The so-called "scientific method" is, I think, rather poorly understood. For example, let us consider one of the best-known laws of nature, often simply referred to as the Law of Gravity:
Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation: Every object in the universe attracts every other object toward it with a force proportional to the product of their masses, divided by the square of the distance between their centers of mass.
Now here is a series of questions for you, which I often ask audiences when I give lectures on the philosophy of science:
- Do you believe Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation is true?
- If so, how sure are you that it is true?
- Why do you believe it, with that degree of certainty?
The most common answers to these questions are "yes", "very sure", and "because it has been extensively experimentally verified." Those answers sound reasonable to any child of the Enlightenment -- but I submit, on the contrary, that this set of answers has no objective basis whatsoever. To begin with, let us ask, how many confirming experiments do you think would have been done, to qualify as "extensive experimental verification." I would ask that you, the reader, actually pick a number as a rough, round guess.
Whatever number N you picked, I now challenge you state the rule of inference that allows you to conclude, from N uniform observations, that a given effect is always about from a given alleged cause. If you dust off your stats book and thumb through it, you will find no such rule of inference rule there. What you will find are principles that allow you to conclude from a certain number N of observations that with confidence c, the proportion of positive cases is z, where c < 1 and z < 1. But there is no finite number of observations that would justify, with any nonzero confidence, that any law held universally, without exception (that is, z can never be 1 for any finite number of observations, no matter how small the desired confidence c is, unless c = 0). . And isn't that exactly what laws of nature are supposed to do? For Pete's sake it is called the law of universal gravitation, and it begins with the universal quantifier every (both of which may have seemed pretty innocuous up until now).
Let me repeat myself for clarity: I am not saying that there is no statistical law that would allow you to conclude the law with absolute certainty; absolute certainty is not even on the table. I am saying that there is no statistical law that would justify belief in the law of universal gravitation with even one tenth of one percent of one percent confidence, based on any finite number of observations. My point is that the laws of the physical sciences -- laws like the Ideal gas laws, the laws of gravity, Ohm's law, etc. -- are not based on statistical reasoning and could never be based on statistical reasoning, if they are supposed, with any confidence whatsoever, to hold universally.
So, if the scientific method is not based on the laws of statistics, what is it based on? In fact it is based on the
Principle of Abductive Inference: Given general principle as a hypothesis, if we have tried to experimentally disprove the hypothesis, with no disconfirming experiments, then we may infer that it is likely to be true -- with confidence justified by the ingenuity and diligence that has been exercised in attempting to disprove it.
In layman's terms, if we have tried to find and/or manufacture counterexamples to a hypothesis, extensively and cleverly, and found none, then we should be surprised if we then find a counterexample by accident. That is the essence of the scientific method that underpins most of the corpus of the physical sciences. Note that it is not statistical in nature. The methods of statistics are very different, in that they rest on theorems that justify confidence in those methods, under assumptions corresponding to the premises of the theorems. There is no such theorem for the Principle of Abductive Inference -- nor will there ever be, because, in fact, for reasons I will explain below, it is a miracle that the scientific method works (if it works).
Why would it take a miracle for the scientific method to work? Remember that the confidence with which we are entitled to infer a natural law is a function of the capability and diligence we have exercised in trying to disprove it. Thus, to conclude a general law with some moderate degree of confidence (say, 75%), we must have done due diligence in trying to disprove it, to the degree necessary to justify that level confidence, given the complexity of the system under study. But what in the world entitles us to think that the source code of the universe is so neat and simple, and its human denizens so smart, that we are capable of the diligence that is due?
For an illuminating analogy, consider that software testing is a process of experimentation that is closely analogous to scientific experimentation. In the case of software testing, the hypothesis being tested -- the general law that we are attempting to disconfirm -- is that a given program satisfies its specification for all inputs. Now do you suppose that we could effectively debug Microsoft Office, or gain justified confidence in its correctness with respect to on item of its specification, by letting a weasel crawl around on the keyboard while the software is running, and observing the results? Of course not: the program is far too complex, its behavior too nuanced, and the weasel too dimwitted (no offense to weasels) for that. Now, do you expect the source code of the Universe itself to be simpler and friendlier to the human brain than the source code of MS Office is to the brain of a weasel? That would be a miraculous thing to expect, for the following reason: a priori, if the complexity of that source code could be arbitrarily large. It could be a googleplex lines of spaghetti code -- and that would be a infinitesimally small level of complexity, given the realm of possible complexities -- namely the right-hand side of the number line.
