5.1.2.7 Evolutionary Philosophy

This novel approach to the question of reality uses the findings of evolutionary biology to draw conclusions about the nature of the external world and our ability to conceive of it accurately. Compensating for a relative lack of strict logical rigor found in purely philosophical approaches, it brings new and interesting empirical data and scientific discoveries to the discussion. According to this approach, as evolution drives biological and behavioral adaptations, it causes them to conform to reality to the degree that that improvement advances survival of the individual.

Consider this analogy: the shape of the water in a pool conforms to the contours of the hole that it fills. The "interface" between the volume of water and the hole which it fills are perfectly suited to each other - the water conforms to a reality which the contours of the hole constrains it. Just as the water fills a hole, our species and the individuals in our species fill an ecological niche, or a "hole" in the macro environment. Our behaviors and perceptions, which form our "interface" to the environment, conform to the reality into which they fit in a manner similar to how the shape of the water conforms to the hole that contains it.

Using the principles of evolution (and a generous amount of speculation) the adherents of this approach deduce facts about the world as it existed long before modern man came on the scene. Animal life evolved behaviors that were accommodations to the many eons of pressure exerted by the demanding physical environment, and the details of those evolutionary accommodations must refer to the real external environment that shaped them.

Therefore, the mind’s concept of reality is strongly isomorphic (i.e., well matched) with that reality for the following reasons:

• Reality impinges on all living creatures, as the theory of evolution describes


• Living creatures compete for survival, utilizing whatever natural talents and tools they have to gain advantage


• More than any other type of creature, humans utilize their physical environment (tool making, planning, building, organizing) as aids to their survival


• For humans, especially, increased knowledge of and ability to model and manipulate the physical environment give strong survival advantages. Perhaps these are their most valuable survival mechanisms


• Due to competition, individuals with more accurate and effective mental representations of reality will have better chances of survival. For example, humans who correctly see the lurking wolf, the gathering storm, the hidden fruit, or the receptive mate will survive at the expense of those who incorrectly perceive these elements of the environment


• Therefore human evolution has probably imbued us with accurate (isomorphic) understanding of reality, at least within the bounds and physical capabilities of our biological senses.

This dynamic and precarious exchange between the world and individuals results in a close correspondence between physical reality and our perceptions and ideas concerning it. This accommodation is not limited only to humans, but to any adaptive living organisms capable of responding to the demands of the environment. For example, the fact of photosynthesis in plants proves that the sun has been shining on the earth for many millions of years in a manner similar to how it shines today. The seasonal migrations of birds, the winter hibernation of bears, and the changing coat colors of some rabbits and foxes are examples of adaptations that imply that the Earth’s orbit around the Sun has followed a pattern much like we see today. The Sun now shines and has shined, the Earth now moves and has moved. Living creatures’ behaviors and genetic adaptations supply proof that as it is now, it has been for a long time. Using evolution as a premise, the reality of the Solar System in which we live can be deduced.

However, some neuroscientists and philosophers of mind see it differently. Rather than humans having potentially evolved to have "accurate" perceptions of the outside world, they argue that we evolved to have "useful" conceptions of that world. Useful in the sense of confering survival advantages. So, although it is certainly useful to have an accurate idea of the danger posed by a predator, an enemy, or some other type of natural danger that one could encounter, it is primarily useful to have that perception. On the other hand, it is not particularly useful (at least to our primitive ancestors) to understand that the earth is a sphere rather than a flat surface, or that famines have natural explanations rather than being caused by angry gods. Neuroscientist, Anil Seth, sees human consciousness as primarily a "prediction engine". Instead of our conscious experience being explained by the brain just "reading through" incoming sensory data in sort of an outside-in, bottom-up direction, where the brain begins with detailed outside stimuli and arranges them into increasing complicated ideas. That's what it feels like when we wake up in the morning and it seems as if the world just pours into the mind through the transparent windows of the senses. Seth says that what is going on is very different, and that what we perceive is largely coming from the inside-out/top-down. The brain is continuously generating predictions about the causes of the sensory signals it is receiving, and that it uses sensory signals mainly just to update and modify these predictions so that it can keep track of the world in ways that are not determined by "accuracy", but by "utility". The purpose of the brain is not to represent the world in an isomorphic, maximally accurate representation of reality. Instead it represents the world in ways that are useful. It all depends on this top-down process of prediction that are just bounded by and reined in by the sensory signals we receive.

In 1969, Willard V. O. Quine wrote that evolutionary processed likely resulted in people endowed with a cognition that reliably tracked "truth", in that it would be generally more conducive to survival fitness than believing falsehoods. This hypothesis may have some truth to it, and fortunately, it is one that can (and has been) empirically tested. It turns out that, yes, we are able to discern some "true" aspects of reality in the "medium-sized" scope and range that we humans typically experience the world. We can make reasonable judgements about things just large enough to see up to objects hundreds or thousands of miles in size, and in time durations ranging from a fraction of a second to many years. But outside those size and time ranges, we are actually not very proficient. Evolutionary pressures apparently did not select for the natural ability to have good intuitions about things that occur far outside those ranges. Our proficiencey in inferring large and small scale structures, and durations measured in millenia (or longer) or events that occur many times faster than the blink of an eye was of no relevance to our ancestor's reproductive fitness.

As Michael Dahlen wrote in an article published in 2011,

If a professional baseball player saw “things in a limited and distorted way,” that is, if his perception of the movement and location of a baseball was something other than what it actually is, then he would not be able to consistently hit ninety-five mile per hour fastballs. If a cardiac surgeon’s mind had a built-in disposition toward illusion then he would not be able to successfully perform a coronary artery bypass surgery. If a pilot’s knowledge of his airplane, its controls, and its location in the sky did not correspond to reality, then he would not be able to lift his airplane off the ground, fly it across a continent, and safely land it at his targeted destination. If science could never penetrate to things as they really are, then the great innovators of our time would not have been able to create all the marvels of modern technology. For that matter, if reality is inaccessible to human beings and if our perception of reality did not at the very least resemble reality itself, then we would not be able to perform even the simplest of activities such as eating, walking, reading, or brushing our teeth.

Of all creatures, we humans have the most highly developed ability to form abstractions and accurate models of the world. Ironically, we alone fall victim to outrageous self-induced delusions and misperceptions of that same world. The cognitive biases to which we are heir may have their origin in the same muscular mental faculties that give us our acute, correct perceptions. Only we, who could imagine a distant future and remote past, could also envision imaginary spirits, demons, heavens, hells, and other benevolent and malevolent agents that inhabit those strange regions. Some of these distortions may result from evolutionary pressure and, in fact, have adaptive properties.

• The “just world” phenomenon helps us persevere against the odds in the face of adversity.


• The “authority bias” causes us to have undue respect for what we perceive as authority, helping keep tribal order.


• The “ostrich effect” allows us to ignore bad news and focus on the positive.


• Pareidolia (the tendency to see patterns where there are none) causes us to flee from imaginary tigers as well as see the image of Mary in a piece of toast. However, it is far better to run from an imagined danger than to fail to evade a true one. Evolution has shaped us to act on the dictum, “discretion is the better part of valor”.


• Numerous statistical judgement errors that most of us make such as overgeneralization, the gamblers fallacy, confirmation bias, the base rate fallacy, and others. For some reason, most people don't seem to have a good intuitive sense of probability and statistics (which is what allows state and national lotteries to keep bringing in billions of dollars per year).


• A species-wide preoccupation with assigning supernatural "agency" to unexplained phenomena. Anthropological, archaeological, and historical evidence shows that throughout our history, and probably into pre-history, mankind has ascribed the power to create and influence events in life to non-corporeal, supernatural beings. Whether these were conceived of as animistic elemental or organic spirits, deceased ancestors, multiple gods for multiple purposes, or a single monotheistic god, spirits appear to have haunted human experience since the beginning of time. This misperception of reality, as crippling as it seems it should be, might be a strange side effect of our large brains and ability to form abstractions and mental models. For better or worse, it has tagged along with our culture for millenia.

Each of these (and many, many others) is a clear deviation of our perceptions from what is in the “real world”. This is a real strike against the foundations of the evolutionary approach to reality. If we can be so wrong in so many areas, how many more incorrect concepts are inherent in our relationship with the world?

Some small comfort might be taken from the fact that experts in these sorts of cognitive biases have exhaustively studied these odd phenomena and explained them in great detail. And rigorous, scientific approaches to their study show them to be what they are – incorrect, ingrained, and intuitive responses to the world that, in the modern times, lead us astray more than help us cope. To quote the late Perry Deangeles:

“Thinking critically is a chore. It does not come naturally or easily. And if the fruits of such efforts are not carefully displayed to young minds, then they will not harvest them. Every school child must be implanted with the wonder of the atom, not the thrall of magic.”

Some have taken a position opposing Evolutionary Philosophy for theological reasons. Most famous of these is Alvin Plantinga in his book, Warrant and Proper Function. Plantinga, who Time Magazine named "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God”, sees no reason to assume a positive correlation between “true beliefs” and survival if evolution is driven purely by natural forces. Only if God directs evolution would the evolved beliefs and behaviors of man have a chance of being “true” (i.e., isomorphic with reality) because God would somehow want us to see reality as it really is. If only driven by natural processes, the driving force would be survival, not a "true" perception of reality. Somehow he neglects the very important consideration that "true" beliefs about the world DO have survival benefits. His position is so audacious, far fetched, and in violation of any semblance of parsimony that I will let him speak for himself. He presents a hypothetical caveman, “Paul”, who sees a tiger and runs away from it (as we would expect). However, if evolution is a natural rather than a supernatural process, caveman Paul's reasons for running away include every explanation EXCEPT one involving a realization of the imminent danger the tiger poses for him:

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behavior.

