Comments on Sentient Developments: Pigliucci on science and the scope of skeptical in...

The scientist is quite entitled to reject the clai...

2009-12-05T23:35:59.582-05:00

The scientist is quite entitled to reject the claim, not because it makes falsified predictions or conflicts directly with observations (it doesn't) but because it is ad hoc. It is perfectly legitimate for scientists working in the relevant fields to make the judgment that a particular hypothesis is not worth pursuing, and should be treated as false, because it has been introduced merely to avoid falsification of a position that is contrary to the evidence.

This touches again on parsimony: objections to ad hoc justifications are, fundamentally, aesthetic considerations. Parsimony does well for us in that the universe is, on the whole, intelligible. But it does not at all guarantee truth.

It wouldn't be too hard, at least in principle, to get together a group of zoologists, ecologists, and the like, to investigate the matter. Thus, no one doubts that the existence or otherwise of this spectacular New World primate is a scientific question.

Would it be easy, though? It would have to be an exhaustive, simultaneous examination of the New England woods. This is very difficult, and is subject to a single example confirming the ape's existence. While there are very good reasons to be agnostic regarding the existence of this ape -- in the same way as unicorns, faeries, and deities -- a (philosophically, as distinct from mathematically) inductive argument is problematic.

Many of the skills needed to do all this (including language skills) are taught in arts faculties rather than science faculties. And yet, there is nothing in the kinds of investigations that the historians will be involved in, or the kinds of arguments that they will use in attempting to settle the issue, that is conceptually remote from scientific reasoning.

I entirely disagree. It does a disservice to historians -- proper investigators and scientists -- to group them with theologians. Historical reasoning is fundamentally scientific reasoning.

I would say (roughly) that the more overt the involvement of conceptual issues, the more likely we are to assign a matter to philosophy rather than science.

Well, no -- otherwise would this not relegate mathematics to philosophy? Quoting from memory the introduction to "Unweaving the Rainbow: Color for Philosophers" (I don't know if this was, in turn, a quote) what is sometimes envisioned as philosophy is, in fact, preemptive bad science. If something seems a philosophical rather than a scientific inquiry, this should set us on guard that we may need to further develop our scientific tools.

Chris, Parsimony is a metaphysical prior, not an ...

2009-11-20T03:59:15.975-05:00

Chris,

Parsimony is a metaphysical prior, not an empirically observable fact. When a scientist employs Occam's razor, he or is using it "scientifically," perhaps, but it is still a philosophical principle.

I wouldn't call the principle of parsimony a "fact" at all. It is a methodological principle, a part of the methodology of scientific inference. It is, perhaps, a matter of observable fact that scientists actually employ such a methodological principle. I don't see what is gained by labelling this principle "philosophical" or "scientific", and I'm not trying to do either. I would agree that the part played by parsimony in scientific inference is a matter best discussed under the heading of "philosophy (of science)" rather than under the heading of "science".

If you still think this is "simplistic," perhaps we can agree to call it "reductionist," with a purpose: namely to preserve the integrity of both science and philosophy by interlopers from both sides.

I don't think the word "reductionist" is applicable here. I don't agree that this is a matter of "integrity" and "interlopers". You seem to see this as a territorial battle. I see it as a search for truth, or at least a search for the rational. What matters is that we make rational inferences. Whether we discuss those inferences under the heading of "philosophy" or of "science" is relatively unimportant. Dennett's book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" is written by a philospher and discusses the theory of evolution from a more philosophical perspective than a scientist would typically do. Is it a science book or a philosophy book? Who cares?

Let me add that I'm not defending the assertion that Dawkins' argument against the existence of God is a scientific one. In fact, I'm not clear just what Dawkins' argument is. I'm simply arguing that Massimo's reason for rejecting the "scientific" label is not a valid one.

Thanks for referring me to that new article by Massimo. I agree with much of it. What I continue to disagree with is Massimo's drawing of simplistic lines of demarcation around science, based on the ill-defined concepts of "natural" and "testable". I agree that the arguments of some "New Atheists" (especially Dawkins) are philosophically naive. But so are those of demarcationists like Massimo, John Pieret and the "accommodationists". As someone who calls himself a philosopher, Massimo should be aware of how controversial his demarcation criteria are among philosophers of science. Yet he states them as if they are obvious and need no justification.

Richard, I find Massimo to be quite clear and con...

2009-11-19T11:50:08.403-05:00

Richard,

I find Massimo to be quite clear and consistent in that thread.

I see the point you are making, and I'm willing to concede that the boundary between science and philosophy may not be clear and bright.

It is nevertheless clear enough that when a person is gathering data and testing hypotheses one is doing science, not philosophy, and when one is musing about the inherent parsimony of the universe one is doing philosophy, not science. Even without a "line of demarcation" we can agree on this. (Consider the consequences of what can be claimed as "science" if we do not make this establishment).

