"We are educating children badly" began Jeff W. Dahms, MD, in his column from last Friday titled "Science, religion, evolution, and creation - a phylogeny" (Metanexus:Views 2002.06.07). And today's columnist, Paul Lucas, PhD, of the Dept. of Orthopaedic Surgery at New York Medical College agrees with Dahms' statement, but Lucas singularly disagrees with Dahms on how one should go about providing a possible solution. As Lucas states it, "Dr. Dahms is concerned about how we educate our children in the evolution vs creationism debate. Dr. Dahms proposes to look at the implications of methodological naturalism and methodologial supernaturalism. While I agree that there is a problem, I see the problem arising from a failure to teach the philosophy of science: what science is, why it does what it does, how it investigates the universe, and the limitations of science."

And what is it that science does? Well, for starters, it seems to Lucas that

"Methodological naturalism in science...does not arise [as was stated by Dahms,] because it is "not OK" to introduce the supernatural (a rule of science), but comes directly from how experiments are done. As a simple example, let us assume we want to find the entities necessary for plant growth. We hypothesize that air, sunlight, soil, and water (to name a few entities) are necessary. We test the hypothesis by attempting to grow plants when just one of these entities, at a time, is missing and compare it to the situation when all the entities are present. Thus, we can have a plant in a completely dark room but potted and watered and compare it to a plant in a windowed room. Now, how do we test the entity "supernatural"? Which plant can we point to and say "I know that supernatural is absent from this one" so that we can compare it to a plant where supernatural is present? This is impossible and therefore science is methodologically naturalistic. I think a better term would be methodologically materialistic. Science looks at material causes because these are the only causes for which we can construct experimental controls. Science therefore provides a component of an explanation: the material component. Science cannot say whether or not there is a supernatural component in addition to the material component. Within theology, is deity to be found only in discontinuities between material causes and is this view of deity legitimate within Judeo-Christian theology?"

To make the plot thicken, Lucas then reminds us of an interesting definition of natural--which is to be found on the fontispiece of The Origin of Species and is from the book "Analogy of Revealed Religion" by Jospeh Butler:

"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once."

Thus, it would seem that what distinguishes the natural from the supernatural may all be a matter of time and timing.

Read on to pursue the matter further.

-- Stacey E. Ake

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Subject: A Response to Dahms' Phylogeny. From: Paul Lucas Email: <PAUL_LUCAS@NYMC.EDU>

Dr. Dahms is concerned about how we educate our children in the evolution vs creationism debate. Dr. Dahms proposes to look at the implications of methodological naturalism and methodologial supernaturalism.

While I agree that there is a problem, I see the problem arising from a failure to teach the philosophy of science: what science is, why it does what it does, how it investigates the universe, and the limitations of science.

The crux of Dr. Dahms' article centers around methodological naturalism. Here is how Dr. Dahms describes methodological naturalism: "Science runs on methodological naturalism (MN). This is an empirical observation not prescriptive metaphysical fiat. Open any scientific journal anywhere and the attempted explanations are coherent. And it is not OK in the explanation to introduce a supernatural explanation at, say, line fifteen. ... Supernatural here means a complete discontinuity in the explanatory system. It means much more than some phenomenon requires novel theory or even completely new scientific laws as happens occasionally. It means we are claiming that the explanation for what is going on is forever in principle completely discontinuous with the rest of our explanatory universe. It refers to a hole in the explanatory fabric not simply a different local weave or color."

Dr. Dahms is not describing methodological naturalism, but rather god-of-the-gaps theology. Compare the above statement with the following by Dr. Moreland in The Creation Hypothesis "But when God acts as a primary cause, God acts as an agent cause ... but the important thing about agent causation is this: The cause of an action (whether raising my arm, voting in an election or directly creating first life) is a substance -- the agent itself -- and not a state of affairs in the agent. There is no sufficient set of prior conditions inside or outside the agent, mental or physical, that guarantee the effect. The agent must exercise his or her causal power as a subsstance and simply act for a reason.

"This means that when it comes to states of affairs produced by agent causes (the hand being raised, life being created), there will be a gap between the state of affairs that existed prior to that effect and the state of affairs which is (or is correlated with) the effect." JP Moreland, "Theistic science & methodological naturalism" in The Creation Hypothesis, pg 58.

Moreland here is also describing discontinuity but is not describing science. Rather, he is describing how deity can be identified: find a discontinuity and you have found "God". The question becomes: is this view of the role of discontinuity valid in either science or theology?