This type of shamelessly tortured logic is frustrating and quite irritating. It shows that the leading opponents of naturalism, rationality, and empiricism will stop at nothing to defeat them. They don’t aim at gaining actual knowledge or in increased understanding, but only in inventing post-hoc explanations to defend their established dogmas through any means available.

Still, as closely as our mental models fit the world of common experience, we continue to be troubled by persistent misperceptions - superstitions, inability to make sense of probabilities and statistics, and difficulties conceiving of quantities and sizes on the extreme micro or macro scale. We have evolved no intuitive sense regarding physical realities outside those we experience in our daily living. Until the last few hundred years, we had no idea of how reality was structured at levels outside the normal human scale - at the very small, very large, very fast, very slow, very near, and very far. We had no idea of the micro world of bacteria, cells, molecules, and atoms. Theories of the structure of our planet, the solar system, and at the cosmic scale of other stars were naive and completely wrong. Physical processes operating at the snail's pace of geology, or at the relativistic pace of light were either misperceived or not perceived at all. Understanding of these things had no survival benefit during most of human history. Our intuitions had been adapted to the environment we evolved in. This environment did not include relativistic speeds, massive gravity, galaxy sized objects, or sub-atomic scales. There had been no selective pressure from our environment to adapt to these aspects of reality that fell outside our experience. Because these mismatches between our intuition and reality all involved things that were not part of our evolutionary history (e.g., we don't live near the speed of light) we evolved no natural understanding of them. The scientific and technical tools we use to understand them don't come naturally - science is not an instinct, but is an attempt to overthrow instinctive misperceptions.

These deviations from the isomorphism that Evolutionary Philosophy promotes are troubling and are possibly not adequately answered. They leave wide open the doors to objection - if we are wrong in these areas, we could be wrong in other areas that we believe we understand and perceive correctly.

However, humanity has shown itself capable of rising above its evolutionary limitations. As counter-intuitive as some aspects of reality may be, we are able to move past our historically ingrained prejudices against them and embrace them as true when the evidence is overwhelmingly in their favor. The tools of modern civilization are allowing us to perceive and understand aspects of reality that were never even imagined in previous generations.

5.1.2.6 Moore’s Proof of an External Reality

That Idealism violates the tenets of common sense is its most glaring weakness, and G.E. Moore attacked this weakness relentlessly. More than anyone else, Moore recognized the deficiencies and logical problems associated with the forms of Idealism built into Berkeley’s claim that the external world didn’t really exist. He also took issue with Kant’s and Descartes’ theses that even if it did exist, we could never directly experience it, but instead constructed ideas or categories of understanding to interpret it. He countered Kant’s Idealistic position through a reaffirmation of objectivity and a revival of philosophical Realism. Although the scope of his writings goes far beyond the nature of reality, his contributions in this area are profound.

In his system, external objects are things whose existence is independent of our experience. These had been referred to before as “things in themselves” or “noumena”. They exist before us, continue to exist after us, exist when we are not looking, and exist when we are not aware of them at all. His goal was to demonstrate the existence of even one such object. By doing so, he would have proved the existence of an external world with that one object in it. If there is even a single external object, this opens the door for any number of external objects, and therefore an entire external universe of full of “things in themselves”.

Much of Moore’s work was in answer to Kant’s earlier work in Transcendental Idealism. It is a testimony to Kant’s tremendous range and influence that Moore dedicated himself both to overturning his Idealism, and also to finishing the work Kant began to establish the existence of an external reality that exists beyond our perceptions.

He famously re-invigorated the idea of “common sense” with respect to realism and gave a powerful common sense argument against Idealistic skepticism by raising his right hand and saying "Here is one hand," then raising his left and saying "And here is another". He concluded that since there are at least these two external objects in the world, he therefore knew that an external world existed.

To understand what Moore was trying to say, it’s important to differentiate between two very different issues. On the one hand is the issue of “the existence of an external world”, and on the other hand is “whether or not we can directly know that external world”. His demonstration of the raised hands addressed only the first of these two questions, leaving the second purposefully unanswered. In fact, he never successfully addressed the latter question.

Moore strongly believed that muddled thinking and imprecise language confused our thinking about reality. He thought that a combination of common sense and precise language were sufficient to address most philosophical questions. Because of the laxness in the use of language when addressing complex issues, philosophers exacerbate the complexity and create problems out of nothing.

His argument for reality utilizes the "denying the consequent" (AKA, "modus tollens") form of argument, which is a transposed version of the the modus ponens argument presented in the previous “Skeptical argument against reality” section:

• If a person doesn't know that reality is not an illusion, then that person doesn't know that external objects really exist


• That person knows that external objects really exist


• Therefore, that person knows that reality is not an illusion

What about the second premise above? Doesn’t it seem circular? Does it assume the conclusion in order to prove the conclusion? Not at all – He defended criticism of his argument in these words:

"I knew that there was one hand in the place indicated by combining a certain gesture with my first utterance of ‘here’ and that there was another in the different place indicated by combining a certain gesture with my second utterance of ‘here’. How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it, but only believed it, and that perhaps it was not the case! You might as well suggest that I do not know that I am now standing up and talking — that perhaps after all I'm not, and that it's not quite certain that I am!"

There is also another common sense, pragmatic explanation, although Moore did not use this argument: In the above example, he sees his hands extended. Everyone to whom he is demonstrating sees the same hands. They are all unanimous in their observations of the extended hands. Unless they are simultaneously dreaming the same dream, they are witnessing two real hands extended in actual space. It would be an enormous and highly unlikely coincidence if the dream explanation was correct, whereas it would be no leap at all to conclude that what common sense tells us is the right answer.

Moore’s most famous attack on Idealism occurred in an essay entitled "A Defense of Common Sense". In it he contended that the Idealistic skeptics could not give good reasons for us to accept their arguments. The defenses that the Idealist could muster were far less plausible than the reasons that could be presented to accept the common sense claims about our knowledge of the real world. In other words:

• There are only two options being considered:
1. there are no external objects or
2. there are external objects and reality is real
• Exactly one of (1) or (2) is true, but not both
• The arguments for (1) are very weak, and the arguments for (2) are very strong
• Therefore, (2) should be believed over (1)

When trying to decide between idealism and realism, of course anything is possible. Everything could be real, exactly (or nearly) as it seems, we could be inside a futuristic computer simulation or matrix-like universe, we could all be dreaming, or the subjective idealists could be right - everything we see outside ourselves is "mind dependent" and only exists because it is there to be perceived. I could live in a universe where only I exist and am inventing all of you, or the entire world could have been created last Thursday. Yes, anything is possible, and unfortunately, apriori logic cannot be used to disprove any of them (as Hume said, discussed elsewhere in this series). But we should consider the difference between what is possible and what is probable. Although the dream scenario may be possible, is it likely? Probably not. There is no compelling reason, and no evidence for, dis-believing in the real world. Although many possibilities exist that would account for our experiences, only one is probable. Only one, the realist view, explains the consistency of our experiences, explains that everyone has essentially the same experience of the world (within the error bars of perceptual and psychological differences), and requires no miracles or superfluous inventions. The others are ad hoc, and exist merely to fit the data but are otherwise incapable of offering any explanations, predictions, or descriptions of the world. Given that, the most plausible and rational explanation for our experiences in life is that what we see outside ourselves is actually there. Although the other options are technically within the realm of possibility, it would be perverse, contrary, and obstinate to prefer one of those alternative explanations.

5.1.2.6.1 Russell and Reality

Bertrand Russell addressed the issue of matter and the external world. He sets out to decide whether we can be sure that matter (i.e., the external world) exists or if we must admit that matter is something imagined, only as real as a dream might be said to be real. Since we identify matter with physical objects, the criterion for our certainty in external reality is the independent existence of physical objects. The goal now is to establish what many philosophers suspect, that objects exists independent of our perception of them, that if we turn away from them, they continue to exist. Although we may doubt the physical existence of an object, such as a table, "we are not doubting the sense-data, which made us think there was a table," the immediate experiences of sensation. In this sense he was like Descartes, who had certainty only in his own thoughts.

If the table is real, then our confidence in our senses has been well-placed, and we might be said to have reasonably inferred reality from its appearance. If we find that the table is not real, then the "whole outer world is a dream." One hypothesis affirms our common-sense view of reality, and the other holds that "we alone exist" and nothing we experience is real in our ordinary sense. Russell contends that it cannot be proved that we are not dreaming "alone in a desert," but also argues that there is no reason for supposing that this is the case.

It is always a logical possibility that we are deceived about the true nature of reality and that it is hidden from us. It is possible because "no logical absurdity results from the hypothesis that the world consists of myself and my thoughts and feelings and sensations." However, Russell's argument is that though there may be no way to disprove this "uncomfortable" possibility, there is no reason in support of it either. What is simpler and more plausible is the hypothesis that independent physical objects exist "whose action on us causes our sensations." The advantage of this hypothesis is in its simplicity. It explains the phenomena of our lives with the least resort to invention. It is the most parsimonious, though it cannot be proved deductively.

