An Ode to Skepticism: Elder Gods of the Gaps

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An Ode to Skepticism: Elder Gods of the Gaps
September 14, 2018

A Joshua Cutchin blog article

Extract:

Another commonly cited fallacy inspired this overlong blog post: the “God of the Gaps.”

(...) Fundamentalist Skeptics weaponize the “God of the Gaps” principle as well. When employed in this manner, there is a tacit assumption among many that Materialism will fill in these gaps.
 
While Materialism has an admittedly strong track record, this is a logical fallacy in and of itself. It invokes “promissory materialism,” a term coined by science philosopher Karl Popper. This principle “involves issuing undated promissory notes for future discoveries,” said Sheldrake, citing Popper. “Promissory materialism is a faith.”
 
In truth, the God of the Gaps concept says much more about prevailing paradigms of belief than it does the gaps themselves. In a Church-dominated culture, God and the paranormal were unjustly used to fill in these gaps. In today’s society, Materialism steps in, but seems immune to similar criticism in scientific discussion.

An Ode to Skepticism: Elder Gods of the Gaps
September 14, 2018

A Joshua Cutchin blog article

Thanks. I liked that a lot - and felt I would like to have a look at his books - up until about two thirds of the way through.

I thought he made an interesting point about Occam's Razor: "Put bluntly, the progenitor of the scientifically lauded principle of Occam’s Razor lived his entire life in the service of unseen supernatural forces." (And that made me think that whether Occam's Razor is a good thing or not really depends on how you use it. From at least one medieval perspective, wouldn't "God did it" be a very parsimonious explanation for anomalies, and wouldn't that have a tendency to stop scientific development in its tracks?)

I also liked the fact that he made a clear distinction between materialism and science - "This is where the ardent Materialist argues that their philosophy has given us airplanes, artificial knees, and television. It’s compelling, but Materialism hasn’t given these life-changing advances to us. Science has." I think proponents often tend to throw out the scientific baby with the materialist bathwater.

That made it look as though he was going to argue that the scientific method would still be applicable to non-materialistic phenomena. But instead he goes in the opposite direction and seems to end up equating "scientific approval" with the opinions of "Fundamentalist Skeptics":
"For the time being, anomalists need to stop seeking scientific approval. By the very nature of what they study—the novel, the personal—anomalists will never satisfy Fundamentalist Skeptics. The two factions will remain at loggerheads."

I don't think that conceding the scientific field to fundamentalists - people with faith-driven rather than evidence-driven beliefs - makes any sense at all.

"The two factions will remain at loggerheads."

I think it's inappropriate to place groups in opposition like this, as though there was some sort of parity between them. For example I'd consider myself an explorer. What group would one place in opposition to explorers? The Society for Staying at Home?

I think it's inappropriate to place groups in opposition like this, as though there was some sort of parity between them. For example I'd consider myself an explorer. What group would one place in opposition to explorers? The Society for Staying at Home?

Well, he also says:
"Love the UFO, psi, and cryptozoology communities though I do, bad ideas, incorrect assumptions, gullibility, and leaps of faith far outweigh rational thought among their ranks ..."

I think "far outweigh" is much too strong (as least as far as the "psi community") goes. But anyhow, I think he's probably including among "anomalists" a lot of people who are strongly biased in their own way.

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That made it look as though he was going to argue that the scientific method would still be applicable to non-materialistic phenomena. But instead he goes in the opposite direction and seems to end up equating "scientific approval" with the opinions of "Fundamentalist Skeptics":
"For the time being, anomalists need to stop seeking scientific approval. By the very nature of what they study—the novel, the personal—anomalists will never satisfy Fundamentalist Skeptics. The two factions will remain at loggerheads."

But maybe what he means here is that science for the time being is people by materialists, and so that's why it makes little sense for anomalists to seek their approval.

But maybe what he means here is that science for the time being is people by materialists, and so that's why it makes little sense for anomalists to seek their approval.

I think it's partly that, because afterwards he says "At least, that is, until the Materialist paradigm breathes its last gasp in the face of emerging consciousness research". (Though, of course, we've discussed this question quite a lot before, and I think it's quite inaccurate to characterise the scientific world in general as fundamentalist psi sceptics, because most working scientists don't have any strong views about psi anyway, and there's a whole range of opinions among those who are actively interested in it.)

But more fundamentally, after the headings "The Personal Experience" and "Novelty", he does seem to be arguing that the paranormal is intrinsically unsuitable for scientific investigation because science can deal only with the external world, not personal experiences, and only with "regular" events, which the paranormal is not. That may be a point of view, but I think it's a very questionable one.

The author says, "God and the paranormal were unjustly used to fill in these gaps."  It seems to be a common presumption that that is the only possible motive for such beliefs.

  What group would one place in opposition to explorers? The Society for Staying at Home?

That seems to describe many internet skeptics and their equally stubborn opposition very adequately indeed!

That seems to describe many internet skeptics and their equally stubborn opposition very adequately indeed!

That’s pretty much it, Brian.
 
Here’s a mental picture to take in. Imagine you are in a room for your choosing, it can be any room, with the middle of the room being open. You have a very large brown blanket in your hand. You throw this blanket to cover the middle of the room. However, instead of falling to the floor, you can see that about a couple feet from the floor, there appears to be something small (around 6 inches in diameter) and sphere-like moving around in a circle. You can see it moving because the blanket is being deformed in a shape that looks like such an object would be moving under it. If you remove the blanket, you don’t see anything moving, nor can you feel it in any meaningful way.
 
The materialist viewpoint doesn’t assign any significance to what is under the blanket, and would honestly prefer to ignore it. They focus only on the pattern that they see when then blanket is on, and confuse that with the actual “thing” underneath. The sphere is reality, the model is the blanket.
 
So, the materialist’s error: they mistake the models of reality for reality itself. Just because you can model a phenomena doesn’t mean you understand anything about what the phenomena itself. For example, just because you can model a bird’s migration patterns, it doesn’t mean you know about many of the aspects of ‘birdness’. Did you know birds red blood cells have nuclei, unlike yours and mine? Maybe not, but its a part of birdness, and not something you would be expected to know if you could model bird migration patterns. Either way, the materialist would only stay with what certain certified blankets show, and not ask too many questions about what really lies beneath. 
 
Strong religious folks may make claims about the sphere from the above example with an appeal to a deity of choice. The folks here would probably use some kind of consciousness type of example. What would the materialists call it? Ever smaller atoms in the original spirit of the definition (the smallest fundamental unit). The original materialist idea of a billiard ball type universe doesn’t appear to be supported at all today, For all their woo woo, the spirit types were closer to being right on this one, energy and matter are of the same kind of “stuff”.  As Einstein said once, the atheist types cannot hear the music of the spheres, but they are locked in a grudge against religion, and trying to unshackle themselves and others from those chains.

"In truth, the God of the Gaps concept says much more about prevailing paradigms of belief than it does the gaps themselves. In a Church-dominated culture, God and the paranormal were unjustly used to fill in these gaps. In today’s society, Materialism steps in, but seems immune to similar criticism in scientific discussion."

I don't understand this statement. It appears to suggest that scientists say "Materialism did it" and then drop the entire field of study, thinking that they have just given a complete explanation. I've never heard a scientist say this.

~~ Paul