Teleology and the Limit of Science

I stumbled upon a Minute Physics video featuring Neil deGrasse Tyson discussing philosophy. I couldn't pass up this triumvirate of awesome things, so I gave it a watch.

After watching, I scrolled down to find that the comments section of this video, like any other where science intrudes on matters typically reserved for religion, is a veritable battlefield of choleric argument. But as I find occurring increasingly often, I discovered that I could not side with my fellow scientists (or, to say it perhaps more aptly given the inescapable subtext, my fellow atheists) in their rabidly empirical epistemologies. Certainly I share their conclusions, but I must also agree with the religious apologists that there exists a dogma of scientism in which the limit of our method is forgotten. I applaud Tyson for his argument, and I do this not simply because he plainly demonstrates the difficulty of the question, but because he does so with sober realization that conjecture, even empirically grounded, is not the same as fact.

Let us consider the epistemological basis for our method. Science entails a deliberate bias towards the null hypothesis—it carries the base assumption that, prior to empirical observation and statistical/logical/mathematical analysis of that observation, no knowledge exists except for one postulate: that, among any set of hypotheses, the possibility with the fewest positive assertions is the most likely. We can see this clearly in Tyson's thought as he systematically identifies issues which make particular postulates unlikely, and consequently defaults to the simplest postulate of all, the one with no positive assertions whatsoever, viz., that there simply is no purpose to the universe. This is, indeed, the idea most strongly favored by science.

But the humility of science must be preserved. There was a time that it saw no reason to believe that atoms contained discrete subparticles, and so it operated under the assumption that an atom was, as the concept's etymological root suggests, a truly indivisible billiard-ball-shaped item; this assumption was, as we now know, incorrect. It has been asserted by some on the basis of such corrections that science is merely a set of beliefs, that for all its pomp and surety it is really no different from religion. But this is an oversimplification. It would be more accurate to regard science as a pair of interdependent systems founded upon the same core principles: one of investigation, and one of speculation. Through the investigative system, science tests and re-tests its ideas with a statistical eye until it reaches assertions which tend to be so startlingly reliable that it is a struggle to call them anything other than objective fact. But the system of speculation employed by science is indeed simply speculation which happens to be systematic, and it is these speculations that we can accurately call beliefs; some might balk at this, but I would remind them again of the billiard ball atom and the multitude of other perfectly valid theories which ultimately proved wrong. We must keep our certainty within its statistical limits, and avoid ascribing to conjecture, even popular conjecture, any undue prestige by regarding it as fact.

Tyson is fully conscious of where science finds its limit, and he reminds us of this by both preceding and succeeding this discussion of science with admissions that he is uncertain in his belief. This gives us the proper way to regard Tyson's thesis: it is science, and it is mere belief, but this is neither a tautology nor a contradiction.

The Worthy Pride of Man

I'd pray for you to never pray if it would skew your faith
It pains to see you credit God where I see human power
I think I'd rather fall to Hell, to rings beyond the eighth
Than live outside of Babel and refuse to build a tower

I find no worthy meaning in a puppeted endeavor
If God is here, I welcome him and hope to find his love
But let that love not be the force I press against a lever
I live no life if all my acts are licensed from above

Random Seed Poetry 2: "Theodicy of a Cynic"

Seed words: staff, partitioning, flour, circuitry, consequence
If you don't know what this means, read the first post in the series for an explanation.

"Theodicy of a Cynic"

Among the dead, some live instead,
no less deserved of death,
the consequence of actions hence
defied with ev'ry breath.
The wrath of God, through Aaron's rod,
was illustrated plain,
but these few laugh and mock the staff
and yet they still remain.

Our laws defied and vilified
by villains and their gall,
we can't avoid that we're devoid
of any laws at all.
No justice then, within our ken,
appears to be at play,
and we cannot describe our lot
with what the prophets say.