My opinion is that, at least recently, the modern emphasis on deductive proof is the popularity of television crime shows, Mr Spock from Star Trek, and the popular notion that Sherlock Holmes was a master of deduction. In fact, this is elevating the exercise of deductive logic to a prominence that it really should not have. In life, in science, and even in Sherlock Holmes novels, it is not deduction that solves the crime but induction, also known as inference. Specifically, the technique he used was called abduction, or "inference to the best explanation". Deductive reasoning is applicable primarily in highly controlled scenarios such as in proving mathematical theorems, logic, and in applied areas of technology such as software and circuit design - where the conclusion is completely contained in the premises. In life, we usually generalize from the specific to the general through inductive methods.

In fact, inference to the best explanation (eliminating unlikely explanations, leaving ourselves with the single "best" explanation) is used in everyday life far more frequently than either deduction or standard induction. It is how we draw conclusions from partial information. It is how we evaluate social interactions, judge intents of others, and understand potentially ambiguous statements. It is the primary tool of medicine, science, and all other forms of research and discovery.

In making these types of inferences, we infer from the fact that a certain hypothesis would explain the evidence, to the truth of that hypothesis. In general, there will be several hypotheses that could potentially explain the evidence, so we systematically consider each one and reject all the least likely ones, leaving one remaining. In this manner, we are able to infer from the premise that a given hypothesis would provide a "better" explanation for the evidence than would any other hypothesis, to the conclusion that the given hypothesis is true. Accepting one of the less probable ones would simply be perverse. For Russell, and for most people, the separate existence of a physical world is the best explanation for our experiences, beating out solipsism, Last Thursdayism, Matrix ("brain in a vat") theories, and devious/malicious/deceiving gods. It is the only one consistent with the "No Miracles Argument", in that it is the only explanation that does not require a miracle for it to be the right theory. Now, there is no particular law that says miracles should be avoided in our theories of reality, but miracle-based explanations are highly ad-hoc, and experience has shown ad-hoc explanations (explanations developed merely to cover the facts, and nothing more) are usually wrong.

5.1.2.5 A Practical, Pragmatic View

There is a practical way of looking at the problem. Instead of asking the question in the way we have been posing it, instead ask, “Of what use is a real world versus an ideal world?” Formulated this way, it is less important to determine the factuality of existence than to determine its utility. Pragmatists do not require that beliefs must accurately reflect reality to be true. Instead they hold that the validity of beliefs depend on how helpful they are in action and inquiry. Simplistically, the large questions revolve around “what works?” rather than “what is true?” They emphasize practical outcomes and consequences as the most important element of their philosophy. As the name implies, it is an eminently practical philosophy, not overly concerned with metaphysics, unless there is some useful advantage of one metaphysical position over another. Scientific "instrumentalists" are pragmatists. They are less concerned with how much their theories correspond to an objective reality, and more with the utility of those theories. For instrumentalists, a concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes the external world.

As with all the other positions and opinions discussed in this “Revolt against Idealism” section, Pragmatists concern themselves with many more issues than with questions related to reality, but they do generally take a stand on this question.

Descartes (who was not a Pragmatist) began his investigations with absolute doubt. Not accepting this starting point, pragmatists don’t insist on wiping the slate clean at the beginning of their inquiries to find a neutral and supposition-free starting-point. Not requiring skepticism regarding every aspect of the universe, Pragmatists instead watch for something to be sincerely doubtful of and send their investigations in that direction. Reality is not one of those things.

C. S. Peirce, one of the several creators of modern Pragmatism, utilized this way of approaching problems to help refine the modern outlines of the Scientific Method. He popularized the concept that claims of scientific knowledge can only be held to be true provisionally, as there is always the possibility that some future discovery will alter them or prove them to be false. According to his doctrine of Fallibilism, the conclusions of science are always tentative. Science does not demand absolute certainty in all its conclusions, but instead relies on the usefulness of its discoveries and on its inherent self-corrective nature. Science can detect and correct its own mistakes, and by doing so evolve toward greater understanding.

With respect to the notion of Reality, Peirce’s empirical method presumed that the objects of knowledge are real, that the properties of those real objects are independent of our perceptions of them, and that all persons who experience those real things will have basic agreement on the content of their experience. The classic “is the chair really there” problem is not of any interest to Pragmatists, unless some compelling reason emerges to doubt its presence. No special revelation or personal traits give one person an advantage over another – anyone can see that the chair is really there. The chief interest of the Pragmatists was not in exploring the nature of Reality. Because there was no convincing reason to doubt it, they accepted it as a given. The onus of responsibility, in their view, would be for others to disprove it.

5.1.2.4 Kant (again!)

Hume and Kant were the philosophical giants the mid 1700's. Of Immanuel Kant, who figured prominently in moving Idealist philosophy forward, one could never say that he was in "revolt against Idealism". He was a "Transcendental Idealist", believing that one's experience of things is much more concerned with how they appear to that person than how those things are in and of themselves.

Even so, unlike Berkeley, he steadfastly affirmed the existence of real objects behind the phenomena of perception; that is, he never accepted Subjective Idealism. Although he emphasized mental processes and ideas over that which was being perceived, his philosophy cannot be characterized as a form of Subjective Idealism.

He never denied the existence of things-in-themselves, but instead exerted much effort in demonstrating that a world independent of perception really existed. However, he believed that a perceptual and cognitive barrier prevented man from seeing these things-in-themselves, allowing him only to experience a “sensuous manifold” organized internally by the categories of sensibility. We cannot experience the "noumena" of the external world, but only the "phenomena" which our minds synthesize from the input we receive from that world. In other words, what we call “reality” is determined by transcendental (a priori) categories of reason and forms of understanding, such as causality, unity, space, and time.

Kant used what he termed "transcendental arguments" to prove the existence of an external world separate from the individual. This type of reasoning follows this pattern:

• Begin with universally accepted premises about how our experiences are structured


• Show that certain external entities must exist for these experiences to occur


• Conclude that these other entities do, in fact, exist.

An example of such an argument follows: Kant believed that for one to be aware of himself, it is necessary that there exist entities which are not "himself". It would be impossible to be aware of one's own existence without presupposing the existence of things separate from one's own self. Only if that were the case could one distinguish himself from anything else. He concludes that if one is self-aware, then that implies things that are "non-self" to serve as contrast.

Kant popularized this type of reasoning, and it is still in use today. But in my opinion this is a little complex and possibly too clever - it almost seems facile. It is typical of the kind of argument, though, that was being produced in the 1700's.

Further, if supporters of Kant argue that experience and reason cannot grasp reality, they have reached this conclusion by means of experience and reason. And that is a self refuting statement. Its content contradicts the very method it purports to be relying on. One cannot rely on reason to demonstrate that reason is invalid because doing so presumes that reason is valid.

5.1.2.3 Hume

For David Hume, the ultimate entities comprising the universe are loosely related, mostly separate objects with a real external existence. Basically agreeing with Descartes, if the mind only knows its own states, then those are all it can know. Because of this limitation, we cannot reliably infer the existence of any external objects at all. We can see the color and form of external objects, but not their “noumena” (the things-in-themselves).

So far, it doesn’t look like Hume is any great supporter of a materialist or realist view of the universe. Why are we enlisting Hume as a champion of Reality? Although this may seem like he is a denier, this position actually helped the advancement of science tremendously, in that it inspired an attitude and practice of empiricism – not assuming causes through armchair Rationalist deduction as had been the fashion, but by looking for clues of found in actual events.

Hume’s philosophy involved the existence of mental “impressions” and “ideas”. Impressions are actual vivid perceptions which bring with them conviction or positive belief in the existence of a corresponding objective reality. “Ideas” are derived from impressions, and hence are less vivid than the latter. They are copies that the impressions leave behind. Hume distinguished between the act of seeing his surroundings - the tapestry in the room where he was sitting and the objects on his table - and recalling those images from that perception and to contemplate the idea of those images. In Hume’s theory of mental processes, ideas are naturally linked together and tend to call each other up to form group associations. Ideas are naturally associated with one another and form larger groups, and those groups in turn are related, to form still larger groups.

He believed that behind these groups of ideas there was a reality which corresponded to them – that the ideas actually denoted real entities, and that those physical objects were governed by the same natural laws that controlled the world of ideas. However, that world could not be deduced by reason. All we have are a series of fleeting impressions which our senses have perceived, and which have some representation in our minds. We form ideas around them. Our physical and psychological nature weaves these impressions and ideas together into an internal experience of a continuous, coherent, constant external world. We believe in an external world through habit, custom, and convenience. This helps us tie together what would otherwise be a jumble of unconnected, changing impressions. An external world is the most plausible explanation for these impressions, but not a logical certainty.

5.1.2.2 Newton

Despite his numerous religious and occult publications, Isaac Newton had little interest in searching for ultimate meaning behind experience. He and several others developed and popularized a mechanistic explanation for how the universe functioned that specifically avoided occult, supernatural, and mystical influences (which made discussions of how the newly discovered gravitational force was propogated rather difficult). Newton found that the new natural laws that he and others (such as Robert Boyle) were discovering had such tremendous explanatory power that looking for other principles that were more fundamental was not necessary nor nearly as interesting. He admitted that hypotheses of these types might have value by providing representations that would help in understanding the relations of things. This reluctance, however, didn’t stop him making the occasional foray into speculation as to the meaning of existence. He expressed this very briefly in his Rules of Philosophizing, which is discussed later.

