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Showing posts with label naturalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label naturalism. Show all posts

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Science versus Its Evil Twin: Scientism

One of the difficulties Christians face in defending their faith today is this misplaced elevation of science above everything else. I've had conversation with people who, like the trident chewing gum ad, think that if a majority of scientists hold a view then that somehow provides evidence for that view being correct. They believe this even if the point we're discussing is not a point of science! They claim that science is the only way we can know truth and if a claim doesn't have its basis in science then it's either not knowable or not worth discussing.


Those who claim that science is the only way to find truth remind me of actors cast in a 1950's b-grade movie, a flickering sci-fi tale where our hero (science) is replaced by his evil twin, intent on ruling the world. All those in the film who should know better continue to mistake the twin for the original, even though signs are clearly there to tell the two apart. The name of this evil twin is scientism, and while it may look like science on the surface, all the signs are there to prove that it's nothing like science at all. Of course everyone watching the movie can easily see the differences, but those poor victims never see the clues and usually fall right into scientism's evil clutches. So, to make sure we don't become scientism's next victims, let's take a look at the first of five clues that show the differences between the role of science and the philosophy of scientism.

Clue #1—Scientism selfishly believes only its own rules apply

Those practicing science make theories based on observable evidence.

Whenever school children begin science programs, the first thing that they are asked to learn is what the concept of science entails. Usually, this includes some nod to the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, testing and reporting results. The National Science Teachers Association defines science as "characterized by the systematic gathering of information through various forms of direct and indirect observations and the testing of this information by methods including, but not limited to, experimentation."1 C. John Collins, in his book Science and Faith comes up with this definition:
"A science is a discipline in which one studies features of the world around us, and tries to describe his observations systematically and critically."2
Whichever definition one uses, it's normally understood that the study of science has at its basis observations. Many times we picture a scientist in a lab doing experiments, but as Collins rightly points out we cannot also discount someone like the ornithologist whose specialty is migratory patterns of birds. Although he does not gather his information in the lab, he does observe birds and makes predictions and conclusions from those observations. So, science has observation as a necessary condition of its practice at some point in its process.

Those holding to scientism exclude any theories that cannot produce observable evidence as unworthy or not true.

Given the above, things we know to be real or true and are yet unobservable must be learned by some way other than science. Moral knowledge is one example. Moral laws are not things we can see or feel. We cannot measure them with a ruler or say "They occupy this amount of space and have this much mass." While we can observe the effects of people breaking moral laws, we cannot see the laws themselves. Therefore we know them by ways other than science. But we know moral laws are real.3

However, those who hold to scientism are not satisfied with the possibility that there are ways of knowing beyond the scientific method. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in a recent debate gave a stark example of scientism. He opened his talk by noting that colleague Peter Atkins, when asked to give a talk at Windsor Castle was questioned by Prince Phillip who asked "You scientists are awfully good at answering the ‘how' questions but what about the ‘why' questions?" According to Dawkins, Atkins replied "Sir, the why questions are just silly questions."4 In one sweeping generalization, Atkins and Dawkins dismiss all those "big questions" of life, the ones that humanity has held in the highest regard for most of our existence! They reject wholesale the pursuit of understanding for why there is a universe at all, whether man has a purpose, how we fit into the grand scheme of things.

What motivates such a dismissal of the very issues that have been at the center of human consciousness throughout recorded history? It's because those who hold to scientism believe in another proposition that you may not know about. They believe that the natural world is the only world there is; that anything that cannot be explained by exclusively natural causes is either not real or not worth knowing. Dawkins alluded to as much in the quote above. But notice, this is a belief; a philosophical one known as methodological naturalism.5 The evil twin has contradicted himself! In stating that only things that can be explained by nature are knowable, he has made a statement of knowledge. But there's no way that the statement itself can be found in nature! Those who hold to naturalism as the only way to know things have undercut their own position because they start with a belief not found through science! Like our study in moral relativism, we see that scientism has a problem in that it cuts its own legs out from underneath itself. Yet, those who cling to it continue to deny that there are other ways of knowing. They believe their own rules only apply. Anything that doesn't fall within the realm of scientific investigation is considered a "silly question."