In this light, if the human brain is better equipped to discover the laws of nature than a weasel is to confidently establish the correctness an item in the spec of MS Office, it would be a stunning coincidence. That is looking at it from the side of the a priori expected complexity of the problem, compared to any finite being's ability to solve it. But there is another side to look from, which is the side of the distribution of intelligence levels of the potential problem-solvers themselves. Obviously, a paramecium, for example, is not equipped to discover the laws of physics. Nor is an octopus, nor a turtle, nor a panther, nor an orangutan. In the spectrum of natural intelligences we know of, it just so happens that there is exactly one kind of creature that just barely has the capacity to uncover the laws of nature. It is as if some cosmic Dungeon Master was optimizing the problem from both sides, by making the source code of the universe just simple enough that the smartest beings within it (that we know of) were just barely capable of solving the puzzle. That is just the goldilocks situation that good DM's try to achieve with their puzzles: not so hard they can't be solved, not so easy that the players can't take pride in solving them
There is a salient counterargument I must respond to. It might be argued that, while it is a priori unlikely that any finite being would be capable of profitably employing the scientific method in a randomly constructed universe, it might be claimed that in hindsight of the scientific method having worked for us in this particular universe, we are now entitled, a posteriori, to embrace the Principle of Abductive Inference as a reliable method. My response is that we have no objective reason whatsoever to believe the scientific method has worked in hindsight -- at least not for the purpose of discovering universal laws of nature! I will grant that we have had pretty good luck with science-based engineering in the tiny little spec of the universe observable to us. I will even grant that this justifies the continued use of engineering for practical purposes with relative confidence -- under the laws of statistics, so long as, say, one anomaly per hundred thousand hours of use is an acceptable risk. But this gives no objective reason whatsoever (again under the laws of statistics) to believe that any of the alleged "laws of nature" we talk about is actually a universal law. That is to say, if you believe, with even one percent confidence, that we ever have, or ever will, uncover a single line of the source code of the universe -- a single law of Nature that holds without exception -- then you, my friend, believe in miracles. There is no reason to expect the scientific method to work, and good reason to expect it not to work -- unless human mind was designed to be able to uncover and understand the laws of nature, by Someone who knew exactly how complex they are.
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Notes -
The scientific method is believing things based on evidence.
Religious faith is believing things not based on evidence.
“Evidence” is doing a lot of work in those statements, of course. There is no One True Definition of scientific evidence. It’s almost easier to say what it isn’t. For example, receiving revelation in a dream or any other special knowledge that can’t be tested or verified by others. “It made me feel warm inside” is no way to practice epistemology because human emotion is too volatile. “We explain the inexplicable with further inexplicabilities” leaves something to be desired as searching for truth goes.
Scientific knowledge is true insofar as it can accurately represent the workings of the universe. Theory often comes after experimentation. Theories often need to be refined or get superseded by new knowledge. What’s important is the process of refining our understanding, not a single point in time on any given theory.
The Wright Brothers achieved flight before the physics were understood. My understanding is that the physics of lift are still contested. We use electricity to make sand do math and other thinking, but my understanding is that the physics of lightning are still contested. We started vaccination before understanding all that much about germs and viruses.
All this is to say that you are making a category error, common among classical philosophers, of judging science by the benchmarks of classical philosophy and finding it wanting.
Science is what works; not what is sacred or revealed from mysterious sources. If something doesn’t work, we can and should discard it. That’s the nice thing about iterative systems open to feedback and dedicated to improvement.
I respectfully disagree. This is a common strawman of "faith". Allow me to offer a better definition;
Faith is believing in something that can neither be proven nor disproven with existing methods.
Religious faith applies this to transcendental concepts.
Now, of course, making decisions and casting judgments based wholly on religious faith creates problems, especially in a pluralistic democracy. That's a different discussion. I'm scoping my comments only to a beginning definition of "faith."
The keen among you might realize that this definition of faith covers things that aren't explicitly religious. "Gut feelings", "intuition" and the like. I happen to agree with you. In fact, I believe that all humans must exercise some level and version of small-f "faith" in order to function. A purely rational optimization pattern of thought would make it impossible to get out of bed in the morning ("which foot should I put on the floor first, should I wait another 7 minutes to get up to optimize my post REM wakefulness, is there too much or too little light in the room")
Blind faith - believing in something despite contradictory evidence or simply never even allowing that evidence to enter into your calculations - is bad and exists in myriad domains outside of religious faith. Currently, there's a lot of it in politics. It's a common human cognitive failing based on confirmation bias and the need for belief-decision-identity consistency.
True faith (and True Faith) is a demanding epistemic situation. You have to hold multiple things in your head at once;
Faith is not for the feeble of mind yet must only be held with a poverty of spirit (read: poverty of passion).
