) can be termed "science," but we do not normally called these "science," do we?

It is because of the necessity of defining our terms properly that I think Lindberg's assertion of continuity between "ancient science" and "modern science" problematic. Rather, it is better to assert that there is a continuity between ancient natural philosophy and modern science. For "science" to be "science," there must be a commitment to methodological naturalism. That being said, I will assert that this is a limitation on science, for anything that is outside the realm of nature can still be true but it is outside science's purview. Thus, I will assert, contra Lindberg, that there was indeed a real scientific revolution that is more than just a shift in rhetoric (that marked the beginnings of modern science). I will further claim that the emergence of modern science does not imply the de-legitimization of anything that is non-science as disciplines that do not convey truth, since an a priori commitment to methodological naturalism precludes science from discovering truth outside of naturalistic events.

On the hypothetical-deductive theory of science

Scientific reasoning is an exploratory dialogue that can always be resolved into two voices or two episodes of thought, imaginative and critical, which alternate and interact. [P.B. Medawar, Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought (New York, NY: Routledge, 1969, 2009), 46]

The process by which we come to formulate a hypothesis is not illogical but non-logical, i.e. outside logic. (p. 46)

This elementary theory is supported by a metatheory which specifies the rules o deduction or statement-transformation (“logical syntax”) and adjudicates upon the meanings of the empirical terms which it employs, i.e. says what they stand for (“semantics”). … We assert a postulate and take an axiom for granted, but hypotheses we merely venture to propose. (p. 47)

For scientists and all those involved in the scientific industries, it seems almost obvious that science is about finding out the truths of nature. With the failure of logical positivism and pure inductivism, the hypothetico-deductive model is adopted as the way science is done. And in a certain sense, they are right. Modern science largely functions according to the hypothetico-deductive model. But saying that is so does not indicate to us the nature of science and the relation of science to truth. Such a model is blind to the obvious paradigms of thought science operates in, for this model is blind to the fact that what may seem obvious and a reasonable assumption or prediction is paradigm-dependent, and will thus change when paradigms shift.

It is therefore on the one hand true that [normal] science operates according to the hypothetico-deductive model, and on the other hand true that whatever is discovered is paradigm-dependent in terms of its truth value. Also, since science is paradigm-dependent, all "truths" so discovered are descriptions of reality according to the paradigm. In other words, they are true, but only secondarily so. Scientific truths at best are reflections of truth, refracted through their governing paradigms. In that, they necessarily partake of the problem with induction, where there is simply no foolproof way to prove an inductive argument to be correct, as just because 100 black swans are seen does not mean all swans are black.

P.B. Medawar rightly points out the problem with pure inductivism. However, it is one thing to see the problems with inductivism, and another thing to escape the problem of induction. For since science necessarily argues from the particular to the general, induction plays a role in scientific reasoning, even under the hypothetico-deductive model. For in testing a hypothesis, one uses induction to prove that the experiment results (particular) necessarily say something about the systems being tested in general. For example, testing the hypothesis that a certain chemical causes an increase in an incidence of cancer requires one to believe that the experimental results is indicative of the general case of the presence of this chemical to the incidence of cancer. Without induction, one can only say that the experimental results of a positive correlation of high concentrations of this chemical with the incidence of cancer only applies to the experimental subjects. Without induction, one cannot conclude that this positive correlation would also be true in others that are not the experimental subjects, no matter how large or representative the sample size for the experiment is.

Therefore, while science works with the hypothetico-deductive model, we must understand that this is scientific methodology on the surface, which does not indicate to us the true nature of science or even a full understanding of the scientific method either. Rather, as we look at the history of science, we can come to recognize the paradigmatic nature of science, which undergirds the entire scientific enterprise.

Chance, quantum physics and methodological naturalism

Worst of all, the whole scheme [of methodological naturalism –DHC] works only with deterministic “laws.” Consider the decay of a radioactive nucleus, which cannot be predicted by scientific laws as we know them. The individual event of decay, in contrast to statistical prediction for many instances of decay, lies outside the domain of “law,” and so there is no way of saying whether it is “natural” or “preternatural” or “supernatural.” Biblical teaching indicates that God does it. And scientists cannot find a deterministic secondary cause, so they have no “natural” explanation at all. An event that has no secondary cause but only a primary cause, namely God, is usually considered “supernatural.” And yet myriads of such quantum mechanical events are happening every second. In terms of frequency, they are “normal” and “natural.” Conceptually, the distinction between natural and supernatural threatens to breaks down. This breakdown implies that the recipe for “methodological naturalism” has difficulties.

