The question of theological monogenism is not beyond the competence of Pius XII, as you assert, because he addresses the theological issue of polygenism’s compatibility with Original Sin, a matter entirely within his proper authority.
That might be so, but he is not competent to address the issue of whether living humans are descended from two sole parents, or whether human ancestry arises from a much larger breeding population. The scientific findings definitively conclude the latter, and Pius XII is not competent to disagree.
You claim that “the application of the methodology of science that has revealed deeply non-intuitive, uncaused and logically contradictory phenomena. When I say that the necessity of causality (one damned thing after another ) is undermined by findings of modern science, I mean what I say - we have observed uncaused phenomena, even if most macroscopic phenomena do indeed follow a causal structure, so the necessity of causality in all circumstances has gone. Aquinas is in even deeper hot water when it comes to motion and contingency.” Once again, you fail to grasp the force of my point about the metaphysical presuppositions of natural science.
I haven’t failed to grasp your point. I say that your point is invalid, not only because the pursuit of knowledge by natural science does not require an axiomatic basis that treats causality, motion and contingency in the same way that Aquinas understands them (you make an error in claiming that it does), but because the findings of natural science show that such concepts are not necessarily universally true.
If phenomena can be “logically contradictory,” how can you be sure of any experimental observation – since it might equally be as false as true, as not real as real?
Because we can make repeatable observations that entail contradictory explanations - in other words we can conclude that the universe always acts in this contradictory way. Reality is contradictory, and consistently so. Examples of this are the wave particle duality on a small scale which is real but entails mutually contradictory attributes, quantum tunnelling, and entanglement, such as demonstarted by violations of Bell’s inequality. Consider also quantum superpositions where things can be and not be at the same time.
Metaphysical causality does not mean “one thing after another.” That is Hume’s misunderstanding. Modern science takes causality as predictability, which can admit exceptions. But metaphysical causality means that what does not fully explain itself needs extrinsic explanation. Does any scientist allow that phenomena, say, a precipate of a certain color, or an unexpected explosion – requires no explanation?
Of course. Quantum indeterminacy means that we have to accept certain events as brute facts without further extrinsic cause - take, for example, a radioactive isotope. We know that an atom of such a thing will decay at some point, but we cannot say when, because radioactive decay is formally uncaused. Similarly, on as vast a scale as we can see, the cosmos consists of stars, galaxies of stars, clusters of galaxies, and superclusters of clusters. The actual distribution of matter is a consequence of quantum fluctuations in the distribution of energy immediately after the Big bang - that the fluctuations are quantum effects can be shown by their gaussian, adiabatic and scale invariant distribution. Beyond the existence of quantum fluctuations in the scalar field during inflation there is no further explanation - the quantum fluctuations are themselves a brute fact and uncaused.
If so, all scientific enquiry ceases – and so does science itself. Natural science does not defend these principles of non-contradiction and needed causal explanation. And any experimental conclusion contradicting them would deny its own epistemic foundations.
We have seen that this is not so, because what science does is to cut off the branch of Aristotleian and Thomistic notions of causality, motion and contingency - but science is not sitting on that branch at all. Its epistemic foundation is no more, and need be no more, than the observation that our sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and our information processing results in conclusions which are in concordance with reality - such a conclusion is self evident, unless one is prepared to descend into solipsism. Formal science can start from folk science, and is validated by performing successfully. No metaphysics is required.
Modern science does not own the title of “science.” What it owns is the experimental method. But not all knowledge is had through experimentation, since no experiment can prove that experimentation is the only form of knowing.
There is more natural science than the “experimental method” as even a passing acquaintance with the philosophy of science will show. No experiment can
prove anything (although it can disprove propositions) - science is not a formally axiomatic pursuit, like mathematics. The observation that our sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and information processing produce beliefs that correspond to reality, and that that reality is consistent in time and place, is the only required epistemic basis for doing science. Science’s foundations need not be the top down of metaphysics, but the bottom up of folk science.
If we take “science” as a method for acquiring knowledge, it is no accident that the word has become synonymous with natural science - it is because, over time, natural science is the one method for acquiring beliefs about reality that has been irrefutably and demonstrably successful.
The second “axiom,” that reality is not capricious, would mean that reality does not suddenly change. We don’t observe a purple precipitate and then say, “Well, maybe it is really yellow!” That is to say, this “axiom” presupposes the principle of non-contradiction, properly defended in metaphysics. (See Lagrange’s work cited previously.)
I deny that these bases for science are axioms that need to be defended by any metaphysical consideration. They are observations that we make about the universe - we can say that our senses and reason give rise to beliefs that correspond to reality, because that is how we manage to cross the road, never mind live in the universe - anything else is impossible. We say that reality is not capricious, which is the assumption or axiom that the laws of physics in this universe are the same for all places and times - that assumption cannot possibly be validated by metaphysics; it is an assumption based on local observation, and one that observations of distant objects in the early universe do not so far violate.
The proper understanding of the roles of the various science is necessary in order to grasp why the reality of Adam and Eve and the special creation of man is not the proper domain of natural science alone, but rather belongs primarily to philosophy and theology.
To say that the reality of Adam and Eve belongs primarily to philosophy and theology is to create a fallacy - according to the appropriate method for acquiring true beliefs about the physical universe, natural science, there was no reality of Adam and Eve. It is consistent, however, with the observation that theology is the science of non-existent objects.
Alec
evolutionpages.com
- as explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, second edition. ISBN 1-57455-109-4