Cardinal Schoenborn weighs in...

... on the debate over evolution and intelligent design (ID), this time in relation to the American public schools. From the International Herald Tribune:

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna said in a lecture that restricting debate about Darwin's theory of evolution amounts to censorship in schools and in the broader public.

"Commonly in the scientific community every inquiry into the scientific weaknesses of the theory is blocked off at the very outset," Schoenborn said of Darwinism. "To some extent there prevails a type of censoring here of the sort for which one eagerly reproached the church in former times."

The Austrian cardinal said he found it "amazing" that a U.S. federal court ruled in 2005 that the Dover, Pennsylvania, public school district could not teach the concept of "intelligent design" as part of its science class. The judge had said that the theory, which says an intelligent supernatural force explains the emergence of complex life forms, was creationism in disguise.

The cardinal said the Dover ruling meant that schoolchildren would only be taught a materialistic, atheistic view of the origin of universe, without considering the idea that God played a role.

"A truly liberal society would at least allow students to hear of the debate," he said.

Schoenborn's comments came in a speech Wednesday night sponsored by the Homeland Foundation, a philanthropy that funds cultural and religious programs, many involving the Catholic Church. ...

The lecture was based on a talk Schoenborn gave in a private meeting in Italy last year with Benedict, a former professor, and several of his old students, where they discussed evolution.

More about Cardinal Schonborn's remarks in recent years about these issues can be accessed over at The Schonborn Site.   More about Schonborn and his books published by Ignatius Press can be found on his IgnatiusInsight.com Author Page.

Comments

[Rick]

I am in agreement with Cardinal's critique about Neo-Darwinian materialism and its postulatory atheism. Any science that advocates deterministic materialism merely assumes this to be the case, no science can empirically prove that matter is the only reality. When it attempts to do this it ceases being science and becomes a philosophy that cannot prove it either.

However, I disagree with ID as science until it admits a criterion of falsifiability. Theologically, it falls into a god-of-the-gaps argument requiring a special act of God every time something is irreducibly complex. Philosophically, just because something is irreducibly complex, does this necessarily mean it's designed or just that it is irreducibly complex?

Perhaps, the best debate about the issues should not be a science class, but a philosophy class. However, that might make some materialist scientists a little uncomfortable, because there the holes of the arguments will become very apparent.

[MenTaLguY]

I don't know -- some sort of "philosophy of science" curriculum is probably appropriate in the science classroom, at least as background. Even (especially!) simple things like scientific "laws" being properly descriptive, not prescriptive.

But we do need to actually engage this stuff at the level of philosophy too; ID as a rule fails to do that, drawing people into arguments over poorly researched scientific positions instead.

Really, the most frustrating thing is that the Discovery Institute seems to have poisoned the well of argument-from-intelligence -- it's very difficult to even use the word in a conversation with an atheist without being drawn into a discussion of whether or not one supports the specific scientific positions advocated at various times by the ID folks.

[Nick]

<*sigh*> Was there even a significant debate before the "ID crowd" managed to frame one? Give respect where respect is due. Nothing in the last five or six decades has rocked the boat like ID. Give it time. It just, comparatively, got started and its had to fight an uphill battle from both sides.

[MenTaLguY]

Controversy is not the same thing as debate. I really dislike that the public consciousness seems to have been innoculated against certain classes of philosophical arguments for a Creator due to the aggressive marketing of superficially similar but inferior "scientifically-based" arguments by the ID camp.

A simple example of the former is the argument, made by the Cardinal himself, that it is evident that the universe is the product of supernatural intelligence because it is, in all its aspects, intelligible (if it weren't, science would not even be possible).

However, try to make this argument to a secular audience exposed to ID material and they are likely to conflate it with Dembski's "explanatory filter", which is weaker both in terms of its foundations and the fact that its construction means that it is prone to false negatives (the strongest argument possible soley on the basis of the filter would be that some aspects of the world are the product of a [natural, minimally] intelligence of some kind).

