Creationism, Intelligent Design, Science, Cosmology, Philosophy and True Knowledge

April 10, 2008 in Creationism, Intelligent Design, PHILOSOPHY, THE SIMPSONS NEWS

THE SIMPSONS NEWS

What a surprise, it looks like we are behind on the show as always. *being sarcastic here, obviously* It’s getting closer to the deadline and we have a long way to go. It’s hard to know what to do when this happens. On the one had I can speed up, but when I do that, I make bigger mistakes and my work isn’t as good. On the other hand, I want to do a good job and make as few mistakes as I can and that usually means working a little slower. I guess the trick is, to find the right balance.

I managed to finish the train scenes from last week and as a reward, I got much more complicated versions of similar scenes. More trains, more cars, more technical camera movement. It’s fine though. I don’t mind. It’s a nice brake from always drawing characters and I’m looking forward to them.

I’m very inspired by Japanese cartoons (anime) that have giant robots or other complicated cool looking machines which are drawn by hand. They, almost always, look amazing and I’m in awe of the artists that draw them. Drawing cars and trains is the closest I get to doing that. When I see the complicated machines in anime I think to myself, if they can draw those complicated machines as good as that, surely I can attempt to draw the machines I have, just as good. So I sit at my desk and pretend I’m a Japanese animator working on anime and suddenly, drawing machines is fun.

PHILOSOPHY

At work, the topic of Evolution came up. By Evolution I mean, a process whereby life arose from nonliving matter and subsequently developed entirely by natural means. We also talked about Creationism, by which I mean, a religious belief that humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe were created in their original form by God literally as it happened in the book of Genesis, without need for Evolution. These topics came up in reference to an upcoming documentary called Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Here’s the trailer for it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGCxbhGaVfE

I find it odd, as a Catholic, that Creationists don’t do what many Catholics do and allow for the possibility of evolution being part of the intelligent design processes. By Intelligent Design I mean, the assertion that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.  As Catholics we must believe in Intelligent Design but not necessarily in Creationism (although if we wish to, that’s allowed as well, though I’ve never seen it encouraged). For more info on this topic see The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 279-324. On the other hand, I find it annoying that everyone tends to get all up in arms if someone questions the Evolutionary theory. After all, it’s still a theory. In fact, there is a very controversial book written by a Catholic Biochemistry Professor,  Michael J. Behe by the name of Darwin’s Black Box that does exactly that. It questions Evolution. On the one hand, scientists have noted that the contents of the book is not science (with good reason. I think they are right, it’s not science. I explain myself more below). On the other hand it does bring up good arguments that blatantly show how far the Evolutionary theory has to go before it could be proven factual. Understandably, since the book claims to be scientific, it has outraged the scientific community.

Creationists want Creationism and/or Intelligent Design to be taught in science classes (to a Creationist, Intelligent Design and Creationism are often synonymous, even though they are not). I don’t think that’s a good idea. Not because they are not valid systems of thought but because they go beyond the limitations of science. They are Cosmology. By Cosmology I mean, “the branch of philosophy and metaphysics that deals with the world as the totality of all phenomena in space and time. It addresses questions about the Universe which are beyond the scope of science.” The Creationists and the proponents of Intelligent Design have their definitions mixed up. Personally I think that Intelligent Design (and even Creationism) should be taught in school, but in Philosophy classes not in a science classes. This, of course, requires that Philosophy be taught in school in the first place and it’s NOT. Cosmology, ontology, metaphysics, logic, rhetoric, ethics, should all be taught, why aren’t they? They used to be.

By definition Science mean, The investigation of natural phenomena through observation, theoretical explanation, and experimentation, or the knowledge produced by such investigation. Science makes use of the scientific method, which includes the careful observation of natural phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis, the conducting of one or more experiments to test the hypothesis, and the drawing of a conclusion that confirms or modifies the hypothesis.. This means that science is limited to the material world and will only produce knowledge of the material because it only studies natural phenomena (as opposed to supernatural phenomena). It is utterly useless for proving immaterial things like: truth, beauty, wisdom, God…etc. because none of these things have any material form that a scientist can experiment on and test. So unless a proponent of, say, Intelligent Design, can physically produce the actual designer of the universe to be examined, he’s out of luck.

God enters the Room. Creationism, Intelligent Design proof, Science, Philosophy

This begs the question: If Creationism and Intelligent Design are Cosmological arguments, why are people trying to shove them into scientific debate? Because philosophy isn’t taught in school so people are trying somewhere to teach Cosmology. The solution, therefore would be to teach philosophy in schools.