5.1.2.1 Descartes and Dualism

Rene Descartes’ principle of Dualism divided the universe into thought and all other external entities. In his philosophy, there is an external world, but humans are separated from it by an unbridgeable gap. We really know only what is in our own consciousnesses, which divides us from that world. We are immediately and directly aware of only our own states of mind. Because of this, all of reality is reduced to an idea or picture in our minds. Therefore, it is possible to doubt the reality of the external world as consisting of real objects.

This is the problem/paradox with Cartesian dualism – if we are only aware of our mental states, how can we be sure they represent anything outside our minds? Although Descartes didn’t solve this problem, many who came after him have provided convincing arguments that appear to overcome his doubts. Brentano’s theory of “directed attention”, Moore’s proof of reality, Wittgenstein’s, Moore's, and Russell's dismissal of many philosophical problems as word games and misuse of language, Correspondence theories of reality, coherence among the difference sciences, and Logical Positivist overall dismissal of this as even an interesting problem make it hard to take Descartes doubts seriously as they once were regarded.

Descartes started his investigation by doubting everything except his own thought process, and then tried to re-establish and derive everything else from that. Whether or not that was a wise starting point is not universally agreed upon (for example, the Pragmatists only chose to doubt concepts that seemed doubtful, reality not being one of them). Despite his doubts, though, Descartes was convinced that our conception of reality was close to being correct. The purely Rational (i.e., deductive) process he used to arrive at this conclusion started with an ontological proof of God’s existence, along with a proof that God is good. Ontological proofs of this type have since been severely criticized by Hume, Kant and others and shown to be structurally flawed, though they continue to be used occasionally even today. Anyhow, according to Descartes, because of God’s demonstrated benevolence, we can trust the account of reality provided by our senses. God created the world, and He gave us functioning minds and reliable sense organs. He would not attempt to deceive us and would never engage in such a malicious deception. This would be incompatible with his fundamental goodness. Therefore, what we perceive really exists.

Interestingly, Evolutionary Philosophy uses a modified form of this same argument. In that view, it is not God who gave us reliable sense organs, but natural evolutionary processes. This is covered more completely in a later section.

So, he initially only accepted the reality of the mental realm and doubted physical reality, along with everything else. However, at the end of his analysis, Descartes comes down on the side of the realists, in that he believed he proved that there was an external reality and that there was no reason for us to doubt what we were seeing really existed.

5.1.2 Revolt against Idealism

The phrase, “Revolt against idealism” originated in a movement started by Russell and Moore as a response to what they perceived as an unproductive and misleading trend in philosophy. Even though they both arrived only recently in the history of philosophy, their analytic approach crystallized and focused the conflict between idealism and realism. For this reason, this section bears the name of the movement begun in their time as a result of their work. Many others joined in the battle, including other Analytic philosophers and Logical Postivists. This section highlights individuals, movements, and philosophical schools that emphasized interaction with and recognition of the reality of the physical universe. It doesn’t attempt to fully define those systems of thought, but only to focus attention to the elements of each that asserted the existence of an external reality and our abilities to experience and understand it.

5.1.1.8 Omphalos and “Last Thursdayism”

Omphalos means “navel” in Greek. It consists of the idea that the universe and everything in it was created with the appearance of age and history in Biblical times. Adam and Eve were created with navels (thus the name), mountains came into existence pre-formed, seas already vast, caves already deep, stars already distant, and buried fossils having the appearance of great age. Because of God’s skill, his creation is indistinguishable from a truly ancient universe billions of years old. He is either tricking us or testing us.

A modern version of Omphalos is “Last Thursdayism”, which takes a more extreme position – the universe was created just last Thursday, and we were all created with implanted memories of fictitious events that we only believe occurred before that. In fact, it all may have just begun five minutes ago, as Bertrand Russell described in The Analysis of Mind,

“There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.”

There are a near infinite number of different claims that share a similar structure with Omphalos and Solipsism (described in the previous blog entry), and they are equally irrefutable and just as strange. For instance, I could claim that an invisible leprechaun sits on my shoulder who created the universe, while you could claim that a invisible angel on yours deserves that distinction. Neither can be disproved. Every person on the planet could make a similar type of claim. They can’t all be true, and through the logical technique called “Overloading Objections” it can be shown that none are likely to be true. This technique doesn’t disprove these silly arguments. It just shows that if Solipsism and Ophalos can be true, then so can billions of other similarly formed assertions.

So, Omphalos shares with Solipsism and the infinity of parallel barren positions the trait of being invulnerable to criticism and disproof – and that is all they have. They are metaphysical tricks, not sincere philosophical statements. They do nothing to advance intellectual progress, but only block further discussion. They are nothing but immature philosophical "heckling" and intellectual vandalism whose only real purpose is to interfere with the real business of investigation.

The physicist, Sean Carroll, wrote in his blog, "Cosmic Variance":

... it makes no sense to act as if any of those (solipsism, brain in a vat, etc.) is the case. By “makes no sense” we don’t mean “can’t possibly be true,” because any one of those certainly could be true. Instead, we mean that it’s a cognitive dead end. Maybe you are a brain in a vat. What are you going to do about it? You could try to live your life in a state of rigorous epistemological skepticism, but I guarantee that you will fail. You have to believe something, and you have to act in some way, even if your belief is that we have no reliable empirical knowledge about the world and your action is to never climb out of bed. On the other hand, putting aside the various solipsistic scenarios and deciding to take the evidence of our senses (more or less) at face value does lead somewhere; we can make sense of the world, act within it and see it respond in accordance with our understanding. That’s both the best we can hope for, and what the world does as a matter of fact grant us; that’s why science works!

Likewise, the "Boltzmann Brain" (a scenario where our brains suddenly materialized out of a random collection of particles, and exist floating in space imagining the reality we think we live in) is just as unlikely, though not impossible. Again, quoting Sean Carroll, from his book, The Big Picture:

Is it possible that you and your surrounding environment, including all of your purported knowledge of the past and the outside world, randomly fluctuated into existence out of a chaotic soup of particles? Sure, it’s possible. But you should never attach very high credence to the possibility. Such a scenario is cognitively unstable, in the words of David Albert. You use your hard-won scientific knowledge to put together a picture of the world, and you realize that in that picture, it is overwhelmingly likely that you have just randomly fluctuated into existence. But in that case, your hard-won scientific knowledge just randomly fluctuated into existence as well; you have no reason to actually think that it represents an accurate view of reality. It is impossible for a scenario like this to be true and at the same time for us to have good reasons to believe in it. The best response is to assign it a very low credence and move on with our lives.

Young earth creationists use a form of Last Omphalos (in this case, claiming that the universe is only 6000 years old). They counter legitimate arguments such as those involving ancient supernovae and light from remote galaxies by saying that light from supposedly distant objects was created "in place", that god created the stars and their traveling photons simultaneously, giving only the appearance of having traveled for billions of years. Just as Adam didn't have to wait for seeds to grow into trees to bear fruit, we didn't have to wait eons for light from far away to reach us. This is a textbook example of special pleading (i.e., creating ad hoc arguments). It gives its defenders an infinite, unhindered ability to special plead against any evidence that exists: "It's that way because god made it that way, and we don't need to know why he did it". It is arbitrarily ad hoc, a wild card that answers all questions, intellectually dishonest, childish, naive, and deceptive.

Further, both of these perverse hypotheses about how reality is structured share another serious weakness. Omphalos and Solipsism could be seen as equally probable as the "ordinary world" hypothesis of reality (i.e., that reality corresponds roughly to what it appears to be). Given that each of them are unproven hypotheses, one cannot assert any to be superior to the other. However, the notion that these are empirically equivalent defines equivalence strictly in terms of the hypotheses' making the same predictions and accounting for the same observations. This overlooks other important considerations. Even if several hypotheses make exactly the same predictions and have explanations for observations, one of them may have more robust and complete explanations of the phenomena that are predicted, making that one more probable than the others. Simply because none of them are provable doesn't make them all equally likely. Thus, if explanatory success has a role in determining which metaphysical model we should prefer, then employing inference to the best explanation (i.e., abduction) would lead us to believe one of the hypotheses over the others.

In the face of arguments from solipsists, religionists, supernaturalists, and others who prefer a world of fantasy and miracles, the words of John Worrall, a philosopher of science, provide some perspective:

There is nothing which will compel the adoption of a realist attitude towards theories <of the the world around us>, but this leaves open the possibility that some form of scientific realism, while strictly speaking unnecessary, is nonetheless the most reasonable position to adopt.

Or, according to Sean Carroll,

We have every right to give high credence to views of the world that are productive and fruitful, in preference to those that would leave us paralyzed with ennui.

It is widely held that the most powerful argument in favor of Realism is the "no-miracles argument", according to which the success of science and realism would be miraculous if scientific theories were not at least approximately true descriptions of the world.

