Making Metaphysics Out Of A Method
Ian Barbour, in his book Religion in an Age of Science, speaks of ways of relating science and religion. He groups these interrelations into four different views: Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration. While not necessarily agreeing with all of Barbour’s conclusions, he does provide much to think about. Exploring the Conflict view of Science and Religion, he places Scientific Materialism and Biblical Literalism at opposite ends of the spectrum, and presents them as making rival literal statements about the same domain. One must choose the one and reject the other. I agree with Barbour that this view is not an accurate representation of the relationship between science and religion
Barbour also states that Scientific Materialism entails a misuse of science. It starts from science, but ends by making broad philosophical claims. Scientific materialism makes two assertions: 1. The scientific method is the only reliable path to knowledge (An epistemological claim) 2. Matter is the fundamental reality in the universe (A metaphysicla claim). Logical positivism, early in the 20th century, held that the only meaningful statements are empirical propositions verifiable by sense data. Statements of ethics, metaphysics, and religion are neither true nor false, they are meaningless pseudo-statements. Scientific materialists have continued in this tradition.
Barbour points to Carl Sagan as one of those who misuses science in this manner. One example of his philosophical commentary presented as science is:
The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.
Jacques Monod, in Chance and Necessity, claims that biology has proved there is no purpose in nature.
Man knows at last that he is alone in the universe’s unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance. Chance alone is the source of all novelty, all creation, in the biosphere…Anything can be reduced to simple, obvious, mechanical interactions. The cell is a machine. The animal is a machine. Man is a machine.
Barbour sums up this misuse of science in this way:
Particular scientific concepts have been extended and extrapolated beyond thier scientific use; they have been inflated into comprehensive naturalistic philosophies. Scientific concepts and theories have been taken to provide an exhaustive description of reality, and the abstractive and selective character of science has been ignored. The philosopher Alred North Whitehead calls this “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.” It can also be described as “making a metaphysics out of a method.”
I think Barbour has done a nice job of summarizing the problem of science claiming more than it should. Science is valuable and has done much to make the world better. However, there are many things which science cannot tell us.