You can try to accuse me of strawmanning Religious Faith, but I was raised in a devout religious environment and personally experienced how it works. Different strains of Christianity have their particular spins on it, but there’s a lot of commonality in at least how it’s scripturally defined and commonly practiced.
Bringing up little-f faith is a red herring with respect to critiques of religious epistemology. Obviously, humans go about our days dealing with uncertainty and have to rely on heuristics and gut feelings. The motte/bailey between “regular faith” and “Religious Faith as an epistemology” is obnoxious and frequently invoked to shield religious beliefs from direct critique. It’s probably necessary to taboo the word “faith” altogether to avoid these kinds of issues.
So to is “blind faith” unhelpful to discuss in that it typically is something everyone can agree is bad and that religious types will deny they are doing it.
It is certainly the case that Faith or any other label for “faulty epistemology” can exist in non-religious contexts. Many ideologies rely on credulity and insufficiently examined claims to survive. In fact, science is hard and scientists fail regularly to do it well (and can be wrong even when doing it as well as they could). That’s why it’s so critical that science is iterative, with no special authorities or sources of knowledge. Human nature is not by default well-calibrated for consistent scientific reasoning.
Religious epistemology does not have standards of evidence that satisfy science, or even other secular frameworks, such as law. It does tend to have special authorities and sources of knowledge. Religion can iterate and change, but it tends to be haphazard and so rarely results in more consensus on any given religious concept or interpretations of god’s will—even within one religion.
Religious beliefs have to be justified via a special religious epistemology because they cannot withstand scrutiny from an actually effective and consistent epistemology. It’s simply special pleading and inconsistent standards backed by tradition.
When you say:
You’re making a few major mistakes. One is that “existing methods” is basically “god of the gaps” and it ought to be embarrassing to invoke.
Two, “proven nor disproven” is to frame things wrongly. If good evidence sufficient to justify a belief probabilistically can’t be obtained, then saying “well you can’t disprove it so I can maintain my belief” is not a logical stance. I don’t need to disprove there’s an incorporeal dragon in your garage to dismiss it as extraordinarily unlikely.
Three, historically (and in many cases to this day), Religious Faith is not merely applied to whatever “transcendental concepts” are. Religious Faith has retreated enormously as science has progressed, because science actually worked no matter what your religion is. E.g. no need to worry so much about casting out devils as medical science improved.
Relatedly, “nonoverlapping magisteria” really doesn’t get you very far because science has this pesky habit of intruding. For example, Christians typically have strong doctrinal and personal beliefs about souls and prayer. Unfortunately, “souls” do not exist, unless they are somehow neither matter nor energy. Same situation as ghosts and other such phenomena. The mind is what the brain does, which we can demonstrate in a myriad of ways. Similarly, “prayer” as a way to communicate with deity or to seek causal impact or special knowledge is consistently shown to just not be a thing. Same situation as mediums and fortune tellers.
The trick that worked for me was examining other religious beliefs and finding them sorely lacking (as encouraged by my religion). Eventually, those critical tools of logic and reason came for my own religious beliefs.
I agree. And I am happy about this. I don't think it makes sense to apply the rules of one domain to the evaluation of another. We don't evaluate basketball players with the rules of baseball.
Sure does. And I get worried when those authorities interject into other domains. For instance, Pope Francis is a communist and, therefore, I don't really like his political takes.
Some of them can, some of the chose not to. Much of the time when a big enough change occurs, some subgroup splinters off.
Building consensus in matters pertaining to the Lord of The Universe? That's how you get a crusade going. Forget consensus, we're looking for Truth (and not in your fiddle-faddle science and law concepts of truth. Space travel and infinite energy? Boring).
Again, I see this as essentially saying "Basketball players keep violating the rules of baseball! How dare they!"
I'm too dumb and unread to know what you're saying here. Please clarify.
So, if it ain't Bayesian it ain't right? You say I'm framing things wrongly ... but I think you just propose a different frame than mine and then make a value judgement about the "rightness" of my framing. Could you maybe try to make an argument for why your framing is a better overall approach to the subject at hand?
Editor's pen here: "I don't need to disprove to dismiss." This is correct. Dismissing is a personal choice and I respect it.
"Worked" .... in which domains? What's the scientific take on the concept of justice?
Say it with me .... Physical ...
... Materialism.
I understand the attraction of materialist philosophy. If that's your firmly held position, we're just not going to agree and that's fine. I would love your thoughts on the idea of personal responsibility, however.
So you don't believe I can communicate with a thing you don't believe in. I am shocked, shocked!
So you debugged the program from within it, eh? Pure rationalism triumphs.
