Methodological vs. philosophical materialism

Overall, it seems fair to me to say that Provine and Scott were on sharply opposite sides. While both are declared non-theists (the term preferred by Scott) or atheists (Provine’s favorite), their positions on the degree of clash between science and religion could hardly be more different. Scott’s argument is that science simply does not have anything to say about religion, case closed. Therefore, scientists should go about their business of investigating natural phenomena, and not concern themselves with religious matters of any sort. Needless to say, Scott suggests that this should a fortiori be any science educator’s behavior in the classroom. As I said, Scott is indeed an atheist and materialist. So, how does she reconcile her theoretical positions with her call for a pragmatic separation of the two issues?

Scott espouses the view that there is a distinction between methodological materialism and philosophical materialism. The first corresponds to what any practicing scientist would do. We assume that the world is made of matter, and that if there is something else out there, this is simply beyond the scope and reach of the scientific method. The second position is rational, but not scientific. It points to the rational conclusion that there is only matter out there, even though we cannot prove it beyond any doubt.

One problem with Scott’s dualism is that, even though technically correct, it smacks of political correctness, or at least lacks philosophical courage. When asked how she came to be a philosophical materialist, Scott admitted that this was the result of her knowledge of science. In other words, a scientific understanding of the world leads (not necessarily, but in Scott’s, Provine’s, and my own case) one to provisionally reject any supernatural force or entity. I highlighted the term "provisionally" because I do agree with Scott that science cannot deny the existence of the supernatural. In fact, more than that: science cannot prove the non-existence of anything at all! All scientists can do is to support positive statements with circumstantial evidence (Lakatos 1974), or disprove them by refutation (Popper 1968). So, we are left with the rather unsatisfactory position that science throws a little bit of light in the abyss of the unknown, but not enough to answer perhaps the most important philosophical question of them all: is there something beyond matter and energy?

Soul? Evolution says no!

Not so for William Provine. His answer is clear: there is nothing out there, we die in the most definitive sense of the word, and there is no point in even asking the question of the ultimate meaning of life. Where does he get this conclusion? From the Darwinian theory of evolution by descent with modification. According to Provine, not only there is no evidence for anything beyond matter, but the whole essence of evolutionary change should tell us that it is irrational to even look for it. After all, there is an uninterrupted, historical continuity between humans and the rest of the living world. If that is so, we are left with only two possibilities for granting the existence of something immaterial: either we go back to Rene` Descartes’ dualism (all living organisms are machines, except humans, which possess not only the res extensa but also the res cogitans); or we assume that every living being is made of matter and of spirit, a position that would make even the pope rather uncomfortable (though it is an integral component of some eastern philosophies).

Provine goes even further, by accusing scientists who cling to a dualistic view either of intellectual dishonesty or of intellectual schizophrenia. Let’s see why. The schizophrenic attitude can be traced back to Descartes himself. Although credited with nothing less than the invention of the scientific method (Descartes 1637), the French philosopher recoiled from the implication of his own doing, thereby introducing the above mentioned dualism between the two res.

  Eugenie Scott (left) and Will Provine (right), intellectual opponents

 But a schizophrenic truly believes in the separation of her/his two personalities. Where does the dishonesty come into play? The answer, according to Provine, is federal funding of biological research. His thesis is that one of the fundamental reasons that compel most biologists to look the other way and not engage in disputes with religious overtones is simply the fact that the evolution = atheism equation is potentially very dangerous for their pockets. After all, most evolutionary biology research is funded through federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation. This is taxpayers’ money. What would happen if the taxpayers found out that their money is going to foster atheistic beliefs? Especially given the current conservative (reactionary would be a better word) political climate, it does not take a huge leap of the imagination to see Republican senators and representatives crying foul and axing the already meager NSF budget.

It is indeed true that NSF does not have a division of "evolutionary biology", while clearly a large portion of its funding for the biological sciences goes to evolutionary research projects. It is also true (and here I can speak from my own and my colleagues’ experience) that NSF officers actively delete the e-word from any document they have to make available to the public. Regardless of statements to the contrary, this is both a scientific and a political war, and the stakes are as high as the future of education in the most powerful country in the world, make no mistake about it.

On the other hand, Provine’s views are an example of philosophical, not methodological, materialism. Scott is correct when she says that you can infer, but not demonstrate, that there is no god, no afterlife, and no cosmic meaning to our existence. So, the real question seems to me to be: what is the limit of science? Does science truly confine itself to methodological materialism, and it is therefore silent on everything else; or can we use scientific results to make inferences that go beyond a pragmatic approach and allow us to probe into ultimate questions?

You can’t have it both ways: methodological materialism implies philosophical materialism

Well, ok, I gave away the punch line with the title of this section. I will try to make an argument that:

It is true that science cannot prove the inexistence of supernatural phenomena or entities; but that,

It is perfectly reasonable to reject such phenomena or entities on scientific grounds.

The first point acknowledges Scott’s distinction between methodological and philosophical materialism. As I mentioned above, science cannot prove the inexistence of something. Furthermore, there are even more strict limits on what science can do. These limits derive from the indispensability of falsifiable hypotheses (not always easy to formulate), and from the necessity of enough empirical evidence to actually test such hypotheses. For example, in the case of the origin of life, or the origin of the universe itself, the questions may be scientifically approachable, and it certainly is possible to derive falsifiable alternative hypotheses. However, we may never have sufficient data to actually test and reject (or provisionally accept) these hypotheses. Unfortunately, the universe is not such to leave abundant clues for the modern Sherlock Holmes, like it or not.

The second point is, obviously, the most controversial. My reasoning (as well as Provine’s) is that you cannot pick and choose your philosophy depending on the situation. A methodological materialist who is not a philosophical materialist is basically saying that s/he believes in matter and only matter... most of the time! But if you grant the possibility of a god messing around with the universe once in a while, where do you get the assurance that that god is not doing it every day, every minute, in every place of the universe? Furthermore, I think that Scott’s position betrays a misunderstanding of the nature of science. Science is not about proving things, it is about constructing workable causal models of reality. For a scientist to reject the supernatural, god, and (therefore) ultimate meaning in life is perfectly logical and within the boundaries of science. The reason for this is that all such rejections are implicitly understood as provisional, they are necessary in order to construct the best hypothesis consistent with the data. Since there is no evidence of any god or supernatural design in the universe, the scientific conclusion has to be that there is none. Unless and until such conclusion is falsified by the available evidence. Once one understands that science is not about definitive proofs, but about reasonable working models, the distinction between methodological and philosophical materialism gets very much blurred. And by the way, falsification of the materialist paradigm is indeed possible. The recent controversy over the so-called anthropic principle is a case in point. Should we conclusively determine that the probability of existence of our universe is infinitesimally small, and should we fail to explain why physical constants have assumed the quantities that we observe, the possibility of a designed universe would have to be considered seriously.

I think that part of the problem resides in a matter of semantics. When a scientist says "there is no Santa Clause" s/he doesn’t mean that s/he has exhaustively searched the entire universe to incontrovertibly verify that fact. The sentence just means that we assume there is no Santa Clause because we have a better explanation (model) of how toys are made and distributed world-wide. There is always the possibility that we will observe flying reindeers on the next 24^th of December. Until then, I bet on Provine, dollar to doughnut.

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