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Author
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Topic: What Counts as Evidence? -- Methodological Dispositions
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William A. Dembski
Member
Member # 7
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posted 15. September 2002 23:21
I've lately been reading Michael Rea's new book, _World without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism_ (Oxford, 2002). Rea is a Notre Dame philosopher sympathetic to ID (though not on the bandwagon).
At the very beginning of the book he remarks: "True inquiry is a process in which we try to revise our beliefs on the basis of what we take to be evidence."
He continues: "But this means that, in order to inquire into anything, we must _already_ be disposed to take some things as evidence. In order even to begin inquiry, we must already have various dispositions to trust at least some of our cognitive faculties as sources of evidence and to take certain kinds of experiences and arguments to be evidence. Such dispositions (let's call them _methodological dispositions_) may be reflectively and deliberately acquired."
Thus, when biologist Barry Palevitz in the most recent issue of _Evolution_ (http://makeashorterlink.com/?F3B8225C1) denies that there is "positive evidence in favor of ID," is it simply that his methodological dispositions proscribe him from counting anything as evidence for ID? Alternatively, what is it about the methdological dispositions of biochemist Michael Behe that induces him to see plenty of positive evidence in favor of ID? Is one set of methodological dispositions correct and another incorrect? What sort of "evidence" would help us decide? If no evidence can help us adjudicate among competing methodological dispositions, then are there other factors that could? Should the success of naturalistic science count? Should opening up inquiry to consider the full range of possibilities count?
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andyg
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Member # 415
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posted 16. September 2002 19:18
"Alternatively, what is it about the methdological dispositions of biochemist Michael Behe that induces him to see plenty of positive evidence in favor of ID? Is one set of methodological dispositions correct and another incorrect? What sort of "evidence" would help us decide?"
Not all evidence is of equal quality. Consider a court case. One set of evidence might include the accused's fingerprints on the murder weapon and at the crime scene; samples of the suspect's clothing, hair and blood at the murder scene, traces of the victim's blood on the accused's clothes, and a security videotape showing the accused murdering the victim. Each piece of evidence has a certain compelling value; together they make an impressive case.
Consider another court case in which the evidence against the accused is hearsay - for example, a conversation overheard in a bar suggesting that the accused might have carried out the crime. Such hearsay is still evidence, but obviously it would have less impact in persuading a jury.
Behe's methodology can be summed up as follows:
- He observes a biochemical system.
- He chooses to label it as irreducibly complex by criteria that he has laid out in his book.
- He asserts that IC systems are unlikely to have evolved.
- Therefore, his conclusion is that the system in question was likely designed.
Thus, Behe's evidence hinges not on positive evidence for design, but on negative evidence for evolution. He frames his argument such that evolution and design are mutally exclusive alternatives, and that no other alternatives exist. By this argument, evidence against one alternative must therefore, by default, be evidence for the other alternative.
I suppose one could argue that determining something to be IC could count as positive evidence for design. However, Behe himself has retreated from this position, at least with his current definition of IC, as seen in this excerpt from Biology and Philosophy, vol.
16, pp 685-709
"However, commentary by Robert Pennock and others has made me realize that there is a weakness in that view of irrreducible complexity [...that removing parts leads to a loss of function...]. The current definition puts the focus on removing a part from an already functioning system. Thus, seeking a counterexample to IC, in "Tower of Babel" Pennock writes about a part in a sophisticated chronometer whose origin is simply assumed, which breaks to give a system he posits can nonetheless work in a simpler watch in a less demanding environment. The difficult task facing Darwinian evolution, however, would not be to remove components from a pre-existing system; it would be to bring together components to make a new system in the first place. Thus, there is an asymmetry between my current definition of IC and the task facing natural selection. I hope to repair this in future work."
Is it the case that if something did not evolve, then it must, ipso facto, be designed? Is it really the case that if P1=(probability that an object arose by evolution), then P2 (probability that the object was designed) is simply (1-P1)? I am not convinced of this at all. Is it the case that irreducible or specified complexity necessarily mean that an object with either property was designed? Behe does not now seem to think so with respect to IC, and many authors have also doubted whether the argument applies to SC either.
AndyG
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Grape Ape
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Member # 399
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posted 17. September 2002 12:28
quote:
Is one set of methodological dispositions correct and another incorrect? What sort of "evidence" would help us decide? If no evidence can help us adjudicate among competing methodological dispositions, then are there other factors that could? Should the success of naturalistic science count? Should opening up inquiry to consider the full range of possibilities count?
Ultimately, the utility of a set of methodological dispositions does count. If you continue down the road of assuming that any disposition is okay, you will quickly end up at something akin to postmodern relativism, where any old way of looking at the world is considered to be equally correct. It's not. There are methodologies that produce useful results, and there are those which can't.
Please keep in mind -- and this is something that I've noticed is lacking from many in the ID movement -- that if you wish to criticize methodological naturalism (or a related species) then you're beef has to be with all of modern science. It just doesn't do to single out evolutionary biology as the one science that proceeds by a faulty methodology when it uses the same methodology of every other science. Consider, for example, what the effect would be of removing naturalistic (for lack of a better word) methodological dispositions from medicine. For thousands of years people assumed that disease was caused by demons or sin or curses from the neighborhood shaman. In proceeding with these assumptions, the mortality rate stayed pretty much the same as it had been for all of human history. Now suddenly the mortality rate for many diseases has shot down to zero, and for many others it's extremely low, even when these diseases would previously kill you 100% of the time. All of this has happened within an itty-bitty slice of human history, and it has clearly been the result of scientific methodology. I can think of no other reason for this sucess other than the fact that many of the underlying assumptions guiding this reseach (i.e, a naturalistic origin of disease) are true, or very approximate to the truth.
[edited to add]:
Regarding, "opening up inquiry to consider the full range of possibilities", this does not seem to have much utility in learing about the world. The full range of possiblities is infinite, and it would be impossible to consider them all. Any methodology must have a heuristic for paring down the possiblities to those that are likely to be true given its underlying assumptions. Opening up additional possibilities by using different underlying assumptions might be useful, but any methodology that does so must also be limited in which possiblities it opens up, otherwise we have an "anything goes" situation where, again, we have infinite possiblities to sort through. Here's something to consider: If our methodology opens up supernatural events (ignoring for now the fine distinctions in what that term means), do we still have a limited range of possibilities to explore, or are the possibilities now infinite? This is what I see as a problem with arguments rejecting MN.