I can't buy it. One thing even the most religious and most ... good at logic people ... agree on is that humans are emotional beings prone to all sorts of self serving cognitive failures. I'll admit that my belief in the Magical Sky Man is cooky but it somehow seems a better premise than 'I solved my own brain with my brain"
Comparing one sport to another is still within the domain of sports. The rules are different in any particular case, but it’s not a fundamentally different category where say the laws of physics or other fundamental facts about reality change.
Science deals with reality as we can understand it. Religion seems to not do that so much. The fact that religions don’t tend to come to consensus on much of anything over time is pretty strong evidence there is no underlying system of discovering truth.
You’re leaning hard into nonoverlapping magisteria. It’s not very trad but it is common.
If you read an article on “god of the gaps” you should be able to see your point about “existing methods” is doing the same. Applied backwards, it makes religious believers seem naive. So too using it now.
You’re bringing up Bayes when there’s no need to. It’s elementary logic that you shouldn’t look to “believe what can’t be disproven” vs. “believe what there is evidence for.” The possibility space of the former is infinite; the latter is constrained by reality if you have good standards of evidence. “What must I believe” vs. “What can I get away with believing.”
Not sure how familiar you are with various forms of trad religious legal systems, but I’ll take secular legal systems informed by modern concepts of science and reason. Secular philosophy is rich on the questions of justice and personal responsibility, and scientific principles and findings influence most of us who care to think about such things.
Methodological naturalism is true because it works. Anyone can use it, even the religious. Anyone can run and observe experiments that show the mind-brain connection, and the lack of evidence for any concept of a soul.
I think you’re failing to understand the model here. I don’t need to believe in your god or anyone’s beforehand for you to demonstrate solid evidence something strange is happening via prayer. If your god stretches forth its hand to affect the material world, as so many claim it does, then where is the evidence? Trying to philosophize about the limitations of materialism are irrelevant unless your god never comes into that domain.
You also have the causation backwards: I disbelieve in god because people claim so much about eg prayer but can show so little evidence to back those claims. But even if I had started from a null position, the burden is on the claim being made. Why is the omnipotent creator of the universe such a shy fellow and why do his believers talk him up so much with so little hard evidence brought to bear?
Nowhere did I claim I solved my own brain with my brain. I used tools to disprove certain ideologies to them disprove the one I had been raised with. The facts were relatively easy; the emotions and conditioning were far more challenging.
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I think the idea of faith as firm belief without evidence is a power grab by fundamentalist clergymen who do not want to be questioned on their axioms. My idea of faith is something entirely different. When the Marines say semper fidelis (always faithful), they are not talking about firm belief in the Marine Corps without evidence; they are talking about doing their duty in relation to the Corps.
To illustrate, imagine (God forbid) my wife is in a coma, it is unknown whether she was brain dead, and it is unknown whether she can perceive what was going on around her. I have two choices: (1) I can say, well she may well already be gone, so I am going to leave her alone in the bed indefinitely, or (2) I can say she might be in there; if she is, she wants to hear from me, so I will go sit by her and hold her hand and talk to her until the situation is resolved for better or worse. That is faith in the sense of faithfulness (Greek pistis, Latin fidelis) in the relationship -- even a relationship with someone who may or may not be in there (or out there), as long as there is hope.
I agree with your sentiment wholeheartedly even if it looks like there is some distance between us semantically.
I would also say that your (again, God forbid) wife-in-coma scenario reveals what I believe to be the fact that all humans have a natural impulse towards what we would term faith. It may be utterly a- or even anti-religious and its often poorly developed and formalized, but the innateness of that desire remains. I think it has to to propagate the species. There are certainly times where things look forlorn and all available data might point to hitting your own off button to unalive yourself. You need either a strong intuitive volition to not do that (faith) ... or have the mental acuity of Mr. Big Brain himself Sam Harris to jiu-jitsu rationalize your way into it.
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Focusing on the “trust” aspect instead of the “belief” aspect of the word “faith” is not helpful in an epistemological discussion.
To trust in a deity, one believes it exists.
Those Marines doing their duty are not doing so with an epistemology that requires them to believe in anything without regular boring evidence.
Similarly, people do recover from comas. No special beliefs required.
In contrast, hoping/trusting/believing in something like a deity that may or may not be out there is in a different category of belief. How do you know?
I guess it’s too bad the faithful can’t come to a shared understanding on how it is they ought to develop their beliefs regarding deity and theology.
Is this site fundamentalist in your view? (I assume you think Evangelicals count as such.)
https://www.christianity.com/jesus/following-jesus/repentance-faith-and-salvation/what-does-faith-mean.html?amp=1
These?
https://www.archspm.org/faith-and-discipleship/catholic-faith/what-is-faith-how-does-it-tie-in-to-what-we-believe-as-catholics/#
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/true-to-the-faith/faith?lang=eng
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