I propose this answer to the question, because there is an erroneous idea, in just about all people’s minds, that scientific knowledge is the only kind of knowledge that counts. The moment you bring up philosophy, most people roll their eyes and don’t want anything to do with it. Either because they think it’s too complicated to understand, or because they think that it brings forth no true certainty and therefore has no practical use, or because they believe that philosophy holds no true knowledge, only mere opinion. Ironically, these points of view are philosophical in nature, showing how easy and practical it is to adhere to a philosophical view point.

Where did these points of view come from? Philosophers of course. Which ones? Well according to Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, they came from Hume and Kant. The following is a long excerpt from Dr. Adler‘s book, Ten Philosophical Mistakes. I copied down a large chunk of his argument because I think it’s a really important, critical topic to discuss. I wanted to really hit home the problem we modern people have when thinking about knowledge when it comes to philosophy and science, as well as show how the problem can be solved. Dr. Adler here, will first site a quote from Hume and then he will proceed to analyze it:

This brings [Hume] to his thundering conclusion in the last paragraph of the Enquiry:

“When we run over our libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

Before we continue, I can’t help but interrupt. After reading Hume‘s statement, I’ve noticed that it doesn’t contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number nor does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence, therefore by Hume‘s own criteria, we must commit his statement to the flames: for it is nothing but sophistry and illusion. Way to contradict yourself Hume (Sorry, I kept reading the statement over and over and I had to point that out because it was bugging me). Okay, now back to Dr. Adler‘s analysis of Hume’s statement:

The line that divides what deserves to be honored and respected as genuine knowledge from what should be dismissed as mere opinion (or worse, as sophistry and illusion) is determined by two criteria. (1) It is knowledge and can be called science if it deals solely with abstractions and involves no judgments about matters of fact or real existence. Here we have mathematics and , together with it, the science of logic. (2) It is knowledge, if it deals with particular facts, as history and geography do, or with general facts as physics and chemistry do.

In both cases, it is knowledge only to the extent that it is based upon experimental reasoning, involving empirical investigations of the kind that occur in laboratories and observatories, or methodical investigations of the kind conducted by historians and geographers.

What did Hume exclude from the realm of Knowledge? Even though he refers to what he calls “natural Philosophy,” which in his century was identical with what we have come to call physical science, his intention was to reject as sophistry and illusion, or at least as mere opinion, what in antiquity and in the Middle Ages was traditional philosophy, including here a philosophy of nature, or physics that is not experimental and does not rely on empirical investigations, as well as metaphysics and philosophical theology.

This view of knowledge and opinion comes down to us in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the form of a doctrine that has been variously called positivism or scientism. The word positivism derives its meaning from the fact that the experimental or investigative sciences, and other bodies of knowledge, such as history, that rely upon investigation and research, came to be called positive sciences.

Positivism, then, is the view that the only genuine knowledge of reality or of the world of observable phenomena (i.e., matters of fact and existence) is to be found in the positive sciences. Mathematics and logic are also genuine knowledge, but they are not knowledge of the world of observable phenomena, or of matters of fact and real existence. The twentieth-century form of scientism or positivism thus came to be called “ logical positivism.”

Here we have one facet of the mistake about knowledge and opinion, the other facet of which is to be found in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The latter is by far the more serious and the more far-reaching in its consequences.

He then goes on to explain the three errors Kant made in trying to fix some of Hume‘s ideas. The worst of which being, the substitution of idealism for realism. In other words since what we observe and take into our minds is not reality but a picture of reality, and since we “idealize” it once it’s in our mind, what we know is an ideal not the real.

Dr. Adler then goes on to solve the problem:

Let us return to the focal point for the this discussion—the distinction between knowledge and mere opinion. On the one hand, we have self-evident truths that have certitude and incorrigibility; and we also have truths that are still subject to doubt but that are supported by evidence and reasons to a degree that puts them beyond reasonable doubt or at the least gives them predominance over contrary views. All else is mere opinion—with no claim to being knowledge or having any hold on truth.

There is no question that the finding and conclusions of historical research are knowledge in this sense; no question that the findings and conclusion of the experimental or empirical sciences, both natural and social, are knowledge in this sense.

As contrasted with such knowledge, which is knowledge of reality or, as Hume would say, knowledge of matter of fact and real existence, mathematics and logic are also knowledge, but not of reality. They do not depend upon investigative research for their finds and conclusions.

The question that remains to be answered is the one that, in my judgment, Hume and Kant answered erroneously, an answer that has persisted in various forms down to our own day. Where does speculative or theoretical philosophy (by which I mean philosophical physics, metaphysics, and philosophical theology) stand in this picture? Is it mere opinion or is it genuine knowledge, knowledge that, like the empirical sciences, is knowledge of reality?—-

—-In the first place, what has been overlooked is the distinction between common and special experience.

Dr. Adler then goes to define common experience as, that which all people experience everyday without really looking to experience it. While special experience is the kind of experience that a scientist might get in a lab through experimentation. He then continues:

With this distinction in mind, between special and common experience, between experience resulting from investigation efforts and experience enjoyed without such efforts, we can distinguish between modes of knowledge that, while depending on experience as well as upon reflective thought, rely on different types of experience.