[ 17 September 2002, 12:39: Message edited by: Grape Ape ]
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Arm
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Member # 153
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posted 23. September 2002 23:27
I believe that andyg and Grape Ape for the most part missed the main point of Dr. Dembski's opening post. Dr. Dembski was probably asking us whether the logical foundation for methodological naturalism/materialism (namely, the epistemological foundation of POSITIVISM and its DEMARCATIONIST requirements for what constitutes objective truth, including "scientific" truth) is itself logically coherent. Grape Ape and andyg in their responses simply seem to take for granted that positivism/demarcationism is a logically sound foundation for the apprehension of legitimate "scientific" knowledge. The problem, however, is that positivism/demarcationism has been shown since at the least the 1960's by top epistemologists and philosophers of science to be irreconcilably illogical; namely, positivism/demarcationism suffers from SELF-REFERENTIAL INCOHERENCE (self-refutation) and INFINITE REGRESSION. Therefore, because the logical foundation for methodological naturalism/materialism is illogical, the "fruit" of that foundation (namely, methodological naturalism/materialism) must by logical necessity be rejected. Dr. Stephen Meyer explains the fatal logical flaws of positivism/demarcationism in his crucially important paper (taken from his Ph.D. thesis on the philosophy of science):
http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_methodological.htm
Dr. Meyer also shows in this paper the methodological EQUIVALENCE between design and descent theories. Grape Ape's assertion that "evolutionary biology... uses the same methodology of every other science" is inaccurate. Darwinist/evolutionary literature is replete with RETRODUCTIVE and CONCURRENCE/CONSILIENCE arguments, and has a dearth of strictly positivist deduction and induction arguments. Grape Ape's analogy to "medicine" is also faulty because (as Dr. Meyer explains) scientific disciplines like Darwinism, ID theory, archaeology, and paleanthropology are "HISTORICAL SCIENCES" that need not follow strictly positivist/demarcationist requirements to qualify as legitimate "scientific" disciplines.
I don't know if the moderator will allow me to cite links to arn, but I have discussed these matters in much more detail in the following arn thread ("Science and Philosophical Worldviews"):
http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000242;p=3
Please see especially my 8/21 post entitled "***EPISTEMOLOGY and the PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE***" and my very last 9/5 post entitled "***TESTABILITY***"
In conclusion, because of the reasons stated above, Darwinists/evolutionists should re-examine (or, perhaps, examine for the first time) their "METHODOLOGICAL PREDISPOSITIONS" for what constitutes legitimate "scientific" "EVIDENCE."
P.S. andyg, if some biological feature did not arise either by evolution or by intelligent design, what exactly is the third (and fourth?) alternative? And, can you show that this unnamed third alternative applies to the development of, say, the E. coli flagellum?
[ 23. September 2002, 23:36: Message edited by: Arm ]
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Mark Szlazak
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Member # 391
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posted 23. September 2002 23:49
I would just like to add a few references about philosophy of science and the demarcation debacle.
To read about this try Larry Laudan's, "Science and Relativism" and "Beyond Positivism and Relativism". John Earman has a book about the patron saint of atheists and so-called skeptics, David Hume. It's called "Hume's Abject Failure...".
One really big demarcationist is Descartes with his mind/matter stance. This meta-paradigm is one that science is still mostly in but with only the matter half as "scientific materialism." Cristian De Quincey's book "radical nature" is one that talks about this as does B. Alan Wallace's "The Taboo Of Subjectivity."
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andyg
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Member # 415
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posted 24. September 2002 18:44
Also sparch Arm: quote:
I believe that andyg and Grape Ape for the most part missed the main point of Dr. Dembski's opening post. Dr. Dembski was probably asking us whether the logical foundation for methodological naturalism/materialism (namely, the epistemological foundation of POSITIVISM and its DEMARCATIONIST requirements for what constitutes objective truth, including "scientific" truth) is itself logically coherent. Grape Ape and andyg in their responses simply seem to take for granted that positivism/demarcationism is a logically sound foundation for the apprehension of legitimate "scientific" knowledge
I must confess to having no idea what the above bafflegab means. If it in some way refers to the methodology of doing science, and the assumption that natural laws operate reliably and reproducibly, then I would say the following:
1. It is indeed an assumption.
2. The assumption is necesarily tentative.
3. Notwithstanding (2), our experience tends to reinforce the idea that the assumption is not an unreasonable one.
4. If Arm wishes to dismmiss investigations into evolution on the basis of his argument, s/he must accept that all science is dismissed at the same time.
Arm appeared to miss my point that evidence comes in all shapes, sizes and degrees of impressiveness. To group observations into "evidence" or "not evidence" is extremely unhelpful.
Dembski was asking a very simple question - what is acceptable evidence for ID (or evolution) and why is it acceptable? In the case of ID, the clincher evidence would be direct and verified observation of a designer in the act of designing. In the case of evolution, the clincher evidence would be a catalog of every genome of every organism that ever existed, and a corresponding catalog of the environment of each organism during its life. If either the evolution or the ID camp had such evidence, they would not hesitate to ram it down the throats of their opponents. Neither side has such evidence, and both sides are faced with the likelihood that the events of evolution or design occurred a long time ago, and are therefore "historical", in Arm's words. As it is, we witness proponents of both camps wrestling in the mud, each claiming that their evidence is "better" than the other side's, much to the distress of the moderator of this forum.
Both sides take contemporary evidence to bolster their argument. The ID camp takes features of objects that are designed by humans, and either tries to demonstrate simlar features in biological objects, or alternatively tries to show that evolution is unlikely to have occurred. Biologists, on the other hand, take observable examples from molecular biology and evolution happening today and infer change occurring over prehistoric time. Both are forms of evidence. The mud wrestlign starts when one side dismisses the quality of the other's evidence.
For me, the IC/SC argument is unconvincing because it asserts, rather than proves that an IC/SC system is unlikely to have evolved. But this is an old argument which many better people than me have made many times before, and this board need not conceern itself with it.
quote:
P.S. andyg, if some biological feature did not arise either by evolution or by intelligent design, what exactly is the third (and
fourth?) alternative? And, can you show that this unnamed third alternative applies to the development of, say, the E. coli
flagellum?
I was bringing up the fallacy of the false dichotomy. Are you really saying that p(Design) = 1- p(evolution)?
