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The Icon of Materialism: Why Scientism's Cherished Progress Narrative Fails is an article by Jonathan Witt at http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=28-02-040-f The article debunks the myth of promissory materialism.
When confronted with science's inability to explain some seemingly paranormal phenomena, a materialist often says that it isn't really paranormal and that although science can't explain it now, science will find an explanation in the future. Consciousness and the origin of life are two frequent subjects where this occurs. This is sometimes called "promissory materialism" This faith is science (scientism) is said to be reasonable because it is supported by the history of science. Things that were once thought to be paranormal were eventually explained by science. But if you look at the actual data you see that this faith in science is misplaced. When you look at the history of science you see that many, many times the atheist materialist position was wrong.
At one time scientists thought life was very simple and could easily arise spontaneously and therefore the origin of life on earth was not mysterious. However later developments have shown that life is very complex and life does not normally arise spontaneously. The progress of science did not solve the mystery of the origin of life, it resulted in the origin of life becoming more of a mystery.
In cosmology, it was initially thought that the universe always existed and therefore the origin of the universe needed no explanation. However later developments showed that the universe did have a beginning and it appears to be fine-tuned to support life. The progress of science did not solve the mystery of the origin of the universe, it made the origin of the universe more of a mystery.
At the birth of modern science, most scientists believed natural laws were orderly because they were designed. Eventually scientists decided to adopt methodological naturalism and reject supernatural explanations for natural phenomenon. The result of this is that to explain the fine tuning of the universe to support life, cosmologists have to propose an unfalsifiable multiverse containing an infinite number of universes where anything is possible and natural laws lose all explanatory power. The progress of science has not provided more reasons to have faith in science, it has led to the undermining of the foundations of science. Promissory materialism promises a materialist explanation for all phenomenon but the multiverse theory makes all phenomenon explanable by mere chance.
Promissory materialism is based on the belief that science progresses from superstition to material explanation. But this belief is not correct. In the cases of origin of life and cosmology science has discovered its simplistic explanations didn't hold up, and in the case of cosmology the basic foundations of science, that nature follows intelligible natural laws, has been overthrown thrown to maintain belief in materialism.
(UPDATE, (see my posts below) More historical reasons not to believe promissory materialism: The progress of science has led to the belief that the human mind evolved for survival not truth. According to materialist science belief in anything is not rational, applied uniformly this would include belief in materialism ... materialist science undermines itself. PM fail. The materialist theory of junk DNA was not supported by later findings, it has been over thrown by later findings. PM fail! Geologic evidence of ancient floods reminiscent of the biblical flood story, despite fierce resistance at the time was eventually confirmed by science not refuted. PM fail! )
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=28-02-040-f
When confronted with science's inability to explain some seemingly paranormal phenomena, a materialist often says that it isn't really paranormal and that although science can't explain it now, science will find an explanation in the future. Consciousness and the origin of life are two frequent subjects where this occurs. This is sometimes called "promissory materialism" This faith is science (scientism) is said to be reasonable because it is supported by the history of science. Things that were once thought to be paranormal were eventually explained by science. But if you look at the actual data you see that this faith in science is misplaced. When you look at the history of science you see that many, many times the atheist materialist position was wrong.
At one time scientists thought life was very simple and could easily arise spontaneously and therefore the origin of life on earth was not mysterious. However later developments have shown that life is very complex and life does not normally arise spontaneously. The progress of science did not solve the mystery of the origin of life, it resulted in the origin of life becoming more of a mystery.
In cosmology, it was initially thought that the universe always existed and therefore the origin of the universe needed no explanation. However later developments showed that the universe did have a beginning and it appears to be fine-tuned to support life. The progress of science did not solve the mystery of the origin of the universe, it made the origin of the universe more of a mystery.