Commentary: I know, there seems to be a pattern forming here. I'll try to get onto a new topic tomorrow. I suppose my religious views have been on my mind a lot the past couple of days, but to my credit this is at least about a different aspect of them. Here the title is fairly on-the-nose. It's a somewhat cynical discussion of theodicy (which is the field of religious studies concerned with answering the question, "Why does God allow evil to exist?"). The speaker of this poem isn't really me, it should be noted. I don't share these views precisely. It's simply a perspective which I find interesting to consider, and which arrives at a similar conclusion to mine.

Random Seed Poetry 1: "Trinity"

Inspired in large part by Jonathan Coulton's Thing a Week and Jonathan Mann's Song a Day, I have decided to take on a similar (but far less ambitious) project. Every day, I will randomly generate 5 common nouns and use two of them in a new poem. I will publish them to this blog as I complete them, along with a commentary of some sort (since, unlike many writers, I like explaining my work). Let's see how long I can keep this up!

Seed words: socialist, known, contraception, prayer, receiving

"Trinity"

I can't remember my last prayer
  living in this earthly box
there once was power in the air
  sealed away with cosmic locks
in lack of faith, I'm like a stone
  so sure am I, so solid here
I drop the soul and keep the known
  I place my faith in what is near

Commentary: This poem discusses my drift towards agnosticism and eventually atheism, which occurred over the course of my adolescence. I tried something new and possibly gimmicky with this. Try reading the poem three times — once in its entirety, once skipping the indented lines, and once skipping the unindented lines — and think of each as a distinct poem. The idea is to show a sort of internal back-and-forth, with different perspectives emerging from the conflict. The name is suggestive of both the Holy Trinity which I used to worship and the trinitarian nature of the poem itself.

A Criticism of a Criticism of a Criticism

There's a new viral video wherein a man recites a poem he wrote, railing against certain views of Christianity. Watch it, if you haven't already.


Now, there's also an article going around which criticizes that video. Read it, if you haven't already.

I don't like that article. I see some issues in it. Here's my analysis of it:

Fitzgerald begins his criticism of Jesus>Religion by talking about one of Bethke's other poems, trying to build a sentiment against him without actually saying anything about the poem in question. This goes on for an entire paragraph. I won't dissect that paragraph in detail — I'm just going to dismiss the entire thing as irrelevant.

In the third paragraph, Fitzgerald finally begins criticizing the poem. He doesn't actually say much about it. There's just a sarcastic statement which implicitly questions the very notion of "chains of religion" without actually offering an argument against the idea, and accusations of "false dichotomies and outright bad theology." Maybe in later paragraphs he'll expand on what, exactly, he means by that. Let's read on and see!

Fitzgerald says that Bethke "begins by suggesting that Jesus came to abolish religion". What he's failing to recognize is that this is a poem, not an essay. Words have different meanings than they do in prose, sculpted over the course of the poem. Clearly, "religion" does not mean the same thing here as it does in common English. Of course Jesus didn't want to abolish the belief in cosmic forces and entities which underlie the universe and give it meaning. To claim such would be absurd — he was, after all, a religious man himself. Bethke is giving the word "religion" a new meaning for his own purpose, and Fitzgerald ignores that.

Fitzgerald claims that the statement that "Republican doesn't automatically mean Christian" is off-topic. Is he even listening to the poem? The entire thing is about misguided notions of what it means to be Christian. Bethke is criticizing instutionalized, standardized approaches to religion, particularly those with the tendency to condemn groups which they classify as "sinners". In the United States, one aspect of this is that people who espouse conservative values — which are traditionally the mainstay of the Republican party — often call them "Christian values". Bethke is criticizing that. He does not think that those values are what true Christian values were intended to be, even if they have been values within various denominations for a long time.

Fitzgerald identifies one of Bethke's statements as playing "right into the hand of the so-called New Atheists". Now that is just sensationalism. There is no actual criticism there. He's just implicitly identifying "New Atheists" (whatever those are) as the enemy, and saying that Bethke is naively helping them along, without actually saying how or why that makes him necessarily wrong.

