From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gis.net>
Subject: Re: BHA: Explanatory Power
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 18:19:04 -0400


Hi all--

I think Mervyn has summarized the case quite well, although there does seem
to be a degree of dovetailing among the various positions.  One point he
made I think bears some comment:

>             Here both [Roy] and Norris again seem to be in agreement:
> while a qualified instrumentalism is currently rational in the quantum
> case, sciences in the past have ultimately advanced on realist, not
> instrumentalist principles, ie greater explanatory power has won the day
> by provision of a causal-explanatory account of the phenomena under
> investigation[.]

I don't see why this shouldn't also hold for our account of adjudication
between theories.  Colin's position that "anything might go and what will go
best will depend upon where we want to go if you like" (22 Jun) is, I think,
more or less intrumentalist in character, and while he regularly asserts
that empirical evidence is important, he also insists that such evidence
cannot be prioritized.  The context in which he most recently says this --
his latest reply to Mervyn -- is interesting:

[Mervyn:]
> This of course has
> > in no way precluded the deployment of a range of non-empirical
> > epistemological criteria; indeed, the provisional entertainment of ideas
> > without observational warrant has been crucial to the development of
> > science - in order to progress science has to assume that the way things
> > are is *not* what we take it to be on the best evidence etc currently
> > available. This is Colin's main point as far as I'm concerned.

[Colin:]
> And that as this is the case epistemological criteria for theory choice
> cannot be legitimated in advance; so no prioritising of the empirical or
any
> other criteria in advance of assessing competing claims.

Here Colin has muddled the practices and resources used in theory
adjudication with those of theory *creation* (note Mervyn's phrase
"provisional entertainment").  Even dreams are useful for the latter; but
when the theory ultimately reaches the light of day, empirical evidence is
*necessary*, even if it is not always *sufficient*.  Certainly, there are
many cases where (at least for some period, and possibly forever) the
empirical evidence is *not* sufficient.  At that point other criteria have
to enter the discussion.  But I don't think a realist approach to theory
choice can ever completely dispense with empirical evidence.  Hence realism,
if its materialism is to remain intact, *must* give empirical evidence
priority when judging among theories.  That said, priority is scarcely the
same as exclusivity; the latter would indeed be empiricist.

Doug argues that religious beliefs can be considered with roughly the same
rigor as science.  I think this holds for the logical *consequences* of
religious premises (hence Aquinas, Duns Scotus, etc), but not for the
premises themselves.  How many proofs of God's existence have there been?
How many have held up?  This does not of course mean that there is no God
(or for that matter that religion is "bad for you"), but at least so far
God's existence has not been susceptible to empirical demonstration and
hence religion as such cannot be made scientific.  Anthropic coincidences in
cosmology may be just that -- coincidences -- or may be due to processes
that have a material rather than divine explanation.  And so forth.

With that I return to my caveat about materialism.  CR maintains that
something is real if it has causal powers.  Well, a key reason for making
empirical evidence the first line of attack (or defense) of a theory is that
materiality *forces* us to contend with it.  That is a causal power.  Even
religions *have* to accommodate the fact that (for example) bad things
happen to good people.  That's empirical, material evidence which cannot be
blithely ignored.  Thus our account of theory adjudication can progress on
realist principles: realism can explain at least a key portion (and
potentially more) of "explanatory power" itself.

Thanks, T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-mail.com
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce




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