[Brian John Schuettler]

"<*sigh*> Was there even a significant debate before the "ID crowd" managed to frame one? Give respect where respect is due. Nothing in the last five or six decades has rocked the boat like ID. Give it time. It just, comparatively, got started and its had to fight an uphill battle from both sides."

I agree with Nick. Granted that ID has been poorly displayed before the public and unnecessarily put itself in the position of ridicule by some for appearing to be a scientific theory (of course, it is not). But the strongest argument in favor of ID is the one that Cardinal Schoenborn "weighed in on" and that is it being a challenge to dogmatic darwinism, referred to as neo-darwinian materialism, which goes way beyond science into the realm of philosophic speculation. ID offers an alternative to this. It is bogus to argue that darwinism, as opposed to the legitimate theory of evolution, has the right, if you will, to be taught exclusively in schools. This isn't about right or wrong, it is about the ability in an open society to debate the merits of issues without the intrusion of government or those with secular agendas. Let those who are fond of trotting out the old myth of Catholic opposition to science demonstrate that they themselves are not hypocrites by denying freedom of expression of opposing views.

[Rick]

Maybe the problem is that some in the ID camp not only wanted to make it more than a battle of science, but also one of politics as well. This battle seems to be one that has been fought on American turf ever since the Scopes trial and keeps reinventing itself in ever new ways.

I would ask the question: How much is strict neo-Darwinism even taught in schools? I took 24 credits of Biology in college but never got a strict neo-Darwinian perspective. The only time I heard anything close was in Astronomy when my professor mystically linked the Big Bang to neo-Darwinism. When I started asking him some questions, he asked me what my I told him Philosophy and he scoffed. He said philosophers ask too many questions, but even many undergrads saw that his arguments were full of holes.

We should accept natural selection and random mutation as facts of science, but strict neo-Darwinism is really just a material form of scientific fundamentalism with Richard Dawkins as its anti-pope.

[Brian John Schuettler]

We should accept natural selection and random mutation as facts of science, but strict neo-Darwinism is really just a material form of scientific fundamentalism with Richard Dawkins as its anti-pope.

Amen!

He said philosophers ask too many questions, but even many undergrads saw that his arguments were full of holes.

I had the same experience, Rick...the professor looked at me, shook his head and said "You're a metaphysician!"

[MenTaLguY]

and unnecessarily put itself in the position of ridicule by some for appearing to be a scientific theory (of course, it is not)

I'm glad you recognize this, but don't its proponents actively promote it as science? They may mean well, but frankly if they understand the distinction themselves it's flatly dishonest of them.

neo-darwinian materialism, which goes way beyond science into the realm of philosophic speculation. ID offers an alternative to this.

The problem is that it's not the only alternative (c.f. Thomist positions), nor is it a particularly sound one; it's just the most successfully marketed. ID is carefully calculated to play to popular sensibilities by avoiding questions of the supernatural, but precisely because of that it fails to challenge materialism.

This isn't about right or wrong, it is about the ability in an open society to debate the merits of issues without the intrusion of government or those with secular agendas.

The question before the court in Dover was whether ID could be taught in the classroom as science. I wasn't entirely happy with the way the case was argued or the ruling formulated, but (since you've already pointed out that ID is not science) do you mean to suggest that issue isn't an issue of truth, or right and wrong? Seriously?

[Nick]

I specifically object to worry over a, "God of the Gaps," that has seemed to grip the non-ID camp. This rejects a God of Miracles and replaces it with something that a Orthodox Deist would worship. God, if one is to believe scripture, fills gaps with alarming frequency. Need man? *Poof*, he's there. Need the Isrealites to wake up? *Poof* pillar of fire, *poof* food, *poof* water, *poof* flattened cities. Of course, he could of made the whole thing up which either gives us a religion founded either by delusional mad-men or a lying God. Have fun with that, because I'm not signing up for that sort of church.

[Brian John Schuettler]

...but don't its proponents actively promote it as science? They may mean well, but frankly if they understand the distinction themselves it's flatly dishonest of them.

Do all proponents of ID promote it actively as a science? Frankly, I doubt that all of them do, unfortunately some. Not being a proponent of ID, I simply don't know.It's a good question to ask of someone like Dr. Benjamin Wiker.

