I turn incorrect philosophical/theological comments on their heads. Not because I want to but because I have to. A stated error propagates more errors and either leads people astray or creates confusion, then chaos. The most current comment making its rounds on social media (again) is Neil deGrasse Tyson's 2013 statement about science. He makes an absolute truth statement about science that is not only incorrect…he had to borrow from a metaphysical worldview first and made a first year philosophy students error in the process when he said it.
I will preface by saying that:
(1) In correcting his error I am in no way equating my intelligence to his.
(2) The man is otherwise brilliant but without considering God and/or a priori knowledge he is precluding a large chunk of reality.
(3) I may be creating a strawman of Tyson as I do not know him or what he truly believes about metaphysic or God. If I do, Neil has my apologies for misrepresenting him.
My argument isn't against him but rather his statement. It will be based on what I know about him from his past statements of the metaphysical and how his worldview approaches reality. I will note right off the bat that it is framed incorrectly if it is absent God and I will attempt to demonstrate that. Without further adieu, his statement....
“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” Neil deGrasse Tyson
Here he makes an absolute truth statement that needs an absolute truth source to be able to make it. He assumes complete absolute knowledge about truth and what it is. Science is true regardless of circumstance? Science can be good, bad, or bogus and is dependent on observers which bring bias to their observations. It's not science which is true. Reality is what's true, and scientific community tries as best humanly possible to gradually and asymptotically approach the truth, but science is…the consensus of the scientific community or fallible people who can be and often are subject to all sorts of political and societal distortions. Just like judges, teachers, police and other authority figures. Therefore their conclusions are not always synonymous with reality. There's always more to learn. Science itself is not a truth it is a process known as the scientific method. Therefore, this ‘truth’ Neil speaks of is conditionalized, limited and constantly changing…therefore, not a full truth.
In defense of Neil I will state that, knowing nothing else about an empirical scientific subject, if you accept the consensus of scientists, you have a pretty good chance of being mostly correct about things in the empirical /a posteriori realm. There are fundamental features of the modern scientific worldview that are so well-established in evidence, logic and reason that they're unlikely to be overturned. Secondly, I believe Tyson meant that data and evidence are true not science itself. In general, where science is untrue, the failure is likely to be influenced by human bias.
It should also be noted that science doesn't have a lot to do with belief but belief does have a lot to do with science. Science requires faith or belief in the possibility or probability of a theory or hypothesis being true and is then tested for. Where does the idea or theory come from? It comes from the a priori realm which…physically doesn’t exist. It is a person postulating and theorizing the unknown.
Science and Tyson therefore have to borrow from the metaphysical or the supernatural realm. Why? It is because sentience and consciousness (theory and hypothesis) don’t have an empirical, naturalistic origin or even explanation. Scientifically thought is nothing more than an electrical impulse...but when does it become cogent thought? You cannot prove the existence of someone’s idea, you can only see the effects of it in reality or acted upon. You cannot stand in the scientific realm without having one foot in the a priori or pre-evidential/empirical realm.
Furthermore for Tyson to make a statement about a person’s belief takes him outside of his field of expertise and plants him firmly in mine. In reality, for Tyson to deny or affirm someone’s belief makes his statement completely unscientific because he has no evidence to prove or disprove a person’s belief. He has no proof, a requirement of his own methods of thought. He should’ve known better to assert something so foolishly.
Sadly he also commits some serious logic fallacies with this statement. Not the least of which is (ironically) a Genetic Fallacy because (1) It is being passed off as cold hard empirical fact (which it is not) and; (2) Said fact is coming from or being spoken by an atheist/agnostic scientist as a source of authority. Neil’s statement required him to make a philosophical categorical shift. What most do not see is...by making this statement Neil has left the world of science and physics and has deftly slipped into the metaphysical realm within the same sentence.
What worse is, Tyson is functionally an atheist based on his own statements about the hostility of the universe and his understanding of a benevolent God. He has stated that it is hard for him to believe in a loving God when he has created such a hostile universe. The irony is that wasn't the initial way it was created if one understands and believes the Bible. The universe fell in Adam and now succumbs to entropy.
Regardless, he builds a false dilemma / dichotomy (black and white thinking) because to my knowledge he has only ever accepted empirical “sense experience” as a valid source of knowledge. This means he adheres solely to a posteriori evidences to make claims about what 'true' facts are. In so doing he is short-circuiting the metaphysical and a priori knowledge which also contains the realm of God. He also excludes miraculous revelation from a supernatural source [God] as a valid origin for facts. Neil appears to believe in the totally incompatibility of science and religion and has stated as much in the past.
He is either being ideologically disingenuous or he is philosophically ill-informed. By ignoring the metaphysical as a valid source of evidence he then just goes on to ignore anything that comes from it as if it doesn’t exist. Denial of something doesn't negate its existence it ust makes you ignorant. That is why I say he is functionally an atheist. He purposefully self-limits his knowledge sources by ignoring the knowledge source of others he deems intellectually inferior/wrong (those that believe in the super-mundane or God). In this way his reality is 'framed' exactly like David Hume (1711-1776). He limits the source from which he draws his “fact” or “truth”. In so doing he totally ignores half of philosophical reality.
The trouble is this: What good reason do we have to believe that empirical methods work, in the sense of steering us systematically towards truth rather than towards falsity? At least in the domains where we have been able to test some of these methods: quantum, astronomy, geology and history, for instance-they have not proven completely reliable. Why should we expect them to work any better when we apply them to problems that are even more difficult, such as the fundamental nature of the reality and the universe?
Also, because Tyson inconstantly frames what he considers what is “true” to be science he by default he inversely frames what he deems to be “false”. He defines that a proper measure of these “truths” is science. Therefore, anything that does not fall under the header of ‘science’ is false. He is mixing and matching philosophical truths. He assumes that 'true' can be validated scientifically based on his original statement (which it can’t). There are some truths that are self-evident and don’t require themselves to be contingent on anything (numbers, mathematics). Science on the other hand is contingent.
He is mixing epistemological categories. He is trying to prove or disprove truths by simply ignoring (or discounting) anything non-scientific. That’s what Science attempts to do…it tries to remove any supernatural element as an answer. This is like trying to deny light exists while holding a lantern. You cannot epistemologically get there from here without contradiction. By trying to force this while limiting what he will consider valid evidence is self-defeating.
In other words, according to empiricism, we can only know things after we have had the relevant experience. Tyson ignores the fact that science could be wrong (often it is) therefore he makes a claim to absolute truth by saying science has a godlike quality of not possibly being in error.
The inherent peril of trying to make a quaint soundbite for a meme I guess.
Atheists (or those that behave/believe like atheist) tend towards this false dilemma default which requires they only accept empirical means for gaining knowledge. They insist that truth-claims be accompanied only by clear and convincing physical evidence which can be studied and tested. Physical evidences will never be able to prove or disprove the metaphysical because they are two completely different realms of knowledge and at no point will these truth realms overlap for an empiricist. Conversely, for Christians science and metaphysics coexist and their separation denies both of them their meaning.
Addendum: Anyone that would like a really good example of 'science' being not only wrong but completely supremacist, racist and deadly need only visit my post on Phrenology and Physiognomy in the 19th century. It was a science that, when combined with evolution created the bastard science of Social Darwinism. This of course opened the door to the atrocities of eugenics by Margaret Sanger in the early 2oth century and and the Nazis in 1930-40s Germany. If you have any doubt that science can be untrue go ask any Holocaust survivor or a non-white from the 19th century.
[LINK] Scientific Inclusio: Only Allowing Their Reality/Narrative
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