Parsimony is a metaphysical prior, not an empirically observable fact. When a scientist employs Occam's razor, he or is using it "scientifically," perhaps, but it is still a philosophical principle.

If you still think this is "simplistic," perhaps we can agree to call it "reductionist," with a purpose: namely to preserve the integrity of both science and philosophy by interlopers from both sides.

Massimo has another interesting post on this topic, which may advance your conception of the issue and why he raises it (via John Pieret) here:

http://tinyurl.com/yf38js2

Chris, on reflection my last post wasn't responsiv...

2009-11-19T10:55:02.734-05:00

Chris, on reflection my last post wasn't responsive to yours, so let me respond more directly.

By this reasoning, Richard, any philosophical axiom can be claimed for science, provided it is "used throughout" it.

I'm not saying that Occam's Razor can be "claimed for science" (whatever that might mean). All I meant was that the use of Occam's Razor in making an inference can't be sufficient to prevent that inference from being labelled "scientific".

Chris, I think we are interpreting Massimo diffe...

2009-11-19T03:12:36.134-05:00

Chris,

I think we are interpreting Massimo differently. If you're interested, I suggest you read my exchange with him in the thread I linked to above, where I tried, unsuccessfully, to get him to clarify his argument.

I pointed out to him that Occam's Razor (or the p...

2009-11-18T16:13:56.696-05:00

I pointed out to him that Occam's Razor (or the principle of parsimony) is used throughout science, so cannot be used to exclude an inference from being considered scientific, but he remained unmoved.

By this reasoning, Richard, any philosophical axiom can be claimed for science, provided it is "used throughout" it.

Such logic, extended, implies that if I am influenced by Epicurianism to regularly cook and enjoy elaborate meals, then the injunction that one should "live for today" is a culinary, not philosophical one.

The fact is that an assumption of parsimony is a metaphysical one, not an empirical one; otherwise it wouldn't be meaningful to apply it in the sciences. It would simply be tautological.

Good point, Brian. In an earlier discussion I had ...

2009-10-27T03:58:14.397-04:00

Good point, Brian. In an earlier discussion I had with Massimo, he wrote the following:

"yes, my disagreement with Dawkins is largely a matter of style. Though I think he overestimates the power of science and does not give its due to philosophy (his not at all new "argument from improbability" in The God Delusion is simply Occasm's razor, which means it is philosophy, not science)."
http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2009/08/good-point-dr-sagan.html

I pointed out to him that Occam's Razor (or the principle of parsimony) is used throughout science, so cannot be used to exclude an inference from being considered scientific, but he remained unmoved.

I'm not a philosopher, so I apologize in advance i...

2009-10-26T12:55:14.296-04:00

I'm not a philosopher, so I apologize in advance if the answer to my question should be obvious, but I am a practicing academic scientist. One very important aspect of science as practiced that has not been mentioned, and I think goes somewhat toward addressing apparent foils to scientific hypothesis (such as the "created to look old" hypothesis for the earth), is parsimony. A scientist is trained to propose the most parsimonious mechanism to explain current observations. Are philosophers not equally constrained?

John, how do you define "testability"? How does yo...

2009-10-26T03:11:07.075-04:00

John, how do you define "testability"? How does your definition exclude inferences about God and other "supernatural" inferences, if those are inferences you wish to exclude from science?

@RichardW I have misunderstood what Russell is sa...

2009-10-25T12:20:09.117-04:00

@RichardW

I have misunderstood what Russell is saying?

"... we might say that it's an issue for historians, not scientists"
When reading this, additional to what I already cited -- "the Faculty of Arts, rather than the Faculty of Science" --, should I really *not* conclude, that Russel has the opinion, that historians are not scientists? I don't think so.

The other statements about skills, resources, investigations, kinds of arguments, sort of logic, etc. go into the opposite direction.

And there is more into this and into that direction.

I'm sorry to say, that -- for me -- the formulations in Russel's blog post are not concise enough, and I'm not interested in reading more. Others may disagree, of course.

John, there is no line of demarcation, but there i...

2009-10-25T09:07:48.450-04:00

John, there is no line of demarcation, but there is a difference in emphasis.

No, I can't agree. While there is no "simple demarcation" there is a consistent marker of "science": an insistence on testability through empiric evidence. It is not exclusive to science but if something is not empirically testable we can say it is not "science." What we call "philosophy" has no such requirement.

Anyway, more thoughts on Russell's piece are here.

Russell, thanks for your reply. I think we're pret...

2009-10-25T04:55:17.380-04:00

Russell, thanks for your reply. I think we're pretty much in agreement.