But methodological purists may attempt a rescue operation: Chance with a capital C fills the gap in naturalism. Chance is treated as a part of “nature.” That is one way of choosing to talk. … it also raises the question of whether methodological naturalism, in some forms, involves intrinsically the appeal to Chance as a substitute god. Such a move presupposes the absence of God, rather than presenting a coherent argument. (Vern S. Poythress, Chance and the Sovereignty of God, 130-1)

Quantum physics is a mysterious field of physics dealing with subatomic particles, even those smaller than electrons. The strange nature of quantum mechanics is such that weird phenomena such as tunneling and entanglement exists for these small particles. There is a real sense of indeterminacy in this field, expressed most clearly in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, where the uncertainty regarding momentum is inversely proportional to the uncertainty concerning position, of any one particle. Accordingly, the issue of chance and indeterminacy will come up in that particular field.

Vern Poythress, in attempting to reject methodological naturalism, uses a particular application of quantum principles in nuclear physics, concerning the radioactive decay of an atom, to disprove methodological naturalism. He argues that the indeterminacy of the decay of one radioactive nucleus results in there being no "deterministic secondary cause," and thus there is no real natural explanation at all for the decay of one radioactive nucleus. Thus, methodological naturalism is falsified, unless chance is taken to be a god.

Now, while I fully believe in the full sovereignty of God, Poythress' argument is not helpful here. The 'indeterminacy' of whether a radioactive nucleus decays can be taken to mean there is no secondary cause deciding whether any one particular radioactive nucleus decays or not, or rather the secondary cause does not operate in a deterministic manner. Take as an analogy the Boltzmann distribution of gas particles, which shows the statistical distribution of the energies of all gas particles. Any one particle will have a definite energy, but one does not know the particular energy of a particle when one measures the energy of the gas particles as a group (which translates to the temperature of the gas). Likewise, we perceive the distribution of radioactive decay of radioactive nuclei as an exponential decay curve, but do not know when any one particular radioactive nucleus will or will not decay. What is important here is that just because there is no determining secondary cause does not imply that there is no secondary cause at all.

This solution is not to make chance a "god," but merely to state the indeterminacy inherent in our knowledge of such small particles. Just like looking at gas molecules in a Boltzmann distribution, so likewise we look at nuclei of radioisotopes. Even if we could remove the high energy gas molecules, this does not change the distribution of the energies of the gas molecules from a Boltzmann distribution but rather a new Boltzmann distribution curve would form. So likewise, the thought experiment of putting two nuclei that would decay within the first half-life together would not result in two nuclei decaying within the first half-life, but that one will decay and the other would not.

The indeterminacy of an individual particle is situated in the determinacy of statistics. Therefore, Poythress' argument against methodological naturalism fails. Statistics is not a god of 'chance,' but an actual mathematical and scientific field. It no more indicates a lack of secondary causes than the use of statistics in dice rolling indicate the absence of secondary causes.

The Kuhnian idea of theory, observation and incommensurability

Kuhn’s own emphasis on science as a puzzle-solving enterprise would lead one to interpret him in an instrumentalist manner. [Ernan McMullin, "Rationality and Paradigm Change in Science," in Paul Horwich, ed., World Changes: Thomas Kuhn and the Nature of Science (Pittsburg, PA: University of Pittsburg Press, 1993, 2010), 71]

His [Kuhn’s –DHC] argument that theories on either side of a revolution are incommensurable because the meanings of terms change so radically applies also, and perhaps more plausibly, to the names of disciplines (J.L. Heilbron, “A Mathematicians’ Mutiny, with Morals,” in ibid., 107)

Yet, to admit that observation is theory-laden is a long way from denying that there is a theory/ observation distinction. (Nancy Cartwright, “How We Relate Theory to Observation,” in ibid., 259)

The natural-kind terms current in an old science cannot be translated into natural-kind terms in a new science. (Ian Hacking, “Working in a New World,” in ibid., 278)