Science's evil twin, scientism, has made a mistake as bad guys always seem to do. He has tried to fool the world into believing that only his rules apply and are worthy of consideration. Some may believe that for a time. However, if you are sensitive to this trick, you can see that it really makes no sense to hold onto such a belief at all. Naturalism is self-refuting, which makes scientism the position that's silly.

For part two of this series, click here.

References

1. "National Science Teachers Association. The Nature of Science Position Statement. July 2000. 9 March 2011 .

2. Collins, C. John. Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? Wheaton, Il: Crossway Books. 2003. p34.

3. For reasons on why moral laws are real things, see "The Case for Morality" section of chapter two.

4. Dawkins, Richard. "Debate: Does the Universe have a purpose?" 10 November 2010. YouTube. 09 March 2011 .

5. In a recent trial on the merits of teaching school children intelligent design along with evolution, Judge John Jones III, after hearing testimony from three scientists, stated "Methodological naturalism is a 'ground rule' of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify." Jones III, John E. "Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District;Decision of the Court, Part 2." 31 December 2005. The Talk Aroigins Archive. 21 March 2011.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Worldview Definitions: The Problem with Postmodernism

Last time I discussed rationalism and naturalism, two worldviews that changed much of how we perceive our modern world. But naturalism is not the end of the story, even though there are many who hold those views today.

photo courtesy Ben Terrett

Out of the assumptions of naturalism, a new idea began to take hold in the late 19th century and early 20th century, known as the modernist movement. Modernists wanted to not only abandon belief in God, but felt that religious faith was just one of many traditional ideas that were slowing down the advancement of man.

The modernists held that if you don't break from the traditions of the past you will never grow beyond them. This made sense to them; if religion was hindering science, then all past traditions are suspect.  God was no longer a factor in the modernist's day-to-day thinking, so holding onto traditions were at best silly and at worst debilitating. They considered nothing as established or sacred. Social organization and daily life had become outdated and it was essential to sweep them aside and reinvent culture forever. The goal for modernists was to find that which was "holding back" progress, and replacing it with new, and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end.

Postmodernism – "It's all about me"

Modernism  failed to bring the next advancement in human evolution some of its adherents thought it would. Wars were still fought:World War II was the largest conflict in history and originated in Europe, the birthplace of modernism. People still took advantage of each other. Cruelty and crime continued to flourish no matter what advancements science and technology brought about.

Rationalists and modernists hadn't realized the impact  factoring God out of the equation would have on society. In factoring out God, they also factored out the concept of sin. They thought human beings had it within themselves to make themselves better. But the Bible teaches that we are inescapably corrupted by a sin nature. We cannot live perfect lives, it's simply impossible. Since modernists had already excluded God from any explanation as to why their utopia was failing to materialize they had to come up with another way of looking at the world. Their proposed solution is Postmodernism.

Modernism held that in order to advance one must throw out past traditions. However, one thing that modernism did hold onto, like all previous worldviews, was the concept that there was a truth to be known. In other words, each worldview may have differed in their beliefs on how to find truth, but they all believed that truth was something separate from and independent of themselves. It could be known.

Advocates for post-modernism said that even these ideas needed to be jettisoned. They argued that all communication is colored and molded by the biases and beliefs of the communicator. This means that no one can discover a raw truth, since he or she will read into it those biases and then reinforce them when communicating to others. The problem, they believe, is these assumed grand stories were ignoring the fact that no raw truth could exist, when in reality they are discounting one bias and favoring another. Therefore, there really shouldn't be any grand stories but we should allow each person to experience truth in his or her own way and there is no real right or wrong to it at all.

Postmodernism, in losing the meta-narrative, caused man to lose his moorings and purpose for himself in the world. God had already been dismissed as non-existent. Rationalists and modernists felt that man had it within himself to find the meaning of life. But now, the postmodernist strips even that away and says there is no real meaning of life. You can make anything mean whatever you want.

