Saturday, March 25, 2006

Knowing vs.merely musing

What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? ... If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? ... The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think that "theology" is a subject at all?

--Richard Dawkins

Vis-a-vis factual claims and explanations the crucial question to ask is, How do you know that it's true?

The world's religions claim a lot of things, a good number of them contradicting one another. For example, Buddhism tells us that reincarnation is a fact. Other religions say otherwise and have their own afterlife scenarios. Who among them, if any, is correct? How do believers know that their claim is factually true?

While scientists regularly propose various explanations for a certain phenomenon not yet understood, explanations that not infrequently are contradictory and therefore cannot all be true, the very nature of science is that it is interested in finding out which one among them (if any) is the correct one. Or more precisely scientists are interested in which explanation best explains the data, which one is better in explaining a host of other phenomena (has a greater scope), and which one is better in predicting new phenomena.

Because of its insistence on investigating claims and testing explanations science progresses. It is a reliable way of actually knowing the world. Supernaturalism in contrast has nothing remotely resembling the rigorous epistemology and methodology of science. None whatsoever. It has no means of testing its claims and its claims are not testable. It cannot reliably know that its claims and explanations are true. This is the reason why supernatural beliefs multiply in number. Thus we see divergence in supernaturalism, while there is all the time a convergence in science. The number of competing/contradictory supernatural beliefs increase over time because 1. supernatural explanations/claims/beliefs can be as fantastical, insane, and ludicrous as one wants them to be, and 2. there is no way of finding out which one, if any, is actually true. Supernatural beliefs die only when no adherents are left to believe in them or when they fall out of fashion. The number of candidate scientific explanations, on the other hand, decrease over time, because science is merciless in ruling out patently incorrect ones using methods that have proven their mettle.

Science is predicated on critical thinking and testing its explanations. It is a self-correcting enterprise whose objective is to understand the world as best as possible, to know reality as intimately as possible. Supernaturalism meanwhile must condemn critical thinking, unless it wishes to end its existence, vacuous as it is.

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