An alternate look at Naturalism

[Laird]

Prothero or the author of that article are using the word supernatural colloquially.

Are you being colloquial with us? ;-)

[Laird]

I haven't read the original book nor seen the quotes in context.

I found the book online, in Google Books. The quotes can be seen in context in the short chapter, Natural and Supernatural, starting on page 10.

Even in context, the contradiction seems very apparent - and blatant.

Who knows what he has in mind? I haven't read the original book nor seen the quotes in context. It would seem strange to call something "supernatural" when you really meant "natural" though. In any case, the article uses that author only as an example - as a warning to be on the lookout for this sort of prevarication more generally.

In everyday language the word supernatural as used by folks that don't spend all there waking time thinking about the supernatural (which he's trying to illustrate) encompasses everything that involves the mystical, spiritual, miraculous, spooky. If you had only a casual or no interest at all and you were asked what things are supernatural you'd probably say astrology, esp, ghosts..., because they defy everyday experience would you not?

I found the book online, in Google Books. The quotes can be seen in context in the short chapter, Natural and Supernatural, starting on page 10.

Even in context, the contradiction seems very apparent - and blatant.

He’s come up against the very problem we’ve been discussing. When folk make claims of ‘supernatural’ agents making predictable (testable?) effects in the natural world, science (MN) has a chance of investigating. It seems for him, the results have been unconvincing.

In everyday language the word supernatural as used by folks that don't spend all there waking time thinking about the supernatural (which he's trying to illustrate) encompasses everything that involves the mystical, spiritual, miraculous, spooky. If you had only a casual or no interest at all and you were asked what things are supernatural you'd probably say astrology, esp, ghosts..., because they defy everyday experience would you not?

I think you make a good point here. I hope we’re digging a bit deeper into the philosophical consequences of nature and supernature.

Some interesting skeptical tap-dancing going on here with Malf, Linda and Steve001 giving object lessons in how to deny the undeniable. 

Regardless of whether or not someone can find something daft which has been said about naturalism and the supernatural, it seems pretty clear that scientists themselves do not follow these proscriptions in their practice of methodological naturalism.

Suggesting that the multiple examples of scientists and philosophers all confirming their understanding of MN is nothing but selective quote mining, specifically looking for scientists who say daft things. To that I'd say, show us examples of scientists who have a different understanding of MN. Am I mistaken in thinking that the only people here prepared to back up the claim that most scientists exclude that which is deemed to be supernatural from scientific investigation are those who have bothered to look. The skeptics are the ones just posting their own spin without justification.

I'm guessing that a search for scientists who (a) agree with the tenets of MN yet (b) actively consider evidence suggesting a supernatural cause (whether the term is used colloquially or metaphysically) will yield sparse results. Why? Because (a) and (b) are clearly contradictory. I'm also guessing that most parapsychologists are, therefore, not among those who agree with the tenets of MN.

I think there are several questions being asked in this thread:

1. What, under the label "supernatural", is currently excluded a priori from scientific investigation by the widely-accepted, mainstream prescription of "methodological naturalism" - and the ancillary question: what, under the label "natural", remains?
   
2. Should this - or, indeed, anything that can potentially be studied scientifically - be excluded a priori from scientific study?
   
3. How defensible is the distinction between the "natural" and the "supernatural" in which "naturalism" is assumed to be synonymous with reductive physicalism and materialism, and can a broader definition of "natural[ism]" be defended? (the question, paraphrased, of the OP)
   

There seems to be general agreement that the answer to #2 is, roughly, "We shouldn't exclude a priori anything that can be studied scientifically from scientific study - and that includes anything and everything that has effects that we can detect".

Re #1, there seems to be denial from some quarters that methodological naturalism excludes a priori from scientific study anything that could be studied. What can one say in response? Kamarling and I have supplied copious evidence that this cannot be reasonably denied. Linda raises the field of parapsychology as evidence that methodological naturalism is not always followed in practice by working scientists - and yet this is the exception that proves the rule: as anyone who has hung around this community for long enough comes to realise, for scientists (especially ones just getting started out) to get involved in parapsychological research is to kiss their careers in mainstream science goodbye, essentially because they are seen by the mainstream as having abandoned methodological naturalism; they have become, as the hardcore "skeptics" - mainstream scientists among those skeptics - would describe them, "pseudoscientists" or "woomeisters", etc.

I haven't even tried to address #3 so far, and on that topic all I'll say for now is that the definitions and scope of these terms are context-dependent, and that in some contexts, sure, a broader definition of "natural" might be defensible.

So, after all of that: malf, this accusation of yours is rather strange, and seems to be confusing or conflating or muddling up questions #1 and #2. If you want to reframe it in that light then please go for it:

I think I’ve been pretty clear on how I see things and I’m not inclined to reframe anything I’ve written. Nor am I moved to defend those in the mainstream with a narrow view of nature. We are frequently reminded that these closed-minded skeptic materialists are dying breed, and the mainstream will reflect this. None of my posts in this thread have supported any given metaphysic.


