Naturalism: Normative Theories of Science and Religious Beliefs

In his essay, How to Test Normative Theories of Science, David Baumslag tries to mix normative and descriptive approaches to the philosophy of science into one scheme. Baumslag argues that any theory of science must be naturalistic (descriptive) to some degree; but normative claims can be made about science if they do not conflict with a justified scientific practice.

"How can descriptive information about science be used in making normative claims? [..] Information about how scientists behave can be used to test normative principles. Where the principles and the behaviour diverge, we must examine the behaviour carefully to see whether a justification can be given for it. If the behaviour is justified, then we should reject our principles. Thus confronting normative theories with data about scientific behaviour provides a rigorous test." 1

Baumslag takes an example from Achistein, who uses Neils Bohr's development of the quantum theory of the atom as a way of assessing philosophical claims about what evidence needs to be given to justify pursuing a theory. Bohr not only used philosophical arguments, but "other arguments", such as that it was desirable to pursue his theory because it enabled him to solve problems central to modern physics. Baumslag says, "As we saw in the Bohr example, we can draw on rules of rationality and practical reasoning which are not purely scientific, but which constitute generally acceptable principles of rational behavior. Bohr argued that since his theory was potentially of great value, it was worth pursuing it." 1

Bohr's theory-and the path he took to formulate it-diverged from common views of logic of pursuit. Baumslag says that if Bohr was justified in his arguments, then that showed that the current normative theory is mistaken in its characterization of the logic of pursuit. "Thus if our theory of science and scientific practice diverge, and the practice is justified, the theory should be rejected."

It seems that Baumslag is presenting a Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE) view of normative philosophy of science. In WRE, a good theory balances particular observations, the theory in question, and any background theories. For Baumslag, these three elements are:

1. Observations about how actual scientists behave.
2. Our normative theory of good scientific practice.
3. A vague intuitions/theory about which practices are "justified".

Baumslag says too little about the third element. What theory then should we use to say that a scientific practice is "justified" or not? Baumslag avoids deepening into this element saying it is a problem of general philosophy. "A more difficult question is how these wider principles are to be justified, but this is one for general philosophy rather than philosophy of science to answer." 1

In this paper I will argue that Baumslag's unspecified sense of justification is not precise enough to make his theory work. Baumslag leaves out from the Reflective Equilibrium an important element: religious beliefs. He doesn't say whether religious beliefs should or should not be considered part of science, leaving out the role of religious beliefs in wide reflective equilibrium. To justify both our observations and our normative principles, we must balance them one against the other. And in WRE we are also balancing both against our background beliefs-including our religious beliefs.

Materialistic thoughts

The history of science shows how the goals of science and the underlying assumptions and beliefs of particular scientists have changed through time. This has had an effect on how science is practiced.

For instance, in Science and the Modern World, Alfred North Whitehead said the greatest contribution of medievalism to the formation of the scientific movement was "the inexpugnable belief that every detailed occurrence can be correlated with its antecedents in a perfectly definite manner, exemplifying general principles." 2 Whitehead noted that modern science was born thanks to the faith in a Lawmaker outside nature, and that this faith came from medieval theology.

Isaac Newton, for example, wrote in Mathematica Principia (1686): "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all, and on account of His dominion He is worth to be called Lord God, Universal Ruler."

Thus the history of science shows that (in the practice) the first scientists were theists; they acted with a belief in one form of theism-that there is a God who established the laws of nature but does not interfere with them.

Francis Schaeffer, a Christian philosopher, said that Christianity is the mother of modern science "because it insists that the God who created the universe has revealed himself in the Bible to be the kind of God he is. Consequently, there is a sufficient basis for science to study the universe." Schaeffer points out that the East never produced its own science because Eastern thinking was never certain about the objective existence of reality. Without an external world, science lacks topics of investigation and there is no base for experiments or deductions. He goes further saying that Christians do not have a problem with epistemology because the same reasonable God created the subject and the object and put them together. Since a reasonable God created both, a reasonable correlation exists between the subject and the object. Thus Christians, Schaeffer says, sure of the reality of the external world, have a basis for true knowledge. Schaeffer concludes that science must fit with the existing world and cannot be alienated from it. He asks: What purpose will science have when we are no longer sure of the objectivity of the object or when we loose the epistemological basis that assures the correlation between subject and object? 3

However, most scientists today will not hold theism or Christianity, but naturalism as their starting point for practicing science. Richard Lewontin, a geneticist from Harvard wrote: "It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." 4

Against Lewontin's claims, I argue that materialism cannot be justified a priori. If scientific practices were justified by an a priori materialism, science itself would have problems with its certainty of knowledge.

The problem of naturalistic/materialistic philosophies with knowledge was incisively asserted by C.S. Lewis:

"If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents-the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts-i.e. of materialism and astronomy-are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset." 5

Although I may not agree with all the assumptions Lewis makes in his statement, I think he makes a good point.

The logical consequence of materialism (or better yet, metaphysical naturalism) is skepticism, since knowledge doesn't have a foundation. Certainly, many materialists would deny this by saying that experiments are the basis of knowledge. But Lewis' point is: Why should we believe those experiments? If we accept a version like the one Lewis offers about materialistic origins, there is no way to say that our rationality is reliable.

