Alden Swan dot com

But what a fool believes he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away
What seems to be
Is always better than nothing
– What a Fool Believes, Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins

There have been some interesting comments in the last couple of days on relating to faith and belief. Coincidentally, yesterday I ran across the new 2008 The World Question Center question, “WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?“

Most of what I’ve read so far has actually be pretty disappointing, with some people clearly not wanting to admit they’ve changed their mind at all about anything important. However, I was a bit intrigued by the answer from Rupert Sheldrake, who I admit I’ve never heard of. However, he’s apparently smart enough for someone to have felt that he may have changed his mind about something important. Whoever he is, he seems to be something of a cynic; probably not the sort to expect to liven up a party. His answer begins,

I used to think of skepticism as a primary intellectual virtue, whose goal was truth. I have changed my mind. I now see it as a weapon.

Well, alrighty then. Kind of makes you sorry you asked. He then credits this revelation to the Creationists:

Creationists opened my eyes. They use the techniques of critical thinking to expose weaknesses in the evidence for natural selection, gaps in the fossil record and problems with evolutionary theory. Is this because they are seeking truth? No. They believe they already know the truth. Skepticism is a weapon to defend their beliefs by attacking their opponents.

He rather fair-handedly points to the use of skepticism as a form of counter-argument in business, religion (of course), and even science. Although he does seem, as I’ve said, to be a rather dour fellow, I would tend to agree with him that skepticism is not usually objective. But then, I don’t see how it really could be. If someone came to you with a new, rather remarkable scientific discovery, most people would tend to respond either positively (“cool! let’s see if we can do it again!”) or negatively (“that doesn’t seem right, you’d better double-check your math”). And, I don’t see a problem with either one. The scientific process would seem to benefit from testing by both sides.

Sheldrake concludes,

In practice, the goal of skepticism is not the discovery of truth, but the exposure of other people’s errors. It plays a useful role in science, religion, scholarship, and common sense. But we need to remember that it is a weapon serving belief or self-interest; we need to be skeptical of skeptics. The more militant the skeptic, the stronger the belief.

Here, we must be careful. is there only one goal of skepticism? I don’t think so; certainly the discovery of truth could be a goal of skepticism, along with showing error. If we don’t try to expose errors, then we certainly have no interest in the truth (this is perhaps a bigger problem than insincere skeptics). The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians, even mentions the positive side of quarrels, as serving to show who is indeed correct. Again, without the challenge of thinkers who disagree, error would continue.

In many instances, however, I think Mr. Sheldrake is correct. Some playing the role of skeptics may have no interest in truth, but rather are trying to obfuscate the truth. We must indeed be skeptical of the motivation of skeptics, however be willing to engage even an insincere skepticism when it serves the purpose of testing that which is held as truth. Only a fool (tying this back to the opening lyrics) fails to entertain challenges to his position.

According to the recently published tract from the NAS, entitled Science, Evolution, and Creationism, the “materialism of the gaps” approach is apparently the new scientific method:

Even if their negative arguments against evolution were correct, that would not establish the creationists’ claims. There may be alternative explanations. For example, it would be incorrect to conclude that because there is no evidence that it is raining outside, it must be sunny. Other explanations also might be possible.

The NAS apparently sees an evil monster out there that must be killed at all costs. It doesn’t seem to matter that the major proponents of Intelligent Design (who, once again, don’t all consider themselves “Creationists”) and other Darwin-doubters are not proposing that ID is a scientific theory or that it be taught in schools as science. They are merely suggesting that science be taught as science, and let people draw whatever philosophical conclusions are appropriate. However, apparently the skepticism which is so important to science has its limits:

In science, a “fact” typically refers to an observation, measurement, or other form of evidence that can be expected to occur the same way under similar circumstances. However, scientists also use the term “fact” to refer to a scientific explanation that has been tested and confirmed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing it or looking for additional examples. In that respect, the past and continuing occurrence of evolution is a scientific fact. Because the evidence supporting it is so strong, scientists no longer question whether biological evolution has occurred and is continuing to occur.

