The Religion of Science

[Number_Six]

Science is supposed to be a means by which we can objectively analyze, describe, and explain how the world works. It claims to be descriptive (about what is) as opposed to being proscriptive (about what ought to be), as Hume illustrated in  A Treatise of Human Nature, and therefore reveals the truth.

Yet this objectivity is questioned by how the scientific method itself accepts only naturalistic/ materialistic evidence as validating a hypothesis. If science were truly agnostic (unbiased), it would include the possibility of supernatural explanations for events. Instead these explanations are regularly dismissed as unscientific or superstition. In their practice they are confined to the realms of 'alternative medicine'.

Often it is claimed that supernatural explanations cannot be included as they are unobservable by our materialistic methods. However this excludes the possibility that, as most believers say, we ourselves are proof of the impact of the supernatural on the natural.

By analogy, scientific questions are answered like a case in a courtroom if only forensic evidence was permitted. Yet a thorough investigation should always include verbal testimonies. These may include the testimonies of millions that have 'life after death' experiences, or who claim to have witnessed the holy spirit in churches across the world.

My point is that this materialism means that most science is proscriptive. It assumes that the world ought to be materialistic, even though it could be either. This means that claims atheists make for their beliefs being 'rational', or arguments made from the explaining power of science, are not valid. For science itself presupposes the world is materialistic and therefore presupposes an atheistic world-view from the very outset.

I'm quite sure what I've said above has overlooked something. Please challenge me.

[Will]

Supernatural evidence by definition works outside of science therefore it cannot work within the framework of the scientific method.

Also, we are not evidence of the supernatural.

[jcm]

Why would you trust the insight of the credulous over the knowledge gained through testing using a scientific method? It is easy to come up with answers that are untested. Anyone can make stuff up. Why not have a standard, by which, we can formulate truths. To try and formulate answers about any problem, not using a scientific method, is like shooting in the dark.

[Whitney]

Science does leave some room for the possibility of alternative/supernatural answers.....if that is truly what is happening then it should be at least somewhat demonstrate-able through favorable statistics and the ability to recreate the results on demand.

But, if we are able to detect the supernatural through materialistic means then a good argument can be made that it is actually natural.

How would you change the scientific method in order to maintain its time tested validity while allowing science a better means of testing the supernatural?

Ultimately, science is materialistic....it is intended for understanding the natural world.  When we get into the non-tangible that's where Philosphy picks up.

Btw, many scientists have been theists...so I'm not sure how you think science assumes an atheist worldview.

[McQ]

Science is supposed to be a means by which we can objectively analyze, describe, and explain how the world works. It claims to be descriptive (about what is) as opposed to being proscriptive (about what ought to be), as Hume illustrated in  A Treatise of Human Nature, and therefore reveals the truth.

So far, so good.

Yet this objectivity is questioned by how the scientific method itself accepts only naturalistic/ materialistic evidence as validating a hypothesis. If science were truly agnostic (unbiased), it would include the possibility of supernatural explanations for events.

Not quite true. Science is what you said in your first part. Here, you are making an error by posing a claim that is not valid. You are claiming that science is biased because it doesn't include supernatural explanations for events. How is that a bias, when science simply evaluates evidence, period? There is no bias in the evaluation of evidence by the scientific method, only by certain people, scientists and lay people. There are many types of bias that can creep in to everything, but the scientific method exists specifically as a means to avoid biases that may exist.

What you should be saying, and probably mean to say is that "people", not science have a bias.

Instead these explanations are regularly dismissed as unscientific or superstition. In their practice they are confined to the realms of 'alternative medicine'.

Here you are trying to equate the word "evidence" from your last paragraph, with the word "explanation". They are not the same. You say here that these explanations (I assume you mean supernatural) are regularly dismissed as unscientific. Well, yeah, they are, because for one, they are not evidence, they are hypotheses at best, and two, they are NOT scientific. That's the point. Science doesn't describe the supernatural. It describes the natural world and doesn't try to fill in any gaps in understanding with make-believe.

Often it is claimed that supernatural explanations cannot be included as they are unobservable by our materialistic methods. However this excludes the possibility that, as most believers say, we ourselves are proof of the impact of the supernatural on the natural.

Again, you confuse science with philosophy or the foibles of people. Science is neutral. It is not a worldview, but a tool for examining the world.