The world in and with which we work is a world of kinds. The latter changes; the former does not. After a scientific revolution, the scientist works in a world of new kinds. In one sense, the world is exactly the same. A change in the class of sets of individuals that correspond to scientific kinds of things is not a change in the world at all. But in another sense the world in which the scientist works is entirely different, because what we work in is not a world of individuals but of kinds, a world that we must represent using projectible predicates. (Hacking, "Working," in ibid., 306)

One word of describing this difficulty [concerning translation —DHC] is as a case of polysemy: the two individuals are applying the same name to different concepts. But that description, though correct as far as it goes, fails to catch the depth of the difficulty. Polysemy has a standard remedy, widely deployed in analytic philosophy: two names are introduced where there had been only one before. If the polysemous term is ‘water’, the difficulties are to be lifted by replacing each of the concepts that previously shared the name ‘water.’ Though the two new terms differ in meaning, most referents of ‘water₁’ are referents of ‘water₂’ and vice versa. (Thomas S. Kuhn, “Afterwords,” in ibid., 318)

Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science can best be termed "instrumentalist," an epistemic antirealist position concerning science and scientific theories. The key thing to take note concerning Kuhn is that he is not a relativist or subjectivist, a label that is a better fit on philosophers like Michael Polanyi. Rather, Kuhn's method is a historical method looking at the history of the scientific enterprise, and wrestling with how previous generations of scientists have thought and worked on their theories.

One element of Kuhn's thought that had previously eluded me was his promotion of incommensurability, a term which seems to lead to a form of relativism. However, upon clearer reading, especially in this book edited by Paul Horwich, what Kuhn means by "incommensurability" has to do with theories and not the propositions of those theories. It is a term applicable at the meta-level, whereby different paradigms are so different that there is no way to translate one paradigm to another. Or, to put it perhaps in a way that may be easier to understand, it is impossible to translate a set of natural-kind terms to anther set of natural-kind terms, without losing some meaning or even most of the meaning in the process. In other words, it is possible to translate one paradigm into a set of propositions, and another paradigm into another set of propositions, but as a whole, the two sets are mutually incomprehensible and thus incommensurable.

There is no such thing as a "neutral" observation in science, something which sounds quite self-evident but is mostly lost to many scientists. Theory dictates what one looks for or what one expects to see, and this framing of the question makes observation in some-sense "subjective," or theory-laden. This is why incommensurability is so much more than merely interpretation of data, and why the word "incommensurability" is fit to describe the differences between two paradigms, instead of merely stating that they are differing interpretations of the natural world. Thus, in a sense, the world changes between paradigms.

Once all these are clear, then it is clear also why Kuhn's antirealism is not relativism, much less can he be used to promote the idea of science as a social construction. The natural world is objectively out there, but Kuhn's theory have to do with our knowledge of the world even to the point of observation. Now, if there is no transcendent external observer, then Kuhn's theory might lead to some form of relativism. But if Kuhn's theory is limited to humans, and thus an expression of human finitude in science, then Kuhn's theory is congruent with a belief in an objective world and absolute truth, insights which do not come and could not come from science.

Social Justice, Critical Theory and General Revelation

In some quarters of American Christianity, there has been a defense of the usage of Critical Race Theory and other forms of left-liberal theories as being under the umbrella of "General Revelation." The defense is that, since the Bible does not teach these theories, therefore we can understand that these theories help us to understand the workings of the world as they are part of God's General Revelation, in the same way that the Scriptures does not teach Newton's laws of motions yet we accept them as true, as part of God's General Revelation. Such a defense is used to blunt the argument that these Christian Social Justice Warriors are reading into the Bible and distorting the Word of God, since it is self-evident that no one can get Critical Race Theory from a mere reading of the Scriptures.

I have always suspected there is a weakness in certain more recent Reformed works on the doctrine of General Revelation (e.g. Van Til, Horton etc.), in the sense that General Revelation is not defined clearly and seem to be ambiguous enough to tolerate theologians being able to smuggle in unbiblical theories into their interpretation of the world. So it would be helpful for us here to be clearer in stating what General Revelation actually is. According to Scripture, General Revelation has to do with informing people that there is a Creator God who is eternal and divine and glorious (Rom. 1:20; Ps. 19:1), and that they are all guilty of sin against God's holy law (Rom. 2:15). That is all! God's General Revelation doesn't even extend to scientific laws. And if one understands some basic philosophy of science, then one realizes that the natural sciences are an interpretation of the world, not an unmediated knowledge of the actual workings of the world. After all, that is what one gets from the process of induction: an interpretation of the raw data.