Many epistemologists have invoked abduction in arguing against this type of radical pure skepticism, their claim being that even though the skeptical hypotheses (i.e. - "nothing is real", or "history is not real") make the same predictions as the hypothesis that reality is how we ordinarily take it to be, they are not equally good explanations of what they predict. In particular, the skeptical hypotheses are far more intricate and complex than the “ordinary world” hypothesis. The ordinary world hypothesis requires no scheming or misdirection by a trickster universe, while the skeptical hypotheses involve a vast, universal conspiracy theory. Although we may not be able to prove that the "omphalos" or solipcistic explanation are false, by abduction, they are far weaker explanations than accepting reality as it appears. Choosing one of them over the simpler explanation would simply be contrary and obstinate. Invoking an aphorism coined in the late 1940s by Dr. Theodore Woodward, "When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses not zebras". Applied here, supporters of these far-out theories can offer no compelling reason for believing that one of us is dreaming, or all of us are dreaming, or the universe is a dream, or the universe was created only moments ago.

However, supporters of the ordinary-world hypothesis can offer every one of our experiences as solid evidence for that explanation of the world. The alternate theories can make no predictions, offer no explanations, and have every appearance of being ad-hoc. They exist only to fit the data, but have no explanatory or predictive power. "Ad-hoc" is Latin for ‘to that’ or ‘to the fact.’ An ad-hoc explanation is one that is constructed solely to save a hypothesis from facts which would disprove it; it has no independent justification. Any claim can be saved from negative evidence by modifying it, ad-hoc, in the fact of counter evidence. The more ad-hoc hypotheses needed to prop up a claim, however, the less plausible it is. Omphalos is ad-hoc in the highest degree. As a theory, it also lacks the properties of explanatory scope (ability to explain a wide variety of phenomena), explanatory power (ability to describe any one phenomenon in depth), fruitfulness (the ability of a hypothesis to successfully predict novel phenomena), consistency (freedom from internal and external contradiction), simplicity (not the brevity of the hypothesis, but the number of assumptions it has to make), and conservatism (how well the hypothesis fits with what we already know). Although it successfully accounts for the "data" of the world, it is a far weaker theory of reality than scientific realism and philosophical naturalism. There are also an infinite number of Omphalos/Last Thursdayism hypotheses (for example, last Fridayism). Which of these should we believe, or should be believe neither?

Last Thursdayism and Solipcism, each in their own way, deny the reality of the external world, or that history exists. Science, and philosophical naturalism, take as a fundamental premise that external reality exists, and that we humans can understand that reality - that we are capable of knowing it. Any claim which asserts that this premise is false - that what we see is an illusion - is invulnerable to a rebuttal from naturalism. Any evidence that naturalism would bring against this claim orginates in that external world, and therefore is suspect. In a conflict of world views, once a debate leaves the empirical, then naturalism cannot speak to it, since it takes as one of its premises the existence of the real world, and the reliability of empirical evidence. These are axioms that cannot be proved, but must either be rejected, or be accepted as self evident and the most likely explanation for our experiences of reality (for other axioms of naturalism, see "Assumptions of Science").

We could say that this is a limitation of the naturalistic worldview, and it probably is. So be it. It is a limitation of naturalism in the same way that the requirement that we accept Euclid's postulates is a limitation of Plane Geometry. If on the first day of a Geometry class, the students wanted to debate Euclids 5th postulate concerning parallel lines, rather than moving on with the course material, that is certainly an option, but it spoils the whole point of taking the class. Philosophical naturalists have no interest (and no expertise) in debating metaphysical philosophies which deny empiricism and external reality. They will readily admit there is no certain proof that reality exists, and then move on to other, more interesting, areas.

We have seen that Solipsism, Last-Thursdayism, "Brain in a jar", and Natuarlism all can account for our experiences. When the same evidence is explainable by several theories, we say that the evidence "underdetermine the theories". For example, we have a theory that when several hours of night has past, the sun will rise. Another theory that accounts for our experience so far is that for all of history the sun has risen, but starting tomorrow it will not do so. Both theories explain the evidence so far. Which of the theories, then, is better? James Ladyman summarized Carl Popper's approach to resolving multiple hypotheses that account for the same evidence in his book, Understanding the Philosophy of Science, which I paraphrase here:

For any theory H there is always another theory G such that:

1. If H & G are weakly empirically equivalent (i.e., they both account for the observable evidence) then there is no reason to believe H and not G.
2. H & G are weakly empirically equivalent.
3. Therefore, there is no reason to believe H and not G.

This is potentially a real problem for the scientific realist because, if it is correct, there are always rival theories we have not thought of, which fit all the data that support each of the best current scientific theories. If this is the case, why should we believe our best theories and not the skeptic’s alternatives? However, this argument may be challenged by denying the first premise, in other words, by arguing that the mere existence of a rival hypothesis consistent with all the data so far does not mean there is no reason to prefer one of H and G. Hence, for example, Popper argued that if G is ad hoc, and entails no other empirically falsifiable predictions, then it should be ignored.

Of course Popper didn’t think we should believe H either, but it is easy to adapt his response to defend an inductivist approach to the underdetermination problem. Hence, it might be argued that if H has previously been predicatively successful, and G is ad hoc in the sense of being introduced merely to accommodate the data without entailing any new predictions, then, given the past success of the overall method of believing empirically successful theory (H) over the ad hoc one (G), we have inductive grounds for thinking H and not G is likely to be true.

Theory "H" is Naturalism, and theory "G" is any of Solipsism, Last-Thursdayism, "Brain in a Jar", Young-Earth Creationism, or any other religion/superstition-based explanation for reality. Each of these theory "G"s offer no new predictions (and never have predicted any past events either), seem ad hoc, and are clearly attempts to harrass and nip at the heels of Naturalism, which is the only theory that has a successful history of explanation, description, and prediction. Given Popper's (and Ladyman's) explanation, we have every reason to believe "H" (Naturalism) and none of the competing explanations.

5.1.1.7 Solipsism

Solipsism is Idealism taken to its “logical” conclusion. It is an extreme form of Radical Idealism (denying external reality), or Radical Skeptism (denying practically everything). Denying the existence of a material world, it also denies the existence minds other than the “agent” or person experiencing their own thoughts and existence. It takes the position that knowledge of anything outside the mind of the thinker cannot be proved or justified. This doctrine opposes all forms of realism and materialism. It is so extreme that it also rejects most other forms of idealism because many of them grant some measure of existence to other minds or to a physical world.

Solipsism is difficult to argue against, because it effectively poisons the well against all opposition. It makes it impossible to distinguish between actual reality and a thought that looks like reality. Because it rebuffs all counter-arguments with this trick, it can never be proved or disproved, which makes any discussion of it fundamentally frustrating and pointless. This immunity from attack is its main charm, without which it would be utterly empty.

Solipsism is both unverifiable and unfalsifiable. There is no scientific technique that could be successfully used to attack it. It not possible, even in principle, to subject it to any form of test by reference to empirical data because the empirical data themselves are part of the solipsistic dream. Solipsism (like Omphalos, described in the next chapter) subverts any attempt at refutation, because all evidence brought against them is immediately rejected as being part of the dream (or false history). Likewise, it is not logically inconsistent, and so it cannot be defeated on purely theoretical grounds.

Despite its seeming invulnerability, it does have several weaknesses, two of the most damaging being:

• If solipsists creates the reality they experience, how can they create things they have never thought of such as new scientific discoveries, geography, history, poetry, art, or dance they themselves are incapable of conceiving or performing. It seems ludicrous to say that the solipsistic agent can mentally fabricate entities which are far superior, more intelligent, beautiful, deep, interesting, and skilled than the agent himself. If this were possible, why does not that agent give himself those skills?


• However the most compelling case against it is its philosophical sterility. It is completely empty and without power or content. It has no explanatory scope nor depth, and it makes no predictions. It preemptively destroys any attempt to refute it and can be neither falsified nor proved. It shares this property with many other weak philosophical positions such as Omphalos (described next) and similar Special Creation arguments.

Simply because a philosophical position is difficult to attack does not grant it any depth or strength. Adherents of this peculiar brand of thinking have only shallow satisfaction. They are left with a philosophy that has no use, no applicability, no morality, no ethics, no metaphysics, no aesthetics, and not a single interesting problem to solve. It renders all experience of beauty, joy, fear, attraction, and enthusiasm meaningless and arbitrary, as nothing more than illusions that never really happened. This paucity of substance, which immediately terminates any discussion, does not necessarily discredit the philosophy, though it leaves one wondering what possible use it has.

Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci has written and spoken about this in his "Rationally Speaking" podcast, and in his online magazine, "Scientia Salon". His take on Solipsism, as on all philosophical issues I have heard him discuss, is clear and enlightening. "Radical skeptics have been around since pre-Socratic times - it's not a new position. Radical skeptics doubt any and all knowledge because there is no certain foundation for anything." Solipsists take that doubt further, doubting that anything exists except the person having the experience, that nothing else is certain. "They ask, 'how do you know that you are not the only person in the universe, and everything else is a figment of your imagination?' The short answer - you don't!"

And then you either become mired down, or you move on. Dr. Pigliucci is "a skeptic in the David Hume tradition. Hume often posed questions that were, in fact, close to radical skepticism. He famously questioned the logical basis of Induction, which is the type of reasoning that we use both in science and in every day life. He showed pretty convincingly that there is no way to defend Induction on logical grounds independent of using induction itself". We know induction works because it has always worked before! If you defend Induction by using Induction, then you are using circular reasoning. Well that is just the nature of Induction - it can't be proved. But then again, the same could be said of Deduction - you can't prove that it is valid without resorting to deductive reasoning.

