Question on Atheism

[fakename]

Just a question out of curiosity:

Supposedly, scientific theories are less likely to be true the more evidence is gained to support them, since the more a theory explains, the more likely it is to come up against something that falsifies it.

If that is true, what makes it not a problem not only for your atheism, but for your search for truth in general?

Thanks

 

[excubitor]

Science is always coming up with falsifications of their theories. Their solution is to propose more theories to explain away the falsification of their original theory. After a hundred years of this we now have a entire framework of science which is propped up with theory upon theory.

A classic example is when they examined star clusters and applied their formulas to them they discovered that the clusters should fly apart because there was simply not enough mass to provide the gravity to keep them gravitationally bound. Their solution? Invent an entirely new theoretical substance Dark Matter.

Now we are told that 90% of the universe is made up of Dark matter. In effect we are told that we are living by blind faith if we believe in a God who cannot be seen, but scientists as an alternative propose that we believe in Dark matter which also nobody has ever seen or witnessed.

Further to this folly, we then spend billions of dollars on particle accelerators and Hadron colliders to discover these theoretical substances. The sad reality for science though is that dark matter is nothing more than a figment of the imagination of scientists. The need to theorise and invent Dark matter and black holes and other mythological phenomena is merely evidence that their former theories have already been falsified, and they just don’t want to be forced to admit it.

 

[Sair]

A scientific theory - or indeed any model we create of the real world (since that’s what we all do) needs to be able to explain the things we observe and experience. If we observe or experience something that doesn’t fit the model, we adjust the model to incorporate the new evidence. Not clear on why you’d think this process hampers the quest for truth - I rather thought that was the whole point.

When scientists posit theoretical entities, such as dark matter and so on, they do so in order to theoretically account for specific observations - the theoretical entity is defined, and behaves in specific ways to produce the effects observed by scientists. This, I suspect, is quite a different process to throwing up one’s hands and declaring that a supernatural entity must have caused something; such an ‘explanation’ is not informative - a supernatural entity by definition is not subject to any natural limitations, therefore can behave in any way in any given circumstances. If anything, my view is that when some religious believers ask, “when are scientists going to accept the truth of (insert preferred deity here)?” what they’re really asking is, when are the scientists going to give up?

 

[inocente]

Supposedly, scientific theories are less likely to be true the more evidence is gained to support them, since the more a theory explains, the more likely it is to come up against something that falsifies it.

That’s a roundabout way of saying science is self-correcting. It works on falsification not proof, and the only good theory is one that conforms to the evidence, the rest go in the bin. Many people never seem to realize science is a journey not a final resting place.

 

[inocente]

Now we are told that 90% of the universe is made up of Dark matter. In effect we are told that we are living by blind faith if we believe in a God who cannot be seen, but scientists as an alternative propose that we believe in Dark matter which also nobody has ever seen or witnessed.

Dark matter is just a guess about why the measurements don’t add up – observation indicates a rather big missing mass so something interesting is going on. No need to believe in dark matter, be as skeptical as you like, it’s just a guess that allows further work to be done to get closer to the truth.

 

[Al_Moritz]

A scientific theory - or indeed any model we create of the real world (since that’s what we all do) needs to be able to explain the things we observe and experience. If we observe or experience something that doesn’t fit the model, we adjust the model to incorporate the new evidence. Not clear on why you’d think this process hampers the quest for truth - I rather thought that was the whole point.

When scientists posit theoretical entities, such as dark matter and so on, they do so in order to theoretically account for specific observations - the theoretical entity is defined, and behaves in specific ways to produce the effects observed by scientists.

All that is correct.

This, I suspect, is quite a different process to throwing up one’s hands and declaring that a supernatural entity must have caused something; such an ‘explanation’ is not informative - a supernatural entity by definition is not subject to any natural limitations, therefore can behave in any way in any given circumstances.

Science follows methodological naturalism, i.e. it always looks for natural causes to effects in nature. This does not mean it denies the supernatural, it just excludes it as a possible explanation. Those who criticize this should realize that methodological naturalism is not an ‘atheistic invention’ but was established as metholodogy by the scientists who started the scientific revolution and who were all explicit believers in God.