However, maintaining a badge of ‘supernatural’ on the causal agent for natural events confounds me. I suspect that it frustrates MNists as it appears to give the agent’s advocates an opportunity to special plead their way out of inconvenient results (eg ‘science (or MN) doesn’t have the tools to test astrological predictions or, parapsychology is shy in the lab etc).

I think I’ve been pretty clear on how I see things and I’m not inclined to reframe anything I’ve written. Nor am I moved to defend those in the mainstream with a narrow view of nature. We are frequently reminded that these closed-minded skeptic materialists are dying breed, and the mainstream will reflect this. None of my posts in this thread have supported any given metaphysic.


However, maintaining a badge of ‘supernatural’ on the causal agent for natural events confounds me. I suspect that it frustrates MNists as it appears to give the agent’s advocates an opportunity to special plead their way out of inconvenient results (eg ‘science (or MN) doesn’t have the tools to test astrological predictions or, parapsychology is shy in the lab etc).

I still think you are diverting the topic which is a discussion of (methodological) naturalism and re-framing it as a discussion of what is meant by supernatural. Again, it is very clear to me what those who espouse MN mean by both MN itself and by the term "supernatural". It is also clear that they extend that definition, when it suits their materialistic bias, to include consciousness which must, at all costs, be shown to emerge from brain activity (or to be, in fact, merely an illusion).

Now you seem to be saying, well that might be the view of some with a narrow view but they are dying out. Please show us some evidence that they are dying out. What Laird said about the career limiting prospect for those who would like to get into parapsychology seems to be as true as ever, if not more so since the advent of aggressively materialistic science promoters such as Dawkins, Krauss, Brian Cox, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye.

I still think you are diverting the topic which is a discussion of (methodological) naturalism and re-framing it as a discussion of what is meant by supernatural. Again, it is very clear to me what those who espouse MN mean by both MN itself and by the term "supernatural". It is also clear that they extend that definition, when it suits their materialistic bias, to include consciousness which must, at all costs, be shown to emerge from brain activity (or to be, in fact, merely an illusion).

I’ve relooked at the OP for this thread and I think it ponders the same nuances in definition that I have. I’ve given some honest perspectives.

Can you tell me some of the findings of MN that are incompatible with an Idealist or Panpsychic metaphysic?

Now you seem to be saying, well that might be the view of some with a narrow view but they are dying out. Please show us some evidence that they are dying out.

It seems to be a common refrain on here and Skeptiko.

I’ve relooked at the OP for this thread and I think it ponders the same nuances in definition that I have. I’ve given some honest perspectives.

Can you tell me some of the findings of MN that are incompatible with an Idealist or Panpsychic metaphysic.



It seems to be a common refrain on here and Skeptiko.

OK, so let's accept that you are honest in your thinking that this thread about naturalism is different to the way others such as myself and Laird see it. I think that your next statement perhaps points to the crux of our differences: "the findings of MN".

We are not really talking about the findings of MN because MN is a procedural guideline. It says that the Method must be constrained to the investigation of that which is Natural. You may be happy to include Idealism or Panpsychism within the definition of Natural but, from what we have seen from all the quotes and links so far, the majority of the mainstream scientists equate naturalism with materialism and reductionism. That being so, we can be sure it disqualifies idealism or dualism or even panpsychism (which may or may not qualify as "supernatural" but certainly challenges materialism). See the previous post where I quoted the Secular Web:

Contrary to Danto, however, dualism--either mind/body, natural/supernatural, or man/nature--and idealism do not seem reasonable for naturalists given the current state of science. The non-reductive, monistic materialism of most current naturalism is evidenced in several ways ...

Looking at it another way: statements have been made that science cannot work with an "invisible agent" or measure things that are not amenable to measurement, not reliable or predictable. That would be fair enough if it were left at that but the inference, if not the conclusion, of that observation is that those things don't exist. So the MN scientist, when faced with two possibilities: (a) that something like a living cell or a human mind must have come about by "natural" means or (b) that some intelligence was involved in its genesis and evolution, then he or she will insist on (a). To do so, there is a framework of theories which build a picture of the evolution of such complexity in step-by-step fashion, each step further confirming the "natural-ness" of the process. 

Somewhere along the way, that process - arrived at by MN - becomes less like a theory and more like a statement of fact (or faith). If any problems are found, a few steps are replaced by others but only it they follow the MN guidelines. At any point of the research the only mechanism being considered is a materialistic one. Is it any wonder that the theory ends up being wholly materialistic when each step was constrained to materialist mechanisms? Then you might say that the proof is there: that each step is testable and can be replicated. But is that true? Or is it the case that the best you can say is that it could have happened that way, given enough time and a healthy helping of coincidence?

You have taken the Sherlock Holmes dictum, "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth", and decided, a priori, what is impossible which leaves you to insist that what remains is indeed the truth. 

And then there's consciousness.