Formally, I need only come up with a third alternative.... and I choose:
1. Evolution
2. Design
3. Another process that we are unaware of and cannot presently envisage. In other words "we don't have enough information to know".
Take away (3), and you have a god-of-the-gaps argument. I believe Bill Dembski finesses this issue with the phrase "exhaustive with respect to the inquiry in question" - in other words, he has eliminated all alternatives that he, at the time of writing, can think of....... or as he puts it in "No Free Lunch"
quote:
Design inferences therefore eliminate chance in the global sense of closing the door to all relevant chance explanations. To be sure, this cannot be done
with absolute finality since there is always the possibility that some crucial probability distribution was missed. Nonetheless, it is not enough for the
design skeptic merely to note that adding a new chance explanation to the mix can upset a design inference. Instead, the design skeptic needs to
explicitly propose a new chance explanation and argue for its relevance to the case at hand.
but this is going over the same ground again......
AndyG
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Frances
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Member # 169
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posted 25. September 2002 11:24
Dear PJ,
when you ask
quote:
P.S. andyg, if some biological feature did not arise either by evolution or by intelligent design, what exactly is the third (and fourth?) alternative? And, can you show that this unnamed third alternative applies to the development of, say, the E. coli flagellum?
[text clipped out by moderator - explanation sent via private message on this board]
It seems a common fallacy to juxtapose intelligent design and evolution as the only two options. [text added] Evolution is but one of countless (theoretically) possible regularity pathway hypotheses, in addition to regularity pathways one could imagine countless chance pathways. Perhaps we should call the alternative non-intelligent design? But even evolution and intelligent design are single hypotheses but in fact can encompass a myriad of pathways.[text addded]
I am also not totally clear why you move from Dembski's statement to logical positivism for instance.
You claim
quote:
Dr. Dembski was probably asking us whether the logical foundation for methodological naturalism/materialism (namely, the epistemological foundation of POSITIVISM ...
Certainly one would need to explore the relevance of logical positivism to methodological naturalism. Certainly methodological naturalism seems to predate logical positivism?
quote:
Under the influence of philosophers John Herschel and William Whewell, methodological naturalism was systematized and promulgated, so that, by the end of the nineteenth century, methodological naturalism was embedded in science.
Source
while logical positivism arose in the 1920's.
[ 26. September 2002, 04:19: Message edited by: Frances ]
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Arm
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Member # 153
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posted 27. September 2002 02:47
ANDYG,
If you did not understand my "bafflegag" ( is this language really necessary? ![[Frown]](frown.gif) ), the reasonable thing to do was to ask me to further explain my comments or examine the two links which I provided:
http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_methodological.htm
http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000242;p=3 (my 8/20 & last 9/5 posts)
However, you obviously did not read those links; hence, you simply repeated the very same errors which I sought to correct in my previous post.
quote:
"If Arm wishes to dismiss investigations into evolution on the basis of his argument, s/he must accept that all science is dismissed at the same time."
I have no idea how you concluded from my comments that I allegedly "wish to dismiss investigations into evolution." My point was that the positivist epistemology which you presuppose illogically limits the methodology and evidence allowable in legitimate science; therefore, my purpose was certainly not to "dismiss investigations into evolution" but (quite the opposite) to actually widen/enlarge the methodology for such an endeavor. Second, "all science" is not "dismissed at the same time" if we dismiss positivism; Darwinism itself as presently researched dismisses positivism (Darwinists only apply a strict positivism when criticizing ID theory). Please review the links I've provided, because many of your confusions about my argument can be cleared if you do so.
quote:
"Dembski was asking a very simple question - what is acceptable evidence for ID (or evolution) and why is it acceptable? In the case of ID, the clincher evidence would be direct and verified observation of a designer in the act of designing... For me, the IC/SC argument is unconvincing because it asserts, rather than proves, that an IC/SC system is unlikely to have evolved. But this is an old argument which many better people than me have made many times before, and this board need not concern with it."
Andyg, this board certainly DOES need to concern itself with this issue. In the lines above you again simply ASSUMED that we should all accept positivism (and its demarcationist limitations on the scientific method) by your comments that ONLY "direct and verified observation of a designer in the act of designing" would qualify as "evidence" for ID in biology and that the "IC/SC argument" ONLY "asserts, rather than proves" ID. These conclusions are taken straight from the positivist camp of epistemology and philosophy of science. Contrary to your interpretation of Dr. Dembski's opening post, he was questioning a positivist epistemology that would not allow the mostly retroductive and concurrence observations/arguments used by ID theorists to qualify as "evidence"; to simply assume the unquestionability of positivism (without arguing for it) misses the entire main point of his opening post. You now simply assume that positivism is unquestionable, but the reality is that fatal, unretrievable flaws (such as SELF-REFERENTIAL INCOHERENCE and INFINITE REGRESSION) have been proven about positivism; therefore, positivism must by logical necessity be discarded. Again, please review my links.
quote:
"I was bringing up the fallacy of false dichotomy... Formally, I need only come up with a third alternative... 3. Another process that we are unaware of and, cannot presently envisage. In other words "we don't have enough information to know." Take away (3), and you have a god-of-the gaps argument."
A "false dichotomy" is shown only when you can show an ACTUAL alternative to the choices provided which "splits the horn of the dilemma." You have done no such thing. "Another process that we are unaware of and, cannot presently envisage" is not an ACTUAL alternative, but a vague, non-specified, substanceless "alternative." You will have to be a lot more clear, specific, and forthcoming about this "alternative" for me to take it seriously.
Second, you must be careful with your rejection of ID theory as a "god-of-the-gaps" argument because this specific type of rejection ITSELF is an informal fallacy; namely, an "Argument From Silence" (aka "argument from the invisible evidence"; "argument from ignorance"). You are yourself engaging in an unbending "materialism of the gaps" argument which is much more troublesome than any careful, detailed retroductive arguments and conclusions drawn by ID theorists, because you are rendering Darwinism or a strictly materialist/naturalist evolutionary scenario to be UNFALSIFIABLE. In other words, we will probably never know completely everything that can be known about the biochemical pathways studied by ID theorists and you can ALWAYS claim that "we don't have enough information to know" ; so, your "argument from ignorance" renders an evolutionary/materialist conclusion an UNTESTABLE a priori philosophical presupposition, rather than a conclusion reached only after thorough empirical research. Dr. Dembski discusses this error in (sub)chapter 6.9 of *No Free Lunch*. Ironically, you are faced with a decision EITHER to continue clinging to positivist presuppositions (including strict requirements for falsifiability/testability) OR to continue clinging to your falsifiability-denying "argument from silence"; but, you cannot hold to both of these contradictory positions at the same time. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
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FRANCES: "Certainly methodological naturalism seems to predate logical positivism?"