Philosophically, these scientists were interested in discovering the laws of nature that they believed God had given and according to which the world operates. But science itself is philosophically neutral. I am a scientist myself (a biochemist) and I believe God created the world (I am Catholic too). But I do not “bring God to the lab bench”. Neither does methodological naturalism, the essential tool by which science operates, automatically imply metaphysical naturalism, i.e. the philosophy that nature is all there is, and there is no God.

If anything, my view is that when some religious believers ask, “when are scientists going to accept the truth of (insert preferred deity here)?” what they’re really asking is, when are the scientists going to give up?

Scientists will always try to come up with natural causes for anything, that is simply how science as a method works – nothing either theistic nor atheistic about it (again, science itself is philosophically neutral). However, some questions lie simply outside science; they cannot in principle be answered by science.

For example, “why are things the way they are?”. Science asks the question "how are things the way they are?, but it is silent on the Why. For instance, while science can establish the fact of evolution, it cannot answer the question of why is there evolution in the first place.

Of course it is because the laws of nature are the way they are, but why are these laws the way they are? Is it because they simply are because that’s the way it is, as a brute fact, or because there is a God who designed these laws? Science cannot answer this ultimate Why. Even if there were a multiverse, for example, that caused the Big Bang from which our particular universe was generated (something that science cannot establish because of the principal observational limit of the particle horizon *), the question would still remain, why does that multiverse exist and why is it the way it is?

*) the maximum distance from which particles (i.e. also particles carrying information) could have traveled to the observer in the age of the universe. It represents the portion of the universe which we could have conceivably observed at the present day. A wider universe, e.g., a multiverse, would lie outside the particle horizon.

 

[inocente]

For example, “why are things the way they are?”. Science asks the question "how are things the way they are?, but it is silent on the Why. For instance, while science can establish the fact of evolution, it cannot answer the question of why is there evolution in the first place.

It’s often used but I’ve never been sure about this “how” versus “why". If we ask why there’s rain, science gives a pretty good and complete answer. It’s only when we keep drilling down asking why that science eventually runs out of answers. At that point we can hypothesize the existence of God, but if we go on asking why, why does God exist, why is there existence at all, still ultimately fail, for although many people have tried to prove the existence of God, many objections to those attempts have been raised.

So while agreeing with you, I’d go further and say there are some questions outside the realm not just of science but of philosophy, where the only thing to do is stop asking why and live by faith, not by sight.

 

[fakename]

That’s a roundabout way of saying science is self-correcting. It works on falsification not proof, and the only good theory is one that conforms to the evidence, the rest go in the bin. Many people never seem to realize science is a journey not a final resting place.

I don’t think however, that science finds the truth of the matter even if it is self-correcting. Again, the more a theory explains the more probability it has of meeting something that is outside the theory, and so the bigger the theory, the less likely it is to be true -the theory of gravity is less true than whatever proceeded it and newtonian physics is more true than general relativity, etc.

 

[Al_Moritz]

It’s often used but I’ve never been sure about this “how” versus “why". If we ask why there’s rain, science gives a pretty good and complete answer.

Yes, but that “why” is really just a “how”. How do the laws of nature work so that there is rain? But as I said in my previous post, science cannot give an answer to the ultimate “why”: why are these laws of nature themselves the way they are?

It’s only when we keep drilling down asking why that science eventually runs out of answers. At that point we can hypothesize the existence of God, but if we go on asking why, why does God exist, why is there existence at all, still ultimately fail, for although many people have tried to prove the existence of God, many objections to those attempts have been raised.

So while agreeing with you, I’d go further and say there are some questions outside the realm not just of science but of philosophy, where the only thing to do is stop asking why and live by faith, not by sight.

Ultimately the embrace of God is by faith, yes, because it requires not just an act of the intellect, but an act of will, helped by God’s grace. It also requires a full embrace with as much certainty as we can muster, sufficient certainty as to live by it, something (the existence of God) that on a purely natural basis is just probable, even if it is highly probable.

Having said that, I could never believe if rational philosophical arguments would not render the existence of God for me highly probable. Without that for sure I would have become an atheist a few years ago. Also the Catholic Church teaches that there is, and must be, a rational basis for faith. The Church explicitly rejects fideism, i.e. faith just for faith’s sake, without rational reason.

As for the limits of philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Christian philosopher, said in essence the following::
While the question of the existence of God and his basic attributes of omnipotence, timelessness, goodness etc. is within the realm of philosophy, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and other articles of faith, is not. This is the domain of divine revelation.