At the birth of modern science, most scientists believed natural laws were orderly because they were designed. Eventually scientists decided to adopt methodological naturalism and reject supernatural explanations for natural phenomenon. The result of this is that to explain the fine tuning of the universe to support life, cosmologists have to propose an unfalsifiable multiverse containing an infinite number of universes where anything is possible and natural laws lose all explanatory power. The progress of science has not provided more reasons to have faith in science, it has led to the undermining of the foundations of science. Promissory materialism promises a materialist explanation for all phenomenon but the multiverse theory makes all phenomenon explanable by mere chance.
Promissory materialism is based on the belief that science progresses from superstition to material explanation. But this belief is not correct. In the cases of origin of life and cosmology science has discovered its simplistic explanations didn't hold up, and in the case of cosmology the basic foundations of science, that nature follows intelligible natural laws, has been overthrown thrown to maintain belief in materialism.
(UPDATE, (see my posts below) More historical reasons not to believe promissory materialism: The progress of science has led to the belief that the human mind evolved for survival not truth. According to materialist science belief in anything is not rational, applied uniformly this would include belief in materialism ... materialist science undermines itself. PM fail. The materialist theory of junk DNA was not supported by later findings, it has been over thrown by later findings. PM fail! Geologic evidence of ancient floods reminiscent of the biblical flood story, despite fierce resistance at the time was eventually confirmed by science not refuted. PM fail! )
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=28-02-040-f
The Icon of Materialism
Why Scientism's Cherished Progress Narrative Fails
by Jonathan Witt
For instance, through much of the nineteenth century, the scientific consensus was that microscopic life was relatively simple, little more than microscopic sacks of Jell-O. The scientific community also accepted the idea of spontaneous generation—that creatures sprang to life spontaneously out of things like dew and rotting meat. Taken together, these pieces of conventional scientific wisdom suggested that the origin of the first living cell deep in the past was hardly worthy of the term mystery—a material explanation seemed obvious.
But in 1861 Louis Pasteur conducted a series of experiments that discredited the notion of spontaneous generation. And in the next century, scientists began amassing evidence of just how complex even the simplest cell is. Today we know that cells are microminiaturized factories of astonishing sophistication and that, even more to the point, such sophistication is essential for them to be able to survive and reproduce. Matheson himself conceded in his debate with Meyer that no adequate material explanation has been found for the origin of the cell.
In sum: We have come to learn that spontaneous generation was a fantasy. We have discovered that even the simplest cells are highly sophisticated and information-rich organisms. And the only cause we have ever witnessed actually producing novel information is intelligent design.
...
Cosmology and physics provide another counter-example to the grand narrative. In Darwin's time, conventional scientific wisdom held that the universe was eternal.
...
Near the same time that scientists were realizing this, there was a growing awareness of what is now widely known in cosmology as the fine-tuning problem. This is the curious fact that the various laws and constants of nature appear finely calibrated to allow for life in the universe—calibrated to such a precise degree that even committed materialists have abandoned blunt appeals to chance.
...
Scientism's grand progress narrative holds that as we learn more and more about the world, purely natural or material explanations will inevitably arise and grow stronger, while design arguments will inevitably collapse under the weight of new discoveries. But the opposite has happened in cosmology and origin-of-life studies.
...
the insight that we live in a world with various underlying laws and constants that we can profitably investigate has long been non-controversial. Moreover, the idea was encouraged by the belief that nature is the rational and orderly work of a divine mind
...
The theological, and specifically theistic, commitments of the early men of science were crucial to the birth of modern science.
...
Many later scientists abandoned science's fertile theological heritage, opting to restrict themselves to purely material explanations and insisting that science should trade only in hypotheses consistent with materialism.
...
The cosmic-sized case in point is their invoking untold billions of unseen, undetectable universes to argue that ours is just a rare lucky one among all these untold universes, one with a life-sustaining combination of physical laws and constants. Never mind that the idea is un-falsifiable, and never mind that such a multiverse would itself require exquisite fine-tuning in order to generate even one life-sustaining universe.
...
