How do Catholics and Atheists Design Experiments?
Do test tubes exist?
Guest Post
This is an excellent scientific answer from Jeff McLeod, Ph.D. to an excellent scientific question from a commenter named Michelle. Jeff is Catholic, and is a research statistician who specializes in building high stakes exams like board certifications and graduate degrees. Michelle is an atheist, and is a graduate student researching cures for cancer.
Michelle’s Question:
What’s the difference in how a Catholic and an atheist design experiments?
Jeff’s Answer:
Unfortunately, you and I might disagree on the definition of an experiment, but I have to start somewhere. Mine is pretty mainstream philosophy of science:
A theory implies an experiment which can falsify it:
T -> E
But not really, it’s the theory plus Auxiliary Assumptions that imply an experiment which can falsify it:
T(A1, A2, A3…) -> E
A1, A2, or A3 could be a mathematical theorem, a scientific law, any mechanical calculation rule, etc. For example, A1 = “water freezes at 32 degrees F”. Right? They are the links in the derivation chain from the theory to the empirical realization, or experiment.
Wait, but there are also metaphysical givens, like “A = A” and “the universe is intelligible” and “there are numbers” etc.
Given X
T(A1, A2, A3…) -> E
When an experiment fails to attain the expected result, a scientist either rejects theory T, or else retains it but rejects one or more of the auxiliary assumptions. But the experimenter doesn’t reject the Givens, which are small in number. A warning here: pure empiricists are loathe to allow ANY such givens. Even silly truisms like A = A.
If you’re with me so far in that definition of an experiment, then here’s what I mean by Catholic looking at an experiment differently.
The Catholic will explicitly take “the universe is orderly rather than disorderly” as a Given which means it will not be implicated in experimental falsification.
A self-reflective atheist must include “the universe is orderly rather than disorderly” as an auxiliary assumption because they can’t prove the universe is orderly rather than disorderly. So the atheist has to mistrust fundamental givens in doing experiments. So, for example the logical positivists could not admit that the number 3 had any reality at all. All they would accept is that it appears that the category of “3 cows is similar in the aspect of number to 3 chickens” was so well established as true by experience that it was almost as good as a given.
The Catholic has proof that the universe is orderly, or that the number 3 is a real entity by revelation. God created the universe. He created all things with weight and measure. Statements like these are givens, and will not be implicated by a falsification.
Consequently, if an experiment were performed, and the experiment failed to attain, the atheist could logically question whether it might be false that the universe is orderly. The Catholic trusts the metaphysical axioms and therefore sees the result of an experiment differently.
One practical consequence: according to Fr. Stanley Jaki, the scientific revolution could only occur logically in a Christian context precisely because Christians asserted as axiomatic that Christ is the logos, the creative reason, that holds the universe together as a coherent, rational thing. Thus, Christians had the epistemological confidence to continue in the face of failure, whereas the Humean and Cartesian doubters would have spent their lifetimes wringing their hands, “Oooh but how do we really know that there are universal laws at all? Couldn’t it just be coincidence?” Blah.
Christians are courageous. But I’m glad atheist scientists have sort of caught up to us and our optimism!
In short, Catholic scientists, it would seem, would proceed far more efficiently, and would be far less likely to dally over spurious questions when interpreting experiments.
Thank you Jeff!
[author] Jeff McLeod has a PhD in quantitative psychology from the University of Minnesota, where he studied under some of the brightest philosophical minds from the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science. He is an adjunct professor of psychology in the graduate school at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. His full time job is that of a psychometrician and research statistician in the standardized testing industry. He comes from a very large Catholic family. He and his wife of 20 years are grateful for their two extremely talented boys.[/author]
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Wasn’t going to comment, but Stacy asked me to. While I appreciate Jeff’s kind answer here, I didn’t think it quite answered my question.
I’m not going to talk in too much detail about my research, but basically, I’m studying proteins on a virus that can kill tumor cells. When I do experiments, I’m always looking to answer specific questions. Sometimes the question is really simple: does this tube have the DNA I want it to have, or is it something else? For that, you cut the DNA with enzymes and run it out on a gel to see the banding pattern, and you have your answer. If it matches the banding pattern you expect to see, you’ve got your DNA. If you need to know down to the single nucleotide base pair if the DNA is what you want, you need to sequence it. (Science is not all grandiose claims about dinosaurs and planets. Sometimes it’s really mundane stuff!)
Sometimes the question is more exciting: did the virus enter the cells? For that, you can fluorescently tag cell membranes, cell nuclei, and viral particles, and then take pictures with a microscope, and there you have your answer and some gorgeous pictures to boot.
All of that to say, science is really, at its foundation, simple. You ask a question, design an experiment with appropriate controls that will give you the degree of certainty you need (do you need to know roughly if your DNA is correct? Use a gel. Precisely? Sequence it), and you interpret the results. My atheism doesn’t come into play at all. The Catholics’ Catholicism doesn’t come into play at all. Our experiments are designed to use the same, well-tested techniques to answer specific questions. We don’t use the word “metaphysics” ever.