By analogy, scientific questions are answered like a case in a courtroom if only forensic evidence was permitted. Yet a thorough investigation should always include verbal testimonies. These may include the testimonies of millions that have 'life after death' experiences, or who claim to have witnessed the holy spirit in churches across the world.

Flawed analogy, as often is the case when someone misunderstands the viewpoint of science.

My point is that this materialism means that most science is proscriptive. It assumes that the world ought to be materialistic, even though it could be either. This means that claims atheists make for their beliefs being 'rational', or arguments made from the explaining power of science, are not valid. For science itself presupposes the world is materialistic and therefore presupposes an atheistic world-view from the very outset.

Nope, not true either. And you've now moved to the "all-or-nothing" stage of the argument. Also called the "either/or". Additionally, you've coupled it to atheism, when there is no call to do so. As was said before, science is not a belief system, or philosophical worldview. It is a system of tools used to describe nature only. It does not presuppose a god, or gods. Neither does it discount them, except when they fail to exist in the light of discovery.

If you had a god, say, that lived on the top of a mountain (or was definitely claimed to live there), but no one had ever seen this god because no one had ever climbed the mountain to look, then science would go looking. If the god was said to live in a corporeal form, then it could be found.
If scientists found the god, as described by those who believed in it, then it would be said to exist. The problem is that every time they have gone looking, they have found no such gods.

It isn't that science says "No." before looking. The problem comes when people don't want to hear the truth after all the gods are never found. As more has been learned about life over the centuries, the places that were inhabited by gods have disappeared.


(edited to fix last quotation error by me)

[tigerlily46514]

. If science were truly agnostic (unbiased), it would include the possibility of supernatural explanations for events

If science were to include unprovable magic as anything more than a working hypothesis, wouldn't that negate the whole concept of being scientific?  Isn't science, by it's very definition, that which can be studied, to lead to proven truths in various areas of matter?  Many mysteries of the universe remain.  Many things are at first credited with being supernatural or magic, but kept as hypotheses, such as electricity, rainbows, and gravity's pull on the moon, and later can be tested, measured, and replicated etc using the scientific method.

Science has occasionally tried to test the supernatural, it has not held up well in trials.  (an example-psychic phenomenons, bleeding statues, ghosts in homes, etc, all test out poorly)  Would you argue in these examples that the scientists were too material-based to elicit the statue to bleed on camera?


Would the religious world, in turn, ever truly accept scientific evidence of matter that disputed a faith-based idea? (the guy who invented eyeglasses was thrown in jail by the church for his whole life because he hypothesized rainbows were caused by moisture in the air) okay, that WAS 300 years ago...but even today, some churches won't even accept evolution or even carbon-dating as proof of the earth's age...
i realize there is a difference though, religion is a choice, science is fact-based.

, we ourselves are proof of the impact of the supernatural on the natural.

i agree with Willravel, we are not PROOF of supernatural events.  That is not an objective, rational statement, sounds more borne of emotion.  Which is cool, you have a right to feel and believe whatever you wish.

By analogy, scientific questions are answered like a case in a courtroom if only forensic evidence was permitted. Yet a thorough investigation should always include verbal testimonies

This is true, this is how courts do function, but it is an extremely well documented fact that verbal testimonies, more specifically- eye-witness accounts during anything overwhelming or upsetting, are NOTORIOUSLY inaccurate.   Slightly going off topic, but i wanted to point it out anyway.

Presenting people who have these claims as scientific evidence of an afterlife would make an yet another interesting thread.

This means that claims atheists make for their beliefs being 'rational', or arguments made from the explaining power of science, are not valid

Well, i am not even sure i agree that  i'd need science to validate my atheism, and  i disagree-- my atheism is a rational response, but for the sake of argument, you are saying that because science does not include magic, that atheists using science as a basis for reason is unfair?

Am i nutshelling this fairly?  If so, isn't that like saying if one doesn't include magic in math, that it isn't fair to count?  Indeed, it is a challenging question, because science is based on evidence which can be tested, hypotheses which can be trialed.  Thank you for the challenge.

EDIT--Oh, i now see McQ has posted a response, which I like so much better than my own.  WELL-PUT, MCQ!

[Tom62]

The common mistake that most theists make is that they assume that science is the belief system of atheists. For me science has nothing to do with being an atheist. I lost my faith, because I could no longer believe in the christian fairytales.