Frances, most people who hold to methodological naturalism today (& don't do so in a circular manner) have a positivist epistemology as their foundation for that methodological presupposition/predisposition. Because I haven't been able to access the link ("Source") you provided (I keep getting an error prompt whenever I try to access it), could you explain to me how methodological naturalism can be logically grounded/defended other than by a recourse to positivism? Thanks.
[ 27. September 2002, 02:52: Message edited by: Arm ]
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Frances
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Member # 169
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posted 27. September 2002 11:41
Dear PJ,
quote:
Frances, most people who hold to methodological naturalism today (& don't do so in a circular manner) have a positivist epistemology as their foundation for that methodological presupposition/predisposition. Because I haven't been able to access the link ("Source") you provided (I keep getting an error prompt whenever I try to access it), could you explain to me how methodological naturalism can be logically grounded/defended other than by a recourse to positivism?
Since it seems that methodological naturalism arose before logical positivism, how can it be grounded in positivism? But perhaps some aspects of positivism and methodological naturalism are shared ? Could you please present your argument to show that this is the case? As I understand it positivism was quickly abandoned...
For a quick intro to naturalism and common confusions and Positivism
As far as the false dichotomy, you claim two possibilities, evolution and a vague and unlimited amount of hypotheses placed together under a term "intelligent design". But the latter term encompasses countless possibilities. Since we can at present not envisage how intelligent design has worked should we reject this as well as an alternative? Certainly if clarity is required then intelligent design should also make such an effort. Otherwise I may as well propose other classes such as "non-intelligent design", chance as placeholders for countless hypotheses.
The difference between naturalistic approaches and the "god of the gaps" approach of ID is that science proposes testable predictions, allows for falsification while arguments from ignorance do neither. The argument is simple: Why should we accept design merely because we are ignorant. After all we cannot presently envision a chance/regularity pathway but we also cannot really envision an intelligent design pathway either so why should we reach a conclusion of intelligent design in absence of any positive evidence?
After all what knowledge does ID present us with that is not covered by assuming ignorance on our part?
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Arm
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Member # 153
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posted 27. September 2002 17:51
Who's "PJ"?
FRANCES: "Why should we reach a conclusion of intelligent design in absence of any positive evidence?"
Frances, one claim you have made twice now is that you hold to methodological naturalism/materialism, but not to positivism. What you don't realize is that statements such as the one I quoted above are POSITIVIST in nature. Why do you think positivists call what they consider the only legitimate "scientific evidence" "POSITIVE evidence"? This is not a mere coincidence in word usage; but the very origins of the often used term "POSITIVE evidence" is derived straight from POSITIVISM. Positivists only allow the use of deductive and inductive arguments (what they call "positive" methodology/evidence) and disallow the retroductive and consilience arguments that ID theorists employ so well (but, ironically, positivists allow such non-positivist evidence when used by Darwinists). Therefore, your adherence to positivism (not only its derivative methodological naturalism/materialism) is undeniable.
Another erroneous claim you've made twice now is that "methodological naturalism seems to predate logical positivism" because allegedly "methodological naturalism was systematized and promulgated so that, by the end of the nineteenth century, methodological naturalism was embedded in science" while positivism allegedly arose only in the "1920's." I did a little bit of checking of this declaration from your "Source" ( http://www.freeinquiry.com ) and found it to be somewhat misleading (unintentionally so, I'm sure). Perhaps positivism became the most dominant epistemology or philosophy of science in the early 20th century, but its intellectual origins and propagation date back to (at the latest) the mid-19th century. Positivism (as both a political and scientific foundation/system) is usually traced back by historians of science and philosophy to the writings of French thinker Auguste Comte (born in 1798). The Encyclopedia Britannica (see Micropaedia under "Comte, Auguste") states that his earliest known lectures on positivism (or "system of positive philosophy" as he called it) were:
quote:
"... delivered as a series of lectures beginning in April 1826 for a private audience composed of many of the most distinguished thinkers of his time... he redelivered it at the Royal Athenaeum during 1829-30. The following 12 years were devoted to their publication (in six volumes)... and from 1840 several English scholars wrote to him or visited him... His writings were now widely influential. Many English intellectuals were influenced by him, and they translated and promulgated his work. French devotees increased. A large correspondence developed with Positivist societies throughout the world. Each week, Comte received his Positivist friends and colleagues."
Comte died in 1857. His 6 volumes of Cours de philosophie positive were published in 1830-1842, his Catechisme positive in 1852, and his 4 volumes of Systeme de politique positive in 1851-54. So, by the time of the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection: or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life in 1859, positivism had been widely known and increasingly influential in England and elsewhere for at least 20 years. It certainly was known and highly influential by the late 19th century. Perhaps, Darwin himself was a card-carrying member of one of the many "Positivist societies" springing up "throughout the world"; and, as an educated English gentleman, he would certainly have been familiar with (and, maybe, greatly influenced by) this growing positivist trend and atmosphere in scientific circles among the mid-19th century intelligentsia. At any rate, the positivist epistemology introduced by Comte (and, thereafter, expanded by other thinkers) forms the "logical" ground/foundation for the strict methodological naturalism/materialism which so many of today's scientists assume to be "obvious" and "unquestionable." Unfortunately, this positivist foundation itself has been conclusively shown since at least the 1960's to be completely and fatally illogical (namely, self-referentially incoherent and infinitely regressing).
Frances, for many years I've looked near and far (including the links that you've provided), and I know of no other way to "logically" ground either a philosophical or methodological naturalism/materialism other than by a positivist epistemology. Because positivism is unavoidably and fatally illogical, philosophical/methodological naturalism/materialism must also by logical necessity be discarded. In other words, an a priori PREsupposition of methodological naturalism/materialism (i.e., a METHODOLOGICAL DISPOSITION to limit legitimate "scientific" EVIDENCE strictly to naturalistic/materialistic methodology/explanations/interpretations) can have no logical foundation, but only a CIRCULAR, question-begging origin.