So yes, philosophy alone has its limits too, you are right.

 

[inocente]

I don’t think however, that science finds the truth of the matter even if it is self-correcting. Again, the more a theory explains the more probability it has of meeting something that is outside the theory, and so the bigger the theory, the less likely it is to be true -the theory of gravity is less true than whatever proceeded it and newtonian physics is more true than general relativity, etc.

By that logic wouldn’t no theory at all be the truest of all?

Einstein’s theory of gravity accords with observations not available to Newton, but Newton’s theory is still useful since it gives correct answers in the limited circumstances here on Earth. In the future Einstein’s theory may also have to be replaced but will still keep on working in all currently known circumstances. Each theory gets closer to the truth, but there’s no way of knowing the Ultimate True Equation Of Gravity when the future may always turn up new evidence.

If you know a better way to get at truths about nature then don’t keep it to yourself, you’ll be very rich, famous and honored.

 

[inocente]

Having said that, I could never believe if rational philosophical arguments would not render the existence of God for me highly probable. Without that for sure I would have become an atheist a few years ago.

That’s interesting, I took the exact opposite route - became a Christian because it goes beyond the rational.

As for the limits of philosophy, St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest Christian philosopher, said in essence the following::
While the question of the existence of God and his basic attributes of omnipotence, timelessness, goodness etc. is within the realm of philosophy, the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and other articles of faith, is not. This is the domain of divine revelation.

Don’t often agree with him, but he hits the nail on the head there alright.

 

[fakename]

By that logic wouldn’t no theory at all be the truest of all?

I certainly don’t think so. The truest theories would be the ones that only have to explain a limited set of facts -the fewer the facts to explain, the more true it would be. That is, if I only have to explain the existence of a few white swans I don’t have a very high chance of meeting a black swan so the chances of my theory of white swans being disconfirmed by experience is low and the theory is on stabler grounds.

Einstein’s theory of gravity accords with observations not available to Newton, but Newton’s theory is still useful since it gives correct answers in the limited circumstances here on Earth. In the future Einstein’s theory may also have to be replaced but will still keep on working in all currently known circumstances. Each theory gets closer to the truth, but there’s no way of knowing the Ultimate True Equation Of Gravity when the future may always turn up new evidence.

**That’s because the more data you explain, the more likely you’ll meet with something that will falsify the theory -If you travel the world looking at swans you’ll have a greater chance than I of finding a black swan and your theory will be falsified -so technically any new theory has to be shakier than any theory that came before -it departs further and further from the truth rather than approaching it. **

If you know a better way to get at truths about nature then don’t keep it to yourself, you’ll be very rich, famous and honored.

I do have a better way -apriorism and deduction from axioms. I don’t think experimentation, whether it be verificationist or falsificationist can be a useful guide to truth because even if your theory is always true, you could never know that it is, since you can’t decide that unless you have an (impossibly) infinite # of experiments.

 

[fakename]

Does anyone else notice the irony that no atheists have commented on this thread?

 

[Sair]

Fakename,

I certainly don’t think so. The truest theories would be the ones that only have to explain a limited set of facts -the fewer the facts to explain, the more true it would be. That is, if I only have to explain the existence of a few white swans I don’t have a very high chance of meeting a black swan so the chances of my theory of white swans being disconfirmed by experience is low and the theory is on stabler grounds.

I think I’ve finally found the flaw in your logic - you are thinking only of the breadth of knowledge, not the quality of it. If you are confined to an area in which only white swans exist, your theory that all swans are white will be true as far as it goes, but it will not be an accurate model of the wider reality that actually exists.

That’s because the more data you explain, the more likely you’ll meet with something that will falsify the theory -If you travel the world looking at swans you’ll have a greater chance than I of finding a black swan and your theory will be falsified -so technically any new theory has to be shakier than any theory that came before -it departs further and further from the truth rather than approaching it.

The theory as a whole won’t be falsified, only one aspect of it - if your theory is that whiteness is a defining element of a swan, and you observe a black swan, you will simply need to accommodate the fact that swans are not, by definition, white. A black swan still has all the other features of a swan, so the theory is altered, and thus closer to encompassing the whole of the reality of swans.

I do have a better way -apriorism and deduction from axioms. I don’t think experimentation, whether it be verificationist or falsificationist can be a useful guide to truth because even if your theory is always true, you could never know that it is, since you can’t decide that unless you have an (impossibly) infinite # of experiments.