The same dogmatic thinking may help explain how some nakedly misleading arguments against intelligent design continue to circulate among the proponents of scientism. So, for instance, intelligent design is dismissed as an argument from ignorance when it's actually based on people's uniform experience of designed systems and the cause-and-effect structure of the universe.
...
At other times, opponents of intelligent design attack almost the opposite straw man, warning that design proponents view the cosmic designer as wholly removed from nature except when he comes down to tinker with an imperfect creation.
...
None of these straw-man attacks hold together under close inspection, and none of them alter the reality that scientism's grand narrative of a manifest destiny is a manifest charade. Its failure presents a golden opportunity to beckon both science and the broader culture out of the flatland of materialism and back toward a richer, and more reasonable, understanding of reality.
Why Scientism's Cherished Progress Narrative Fails
by Jonathan Witt
For instance, through much of the nineteenth century, the scientific consensus was that microscopic life was relatively simple, little more than microscopic sacks of Jell-O. The scientific community also accepted the idea of spontaneous generation—that creatures sprang to life spontaneously out of things like dew and rotting meat. Taken together, these pieces of conventional scientific wisdom suggested that the origin of the first living cell deep in the past was hardly worthy of the term mystery—a material explanation seemed obvious.
But in 1861 Louis Pasteur conducted a series of experiments that discredited the notion of spontaneous generation. And in the next century, scientists began amassing evidence of just how complex even the simplest cell is. Today we know that cells are microminiaturized factories of astonishing sophistication and that, even more to the point, such sophistication is essential for them to be able to survive and reproduce. Matheson himself conceded in his debate with Meyer that no adequate material explanation has been found for the origin of the cell.
In sum: We have come to learn that spontaneous generation was a fantasy. We have discovered that even the simplest cells are highly sophisticated and information-rich organisms. And the only cause we have ever witnessed actually producing novel information is intelligent design.
...
Cosmology and physics provide another counter-example to the grand narrative. In Darwin's time, conventional scientific wisdom held that the universe was eternal.
...
Near the same time that scientists were realizing this, there was a growing awareness of what is now widely known in cosmology as the fine-tuning problem. This is the curious fact that the various laws and constants of nature appear finely calibrated to allow for life in the universe—calibrated to such a precise degree that even committed materialists have abandoned blunt appeals to chance.
...
Scientism's grand progress narrative holds that as we learn more and more about the world, purely natural or material explanations will inevitably arise and grow stronger, while design arguments will inevitably collapse under the weight of new discoveries. But the opposite has happened in cosmology and origin-of-life studies.
...
the insight that we live in a world with various underlying laws and constants that we can profitably investigate has long been non-controversial. Moreover, the idea was encouraged by the belief that nature is the rational and orderly work of a divine mind
...
The theological, and specifically theistic, commitments of the early men of science were crucial to the birth of modern science.
...
Many later scientists abandoned science's fertile theological heritage, opting to restrict themselves to purely material explanations and insisting that science should trade only in hypotheses consistent with materialism.
...
The cosmic-sized case in point is their invoking untold billions of unseen, undetectable universes to argue that ours is just a rare lucky one among all these untold universes, one with a life-sustaining combination of physical laws and constants. Never mind that the idea is un-falsifiable, and never mind that such a multiverse would itself require exquisite fine-tuning in order to generate even one life-sustaining universe.
...
The same dogmatic thinking may help explain how some nakedly misleading arguments against intelligent design continue to circulate among the proponents of scientism. So, for instance, intelligent design is dismissed as an argument from ignorance when it's actually based on people's uniform experience of designed systems and the cause-and-effect structure of the universe.
...
At other times, opponents of intelligent design attack almost the opposite straw man, warning that design proponents view the cosmic designer as wholly removed from nature except when he comes down to tinker with an imperfect creation.
...
None of these straw-man attacks hold together under close inspection, and none of them alter the reality that scientism's grand narrative of a manifest destiny is a manifest charade. Its failure presents a golden opportunity to beckon both science and the broader culture out of the flatland of materialism and back toward a richer, and more reasonable, understanding of reality.
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