Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 08:47:10 -0500
From: Doug Porpora <porporad-AT-drexel.edu>
Subject: Re: BHA: Explanatory Power


Hi Tobin,

Let me follow my comrade's almost prophetic sounding provocation with more
prosaic prose.

>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?

Premises?  You mean like axioms?  I have none.  Proofs?!  As nothing
empirical can be proven with mathematical certainty, it hardly seems fair
to hold religious debate to that standard.  Let's talk  instead about
inference to the best explanation.

>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.

Yes, of course the anthropic coincidences of cosmology might all be nothing
other than coincidences.  But are you suggesting this is even a reasonable
explanation?  Equally coincidental might be all statistically significant
results ever obtained by all scientists in all disciplines.  As
infinitesmally small as that probability is, the probability associated
with the anthropic coincidences is still smaller.  That is why no physicist
considers them such.  The physics community considers them a puzzle to be
explained.

To blithely attribute the anthropic coincidences to chance seems awfully
cavalier with the empirical evidence.  Ironic, isn't it?  On two counts:

1)  You say:

>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.

I totally agree as does Colin.  Now look what happens. I dutifully serve up
some empirical evidence, and you dismiss it out of hand.  That takes us to
the second irony.

2)  When we theists want to talk evidence, the atheists more or less
suggest it is okay for us to have faith in our nonsense as long as we keep
it to ourselves and don't bother the real scientists with it.  I have to
wonder whose faith is really being gored here. For you just to presume that
some material process or another will explain the anthropic coincidences
sounds to me much like faith in atheism.  That's okay. But please don't
project your atheistic faith onto us theists.

My point was never that the anthropic coincidences prove God's existence
with mathematical certainty.  My point was never even that the anthropic
coincidences  now establish God as the best explanation.  In fact, as you
suggest, there is a  material process that might explain the anthropic
coincidences without God.  It is called cosmic inflation. It has some good
empirical credentials.  And according to certain inflationary models, our
universe is one of almost an infinite number of others, in which case the
law of large numbers would take all the mystery out of the design-like
features of ours.

Whether there are effectively an infinite number of other universes out
there or just this, very designed-looking one is still up for grabs.  My
only point was that there is public, empirical evidence that epistemically
bears on whether or not God exists.  It won't prove it one way or another,
and even on a Lakatosian model, the game will take a long time to conclude.
(The Lakatosian model, by the way, works very well here as the inflationary
research program remains promising despite the failure of the initial
inflationary models.)

The fact that I take the Inflationary model seriously illustrates two
points. First, contrary to what has been alleged about Colin and me, I am
here noticeably valuing the empirical evidence -- and even Lakatos.
Second, I am considering empirical data on a theological matter, which,
ironically, it is the atheists -- not the theists -- who insist on
relegating to faith.

It is fair enough if our atheistic comrades have zero interest in religious
questions.  It is another matter altogether for them to claim that their
disinterest derives from theology's inaccessibility to either empirical
evidence in particular or to judgemental rationality in general.  To sound
more pomo than I would like, that just illicitly privileges Enlightenment
naturalism and keeps religion Other.

Finally, you say:

>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,

In what way does "anything might go" imply instrumentalism?  Especially as
I argued it derives from an alethic conception of truth?

Tobin, if I sound pissed, forgive me.  I'm not. Just in intellectual combat
mode, which I am always grateful for an opportunity to enter.

(And, yes, I know, neither you nor anyone else on the list ever said that
my religious views were "nonsense," which was my word, not anyone else's.
But being in this case a voice of the Academy's other, you may understand
if I detect a subtext suggesting religious claims are also not quite ready
for scientific prime time.)

doug







doug porpora
dept of psych and sociology
drexel university
phila pa 19104
USA

porporad-AT-drexel.edu




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