Then Fitzgerald says something that I, frankly, find hilarious. "See, he’s not actually on about religion, but about people whose expression of their faith doesn’t match his criteria. It’s not religious people he’s talking about, it’s what we used to call Sunday Christians." Yes, Fitzgerald, you are exactly right! That is, in fact, what he is using the word "religion" to mean! Except he's broadening it a bit — Bethke is also including the people who embrace their religion all week long, but focus on the rules rather than the sentiment. If you follow all the rules of your religion, but you never give a dime except when required, and you harshly condemn with an unforgiving attitude anyone who commits certain sins, then, according to Bethke, you are not truly in the spirit of it. Bethke is taking issue with the people who focus on the religion itself, not the faith and love behind it.

A few times, Fitzgerald claims that Bethke departs from the subject of religion. I'm honestly not sure where he's seeing that. And he pulls out a few nitpicky criticisms, like pointing out a slant rhyme, in an attempt to worsen the reader's opinion of Bethke. It's a good rhetorical trick — specifically, it's damaging Bethke's ethos — but, ultimately, it doesn't mean Fitzgerald is right in anything that he says. Those irrelevant details should be ignored in considering what both of them are saying.

Fitzgerald spends a few paragraphs doing little more than quote Bethke, then, at the end of it, says, "Where do we begin?" I would ask the same question, because it doesn't seem like Fitzgerald ever actually does begin on some of his arguments. Here's that accusation of false dichotomies again, but he's not naming what they are or why they're false. Then he questions a few statements: "Religion is an infection? Religion puts you in bondage? Religion makes you blind?" He never really refutes them, though. Keeping in mind Bethke's unique definition of "religion" for the purpose of this poem...yeah, all those statements seem to ring true. It's an infection in that this particular type of faith which Bethke dislikes does spread from person to person and, in his eyes, damage them. It puts people in bondage because they feel bound to follow the rules, rather than inspired to follow their morals. It makes people blind in that they do not see what is, in Bethke's opinion, the true Christian path.

Fitzgerald claims, "What Bethke is actually railing against is people whose expression of religion doesn’t look like he believes it should." Yeah. Yeah he is. That's what Fitzgerald is doing to Bethke, too. That's what everyone does when they express what they think religion should be like. Criticism implies disagreement, and disagreement implies an opinion. I don't see a problem here.

In Fitzgerald's closing, he summarizes his point that what Bethke is criticizing isn't actually religion as a whole, but a particular manifestation of religion. I'm astounded that he thinks that needs to be said. It's pretty clear, isn't it? That's the whole point of the poem. But Fitzgerald states it like it's a piercing insight into poorly chosen words. I think it's quite obvious that Bethke is building a specific concept, drawing a dichotomy between what he calls "religion" and what he calls "Christianity". He could just as easily have picked "doctrine" and "faith", or "rules" and "heart". It's a poem. Interpret it like one.

Fitzgerald seems to be good at scoffing, but bad at actually constructing arguments. Maybe he has some good reasons to dismiss Bethke. He never actually said most of them, though. The only ones that he did state were based on very literal interpretations of the poem. Which is rather like responding to "I have a frog in my throat" with "There's no way you swallowed a whole frog."

Prophecy

A mountebank will teach a man that reckless faith is grief;
no prophet brings an iron word to men who know a thief.

Constellation Analogy

Image via Wikipedia

Think of ideas as stars, and religions as constellations. When you looked into the night sky for the first time, you saw countless points of light; some were bright and obvious while others were dim and hard to spot, but they were all beautiful. But then someone pointed to a few of those stars and drew lines between them. Over time, you learned to see a constellation in the sky whenever you look at those stars, and now you don't even think about the fact that those connections were invented. They have become just as natural as the stars themselves, and the beauty of the stars is somewhat dependant on the lines between them. Stars that aren't connected become mundane; you ignore them as you look for your constellation, and smile only when you find it. To have a good perspective, you need to appreciate all of the stars, not just the ones that are part of your constellation.