If such is what the natural sciences are, then how should one regard the social sciences, which are even more subjective and easily biased? Social sciences, even if they are done as stringently as possible, are even more fallible and more liable to be wrong. If natural science theories are not general revelation but interpretations of general revelations, then social science theories are most definitely not general revelation but highly fallible interpretations of general revelation! This is especially so when theories like critical race theory reason from highly disputed axioms in the first place, which increases its possibility of error to an exceedingly high degree.

So "social justice" and critical race theories are not general revelation, and have such a high possibility of error that it should not be taken to be true. Therefore, it is sin to impose such theories upon the church, and demand everyone in the church subscribe to these theories as truth upon pain of being "outted" as a "racist." Such activism is unbiblical, un-truthful and un-Christlike. It is to be the apostle of error, working contrary to the Lord of truth, calling good evil and evil good (Is. 5:20). It is a sin which needs to be repented of, an evil that grieves our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory.

Review and Analysis of Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Critique

Just last year, a book came out on the topic of theistic evolution. Coming in at almost a thousand pages, this book aims to be a comprehensive rebuttal of theistic evolution, at least as taught by Biologos. I have read the book, and decided to do a review and analysis of the book, which can be read here. Here is an excerpt of my 18-page review and analysis:

How does Christianity interact with science, especially in the contested areas of cosmic and especially human origins? Some scientists, especially those linked to the organization known as Biologos, have claimed compatibility between Christianity and the findings of science, or specifically the theory of evolution. Their brand of theistic evolution is the result of their particular synthesis of what they believe to be the indisputable findings of evolutionary science, and what they believe the Bible teaches. This particular version of theistic evolution can be defined as:

God created matter and after that did not guide or intervene or act directly to cause any empirically detectable change in the natural behavior of matter until all living things had evolved by purely natural processes.¹

In an effort to refute such teaching, a group of scientists and theologians have come together to write a book to that effect, entitled Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Critique. ...

[more]

Miracles and the Laws of Science

In his famous essay “Of Miracles,” 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.” (C. Stephen Evans and R. Zachary Manis, Philosophy of Religion: Thinking about Faith, 126)

What are miracles? Are they transgressions of scientific laws? Many people especially atheists might think so. Statements might be made even by Christians that miracles involve a "suspension" of the laws of science, or that laws of science are inapplicable for the "special" occurrences when miracles happen. I would suggest however that such explanations are very unhelpful and give the wrong impression to others of how God works in this world.

Christianity is true. Thus, God is a personal being who acts on this world. Normally, he acts via providence, but sometimes he acts via miracles, which are distinct special acts different in kind from providence. The world therefore is always the theater of God's actions. Therefore, from a Christian perspective, the idea of a neutral impersonal world where God interrupts via miracles may be the perspective of skeptics, but it is certainly not the Christian perspective. Here already, we see a different starting point, a different interpretation grid as we attempt to understand miracles.

Next, we have to know what is science. Science is the study of how the world works through what is often term "the scientific method." To simplify things, science normally involves experimentation involving cause and effect to understand and formularize how various forces and processes in the world work. In experimentation, two of three things are present: initial conditions, final conditions, equation of process(es). An experiment or experiments are done (with controls) to figure out the unknown, experiments are repeated where possible, and thus scientific knowledge is gained.It must be noticed that the scientific method must assume methodological naturalism, or that only nature is at work in the scientific processes under study. One cannot assume a demon has tinkered with the scientific experimentation, or science would be undoable.

Putting the two together, science is the study of God's providence. But since miracles are not providence, obviously it is out of the domain of science. It is in that sense correct to say that the laws of science are "inapplicable" for miracles, or that the law of science are "suspended," but such statements are not helpful because they make it seem as if God somehow does away with the laws of science when He does miracles, but that is totally untrue.

