blog.kennypearce.net

Interestingly, I think Daniel Dennett might technically qualify as an instrumentalist IDer, as per his 'design stance' and use of 'Mother Nature'.

I think it's pretty much impossible to be an instrumentalist about the designer if one's acceptance of the designer is based on a causal inference to the designer, which is what most IDers are aiming at. But if one accepted the designer for theory-improving reasons (if one thought it improved the theory's simplicity, elegance, scope, whatever), than one could do so -- all one would be committed to saying is that a theory with a designer works better as a theory than the available alternatives.

Yes, but those who accept full-blown instrumentalism (like Berkeley and van Fraassen) go through 'causal' reasoning to establish that scientific theories should posit certain entities all the time, and nevertheless deny that these entities 'exist' in the strict sense. This is why, in the passage quoted, Berkeley denies that 'causal' reasoning in the natural sciences is genuinely causal.

However, it seems to me that you are talking not about full-blown instrumentalism that reads all of science this way, but simply the use of 'useful fictions' in science. It does indeed seem that most writers in evolutionary biology, including virulent anti-ID types like Dennett, use design language as a 'useful fiction.' However, in the above quote the phrase "if that should better fit with a particular design theorist's philosophy of science" suggests to me at least that Beaudoin takes Dembski to be talking about a full-blown instrumentalism which holds that all unobserved postulates of scientific theories to be merely useful fictions. This is why I picked up the quark example.

In van Fraassen's case, there is skepticism at the 'epistemological level,' so for all we know scientific theories might accidentally line up with metaphysical reality, but we can't know this and it has nothing to do with the correctness of the theory. This is opposed to Berkeley who thinks he knows that there are things postulated by correct scientific theories (corpuscles, for instance) which nevertheless don't exist. (That this is Berkeley's view is undeniable if one takes a unitarian approach to the early works and Siris; if one thinks that the early metaphysics has been abandoned by the time of Siris, which few scholars do any more, then it is harder to say whether the early Berkeley thinks science should be 'purified' of non-existent entities.)

So even if we use causal reasoning to get to the designer, an instrumentalist can still deny that the designer exists.

'Useful fiction' is not quite right, because it's really instrumental requirement that's the point: i.e., that the instrument, the theory itself, requires it to do its job (or do its job well, or to do it fully). This is a much stronger and narrower category than 'useful fiction', and, in fact, doesn't require (although is consistent with) taking what's posited to be false. But I take your point about the difference between the local and global instrumentalism in this context.

Yes, that's what I mean. I didn't mean to imply that instrumentalism holds that scientific theories must be literally false; rather, instrumentalism holds that whether they are literally true doesn't matter to their correctness. At any rate, the local vs. global distinction is indeed what I had in mind.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume Bob believes the following:
#1. Bob is a Christian who is staunchly an instrumentalist with respect to historical science, and he thinks realism with respect to historical science is logically impossible.
#2. Bob thinks evolutionary development (Evo Devo) is currently the conceptual apparatus that helps scientists make the most sense of observations.
#3. Bob thinks it is logically possible that young age creationism will become far more progressive and it will be able to explain far more observations than Evo Devo. After all, according to Bob, Evo Devo is merely a conceptual apparatus that helps scientists construct useful generalizations and scientists are entitled to use whatever conceptual apparatus that is useful to them at any given time.

It seems to me that it would be really hard to be both an instrumentalist and think young age creationism might be true. In other words, it seems like young age creationism and realism should go hand-in-hand.

Here is Bob’s dilemma as I see it:
A) If Bob believes #1, then he can’t admit realism might be true without having a severe case of cognitive dissonance.
B)If Bob accepts #1 and #3 and rejects the possibility that realism with respect to historical science might be true, then he would be admitting it is possible that the best way to explain how the earth’s topography came to be is to postulate the existence of a useful fiction (a specific understanding of a God from a specific tradition within a specific religion that is either epistemically inaccessible or ontologically inaccessible or both) which just seems frivolous. On top of that, in this case he would have a severe case of cognitive dissonance as well because as a Christian he would not think his God is a useful fiction, but when he thinks about young age models he would be thinking the same God is a useful fiction.

