What Evolutionists Dont Understand

8/4/2019 What Evolutionists Dont Understand

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Explanations needed to be naturalistic for scientific inquiry. And as

usual the foundations for this evolutionary mandate long predate

1859. Miracles were increasingly eschewed by leading thinkers anda century before philosopher David Hume had made persuasive

arguments against miracles. Much of Hume¶s material came fromtheological debates earlier in the century. On the continent leadingLutherans had already discarded the supernatural.

Method, completeness and realism in pictures

So when an evolutionist today insists that science must be

naturalistic he is standing on a deep foundation of ideas. But setting

aside this history for a moment, what about this argument?

Remember that these same evolutionists claim their idea is also afact. Is there not something curious about these tandem claims? Iwas once in a debate where the evolutionists claimed that we knowevolution is a fact, and that it also is necessary in order to doscience. How did they know that? Let¶s have a look.

First, imagine the set of all possible explanations, as represented bythe blue area below:

Because the blue area contains all possible explanations, it includes

false as well as true explanations, lousy as well as goodexplanations, aesthetic and clumsy ones, and natural and nonnatural ones. It is every possible explanation in one set.

Now consider the set of all solutions that are according to a

particular method, such as naturalism, as illustrated in the orange

area below. All explanations that are strictly naturalistic are in the

yellow area, and all other explanations are outside the orange area.Because the blue area contains all possible explanations, the orange

area is a subset²it is wholly within the blue area.

Next consider the set of all true explanations as represented by thegreen circle below. These true explanations provide realistic modelsof nature. Again, this set of explanations must be wholly within theblue area, but otherwise we don¶t know just where this green circle

is. It could be in the orange area, it could be outside the orange

area, or it could overlap. We don¶t know what the true solutions allare, which is why we do science.

I have drawn the green circle above as partly inside and partly



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outside the orange area merely to illustrate the possibilities. But we

don¶t know where it is, and therefore whenever we mandate, a

priori, a method such as naturalism, we automatically exclude a setof explanations that might be true.

In the early days of modern science philosophers were keen to thisissue. Francis Bacon, for instance, wanted science only to pursuetrue explanations. But Bacon also wanted science to restrict itself tonaturalistic explanations. Bacon realized that the restriction tonaturalism would exclude any realistic, true, explanations that werenot strictly naturalistic.

Bacon said that such non naturalistic phenomena should not be

pursued by science. So Bacon insisted on naturalism and realism,but forfeited completeness. Science would not investigate all things.The thick black line below illustrates how this position limits itself toexplanations that are both realistic and naturalistic, whilepotentially forfeiting some true explanations (depending on whereexactly the green circle really is).

Like Bacon, another early philosopher, Rene Descartes, also insisted

on naturalism. But he didn¶t like the idea of forfeiting completeness.

Descartes wanted science to be able to investigate all phenomena.But what if some realistic, true, explanations fall outside of naturalism? So what.

Descartes solution was to forfeit realism. Science, according to

Descartes, would occasionally produce untrue explanations that

otherwise could very well be useful. This approach is illustrated by

the thick line below that encompasses all the naturalistic

explanations, but misses some of the true explanations. Sciencemight produce useful fictions along the way. Descartes mandated

method and completeness, but in doing so had to forfeit realism.

After Descartes several scientists did not like this idea of forfeitingrealism, as Descartes did, or forfeiting completeness, as Bacon did.These empiricists were interested in true solutions for all

phenomena. This approach is illustrated below with the thick line

encompassing the true solutions. But in order to maintain such

realism and completeness, this approach cannot guarantee what

method would be necessary. They might require non naturalisticexplanations, for instance. So this approach provides realism andcompleteness, but forfeits any guarantee of method, such asnaturalism.



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What Evolutionists Dont Understand