Where do you get your axioms, and how would you know if they accorded with reality?

 

[fakename]

Fakename,

I think I’ve finally found the flaw in your logic - you are thinking only of the breadth of knowledge, not the quality of it. If you are confined to an area in which only white swans exist, your theory that all swans are white will be true as far as it goes, but it will not be an accurate model of the wider reality that actually exists.

I think quality and quantity are both very important for knowledge -if not, then knowledge would consist of knowing only a small part of the world or it would consist of knowing things only in general and not in particular, which I think no one would agree to .

The theory as a whole won’t be falsified, only one aspect of it - if your theory is that whiteness is a defining element of a swan, and you observe a black swan, you will simply need to accommodate the fact that swans are not, by definition, white. A black swan still has all the other features of a swan, so the theory is altered, and thus closer to encompassing the whole of the reality of swans.

Yeah, that’s true but then the hypothesis that replaces it -All swans are not necessarily white would have to falsifiable and then, if experience falsifies it, it would’ve revealed itself as being even less strong than the original hypothesis.

Where do you get your axioms, and how would you know if they accorded with reality?

I think that falsification could work as a method of science but only if one could deduce how many options there are in the universe -so that one could definitely come to the truth of something by trial and error. That being said such a system would be not be “empiricist” in spirit. My axioms are self-evidently true statements so they are already true based on the logic of the statements and the ability of the soul to intuit things. For instance, “every whole is greater than the part” is true by definition, so is, “truth exists” or “man exhibits purposeful behavior”. These can be considered statements that are true, from which other statements are derivable, and don’t need to be proved by experience or experiment.

 

[Sair]

Fakename,

I think quality and quantity are both very important for knowledge -if not, then knowledge would consist of knowing only a small part of the world or it would consist of knowing things only in general and not in particular, which I think no one would agree to .

Then there seems no alternative but to expand one’s enquiry in order to increase knowledge. It’s better to have a theory falsified or adjusted than to persist in thinking that some explanation is true when it isn’t - only consider, for example, the theories of humours and of miasma as explanations for the treatment and proliferation of disease.

Yeah, that’s true but then the hypothesis that replaces it -All swans are not necessarily white would have to falsifiable and then, if experience falsifies it, it would’ve revealed itself as being even less strong than the original hypothesis.

This seems like a one-way street to me. Once a negation of a theory has been observed, then the theory as it stands is invalidated. It would take a significant alteration in reality for the original theory to become valid again.

I think that falsification could work as a method of science but only if one could deduce how many options there are in the universe -so that one could definitely come to the truth of something by trial and error. That being said such a system would be not be “empiricist” in spirit. My axioms are self-evidently true statements so they are already true based on the logic of the statements and the ability of the soul to intuit things. For instance, “every whole is greater than the part” is true by definition, so is, “truth exists” or “man exhibits purposeful behavior”. These can be considered statements that are true, from which other statements are derivable, and don’t need to be proved by experience or experiment.

Things that are self-evident are still evident - that is, learned and validated by observation and experience. That a statement is true by definition only follows from the existence of language, of words and other symbols with agreed definitions. The source of the language is still observed realities about which we wish to communicate. I’m not sure what you mean by the ability of the soul to intuit things - this still points to an external, objective reality about which we may have intuitions.

 

[Touchstone]

Does anyone else notice the irony that no atheists have commented on this thread?

Haven’t been here in some weeks (stuck in the “crunch time” cycle of software development for a while), but was referred here by a friend who hangs out here regularly.

I didn’t even go look at the status of the “sticky” threads, but “atheism” as an overt topic was problematic on this forum last I checked. That might be one factor.

But really, I think your basic message is here is confused enough that it seems difficult to even get a handle on it in response.

Just a question out of curiosity:

Supposedly, scientific theories are less likely to be true the more evidence is gained to support them, since the more a theory explains, the more likely it is to come up against something that falsifies it.

It’s true to say that every relevant bit of evidence is a “hurdle” a theory must clear, and as such, it provides another case where the theory might be falsified or at least challenged. A performative theory has to “pass all the tests”, so the more tests a theory takes, the more opportunities is has to fail.