The problem is that it's not the only alternative (c.f. Thomist positions), nor is it a particularly sound one; it's just the most successfully marketed. ID is carefully calculated to play to popular sensibilities by avoiding questions of the supernatural, but precisely because of that it fails to challenge materialism.

Did I say it was the only alternative? No, I didn't. Of course the irony is that it is the atheistic secular agenda that plays to popular sensibilities by avoiding questions of the supernatural through the abuse of the Separation Clause and using toady judges to create de jure what they cannot achieve through legitimate legislative vote.

The question before the court in Dover was whether ID could be taught in the classroom as science. I wasn't entirely happy with the way the case was argued or the ruling formulated.

My statement made no reference to the Dover case and I agree with you that the case was not well argued and I also believe that the judge demonstrated undue bias from advocates of the anti-ID position in allowing them to help write his final opinion... but that is neither here nor there. My comment is very simple...
This isn't about right or wrong, it is about the ability in an open society to debate the merits of issues without the intrusion of government or those with secular agendas. I did not restrict the comment, as you can see, to science or to court cases or, for that matter, to any discipline. I simply expressed my personal opinion regarding the chilling influence of government, in general, when it intrudes itself into the what people can think and discuss. Put bluntly, I am against any slow movement toward materialistic totalitarianism.

[MenTaLguY]

Nick: I agree that one shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the very real phenomenon of direct divine intervention in creation. However, the "God of the Gaps" critique is intended to address a specific form of argument from ignorance: it's foolish to assume divine intervention in a particular case soley on the basis of the limit of contemporary science, in the absence of any positive evidence for such intervention (of which I would include Revelation as a reliable source). Such a critique needn't imply deism, as we have positive evidence (and indeed proof) of many divine interventions throughout history.

[MenTaLguY]

Brian: you'll have to forgive me -- I had assumed that the Dover trial was part of the context of the discussion.

So far as proponents of ID go, it's not necessary to show that all proponents of ID advocate it as science, merely that its originators and most vocal proponents do.

[Rick]

Brian, very well stated.

Nick, one can reconcile God’s action in world, such as miracles and holding creation in being, and not have to reduce everything unexplainable to divine action. Your statement would most likely render Thomas Aquinas an "Orthodox deist".

God is transcendent yet at the same time is immanently present in and to the creation while the actions and movements of creatures, especially those endowed with freedom, remain truly their own and have their own integrity, nonetheless these secondary causes need divine assistance—concurrence—for the possibility of their actions. No aspect of the created world—even finite created freedom—escapes or is outside of God’s creative conservation and providential care. God, who holds all things in existence as the primary cause and infinite being, enables the action of his creation (secondary causes). In terms of divine concurrence (See Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles SCG III 70), God holds into existence and allows for its freedom. God is the primary cause and everything else is the secondary cause. He is transcendent and immanent, action and movements of creation are dependent, yet have own movement and vitality. This action is dependence both upon God and a causality of our own. The primary causality is God, all is dependent upon him.

An example of primary action is the fact I exist, secondary action is the things I do. God holds all this in being, and gives us the power to act. Primary and secondary causality are simultaneous, both act on different levels of existence. God is the mover outside as cause, his action and our action are on different levels of existence. God is present in each effect, the 2 causes can explain the nature manner of coming to be, only God alone can explain the effect and the being of the secondary cause. When a creature produces an effect it is proportionate to the nature of the cause, but part of the effect exceeds its power which must be linked to the primary. Different aspects of the effect are proportionate to the causes. Only can God can produce being, which is the movement from potency to act. Thus, secondary and efficient causes can bring about a cause without requiring direct divine interaction (as claimed by ID).

If we can assume that God creates through the dynamic processes of evolution, then the dialogue of evolution and creation can speak of new forms of life emerging through creation. God creates life and sustains His creation by creatio continua, holding it in being. Creation through the evolutionary mechanism allows for the acceptance of the Darwinistic concepts of natural selection and random mutation. This perspective does not exclude a teleological framework, because chance is allowed for within the purpose of creation with the idea that species have evolved through a process of natural selection. The mutation of evolutionary events must include some chance in order for the filters of natural selection to occur, and thus we do not need to appeal to God for special creation of each new species or to “gaps” when something is unexplainable.