John, there is no line of demarcation, but there is a difference in emphasis. I would say (roughly) that the more overt the involvement of conceptual issues, the more likely we are to assign a matter to philosophy rather than science.

Duncan, I think you've misunderstood what Russell is saying. Far from claiming that history is an art and not a science, he is saying that no such clear distinction can be made:

"Many of the skills needed to do all this (including language skills) are taught in arts faculties rather than science faculties. And yet, there is nothing in the kinds of investigations that the historians will be involved in, or the kinds of arguments that they will use in attempting to settle the issue, that is conceptually remote from scientific reasoning. The same sort of logic will be employed; ad hoc hypotheses will be rejected; facts will be weighed."

"Or we might say that it's an issue for historians, not scientists, while adding that there is no radical difference between the epistemological resources of history and science. It's just that different emphases in training and skill mixes tend to be needed, for everyday purposes, by scientists and historians."

Surely, the existence, or even the detectability o...

2009-10-25T03:21:04.668-04:00

Surely, the existence, or even the detectability of a "god" is a suitable subject for rational, sceptical, scientific enquiry.

If any "god" exists, the not only should he/she/it/they be detectable, but so should any messages (INFORMATION) travelling in either direction to or from said "god".

As it is, so far, no banana.

"... a job for historians - thus we immediately as...

2009-10-24T22:21:57.766-04:00

"... a job for historians - thus we immediately assign it to folks in the Faculty of Arts, rather than the Faculty of Science."

I'm astonished about Russell Blackford's opinion, that the discipline of the historians (a) is not a science and (b) is an art. I definitely do not agree, and, as far as I can tell, it's not only me. When I look into academic institutions, including my old university, the discipline of the historians is well integrated as a science. When I look at what historians actually do in there job, and when I read their publications -- especially how they characterize there profession --, I see science and scientists at work.

As far as I know, in the United States the National Endowment for the Humanities classifies the discipline as belonging to the -- surprise -- humanities, and the National Research Council as belonging to the social sciences. Here (!) in Europe all these usually count as sciences.

Russell Blackford is, at least, misguiding himself, and some of his conclusions are -- sorry -- questionable.

(cont...) I haven't answered your question, but p...

2009-10-24T19:37:15.278-04:00

(cont...)

I haven't answered your question, but perhaps this way of seeing things makes some of the questions less urgent. I'd prefer that we not even allocate different issues to science and philosophy in any deep sense (as opposed to practical pedagogical, etc., senses). We should really just talk about the processes and outcomes of rational inquiry.

It's true, though, that the place where we have the above discussion is the philosophy department. That's not because scientists are incapable of having it, but because what goes on in the various science departments is rather different and highly specialised. Philosophy also becomes specialised, but in a different sense.

As for the claim about the age of the Earth, the ultimate answer I want to give is that rational inquiry rejects 6000 years as the correct age and settles on 4 to 5 billion years.It really doesn't matter whether that is characterised as a philosophical claim or a scientific claim. The reasons for settling on that answer are available, in principle, to anyone who is engaged in rational inquiry. But even if we say that it is ultimately a philosophical claim, it is a claim that philosophers make with the assistance of scientists.

RichardW, you raise a good point, and I don't know...

2009-10-24T19:36:39.576-04:00

RichardW, you raise a good point, and I don't know the answer. I suspect that part of the problem is this urge to think that philosophy and science must be different things in some simple way. I just don't think that the "simplistic demarcation" exists. In the end, there is just rational inquiry, and a whole lot of pedagogical and similar reasons to divide universities into faculties and departments.

I conceded for the sake of the argument that some things lie beyond science, e.g. moral claims, but even that may be no (or little) more than a pedagogical decision to deal with epistemological claims ABOUT science, as well as moral claims, over in the Arts Faculty, not in the Science Faculty.

That isn't to say that no distinctions can be made, but they'll be controversial ones.

I tend to think of it as like this. The distinction between science and philosophy is historically constructed and rather arbitrary. There's really just rational inquiry. However, during the seventeenth century it became increasingly apparent that we could make a lot of progress by systematic use of techniques such as hypothetico-deductive reasoning, mathematical modelling, devices that augment the human senses, and controlled experiments.

Galileo didn't develop this from scratch. He had medieval precursors. But we see Galileo using this combination of techniques with new power in the 17th century. As the century goes on, more people start using these techniques systematically and powerfully. The practice becomes more professionalised, and tells us more and more about, in particular, the very distant, the very small, and the very ancient. We find that it is possible to establish facts about these things through powerfully convergent evidence.

People who use these techniques come to be called "scientists".

But note that the rise of "scientists" did not mean that other techniques were lost. Nor were scientists doing anything that is radically different from what other people are doing who are engaged in rational inquiry. The techniques of "scientists" did prove to be very good at dealing with certain things. But they are not a substitute for having (for example) to learn ancient languages to learn about certain other things.