Hume followed up with - well, we have to live our lives, and the best way to have success in life is to use induction as a way of reasoning. After describing the puzzle, he moved on, as we should do with radical skepticism and solipsism.

He goes on to say, "We can use these doctrines, though, to improve our thinking. They should remind us of just how precarious and uncertain the foundations of our knowledge really are. They foster epistemic humility: we are really not as smart as we often think we are, and in fact we don’t even have unequivocal answers to very basic questions about knowledge. If over 2500 years of philosophy and science have not been able to come up with a decisive answer to radical skepticism and solipsism, then that should tell us something. It tells us that people thought about these things for almost three millennia, and we still don't have an answer, and we have very good reasons to think that there will never be an answer." It shows us one of the limits of knowledge, an epistemic limit - that we cannot be absolutely certain.

What should we do with this? From a pragmatic perspective, we just need to ignore it and continue living our lives. We acknowledge what it tells us - "yes, I don't know that I'm not the only one here. But I need to proceed under the assumption that I'm not alone here." We need to use it as a reminder that we probably are certain about much less than we think we are.

5.1.1.6 Western Spirituality

The doctrines of most forms of the three big Western religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) include a belief that God preceded the existence of matter. God either created the material universe, or is a necessary element as its sole perceiver prior to Man. The existence of an omnipresent and omniscient God implies that the physical universe is the object of at least one conscious being – God. So, one might argue that the major Western religions are somewhat idealistic in that “mind” precedes “body”, where “body” is the material world, and that without the original Mind of God, there would be no universe.

Various modern synthesized religions and spiritual organizations have adopted smatterings of mystical content from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American traditions, and 19th century “mind cure” philosophies. Included in these are “New Thought” variants such as the Unity Church with its “Course in Miracles”, Science of Mind/Religious Science, the Church of Divine Science, and “The Secret” with its Law of Attraction. These do not uniformly and specifically deny external reality, but treat it as something that one’s mental attitudes, meditation, and committed belief can alter, through undefined mystical mechanisms, to the benefit of the believer.

5.1.1.5 Eastern Mysticism

Views similar to those of Berkeley’s modern Immaterialism have appeared much earlier in some, but not all, forms of Buddhism. These stressed the sole reality of consciousness. Generally, Buddhism emphasizes that the world of change that appears real to us is illusion. Similarly, some forms of Hinduism tend to view reality as the expression of an all-encompassing divine mind. To be fair, the mainstream viewpoint in both of these religions is that, minimally, there exists a sort of dualism that includes both a physical and a spiritual reality.

5.1.1.4 Kant’s Mental Constructs

Like Newton (discussed later), Kant sought to show that inference from hard sense data (from the external world) to soft data (inside the mind) are warranted, and that empiricism agreed with claims to knowledge about nature. According to Kant, the mind perceives an external world full of independent objects (noumena) that are actually there and synthesizes experience (phenomena) from those perceptions. Reality, itself, is not mind-dependent, but our perceptions of it are. For this reason, we are forever separated from the actual world as it really is, and are limited to know only our perceptions of it - the phenomena we experience. Though we can never really know ultimate reality, and are limited to what our experience and perception contribute to it, we can at least know that, somehow, “things in themselves” really do exist “out there”. “Things in themselves” exist wholly outside our experience, and all we can say is that they exist. They are beyond our full understanding, due to the limitations of our perceptions and mental constructs. This is a “Constructivist” philosophy, meaning that the mind’s thoughts create the perceived world. Any philosophy of reality in which mental categories play a large role has a constructivist element.

Unlike Locke, who believed that the human mind was a “tabula rasa” or blank slate, Kant argued that the human mind was pre-wired to form categories of understanding and meaning that are inherent in our makeup such as our understanding of substance, causality, anticipation, analogy, possibility, necessity, existence, etc. So, although Kant was not a “reality-denier”, he did claim that our ability to understand it directly was not possible.

5.1.1.3 Subjective Idealism

Bishop George Berkeley introduced the theory of Immaterialism in the mid 1700’s. It proposed that the material world does not exist independent of our minds; that the only reality is mind and ideas. Berkeley summarized his theory with the motto "To be is to be perceived". This concept was his attempt to defend a spiritual world and prove God’s existence, against Newton’s mechanistic and materialistic science. It was his revolt against Materialism, and it continues to epitomize pure Western Idealism even today. Berkeley thought that the world and the objects in it exist by being perceived in the mind of God. They then come into existence for us as God decides to reveal them to us. God’s omnipresence provides the needed universal observer - He in whose mind the universe exists.

The main point of Berkeley's philosophy is that there is no such thing as matter. It doesn't exist. There are only minds, and ideas that occur in those minds. All the things we perceive are ideas; the fact that we perceive them means that we are ourselves essentially minds. This is the source of the traditional Philosophy 101 activity involving a lively class discussion debating the question: “is this chair really here?”

Berkeley’s theory attempted to refute the idea that matter could exist independent of mind. If he or another person saw a chair then that chair existed. If no one saw the chair then it could only continue to exist if it was in the mind of God. The idea that objects exist independently of a mind or the mind of God is not testable or provable by the scientific method, because all objects we would need to examine must enter our awareness in order to experiment on them. Because the mere act of investigation as to whether object can exist outside the mind must be conducted using the mind confounds the whole attempt to research it.

The logical conclusion of such a philosophy, taken further than Berkeley ever intended, is that reality, being known only through the mind, also exists only in the mind. This amounts to solipsism, the position that nothing exists except for my perceiving self, a view that has rarely, if ever, been seriously considered in the history of philosophy.

To be fair, modern some aspects of Quantum Theory in physics lend some support to the argument that perception does affect reality (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, quantum entanglement, Bell’s theorem, and others). But this would not be the first aspect of Quantum Theory that doesn’t apply at the macro level.

My own personal take on it - subjective idealism is an adult version of the Peek-A-Boo game. When you close your eyes, the universe goes away. Many writers who support various forms of idealism deny that they don't subscribe to an external universe, but give them a few paragraphs to expound, and before you know it they once again come around to their root claim - the universe would not exist if there were no minds to perceive it!

5.1.1.2 Classical Idealism

In traditional Platonic idealism, abstract concepts such as mathematical entities, geometric shapes, ideas, and universal “Forms” possess the highest and truest type of reality. Material reality is only a projection into our experience of these more perfect and fundamental entities – the idea of a square is more perfect and “real” than any specific manifestation of an actual square object.

This school of thought addressed reality by treating change and material objects as entirely real, on a par with universal Forms. For them, reality consisted of “matter” which had “form”, which was suited to its “purpose”. They were not promoting the absence of a physical world, but instead arguing for the existence of some non-material ideal concepts, exemplars, and archetypes called “Forms”.

These ancient idealists, however, would not be considered Subjective Idealists or Immaterialists (described later). The accepted a real world, even if they thought that man’s ability to perceive it was extremely limited, as described in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in which the prisoners in a cave can only see shadows of the outside world (i.e. true reality).

5.1.1.1 Skeptical argument against reality

To start with, what is the fundamental reasoning in support of Idealism? There are several justifications, but one of the simplest is this. Using the formal logical structure called “affirming the antecedent” (AKA - modus ponens), skeptics of claims about an external reality pose this argument:

• If we don't know that reality is not an illusion, then we don't know that external objects really exist
• We don't know that reality is not an illusion
• Therefore, we don't know that external objects really exist

Its formal structure is:

• If P, then Q
• P is true
• Therefore, Q is true

Although it seems sound, similarly formed arguments can resolve to a completely different conclusion (see Moore, later in this paper). In particular, the second premise (we don't know that reality is not an illusion) is the basis of the entire debate - it cannot be simply assumed.

5.1.1 The Faces of Idealism

Idealism is the metaphysical view that mind supersedes reality, that the ultimate nature of reality is based upon ideas, thoughts, and forms. It holds that the real world is inseparable from or meaningless without consciousness and perception. It is the philosophical opposite of Naturalism, Materialism, and Realism. Idealism is not based on an empirical evaluation of fact. Instead, it is grounded in an intuitive interpretation of perceptions and the derivation of meaning from experience.

Not all forms of Idealism dispute the existence of a physical world. However, they all insist that the apparent self-sufficiency of the natural world is deceptive. To the Materialist mind, Nature appears to be self-sufficient and to go its own way, independent of our involvement in or perception of it. Nature gives the appearance of being eternal, operating according to its own laws with no need for a creator or outside intelligent agent to initiate and sustain it. But idealism relies on Mind, Spirit, and Idea for its power and its meaning. It draws a strong distinction between reality and appearance. Subjective Idealism considers the physical universe to be either non-existent or in some way, less “real” than our mental constructs of it. There are other forms of Idealism that are less severe, that don’t deny reality. But our focus here will primarily be on those that do.

The range of Idealism spans Platonic ideal forms through Eastern Mysticism, all the way a “Matrix” world-view where all of life is just an implanted dream, or in 21st century-speak, some sort of “hologram”. This section describes the more common forms of Idealism. The various Idealistic schools of thought are conveniently both unprovable and unfalsifiable. Any techniques used to examine their propositions would involve postulating “real” tools of research, which beg the original question being investigated, “what is real”. Among other reasons, this accounts for its longevity and frequent re-occurrence in both ancient and modern thought.