Mathematics is a case in point. Mathematical research is carried on mainly by reflective and analytical thought, but it also relies on some experience—the common experience that all human being have. Mathematicians do not engage in empirical investigation. They need no special data of observation. Mathematics can be called an armchair science, and yet some experience—the common experience of mankind—lies behind the reflective and analytical thought in which the mathematician engages.

Speculative or theoretical philosophy, like mathematics, is a body of knowledge that can be produced in an armchair or at a desk. The only experience that the philosopher needs for the development of his theories or the support of his conclusions is the common experience of mankind. Reflecting on such experience and proceeding by means of rational analysis and argument, the philosopher reaches conclusions in a manner that resembles the procedure of the mathematician, not that of the empirical scientist.

However, we must not fail to note one important difference, a difference that aligns the theoretical philosopher with the empirical scientist rather than with the mathematician. Unlike mathematics, but like empirical science, theoretical philosophy claims to be knowledge of reality.

In the light of what has just been said, we can divide the sphere of knowledge into (1) bodies of knowledge that are methodically investigative and (2) bodies of knowledge that are noninvestigative and that employ only common, not special, experience. To the first group belong history, geography, and all the empirical sciences, both natural and social. To the second group belong mathematics, logic, and theoretical philosophy.

If the division is made in terms of whether the body of knowledge claims to have a hold on truth about reality, then theoretical philosophy, even though it is noninvestigative in method, belongs with history, geography, and the empirical sciences.

Each of these disciplines, according to its distinctive character, has a method peculiarly its own and , according to limitations of that method, can answer only certain questions, not others. The kind of questions that philosopher or the mathematician can answer without any empirical investigation whatsoever cannot be answered by the empirical scientist, and, conversely, the kind of questions that the scientist can answer by his methods of investigation cannot be answered by the philosopher or the mathematician.

Dr. Adler wrote, that a man by the name of Sir Karl Popper said there was only one line of demarcation between knowledge and mere opinion which was: falsifiability by empirical evidence, by observed phenomena. An opinion, a view, a theory, that cannot be thus falsified is not knowledge, but mere opinion, neither true nor false in any objective sense of those terms. But Dr. Adler believes there are more lines of demarcation:

Another is refutability by rational argument. The only irrefutable truths we possess are the very few self-evident propositions that have certitude, finality, incorrigibility. Since our knowledge of reality, whether scientific or philosophical, does not consist exclusively of self-evident truths nor does it consist of conclusions demonstrated to be true, scientific and philosophical theories or conclusions must be refutable in three ways.

One way is falsification by experience which produces evidence contrary to the evidence that has been employed to support the opinion that claims to be true and to have the status of knowledge. A second way is by rational argument, which advances reasons that correct and replace the reasons advanced to support the opinion that claims to be true and have the status of knowledge. The third way is a combination of the first and the second—new and better evidence, together with new and better reasons for holding a view contrary to the one that has been refuted.

Opinion that cannot be refuted in one or another of theses three ways are not knowledge, but mere opinion.

Were this not so, this book would be fraudulent in its claim to point out philosophical mistakes and to correct them by offering evidence and reasons to expose their errors. Nor could we replace them with views that are true or more nearly true.

If philosophy were mere opinion there would be no philosophical mistakes, erroneous views, false doctrines. There would be no way of substituting views or doctrines more nearly true because they employed insights and appealed to distinctions that for one reason or another were not in the possession of those who made the mistakes.

All this just to say that a good philosophical argument can put forth as true a knowledge as Science. Which leads me to say something to the small group of Creationist and the Intelligent Design proponent that are really loud and are making all the other Creationist and Intelligent Design proponents look bad; stop forcing the enormity of Metaphysical Cosmology into the tiny hole of science. Science can only show proofs of the material, not the immaterial. Use Philosophy instead. That’s what it’s good at, that’s what it’s for. It’s okay to use science as your data base, just don’t call your conclusions scientific. They may be true, they just aren’t scientific.

To the small group of scientists who by being loud about their mocking of advocates of Intelligent Design, make the entirety of the scientific community look bad, I would like to say, stop assuming that you hold a monopoly on the only means of gathering truth. That truth exists, that truth is rational, that it’s understandable and that it can be taught, are the foundations of science itself and yet these are philosophical propositions that can’t be proven scientifically, but must be proven by good rational argument. Which is what the proponents of Intelligent Design are trying to do, only sometimes in a misguided way.

*EDIT: And by the way, until there is empirical scientific proof that Evolution is true, rather than just the inferring that its true based on scientific data, the Evolutionary theory is also a Cosmological, philosophical conclusion, not a scientific one.*

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