Watch this video from a few months ago in which creationist philosopher Stephen Meyer argues that the practice of science should not entail methodological naturalism:
There are a couple things I find interesting here. First of all, I had always thought that one of the reasons Meyer so badly mangles the scientific topics he attempts to discuss is that he is not a scientist. But he is a philosopher of science, with a PhD from Cambridge no less. So one would expect him to be able to competently discuss a subject such as this. But it would appear his understanding of philosophy is almost as abysmal as is his understanding of biology or paleontology. According to his understanding of methodological naturalism (MN) one would not be permitted to conclude that the letters inscribed on the Rosetta Stone were created by human beings, but instead would have to insist they were created by random natural forces such as erosion. This is absurd and not at all a correct understanding of how one would approach this question if one accepts MN. It is understood that the Rosetta Stone was carved by human beings in 196 BCE. Nothing about this requires that one accept the involvement of supernatural or immaterial forces in creating the carvings on the stone.
But, that aside, Meyer makes a claim that I believe warrants further scrutiny. He is suggesting that by assuming MN as a necessary aspect of the practice of science one limits the scope of science. In particular, he suggests that MN is arbitrarily and unjustifiably asserted to be a necessary component of the definition of science in order to rule out, by fiat, some possible explanations for observed phenomena, in particular those that would involve a supernatural being such as God. (He is, of course, careful not to specifically mention God, instead using euphemisms like “creative intelligence”, in keeping with the Discovery Institute’s agenda to deny that “Intelligent Design” is merely a form of creationism. But, really, who does he think he is fooling?).
On this issue, Meyer may actually have a valid point, as some defenders of science against Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC), have made exactly the claim he argues against. For instance, Eugenie Scott, who at the time was the executive director of the NCSE, wrote in a 1999 article:
Science is a way of knowing that attempts to explain the natural world using natural causes. It is agnostic toward the supernatural it neither confirms nor rejects it. So science is methodologically materialistic: matter, energy, and their interactions are used to explain nature. Supernatural causes are ruled out for philosophical as well as practical reasons: science requires testing of explanations against the natural world, and testing requires that some variables be held constant. Supernatural forces by definition cannot be held constant, thus supernatural explanation is outside of what science can deal with. 1
This reflects the views of many who oppose creationism and similar attempts to corrupt science with religious dogma (other examples are given in the Boudry article I cite further on) . However, the motivations behind these views are not quite as Meyer portrays. The goal is not to prevent scientists from acknowledging extant evidence for the intervention of gods or other supernatural beings. Rather, such a position often reflects a pragmatic attempt to make certain scientific facts that are resisted for religious reasons more palatable to the faithful, by setting up a model in which religious belief and scientific knowledge exist alongside one another but as separate domains. In so doing, the believer is (at least in theory) reassured that the findings of science have no bearings on his religious beliefs, and that there is no conflict between the two. This approach is commonly referred to (often with derision) as accomodationism.
Meyer, I believe correctly, identifies a problem with this approach: If the supernatural exists and exerts direct influence on even some of the phenomena that we observe in the physical world, and if MN as described above is an essential aspect of the practice of science, then science would be unable to provide a full account of the phenomena that are supposedly in its purview. It would be as if physicists were forbidden, for philosophical reasons, to consider the effects of gravity in their work. Exactly how would that work? Not very well.
So is Stephen Meyer correct? Must the practice of science abandon MN if it is to provide as full an account as possible of the observations we make of the world around us? Not necessarily. There is another approach to this question that is articulated by philosopher Maarten Boudry of Ghent University in a 2010 article entitled “How not to attack intelligent design creationism:
philosophical misconceptions about methodological
naturalism.” 2 (A free version of the article can be found here.) I recommend reading the article in full; for a philosophy paper it is unusually clear and accessible to the non-specialist. However, to summarize, Boudry distinguishes two different forms of MN. He refers to the above conceptions of MN as “Intrinsic Methodological Naturalism (IMN)”. As an alternative, he proposes what he calls “Provisory or Pragmatic Methodological Naturalism (PMN)”, which he describes as:
…a provisory and empirically grounded commitment to naturalistic causes and explanations,which in principle is revocable by extraordinary empirical evidence. According to this conception, MN did not drop from thin air, but is just the best methodological guideline that emerged from the history of science (Shanks 2004; Coyne 2009; Edis 2006), in particular the pattern of consistent success of naturalistic explanations. Appeals to the supernatural have consistently proven to be premature, and science has never made headway by pursuing them. The rationale for PMN thus excludes IMN: if supernatural explanations are rejected because they have failed in the past, this entails that, at least in some sense, they might have succeeded. The fact that they didn’t is of high interest and shows that science does have a bearing on the question of the supernatural.