The question is critical because Dr. Dahms' entire "scaffold" depends on this view being accepted by science and theology. Methodological naturalism in science, however, does not arise because it is "not OK" to introduce the supernatural (a rule of science), but comes directly from how experiments are done. As a simple example, let us assume we want to find the entities necessary for plant growth. We hypothesize that air, sunlight, soil, and water (to name a few entities) are necessary. We test the hypothesis by attempting to grow plants when just one of these entities, at a time, is missing and compare it to the situation when all the entities are present. Thus, we can have a plant in a completely dark room but potted and watered and compare it to a plant in a windowed room. Now, how do we test the entity "supernatural"? Which plant can we point to and say "I know that supernatural is absent from this one" so that we can compare it to a plant where supernatural is present? This is impossible and therefore science is methodologically naturalistic. I think a better term would be methodologically materialistic. Science looks at material causes because these are the only causes for which we can construct experimental controls. Science therefore provides a component of an explanation: the material component. Science cannot say whether or not there is a supernatural component in addition to the material component. Within theology, is deity to be found only in discontinuities between material causes and is this view of deity legitimate within Judeo-Christian theology?

"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." Butler: Analogy of Revealed Religion" from Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species, Fontispiece.

This statement by Butler shows that, from the side of theology, supernatural is thought to be a part of all 'natural' processes. A part that is undetectable by science. Science cannot comment on the accuracy of this statement. It is a belief. However, it is just as much a belief to say that there is no supernatural component in addition to the material component. As Dr. Dahms says "This [methodological naturalism] is an empirical observation not prescriptive metaphysical fiat."

Within Judeo-Christianity, there are profound objections to looking for discontinuities: "There are profound biblical objections to such a "God-of-the-gaps," as this understanding of God's relation to the universe has come to be called. By "gap" it is meant that no member or members of the universe can be found to account for regularly occurring phenomana in nature. God is inserted in the gaps which could be occupied by members of the universe. This is theologically improper because God, as creator of the universe, is not a member of the universe. God can never properly be used in scientific accounts, which are formulated in terms of the relations between members of the universe, because that would reduce God to the status of a creature. According to a Christian conception of God as creator of a universe that is rational through and through, there are no missing relations between the members of nature. If, in our study of nature, we run into what seems to be an instance of a connection missing between members of nature, the Christian doctrine of creation implies that we should keep looking for one. ...But, according to the doctrine of creation, we are never to postulate God as the *immediate* cause of any *regular* [emphases in original] occurrence in nature. In time, a "God of the gaps" was seen to be bad science as well as bad theology. Science now is programamatically committed to a view of nature in which there are no gaps between members of the universe." Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Postmodern World, pp. 45-46.

What Dr. Dahms proposes is to re-introduce this god-of-the-gaps theology as methodological supernaturalism. We are to accept discontinuities: instantaneous creation of all parts of the universe in 6-8 days or insertion of specific DNA sequences into genes, for example. Notice that these discontinuities exist in the past. Dr. Dahms does not suggest detecting discontinuities in present time. Supposedly in field and laboratory studies of changing populations, we are not to assume that any changes in gene frequency are due to insertion of DNA sequences by direct action of deity, but rather to the material mechanisms of mutation that have been observed. This therefore leaves unanswered the question of how methodological supernaturalists "would include the supernatural in the practice of science."

The only suggestion of how this would be done is when Dr. Dahms discusses the intelligent designers, "Here God directly or indirectly inserts the difficult bits so that nature can bridge across some critical design chasms which nature cannot manage. In this way god gets to direct the process." Instead of directly detecting discontinuities, we can only state that known material causes are insufficient to produce the effect. Yet again there is no clear criteria of how to go about showing insufficiency. Instead of proposing experiments and conducting tests, MSNs are left with nothing but trying to critique the material causes found by others.

Instead of introducing a new way of doing science, what is proposed by those advocating methdological supernaturalism is actually an a priori assertion that deity exists by first declaring discontinuities to exist. Dr. Dahms states this explicitly when he says "The issues are so substantial that those who would wish to assume MSN would far prefer that the majority of scientists go along with this than go it alone by forming a completely discrete branch of the whole scientific enterprise." Instead of using science as a means of determining if deity exists, deity is to be assumed to exist and operate by discontinuities and then science is to be altered so that this can happen. The reason the "majority of scientists" have to go along is to control the process so that only the viewpoint of the MSN advocates is considered. Is it any wonder that scientists resist this approach? It destroys the whole basis of science as we know it. Instead of investigating what the universe actually is, MSN declares by fiat what the universe is and then demands that scientists agree.

Finally, we need to address the underlying concern expressed as "In spite of this high degree of pragmatic unanimity on how to do science, from the very outset many scientists function with a dichotomous vision. Surveys suggest that some 45% believe in a personal God. ... Nonetheless some significant proportion of scientists necessarily compartmentalize their psyches. They are methodological naturalists but philosophic supernaturalists."

Is there a compartmentalization of psyches? If a scientist accepts Butler's statement on the nature of what is "natural", then there is no compartmentalization. The scientist simply discovers the material method by which deity works and believes that the material method will not work unless continually supported and sustained by the supernatural. There is no dichotomy: the material process, including evolution, is simply deity at work. All that is necessary is discarding a god-of-the-gaps theology that is not supported by either science or theology.

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Published   2002.06.10