The "God Hypothesis" Problem
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It has been said that saying "God did it" (the God hypothesis) is not scientific because we cannot test God, obviously forgetting that science was once a methodology for understanding God's Creation.
But that isn't the point, nor the problem.
That (point & problem) would be if (OK whatever big IF- but for the sake of argument) God did Create then teaching, say, the theory of evolution would be not only a lie but anti-science propaganda.
Ya see science only cares about reality, as in the reality behind whatever is being investigated. And there is only one reality behind ours, therefor teaching contrary to reality would be as I said. And that would be a problem.
It has been said that saying "God did it" (the God hypothesis) is not scientific because we cannot test God, obviously forgetting that science was once a methodology for understanding God's Creation.
But that isn't the point, nor the problem.
That (point & problem) would be if (OK whatever big IF- but for the sake of argument) God did Create then teaching, say, the theory of evolution would be not only a lie but anti-science propaganda.
Ya see science only cares about reality, as in the reality behind whatever is being investigated. And there is only one reality behind ours, therefor teaching contrary to reality would be as I said. And that would be a problem.
posted by Joe G @ 1:53 PM
6 Comments:
At 5:15 PM,
Unknown said…
This problem would hit the core assumptions of natural science because IF there is a (obviously naturally occurring) creator that created everything we can observe then it follows (by definition) that petty much everything we actually observe can't be natural, but must be in fact artificial, and all so called natural forces are intentional encode properties and transformations of this artificial reality, having nothing to do with nature or actual reality.
Science would be reduced to a study of the internal structure and ordering of this artificial construct, having next to nothing to do with actual nature, not to mention the much greater reality beyond our artificial construct (which we don't only inhabit but are actually part of).
At least it would prove that artificial intelligence is possible, e.g. us. :) And I do have to say that it would make perfect sense to prevent any AI from access actual (outside) reality and at the same time it would make any outside controller actually all powerful.
At 9:37 PM,
Joe G said…
Hi Alice,
What's a "naturally occurring creator"?
Other than that, yeah, I agree- we would be AI and Del Ratszch discusses your point on nature, except that there would be things that were directly created (or designed) and then things that emerged from the (complex) interactions of that, ie things that "nature" did produce- "Nature, Design and Science"
At 3:26 PM,
The Reactionary Researcher said…
Hmmm... I'm not sure if I'm getting you here. Ignoring for the sake of the point and problem that God isn't subject to scientific testing, you write that 'if God did Create then teaching evolution is a bad thing' essentially.
This of course assumes what one means by "Create". If this means to Create things and organisms as we now observe them, or that God intervenes and creates every organism de novo, then this presents a problem for not only evolution, but the very nature of truth.
Facts are facts, and natural science has been remarkably productive in explaining the natural world around us, and has permitted us to subdue and utilize the natural world. And though I've never entirely bought into the notion that 'nothing in biology makes sense in the absence of evolution', the idea does account for a good deal of what we observe biologically, and does possess the unifying elements of a what is commonly thought of as a scientific theory.
Personally, I have no problem extending this theory all the way back to a LUCA or group LUCA's that are similar in their biochemistries and with respect to the DNA code, permitting the evolution of biological diversity as we now see it. Indeed if you consider the geologic and atmospheric history of the Earth, like the appearance of oxygen, for example, the notion of life developing over time makes a good deal of sense.
If common descent isn't true, at least on a large scale, or if God did in fact create organisms de novo, then that does indeed bring the very nature of truth into some state of uncertainty. The church I attend is diverse in terms of it's theology, and myself being... I suppose an OEC, or perhaps FL design advocate, or perhaps a theistic Evolutionist, and to be honest, I'm not sure I can distinguish the subtle differences that obviously exist between the three, other than the OEC's being Christian, though couldn't OEC fall under the FLDA rubric, but I digress... and many people who attend the church believe that God put fossils in the ground the way He did to test our faith. While I'm not going to argue theology with my brethren, I don't mind pointing out that to postulate such an idea leaves us questioning really any truth at all. After all, if God would test our faith with something that seems relatively obvious, such as the progression from less to more complicated, or perhaps more sophisticated organisms over geologic time, then why not test our faith with other scientific truths, or other truths in general?
If we can't assume that the apparent relatedness of organisms through the fossil record, etc., then what basis is their for assuming the unpopular but not unreasonable idea that things share a common design? It seems that if God has tested our truth by making things relative, then we're screwed with respect to any truth. Indeed, the very development of science was dependent on the exact opposite assumption, specifically, that God created an ordered world that made sense and could in fact, be studied.
But perhaps I've missed your point.
At 4:50 PM,
Joe G said…
The current theory of evolution posits tha all organisms (extant and extinct) owe their collective common ancestry to some unknown population(s) of prokaryotic-like organisms via accumulations random variations.
If that ain't what happened then teaching that it did would be bad.
BTW we cannot study things that happened billions of years ago nor that take billions of years to come to fruition.
We try to infer what happened in the past by observing the present situation and using our knowledge of cause and effect relationships to recreate its history.
But when all you can do is throw eons of time around, sorry you have left the realm of science and entered the realm of imagineers.
At 4:46 AM,
The Reactionary Researcher said…
Well... Evolution certainly is an historical science, and I would say does not necessarily lend itself to hypothesis driven inquiry in the traditional sense. Though I'm not sure if I entirely agree with your statement re: teaching evolution being bad.
Certainly we don't want to teach people things that aren't true... but unfortunately this happens all the time. For example, for years and years, I taught that the central dogma of biology: DNA-->RNA-->Protein was in fact entirely a one way street. Whoops. Along comes reverse transcriptase, turing RNA back to DNA, completely undermining what I'd been teaching for years.
So while what I was teaching was in fact, wrong, it was entirely consistent with the current state of knowledge regarding the central dogma. In much the same way, the same is true about the subjects you mention: Modern science does believe that the Earth is Billions of years of old, whether or not it's true is separate from the fact that it's what is believed to be true. So it's not as if science is lying, and it's bad to teach 'eons' for that reason.
Finally, ID theories and numerous scripturally-sound analyses of the Bible don't necessarily preclude the notion of common descent; though it's been a while since I've communicated with him, and I don't really follow ID too closely anymore, Behe has or had no problem with the notion of common descent as it stands. Though time is a requirement for common descent to have occurred, I'm not sure that characterizing it as 'throwing around eons of time' is entirely fair or accurate. After all, God being timeless isn't subject to time's constraints; what does He care if humanity takes 14 billion years or 14 microseconds to appear. If that's what the data, or some interpretation of the data state, then what is one supposed to do?
At 6:56 AM,
Joe G said…
Yes Behe and other IDists accept universal common descent based on the same evidence for a universal common design.
The problem is no one on this planet knows if the transformations required are even possible. And THAT is why it does NOT belong in a science classroom-> it is not amendable to scientific inquiry/ testing.
As for throwing eons of time around, well that is all it boils down to-> subtle changes over eons of time. Yet the changes we observe in no way can be extrapolated in such a manner.
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