[Nick]

Men's response was far closer to the mark than your's Rick. I seriously doubt Thomas Aquinas would hold that the creation of man had anything to do with chance. He was, after all, not a deist.

I will also invoke, "plain reading." A plain reading of both the fathers and of the Bible allows for a much more miraculous God than modern man seems to be able to handle. We've consigned ourselves to executing every fairy that flutters its wings. After all, such things can't exist. We've sold our souls and our faith to sound more serious at academic conventions.

It really isn't worth it.

This doesn't mean we can't approach the situation with academic vigor. ID has some interesting thoughts on information density...but somehow that supposes the Arch-Evil-God-of-the-Gaps. Go figure. ID was shot down by its supposed allies before it even got off the ground.

As to the testimony of revelation, both of you seem to ignore the fact that Genesis pre-supposes, along with a host of other documents from the fathers, God *acting* in creation in very definite and miraculous ways. This doesn't mean that poetic language wasn't used, but it doesn't allow for a namby-pamby approach to Divine Providence.

[Rick]

Nick, don't mistake mutation for random chance, you misquote me here. As a Catholic, I accept the beauty of books of Revelation (faith which includes Tradition) and Nature(reason). Instead of doubting what I said about Thomas, you should have read it for yourself (A little study of philosophy never hurts) So, here it is also with a note from the International Theological Commission. If I said anything misquoting/contrary to Scripture, Thomas or the view of the commission, I would welcome you to show me where. If this is convincing, I don't know what is.

From St. Thomas Aquinas
SCG 3.72 That Divine Providence is not inconsistent with an element of Contingency in Creation
AS divine providence does not exclude all evil from creation, neither does it exclude contingency, or impose necessity upon all things. The operation of providence does not exclude secondary causes, but is fulfilled by them, inasmuch as they act in the power of God. Now effects are called 'necessary' or 'contingent' according to their proximate causes, not according to their remote causes. Since then among proximate causes there are many that may fail, not all effects subject to providence will be necessary, but many will be contingent.
6. On the part of divine providence no hindrance will be put to the failure of the power of created things, or to an obstacle arising through the resistance of something coming in the way. But from such failure and such resistance the contingency occurs of a natural cause not always acting in the same way, but sometimes failing to do what it is naturally competent to do; and so natural effects do not come about of necessity.

SCG 3.74 That Divine Providence is not inconsistent with Fortune and Chance*
THE multitude and diversity of causes proceeds from the order of divine providence and arrangement. Supposing an arrangement of many causes, one must sometimes combine with another, so as either to hinder or help it in producing its effect. A chance event arises from a coincidence of two or more causes, in that an end not intended is gained by the coming in of some collateral cause, as the finding of a debtor by him who went to market to make a purchase, when his debtor also came to market. Hence it is said: I saw that the race was not to the swift . . . . but that occasion and chance are in all things (Eccles ix, 11) to wit, in all sublunary things (in inferioribus)
http://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc.htm

From the International Theological Commission:
Many neo-Darwinian scientists, as well as some of their critics, have concluded that, if evolution is a radically contingent materialistic process driven by natural selection and random genetic variation, then there can be no place in it for divine providential causality. A growing body of scientific critics of neo-Darwinism point to evidence of design (e.g., biological structures that exhibit specified complexity) that, in their view, cannot be explained in terms of a purely contingent process and that neo-Darwinians have ignored or misinterpreted. The nub of this currently lively disagreement involves scientific observation and generalization concerning whether the available data support inferences of design or chance, and cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so.

[Rick]

PS. I NEVER said man's creation comes about by chance! If God creates and holds all in existence and everything is dependent upon him, as I stated, then human creation is not by chance as each human soul is special creation of God.

[MenTaLguY]

Nick: the testimony of Genesis counts as positive evidence (conclusive, even) in my book. Take God's creation of our First Parents in his Image, for example -- that's about as unambiguous as you can get.