[SteveS]

McQ - kudos, I enjoyed the hell out of reading your rejoinder!  It was thoughtful, complete, and compelling - cheers, mate  

Number_Six, I know McQ addressed this issue, but I'd like to expound on this one point: the problem is that science does not simply concern itself with finding possible explanations for things.  In order to be science any proposed explanation must be capable of withstanding critical analysis.  In other words, its not enough for Charles Darwin to propose evolution in order for it to be accepted.  Sure, its possible that evolution was a correct explanation when he proposed it, but it had to go through rigorous analysis to be accepted as factually correct.  Now, down the (short) ages in between, we find DNA, we find how it mutates, we observed evolution occurring in a laboratory setting, we examine the fossil record, and we have a problem NOT believing it!  The evidence backs it up.  Real evidence, that is available to all persons, that can be independently verified - no appeals to authority or dependence on individual revelations.  Anybody who wants to can examine the evidence for themselves, and if they find a worthy objection they can publish their objection and if it has merit the theory will be changed as a result.  The hard truth is that this process is the only way we can be certain in our pursuit of knowledge.

How would we subject a supernatural explanation to this sort of analysis?  If, by definition, our "material" senses are incapable of perceiving the supernatural, then what evidence could we possibly gain?  This is why these explanations cannot be trusted if your interest is learning the truth.  If your interest is something else, then why bother with science at all, why not just ignore it?

Also, I wholeheartedly agree with the above posters who have separated science from atheism.  I am an atheist as a result (not a cause) of my interest in learning what the world is like - I want to know the truth.  Science is one mechanism on which I depend to do this - but I do not "worship" science or scientists, and I do not place "blind faith" in them.  Occasionally, the scientific community produces something that absolutely makes my teeth itch - like the "anthropic principle" - because I so very strongly disagree with it.  If a scientist claims its possible there are an infinite number of universes and we can never find any evidence of their existence, well, I reject this as worthless the same as I reject an unverifiable supernatural explanation - and I just don't give a darn if the person who proposed this non-sense was a scientist or not.  Being a scientist isn't enough - you're still going to have to prove your case.

[pjkeeley]

This is an interesting discussion, I don't have much to add but I would like to make one point:

Again, you confuse science with philosophy or the foibles of people. Science is neutral. It is not a worldview, but a tool for examining the world.

McQ, neutrality is not something that distinguishes science from philosophy. So much as we can even make a distinction between the two, they are both neutral "tools" with which we examine the world. Philosophy is simply what goes on when we think about thinking and when we question our questioning, as I like to think of it.

[McQ]

This is an interesting discussion, I don't have much to add but I would like to make one point:

Again, you confuse science with philosophy or the foibles of people. Science is neutral. It is not a worldview, but a tool for examining the world.

McQ, neutrality is not something that distinguishes science from philosophy. So much as we can even make a distinction between the two, they are both neutral "tools" with which we examine the world. Philosophy is simply what goes on when we think about thinking and when we question our questioning, as I like to think of it.

I just knew that my statement would bring at least one philosopher out of the woodwork.  

Don't get me wrong, I love philosophy. I most likely used it in a way here that wasn't entirely fair. Sorry for that. While I didn't mean to imply a bias in the method of philosophy via rational inquiry, I don't think that philosophizing is "neutral" from an empirical standpoint. For my purposes of putting it in the same sentence as scientific inquiry, it was there to show that view...that it is not a method to answer questions empirically.

I'm probably just making things murkier with this explanation. But again, I value philosophy as a wonderful tool for thinking about thinking and for reasoning. Just not as an empirical basis for answering questions.

I do see how the way I worded it was not effective or accurate though. Someone fix my brain! It hurts!

[Number_Six]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses; especially McQ's. Let me clear a few things up:

Supernatural evidence by definition works outside of science therefore it cannot work within the framework of the scientific method.

The OED defines science as “the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment”. So I'm not claiming science is biased if it doesn't try to explain supernatural events (because that would be religion and not science.) However the above definition does not rule out the possibility that science could attribute events in the natural world to a supernatural explanation, given the appropriate evidence.

You are claiming that science is biased because it doesn't include supernatural explanations for events. How is that a bias, when science simply evaluates evidence, period? There is no bias in the evaluation of evidence by the scientific method, only by certain people, scientists and lay people.

Firstly, I am not claiming that science (the process of explaining natural events) is biased but a particular type of methodology know as the Scientific Method (I use capitals to distinguish it from any scientific methodology because I will elaborate on a possible alternative.) Now it is true that the attributes of the Scientific Method are dependent on its interpretation by the scientific community and the rest of the world at a particular moment in time. However I suggest this is true for the definitions of all artificial concepts.  

