When i started on the CED debate issues last Sept. i was surprised at one big thing in the YEC camp: presuppositionalism.
The Berkeley boat-rocker
Book Review
Philip E. Johnson
A review of Reason in the Balance The Case against Naturalism in Science, Law and Education, by Phillip E. Johnson. Reviewed by Carl Wieland.
quote from this very short review:
Johnson shows that it is the assumptions of naturalism ('nature is all there is') which have profoundly influenced the movers and shakers, those in charge of public life. Other Christian writers complain that 'absolute morality has been replaced by relative ethics', as if that were an explanation in itself for social decay but they don't know or tell why the replacement has happened Johnson does. If everything just evolved, then it is 'unscientific' (interpreted as 'nonfactual') to propose anything outside of nature. Once it is believed that no standard outside of the natural world is allowable, everything becomes a matter of human opinion. Relativism in ethics is not just some new fad, or the result of global conspiracy, it is a logical outcome for a society heavily educated in naturalistic (evolutionary) science.
When i left the discussion in the early 80's to take care of my kids, no one but a few VanTillians even knew what the word presuppositionalism meant, let alone think about or use the concepts. Now even AiG has it as a motto: "question presuppositions".
Certainly AiG and their ilk see the vulnerability of presuppositions, they are not proved, nor provable within the system they support. You must enlarge the circle, the universe of discourse, in order to discuss presuppositions. In this way, religion and metaphysics become a topic for discussion where the initial desire was to discuss science. Scientific presuppositions are not scientific, but metaphysical. The same thinking is evident in Johnson and _the Wedge of Truth_, his stated goal is to drive a wedge between the science and the assumptions of materialism/naturalism/physicalism.
But is it science? That is the question i asked at debunkcreation yesterday. To which Lenny answered:
Science ends where philosophical naturalism begins. Science follows
methodological naturalism (without which science itself would be
impossible). Science doesn't have a bleeding thing to do with
philosophical naturalism. So I am not quite sure why you think
science should care in the slightest about your "questions" . . . ?
They sound more like questions for theologians and philosophers to
argue over, not scientists. And I certainly cannot for the life of
me see what any of this has to do with the scientific question of
whether or not life evolves over time.
reply by Lenny
and he is right. We need to keep science and metaphysics distinct in our minds, and in our thinking. Gould/Dawkins/Dennett are wrong when they say that science proves the world is "just material in motion" or when "evolutionary biology makes atheistic thinking intellectually satisfying". Science assumes principles like: methodological naturalism, uniformity, methodological materialism, in order to do it's job. Not to prove the claims of philosophic naturalism.
A. Plantinga, P. Johnson, J.P. Moreland, like the big 3 evolutionary writers, all assume the bias of science is towards PN due to its use of MN. It is an extension of the idea that "you go where you want to go, you do what you want to do" Oblio and the Point. Everyone seems to believe that your assumptions NECESSARILY lead to philosophic conclusions.
It is clear, both from current popularization of science and from the march of scientific thinking over the last 150 years that most people believe the same thing. This is the problem of the God of the Gaps. Science has progressively narrowed the range of this type of God so that secular people point at this movement and effectively say: "see soon there will be no need for God as an explanation of the unknown, for there is no unknown in which for him to hide."
But where i am heading is to see that there are two set of presuppositions in the discussion. One set is the usual one for science, the things science assumes to do its job. But there is another set, confused with this required set, these are the presuppositions of the surrounding world and life view.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------upper limit of world and life view
important issues in metaphysics
what are the criteria to judge the different levels by:
utility, goodness, beauty, simplicity, truthfulness
-------------------------------------------upper limit of metaphysics
big take home conclusions of science:
science has great utility
-------------------------------------------upper limit of science, above this is scientism,
inside here is normal science
-------------------------------------------science
presuppositions of science:
things like methodological naturalism, materialism, physicalism
ideas like the rational nature of man, the reasonableness of the universe
-------------------------------------------metaphysics
presuppositions of your metaphysics:
extensions of the idea above: philosophic naturalism
reason is the only tool needed to investigate the universe
to a Christian:
philosophic supernaturalism
the results of believing that God as Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer
-------------------------------------------your world and life view
the presuppositions that support your world and life view
life is meaningless and nothing but the random movement of matter
to a Christian:
The world belongs to God and as such there exists only One Truth
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like 3 circle, one inside the other: science-metaphysics-world and life view. each with presuppositions anchored in the next larger circle. With each set of conclusions lending support for the truthfulness of the next larger circle. that derives nicely from the idea "all facts are theory laden, all theory are value laden, all values are determined and consistent with world and life views"
The truth is, as I see it, that all facts are theory-laden, all theories are value-laden and all values exist only within an ideology or world view. The official version of value-neutrality and objectivity which justifies the protected place of scientists, technologists, medics and other experts puts them above the battle of values and ideologies.