The paper goes on to cite examples where phenomena which are usually considered to be “supernatural”such as intercessionary prayer have, in fact, been subjected to scientific investigation. As it happens, these investigations found no evidence that prayer had any measurable effect. But Boudry’s point is that the very fact such studies could be done in the first place demonstrates that the “supernatural” can be studied scientifically.
For my part, here is how I understand the use of MN in the scientific process. Let’s consider the example of an event that many people believe actually happened and which is also considered to be an example of supernatural causation: The parting of the Red Sea by Moses. If one adheres to IMN, to use Boudry’s terminology, one could simply say that this was a “supernatural” occurrence and therefore science has nothing to say on the matter. The laws of nature, as we understand them, make it impossible for someone to cause a sea to part just by pointing a stick at it and saying some words. This miraculous event would not change that. However, it would be considered possible, under some circumstances, for these laws to be violated or overridden, for instance if an omnipotent being like Yahweh decides to do so.
We would therefore be in a situation in which the world is viewed as operating according to two parallel realities: There would be the “natural” world, consisting of matter, energy, fields, forces, etc. and the laws that govern these. At the same time, there would exist the “supernatural”world, in which these laws do not apply. The scientific method would only be applicable to the former, “natural” world.
Now, suppose we evaluate the same claim thru Boudry’s PMN. Whether or not the parting of the Red Sea is considered to be a “supernatural” event, we could still evaluate the claim using the scientific method. We could start from the empirical observation that it has never been demonstrated that a sea can be parted by a person gesturing towards it with a wooden staff, so that is evidence against the claim. We could further note that the evidence in favour of the claim is primarily a story recounted in the Old Testament and that the weight of historical and archaeological evidence is strongly against this being an accurate `record of actual events. Finally, we have the observation that stories of miraculous feats of this sort are commonplace in many religious and cultural tradition, and are generally considered to be myths or legends. Taken as a whole, the evidence strongly favours the story of the parting of the Red Sea being among these, rather than being an actual event requiring an explanation.
There may still remain a question of, if an event of this sort were demonstrated to have occurred, how one would determine whether it was a “supernatural” event, as opposed to a “natural” event whose cause is not yet known to us. However, unless and until such an event has been demonstrated this question is at best moot.
I admit that I do not now how influential Boudry’s views have been among his fellow philosophers of science. However, in my opinion PMN comports better than does IMN with science as it is, and should be, practiced. The puzzling thing is that none of this is new. Boudry’s article was published in 2010, and has been discussed on blogs such as those by Larry Moran and Jerry Coyne, both of which are regularly read and commented on by ID Creationists. Is Meyer really unaware of this argument? Or is he just hoping to keep his listeners unaware of opposing views that might undermine his claims?
In the end, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Meyer is not expressing legitimate concerns regarding the theoretical underpinnings of modern science, so much as he is attempting to make excuses for the failure of the Intelligent Design Creationist movement to persuade the scientific community to take its claims seriously. Much as Meyer would like to give the impression that this is the result of ideological bias on the part of that community, the simple fact is that he and his colleagues have not presented the evidence needed to support their claims.
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Scott, E. C. (1999). The ‘Science and religion’ movement. An opportunity for improved public understanding of science? Skeptical Inquirer, 23(4), 29–31.
- Boudry, M., S. Blancke and J. Braeckman. 2010. How not to attack intelligent design creationism: philosophical misconceptions about methodological naturalism. Foundations of Science (online) DOI 10.1007/s10699-010-9178-7