My point here is that a key feature to the Scientific Method, as I understand it, is that the only evidence admissible to validate a hypothesis is that that uses statistically verifiable data to support its hypothesis (usually in a form of a correlation between data sets). I claim that if someone were to instead to obtain testimonies of people claiming to have witnessed the hypothesis, this would not be admissible as evidence under the Scientific Method.

Now it would be absurd to use testimonies to support hypotheses concerning how natural events have natural explanations, since we can directly observe the natural. However we cannot, by definition, directly observe the supernatural with natural tools of observation. But this does not rule out the possibility of supernatural explanations for natural events. Since the only claims of witnessing supernatural causes to natural events come from people, we would instead have to indirectly observe possible supernatural explanations by assessing the credibility of the claimants.

I think an agnostic scientific methodology, that does not rule out supernatural explanations for events, could include these testimonies. This evidence could be assessed in similar ways to other scientific evidence, through control and test subjects. Although it could need a different criteria to assess credibility. One possible criteria, from the world of Critical Thinking, could be assessing the witnesses for; Reliability, Ability to see, Vested Interest, Expertise and Neutrality.

Flawed analogy, as often is the case when someone misunderstands the viewpoint of science.

I used the courtroom analogy to illustrate a common example of where it is accepted that natural events occur where the strength of statically verifiable evidence to support our hypotheses about how they occurred is limited. Furthermore it is therefore accepted that, because we cannot directly observe everything, we must use indirect observations from witnesses as evidence to support our hypotheses.


Yet this is peripheral to the main point I'm trying to make. I think that many arguments for atheism are variations on the theme of the supernatural not existing because science has attributed natural explanations to many natural events, with strong evidence to back these explanations, so supernatural explanations are not needed. However this position is tautological because the very Scientific Method used to base these claims will not admit the type of evidence needed to support supernatural explanations for natural events.

Secondly, even if it were conceded that there is no way we could observe the effect of the supernatural on the natural, the fact science can attribute natural explanations to natural events tells us nothing. This is because the Scientific Method only allows natural explanations to be given for natural events. Therefore it can never explain away the effect of the supernatural because it would be impossible to observe the effect of the supernatural through our methodology.

Lastly, I just want to clear up my personal views on the relationship between science and atheism; I admit I leapfrogged some through some of the reasoning at the end of my initial post.
 

Btw, many scientists have been theists...so I'm not sure how you think science assumes an atheist worldview

When I said that the Scientific Method makes science atheist, what I meant was that, if we only see science as the way in which natural explanations are attributed to natural events, and if we see science as the only source of truth, then this means that all events are natural and have natural explanations (an atheist worldview.) This does not mean that scientists must be atheists since you may not see science as the only (or any) source of truth. Indeed if you believed God created a natural world that obeys certain laws then, at least superficially, many natural events will have natural explanations.

[Tom62]

I would be very careful not to mixup claimed truths and actual facts. Believing that something is true, doesn't actually mean that it has to be true, even when these claims come from highly respected people. Theists can hope that what they believe is true, because it is unsupported by any hard facts. I agree that there are a lot of things that we don't understand [yet], but that doesn't automatically mean that a god is responsible for them.

[MommaSquid]

... I agree that there are a lot of things that we don't understand [yet], but that doesn't automatically mean that a god is responsible for them.

Seconded.

 

[jcm]

Secondly, even if it were conceded that there is no way we could observe the effect of the supernatural on the natural, the fact science can attribute natural explanations to natural events tells us nothing. This is because the Scientific Method only allows natural explanations to be given for natural events. Therefore it can never explain away the effect of the supernatural because it would be impossible to observe the effect of the supernatural through our methodology.

What is supernatural to you? At what point does the natural become supernatural? Isn’t it more the difference between what is known and what is unknown. If you are referring to something that is unknowable then why should we even care about it? From the way you described these two realms, they would have no effect on one another. Plus if god is so unknowable then why does anyone know anything at all about god. On the other hand if god did speak to people, then shouldn’t his message be consistent and clear. I would question the claim that people have heard the word of god because religion is different in different parts on the world. Wouldn’t god’s message be the same in all religions around the world? If you put all the messages from god together, wouldn’t they create a clear message and one straight forward religion to practice?

[Will]

Nothing that is real it unknowable. We just haven't gotten there yet. It is those things that directly challenge established laws that would be supernatural. God is one such thing.