5.1 How “Real” is Reality?

Scientists undertake their studies as if a real universe exists and that the measurements and observations they make have true significance, a strong relationship to, and a high correspondence to that world. Most science and engineering degree programs don’t require philosophy courses, and the majority of people in those professions don’t give much more thought to ontology (what it means to “be”) than people in any other profession. Many scientists subscribe to the "Shut up and calculate" school, which is a humorous way of suggesting that there is too much actual work to do to bother with metaphysical arguments regarding the ontological status of reality. But acceptance of an external reality is one of the implied beliefs tied up with how science is conducted. It is an assumption, and one that has been argued about for centuries.

Within the Philosophy of Science there are the opposing "realist" vs "anti-realist" perspectives. In philosophy of science, anti-realism refers to claims about the non-reality of "unobservable" or abstract entities such as sub-atomic particles, electrons, genes, or other objects too small to measure directly or detect with human senses. One prominent position in the philosophy of science is instrumentalism, which is a anti-realist/non-realist position. Instrumentalism is the pragmatic view that a scientific theory is a useful instrument for understanding the world. Instrumentalists evaluate theories or concepts by how effectively they explain and predict phenomena, as opposed to how accurately they describe objective reality. By this standard, it has been suggested, the Ptolemaic solar system and the Copernican solar systems were equally good (up to a point). In my opinion, Instrumentalists have voluntarily donned blinders so they can focus on their work, rather than adopted a complete philosophical framework for reality. Non-realism takes a purely agnostic view towards the existence of unobservable entities: unobservable entity X serves simply as an instrument to aid in the success of theory Y. We need not determine the existence or non-existence of X. Some scientific anti-realists argue further, however, and deny that unobservables exist.

Some theories in physics are acknowledged to be technically untrue (the Ideal Gas Law, Newtonian mechanics) in that they don't actually refer to entities that really exist. The Ideal Gas Law posits a continuous fluid, whereas gas is actually a collection of very tiny particles that can be modeled as a fluid. The same sort of thing is the case for Newtonian physics which works well enough at sizes and speeds that humans typically encounter. But neither actually refers to physical things, so in a sense, they are anti-realist, or at least they don't attempt to mirror reality.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone could question reality’s existence, which is close to questioning existence itself. But they are out there: solipsists who doubt all existence, and even doubt that minds other than their own exist, Idealists, some mystical eastern religions, and adherents to fringe pseudo-religions like the “Course In Miracles” who at least agree that we all have minds, but that the physical world might be an illusion. One could wisecrack that this tendency to deny reality might have been bred out of the human race over time if there were a genetic component to such beliefs - that they would have stepped off the curb in front of a car (or chariot, or saber toothed tiger). But I imagine that even these people look both ways before crossing the street. Samuel Johnson was said to have responded to Berkeley’s theory that the universe exists only in our perceptions with, “I refute him thus!" and kicked hard at a stone.

This section explores a few of the better known and more influential approaches to this question, especially those that bear directly on the central question of this paper - “is Science based on faith?” Although I was tempted to present a full survey of competing theories of reality and man’s experience of it, the main emphasis of this section will be to distinguish those that deny an external reality (or deny our ability to experience it directly) and those that propose that we can have direct interaction and experience with the external universe. Some fairly big names of weighed in on both sides of this issue. The remainder of this section will lay out their cases.

5 Philosophical background

Much has been written about the questions underlying both everyday experience and the more formal process of how we gain knowledge through scientific and empirical investigation. We take for granted so much of how we interact with the world that when we lay open the assumptions we must make regarding that world they seem excessive, sometimes even ridiculous. This section deals with some philosophical questions that directly relate to the question of scientific faith. They are questions dealing with Reality, with inference and induction, and with the uniformity and universality of nature.

The theories regarding how much we can trust our experience to teach us about the real world boil down into two major types: some form of common sense acceptance that there is a real world worth learning about vs. a variety of complex and tortured semantic, linguistic, and logical or sophist-tinged abstractions that question common sense experience and frequently strain the imagination. Most of us just take for granted that our experiences mean something and can be taken at face value instead of being some devious trick that is being played on us or a lifelong hallucination. To put it in the context of this paper, belief in reality is one of the major elements of the “faith” that underlies science.

The attackers of science don’t typically question assumptions that science makes about the fundamental nature of the external world. These people generally agree that we exist as parts of a greater universe that has an existence apart from us. But this point has actually been much debated over the years. Science does begin with some first principles about the nature of reality, and they are worth exploring in this section to determine if they are based on faith or are founded on something more substantial.

We also explore an equally controversial issue: assuming we can accept that there is a reality “out there”, can we use our experience in it to make predictions about future events? In other words, can we legitimately use induction to infer general rules from our specific and limited experiences?

To answer that question, we must also look at the predictability and universality of the “laws of nature”. Is there a basic uniformity of cause and effect across time and space? Will the future resemble the past? Did the past look like the present? Are the phenomena we see here of the same type we see across the expanse of the universe? Is Hume’s assertion, “From causes which seem similar we expect similar effects” valid? If we can’t answer “yes” to these questions, how can we conclude that events tomorrow, or even 10 seconds from now will have some relation to what has just happened? How can we be confident that the sun, which has risen billions of times, will rise tomorrow one more time?

4 What is Rational Belief?

Rational thought processes, decision-making, and behaviors govern how living creatures interact with their environments and with each other. Extended and formalized, it constitutes a large part of the foundations of science.

4.1 Basic Rationality

Belief based on logic combined with empirical, concrete evidence is not at all like a faith whose first principles are inscrutable deities, personal revelations, mystical, myth-filled text, cultural traditions, strong personal emotions, or priestly admonitions. The objects of rational belief – the real world entities to which those beliefs refer - do not reveal themselves only to the privileged few. They are not matters of taste, opinion, tradition, and custom. The truth of these beliefs is easily demonstrated and reproducible by anyone who cares to test them. If specialized education is required to comprehend some of the more arcane topics, anyone with the aptitude, intelligence, resources, and interest can obtain the training and experience that knowledge, firsthand.

The use of the term, rationality, here should not be confused with the Rational Philosophy of Descartes and Leibnitz, where all knowledge could be reasoned out through purely logical means independent of experience. Another sense of rationality, the one used here, is: reasonable, sensible, sane, in accord both with logic and experience.

Even primitive creatures, which have no consciousness or what we would call thought, behave rationally. They do what they do for their survival and self-interest. Evolution enforces rationality – those who work against the reality of their environments, historically, were eliminated from the gene pool. Humans, who developed the capacity to intellectualize this process call it rationality. Somehow in our pre-history, we alone also evolved the ability to be irrational.

In everyday life, in our jobs, and in our relationships we have expectations about how events and outcomes evolve, about how certain things cause other things to occur. We see these expectations borne out again and again. Based on our experience, we form models of how the world works and come to have trust in our models. In science and technology we build theories that explain how things behave now and will behave in the future, and we rely on these theories as a basis for further work. We can conduct those complex enterprises without have to return to the basics and prove them each time again from scratch. They have been proved and, barring the introduction of evidence that contradicts their predictions, they don’t need to be revisited. We combine fundamental, proven beliefs with new phenomena and experiments to build more comprehensive and complex models, which in turn become the fundamentals of other, even higher level hierarchies of explanations. We believe these things because we trust the evidence of our senses and our experience. As Phil Plait wrote, “Trust is when you accept what well-sourced evidence tells you. Faith is believing in something despite evidence to the contrary.”

Again, Richard Dawkins from “Is Science Religion” - “There is a very, very important difference between feeling strongly, even passionately, about something because we have thought about and examined the evidence for it on the one hand, and feeling strongly about something because it has been internally revealed to us, or internally revealed to somebody else in history and subsequently hallowed by tradition. There's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation.”

The fundamental difference between the two kinds of faith we are discussing (and it’s this difference that gives rationality its power) is that rational faith (or belief) has the capacity to change itself when new evidence challenges old assumptions. Whereas non-rational approaches see patterns where none exist and assign causality to unrelated phenomena, rational approaches can test those patterns and investigate the proposed causality, rejecting what fails to meet its standard.

4.2 Rationality in Science

In section 3, we discussed faith and differentiated it from rational, evidence-based belief. Here we look more closely at rational belief and at its use in science. As Dr. Barnhardt said in the original version of the movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still, “it isn’t faith that makes good science Mr. Klaatu, it’s curiosity”. I would add a few other attributes to curiosity, but fully agree with the exclusion of faith from the recipe.

Methodological naturalism and scientific naturalism are terms that refer to the view that explanations of observed effects are meaningful when they invoke only natural causes. They are formalizations and extensions of the everyday rational/empirical process we use to live our lives. Methodological naturalism takes the position that the scientific method (hypothesize, experiment, measure, analyze, interpret) is the only effective way to investigate reality. Science doesn’t (typically) study the supernatural realm, does not invoke it to explain events, and finds no need to hypothesize its existence or effects. As Steven Novella wrote:

Science is dependent upon methodological naturalism, and this is not an arbitrary choice, as some may claim. The methods of science simply do not work without this underlying philosophical basis. This is because nonmaterial causes cannot be falsified; therefore, they fail to meet a necessary criterion for science. The reason they can’t be falsified is that they are not constrained in any way. There are no limits to what they can potentially do because they are not, by definition, following the laws of nature—of material cause and effect. Furthermore, constraint is necessary for falsifiability.