As training becomes more specialised, few people are able to master ancient languages (for example) to an advanced level AND master the kind of mathematics needed by scientists to an advanced level. The various fields of study become more fragmented and professionalised, but that doesn't mean in principle that someone couldn't master all that's required to make progress in all fields or that these fields are using fundamentally different ways of knowing. Because it's difficult in practice for someone to learn all the relevant maths and all the relevant languages, and all the other techniques, and all the body of knowledge discovered so far, people from different fields call on each other for help.

But the world is still one, and the total body of truths about the world is still self-consistent. Some things have been discovered using the techniques associated with science, others in other ways, others by a mixture. There is no clear-cut division. The kinds of reasoning used by, say, evolutionary biologists are not essentially different from those used by, say, archeologists.

The scientist is quite entitled to reject the [you...

2009-10-24T17:58:10.558-04:00

The scientist is quite entitled to reject the [young earth] claim, not because it makes falsified predictions or conflicts directly with observations (it doesn't) but because it is ad hoc.

Also sometimes known by the slightly more reputable latin words a priori. The Creationist works from the presumption that there is a god who can obstruct epistemic access to historical fact (fake fossils). The naturalist presumes that no supernatural interference will take place. How do we scientifically adjudicate the dispute?

It's worth noting that clerical resistance to heliocentrism never resorted to such arguments. That is, the Church of the Middle Ages and Renaissance was far more devoted to methodological naturalism and epistemic regularity than today's anti-evolutionist, a frightening thought.

The Medieval Church (sometimes) banned problematic data and analysis, but made no attempt to carve out its own private ontological zone of interpretation. What the creationists are doing is much different. "God put those rocks there" has no scientific antidote. The only hope for it passing away is a general unwillingness for people to live with that kind of epistemic uncertainty.

... the scientific arguments are not decisive by t...

2009-10-24T12:52:48.993-04:00

... the scientific arguments are not decisive by themselves, they may be when taken in conjunction with other considerations ...

So, when the scientist finds no scientific arguments that are decisive by themselves but nonetheless goes on to answer the question at hand, is he acting as a scientist or a philosopher? Is your argument that there is no demarcation between science and philosophy (or history or any other field of human knowledge)? If so, why use the terms "science" and "scientist" at all?

Massimo Pigliucci could profitably read Jean Piage...

2009-10-24T09:55:12.773-04:00

Massimo Pigliucci could profitably read Jean Piaget's little treatise published more than forty years ago, Sagesse et illusions de la philosphie (English version “Insights and illusions of philosophy”, but more properly translated as “Wisdom and illusions of philosophy”).
Therein, Piaget shows how entire classes of problems, hitherto considered in the realm of speculative philosophical enquiry, have entered the scope of hard scientific research, once science has turned its focus towards them.
Interestingly, this includes the ever shifting boundaries of epistemology, the matter central to Piaget’s oeuvre.
One cannot escape the conclusion that "stepping outside of the epistemological boundaries of science", as asserted py Pigliucci, is the argumentative equivalent of a custard pie.
Of course, Jean Piaget, the noted epistemologist and cognitive psychologist, started out as a biologist, which he remained all his life. I remember him saying "The human mind is a natural product of evolution. A refined and superior product, if you wish, but a natural product all the same. I don't see why all its manifestations shouldn't be amenable to scientific scrutiny, just like any other natural product, however complex."

Russell, I had a similar argument with Massimo a w...

2009-10-24T05:13:16.629-04:00

Russell, I had a similar argument with Massimo a while ago, arguing against his simplistic demarcation between science and philosophy.

However, I was left uncertain about the epistemic status of a claim such as "the Earth looks old but is actually young". It seems to me that the claimant here is saying, in effect, "yes, the valid scientific inference is that the Earth is old, but in this case the valid scientific inference leads to an incorrect conclusion, as the Earth is really young". This seems to be both a claim about reality ("the Earth is young") which is contrary to what science tells us, and an epistemological claim about science ("science gives the wrong answer in this case"), which is arguably outside the bounds of science itself. In that case, there appears to be some merit in Massimo's assertion that such a claim (or the more specific claim "the universe really is 6,000 years old, and that it only looks older because god arranged things in a way to test our faith") is outside the bounds of science.

But I don't feel completely comfortable with this conclusion, and I see two possible objections to it. First, the claim appears to be a compound statement, part of which is contary to the findings of science. Second, I'm not sure one can draw such a clear line between science and the epistemology of science; perhaps our inferences about the epistemology of science are themselves based on scientific principles, making the epistemology of science self-referential.

I'd be very interested to hear what you think of this.