When God works, He acts. In miracles, God works differently to create the outcome He desires. Thus, the best way to understand miracles is as an external force working through unknown (supernatural, spiritual) processes to accomplish the end of what God desires. A good way for us to understand such an action is through an analogy in science. Suppose that I add one mole of copper powder to two moles of hydrochloric acid (HCl) in solution. I would get one mole of Copper Chloride (CuCl₂) solution, which is a blue solution. But suppose that someone added two moles of Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) solution to my nice blue solution, without my knowledge. The resulting mixture would be two moles of sodium chloride (NaCl) or common salt in solution with a nice precipitate of one mole of copper hydroxide (Cu(OH)₂) at the bottom. Since I did not know of the tinkering done to my solution, what would I see? I would observe that adding copper powder to hydrochloric acid would give me a clear solution of sodium chloride and an insoluble greenish blue precipitate at the bottom. I would most certainly find it strange and suspect that my experiment has been tampered with, since I obviously know what I should be getting.

Miracles can be seen as analogous to the unknown person adding the NaOH solution to the reagent mixture. In miracles, God as a third party acts on the situation on hand, thus the outcome is not what we might have expected. Of course, God not only acts, he acts using divine processes and forces, and therefore the outcome may seem out of this world, but that does not imply a "suspension" of natural laws but rather processes that we do not know and could not qualify. Some miracles are obviously more "miraculous" than others, yet if we understand God as working, God did not transgress the "laws of science" because scientific laws cannot prevent the action of divine forces and processes from changing the outcome. When Jesus turned water into wine, Jesus could have teleported grapes into the containers, do a time acceleration warp, remove the fermented grapes and thus wine is produced.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, magic has been seen as advanced science. Miracles of course is not advanced science, but in concept there is nothing to suggest that is could not be miraculous forces causing the change as an external agent, not through breaking the laws of science, much like magic in the MCU are unknown forces causing changes as external agents. If we understand miracles in this manner, which I think is the better way to understand miracles, then we can show how miracles are not contrary to science, just contrary to scientism.

Quantum physics and the nature of science

I drag you through this raft of speculation only to help you understand that if science is supposed to be a literal, verified view of Reality in itself, based on experiments which are somehow able to see beyond readings on instruments to that Reality in itself, then science is dead. There is no direct observation of the metaphysical objects of contemporary physics. ... More

What is "science"? A recent article argued that "science" is dead, based upon the implications of quantum physics, in the sense of it perceiving and verifying reality. While one can argue that quantum physics shouldn't be taken as representative of the sciences in general, yet the main point is not to say that what is implied from quantum physics can be implied from the others sciences, but rather that IF quantum physical phenomena and "objects" are in fact real, THEN science as this idea of an objective understanding of reality does not exist. In the collapse of the subject/ object distinction and the dissolution of matter, reality is reduced to some form of Idealism, and we can almost start flirting around with solipsism (I mean "I," whatever "I" means).

The problems pose by Quantum Physics should give us pause in thinking of science in a realist sense. Scientific Realism, the reigning paradigm in the natural sciences, must necessarily hold to the realities of quantum objects and phenomena, which it seems to me would result in the death of the natural sciences as we currently understand them (i.e. objective, empirical investigation of the world). Thus, we have three things of which all three cannot all be true at the same time: Scientific Realism, Science as objective empirical investigation, and Quantum Phenomena. One may be tempted to reject Quantum Physics altogether, but then at least some aspects of Quantum physics seem to be true, for we use them in our everyday lives (e.g. Tunneling Electron Microscope, or you can check this out on some other practical applications.). So if we want to rescue the objective nature of science, it seems we are forced to jettison Scientific Realism, and this in my opinion is the right move.

Denying Scientific Realism is not the same as denying Realism. Denying Scientific Realism just mean that science does NOT necessarily deal with ontologically real entities and phenomena. Pragmatism, a version of scientific anti-realism, merely states that science works. So quarks for example may or may not ontologically exist; that is irrelevant. What science is concerned with is to use these as descriptors for understanding the workings of reality, not reality itself. Scientific laws is our human way of mapping out natural operations as perceived by us and as applicable for our use.

Pragmatic scientific anti-realism deals with quantum phenomena and "objects" easily, since whatever they are, all laws regarding them are explanatory of their workings, not necessarily of what they are in themselves. We cannot see quarks with our eyes, not even under a microscope for that matter, so who knows whether they actually exist or not? We just need to know that they "exist" as explanations and descriptors in order for us to comprehend quantum phenomena, and that is sufficient. Are all matter merely waves, and thus "matter" as a category doesn't exist? No, for the wave-like nature of matter is an explanation of phenomena, and bears nothing on the reality of matter other than its operations.