I highly recommend that you reconsider the accuracy of the websites you cited to me--at least when it comes to the issues of Positivism and Methodological Naturalism/Materialism. Because of your loyalty to those sources, you have until now avoided the links that I have provided. Now that I've exposed some substantial inaccuracies in your sources (with titles such as "freeinquiry.com" and "skepdic.com"), could you please return me the favor by actually reading my links as I have read yours? Here they are again:
http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_methodological.htm
http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000242;p=3 (my 8/20 and last 9/5 posts).
This is too much of a vitally important, foundational subject to simply continue relying only on inaccurate websites which presuppose positivism. Thank you for your patience.
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In response to your continued rejection of what you call a "god of the gaps approach" by ID theorists/scientists, I ask you to please review my last post (the comments addressed to andyg). By continuing to employ an informally fallacious "ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE," you are making Darwinist/evolutionary science and naturalism/materialism UNFALSIFIABLE; hence, you are violating the very positivist requirements of strict deduction and induction that you are imposing on ID theorists/scientists. This is a clear example of a DOUBLE STANDARD. Also, if science as you state "proposes testable predictions, allows for falsification," then Darwinism itself does not qualify as a "scientific" discipline; share with me some PREdictions (not after-the-fact retroductive postdictions) that are truly RISKY predictions (having SPECIFICALLY NAMED PREDICTED RESULTS not only to confirm Darwinism/evolution/naturalism BUT ALSO SPECIFICALLY NAMED PREDICTED RESULTS WHICH WOULD DISCONFIRM Darwinism/evolution/naturalism). Name me some clear, detailed PREDICTIONS (TESTS OF FALSIFICATION) and CONFIRMATIONS/VERIFICATIONS of those predictions in favor of the theory that random genetic mutations and differential reproductive success are responsible for the diversity and specified complexity of life on earth; and, please, avoid giving "EXTRAPOLATIONS" to major adaptations from minor intraspecies variations, because I find them to be highly unpersuasive (those are not deductive or inductive or even retroductive arguments, but merely analogies from very weak alleged concurrence/consilience).
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FRANCES: "Since we can at present not envisage how intelligent design has worked should we reject this as well as an alternative?"
Frances, you are here engaging in CATEGORY CONFUSION. As far as I know, ID theory does not yet comprehensively encompass research on the MODALITY of intelligent design; however, this does not disqualify ID theory as a scientific discipline, because it now mostly focuses on the DETECTABILITY of intelligent design. Some analogies: The inability of archaeologists to determine the exact MODALITY of construction of the Egyptian pyramids does not deny the truth of their conclusion that they have retroductively DETECTED the intelligent design of those pyramids; the sometimes inability of forensic scientists to determine the exact MODALITY of a murder does not deny the truth of their conclusion that they can retroductively DETECT signs on/in the cadaver or surroundings which show an intelligently designed homicide (murder; as opposed to an accident or death by "natural causes"); the inability of paleoanthropologists to determine the exact MODALITY of the intelligent design of, say, a carved tool by Neanderthal does not necessarily deny the truth of their conclusion that they can retroductively DETECT intelligent design on that tool if they can clearly point to specified complexity on it. If the DETECTION of intelligent design can be considered scientific in archaeology, forensic science, and paleoanthropology, then it is SPECIAL PLEADING (a DOUBLE STANDARD) to deny the status of a legitimate "scientific discipline" employing legitimate "scientific methodology" which finds legitimate "scientific evidence" when ID theorists/scientists employ similar retroductive arguments for the DETECTION of intelligent design in biology that are much more detailed and complex than the simple retroductive arguments employed by the practioners of those other disciplines.
[ 27. September 2002, 18:59: Message edited by: Arm ]
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Arm
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posted 27. September 2002 18:48
***Dr. Dembski's Misguided Approach to Persuasion***
Dr. D., this is probably the only chance I'll ever get to state confidently that you are dead wrong about a matter bearing a pivotal relation to ID theory (or, at least, the ID movement), so I hope you won't mind if I make the most of it. I am glad to see you discussing these foundational, EPISTEMOLOGICAL issues in this particular thread. I just wish you and other ID theorists/scientists would do it more often and BEFORE pursuing more empirical matters such as the science of information and irreducible/specified complexity. As my communication with andyg and Frances in this thread has shown, attempting to convince someone dogmatically loyal to a POSITIVIST epistemology (which constitutes at least 95% of all the world's Darwinists/evolutionists) of the truth of ID in biology without FIRST discussing foundational, epistemological matters (which, as you implied, provide the "methodological disposition" for a person's view of legitimate SCIENTIFIC "evidence") is like trying to maneuver over an obstacle course while riding an unbroken wild stallion. No rider can so direct such an untamed beast--no matter how expertly the rider handles the reins. The wild, mind-shutting, discussion-ending irrationality of positivism must first be completely expunged from the stallion's "modern" mind before you can have any reasonable hope of handling it over the obstacles of empirical science.
Unfortunately, "maneuvering an unbroken stallion" is exactly what most ID theorists/scientists attempt to do. For example, in No Free Lunch you waited until the very last chapter before you discussed directly these foundational issues (such as in (sub)chapter 6.9 starting on page 355). With due deference, what makes you think that a dogmatic positivist would actually read the 300+ pages preceding chapter 6 when (for the most part) those first 300+ bloody pages presuppose a rejection of positivism and its demarcationist restrictions on what can constitute legitimate "scientific methodology"? In Intelligent Design, you were a bit more prudent by exposing these matters in chapter 3 and in the appendix; but, frankly, they should have been exposed in the very FIRST chapter. Dr. Behe waited until the middle of chapter 10 of Darwin's Black Box (over 200 pages into the book) to discuss these foundational matters. So far as I can tell, Dr. Wells nowhere in the 300+ pages of Icons of Evolution discussed directly the illogical positivist epistemology of Neo-Darwinism and evolutionary biology in general. In the preface to NFL you stated the following:
quote:
"In the fall of 1999 I received one of seven book awards from the Templeton Foundation to write a book titled Being as Communion: The Science and Metaphysics of Information. After making the proposal and receiving the award, it became clear to me that the science of information (and specifically the science of complex specified information) required a book of its own. Indeed, before one can take seriously the metaphysics of information one must take seriously the science of information (perhaps this is why editions of Aristotle's work always list his Physics before his Metaphysics. I therefore decided to divide this project in two, handling the science of information in the present volume and the metaphysics of information in a subsequent volume, to be titled Being as Communion: The Metaphysics of Information."