Rather, the problem I'm concerned with lies in taking a phenomenon which contemporary science doesn't account for (say, the development of the proteins in the clotting cascade) and upon which Revelation is also silent, thereby proposing, without any other evidence, that phenomenon as an instance of direct divine (or, after Behe, merely intelligent) intervention. To wit:

1. No product of intelligent action is explicable by scientific laws
2. The clotting cascade is not explained by scientific laws
3. Therefore, the clotting cascade is a product of intelligent action

The "God of the Gaps" is rooted in invalid syllogistic reasoning. A medieval scholastic would recognize the error right away; have we really fallen so far since then, or are we supposed to look the other way just because the ID folks are on "our team"?

[Rick]

The syllogism is a very good example and leads me to two questions/statements. One, if we are going to critique the logic of science for overstepping its boundaries when it moves from the quantifiable facts to metaphysical conclusions (natural selection/random mutation to materialism/no God), shouldn't we hold those on "our team" to the same standard (ID/Irreducible Complexity to necessity of design)?

Fairness requires the same standards for both sides. In addition, if modern science requires of itself that its theories have a criterion of falsifiability, should we not ask the same of ID if it claims to be science?

[MenTaLguY]

Yeah. Keeping "our team" in line isn't the biggest problem we have to face (one has to be careful not to get bogged down in criticism of ID to the point where one neglects the big issues, of course), but it is important to keep each other honest.

I'm still thinking about falsifiability specifically, though. Part of the ID position is that falsifiability isn't always a realistic criterion, and Myers makes some arguments along those lines which seem better founded.

Something else which occurred to me today is that it's worth asking whether the whole notion of "Intelligent Design" presumes too much on the Cartesian ideas that are part of the materialist problem in the first place. Descartes, in his famous "I think, therefore I am," regarded thought more fundamental than being, but that's a radical inversion of the traditional understanding up until that time.

Perhaps arguments for Creation founded on being rather than intellect are potentially more robust? God, after all, saw fit to identify Himself as "I AM," not "I THINK."

[John Michael Keba]

Perhaps someone here can clarify something for me: isn't the strong Anthropic Principle used as an ID proposition, yet part of scientific discourse whether it is falsifiable or not? Specifically, haven't cosmological theories been developed precisely to explain away its implications of a Creator?

That's the gist of Cardinal Schoenborn's criticism, isn't it? That the schools are unfairly censoring the discussion of *the findings of science* and not just what can be taught *as science*

[Rick]

M-guY, even if falsifiability isn't a criterion, should it not be one? It seems to separate what is plausible (Big Bang) from what is provable (General Relativity, Newton's Laws). Once example, Einstein conceived that curvature/bending was a property of light, Kuhn reports that this was doubted by many until Eddington proved it via observation. It may be impossible to verify every aspect of some theories, like the Big Bang, but certainly aspects of it are subject to falsifiability. Each of these, as science, are subject to quantification, and are thus subject to some degree of falsifiability. With ID, how does one empirically and quantifiably prove design? It seems one can't, thus when moving from irreducible complexity, which is quantifiable, to design, which is qualitative, one is working with 2 different types of categories.

For Descartes, and I draw much of this from Gilson and Wittgenstein, proceeding from thinking (I think) to being (I am) is called the Problem of the Bridge. Descartes, via his systematic doubt, he proved that he could think but remained stuck in his mind which is results in solipsism because he could not prove anything else. His next move was to try to prove God's existence, based on the idea of a perfect being who could not deceive. Such ideological ontological proofs were critiqued by many, including St. Thomas. The question is can one make such a move? And, if “I think therefore I am” is false then doesn’t that render his argument unsound. To proceed from thought to being is a radical inversion as you say, one remains trapped in mind alone and can't prove anything else.