quote from: essay by robert young
And this is why the link is so easily made in everyone's minds between science as method and scientism as metaphysics. CONSISTENCY. We are people, striving for consistency of our beliefs, so we naturally align things this way. Science is so useful, so powerful, that its techniques are mimiced in the metaphysical world. Our worlds become driven from the center circle-science outward. We take the methodological and raise it up to the philosophic, thinking that since it was so effective in the little circle it must be equally successful in the larger one. And this is where we go wrong, where we introduce problems because of the confusion of levels. There are appropriate criteria as each of these levels. Derived not from the smaller circles within, but from the larger circles without.
Look at the reason line above. Where do we start? Oftentimes it is with the acknowledgement of the power of science to sum up, to theorize about the world. We are impressed at the power of reason. In this little circle, of science, reason really works. period. We have two necessary presuppositions here. One about the object of the reason- the universe, that it is good to reason about the universe, and that reason adequately captures the essential things about the universe. The other about the reasoner, that the tool used is good, and truthful. Neither one is provable within science, yet science has much to say about the truthfulness of both presuppositions. There is certainly some type of feedback between the presuppositions and the findings of science. Evolutionary biology leads us to the problem of "how do i trust the mind of a monkey?" which challenges the truthfulness of the reasoner end of the equation. And modern quantum physics has us often baffled about very important issues underneath the reasonableness of the universe, likewise chaos theory leads to similiar questions. So there exists this feedback loop from the work of science back into the set of presuppositions that it uses in its work.
But this the second circle, metaphysics. It has presuppositions as well, these exist in the larger circle of the world and life view. These are extensions of the axioms of science but they say much more, they answer questions of completeness, or ability predicted into the future. As "reason is able to explain everything". See how this extends the idea of the universe is reasonable, to the universe is ONLY reasonable. Or another way, reason is the ONLY tool needed to completely explain the universe. But separating these two types of presuppositions: those that support a metaphysics of science from those that support science as methodology, we can see how we can use one set-MN, while denying the larger-PN. MN is not ENOUGH, it breaks somewhere on the road to PN. Reason is not sufficent to explain the universe, necessary yes. complete no.
This is where the judgement criteria for each level must come in. Science is a bottom up argument, primarily. World and life views are a top down argument, primarily. What is happening is that we are bringing the useful criteria from innermost circles and extending them to the next larger. But it is the criteria of usefulness that is being used to do this. Where the criteria for metaphysics ought to be metaphysical: truthfulness, beauty, goodness, simplicity. Not the inner circle criteria of utility.
So the images are 3 circles: the innermost is science, then surrounding it is metaphysics, and around it is world and life view.
metaphysics contains the presuppositions for science, like WLV contains the presuppositions for metaphysics.
Each circle has its own criteria, the way you judge things in that circle. Science is basically utilitarian, metaphysics truthfulness, and WLV goodness. This is a gross oversimplification but it supplies a place to start thinking about the problems of criticizing each circle. It must be level/layer specific, if you confuse which layer you are talking to you introduce problems of improper levels. This is what the YEC do with science, misapply metaphysical criteria into the smaller circle of science. Likewise what the big 3 evolutionists do when they raise utility to a metaphysical principle and use it to bring MN to the larger circle of metaphysics without noticing the level change. Where P.Johnson's wedge ought to be applied to to 'decapitate' scientism from science by separating along the levels line, he would rather cut downward through science separating out types of science: origins or historical from experimental. This is a good image, a good way to organize my thinking.
It has the advantage of seeing two sets of presuppositions, where most people see just one. One type support science as methodology the other support scientism as metaphysics. They are different and need to be treated differently.