Evolution and its rivals

[salvorhardin]

I'll be cross-posting this in the Science forum too, but thought the denizens of R&T might be interested in this too.

A special issue of the philosophy journal Synthese was just published, focusing on the creationism/evolution debate. Some great articles in here for anyone interested in evolution vs. creationism/intelligent design or philosophy of science, although the inclusion of James Fetzer pimping for David Ray Griffin seems odd. Gauging by the abstract alone, David Ray Griffin looks to be as bad at philosophy as he is at mechanical engineering, chemistry and physics. But the rest of the authors are fantastic, including Barbara Forrest, John Wilkins, Wesley Elsberry and Jeffrey Shallit. All articles are free for download until December 31st.

Linky: http://www.springerlink.com/content/0039-7857/178/2/

Contents:
Introduction -- Glenn Branch
Can’t philosophers tell the difference between science and religion?: Demarcation revisited -- Robert T. Pennock
Are creationists rational? -- John S. Wilkins
Foiling the Black Knight -- Kelly C. Smith
Information theory, evolutionary computation, and Dembski’s “complex specified information” -- Wesley Elsberry and Jeffrey Shallit
Design and its discontents -- Bruce H. Weber
The science question in intelligent design -- Sahotra Sarkar
Intelligent design in theological perspective -- Niall Shanks and Keith Green
The non-epistemology of intelligent design: its implications for public policy -- Barbara Forrest
Evolution and atheism: Has Griffin reconciled science and religion? -- James H. Fetzer

[RagAss]

1. Science vs. Mother Goose...I'll pass, thank you.

[toddaa]

2. Bookmarking for the Wilkins article

I miss the PZ v Wilkins sparring, since he left Scienceblogs. When Wilkins and Mark Chu-Carroll left, I deleted a lot of RSS feeds from my reader.

[salvorhardin]

3. Oh, me too

Not the verbal fisticuffs between Wilkins and PZ so much, but Scienceblogs has definitely lost a lot of its best bloggers. Thankfully we've still got Wilkins' blog elsewhere. Mark C-C I really miss though. His blog was like Martin Gardner was still alive and writing Mathematical Recreations for SciAm. I hope he returns to the blogosphere soon.

[cleanhippie]

4. Until the others can hold themselves up to the scientific method, there is nothing to discuss.

[salvorhardin]

5. Nothing to discuss with the ID/Creationism proponents maybe, but...

Nothing to discuss with the ID/Creationism proponents maybe, but understanding the philosophy of science is important since that is where a major part of the war is being fought and the battle in Dover was won as much on science being philosophically superior to ID/Creationism as on Constitutional grounds. The actual science is secondary, since as you note, the ID/Creationist crowd doesn't have science to argue on and the pseudoscience they do have is easily dismissed. Thus it ultimately comes down to philosophy of science; i.e. what distinguishes science from nonscience and epistemology. Furthermore the ID/Creationism proponents know that and they're making sure to educate their ranks on these issues. Don't you think we who wish to defend science in the public schools should be at least as knowledgeable?

Quoting from Glenn Branch's introduction to this special issue of Synthese:

Speaking at a conference in Kansas in 2002, the philosopher J. P. Moreland was concerned to emphasize the relevance of philosophy to the debate over teaching intelligent design in the public schools. “From high school on,” he explained, “people are not trained to look at their disciplines with philosophical understanding. With such an erosion of philosophical training—and thus understanding—it is absolutely essential that those of us interested in this conversation understand its philosophical dimensions” (Moreland 2008, pp. 43–44). Understanding philosophy is essential, he argued, because it is philosophers, not scientists, who are professionally competent to decide whether intelligent design qualifies as scientific. He thus ended with a peroration recommending that his audience seek to understand the philosophical issues, for “people are trying to cut the legs out from underneath us by arguing philosophically, and when they do, we need to have a response” (Moreland 2008, p. 65). What is noteworthy about Moreland’s talk was not so much the claims he advanced on behalf of philosophy’s relevance as the audience that he was urging to acquire philosophical nous: creationists.

