Discuss the Great Debate of Science and Religion.
Why is it that science has proven such a powerfully effective method for understanding and predicting the natural world?
Overview
Naturalism in philosophy seeks to understand the success of science not by first establishing a philosophical foundation for its process and activities, but by using what science has learned in order to answer philosophical questions, including questions about philosophy of science itself. In other words, we would use scientific methods to understand and answer philosophical questions.
For example, philosophy can be seen as the study of how we think and what the best ways of thinking might be. Neuroscience also studies how we think, by evaluating biological processes and chemical mechanisms in the brain. So, if we put them together, what can recent findings in neuroscience add to philosophy?
Where neuroscience may move us towards a naturalistic and deterministic understanding of human thought processes, this week's readings also remind us that there are alternative ways to investigate the world. While we are exploring the significance of naturalism as an approach in both science and philosophy, we must also consider the relation between science, philosophy of science, and religious understanding of the human experience. Objectivity and Observation
Child Observing
One of the fundamental precepts advanced by Bacon in the 17th century and continuing into modern science is the assumption that observation forms the best basis for scientific induction and theorizing because it is the most consistent, reliable, and objective way to know the world. Rather than starting from theory and choosing observations to fit those assumptions, the scientist should identify a problem, devise an experiment to gather data, and develop a theory that explains that data (back to the Scientific Method we discussed in Lesson 1). However, the work of many of the philosophers of science we have discussed more recently implies that the objectivity and reliability of observation is an assumption rather than a fact-many conscious and unconscious factors may influence a scientist's observations. This argument underlies parts of Kuhn's paradigm (particularly the issue of incommensurability), the approach of feminist standpoint theorists, and the actor-network theories of Latour.
Godfrey-Smith states a strong case for the traditional view of observation as objective, using philosophical naturalism and the results of current research in neuroscience and psychology to support his view. Thus, "science works by taking theoretical ideas and trying to expose them to observation" (161). This position is fairly typical of naturalism in philosophy of science.
Scientific Naturalism
In Lesson 1, we defined science in relation to the natural world; science is about studying, measuring, and predicting natural occurrences. It deals with the material world. Scientists may or may not concede the existence of something beyond the reach of scientific theorization, but since the nineteenth century, they have agreed that science itself must be based on observation and experimentation, without recourse to supernatural (that is, magical or miraculous) explanations.
Rather than appeal to explanations outside of nature, scientists take the pragmatic view, implied by Bacon's insistence on observation and induction and the judicious application of Occam's Razor, that science should provide the best explanations that is can based on what we can reliably observe within nature.
Fossilized Ammonoids
While various theories of evolution existed prior to Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, his proposal of natural selection provided an explanation for how evolution can take place without someone or something guiding the process. Darwin acknowledged some limitations to his theory; indeed, he made no claims as to where or how life began, only as to how the variation and extinction chronicled in the fossil record came about. He based his conclusions on direct observations and measurements of the repeating patterns of life forms reproducing-inheriting certain characteristics from their parents and evolving new adaptations to their environments.
"It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." Charles Darwin
Philosophical Naturalism
How then does naturalism in philosophy relate to this idea of naturalism in science? From one point of view, it is an outgrowth of that viewpoint that the only reliable explanation is a natural one-in other words, that the best methods for understanding the world are the naturalistic methods of science. Where foundationalism philosophers argue that we must first establish the philosophical grounds for scientific inquiry before we can accept scientific propositions, philosophical naturalists assume that the success of science has, to some extent at least, obviated the need for such a priori justifications, and move forward to apply scientific insights to philosophical problems.
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy thus explains philosophical naturalism: "Whether in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, or other areas, naturalism seeks to show that philosophical problems as traditionally conceived are ill-formulated and can be solved or displaced by appropriately naturalistic methods" (Jacobs).
Taken to its extreme, philosophical naturalism denies that there is anything beyond the physical, natural realm. In other words, this world is all that there is and to posit anything beyond this world (like divine beings or an afterlife) is wrong.
Angel Statue
Can Naturalism and Religion get along?
If naturalism requires that science avoid all supernatural explanations, does this mean that science and religion must inevitably conflict? Can a religious person be a good scientist? Can people of faith accept the insights of science without abandoning belief?
Well, there are a lot of ways to answer these questions, but many scientists ascribe to a version of what Stephen Jay Gould called the doctrine of "nonoverlapping magisteria." This rather fancy term recognizes that within certain boundaries (namely, the workings of the physical world), science holds priority of explanation, and in certain others namely, morality and spirituality), religion takes the fore. To provide one example of how this works, the Catholic Church accepts Darwin's theory of evolution and sees no conflict with the positions of the church (Pope John Paul II). Although some scientists are atheists or agnostics (Gould, for instance, identifies himself as a Jewish agnostic), many others are devoutly religious and find motivation for their work in the recognition that they are studying God's creation.
John Tyndall (1820 - 1893)
Famous for his early work on induced magnetic fields and his later work on properties of air and infrared, Tyndall sought to inflame a love of science in people from all walks of life. While he, himself, was not a religious person, he didn't see any conflict between science and religion if they were treated as having insight into distinct areas of expertise:
"It is . . . indeed certain that these [scientific] views will undergo modification. But the point is, that whether right or wrong, we ask the freedom to discuss them. For science, however, no exclusive claim is here made; you are not urged to erect it into an idol. The inexorable advance of man's understanding in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of his moral and emotional nature which the understanding can never satisfy, are here equally set forth. The world embraces not only a Newton, but a Shakespeare-not only a Boyle, but a Raphael-not only a Kant, but a Beethoven-not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed, but supplementary-not mutually exclusive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will turn to the Mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith; so long as this is done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the Mystery in accordance with its own needs-then, casting aside all the restrictions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing faculties, may be called the creative faculties of man."
Scientific naturalism, and naturalism as a view in the philosophy of science, should not therefore be confused with the arguments of scientism, discussed in Lesson 1, which claim science as the sole source of truth and understanding of the human condition and experience. Art, literature, philosophy, and religion also have their place, and each of these areas of human endeavor can benefit from the labors of the others.
Conclusion
We sometime look to science and the philosophy of science to give us answers, but what we find is that they are avenues that encourage questions. Science aims to be as objective as possible, but it doesn't always succeed. Scientific naturalism focuses on the natural world and empirical observation, and so it doesn't lay claim to any understanding of realms that fall outside of that scope. However, for many people, there is a wider world beyond what we can see, hear, and touch. Does it exist if we cannot measure or experience it? That is the question that we will address in Lesson 7.
Works Cited
Darwin, Charles. On The Origin of Species. Project Gutenburg. Web. 23 June 2015.
Gould, Stephen Jay. "Nonoverlapping Magisteria." The Unofficial Stephen Jay Gould Archive. 1997. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.
Jacobs, Jon. "Naturalism." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Pope John Paul II. "Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: On Evolution." Catholic Information Network. 22 Oct. 1996. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.
Tyndall, John. "Address Delivered Before the British Association Assembled at Belfast, with Additions, 1874." The Victorian Research Web. 2008. Web. 1 Jan. 2014.
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