Is my assessment of this thought experiment correct?

Hi Durrell,

We need to be careful, I think, about what we are adopting instrumentalism about, and about what instrumentalism actually entails. Instrumentalism doesn't entail that the 'fictions' are false. It is just the view that usefulness, rather than truth, is what we're after. Consider an analogy to a novel: a novel, as a work of fiction, is aimed at entertainment, artistic value, and perhaps also making some kind of social/political/etc. point. Whether anything in the novel is true is irrelevant to the purpose. If, as happens in fantasy novels, nearly everything said in the novel is false, that's fine. But if, as in historical novels, many things are true (though others are false), that's fine too. Truth is beside the point. An instrumentalist analysis of science says that the truth of scientific theories is beside the point, as long as the empirical predictions of the theories are true.

Presumably Bob, in your story, is not an instrumentalist about religious/theological discourse, just about scientific discourse. So if he has independent religious/theological backing for his young earth view, then the science could go either way without effecting him.

Thanks Kenny!

When you say, "if Bob has independent religious/theological reasons his young earth view, then the science could go either way without effecting him," I take it you are saying, according to Bob, Bob can actually know how old the universe is due to his insider information that he has through his religious/theological backing. Thus, if Bob agreed that all the evidence in the universe pointed to an old universe, then all that would mean for Bob is it is merely useful for scientists to assume of the universe as old.

The problem I was thinking of in my thought experiment was Bob doesn't have any such religious/theological backing for a young age view. In fact, Bob thinks 1. it is logically impossible to actually know the age of the universe, but 2. Bob thinks it is logically possible that young age creationism is true.

The young age leadership thinks they can know a very accurate age for how old the universe actually is, but Bob thinks such knowledge is epistemically impossible for humans. Thus, when Bob says he thinks young age creationism might be more progressive, Bob is saying some day it might be more useful for scientists to think of the universe as being about 6,000 years old, and whether the universe is actually 6,000 years old is beside the point because nobody can really know for sure.

I'm saying, it seems highly unlikely that anyone would conduct research in any of the historical sciences with the assumption that the universe is about 6,000 years old unless they had religious/theological reasons for thinking that is in fact about how old the universe is. But according to Bob, humans can’t know that information so any religious/theological reasons for thinking humans can know that information must be false.

Therefore, when Bob says it is logically possible that young age creationism might be more progressive than evolutionary models, he is saying it is possible that secular science might find it more useful to assume the universe is about 6,000 years old.

Given the way all the present young age models rely so heavily on God to break all the regularities we currently observe in nature, I find it highly improbable that any secular research program would posit such an entity that just happened to intervene just right for the universe to be about 6,000 years old.

I take it you are saying if secular science came to the conclusion above, it would make sense for Bob to think his God was the entity breaking up all the regularities, but then given Bob’s instrumentalism with respect to historical science, Bob would have to think it is logically possible that his God broke up the regularities and it is possible that his God didn’t. Bob would be committed to thinking he can’t know the truth until He asks God in heaven.

Right?

What I was thinking was just this: according to instrumentalism, the fact that something is a conclusion of our best science, is only a reason for thinking that it is useful for making predictions, not a reason for believing it is actually true. (I'm assuming that the scientific instrumentalism is not coupled with some broader form of anti-realism.) As a result, if you weren't claiming that your creationism was part of science, then you could be a realist about your creationist claims, and not care whether they were contradicted by our best science or not.

Now, it is true that 'creation science' and 'intelligent design' are both characterized by claims to 'scientificness'. So on these views if you were a scientific instrumentalist then you would not think that the fact that science (according to you) needs to posit God is a reason for thinking that God exists. That, really, is the point.

Right. You cleared things up for me. I was justing thinking of a related point.