I need to think through your analogy between ID and Descartes. At least when one proceeds from being, one can reason via deductive proofs as St. Thomas does to a creator and avoids the problem of the bridge. With ID, it proceeds from what is known scientifically to metaphysics, that something is irreducibly complex to design. This seems to confuse epistemology (what we know-facts) with metaphysics (what is real-design). In this sense, I think Descartes follows a same pattern in the sense that his method attempts to reduce metaphysics to mathematics. Science does the same thing at times, since something is observed and plausible mathematically, it is taken to be the case in reality. Here, I am thinking of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and string theory. One can go from metaphysics (what is real) to epistemology, but if they are inverted then one accepts what is known/fact (epistemology) and then seeks to build a metaphysics on the basis of the fact. The latter then becomes the basis for multiple universes, infinite universes and all kinds of contrived realities which cannot be proven or disproven.

[MenTaLguY]

John: I agree with the Cardinal's assessment of the problem generally, but I'm not convinced that he has a good grasp of what the Intelligent Design people are about.

Rick: I don't think the ID people see a lack of quantifiability or falsifiability as a problem; Stephen C. Meyer, in "The Scientific Status of Intelligent Design," asserts (after explicitly rejecting falsifiability as a useful criterion):

Many theories that are held in high esteem lack many of the allegedly necessary and sufficient features of proper science. As a result, with few exceptions, most contemporary philosophers of science regard the question "What methods distinguish science from nonscience?" as both untractable and uninteresting. What, after all, is in a name? Certainly not epistemic warrant or authority.

I'm unfortunately not well-read in contemporary philosophy of science, so I can't say much about his citations for this argument, aside from noting the fact that his footnotes rely very heavily on Michael Ruse and Larry Laudan.

(Meyer's essay is printed in "Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe", a set of essays by Dembski, Behe, and Meyer, available from Ignatius.)

[MenTaLguY]

Agh, hit post too soon. Substitute "citations for this argument" with "citations backing this assertion".

[Rick]

MguY: Thanks for the reference, I do have the book and will read that essay. Here is a direct quote from Ruse’s Can a Darwinian Be a Christian where he appeals to falsifiability as a criterion:

The common complaint about evolutionary theory is that it is too flabby to yield testable predictions. It is in some sense unfalsifiable (Popper 1974). But whether or not this is true (I do not happen to think it is), such a complaint must certainly be made of Behe’s theory. How can you ever tell when irreducible complexity can be explained by evolution and when it must be explained by something else (or Something Else)? Behe himself admits that there is no sharp line, and he gives no real answers to this problem. Newton and Einstein and those other great scientists to whom he likens himself produced work which led to quantification and to measurement and prediction…(119)

Ken Miller, in Finding Darwins God, adds states that the some of the scientific criterion of ID is falsifiable because “…Behe’s central thesis, that the flagellum could not have ‘functional precursors’ is disproved”.

I would argue that while falsifiability may not be a problem for those in ID, it seems to be a major prerequisite for the scientific endeavor as Ruse’s quote indicates.

[MenTaLguY]

Yes -- it would appear that Ruse is cited in endnote 24 as being one of those "few exceptions" (rather than as supporting Meyer's assertion that exceptions were few).

[padraighh]

It seems that I have arrived too late for the party. At the risk of speaking
to an empty room, let me add two cents.

1) The purpose of physical science is to study the material universe.

2) To the degree that ID proponents (or believers) make claims about the
necessity of miracles in the creation of the physical universe,
they deny science its appropriate realm of competence. And to some degree
scientist are legimately disturbed. It was really the philosophers in the
Church that originally developed the understanding of the
realms of science and philosophy.

3) To the degree that scientists abrogate this division and assume
unto themselves all knowledge and contend that all that can be known is material,
they also step outside the bounds of legitimate science becoming proponents of
the latest fads. They should incur the sanction of the intellectual community for these
breaches. In fact, they should be treated as outcasts when they do so, for
by claiming to be intellectuals, we may assume that they know better.

4) It is the case that several prominant scientists have claimed that evolution
proves that God does not exist. For this reason alone, we can expect controversy
over what is taught in schools to continue.

[MenTaLguY]

Agreed on all four counts.

On point #2, I'd like to add that the ID folks, to the extent that they appear to be aware of the work of those philosophers, contend that they were mistaken and to some extent blame them for creating the materialist problem. I'm posting from work at the moment and don't have my books available, or I'd provide some illustrative quotes.