Where Jeff gets it wrong is that he seems to assume we atheist scientists blunder around in a state of perpetual uncertainty. Fortunately for our sanity and for the readability of biology journals, no one looks at a failed experiment and goes, “Well, huh. I might have just done it wrong, but maybe 3 doesn’t actually equal 3!” The Catholics in our lab don’t have any different of a perspective on the number 3 than the atheists do.
Stacy referred on another post to an “infinite doubt” approach, and I think that’s an imaginary concept. It certainly doesn’t exist in any biology lab. We know certain things work because they give us consistent answers that make sense alongside our understanding of biochemistry and cell biology and chemistry. While we’re always questioning things and asking critical questions (that is what research is for!), we’re reasonable about it. We don’t question how DNA replicates or what its structure is, because those things are known. We don’t question our ability to quantitatively compare the sizes of DNA bands on a gel, because we know that if something travels farther along the gel, it’s smaller. Infinite doubt isn’t just something we have to avoid in order to get anything done, it’s simply not reasonable.
Hopefully that all made sense. These are things that are hard to articulate because they’re so obvious to me. It’s easy to say that the atheist can question whether 3=3, but in reality it’s a laughable concept. I can count out 3 marshmallows, or 3 viral particles, or 3 items on a never-ending to-do list, or 3 hydrogens on a molecule, and they numerically all have the same meaning. If they didn’t, the universe would have no consistency, and we all know that from day to day, things are the same, and if they change, we can explain why. To say that an atheist doesn’t have this certainty, while the Bible constitutes “proof” that the Catholic does have this certainty – that’s just not in line with reality.
I’ll still be reading along here, but I’m not going to argue anything or comment again. I’ve got work to do and things to study for!
Michelle, again thanks. You sound an a lot like my husband (he is a doctor, and in many minds a brilliant one at that) when he tries to explain his science to me.
I’m sad you wont be contributing anymore, but I am glad that you have been here and can explain things much better than my simple mind can.
Comment
I am so bad at this not commenting thing, but thanks, Alan! From all you’ve said, your husband sounds like a great guy. I’d contribute more if I had the time, but I’ve already spent too much time here today, so I’ll have to call it quits for now. I’m sure I’ll be back eventually!
Michelle says:
“Where Jeff gets it wrong is that he seems to assume we atheist scientists blunder around in a state of perpetual uncertainty. ”
>> No, where you get it wrong is not understanding Jeff’s point. The atheist scientist can abandon the uncertainty which their own metaphysics would dictate, because science adopted Catholic metaphysics at its modern inception.
You borrow the certainty about the order and logic of creation from the Catholic world view which formed the basis for the emergence of the modern scientific method itself.
M: “The Catholics in our lab don’t have any different of a perspective on the number 3 than the atheists do.”
>>That’s because science- real, operational, show-it-to-me-in-the-lab science, as opposed to fairy tales about pond scum evolving into Beethoven or infinitely dense point masses self-assembling and exploding/inflating randomly into everything that exists- real science has already accepted Catholic metaphysics as a given.
It is why *operational* (laboratory! experiment!) science can be atheist, just so long as it remains metaphysically Catholic.
As Jeff points out:
” ……according to Fr. Stanley Jaki, the scientific revolution could only occur logically in a Christian context precisely because Christians asserted as axiomatic that Christ is the logos, the creative reason, that holds the universe together as a coherent, rational thing…..
I’m glad atheist scientists have sort of caught up to us and our optimism!”
Fr. Jaki is exactly right on this one.
So is Jeff.
Michelle, you know I respect your point of view and I’m a big fan of your comments here, so please do come back when your work is done.
I’ll hold off for now in commenting in detail on your reply, but I will say it’s a respectable one. You’re a pragmatist. But the reason pragmatists don’t find my account objectionable is that my view and the pragmatist view derive from one and the same source, the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. Yes, Charles Saunders Pierce, William James, and even some modern influential philosophers like Wilfred Sellars draw their inspiration explicitly from scholastic philosophy as a corrective to the excesses of radical empiricism.
You aren’t troubled by the metaphysical statements of Catholicism for the same reason that St. Thomas wasn’t troubled by them. You accept the common sense evidence of your everyday experience. This genesis in common sense, however, doesn’t make the metaphysical givens any less metaphysical.
Rick, thank you so much for your clarifying comments! I couldn’t have said it better than you said in your conclusion: “It is why *operational* (laboratory! experiment!) science can be atheist, just so long as it remains metaphysically Catholic.” I think Michelle is precisely an example of this. She’s clearly a rigorous scientist. She just doesn’t realize yet that the presuppositions she must hold in order to do science the way she does it point directly and to a Christocentric universe. She might not like the word Christocentric, but if she knew how Christians construe the precise meaning of that word, she’d agree in a heartbeat. I do think Michelle has a good heart, but the way.
Alan, as always, I admire your contributions. You know we love you here and we aren’t trying to dazzle you with complexity. Anyone who makes a genuine effort to think these things through deserves our praise.
Stacy my dear friend, thank you for giving me the chance to guest post. You are a true scientist, and a true intellectual in every sense of the word. You embody the virtues that St. Thomas preached. And you are a courageous woman. I’m humbled at your welcoming me to post here.
Catholic:
Experiment: If God, then DO NOT experiment
Reasoning: Mystery of Faith
Atheist:
Experiment: If X, then try Y
Reasoning: Hypothesis