For example, how are the characteristics of ghosts constrained? How could we falsify the hypothesis that ghosts are responsible for any particular observed phenomenon? If they are outside of what we understand as the law of nature, then they could theoretically do anything. If they could do anything—if they’re unconstrained— then they are untestable by the methods of science. In other words, is there any observation or experiment that is not potentially compatible with the hypothesis that ghosts exist? If the answer is no, then ghosts are simply an unscientific notion.

This methodology doesn’t take a hard stand on defining the “true” nature of the universe from a metaphysical point of view. Perfectly good science can be done by "bracketing", i.e. deferring, that question indefinitely. The act of "doing science" doesn’t require that one have a particular philosophical opinion – only that a particular approach to the conduct of science be taken. Rather than trying to uncover the "truth", it discovers how things work and the processes that govern the phenomena being studied. Nevertheless, the discoveries of science map closely to our experience of the universe. They are consistent with that universe, consistent among themselves, and are very useful, if not necessarily and absolutely “true” (whatever “true” means in this context).

As with methodological naturalism, the scientific method also extends the everyday common sense we use to make it through life. The simple techniques we use to gain knowledge about the world as we move through it are extended and rigorously applied in science. For example, if you hear a knocking sound on your door, you hypothesize that someone is at the door. You perform an experiment by going to the door and opening it. By looking outside, you gather evidence. You evaluate the evidence (compare what you see to your hypothesis), and interpret the results (e.g., your friend is visiting you). There is no faith involved - this is the way we humans interact with and learn from the environment. Anyone can duplicate this discovery process – there is no privileged class that alone can experience it. As Albert Einstein said, “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking”. Just as apt, a quote from T.H. Huxley (Darwin’s bulldog) - “Science is simply common sense at its best--that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.”

Even among philosophers of science, there is no common agreement on the definition of science. Most of them can recognize the difference between science and non-science, but differ on the exact nature of science. No single unified account of the difference between science and non-science has been widely accepted by philosophers, and some regard the problem as unsolvable or uninteresting, although Karl Popper had a technique for making this distinction, called the “criterion of demarcation”, discussed later in this paper. The fact that good science still occurs without agreement about this issue highlights the fact that it is not strictly a philosophical or metaphysical enterprise, but also a practical one, straddling the chasm between the physical world and theoretical constructs. There is more or less unanimous agreement among its practitioners as to how it should be conducted (encompassed in the term, methodological naturalism). But for those who do care to debate what lies beneath science, there are conventionalists, who believe humans devised “laws of nature” and organize their experience of the world according to these laws. The inductionists (Bacon, Russell) gather information from the physical world and use induction to create theories that explain the phenomena that are observed (this is probably what most people would intuitively agree with). The deductivists take the opposite view – that there is no valid inductive logic, since general statements can never be completely proved from specific cases. On the other hand, a general statement can be disproved by even one contrary particular instance. Therefore, a scientific theory can never be proved but it can be disproved. The role of an experiment is, then, to subject a scientific theory to a critical test. Thus, all theories are tentative.

While on the topic of belief systems surrounding science, but not intrinsic to it, there are philosophical naturalists, similar to philosophical materialists, who insist that the world is entirely natural (in the sense of being devoid of the supernatural). This is a belief that many choose, but is entirely a personal choice. Certainly science has, as yet, not required supernatural entities to explain the many processes and phenomena it has helped illuminate. Philosophical naturalism is not required for science to work. It stands in opposition to deistic or theistic beliefs. However, it cannot be emphasized too strongly – despite the similarity of the terms, philosophical naturalism has nothing at all to do with methodological naturalism, which defines the practice of science.

Science develops theories through inductive logic (from the specific to the general) and then tests theories by generating predictions through deductive logic (making specific predictions from a general theory) and empirically verifying those predictions. Science explores the natural world and makes predictions about the future, and creates theories explaining discoveries that reveal the past. Unlike practically every other endeavor, especially faith-based enterprises, it constantly attempts to falsify itself in order to grow and strengthen – the “no pain/no gain” approach. Religions, New Age spiritualism, Mysticism, never attempt to refute their fundamental tenets or falsify their basic dogma – those who do are deemed heretics. For example, Christians accept on faith that various assertions about God – he created the earth, he visited various saints and prophets, sent his son, and then took his son back. None of that is tested, nor it is testable – we cannot question the mind of God. Although it is perfectly good theology, it is not science.

James Frazer, author of The Golden Bough sums it up well: “but while science has this much in common with magic - that both rest on a faith in order as the underlying principle of all things, readers of this work will hardly need to be reminded that the order presupposed by magic differs widely from that which forms the basis of science. The difference flows naturally from the different modes in which the two orders have been reached. For whereas the order on which magic reckons is merely an extension, by false analogy, of the order in which ideas present themselves to our minds, the order laid down by science is derived from patient and exact observation of the phenomena themselves. The abundance, the solidity, and the splendor of the results already achieved by science are well fitted to inspire us with a cheerful confidence in the soundness of its method.”

3 What is faith?

The accusations which I quoted in section 2 all share one misconception – that the type of faith which backs up religious or superstitious belief is the same sort of conviction that serves as the foundation upon which rational, scientific knowledge is based.

The word, “faith” has several similar meanings, but with very different ramifications. You can consult any dictionary to get a listing of its many different definitions. We are concerned with only two senses of the word here:

There is religious faith, which is a strong spiritual conviction in the absence of, or even in contradiction to, external evidence.

And then there is rational faith – a belief, which is built on inference from past experience, material evidence, repeatable observations, and a trust in fundamental logical principles. In other words - justifiable, true conclusions.

These two meanings of the word are not only different, but the exact opposite of each other. Both of these uses of the word "faith" entail a belief or attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition about the world is true. However, it is disingenuous, misleading, and consciously deceptive to conflate faith in the reality of miracles, resurrections, angels and fairies with belief in an external world, evidence from that world, and logical rules for processing that evidence. This confused use of the word consolidates all of these non-empirical concepts into one category and one definition of “faith” – a belief that cannot be deductively proved. Instead, it would be more correct to put religious faith in the same category as belief in superstitions, ghost stories, leprechauns, and other myths and delusions rather than to associate it with the type of belief that underlies science.

Faith, in the traditional sense, is a very powerful force. Like many powerful concepts it has the potential to produce very good or very bad results. Faith can help people through uncertain and troubled times. There are some studies that indicate that it actually helps people recover from injury and disease. It is behind many great acts of kindness, charity, strength, and generosity. It can bring divided communities together. Faith can also have less beneficial outcomes - it can lead a nation to believe that their race should dominate the world, or that everyone should convert to a particular religion at the point of a sword. It can divide communities into those who share the faith and those who don't, who become targets of ostracism and punishment.

This document in no way will attempt to denigrate or belittle religious or spiritual faith. It has its place in peoples’ hearts and in the world at large. I only take exception to the characterization of science as being fundamentally a faith-based enterprise.

As Paul Davies wrote in Taking Science on Faith, “The term ‘doubting Thomas’ well illustrates the difference. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue... Science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn't be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.”

Dr Davies view of faith, and the view taken by the others quoted previously, is problematic several ways:

1. It is factually wrong that science relies on faith. Any use of the word, "faith", that encompasses the way religious believers think and the way scientists think is a very diluted and useless concept. Science does rely on inference and induction, which, together comprise the "trust" we have that nature behaves in consistent, predictable ways. This trust has been exercised and shown to be reliable during a 500 year history involving a long, unbroken series of propositions and tests. The net result is what we know about physics, the other sciences, and about reality itself.


2. At first, this may simply appear to be an attempt by the non-rational side to bring science down to the their level – i.e., having no firm and provable basis for belief. But it is more than that. It is the first step in a process of the destruction of the scientific/rational worldview. The next shoe to drop would be to show that scientific faith is weak and lost without reliance on God; that it is an inferior form of faith. Next would be to persuade the scientific minded to abandon their principles and join the “saved” and those who subscribe to the “true” faith.


3. Even if it had any truth in it, it still doesn’t undermine the scientific criticism of religious faith. Simply asserting that the basis of science is as unjustifiable as that of religion and superstition does not strengthen the position of the irrational. That is an irrelevant argument and an example of the “Tu Quoque” (i.e., "you too") fallacy. Rather than argue for the merits of their irrational worldview, they resort to a “pot calling the kettle black” argument, which doesn’t address the underlying issue of whether the “pot” really is black.


4. Last, and certainly not of the least importance, this is a “fallacy of equivocation” – purposely using the same word (faith) in two very different ways. As described before, religious/superstitious faith is belief without evidence or even in the face of evidence and is based on hope and tradition. The beliefs that scientists come by are based on logic, evidence, and valid inferences from diverse experiences that all work together to confirm and support a common, consistent framework of understanding. This distinction is described in greater detail at the website, http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/8/12/4294/44070.

As Richard Dawkins said in his article, "Is Science a Religion", “Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, and is shouted from the rooftops.” All evidence-free faiths are based on dubious written accounts, oral tradition, ancient rituals, and long-established cultural norms whose origins fade into antiquity. There is no way to prove their claims. In fact, adherents of these faiths frequently discourage attempts to introduce proofs into their realm. Just as often, faiths of these types, which have survived to our day, have been self-selected precisely for their opacity and immunity from proof or disproof.