I most emphatically disagree with this "cart-pulling-the-horse" approach. Before one can take seriously the SCIENCE of information, one must take seriously the METAPHYSICS/EPISTEMOLOGY of information. As much as I admire Aristotle's genius, he (or his modern-day publishers) was dead wrong about how to convince the unconvinced; the aspiring convincer must first gently expose the potential convincee's false and irrational presuppositions (such as positivism) before presenting any "evidence," because the potential convincee's view of what legitimately counts as "evidence" is determined by his/her epistemology. You, Dr. Behe, Dr. Wells, Mike Gene, and all other ID theorists/scientists must discuss metaphysics/epistemology BEFORE you can have any reasonable hope that a loyal positivist will begin to listen to the evidence of the science of information with any semblance of an open mind. Hopefully, in your book Being as Communion, your very FIRST chapter will be a thorough debunking (a final stake through the heart) of positivism, its demarcationist limitations on the "scientific method," and its derivation of methodological naturalism/materialism. That chapter could be entitled "Revisiting the Scientific Method" or "The Scientific Method: Positively Non-Positivistic" or "Methodological Naturalism, Positivism, and Other Modern Myths" or "Methodological Naturalism: The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree of Positivism." If you wisely place the horse of metaphysics/epistemology before the cart of empirical science, you might actually get to your intended destination a lot sooner than with your current strategy.
[ 27. September 2002, 19:09: Message edited by: Arm ]
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Frances
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posted 28. September 2002 05:43
Dear PJ,
I do not doubt that intelligent design has some usefulness in sciences such as archaeology or criminology where there are no of few competing regularity hypotheses to be considered. However, in biology for instance where there is no dichotomy between chance hypotheses and intelligent design but between chance, intelligent design and non-intelligent-design, it will be much harder to infer design through elimination only. Furthermore in case of archaeology and criminology we do work with positive (indirect) evidence as well: motive, opportunity are but a few that come to mind before inferences are made about 'design'. Noone would be convicted on negative evidence alone and neither should intelligent design. Is my approach positivistic? I am surely not denying that there are other paths to knowledge but I am also arguing that in case of science certain requirements need to be met for science to be able to address the claims. Thus only if I were arguing for pure naturalism in a non-methodological manner would your claims of positivism hold. That is if I were to argue that only knowledge based on scientific inquiry is true knowledge then the argument would run amock with positivism. Pennock has an interesting article on the issues of science and the supernatural.
So far it seems that JP is conflating me asking for positive evidence with positivism. Until ID can propose a theory which is not omnipotent and thus all explanatory, ID will have little relevance to scientific inquiry. How can one disprove a theory which can explain anything without explaining anything?
Wesley Elsberry has also argued for naturalism and science.
Exploring the Rationality of Methodological Naturalism
Robert C. O'Connor addresses some of Meyer's claims.
I found an excellent description of What is Science?
quote:
Science is a truth-seeking, problem-solving, method of inquiry. The reliability of its scientific method depends on the correctness of three ancient philosophies that science uses: empiricism, rationalism, and skepticism. This strange combination of epistemologies--for historically they were at odds with each other, and in extreme form remain so today--was used and molded by scientists through the centuries to construct modern science. Empirical evidence is used to propose hypotheses which logically explain natural causes by predicting natural effects; because explanations might be fallacious, hypotheses are skeptically tested by additional empirical observations or experiments to see if their predictions are fulfilled; if so, the corroborated hypotheses are used to construct logical theories that explain the universe. This one sentence describes a method so powerful that it has profoundly and irrevocably changed human society, culture, and philosophy.
When I am asking for positive evidence I am asking for an approach which does not rely on the error prone and imho error ridden approach of elimination but on predictions, hypotheses that are based on a theory of ID. So far ID has become intermingled with ignorance and unless we can unravel the two I doubt that ID has much to contribute to a scientific discussion.
A good article on positivism, Darwinism can be found at talkorigins archive
Intelligent design surely seems to be not totally disjunct from present scientific inquiry as it does not reject natural processes to be used for intelligent design.
Secondly your portrayal of me as a 'positivist' is fascinating especially in the light that I have been arguing that methodological naturalism is NOT positivism. PJ quotes a statement of me in which I ask for positive evidence. PJ then takes this as evidence of positivism in what I consider a conflation of terminology. All I ask that ID proposes similar hypotheses to the chance and regularity hypotheses under consideration and does not rely on a troublesome elimination which ignores the inherent ignorance in our knowledge and in our theoretical capabilities. I find the use of terms 'loyalty' be used as a somewhat thinly veiled insult suggesting that I am somewhat blinded by my sources. Why do you suggest that the sites you propose are not equally suffering ?
I still find your claim that positivism is unavoidable when in fact you also claim that it has been logically rejected. Perhaps methodological naturalism need not concern itself with positivism.
Let me quote from the articles you quote
quote:
From the standpoint of the philosophy of science, the use of demarcation arguments is generally problematic. Historically, attempts to find methodological "invariants" that provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for distinguishing true science from pseudoscience have failed. Moreover, most current demarcation arguments presuppose an understanding of how science operates that reflects the influence of a philosophy of science known as logical positivism. Yet since the 1950s philosophers of science have decisively rejected positivism for a number of very good reasons (see below). As a result, the enterprise of demarcation has generally fallen into disrepute among philosophers of science.
As far as your claims wrt "god of the gaps" I would suggest that the use of attacking strawmen is not very conducive to a discussion
quote:
In response to your continued rejection of what you call a "god of the gaps approach" by ID theorists/scientists, I ask you to please review my last post (the comments addressed to andyg). By continuing to employ an informally fallacious "ARGUMENT FROM SILENCE," you are making Darwinist/evolutionary science and naturalism/materialism UNFALSIFIABLE; hence, you are violating the very positivist requirements of strict deduction and induction that you are imposing on ID theorists/scientists. This is a clear example of a DOUBLE STANDARD.
Evolutionary science or Darwinian science surely is falsifiable since it makes predictions and does not rely on our ignorance. Only by arguing that I require positivistic standards for ID and not for science can you make your argument.