Think About it

Postmodernism’s "Grand Story" is to reject all Grand Stories. But if that true, they must reject their own – which means that they should accept others. The position is hopelessly self-contradictory.
But think about the implications of this. Imagine if you lived in a country where they had no values printed on their money, only animals. You walk into a store and try to purchase something. The shopkeeper tells you that the bill with the eagle is worth ten of the bill with the bear, whereas another shopkeeper says the bear is worth twice as much as the eagle. You can quickly see how in such as system that money becomes valueless. I would not want to be paid in bills that have no set value accepted across all areas of the economy. I would want to be paid in tender that everyone agrees is valued the same. Similarly, when there is no real meaning to life, then any meaning you try to create is simply a fraud. Therefore, by trying to make meaning malleable, postmodernists really strip meaning of any value at all.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Worldview Definitions: Rationalism and Naturalism

The worldview of theism powered humanity for much of its existence.  Even in primitive cultures, people looked to their gods as well as the world around them and tried to make sense out of both. But without divine revelation, they often got things wrong (expecting rain after performing a certain dance or something of that sort.) Christianity, with its foundations in the Jewish faith, taught strongly that God revealed Himself in two ways: through His creation and through His Word.1

Something happened, though, as Christians began to investigate God's world.  They started to discover more and more things in nature they had assumed were a result of a divine agency were really responding to laws of nature and biology and by altering the circumstances or the variables they could change the outcome of those processes. At the same time, they made great advancements in mathematics and they reawakened to the philosophy of Plato and the Greeks, which emphasized logic being the ultimate guiding force of knowledge.

Because so many achievements were coming from men thinking hard about their world, philosophers began to conclude that the ability to reason was all they needed in order to know everything there is to know about the world. Many believed God existed, but they felt that God's revelation was unnecessary for discovering truth.  They assumed that given enough time and thought, man would figure it all out on his own.  God was removed from being the primary source of truth as people became convinced that they were smart enough to discover anything with enough thought and analysis.

Naturalism: "God Doesn't Count as Knowledge"

The removal of God as the primary source of truth was a huge shift in thinking for the world. If all people need to discover truth is to identify facts and reason through them with a good mind, then focusing on nature becomes more important and focusing on God less so. Thus the Grand Story in western society shifted from God to Nature itself, just as Romans 1:25 warned. Therefore, since God wasn't needed to understand the ways of the world, many educated people took the next step and denied Him altogether.  If God doesn't offer any explanations to the ways of the world, why assume one needs to worry about Him? The worldview adopted by those who think this way is called "naturalism". The world is seen in purely mechanistic terms: this causes that just because the laws of the universe work that way. 

Naturalists, because of their worldview, now seek to explain everything without pointing to God at all.  Even in big issues, such as the origin of life on the earth, God cannot be accepted as a cause, because it violates their notion of "really" explaining things. Therefore, Darwinian evolution becomes the capstone in the search for a purely mechanistic way to explain how the diversity of life arose on the planet.  In fact, to say "God did it" is seen as a cheat; naturalists would object to anyone claiming the involvement of a divine being saying the person hasn't thought hard enough about the problem. They define knowledge of God as false knowledge.

You can see how important it is to understand worldviews!  Since naturalists are committed to not accepting explanations that involve God, their minds are closed to the existence of God before you even give evidence. The bias of naturalism is plainly seen everywhere today, even in popular culture.  Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, held to this view, and one of Star Trek's recurring themes is the evolution of man to his betterment.2 No religious belief system is  ever in view for the show's protagonists. Roddenberry believed reason alone would catapult mankind into this new utopia and his popular franchise has continued to preach his message ever since.

References

1. This idea of dual revelation is taught explicitly in Scripture.  Psalm 19 and Romans 1 declare how God reveals Himself thorough His creation, an idea known as "general revelation". But since all of creation is warped by the fall of man (Genesis 3:16, Romans8:22), it is an imperfect revelation. Therefore, God provides us with the more clear word of Scripture "for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:16)
2. See Bronislaus B. Kush' article "‘Star Trek' franchise an homage to humanist philosophy" in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette http://www.telegram.com/article/20100622/NEWS/6220371/1011
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