It focuses on the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which came up here recently in another thread, but could just has easily have been applied to string theory, for example. The basic question is, can we have science without empirical evidence? We have no empirical evidence for either MW or strings, yet both are treated by some as standard science — even, as the article points out in the case of MW, almost self-evidently true by some prominent scientists, including Deutsch and Carroll.
From the article:
Despite appearances, science offers no certainty.
I agree. Science is never about certainty.
Yet history tells us quite unequivocally that science works.
Right. That is interesting in and of itself. It clearly works, but is never certain.
…when predictions are falsified by the empirical evidence, it’s never clear why. It might be that the theory is false, but it could simply be that one of the auxiliary assumptions is invalid. The evidence can’t tell us which.
Right, and very interesting. The discussion that follows about Newton and the orbits of Uranus and Mercury nicely illustrates the point. The article further discusses the limitations of Popperian falsificationism.
Now, there is a lot more to this essay, and I recommend reading it. But I want to cut to the chase. About intelligent design, the author writes:
Intelligent design is not science: as a theory, it is simply overwhelmed by its metaphysical content.
Here, I disagree. I continue to agree with the philosopher Bradley Monton, who in a 2006 paper disagreed with the Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling. In that ruling, the judge effectively and wrongly, in my view, established, by judicial fiat no less, a demarcation criterion for science. Monton wrote:
I maintain that science is better off without being shackled by methodological naturalism. Our successful scientific theories are naturalistic simply because this is the way the evidence points; this leaves open the possibility that, on the basis of new evidence, there could be supernatural scientific theories. I conclude that ID should not be dismissed on the grounds that it is unscientific; ID should be dismissed on the grounds that the empirical evidence for its claims just isn’t there.
At his Sandwalk blog, the biochemist Larry Moran has also long disputed that ID is “unscientific,” and has given a fair hearing to Behe, though of course he too sees no evidence for ID, and even refers to its advocates as “IDiots.”
Moving on, the author compares ID with Many Worlds. He quotes Helge Kragh:
But, so it has been argued, intelligent design is hardly less testable than many multiverse theories. To dismiss intelligent design on the ground that it is untestable, and yet to accept the multiverse as an interesting scientific hypothesis, may come suspiciously close to applying double standards. As seen from the perspective of some creationists, and also by some non-creationists, their cause has received unintended methodological support from multiverse physics.
He goes on to paraphrase the objection from proponents of ID, who say: how is unevidenced Many Worlds more “scientific” than unevidenced ID?
The creationists are saying, with some justification: look, you accuse us of pseudoscience, but how is what you’re doing in the name of science any different? They seek to undermine the authority of science as the last word on the rational search for truth.
One may pass over the irony — ID advocates have long contended, without justification, that there is empirical evidence for their claims; to now argue at the same time that ID should be entertained without evidence, because MW is entertained without evidence, is disingenuous and self-contradictory to say the least. It is trying to have one’s cake and eat it.
Though I agree with Monton that ID cannot be ruled out as science tout court, I disagree with the above, from Kragh and the author of the article. To me, there is a major difference between positing Many Worlds as a valid, even plausible, interpretation, or meta-theory, of quantum theory, and positing ID as a replacement for evolutionary theory, even though both MW and ID both have zero empirical evidence.
The difference, it seems to me, is this: MW poses solutions to extant problems in QM. ID, by contrast, offers solutions, where no problems exist.
MW deals with the following problems: in Copenhagen-style QM interpretations, we are asked to believe in wavefunction collapse, even though nothing in the Schroedinger equation incorporates any such thing. We are asked to believe in what Einstein derided as “spooky action at a distance.” We are asked to believe in indeterminism instead of determinism, and we are asked even to believe in anti-realism. All of these things contradict what we observe in daily life. (Although, of course, this point by itself is not devastating — all sorts of things, such as that the earth is flat or the sun moves around the earth, may appear to be true, without actually being true.)
But at one fell swoop, MW eliminates all of those problems — determinism, locality, and realism in physics are fully restored. This makes MW a compelling hypothesis even without empirical evidence — and, as Deutsch has argued, it may even be possible, with a certain advanced technology, to obtain evidence for MW. Indeed, Deutsch argues, pretty persuasively IMO, that the famed two-slit experiment is already a persuasive test in favor of MW.
ID does none of this, and this is the key point (for me) that Baggott fails to address in an otherwise engrossing essay. There are no extant problems with evolutionary biology that ID addresses. ID has no theory or explanation or hypothesis of who the designer is, or how or why the designer does, what he/she/it does. ID has got nothing, whereas evolutionary biology has everything, backed up by a veritable Mount Everest of evidence.
Thus ID, unlike MW, has neither an empirical nor a metaphysical leg to stand on, though that may change at a later date, of course, which was one of Monton’s points. An example would be plate tectonics.