Some predictions and falsifications of Darwinian processes would be:
from an ID related source:
http://www.id.ucsb.edu/FSCF/LIBRARY/ORIGINS/GRAPHICS-CAPTIONS/sub3.html
Note that I obviously disagree with the simplistic portrayal of the Cambrian explosion but I surely would not want to disagree with the idea from opponents of evolution that claim that Darwinian predictions exist.
Arn has another page in which Wells seems to argue (again I do not agree with Wells for obvious reasons) but it shows surely that among ID scientists the idea of falsification of evolution exists.
Need I remind you of Behe's claims of ICness or Dembski's filter which relies on elimination of Darwinian pathways among others to infer intelligent design? All these approaches surely suggest that Darwinian and science in general can be falsified or there would be no future for the design inference at all.
Some other examples of claims of falsification and prediction from opponents of Darwinian evolution:
http://www.discovery.org/w3/discovery.org/journal/1999/crsc.html
Mind you I would not hold these sources as reliable examples of actual falsification but these sources surely point out how in principle darwinian science could be falsified.
More (bad) examples of falsification and predictions:
http://www.geocities.com/odonate/rdwillia.htm
http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/falsify.htm
Other examples can be found that are better founded in science such as
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/evo_science.html
Another interesting example can be found
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution
[ 28. September 2002, 10:20: Message edited by: Frances ]
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andyg
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posted 28. September 2002 14:01
Philip/Arm Quoth:
quote:
If you did not understand my "bafflegag" ( is this language really necessary? ), the reasonable thing to do was to ask me to further explain my comments
Actually, the word is "bafflegab" and it's been in use for over 50 years. It means prose that relies on excessive jargon, with an implicit suggestion that the jargon is menat to impress or confuse, rather than illuminate. Since I don't have the benefit of a philosophical training, I asked talk.origins' resident howler monkey philosopher, John Wilkins, to explain things for me, which he did rather well:
"Positivists, also known as the all-purpose evil demons in philosophy, held (and some still do, although it is a cause for instant exclusionfrom the union) some or all of the following doctrines:
Science is positive knowledge, metaphysics is either simple nonsense or is not positive knowledge.
There is a demarcation between science and other things like religion or superstition. This lies in the fact that science can verify the truth of its statements, where religion cannot.
[First objection to positivism - is the "verification principle" itself scientific? If so, how can you verify it? If not, isn't it just metaphysics and hence not knowledge?]
Popper famously (in the 1930s at first, but the Englsh edition of his Logik des Forschung, tranalated as Logic of Scientific Discovery even though it had nothing whatsoever to do with discovery, came out in 1959 IIRC) made this attack and replaced verificationism with falsificationism - some thing is scientific IFF it can be falsified. And the falsificationism principle was evidently metaphysics - Popper had no substantial objection to metaphysics. Falsifiability demarcated science from nonscience (such as Freudianism and Marxism, his two main bete noirs).
Now the self-defeat of positivism (if indeed that's what it was) is nothing new - Platonism was attacked on those grounds at the very beginning (the Third Man Regress). But to say that strict positivist verification is self-defeating is not to say that verification cannot work in science. In fact, we verify things all the time; just not in a logically rigorous manner.
This all rests on the rediscovery of Hume's problem of induction at the turn of the 20thC by Russell and others. This problem is, you may recall, the logical problem that no finite number of observations can prove or establish a universal generalisation (like "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction").
So, Popper "solves" this *logical* problem by making use of another logical "fact" - modus tollens:
If P, then Q.
Q is false.
Therefore, P is false
In the context of science this is:
If hypothesis H is true, then we will observe outcome O
We do not observe O
Therefore, H is false
Popper said that only if we have statements that are open to modus tollens. Anything that can be fitted to any antecedent conditions at all are unfalsifiable (like Marxian economics or Freudian psychology) and
hence not science.
OK, that all said, now let's consider the argument given. For it to work we have to show that
1. Science as it is practiced relies upon positivist assumptions.
2. methodological naturalism in science also relies on positivist assumptions.
Hence both are subject to the self-defeat of the positivist
epistemology.
[At this point note that neither is true. Science predates positivism, and eg, Darwin was not a positivist.]
3. Anything that has a logical problem of self-defeat is false.
[This does not follow either - it may be true for logically consistent reasons we cannot elaborate.]
Conclusion: therefore science can be reworked to include anything you choose...
[Non sequitur, stupid and generally risible] "
The above was posted for the benefit of ISCID members who might be interested in a different view to Philip's. I'm not willing to argue the merits of the above on Wilkins's behalf, but if anyone wishes to take up the argument with Wilkins, they can find the relevant talk.origins thread at:
Wilkins article
quote:
Andyg, this board certainly DOES need to concern itself with this issue. In the lines above you again simply ASSUMED that we should all accept positivism (and its demarcationist limitations on the scientific method) by your comments that ONLY "direct and verified observation of a designer in the act of designing" would qualify as "evidence" for ID in biology and that the "IC/SC argument" ONLY "asserts, rather than proves" ID.
Philip/Arm misquotes me. I categorically did not say that ONLY direct and verified observation of a designer in the act of designing would qualify as evidence. Remember, I also came up with "clincher" evidence for evolution, too and I doubt that Philip?Arm thinks I really hold evolution to such a standard! My whole point was that "evidence" comes in many flavours. Some might consider that the account of creation in Genesis is strong evidence for intelligent design. Others might consider it weak evidence - hearsay at best. Similarly, some might consider the observation that novel enzymatic activities can evolve today as strong evidence that similar mechanisms allowed the bacterial flagellum to evolve. Others would consider that extremely tenuous evidence. My point was that for followers of both camps there exists a "gold standard" of evidence which, in my opinion would clinch the argument one way or the other. In the case of ID, repeated verification of the act of design would be pretty impressive. In the case of evolution, a comprehensive record of every genetic change in representatives of every organism that ever existed would also be pretty impressive. I was NOT claiming that ONLY either piece of information would count as evidence. Philip/Arm is attacking a position I do not hold.
quote:
A "false dichotomy" is shown only when you can show an ACTUAL alternative to the choices provided which "splits the horn of the dilemma." You have done no such thing. "Another process that we are unaware of and, cannot presently envisage" is not an ACTUAL alternative, but a vague, non-specified, substanceless "alternative." You will have to be a lot more clear, specific, and forthcoming about this "alternative" for me to take it seriously.