For those who embrace Scientific Realism, Quantum Physics would pose a major problem. Together with the implications of General and Special Relativity especially concerning the theoretical possibility of time travel, it seems to me that one cannot simultaneously embrace Christian metaphysics and Scientific Realism and the findings of science.

Scientific realism and anti-realism

[J.P. Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1989), 172]

The debate over scientific realism and anti-realism deals with the nature of scientific statements and entities. The question is NOT: Are things described using scientific theories true (which is Vern Poythress' misunderstanding of scientific realism)? Rather, are the theories objectively true, and do entities such as "[electrical] current," "light waves" and other such entities ontologically exist, or rather that such [theoretical] entities are short-hand for a complex relationship between actual physical entities (for example, density describes the relation between the mass of an object and its volume, and is not a distinct ontologically entity by itself).

When the question is correctly phrased, the whole idea of the reality of this world and its general law-like structure has little if anything to do with the question of scientific realism/ anti-realism. The alternate rational nonrealist view, Instrumentalism, claims merely that science "works." In other words, we do not claim that scientific theories/ laws and entities actually exist, but rather that they work, in that "they are successful in accomplishing the purpose for which they were formulated" (Ibid., 172). I would regard myself as a Pragmatist, and thus science is successful in solving puzzles. Scientific theories are "true" in the sense that they adequately solve the puzzles we want to solve, and so help us in conjuring up an adequate (for our purposes) understanding of how things work. "Truth" in science is thus a function of usefulness of description, not a function of true truth.

It may be objected that something which works must have some relation with the way the world does in fact operate. And I do not see why we should dispute that. But the question is not whether there is some relationship with the way the world actually works, but whether we can know what that relation actually is. Scientific theories and entities are functional analogues, and that is the most we can say. The history of science is filled with competing and rejected scientific paradigms, and some of these worked very well for its time (e.g. Ptolemaic cosmology), so therefore we cannot claim ours is the final perfect truth of the world. We see in the law-like structure of science an analogy of God's law in General Revelation, not THE law(s) of General Revelation.

Philosophizing about science is second-order thinking. Or rather, since General Revelation is primary, science is the study of General Revelation, which makes it second order, philosophizing about science is third-order thinking. Christianity does not therefore mandate we take either the realist or anti-realist position, contra Poythress. Rather, through common philosophizing about the nature of science, it seems that the anti-realist, instrumentalist and pragmatist view of science is the best option for understanding science.

The definition and limitations of science

[Statement for discussion: -DHC] Something is scientific if and only if it focuses on the natural world, is guided by natural law, and/or explains by reference to natural law ...

What about the phrase explains by reference to natural law? Is this a necessary or sufficient condition for something to count as science? No. Mathematics often explain things by referring to natural (non-supernatural) laws of mathematics or logic. ...

... the third part of the essential characteristic of science we are considering — something is scientific if and only if it focuses on the natural world. There are two different ways we could take the term natural. First, it may be a contrast term that means nonsupernatural. Here, "natural" means everything that is real apart from God and his direct, primary causal interventions into the world. Naturalism would be the view that God does not exist and everything that does exist is a natural entity. Or a theist could adopt an attitude of naturalism by simple focusing on items insofar as they exist in the world, even though she believes that God created them, that is, she could focus on them from a natural point of view. ...

If that is how we should take natural, then science is not the only discipline that "focuses on the natural world." The entities listed are studied by philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, and linguists, to name a few. Even theologians study and make claims about natural entities, for example, by saying that God reated various forms of life, endowed them with certain abilities, and so forth. So if natural is understood in this way, it is clear that science cannot be defined as the discipline that "focuses on the natural world." [J.P. Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1989), 23-6]

Does this mean that we can never recognize a case of science or nonscience when we see it? No it doesn't. But one does not need a definition of science to do this. ... suffice it is to say that, in a general way, science is a discipline that in some sense and usually appeals to natural explanation, empirical tests, and so forth. (Ibid., 42)

Philosopher J.P. Moreland, in this foray into the philosophy of science, attempts a definition of science, and concludes that there is no one definition of science, or for that matter, of the scientific method. As a scientific anti-realist, I most certainly agree. There are certain principles that proscribe the parameters of science and the scientific method, but to define science is rather impossible, as Moreland has demonstrated. I would not go as far as Paul Feyerabend who basically threw in the towel and erase all distinction between science and nonscience, but the fact that we cannot actually find anything that defines science and the scientific method, in contrast to nonscience (besides the useless tautology "what scientists do") should give us pause in being dogmatic about what is or isn't science.