[Rick]

Padraighh on point 2, I agree that philosophers within the Church developed the understanding of the realms of science and philosophy. I believe much of this came about as a part of the divorce between science and philosophy, at least this partly derives from my reading of Gilson and Jaki but certainly is picked up in JP II's Fides et Ratio.

From a strictly Augustinian perspective, is is hard to give matter and metaphysics their proper due. Later, Ockham (from this perspective) and his followers try to cut away classical metaphysics reducing metaphysical realities to the words that signify objects. From this, the rise of what is quantifiabale becomes the norm for describing reality. From a Thomistic perspective, metaphysics is considered the highest of the sciences as a form of knowing which is contrary to Ockham's view. Luther, influenced by Ockham's nominalism ultimately creates the great divorce between faith and reason with his sola fide calling reason a "whore". I am sure there were political and social factors as well in this separation as science is also a social enterprise as well, it is people who "do science". I think it can be argued that this debate between science and religion occurs from an improper metaphysical understanding of reality and sadly science and philosophy are split as well.

So many theories are justified in the name of Ockham's razor, "entities need not be multiplied without necessity", but what makes this proposition true? I think it is often used to justify materialism which no science can ever prove to be true. Modern science, stemming from nominalism, jettisoned any view of final causality. This is why ID cannot be considered science in the modern sense, because it appeals to final causality (design). So, today we have the realm of science which explains material reality but often wants to avoid metaphysics only until it seems fitting to make a non-scientific statement like "matter is the only reality."

Now, I know why St. Thomas is considered the Angelic Doctor, in his writing one finds the proper balance of the empirical (quantifiable) and the ontological, also faith and reason.

[MenTaLguY]

I think Ockham's Razor is often abused, but in the sense that it means "try to eliminate the simplest theories first," it's almost a practical necessity to doing science, isn't it?

[Rick]

I agree, from a philosophical perspective, it appears to be a practical necessity of science. I overgeneralized there and should have kept it within the balance of science and metaphysics. Here is where I see the mistake happening. For example, when materialists claim that matter is the only reality or neo-Darwinists state deny causality they are invoking the razor, not based on anything quantitative, but on a philosophical conclusion that flows from their science. But, such conclusions are outside the boundaries of science in terms of quantifiability.

Here is another modern example of the razor in action from the writings of John Polkinghorne and Stanley Jaki. Both Heisenberg and Bohr argue from the indeterminism of quantum measurement to an ontological claim that there is no causality. Jaki states this notes that it is rather curious that Heisenberg actually wrote a book entitled Physics and Philosophy in which he tried to argue against causality based on quantum indeterminism. The curiosity occurs because the writing of scientific and philosophical books are usually for the purpose of stating an argument. Now, the nature of argumentation is designed for the purpose of bringing about an effect. If one were to write a book on why children should not play with deadly poisons, then its arguments are an attempt to demonstrate that there is a great danger of children dying if they were to consume the toxins. The book’s causal arguments are designed to bring about the effect of lowering child mortality rates. Analogously, Heisenberg’s attempt to write a book stating that there is no causality is in essence self-refuting. The Copenhagen Interpretation argument appears to follow these lines: The book X states the argument “that according to quantum mechanics there is no determinism in quantum measurement” producing the effect Y for its reader that “there is no causality.” This may be an oversimplified version of the argument, but the point can be made Heisenberg’s book intended to produce a cause and effect relationship stating “there is no causality in nature.” Jaki, in an attempt to defend realist metaphysics goes so far as to brand the Uncertainty Principle the “Heisenberg fallacy.” Jaki writes from a presupposition in light of the principle of sufficient reason that states: nothing takes place without a cause, and human reason dictates an event needs a cause. When the scientist attempts to remove causality from reality or claims that matter is the only reality, he implicitly invokes Ockham, but he has overstepped the boundaries of science by moving into the philosophical realm of ontology.

Maybe I should learn a thing from Ockham and apply the razor to my posts! Sorry for the blather.