I disagree. You are simply asserting your preferred criteria for what constitutes a false dichotomy. The option "we don't know because we don't have enough information" is perfectly acceptable. As an analogy, US and English law (as I understand it) accepts only a verdict of guilty or not guilty, and the principle under which the juries reach their verdict is that someone has to be proven guilty, otherwise they are deemed innocent. Scottish law, on the other hand also recognizes a third verdict of "not proven", in which the jury is saying nothing about whether the accused is truly innocent or not.
To take a trivial scientific example - let us say I observe a phenomenon in my laboratory that current scientific ("naturalistic") theories cannot explain. Do I therefore assume by default that the phenomenon is supernatural? Or do I roll up my sleeves, do some more experiments, and discover a few things about the phenomenon that may lead to the modification of current "naturalistic" theories? - which is what happens all the time in science?
I can understand why the third, "we don't know enough" option is not acceptable to you, because your argument relies on the dichotomy - if evolution is unlikely, then design is likely by default. This is the US/UK law version of origins argument - if the evolution camp do not provide compelling evidence for evolution of a particular system, then the system was designed as the only alternative. This takes us straight back to the designer-of-the-gaps argument, as any evolutionary scenario one proposes is inevitably likely to have at least some holes or missing steps in it. So to get back to Bill Dembski's question at the start of this discussion, I have the feeling that you would likely take the position that acceptable "evidence" for ID is simply to provide evidence that a given evolutionary scenario is unlikely. If this is different from me concluding that the phenomenon I have just witnessed in my lab is supernatural in origin, rather than natural but currently inexplicable, I can't see how.
As a small digression, and just out of interest, what would Philip/Arm's comment be on the following set of alternatives:
1. Life on Earth arose exclusively by evolutionary processes
2. Life on Earth arose by intelligent design by a supernatural phenomenon
3. Life on Earth arose by evolutionary processes, although the first proto-organisms were designed and sent to Earth by aliens from the planet Zog. The origins of the aliens from the planet Zog are presently unknown.
quote:
You are yourself engaging in an unbending "materialism of the gaps" argument which is much more troublesome than any careful, detailed retroductive arguments and conclusions drawn by ID theorists, because you are rendering Darwinism or a strictly materialist/naturalist evolutionary scenario to be UNFALSIFIABLE. In other words, we will probably never know completely everything that can be known about the biochemical pathways studied by ID theorists and you can ALWAYS claim that "we don't have enough information to know" ; so, your "argument from ignorance" renders an evolutionary/materialist conclusion an UNTESTABLE a priori philosophical presupposition, rather than a conclusion reached only after thorough empirical research.
First, I must have missed some of the careful, detailed arguments made for the intelligent design of, say, the bacterial flagellum. Can you remind me what they are?
Second, the dichotomy you present above is again wrong. To say "we do not have enough information to fill in the gaps at present" does not presuppose an evolutionary explanation for those gaps. Such gaps will only be filled, as Philip/Arm says, by "thorough empirical research".
AndyG
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andyg
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posted 30. September 2002 21:29
quote:
As my communication with andyg and Frances in this thread has shown, attempting to convince someone dogmatically loyal to a POSITIVIST epistemology (which constitutes at least 95% of all the world's Darwinists/evolutionists) of the truth of ID in biology without FIRST discussing foundational, epistemological matters (which, as you implied, provide the "methodological disposition" for a person's view of legitimate SCIENTIFIC "evidence") is like trying to maneuver over an obstacle course while riding an unbroken wild stallion. No rider can so direct such an untamed beast--no matter how expertly the rider handles the reins. The wild, mind-shutting, discussion-ending irrationality of positivism must first be completely expunged from the stallion's "modern" mind before you can have any reasonable hope of handling it over the obstacles of empirical science.
I would like to defend myself against the charge that I am "dogmatically loyal to a positivist epistemology". This is simply a view I do not hold. I would guess that very few of the "95% of Darwinists" hold the view either. Phillip is confusing or conflating - and certainly not for the first time - epistemology and methodology. As far as I can make out from my brief forays into the philosophy of science, positivism as way for thinking about knowledge is simply dead, and has indeed been dead for over 50 years. I found an interesting quote from Bill Trochim that summed up my position nicely:
quote:
Where the positivist believed that the goal of science was to uncover the truth, the post-positivist critical realist believes that the goal of science is to hold steadfastly to the goal of getting it right about reality, even though we can never achieve that goal! Because all measurement is fallible, the post-positivist emphasizes the importance of multiple measures and observations, each of which may possess different types of error, and the need to use triangulation across these multiple errorful sources to try to get a better bead on what's happening in reality. "
As an experimental scientist, I acknowledge that I can only research that which is amenable to reliable measurement and verification, and I make the assumption that reality behaves itself in a consistent way from experiment to experiment. I can't see what other ways to investigate the world. Phillip disagrees, or at least he did 12 years ago when he wrote that science, by definition is committed to:
quote:
"truth by observation, experiment and calculation rather than by studying sacred books or achieving mystical states of mind. It may well be, however, that there are certain questions [….] that cannot be answered by the methods available to science. These may include not only broad philosophical issues [……] but also questions we have become to think of as empirical, such as how life first began or how complex biological systems were put together".
Phillip seems to be suggesting that evidence for intelligent design of biological systems might come from studying sacred books, or by achieving mystical states of mind. Is this what he is really claiming? Could he be specific about forms of evidence for ID that he considers valid which do not include "observation, experiment and calculation"? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
AndyG
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Mark Szlazak
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posted 30. September 2002 21:57
AndyG.
Fallibility of measures and their reliability aren't alien to positivism! That second quote you cite is weird since the guy doesn't seem to be talking about issues specific to this view, but he thinks he is.
Also, can you give me some evidence that mystical states can't give reliable information at all.
I've read just the opposite. Agreement about experiences is crucial amoung contemplatives. Everything I've read or experienced is about stabilizing the phenomena first just like you do when experimenting with "object" measures before doing interventions. These folks also deal with biases in observation like cultural overlays, etc, on inner mental states. The method involves common markers of progress for the various ways one can train and explore the mind.
Also, dismissing mystical or other conscious states or other methods as junk, irrelevant or unscientific. Sets up another demarcation criteria (in this case it would be the "sensationalist doctrine of perception") and we know what happens when these criteria become dogma.
[ 30. September 2002, 23:10: Message edited by: Mark Szlazak ]
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