“Scientists no longer question …;” therefore, this implies, those who question the assumptions made by Darwinists are not scientists. And, presumably, neither was Copernicus, who dared question the consensus belief of his day in the “fact” of Ptolemy’s cosmology.

So, why is the NAS so nervous? As I’m sure I’ve said before, if the science behind Darwinism is as solid as they insist, why do they have to work so hard to deflect any criticism (skepticism)? As my friend Mike commented yesterday,

It takes so much effort to believe that we will grasp at any straw we can. Nobody in science claims that there are any absolutes, that all is a matter of probability.

Mike was referring to religious belief, but it seems that the NAS finds itself in a similar position. Perhaps the probabilities are not quite as strong as the NAS would like to think? Perhaps they should consider that in literature and movies, it is the preservationist “old guard” who always comes off looking foolish.

Anthony Bloom sees the issue of belief to be similar for both theology and science. He writes in God & Man in the chapter entitled Doubt and the Christian Life (p. 36):

At the root of the scientist’s activity there is the certainty that what he is doubting is the model he has invented … But what he is also absolutely certain of is that the reality which is beyond his model is in no danger if his model collapses. The reality is stable, it is there; the model is an inadequate expression if it, but the reality doesn’t alter because the model shakes.

If, then, we are truly seeking truth, we should have no strangle hold on the model; we know, after all, that it is imperfect and it is our job to doubt the model. The alternative – in the theological realm, anyway – is nothing less than idolatry. In the field of science, it simply becomes something other than science, which brings me back to the NAS’ pre-Copernican mentality. Note that I’m not dealing with the specifics of any scientific or non-scientific argument; to drop into a Darwin v Creation argument here is missing the larger point.

Actually, this is all really an introduction to the nature of belief and faith, which is something I’ll write about in the days to come. The NAS’ little tract seemed a good non-theological introduction to the topic.

Mathematician Granville Sewell writes that the Schrodinger partial differential equation, if correct, means that the supernatural can never be said to be impossible, merely improbable. For example,

At the macroscopic level, quantum mechanics reduces to classical (Newtonian) mechanics, and when we throw a baseball, the odds are astronomically high that it will obey these classical laws accurately. But if it suddenly stops in mid-air just before Alex Rodriguez swings, it would not really be violating any now-accepted laws of physics, just doing something extremely improbable. If one Red Sox fan says “what incredibly good luck”, and another says “God wanted Alex to strike out”, science simply cannot say which theory is correct. …

Similarly, if a soup of organic chemicals suddenly organizes itself into the first living thing, or if a reptile produces a mammalian offspring, we do not need to conclude that any laws of science have been violated, only that something has happened which these laws tell us is extremely improbable. Science leaves us free to draw the obvious philosophical conclusions from such improbable events …

Likewise, as Dave Scot writes today, what this means is that arguments that either macroevolution or miracles can’t happen are valid and appropriate arguments from incredulity:

In principle it is possible for two cows to mate and give birth to a chimpanzee. The reason we don’t ever expect to see such a thing is we know (now) that the genetic differences between a cow and a chimp are so complex and specified that the odds against it actually happening in a single generation are nearly impossible. We can’t calculate the odds precisely but we know it is incredibly improbable. The argument that two cows won’t mate and produce a chimpanzee is an argument from incredulity.

Credulity? Anthony Bloom, of whom I have written before, suggests that we are incredulous about miracles simply because we have grown used to them, as well as become too sophisticated to appreciate them:

Miracles are usually thought of in a most primitive way by the least primitive people. People imagine that they are so sophisticated that they have outgrown the very notion of matter…

Coming back to the sophistication of science, astonomer A.S. Eddington wrote in The Nature of the Physical World (p. 309) that:

A rather serious consequence of dropping causality in the external world is that it leaves us with no clear distinction between the Natural and the Supernatural.

Of course, Christians have not needed mathematicians or scientists to tell us that all things are possible:

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

And, as so far neither Schrodinger nor Eddington has succeeded in rising from the dead, I’m satisfied with Jesus’ thoughts on the subject.