...

It was no surprise, then, when the constitutionality of teaching intelligent design in the public schools was challenged in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005, a philosophical contingent of the intelligent design movement was on hand. Among those scheduled to testify in Kitzmiller v. Dover as expert witnesses for the defense of the Dover Area School Board (which adopted a policy requiring teachers to notify students that evolution was a theory, not a fact, and that intelligent design as described in the textbook Of Pandas and People was a scientifically credible alternative) were Dembski and Meyer, as well as Warren A. Nord, a lecturer in philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Steve Fuller, a philosopher-turned-sociologist at the University of Warwick, both academics with sympathies for intelligent design.

...

Testifying on behalf of the plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the policy were two philosophers, Robert T. Pennock of Michigan State University and Barbara Forrest of Southeastern Louisiana University. Pennock argued, as he argued in Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism (1999) that intelligent design fails to be science, while Forrest argued, as she and Paul R. Gross argued in their Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (2004), that intelligent design was historically and conceptually continuous with creationism.

Frankly, I'm flabbergasted at the knee-jerk reaction at my posting of this on DU and can only conclude that even those who purport to be supportive of science are as ignorant as many Young Earth Creationists and willfully ignorant at that.

[darkstar3]

6. "The philosophy of science"

I would posit that there is no such thing. The scientific method is based entirely on deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning does appear from time to time in scientific circles with the formation of Theorems and Laws, but these happen infrequently and are all tested using more deductive reasoning.

Philosophy came before science, and there is no arguing that. Philosophers intent on ordering thoughts and arguments appropriately created the systems of inductive and deductive reasoning. But science is something much more than philosophy, as a practice and as a formal methodology.

You might call philosophy a precursor to science, and specifically to the scientific method, but outside of the deductive method I don't think you can find any more philosophy in science.

[salvorhardin]

7. As I said, willful ignorance. eom.

[darkstar3]

8. Or maybe

I simply disagree with you. You DO realize that such a thing is possible sans ignorance?

[cleanhippie]

9. Willful ignorance? How so?

Thats a solid argument based on solid reasoning and facts. How in the world is that willful ignorance?

[skepticscott]

12. As far as philosophy of science

it certainly exists in the minds of some people, but I think Richard Feynmann was on the mark when he said "philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds."

For the rest, science IS largely based on inductive reasoning, as opposed to mathematics, which operates entirely by deductive reasoning. That's why mathematicians prove things to a 100% certainty (within the sphere defined by their axioms and postulates), while scientists never have and never will.

[Jim__]

10. Thanks for that link. As a note: You do seem to be misreading Fetzer.

His abstract claims to refute Griffin, and that is the thrust of his article:

Abstract The distinguished theologian, David Ray Griffin, has advanced a set of
thirteen theses intended to characterize (what he calls) “Neo-Darwinism” and which he
contrasts with “Intelligent Design”. Griffin maintains that Neo-Darwinism is “atheistic”
in forgoing a creator but suggests that, by adopting a more modest scientific
naturalism and embracing a more naturalistic theology, it is possible to find “a third
way” that reconciles religion and science. The considerations adduced here suggest
that Griffin has promised more than he can deliver. On his account, God is in laws of
nature; therefore, any influence He exerts is natural rather than supernatural. But if the
differences God makes are not empirically detectable, then Griffin’s account is just as
objectionable as a theory of supernatural intervention. And Griffin has not shown that
evolution as distinct from his idiosyncratic sense of Neo-Darwinism is incompatible
with theism.

[salvorhardin]

11. No, I wasn't misreading Fetzer

I was aware that he was criticizing Griffin, which is why I quipped that based on the abstract alone that Griffin seems to be as bad at philosophy as he is at actual science and engineering (which both he and Fetzer attempt to use to show that impact damage and fires can't account for the collapse of the WTC towers).

Fetzer critiquing Griffin just seemed like an odd duck choice for inclusion in this issue, though he is on topic. Admittedly, I'm biased against both Fetzer and Griffin.