A similar argument is made by Alvin Plantinga, who claims that believers in metaphysical naturalism do not have justified beliefs. In other words, they lack any basis for knowledge. For Plantinga, a theistic worldview provides the metaphysic justification required for his externalist epistemology. He contrasted his theistic framework with that of naturalism and said the latter is philosophically defective when contrasted with the former. How can we have knowledge when all our cognitive equipment is the result of a mindless process of natural law and pure chance? Plantinga argued that the odds are very much against it. 6

Naturalists argue that theism would allow miracles and divine intervention to mess with science, hindering scientific progress. But not all types of theism would allow that; and certainly not the one Plantinga has in mind. J. Moreland responds to this naturalist argument with the kind of theism held by the founders of modern science:

"But some will object, 'If we allowed appealing to God anytime we don't understand something, then science itself would be impossible, for science proceeds on the assumption of natural causality.' This argument is a red herring. It is true that science is not compatible with just any form of theism, particularly a theism that holds to a capricious god who intervenes so often that the contrast between primary and secondary causality is unintelligible. But Christian theism holds that secondary causality is God's usual mode and primary causality is infrequent, comparatively speaking. That is why Christianity, far from hindering the development of science, actually provided the womb for its birth and development." 7

Naturalism has an important role in science. But what do we need to justify naturalism? Science is justified in using natural explanations on the basis that it is a method that preserves its integrity: without natural explanations, science would be a Greek tragedy-nature being subjected to the capricious will of the gods.

However, a priori materialism could lead to faulty reasoning. For example, when a particular scientist doesn't have evidence for his theory on how the solar system was formed, but accepts his own speculations (or assumptions) as true explanations-simply because they are materialistic and rule out the supernatural. Does this happen in science practice? Of course, just look at some cosmology or evolutionary biology papers and you will see "theoretical" speculations of how things might have happened in the past. There is nothing wrong in itself with speculating-it is a good exercise-but interpretations and citations of those papers are later taken as truth (by the authors and other colleagues).

One particular example of this practice occurs in evolutionary biology, in the arguments between neo-Darwinism and punctuated equilibrium. Neo-Darwinism says that evolution occurred through small, incremental changes; punctuated equilibrium says it occurs relatively quickly, when spurts of rapid genetic change "punctuate" the "equilibrium" of primarily constant morphology. In an endless debate, neo-Darwinists point to one of its champions, Richard Dawkins, and his book, The Blind Watchmaker. In this book, Dawkins describes plausible scenarios of how small, incremental changes (molded by chance and natural selection) can account for the complexity of living things. Although Dawkins did not provide evidence for his claims, many neo-Darwinists accept his scenarios as true ones, and cite them as evidence for neo-Darwinism. But since when speculation is the same as evidence?

An a priori commitment to materialism or naturalism will explain away a logical conclusion, even against the evidence, to preserve its commitment. Take for example, this quote by Scott Todd, an immunologist at Kansas State University: "Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic." 7

It seems to me that scientists who make such claims fail to recognize that science has limitations: it cannot deal with unique events; it cannot deal rigorously with either the past or the future without making some assumptions which are outside of science; it is not omnipotent but deals only with what man has observed; it is not infallible because human beings can make mistakes. In the same way, material and natural explanations have limits.

Baumslag suggests "that a naturalistic approach to the study of science can have a useful role in testing theories of science. Having formulated a theory of science, we should test it against the actions of a number of scientists. [..] If a scientist acted in a way contrary to some theory of science, and was justified in doing so, then this counts as a reason to reject the theory. On the other hand, if the theory fits the way in which scientists acted, then it is supported." (p. 271). However, Baumslag doesn't say what to do with the fact that there are divergent views among practicing scientists-and what happens when they hold unjustified religious beliefs. Naturalistic philosophies of science should address the issue of scientists' beliefs as well as their behavior.

Religious Beliefs and WRE

What then is the role of religious belief (RB) in Wide Reflective Equilibrium (WRE)? I propose that RB is part of a scientist's background theories-even if the scientist's RB is atheistic or materialistic. When a scientific practice seeks justification in some background theories, the outcome could be different depending on what RB the scientist has. In the case of Lewontin, a priori materialism avoids any epistemological justification and leads to skepticism.

Lewontin's a priori belief cannot be justified as shown by Lewis and Plantinga. Thus any scientific practice confronted with this background belief will fall victim of skepticism. There is no balance; the equilibrium is lost.

Conclusion

Baumslag's intuition of what is "justified" fails to see the role of RB in his project of testing normative theories of science. His project needs to be more specific on how scientific practice can be "justified". For example, asking how a scientist justifies its own behavior. Is the scientist being epistemologically responsible? Has the scientist allowed any unjustified belief to drive his behavior? Someone could argue that if the results are natural explanations, it doesn't matter what the scientist believes or how he justifies his beliefs. But a normative philosophy of science encompasses more than the "results" of science; it looks at "how science is done".

References

1. Baumslag, D. How to Test Normative Theories of Science. In:Journal for General Philosophy of Science31:267-275, 2000
2. Whitehead, A.N. Science and the Modern World. Free Association Books. 1985
3. Schaeffer, F. He Is There and He is Not Silent. Tyndale House Publishers. 2001
4. Richard Lewontin, 'Billions and billions of demons', The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31.
5. Lewis, C.S. The Business of Heaven. Fount Paperbacks. 1984, p. 97.
6. Plantinga, A. Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford University Press. 1993
7. Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. Baker Book House Company. 1989, p. 226.
8. Todd, S.C., correspondence to Nature401(6752):423, 30 Sept. 1999