Moreland's analysis of this one criteria of naturalism is interesting, yet if we were to separate the hard ("natural") sciences from the soft ("social") sciences, it seems that some form of naturalism is definitive of the natural sciences. In other words, while there may not be a definition of "science," there might be a definition of the various sciences. With regards to the "hard" sciences, it seems true that it "focuses on the natural world, is guided by natural law, and/or explains by reference to natural law." But what it does prove is that the natural sciences focuses on natural laws in the natural world, but we have already limit it to the natural sciences so of course that naturally follows. But if we so limit the field of study, then surely the questions and answers should be likewise limited to the domain being studied.

If the field of inquiry relates only to the natural, then conclusions are limited to the natural as well. It is therefore somewhat ridiculous to claim that "science" disproves miracles, for miracles or the supernatural is not within the field of study of the natural sciences. Likewise, in the adoption of methodological naturalism, all supernatural events lie outside the purview of science. If anyone was to try to investigate such events "scientifically" (i.e. naturalistically), then they will always be in error as to their conclusions since they assume natural processes are the only ones at work here.

From a definitional inquiry, we can see that miraculous events are excluded from scientific considerations from the start. Unless one assumes scientism (which is self-refuting), science can never disprove the supernatural and the miraculous.

Poythress and the philosophy of science (Part 2)

The appreciation of multidimensional reality can also account for cases where later science has overturned earlier scientific theories. Copernicus's sun-centered solar system displaced Ptolemy's earth-centered system. But both systems recognized a general patten of cyclical motion in the planets. .... The system [Ptolemy's -DHC] was not wrong to notice the correlations; but it was oversimple, and to that extent wrong, in postulating a direct correlation between mathematics of epicycles and position in three dimensions. ... [Vern S. Poythress, Redeeming Science: A God-centered Approach (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006), 205]

The acknowledge of multiple perspectives enable us to make some sense of the diversity of "levels" with which we may analyze the perception of a red apple. We may affirm the value both of ordinary human experience and of special modes of analysis that science introduces. ... (Ibid., 213)

Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science came about through his study of the history of science. Thus, in Kuhn's most famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn made some observations regarding the history of how science had worked in past eras, and from his historical observations, he postulated the idea of scientific revolutions or paradigm shifts.

Vern Poythress has decided to deal with the history of science in some fashion also. Using a multi-perspectival method, Poythress claims that the differences between the various eras did not come about because of differences in paradigms but merely because they looked at the scientific questions they were answering from different perspectives. He then claimed that, in the difference between the Ptolemaic and Copernican cosmologies, the differences came about because both parties have different perspectives.

In response, we first note that paradigms do include the perspectives of men. But paradigms go beyond that to include the societal and ideological backdrop of the times, so paradigms is a larger category than mere perspectives.

Secondly, and more importantly, whereas for Poythress, the various perspectives are legitimate, that is not historically how the differences between the various scientific models are seen. Those holding to the Copernican model like Kepler and Galileo did not think their model was merely a different "perspective" just as legitimate as the Ptolemaic model. Rather, they thought that the Ptolemaic model was in error. Likewise, with regards to the phlogiston theory, those rejecting phlogiston actually think that those holding to the phlogiston theory were in error, not that they merely "had" an alternative perspective. To claim that they are merely different "perspectives" cheapen the revolutionary shifts that mark the development of science. It is also rather disingenuous, I might add, to re-interpret the views and motives of especially dead people according to one's preconceived notions of how science develops.

Multiperspectivalism will not save Poythress' interpretation of the history of science, and will not save his critical realism either. The question remains how one can actually know what is true, not whether one can have an actual relation with the real world. Yes, if we "see the redness of an apple," we do see "exactly what God's word specifies that we should see" (Ibid., 204). But how do I know that I actually see the redness of an apple? This is the question Poythress has not even begin to address, and his realism will result in his overestimation of what science actually states, to the detriment of this supposed Christian project of "redeeming" science.