But there’s an old saw that observes: “reality has a liberal bias”, a statement which is not meant to steer this in a political direction, but rather to point out that challenges are not evenly distributed among competing ideas and theories (right wing theory, according to the aphorism, is inherently more likely to fail because it is less isomorphic to the state of the real world).

The point of that being: for a solid, performative theory, more tests are not actual threats. The test is not a flip of the coin, but a test of the model. If the model is accurate, within tolerances, the model is at no risk at all to being subject to more tests. Our theory of gravity is not “more likely to be falsified” by my doing repeated tests of rates of falling objects in my basement, day in and day it.

The more powerful a theory is, the less trouble it has in predicting future outcomes, and accounting for present and past measurements and observations. For a “true” theory, more tests are better, and only serve to discredit inferior competing theories who cannot match its predictive prowess or evidential accounting.

Your idea is only problematic if the world is wholly intractable for science; not law based at all, impervious to model-building, mathematical abstraction, isotropy, symmetry, etc. That’s a metaphysical scenario that’s logically possible; we have no way to say that metaphysically, the world must be intelligible via science, a priori.

To the extent we trust our senses, though, (and to a significant degree, we cannot “untrust” our senses), science does indeed appear to be a successful enterprise to some degree. The world is intelligible in some measure, and admits of model building, mathematical abstraction, description by law, etc.

Given that, then, we expect that models that are “true” will prevail no matter how many tests of empirical observations are thrown at it. The “threat” of new evidence is only an actual threat for false or inaccurate models. A robustly performative theory is under no theat of new tests or evidence gathering. It can only be validated if it is a truly performative theory.

If that is true, what makes it not a problem not only for your atheism, but for your search for truth in general?

Thanks

As above, it’s only a problem if we suppose that reality is not real, and that our senses and experiences of the extramental world do not reflect the actual state of that extramental world. If one accepts that reality is real, and the senses reflect that reality, then tests and the falsification that test permit are a knowledge builder’s best friend, a scientists “power tool”, in terms of epistemology.

Science is anti-religion in the sense that it is eliminative, and succeeds based on trying to ever disprove itself and to ruthlessly discredit any and all models through empirical review.

Under that hostile regimen, only the theories that cannot be assaulted with the facts and evidences available are left standing. This doesn’t make them “true” in some dogmatic or religious sense, but rather “less false”, less susceptible to overthrow by real world testing than any other ideas.

And that has turned out to be a highly effective and useful heuristic indeed.

-TS

 

[Sair]

Does anyone else notice the irony that no atheists have commented on this thread?

Just for the record, I’d like to point out that whilst I identify as a pantheist, owing to my reverence for nature, I would probably still qualify as an atheist to most religious believers. I’m a metaphysical naturalist and I lack belief in a personal, anthropomorphic god, so I think that pretty much covers the main bugbears of supernaturalist and humanist believers…

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Atheism is not a scientific hypothesis, though atheists have relied heavily upon advances in science to promote it. But there is a logical disconnect in the notion that science can disprove the existence of God. God by definition is not subject to scientific analysis.

Atheism is not really a scientific issue at all. It is an act of the will, which refuses to allow the existence of any reality outside the natural order. It is also an of rebellion against the ancient notion of an Ego bigger than one’s own. Atheism tends to lose its force when the individual ego realizes at last that it might be absorbed in friendship by that same Ego bigger than its own.

Deathbed conversions are legion, and the ones we don’t even know about may be more legion than the ones we do know about.

 

[ddarko]

Touchstone,

I would agree with your reply for the most part except for the following:-

As above, it’s only a problem if we suppose that reality is not real, and that our senses and experiences of the extramental world do not reflect the actual state of that extramental world. If one accepts that reality is real, and the senses reflect that reality, then tests and the falsification that test permit are a knowledge builder’s best friend, a scientists “power tool”, in terms of epistemology.

I think you might have misidentified the cause of the problem. The problem is not in doubting reality but wanting everything to be inductively proven true.

There are truths which are Scientific and truths that are not.

Science is anti-religion in the sense that it is eliminative, and succeeds based on trying to ever disprove itself and to ruthlessly discredit any and all models through empirical review.

I think this claim is way off. Science is not anti-religion at all. Science deals with a different class of truths that are falsifiable. It has no say on the matter of ‘non-scientific truths’ or on whether ‘Only scientific truths are valuable’ because both truths are not Scientifically answerable.

God Bless